'(■ev^ .^ v^-^5> \ V ^^ .#^pn#;^;^. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY STEPHEN >E. WHICHER MEMORIAL BOOK COLLECTION Gift of MRS. ELIZABETH Ty WHICHER'" The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924029477183 The Works OF / William E. Channing, rd. Ittlj an Introtructton. NEW AND COMPLETE EDITION, REARRANGED, TO WHICH IS ADDED THE PERFECT LIFE. BOSTON: AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 1899. Z1/5P/ (f The writings of Channing, whom Bunsen has characterized as " the grand Christian Saint and Man of God, —^ nay, also, a prophet of the Christian consciousness regarding the future" — are becoming yearly more known and more w'elcome, among English- speaking people in all parts of the globe; and translations of them have been, either wholly or in part, published in the German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Icelandic, and Russian languages. The American Unitarian Association, desiring to signalize this closing year of the first half century of its existence, issues this volume for gratuitous distribution in its missionary work, and to place 'Within the reach of all in portable form, at the lowest possible cost, the writings of one who, in his noble service of spiritual free- dom and pure Christianity, is yet in the early prime of his growing fame and beneficent influence. Boston, Jan. i, 1875. Through the kindness of the family of the late Rev. William Henry Channing, the Association is able to add to this and future editions the twelve discourses comprising the volume entitled The Perfect Life, wliich he edited from his uncled manuscripts. There is also added a new and fuller index. fan I, 1886. UNlVfiBSftv PSBSS: John Wilson & Son, Cambridgb. CONTENTS. Page Introductory Remarks i Self-Culture 12 ^ On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes 3& " Honor due to All Men . ' 67 Ministry for the Poor 73 On Preaching the Gospel to the Poor 88 Charge for the Ordination of Mr. RobKrt C. Waterston, as Minister at Large 93 Address on Temperance . 99 Remarks on Education 116 Remarks on National Literature 124 Remarks on Associations 138 The Present Age . 159 'Spiritual Freedom 172 "Importance of Religion to Society 187 "Evidences of Christianity : Part 1 188 "Evidences of Christianity : Part LI 204 -The Evidences of Revealed Religion 220 - Christianity a Rational Religion 233 The Great Purpose of Christianity 246 Means of Promoting Christianity 254 The Christian Ministry 257 The Demands op the Age on the Ministry 269 Theological Education 279 Charge at the Ordination of the Rev. John Sullivan Dwight . 283 iiKENEss TO God 291 Character of Christ 302 The Imitableness of Christ's Character 310 Love to Christ : First Discourse 316 ■Love to Christ : Second Discourse 322 T'reaching Christ 328 Self- Denial : First Discourse 336 Self-Denial : Second Discourse 343 -The Evil of Sin 347 Immortality 354 ' The Future Life 353 "Unitarian Christianity •367, 'Unitarian Christianity most Favorable to Piety jSif Objections to Unitarian Christianity Considered 401 IV CONTENTS. Page Christian Worship 408 The Church 428 The Sunday School I now proceed to inquire into the means by which the self-culture just des^rbed may be promoted ; and here I know not where to begin. The sub- ject is so extensive, as well as impor- tant, that I feel myself unable to do any justice to it, especially in the limits to which 1 am confined. I beg you to consider me as presenting but hints, and such as have offered themselves with very little research to my own mind. And, first, the great means of self- culture, that which includes all the rest, is to fasten on this culture as our great end, to determine deliberately and sol- jemnly that we will make the most and the best of the powers which God has given us. Without this resolute pur- pose, the best means are worth little, aiiff with it the poorest become mighty. You may see thousands, with every op- portunity of improvement which wealth can gather, with teachers, libraries, and apparatus, bringing nothing to pass, and others, with few helps, doing won- ders ; and simply because the latter are in earnest, and the former not. A man in earnest finds means, or, if he cannot find, creates them. A vigorous purpose makes much out of little, breathes power into weak instruments, disarms difficulties, and even turns them into assistances. Every condition has means of progress, if we have spirit enough to use them. Some volumes have re- cently been published, giving examples or histories of "knowledge acquired under difficulties ; " and it is most ani- mating to see in these what a resolute man can do for himself. A great idea, like this of self-culture, if seized on clearly and vigorously, burns like a liv- ing coal in the soul. He who deliber- ately adopts a great end, has, by this act, half accomplished it, has scaled the chief barrier to success. One thing is essential to the strong SELF-CULTURE. 21 purpose of self-culture now insisted on ; namely, faith in the practicableness of this culture. A great object, to awaken resolute choice, must be seen to be within our reach. The truth, that prog- ress is the very end of our being, must not be received as a tradition, but comprehended and feltr as a reality. Our minds are apt to pine and starve, by Ijeing imprisoned within what we have already attained. A true faith, looking up to something better, catching glimpses of a distant perfection, prophesying to ourselves improvements proportioned to our c'onscientious labors, gives energy of purpose, gives wings to the soul ; and this faith will continually grow, by acquainting ourselves with our own nature, and with the promises of Divine help and immortal life which abound in Revelation. Some are discouraged from proposing to themselves improvement, by the false notion that the study of books, which their situation denies them, is the all- fjmportant and only sufficient means. '/Let such consider that the grand volumes, of which all our books are transcripts, — I mean nature, revelation, the human soul, and human life, — are freely un- folded to every eye. / The great sources of wisdom are experience and observa- ition; and these are denied to none. "^To open and fix our eyes upon what passes without and within us is the most fruitful study. Books are chiefly useful as they help us to interpret what we see and experience. When they absorb men, as they sometimes do, and turn them from observation of nature and life, they generate a learned folly, for which the plain sense of the laborer could not be exchanged but at great loss. It deserves attention that the greatest men have been formed without the studies which at present are thought by many most needful to improvement. Homer, Plato, Demos- thenes, never heard the name of chem- istry, and knew less of the solar system than a boy in our common schools. Not that these sciences are unimpor- tant ; but the lesson is, that human improvement never wants the means, where the purpose of it is deep and earnest in the soul. The purpose of self-culture, this is the life and strength of all the methods we use for our own elevation. I reiter- ate this principle on account of its great importance ; and I would add a remark to prevent its misapprehension. When I speak of the purpose of self-culture, I mean that it should be sincere. In other words, we must make self-culture really and truly our end, or choose it for its own sake, and not merely as a means or instrument of something else. And here 1 touch a common and very per- nicious error. Not a few persons de- sire to improve themselves only to get property and to rise in the world ; but such do not properly choose improve- ment, but something outward and for- eign to themselves ; and so low an imjDulse can produce only a stinted, partial, uncertain growth. A man, as I have said, is to cultivate himself be- cause he is a man. He is to start with the conviction that there is something greater within him than in the whole material creation, than in all the worlds which press on the eye and ear ; and that inward improvements have a worth and dignity in themselves quite distinct from the power they give over outward things. Undoubtedly a man is to labor to better his condition, but first to bet- ter himself. If he knows no higher use of his mind than to invent and drudge for his body, his case is des- perate as far as culture is concerned. In these remarks, I do not mean to recommend to the laborer indifference to his outward lot. 1 hold it important that every man in every class should possess the means of comfort, of health, of neatness in food and apparel, and of occasional retirement and leisure. These are good in themselves, to be sought for their own sakes ; and, stiU more, they are important means of the self-culture for which I am pleading. A clean, comfortable dwelling, with wholesome meals, is no small aid to intellectual and moral progress. A man living in a damp cellar or a garret open to rain and snow, breathing the foul air of a filthy room, and striving without success to appease hunger on scanty or unsavory food, is in danger of abandoning himself to a desperate, selfish recklessness. Improve, then, ■ your lot. Multiply comforts, and, still more, get wealth if you can by honor- able means, and if it do not cost too much. A true cultivation of the mind is fitted to forward you in your worldly 22 SELF-CUL TURE. concerns, and yon ought to use it for this end. Only, beware lest this end master you ; lest your motives sink as your condition improves ; lest you fall victims to the miserable passion of vy- ing with those around you in show, luxury, and expense. Cherish a true respect for yourselves. Feel that your nature is worth more t" ■.?.:! every thing which is foreign to you. He who has not caught a glimpse of his own rational and spiritual being, of something within himself superior to the world and allied to the Divinity, wants the true spring of that purpose of self-culture on which I have insisted as the first of all the means of improvement. I proceed to another important means of self-culture ; and this is the control of the animal appetites. To raise the moral and intellectual nature, we must put down the animal. Sensuality is the abyss in which very many souls are plunged and lost. Among the most prosperous classes, what a vast amount of intellectual life is drowned in luxuri- ous excesses ! It is one great curse of wealth, that it is used to pamper the senses ; and among the poorer classes, though luxury is wanting, yet a gross feeding often prevails, under which the spirit is whelmed. It is a sad sight to walk through our streets, and to see how many countenances bear marks of a lethargy and a brutal coarseness, induced by unrestrained indulgence. Whoever would cultivate the soul must restrain the appetites. 1 am not an advocate for the doctrine that animal food was not meant for man ; but that this is used among us to excess, that as a people we should gain much in cheerfulness, activity, and buoyancy of mind, by less gross and stimulating food, I am strongly inclined to believe. Above all, let me urge on those who would bring out and elevate their higher nature, to abstain from the use of spir- ituous liquors. This bad habit is distin- guished from aJl others by the ravages it makes on the reason, the intellect ; and this effect is produced to a mourn- ful extent, even when drunkenness is escaped. Not a few men, called tem- perate, and who have thought them- selves such, have learned, on abstaining from the use of ardent spirits, that for years their minds had been clouded, impaired by moderate drinking, without their suspecting the injury. Multitudes in this city are bereft of lialf their intel- lectual energy, by a degree of indul- gence which passes for innocent. Of all the foes of the working class, this is the deadliest. Nothing has done more to keep down this class, to destroy their self-respect, to rob them of their just influence in the community, to ren- der profitless the means of improve- ment within their reach, than the 'use of ardent spirits as a drink. They are called on to withstand this practice, as they regard their honor, and would take their just place in society. They are under solemn obligations to give their sanction to every effort for its suppression. They ought to regard as their worst enemies (though uninten- tionally such), as the enemies of their rights, dignity, and influence, the men who desire to flood city and country with distilled poison. I lately visited a flourishing village, and on expressing to one of the respected inhabitants the pleasure I felt in witnessing so many signs of progress, he replied that one of the causes of the prosperity I wit- nessed was the disuse of ardent spirits by the people. And this reformation we may be assured wrought something higher than outward prosperity. In almost every family so improved, we cannot doubt that the capacities of the parent for intellectual and moral im- provement were enlarged, and the means of education made more effect- ual to the child. I call on working men to take hold of the cause of temperance as peculiarly their cause. These re- marks are the more needed, in conse- quence of the efforts made far and wide to annul at the present moment a re- cent law for the suppression of the sale of ardent spirits in such quantities as favor intemperance. I know that there are intelligent and good men who be- lieve that, in enacting this law, govern- ment transcended its limits, left its true path, and established a precedent for legislative interference with all our pur- suits and pleasures. No one here looks more jealously on government than my- self. But I maintain that this is a case which stands by itself, which can be confounded with no other, and on which government, from its very nature and end, is peculiarly bound to act. Let it never be forgotten that the great end SELF-CULTURE. 23 of government, its highest function, is, not to make roads, grant charters, orig- inate improvements, but to prevent or repress crimes against individual rights and social order. For this end it or- dains a penal code, erects prisons, and inflicts fearful punishments. Now, if it be true that a vast proportion of the crimes which government is instituted to prevent and repress have their ori- gin in the use of ardent spirits ; if our poor-houses, work-houses, jails, and pen- itentiaries, are tenanted in a great degree by those whose first and chief impulse to crime came from the distillery and dram-shop ; if murder and theft, the most fearful outrages on property and hfe, are most frequently the issues and consummation of intemperance, is not government bound to restrain by legis- lation the vending of the stimulus to these terrible social wrongs ? Is gov- ernment never to act as a parent, never to remove the causes or occasions of wrong-doing.' Has it but one instru- ment for repressing crime ; namely, pubhc, infamous punishment, — an evil only inferior to crime ? Is government I usurper, does it wander beyond its jphere, by imposing restraints on an article which does no imaginable good, which can plead no benefit conferred on body or mind, which unfits the cit- izen for the discharge of his duty to his country, and which, above all, stirs up men to the perpetration of most of the crimes from which it is the highest and most solemn office of government to protect society ? I come now to another important measure of self-culture, and this is, intercourse with superior minds. I have insisted on our own activity as essential to our progress ; but we were not made to live or advance alone. Society is as needful to us as air or food. A child doomed to utter loneli- ness, growing up without sight or sound of human beings, would not put forth equal power with many brutes ; and a man, never brought into contact with minds superior to his own, will prob- ably run one and the same dull round of thought and action to the end of life. It is chiefly through Jbgoks-Jhat we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of commu- nication are in the reach of all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all "who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual pres- ence, of the best and gr'eatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No- matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the Sacred Writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof ; if Milton will cross my thresh- old to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual com- panionship, and I may become a culti- vated man though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. To make this means of culture effect- ual, a man must select good books, such as have been written by right-minded and strong-minded men, real thinkers, who, instead of diluting by repetition what others say, have something to say for themselves, and write to give relief to full, earnest souls ; and these works must not be skimmed over for amuse- ment, but read with fixed attention and a reverential love of truth. In selecting books, we may be aided much by those who have studied more than ourselves. But, after all, it is best to be determined in this particular a good deal by our own tastes. The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but oftener those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought. And here it may be well to observe, not only in regard to books but in other respects, that self-culture must vary with the individual. All means do not equally suit us all. A man must unfold himself freely, and should respect the peculiar gifts or biases by which nature has dis- tinguished him from others. Self-cult- ure does not demand the sacrifice of individuality. It does not regularly ap- ply an established machinery, for the sake of torturing every man into one rigid shape, called perfection. As the 24 SELF-CULTURE. human countenance, with the same features in us all, is diversified without end in the race, and is never the same in any two individuals, so the human soul, with the same grand powers and laws, expands into an infinite variety of forms, and would be wofully stinted by modes of culture requiring all men _ to learn the same lesson or to bend to the same rules. I know how hard it is to some men, especially to those who spend much time in manual labor, to fix attention on books. Let them strive to overcome the difficulty by choosing subjects of deep interest, or by reading in company with those whom they love. Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof, and obtain access for him- self and family to some social library. Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to this. One of the very interesting features of our times is the multiplication of books, and their distribution through all con- ditions of society. At a small expense, a man can now possess himself of the most precious treasures of English litera- ture. Books, once confined to a few by their costliness, are now accessible to the multitude ; and in this way a change of habits is going on in society, highly favor- able to the culture of the people. Instead of depending on casual rumor and loose conversation for most of their knowledge and objects of thought ; instead of form- ing their judgments in crowds, and re- ceiving their chief excitement from the voice of neighbors, men are now learning to study and reflect alone, to follow out subjects continuously, to determine for themselves what shall engage their minds, and to call to their aid the knowl- edge, original views, and reasonings of men of all countries and ages ; and the results must be, a deliberateness and independence of judgment, and a thor- oughness and extent of information, un- known in former times. The diffusion of these silent teachers, books, through the whole community, is to work greater effects than artillery, machinery, and legislation. Its peaceful agency is to supersede stormy revolutions. The cult- ure which it is to spread, whilst an un- speakable good to the individual, is also to become the stability of nations. Another important means of self-cult- ure is to free ourselves from the power of human opinion and example, except as far as this is sanctioned by our own deliberate judgment. We are all prone to keep the level of those we live with, to repeat their words, and dress our minds as well as bodies after their fashion ; and hence the spiritless tame- ness of our characters and lives. Our greatest danger is not from the grossly wicked around us, but from the worldly, unreflecting multitude, who are borne along as a stream by foreign impulse, and bear us along with them. Even the in- fluence of superior minds may harm us, by bowing us to servile acquiescence and damping our spiritual activity. The . great use of intercourse with other minds is to stir up our own, to whet our appetite for truth, to carry our thoughts beyond their old tracks. We need connections with great thinkers to make us thinkers too. One of the chief arts of self-culture is to unite the child- like teachableness, which gratefully wel- comes light from every human being who can give it, with manly resistance of opinions however current, of influ- ences however generally revered, which do not approve themselves to our delib- erate judgment. You ought, indeed, pa- tiently and conscientiously to strengthen your reason by other men's intelli- gence, but you must not prostrate it before them. Especially if there springs up within you any view of God's word or universe, any sentiment or aspiration which seems to you of a higher order than what you meet abroad, give rever- ent heed to it ; inquire into it earnestly, solemnly. Do not trust it blindly, for it may be an illusion ; but it may be the Divinity moving within you, a new rev- elation, not supernatural, but still most precious, of truth or duty ; and if, after inquiry, it so appear, then let no clamor, or scorn, or desertion turn j'ou from it. Be true to your own highest convictions. Intimations from our own souls of some- thing more perfect than others teach, if faithfully followed, give us a conscious- ness of spiritual force and progress, never experienced by the vulgar of high life or low hfe, who march, as they are drilled, to the step of their times. SELF-CULTURE. 25 Some, I know, will wonder that 1 should think the mass of the people ca- pable of such intimations and glimpses of truth as I have just supposed. These are commonly thought to be the pre- rogative of men of genius, who seem to be born to give law to the minds of the multitude. Undoubtedly nature has her nobility, and sends forth a few to be eminently " lights of the world." But it is also true that a portion of the same divine fire is given to all ; for the many could not receive with a loving reverence the quickening influences "of the few, were there "not essentially the same spirituallife in both. The minds of the multitude are not masses of passive mat- ter, created to receive impressions unre- sistingly from abroad. They are not wholly shaped by foreign instruction ; but have a native force, a spring of thought in themselves. Even the child's mind outruns its lessons, and overflows in questionings which bring the wisest to a stand. Even the child starts the great problems, which philosophy has labored to solve for ages. But on this subject I cannot now enlarge. Let me only say that the power of original thought is particularly manifested in those who thirst for progress, who are bent on unfolding their whole nature. A man who wakes up to the consciousness of having been created for progress and perfection, looks with new eyes on him- self and on the world in which he lives. This great truth stirs the soul from its depths, breaks up old associations of ideas, and establishes new ones, just as a mighty agent of chemistry, brought into contact with natural substances, dissolves the old afiinities which had bound their particles together, and ar- ranges them anew. This truth particu- larly aids us to penetrate the mysteries of human life. By revealing to us the end of our being, it helps us to compre- hend more and more the wonderful, the finfinite system, to which we belong. A man in the common walks of life, who has ■faith in perfection, in the unfolding of the human spirit, as the great purpose of God, possesses more the secret of the universe, perceives more the harmonies or mutual adaptations of the world with- out and the world within him, is a wiser Interpreter of Providence, and reads nobler lessons of duty in the events which pass before him, than the pro- foundest philosopher who wants this grand central truth. Thus illuminations, inward suggestions, are not confined to a favored few, but visit all who devote themselves to a generous self-culture. Another means of self-culture may be found by every man in his condition or occupation, be it what it may. Had I time, I might go through all conditions of life, from the most conspicuous to the most obscure, and might show how each furnishes continual aids to im- provement. But I will take oVie exam- ple, and that is, of a man living by manual labor. This may be made the means of self-culture. For instance, in almost all labor, a man exchanges his strength for an equivalent in the form of wages, purchase-money, or some other product. In other words, labor is a system of contracts, bargains, imposing mutual obligations. Now the man who, in working, no matter in what way, strives perpetually to fulfil his obliga- tions thoroughly, to do his whole work faithfully, to be honest, not because hon- esty is the best policy but for the sake of justice, and that he may render to every man his due, such a laborer is continually building up in himself one of the greatest principles of morality and religion. Every blow on the anvil, on the earth, or whatever material he works upon, contributes something to the perfection of his nature. Nor is this all. Labor is a school of benevolence as well as justice. A man, to support himself, must serve others. He must do or produce something for their comfort or gratification. This is one of the beautiful ordinations of Providence, that, to get a living, a man must be useful. Now this usefulness ought to be an end in his labor as truly as to earn his living. He ought to think of the benefit of those he works for, as well as of his own ; and in so doing, in desiring amidst his sweat and toil to serve others as well as himself, he is exercising and growing in benevolence, as truly as if he were distributing bounty with a large hand to the poor. Such a motive hallows and dignifies the com- monest pursuit. It is strange that labor- ing men do not think more of the vast usefulness of their toils, and take a be- nevolent pleasure in them on this account. This beautiful city, with its houses, fur- niture, markets, public walks, and numr 26 SELF-CUL TURE. berless accommodations, has grown up under the hands of artisans and other laborers; and ought tliey not to take a disinterested joy in their worlc ? One would think that a carpenter or mason, on passing a house which he had reared, would say to himself, " This work of mine is giving comfort and enjoyment every -day and hour to a family, and will continue to be a kindly shelter, a domes- tic gathering-place, an abode of affec- tion, for a century or more after I sleep in the dJst ; " and ought not a generous satisfaction to spring up at the thought ? It is by thus interweaving goodness with common labors that we give it strength, and make it a habit of the soul. Again. Labor may be so performed as to be a high impulse to the mind. Be a man's vocation what it may, his rule should be to do its duties perfectly, to do the best he can, and thus to make perpetual progress in his art. In other words, perfection should be proposed ; and this I urge not only for its useful- ness to society, nor for the sincere pleas- ure which a man takes in seeing a >vork well done. This is an important means of self-culture. In this way the idea of perfection takes root in the mind, and spreads far beyond the man's trade. He gets a tendency towards completeness in whatever he undertakes. Slack, slov- enly performance in any department of life is more apt to offend him. His standard of action rises, and every thing is better done for his thoroughness in his common vocation. There is one circumstance attending all conditions of life which may and ought to be turned to the use of self- culture. Every condition, be it what it may, has hardships, hazards, pains. We try to escape them ; we pine for a shel- tered lot, for a smooth path, for cheering friends, and unbroken success. But Providence ordains storms, disasters, hostilities, sufferings ; and the great question, whether we shall live to any purpose or not, whether we shall grow strong in mind and heart, or be weak and pitiable, depends on nothing so much as on our use of these adverse circum- stances. Outward evils are designed to school our passions, and to rouse our faculties and virtues into intenser action. Sometimes they seem to create new powers. Difficulty is the element, and resistance the true work of a man. Self- culture never goes on so fast as when embarrassed circumstances, the opposi- tion of men or the elements, unexpected changes of the times, or other forms of suffering, instead of disheartening, throw us on our inward resources, turn us for strength to God, clear up to us the great purpose of life, and inspire calm reso- lution. No greatness or goodness is worth much unless tried in these fires. Hardships are not on this account to be sought for. They come fast enough of themselves, and we are in more danger of sinking under than of needing them. But when God sends them, they are noble means of self-culture, and as such let ujs meet and bear them cheerfully. Thus all parts of our condition may be pressed into the service of self-improve- ment. I have time to consider but one more means of self-culture. We find it in our free government, in our political rela- tions and duties. It is a great benefit of free institutions, that they do much to awaken and keep in action a nation's mind. We are told that the education of the multitude is necessary to the sup- port of a republic ; but it is equally true, that a republic is a powerful means of ; educating the multitude. It is the peo- ple's university. In a free state, solemn re's]i)6nsibilities are imposed on every citizen ; great subjects are to be dis- cussed ; great interests to be decided. The individual is called to determine measures affecting the well-being of millions and the destinies of posterity. He must consider not only the internal relations of his native land, but its con- nection with foreign states, and judge of a policy which touches the whole civil- ized world. He is called, by his partic- ipation in the national sovereignty, to cherish public spirit, a regard to the general weal. A man who purposes to discharge faithfully these obligations, is carrying on a generous self-culture. The great public questions which divide opin- ion around him and provoke earnest dis- cussion, of necessity invigorate his intellect, and accustom him to look beyond himself. He grows up to a robustness, force, enlargement of mind, unknown under despotic rule. It may be said that I am describing what free institutions ought to do for the character of the individual, not their actual effects ; and the objection, I must SELF-CULTURE. ■27 lown, is too true. Our institutions do not cultivate us, a,s tliey miglit " and should4.._and tlie chief cause 61 the fail- ure ia.plain. It is the strength of party- spirit ; and so blighting is its influence, \ so fatal to' self-culture, that I feel my- self bound to warn every man against it, who has any desire of improvement. I do not tell you it will destroy your coun- try. It wages a worse war against yourselves. Truth, justice, candor, fair dealing, sound judgment, self-control, and kind affections, are its natural and perpetual prey. I do not say that you must take no side in politics. The parties which jore- vail around you differ in character, principles, and spirit, though far less than the exaggeration .of passion affirms ; and, as far as conscience allows, a man should support that which he thinks best. In one respect, however, all par- ties agree. They all foster that pesti- lent spirit which I now condemn. In all of them party-spirit rages. Asso- ciate men together for a common cause, be it good or bad, and array against them a body resolutely pledged to an opposite interest, and a new passion, quite distinct from the original senti- ment which brought them together, a fierce, fiery zeal, consisting chiefly "of ^aversion to those who differ from them, is roused within them into fearful activ- ity. Human nature seems incapable of a stronger, more unrelenting passion. It is hard enough for an individual, when contending all alone for an interest or an opinion, to keep down his pride, wil- fulness, love of victory, anger, and other personal feelings. But let him join a multitude in the same warfare, and, without singular self-control, he receives into his single breast the vehemence, obstinacy, and vindictiveness of all. The triumph of his party becomes im- measurably dearer to him than the prin- ciple, true or false, which was the original ground of division. The con- flict becomes a struggle, not for prin- ciple but for power, for victory; and the desperateness, the wickedness of such struggles, is the great burden of history. In truth, it matters little what men divide about, whether it be a foot of land or precedence in a procession. Let them but begin to fight for it, and self-will, ill-will, the rage for victory, the dread of mortification and defeat, make the trifle as weighty as a matter of life and death. The Greek or East- ern empire was shaken to its foundation by parties which differed only about the merits of charioteers at the amphithe- atre. Party-spirit is singularly hostile to moral independence. A man, in pro- portion as he drinks into it, sees, hears, judges by the senses and understand- ings of his party. He surrenders the freedom of a man, the right of using and speaking his own mind, and echoes the applauses or maledictions with which the leaders or passionate partisans see fit that the country should ring. On all points, parties are to be distrusted ; but on no one so much as on the character of opponents. These, if you may trust what you hear, are always men without principle and truth, devoured by selfish- ness, and thirsting for their own eleva- tion, though on their country's ruin. When I was young, I was accustomed to hear pronounced with abhorrence, almost with execration, the names of men who are now hailed by their former foes as the champions of grand princi- ples, and as worthy of the highest public trusts. This lesson of early experience, which later years have corroborated, will never be forgotten. Of our present political divisions I have of course nothing to say. But, among the current topics of party, there are certain accusations and recrimina- tions, grounded on differences of social condition, which seem to me so un- friendly to the improvement of individ- uals and the community, that I ask the privilege of giving them a moment's notice. On one side we are told, that the rich are disposed to trample on the poor ; and, on the other, that the poor look with evil eye and hostile purpose on the possessions of the rich. These outcries seem to me alike devoid of truth and alike demoralizing. As for the rich, who constitute but a handful of our population, who possess not one peculiar privilege, and, what is more, who possess comparatively little of the property of the country, it is wonderful that they should be objects of alarm. The vast and ever-growing property of this country, where is it ? Locked up in a few hands ? hoarded in a few strong boxes ? It is diffused like the atmos- phere, and almost as variable, changing hands with the seasons, shifting from SELF-CULTURE. rich to poor, not by the violence but by the industry and skill of the latter class. The wealth of the rich is as a drop in the ocean ; and it is a well-known fact, that those men among us who are noted for their opulence exert hardly any political power on the community. That the rich do their whole duty ; that they adopt, as they should, the great object of the social state, which is the elevation of the people in intelligence, character, and condition, cannot be pretended ; but that they feel for the physical sufferings of their brethren, that they stretch out liberal hands for the succor of the poor, and for the support of useful public '' institutions, cannot be denied. Among them are admirable specimens of human- ity. There is no warrant for holding them up to suspicion as the people's foes. Nor do I regard as less calumnious the outcry against the working classes, as if they were aiming at the subversion of property. When we think of the -general condition and character of this part of our population ; when we recol- lect that they were born and have lived amidst schools and churches, that they have been brought up to profitable in- dustry, that they enjoy many of the accommodations of life, that most of them hold a measure of property and are hoping for more, that they possess unprecedented means of bettering their lot, that they are bound to comfortable homes by strong domestic affections, that they are able to give their children an education which places within their reach the prizes of the social state, that they are trained to the habits and famil- iarized to the advantages of a high civil- ization ; when we recollect these things, can we imagine that they are so insanely blind to their interests, so deaf to the claims of justice and religion, so profli- gately thoughtless of the peace and safety of their families, as to be pre- pared to make a wreck of social order, for the sake of dividing among them- selves the spoils of the rich, which would not support the community for a month ? Undoubtedly there is insecu- rity in all stages of society, and so there must be until communities shall be regenerated by a higher culture, reach- ing and quickening all classes of the people ; but there is not, I believe, a spot on earth where property is safer than here, because nowhere else is it so equally and righteously diffused. In aristocracies, where wealth exists in enormous masses, which have been en- tailed for ages by a partial legislation on a favored few, and where the multitude, . after the sleep of ages, are waking up to intelligence, to self-respect, and to a knowledge of their rights, property is exposed to shocks which are nol to be dreaded among ourselves. Here, in- deed, as elsewhere, among the less pros- perous members of the community, there are disappointed, desperate men, ripe for tumult and civil strife ; but it is also true, that the most striking and honor- able distinction of this country is to be found in the intelligence, character, and condition of the great working class. To me it seems that the great danger to property here is not from the laborer, but from those who are making haste to be rich. For example, in this Common- wealth, no act has been thought by the alarmists or the conservatives so sub- versive of the rights of property as a recent law authorizing a company to construct a free bridge in the immediate neighborhood of another which had been chartered by a former legislature, and which had been- erected in the expecta- tion of an exclusive right. And with whom did this alleged assault on prop- erty originate ? With levellers ? with needy laborers ? with men bent on the prostration of the rich ? No ; but with men of business, who are anxious to push a more lucrative trade. Again, what occurrence among us has been so suited to destroy confidence, and to stir up the people against the moneyed class, as the late criminal mismanagement of some of our banking institutions ? And whence came this ? from the rich, or the poor? From the agrarian, or the. man of business ? Who, let me ask, ' carry on the work of spoliation most extensively in society? Is not more property wrested from its owners by rash or dishonest failures than by pro- fessed highwaymen and thieves ? Have not a few unprincipled speculators some- times inflicted wider wrongs and suf- ferings than all the tenants of a state prison ? Thus property is in more dan^ ger from those who are aspiring after wealth than from those who live by the sweat of their brow. I do not believe, however, that the institution is in serious- SELF-CULTURE. 29 danger from either. All the advances of society in industry, useful arts, com- merce, knowledge, jurisprudence, frater- nal union, and practical Christianity, are so mafiy hedges around honestly acquired wealth, so many barriers against revolutionary violence and rapacity. Let us not torture ourselves with idle alarms, and, still more, let us not inflame our- selves against one another by mutual calumnies. Let not class array itself 'against class, where all have a common interest. One way of provoking rnen to crime is to suspect them of criminal designs. We do not secure our prop- erty against the poor by accusing them of schemes of universal robbery ; nor render the rich better friends of the community by fixing on them the brand of hostility to the people. Of all par- ties, those founded on different social conditions are the most pernicious ; and in no country on earth are they so groundless as in our own. Among the best people, especially among the more religious, there are some who, through disgust with the violence and frauds of parties, with- draw themselves from all political ac- tion. Such, I conceive, do wrong. God has placed them in the relations, and imposed on them the duties, of cit- izens ; and they;_are no more authorized to shrink from these' diities than from those 6fXoHs;- husbands, or fathers. They^owe a great debt to their country, and niiTst discharge it by giving support to what they deem the best men and the best measures. Nor let them say that they can do nothing. Every good man, if faithful to his convictions, ben- efits his country. All parties are kept in check by the spirit of the better por- tion of people whom they contain. Leaders are always compelled to ask what their party will bear, and to mod- ify their measures, so as not to shock the men of principle within their ranks. A good man, not tamely subservient to the body with which he acts, but judg- ing it impartially, criticising it freely, bearing testimony against its evils, and withholding his support from wron^, does good to those around him, and is cultivating generously his own mind. I respectfully counsel those whom I address to take part in the politics of their country. These are the true dis- cipline of a people, and do much for their education. I counsel you to labor for a clear understanding of the sub- jects which agitate the community, to make them your study, instead of wast- ing your leisure in vague, passionate talk about them. The time thrown away by the mass of the people on the rumors of the day might, if better spent, give them a good acquaintance with the constitution, laws, history, and in- terests of their country, and thus estab- lish them in those great principles by which particular measures are to be determined. In proportion as the peo- ple thus improve themselves, they will cease to be the tools of designing pol- iticians. Their intelligence, not their passions and jealousies, will be ad- dressed by those who seek their votes. They will exert, not a nominal, but a real influence on the government and the destinies of the country, and at the same time will forward their own growth in truth and virtue. I ought not to quit this subject of politics, considered as a means of self- culture, without speaking of newspa- pers ; because these form the chief reading of the bulk of the people. They are the literature of multitudes. Unhappily, their importance is not un- derstood ; their bearing on the intel- lectual and moral cultivation of the community little thought of. A news- paper ought to be conducted by one of our most gifted men, and its income should be such as to enable him to se- cure the contributions of men as gifted as himself. But we must take news- papers as they are ; and a man, anxious for self-culture, may turn them to ac- count, if he will select the best within his reach. He should exclude from his house such as are venomous or scurril- ous, as he would a pestilence. He should be swayed in his choice, not merely by the ability with which a paper is con- ducted, but still more by its spirit, by its justice, fairness, and steady adherence to great principles. Especially, if he would know the truth, let him hear both sides. Let him read the defence as well as the attack. Let him not give his eat to one party exclusively. We condemn ourselves, when we listen to reproaches thrown on an individual and turn away from his exculpation ; and is it just to read continual, unsparing invective against large masses of men, and refuse 30 SELF-CUL TURK. them the opportunity of justifying them- selves ? A new class of daily papers has sprung up in our country, sometimes called cent papers, and designed for circulation among those who cannot afford costlier publications. My inter- est in the working class induced me some time ago to take one of these, and I was gratified to find it not want- ing in useful matter. Two things, how- ever, gave me pain. The advertising columns were devoted very much to patent medicines ; and when I consid- ered th5,t a labpring man's whole for- tune is his health, 1 could not but lament that so much was done to seduce him to the use of articles more fitted, I fear, to undermine than to restore his consti- tution. I was also shocked by accounts of trials in the police court. These were written in a style adapted to the most uncultivated minds, and intended to turn into matters of sport the most painful and humiliating events of life. Were the newspapers of the rich to attempt to extract amusement from the vices and miseries of the poor, a cry would be raised against them, and very justly. But is it not something worse, that the poorer classes themselves should seek occasions of laughter and merri- ment in the degradation, the crimes, the v/oes, the punishments of their brethren, of those who are doomed to bear like themselves the heaviest burdens of life, and who have sunk under the tempta- _tions of poverty ? Better go to the hospital, and laugh over the wounds and writhings of the sick or the ravings of the insane, than amuse ourselves with brutal excesses and infernal pas- sions, which not only expose the crim- inal to the crushing penalties of human laws, but incur the displeasure of Heav- en, and, if not repented of, will be fol- lowed by the fearful retribution of the life to come. One important topic remains. That great means of self-improvement, Chris- tianity, is yet untouched, and its great- ness forbids me now to approach it. I will only say, that if you study Chris- tianity in its original records, and not in human creeds ; if you consider its clear revelations of God, its life-giv- ing promises of pardon and spiritual strength, its correspondence to man's rea- son, conscience, and best affections, and its adaptation to his wants, sorrows, anx- ieties, and fears ; if you consider the strength of its proofs, the purity of its precepts, the divine greatness of the character of its author, and the immor- tality which it opens before us, you wiU feel yourselves bound to welcome it joy- fully, gratefully, as affording aids and incitements to self-culture which would vainly be sought in all other means. I have thus presented a few of the means of self-culture. The topics now discussed will, I hope, suggest others to those who have honored me with their attention, and create an interest which will extend beyond the present hour. I owe it, however, to truth to make one remark. I wish to raise no unreasonable hopes. I must say, then, that the means now recommended to you, though they will richly reward every man of every age who will faith- fully use them, will yet not produce their full and happiest effect, except in cases where early education has pre- pared the mind for future improvement. They .whose childhood has been neg- lected, though they may make progress in future life, can hardly repair the loss of their first years ; and I say this, that we may all be excited to save our chil- dren from this loss, that we may pre- pare them, to the extent of our power, for an effectual use of all the means of self -culture which adult age may bring with it. With these views, I ask you to look with favor on the recent exer- tions of our legislature and of private citizens in behalf of our public schools, the chief hope of our country. The legislature has of late appointed a board of education, with a secretary, who is to devote his whole time to the improve- ment of public schools. An individual more fitted to this responsible oflice than the gentleman who now fills it * cannot, I believe, be found in our com- munity ; and if his labors shall be crowned with success, he will earn a title to the gratitude of the good peo- ple of this State unsurpassed by that of any other living citizen. Let me also recall to your minds a munificent individual, \ who, by a generous dona- tion, has encouraged the legislature to resolve on the establishment of one or more institutions called Normal Schools, •Horace Mann, Esq. t Edmund Bwight, Esq. SELF-CUL TURE. 31 the object of which is to prepare ac- complished teachers of youth, — a work on which the progress of education de- pends more than on any other measure. The efficient friends of education are the true benefactors of their country, and their names deserve to be handed down to that posterity for whose highest wants they are generously providing. There is another mode of advancing education in our whole country, to which I aslc your particular attention. You are aware of the vast extent and value of the public . lands of the Union. By an- nual sales of these, large amounts of money are brought into the national treasury, which are applied to the cur- rent expenses of the government. For this application there is no need. In truth, the country has received detri- ment from the excess of its revenues. \ Now, I ask, why shall not the public glands be consecrated (in whole or in :part, as the case may require) to the ; education of the people ? This meas- ure would secure at once what the country most needs ; that is, able, ac- complished, quickening teachers of the whole rising generation. The present poor remuneration of instructors is a dark omen, and the only real obstacle which the cause of education has to contend with. We need for our schools gifted men and women, worthy, by their intelligence and their moral power, to be intrusted with a nation's youth ; and, to gain these,, we must pay them liber- ally, as well as afford other proofs of the consideration in which we hold them, In the present state of the country, when so many paths of wealth and promotion are opened, superior men cannot be won to an office so responsi- ble and laborious as that of teaching, without stronger inducements than are now offered, except in some of our large cities. The office of instructor ought to rank and be recompensed as one of the most honorable in society ; and I see not how this is to be done, at least in our day, without appropriating to it the public domain. This is the people's property, and the only part of their property which is likely to be soon de- voted to the support of a high order of institutions for public education. This object, interesting to all classes of soci- ety, has peculiar claims on those whose means of improvement are restricted by narrow circumstances. The mass of the people should devote themselves to it as one man, should toil for it with one soul. Mechanics, farmers, laborers ! let the country echo with your united cry, " The Public Lands for Education." Send to the public councils men who will plead this cause with power. No party triumphs, no trades-unions, no associations, can so contribute to ele- vate you as the measure now proposed. Nothing but a higher education can raise you in influence and true dignity. The resourC2S of the public domain, wisely applied for successive genera- tions to the culture of society and of the individual, would create a new peo- ple, would awaken through this commu- nity intellectual and moral energies, such as the records of no country dis- play, and as would command the re- spect and emulation of the civilized world. In this grand object, the work- ing men of all parties, and in all di- visions of the land, should join with an enthusiasm not to be withstood. They should separate it from all nar- row and local strifes. They should not suffer it to be mixed up with the schemes of politicians. In it, they and their children have an infinite stake. May they be true to themselves, to pos- terity, to their country, to freedom, to the,Gause of mankind ! III.~^ am aware that the whole doc- trinej)f this discourse will meet with op- position. There are not a few who will say to me, " What you tell us sounds well ; but it is impracticable. Men who dream in their closets spin beautiful theories ; but actual life scatters them, as the wind snaps the cobweb. You would have all men to be cultivated ; but necessity wills that most men shall work j and which of the two is likely to prevail ? A weak sentimentality may shrink from the truth ; still it is true that most men were made, not for self- culture, but for toil." I have put the objection into strong language, that we may all look it fairly in the face. For one I deny its validity; Reason, as well as sentiment, rises up against it. The presumption is certainly very strong, that the All-wise Father, who has given to every human being reason and conscience and affection, in- tended that these should be unfolded ; and it is hard to believe that He who, 32 SELF-CULTURE. by conferring this nature on all men, has made all his children, has destined the great .majority to wear out a life of drudgery and unimproving toil, for the benefit of a few. God cannot have made spiritual beings to be dwarfed. In the • body we see no organs created to shrivel by disuse ; much less are the powers of the soul given to be locked up in per- petual lethargy. Perhaps it will be replied, that the purpose of the Creator is to be gathered, not from theory, but from facts ; and that it is a plain fact, that the order and prosperity of society, which God must be supposed to intend, require from the jnultitude the action of their hands, and ' not the improvement of their minds. I reply, that a social order demanding the sacrifice of the mind is very suspicious, that it cannot, indeed, be sanctioned by Lthe Creator. Were I, on visiting a strange country, to see the vast majority of the people maimed, crippled, and bereft of sight, and were I told that social order required this mutilation, I should say, Perish this order. Who would not think his understanding as well as best feelings insulted, by hear- ing this spoken of as the intention of God ? Nor ought we to look with less aversion on a social system which can only be upheld by crippling and blinding the minds of the people. But to come nearer to the point. Are labor and self-culture irreconcilable to each other ? In the first place, we have seen that a man, in the midst of labor, may and ought to give himself to the most important improvements, that he may cultivate his sense of justice, his benevolence, and the desire of perfection. Toil is the school for these high princi- ples ; and we have here a strong pre- sumption that, in other respects, it does not necessarily blight the soul. Next, we have seen that the most fruitful sources of truth and wisdom are not books, precious as they are, but experi- ence and observation ; and these belong to all conditions. It is another important consideration, that almost all labor de- mands intellectual activity, and is best carried on by those who invigorate their minds ; so that the two interests, toil and self-culture, are friends to each other. It is mind, after all, which does the work of the world, so that the more there Is of mind, the more work will be ac- complished. A man, in proportion as he is intelligent, makes a given force ac- complish a greater task, makes skill take the place of muscles, and, with less labor, gives a better product. Make men in- telligent, and they become inventive. They find shorter processes. Their knowledge of nature helps them to turn its laws to account, to understand the substances on which they work, and to seize on useful hints, which experience continually furnishes. It is among work- men that some of the most useful ma- chines have been contrived. Spread education, and, as the history of this country shows, there will be no bounds to useful inventions. You think that a man without culture will do all the better what you call the drudgery of life. Go, then, to the Southern plantation. There the slave is brought up to be a mere drudge. He is robbed of the rights of a man, his whole spiritual nature is starved, that he may work, and do nothing but work ; and in that slovenly agriculture, in that worn-out soil, in the rude state of the mechanic arts, you may find a com- ment on your doctrine, that, by degrad- ing men, you make them more productive laborers. But it is said, that any considerable education lifts men above their work, makes them look with disgust on their trades as mean and low, makes drudgery intolerable. I reply, that a man becomes ""' interested in labor just in proportion as the mind works with the hands. An en- lightened farmer, who understands agri- cultural chemistry, the laws of vegetation, the structure of plants, the properties of manures, the influences of climate, who looks intelligently on his work, and brings his knowledge to bear on exigen- cies, is a much more cheerful, as well as more dignified laborer, than the peasant- whose mind is akin to the clod on which he treads, and whose whole life is th^ same dull, unthinking, unimproving toil. But this is not all. Why is it, I ask, that we call manual labor low, that we associate with it the idea of meanness, and think that an intelligent people must scorn it ? The great reason is, that, in most countries, so few intelligent people have been engaged in it. Once let cul- tivated men plough, and dig, and follow the commonest labors, and ploughing, digging, and trades will cease to be mean. It is the man who determines the SELF-CULTURE. 33 dignity of the occupation, not the oc- cupation which measures the dignity of the man. Physicians and surgeons per- form operations less cleanly than fall to the lot of most mechanics. I have seen a distinguished chemist covered with dust like a laborer. Still these men were not degraded. Their intelligence gave dignity to their work, and so our labor- ers, once educated, will give dignity to their toils. — Let me add, that I see little difference in point of dignity between the various vocations of men. When I see a clerk spending his days in adding figures, perhaps merely copying, or a teller of a bank counting money, or a merchant selling shoes and hides, I can- not see in these occupations greater re- spectableness than in making leather, shoes, or furniture. I do not see in them greater intellectual activity than in sev- eral trades. A man in the fields seems to have more chances of improvement in his work than a man behind the counter, or a man driving the quill. It is the sign of a narrow mind to imagine, as many seem to do, that there is a repugnance between the plain, coarse exterior of a laborer, and mental culture, especially the more refining culture. The laborer, under his dust and sweat, carries the grand elements of humanity, and he may ■put forth its highest powers. I doubt not there is as genuine enthusiasm in the contemplation of nature, and in the pe- rusal of works of genius, under a home- spun garb as under finery. We have heard of a distinguished author who never wrote so well as when he was full dressed for company. But profound thought and poetical inspiration have most generally visited men when, from narrow circumstances or negligent habits, the rent coat and shaggy face have made them quite unfit for polished saloons. A man may see truth, and may be thrilled with beauty, in one costume or dwelling as well as another; and he should re- spect himself the more for the hardships under which his intellectual force has been developed. But it will be asked, how can the la- boring classes find time for self-culture ? I answer, as I have already intimated, that an earnest purpose finds time or makes time. It seizes on spare mo- ments, and turns large fragments of leisure to golden account. A man who follows his calling with industry and spirit, and uses his earnings econom- ically, will always have some portion of the day at command ; and it is astonish- ing how fruitful of improvement a short season becomes, when eagerly seized and faithfully used. It has often been observed, that they who have most time at their disposal profit by it least. A single hour in the day, steadily given to the study of an interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowl- edge. The improvements made by well- disposed pupils in many of our country- schools, which are open but three months in the year, and in our Sunday schools, which are kept but one or two hours in the week, show what can be brought to pass by slender means. The affections, it is said, sometimes crowd years into moments, and the intellect has something of the same power. Volumes have not only been read, but written, in flying journeys. I have known a man of vig- orous intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early education, and whose mind was almost engrossed by the details of an extensive business, but who com- posed a book of much original thought, in steamboats and on horseback, while visiting distant customers. The suc- cession of the seasons gives to many of the working class opportunities for intel- lectual improvement. The winter brings leisure to the husbandman, and winter evenings to many laborers in the city. Above all, in Christian countries, the seventh day is released from toil. The seventh part of the year, no small por- tion of existence, may be given by almost every one to intellectual and moral culture. Why is it that Sunday is not made a more effectual means of improvement ? Undoubtedly the seventh day is to have a religious character; but religion connects itself with all the great subjects of human thought, and leads to and aids the study of all. God is in nature. God is in history. In- struction in the works of the Creator, so as to reveal his perfection in their har- mony, beneficence, and grandeur ; in- struction in the histories of the church and the world, so as to show in all events his moral government, and to bring out the great moral lessons in which human life abounds ; instruction in the lives of philanthropists, of saints, of men eminent for piety and virtue, — all these branches of teaching enter into 34 SELF-CUL TURE. religion, and are appropriate to Sunday ; and, througli these, a vast amount of knowledge may be given to the people. Sunday ought not to remain the dull and fruitless season that it now is to multitudes. It may be clothed with a new interest and a new sanctity. It may give a new impulse to the nation's soul. — I have thus shown that time may be found for improvement ; and the fact is, that among our most improved peo- ple a considerable part consists of per- sons who pass the greatest portion of every day at the desk, in the counting- room, or in some other sphere, chained to tasks which have very little tendency to expand the mind. In the progress of society, with the increase of machinery, and with other aids which intelligence and philanthropy will multiply, we .may expect that more and more time will be redeemed from manual labor for intel- lectual and social occupations. But some will say, " Be it granted that the working classes may find some lei- sure ; should they not be allowed to spend it in relaxation .' Is it not cruel to summon them from toils of the hand to toils of the mind ? They have earned pleasure by the day's toil, and ought to partake it." Yes, let them have pleas- ure. Far be it from me to dry up the fountains, to blight the spots of verdure, where they refresh themselves after life's labors. But I maintain that self-culture multiplies and increases their pleasures, that it creates new capacities of enjoy- ment, that it saves their leisure from being, what it too often is, dull and wearisome, that it saves them from rush- ing for excitement to indulgences de- ; structive to body and soul. It is one of ^the great benefits of self-improvement, that it raises a people above the grati- fications of the brute, and gives them pleasures worthy of men. In conse- quence of the present intellectual cult- ure of our country, imperfect as it is, a vast amount of enjoyment is communi- cated to men, women, and children, of all conditions, by books, — an enjoy- ment unknown to ruder times. At this moment, a number of gifted writers are employed in multiplying entertaining works. Walter Scott, a name conspic- uous among the brightest of his day, poured out his inexhaustible mind in fictions, at once so sportive and thrilling, that they have taken their place among the delights of all civilized nations. How many millions have been chained to his pages ! How many melancholy spirits has he steeped in forgetfulness of their cares and sorrows ! What multi- tudes, wearied by their day's work, have owed some bright evening hours and balmier sleep to his magical creations ? And not only do fictions give pleasure. In proportion as the mind is cultivated, it takes delight in history and biography, in descriptions of nature, in travels, in poetry, and even graver works. Is the laborer then defrauded of pleasure by improvement ? There is another class of gratifications to which self-culture introduces the mass of the people. I refer to lectures, discussions, meetings of associations for benevolent and liter- ary purposes, and to other like methods of passing the evening, which every year is multiplying among us. A popular address from an enlightened man, who has the tact to reach the minds of the people, is a high gratification, as well as a source of knowledge. The profound silence in our public halls, where these lectures are delivered to crowds, shows that cultivation is no foe to enjoyment. — I have a strong hope, that by the prog- ress of intelligence, taste, and morals among all portions of society, a class of public amusements will grow up among us, bearing some resemblance to the theatre, but purified from the gross evils which degrade our present stage, and which, I trust, will seal its ruin. Dra- matic performances and recitations are means of bringing the mass of the peo- ple into a quicker sympathy with a writer of genius, to a profounder com- prehension of his grand, beautiful, touch- ing conceptions, than can be effected by the reading of the closet. No commen- tary throws such a light on a great poem or any impassioned work of literature, as the voice of a reader or speaker who brings to the task a deep feeling of his author and rich and various powers of expression. A crowd, electrified by a sublime thought, or softened into a humanizing sorrow, under such a voice, partake a pleasure at once exquisite and refined ; and I cannot but believe that this and other amusements, at which the delicacy of woman and the purity of the Christian can take no offence, are to grow up under a higher social culture. — Let me only add, that, in proportion as SELF-CULTURE. 35 culture spreads among a people, the cheapest and commonest of all pleas- ures, conversation, increases in delight. This, after all, is the great amusement of life, cheering us round our hearths, often cheering our work, stirring our hearts gently, acting on us like the balmy air or the bright light of heaven, so silently and continually, that we hardly think of its influence. This source of happiness is too often lost to men of all classes for want of knowl- edge, mental activity, and refinement of feeling ; and do we defraud the laborer of his pleasure by recommending to him improvements which will place the daily, hourly blessings of conversation within his reach ? I have thus considered some of the common objections which start up when the culture of the mass of men is in- sisted on as the great end of society. For myself, these objections seem wor- thy little notice. The doctrine is too shocking to need refutation, that the great majority of human beings, en- dowed as they are with rational and immortal powers, are placed on earth simply to toil for their own animal sub- sistence, and to minister to the luxury and elevation of the few. It is mon- strous, it approaches impiety, to sup- pose that God has placed insuperable barriers to the expansion of the free, illimitable soul. True, there are ob- structions in the way of improvement. But in this country, the chief obstruc- tions^ lie, not in our lot, but in ourselves ; not in outward hardships, but in our worldly and sensual propensities ; and one proof of this is, that a true self- culture is as little thought of on ex- change as in the workshop, as little among the prosperous as among those of narrower conditions. The path to perfection is difficult to men in every lot ; there is no royal road for rich or poor. But difficulties are meant to rouse, _ not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. And how much has it already over- come ! Under what burdens of oppres- sion has it made its way for ages ! What mountains of difficulty has it cleared ! And with all this experience, shall we say that the progress of the mass of men is to be despaired of ; that the chains of bodily necessity are too strong and ponderous to be broken by the mind ; that servile, unimproving drudgery is the unalterable condition of the multitude of the human race ? I conclude with recalling to you the happiest feature of our age, and that is, the progress of the mass of the people in intelligence, self-respect, and all the comforts of life. What a contrast does the present form with past times ! Not many ages ago, the nation was the property of one man, and all its inter- ests were staked in perpetual games of war, for no end but to build up his fam- ily, or to bring new territories under his yoke. Society was divided into two classes, the high-born and the vulgar, separated from one another by a great gulf, as impassable as that between the saved and the lost. The people had no significance as individuals, but formed a mass, a machine, to be wielded at pleasure by their lords. In war, which was the great sport of the times, those brave knights, of whose prowess we hear, cased themselves and their horses in armor, so as to be almost invulner- able, whilst the common people on foot were left, without protection, to be hewn in pieces or trampled down by theil betters. Who that compares the con ' dition of Europe a few years ago witll the present state of the world, but must bless God for the change ? The grand distinction of modern times is, the emerging of the people from brutal degradation, the gradual recognition of their rights, the gradual diffusion among them of the means of improvement and happiness, the creation of a new power in the state, — the power of the people. And it is worthy remark, that this rev- olution is due in a great degree to re- ligion, which, in the hands of the crafty and aspiring, had bowed the multitude to the dust, but which, in the fulness of time, began to fulfil its mission of free- dom. It was religion which, by teach- ing men their near relation to God, awakened in them the consciousness of their importance as individuals. It was the struggle for religious rights which opened men's eyes to all their rights. It was resistance to religious usurpation which led men to withstand political oppression. It was religious discussion which roused the minds of all classes to free and vigorous thought. It was religion which armed the martyr and patriot in England against arbitrary 36 ON THE ELEVATION OF power, which braced the spirits of our fathers against the perils of the ocean and wilderness, and sent them to found here the freest and most equal state on earth. Let us thank God for what has been gained. But let us not think every thing gained. Let the people feel that they have only started in the race. How much remains to be done ! What a vast amount of ignorance, intemperance, coarseness, sensuality, may still be found in our community ! What a vast amount of mind is palsied and lost ! When we think that every house might be cheered by intelligence, disinterestedness, and refinement, and then remember in how many houses the higher powers and affections of human nature are buried as in tombs, what a darkness gathers over society ! And how few of us are moved by this moral desolation ! How few understand, that to raise the de- pressed, by a wise culture, to the dig- nity of men, is the highest end of the social state ? Shame on us, that the worth of a fellow-creature is so little felt. I would that I could speak with an awakening voice to the people of their wants, their privileges, their responsi- bilities. I would say to them. You can- not, without guilt and disgrace, stop where you are. The past and the pres- ent call on you to advance. Let what you have gained be an impulse to some- thing higher. Your nature is too great to be crushed. You were not created what you are, merely to toil, eat, drink, and sleep, like the inferior animals. If you will, you can rise. No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. Do not be lulled to sleep by the flatteries which you hear, as if your participation in the national sovereignty made you equal to the no- blest of your race. You have many and great deficiencies to be remedied ; and the remedy lies, not in the ballot- box, not in the exercise of your political powers, but in the faithful education of yourselves and your children. These truths you have often heard and slept over. Awake ! Resolve earnestly on Self-culture. Make yourselves worthy of your free institutions, and strengthen and perpetuate them by your intelligence and your virtues. ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES. In-troductory Remarks. The following lectures were prepared for two meetings of mechanics, one of them consisting of apprentices, the other of adults. For want of strength they were delivered only to the former, though, in preparing them, I had kept the latter also in view. " The Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association," at whose request the lectures are pub- lished, is an institution of much prom- ise, not only furnishing a considerable means of intellectual improvement, but increasing the self-respect and conduc- ing to the moral safety of the members. When I entered on this task, I thought of preparing only one lecture of the usual length. But I soon found that I could not do justice to my views in so narrow a compass. I therefore determined to write at large, and to communicate through the press the re- sults of my labor, if they should be thought worthy of publication. With this purpose, I introduced topics which I did not dehver, and which I thought might be usefuUy presented to some who might not hear me. I make this statement to prevent the objection, that the lectures are not, in all things, adapted to those to whom they were delivered. Whilst viritten chiefly for a class, they were also intended for the community. As the same general subject is dis- cussed in these lectures as in the " Lecture on Self-Culture," published last winter, there will, of course, bs THE LABORING CLASSES. 37 found in them that coincidence of thoughts which always takes place in the writings of a man who has the in- culcation of certain great principles much at heart. Still, the point of view, the mode of discussion, and the choice of topics, differ much in the two pro- ductions ; so that my state of mind would be given very imperfectly were the present lectures withheld. This is, probably, the last opportu- nity I shall have for communicating with the laboring classes through the press. I may, therefore, be allowed to express my earnest wishes for their happiness, and my strong hope that they will justify the confidence of their friends, and will prove by their example the possibility of joining with labor all the improvements which do honor to our nature. — W. E. C. Boston, Feb. ilih, 1840. Lecture I. It is with no common pleasure that I take part in the present course of lect- ures. Such a course is a sign of the times, and very interesting to all who are interested in the progress of their fellow-creatures. We hear much of the improvements of our age. The won- ders achieved by machinery are the common talk of every circle ; but I confess that, to me, this gathering of mechanics' apprentices, whose chief bond of union is a library, and who come together weekly to refresh and improve themselves by the best instruc- tion which the state of society places within their reach, is more encouraging than all the miracles of the machinist. In this meeting I see, what I desire most to see, that the mass of the peo- ple are beginning to comprehend them- selves and their true happiness, that they are catching glimpses of the great work and vocation of human beings, and are rising to their true place in the social state. The present meeting indicates a far more radical, more im- portant change in the world than the steam-engine, or the navigation of the Atlantic in a fortnight. That members of the laboring class, at the close of a day's work, should assemble in such a hall as this, to hear lectures on sci- ence, history, ethics, and the most stir- ring topics of the day, from men whose education is thought to fi'; them for the highest offices, is a proof of a social revolution to which no bounds can be set, and from which too much cannot be hoped, I see in it a repeal of the sentence of degradation passed by ages on the mass of mankind. 1 see in it the dawn of a new era, in which it will be understood that the first object of society is to give incitements and means of progress to all its members. I see in it the sign of the approaching tri- umph of men's spiritual over their out- ward and material interests. In the hunger and thirst for knowledge and for refined pleasures which this course of lectures indicates in those who labor, I see that the spirit of man is not al- ways to be weighed down by toils for animal life and by the appetite for ani- mal indulgences. I do attach great im- portance to this meeting, not for its own sake or its immediate benefits, but as a token and pledge of a new impulse given to society through all its condi- tions. On this account, I take more pleasure in speaking here than I should feel in being summoned to pronounce a show-oration before all the kings and nobles on earth. In truth, it is time to have done with shows. The age is too stirring, we are pressed on by too sol- emn interests, ttf be justified in making speeches for self-display or mere amuse- ment. He who cannot say something in sympathy with, or in aid of, the great movements of humanity, might as well hold his peace. With these feelings and convictions, I am naturally, almost necessarily, led to address you on a topic which must insure the attention of such an audi- ence ; namely, the elevation of that portion of the community who subsist by the labor of the hands. This work,, I have said, is going on. I may add, that it is advancing nowhere so rapidly as in this city. I do not believe that, on the face of the earth, the spirit of improvement has anywhere seized, so strongly on those who live by the sweat of the brow as among ourselves. Here it is nothing rare to meet the union of intellectual culture and self-respect with hard work. Here the prejudice against labor as degrading has very much given way. This, then, is' the place where the subject which I have proposed I should be discussed. We ought to 38 ON THE ELEVATION OF consider in what the true elevation of the laboring portion consists, how far it is practicable, and how it may be helped onward. The subject, I am aware, is surrounded with much preju- dice and error. Great principles need to be brought out, and their application plainly stated. There are serious ob- jections to be met, fears to be disarmed, and rash hopes to be crushed. I do not profess to have mastered the topic. But I can claim one merit, that of com- ing to the discussion with a feeling of its importance, and with a deep interest in the class of people whom it concerns. I trust that this expression of interest will not be set down as mere words, or as meant to answer any selfish purpose. A politician who professes attachment to the people is suspected to love them for their votes. But a man who neither seeks nor would accept any place within their gift may hope to be Hstened to as their friend. As a friend, I would speak plainly. I cannot flatter. I see defects in the laboring classes. I think that, as yet, the greater part of them have made little progress ; that the prejudices and passions, the sensuality and selfishness of multitudes among them, are formidable barriers to im- provement ; that multitudes have not waked as yet to a dim conception of the end for which they are to struggle. My hopes do not blind me to what ex- ists ; and with this clear sense of the deficiencies of the multitude- of men, I cannot, without guilt, minister to their vanity. Not that they alone are to be charged with deficiencies. Look where we may, we shall discern in all classes ground for condemnation ; and who- ever would do good ought to speak the truth of all, only remembering that he is to speak with sympathy, and with a consciousness of his own faUibleness and infirmity. In giving my views of the elevation of the laboring multitude, I wish that it may be understood that I shall often speak prospectively, or of changes and improvements which are not to be ex- pected immediately, or soon ; and this I say, that I may not be set down as a dreamer, expecting to regenerate the world in a day. I fear, however, that this explanation will not shield me from this and like reproaches. There are men who, in the face of all history, of the great changes wrought in men's condition, and of the new principles which are now acting on society, maintain that the future is to be a copy of the past, and probably a faded rather than bright copy. From such I differ, and did I not differ I would not stand here. Did I expect nothing better from human nature than I see, I should have no heart for the pres- ent effort, poor as it may be. I see the signs of a better futurity, and especially signs that the large class by whose toil we all live are rising from the dust ; and this faith is my only motive to what I now offer. The elevation of the laboring portion of society : this is our subject. I shall first consider in what this consists. I shall then consider some objections to its practicableness, and to this point shall devote no small part of the discussion ; and shall close the subject with giving some grounds of my faith and hope in re- gard to the most numerous class of our fellow-beings. I. What is to be understood by the elevation of the laboring class ? This is our first topic. To prevent misappre- hension, I will begin with stating what is not meant by it, in what it does not con- sist. — I say, then, that by the elevation of the laborer, I do not understand that he is to be raised above the need of labor. I do not expect a series of improvements, by which he is to be released from his daily work. Still more, I have no desire to dismiss him from his workshop and farm, to take the spade and axe from his hand, and to make his life a long holiday. I have faith in labor, and I see the good- ness of God in placing us in a world where labor alone can keep us alive. I would not change, if I could, our sub- jection to physical laws, our exposure to hunger and cold, and the necessity of constant conflicts with the material world. I would not, if I could, so temper the elements, that they should infuse into us only grateful sensations, that they should make vegetation so exuberant as to an- ticipate every want, and the minerals so ductile as to offer no resistance to our strength and skill. Such a world would make a contemptible race. Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to that striving of the will, that conflict with difficulty, which we call effort. Easy, pleasant work does not make robust minds, does not give men a conscious- THE LABORING CLASSES. 39 ness of their powers, does not train them to endurance, to perseverance, to steady- force of will, that force without which all other acquisitions avail nothing. Man- ual labor is a school in which men are placed to get energy of purpose and char- acter, — a vastly more important endow- ment than all the learning of all other schools. They are placed, indeed, under hard masters, physical sufferings and wants, the power of fearful elements, and the vicissitudes of all human things ; but these stern teachers do a work which no compassionate, indulgent friend could do for us ; and true wisdom will bless Providence for their sharp ministry. I have great faith in hard work. The ma- terial world does much for the mind by its beauty and order ; but it does more for our minds by the pains it inflicts ; by its obstinate resistance, which nothing but patient toil can overcome ; by its vast forces, which nothing but unremitting skill and effort can turn to our use ; by its perils, which demand continual vigil- ance ; and by its tendencies to decay. I believe that difficulties are more impor- tant to the human mind than what we call assistances. Work we all must, if we mean to bring out and perfect our nat- ure. Even if we do not work with the hands, we must undergo equivalent toil in some other direction. No business or study which does not present obstacles, tasking to the full the intellect and the will, is worthy of a man. In science, he who does not grapple with hard ques- tions, who does not concentrate his whole intellect in vigorous attention, who does not aim to penetrate what at first repels him, will never attain to mental force. The uses of toil reach beyond the pres- ent world. The capacity of steady, earnest labor is, I apprehend, one of our great preparations for another state of being. When I see the vast amount of toil required of men, I feel that it must have important connection with their future existence ; and that he who has met this discipline manfully has laid one essential foundation of improvement, ex- ertion, and happiness in the world to come. You will here see that to me labor has great dignity. It is not merely the grand instrument by which the earth is overspread with fruitfulness and beauty, and the ocean subdued, and matter wrought into innumerable forms for com- fort and ornament. It has a far higher function, which is to give force to the will, efficiency, courage, the capacity of endurance, and of persevering devotion to far-reaching plans. Alas, for the man who has not learned to work ! He is a poor creature. He does not know him- self. He depends on others, with no capacity of making returns for the sup- port they give ; and let him not fancy that he has a monopoly of enjoyment. Ease, rest, owes its deliciousness to toil ; and no toil is so burdensome as the rest of him who has nothing to task and quicken his powers. I do not, then, desire to release the laborer from toil. This is not the ele- vation to be sought for him. Manual labor is a great good ; but, in so saying, I must be understood to speak of labor in its just proportions. In excess it does great harm. It is not a good, when made the sole work of life. It must be joined with higher means of improvement, or it degrades instead of exalting. Man has a various nature, which requires a variety of occu|)ation and discipline for its growth. Study, meditation, society, and relaxation should be mixed up with his physical toils. He has intellect, heart, imagina- tion, taste, as well as bones and mus- cles ; and he is grievously wronged when compelled to exclusive drudgery for bodily subsistence. Life should be an alternation of employments, so di- versified as to call the whole man into action. Unhappily our present civiliza- tion is far from reaUzing this idea. It tends to increase the amount of manual toil, at the very time that it renders this toil less favorable to the culture of the mind. The division of labor, which distinguishes civilized from savage life, and to which we owe chiefly the per- fection of the arts, tends to dwarf the intellectual powers, by confining the activity of the individual to a narrow range, to a few details, perhaps to the heading of pins, the pointing of nails, or the tying together of broken strings ; so that while the savage has his facul- ties sharpened by various occupations, and by exposure to various perils, the civilized man treads a monotonous, stu- pefying round of unthinking toil. This cannot, must not, always be. Variety of action, corresponding to the variety of human powers, and fitted to develop all, is the most important e.'ement of 40 ON THE ELEVATION OF human civilization. It should be the aim of philanthropists. In proportion as Christianity shall spread the spirit of brotherhood, there will and must be a more equal distribution of toils and means of improvement. That system of labor which saps the health, and shortens life, and famishes intellect, needs, and must receive, great modifica- tion. Still, labor in due proportion is an important part of our present lot. It is the condition of all outward com- forts and improvements, whilst, at the same time, it conspires with higher means and influences in ministering to the vigor and growth of the soul. Let us not fight against it. We need this admonition, because at the present mo- ment there is a general disposition to shun labor ; and this ought to be re- garded as a bad sign of our times. The city is thronged with adventurers from the country, and the liberal pro- fessions are overstocked, in the hope of escaping the primeval sentence of living by the sweat of the brow ; and to this crowding of men into trade we owe not only the neglect of agriculture, but, what is far worse, the demoraliza- tion of the community. It generates ex- cessive competition, which of necessity generates fraud. Trade is turned to gambling ; and a spirit of mad specula- tion exposes public and private interests to a disastrous instability. It is, then, no part of the philanthropy which would elevate the laboring body, to exempt them from manual toil. !n truth, a wise philanthropy would, if possible, persuade all men of all conditions to mix up a measure of this toil with their other pursuits. The body as well as the mind needs vigorous exertion, and even the studious would be happier were they trained to labor as well as thought. Let us learn to regard manual toil as the true discipline of a man. Not a few of the wisest, grandest spir- its have toiled at the work-bench and the fjlough. I have said that, by the elevation of the laboring mass, I do not mean that they are to be released from labor. I add, in the next place, that this eleva- tion is not to be gained by efforts to force themselves into what are called the upper ranks of society. I wish them to rise, but I have no desire to transform them into gentlemen or la- dies, according to the common accep- tation of these terms. I de.sire for them not an outward and showy, but an inward and real change ; not to give them new titles and an artificial rank, but substantial improvements and real claims to respect. I have no wish to dress them from a Parisian tailor's shop, or to teach them manners from a danc- ing-school. I have no desire to see them, at the end of the day, doff their working dress, that they may play a part in richly attired circles. I have no desire that they should be admitted to luxurious feasts, or should get a taste for gorgeous upholstery. There is nothing cruel in the necessity which sentences the multitude of men to eat, dress, and lodge plainly and simply, especially where the senfence is exe- cuted so mildly as in this country. In this country, where the demand for labor is seldom interrupted, and the openings for enterprise are numerous beyond precedent, the laboring class, with few exceptions, may well be sat- isfied with their accommodations. Very many of them need nothing but a higher taste for beauty, order, and neatness, to give an air of refinement and grace as well as comfort to their establishments. In this country, the mass of laborers have their share of outward good. Their food, abundant and healthful, seasoned with the appetite which labor gives, is, on the whole, sweeter as well as healthier than the elaborate luxuries of the prosperous ; and their sleep is sounder and more refreshing than falls to the lot of the less em- ployed. Were it a possible thing, I should be sorry to see them turned into men and women of fashion. Fashion is a poor vocation. Its creed, that idle- ness is a privilege, and work a disgrace, is among the deadliest errors. Without depth of thought, or earnestness of feel- ing, or strength of purpose, living an unreal life, sacrificing substance to show, substituting the factitious for the natural, mistaking a crowd for society, finding its chief pleasure in ridicule, and exhausting its ingenuity in expedi- ents for killing time, fashion is among the last influences under which a human being, who respects himself or who comprehends the great end of life, would desire to be placed. I use strong language, because I would com- THE LABORING CLASSES. 41 bat the disposition, too common in tlie laboring mass, to regard what is called the upper class with envy or admira- tion. This disposition manifests itself among them in various forms. Thus, when one of their number prospers, he is apt to forget his old acquaintance, and to work his way, if possible, into a more fashionable caste. As far, in- deed, as he extends his acquaintance among the intelligent, refined, generous, and . truly honorable, he makes a sub- stantial improvement of his condition ; but if, as is too often the case, he is admitted by way of favor into a circle which has few claims beyond those of greater luxury and show, and which bestows on him a patronizing, conde- scending notice, in exchange for his old, honorable influence among his original associates, he does any thing but rise. Such is not the elevation I desire for the laborer. I do not desire him to struggle into another rank. Let him not be a servile copyist of other classes, but aim at something higher than has yet been realized in any body of men. Let him not associate the idea of dignity or honor with certain modes of living, or certain outward connec- tions. I would have every man stand on his own ground, and take his place among men according to personal en- dowments and worth, and not according to outward appendages ; and I would have every member of the community furnished with such means of improve- ment, that, if faithful to himself, he may need no outward appendage to attract the respect of all around him. I have said, that the people are not to be elevated by escaping labor, or by pressing into a different rank. Once more, I do not mean by the elevation of the people, that they should become self- important politicians ; that, as individ- uals or a class, they should seize on political power; that by uniting their votes they should triumph over the more prosperous ; or that they should succeed in bending the administration of govern- ment to their particular interests. An individual is not elevated by figuring in public affairs, or even by getting into office. He needs previous elevation to save him from disgrace in his public re- lations. To govern one's self, not others, is true glory. To serve through love, not to rule, is Christian greatness. Office is not dignity. The lowest men, because most faithless in principle, most servile to opinion, are to be found in ofiice. I am sorry to say it, but the truth should be spoken, that, at the present moment, political action in this country does little to lift up any who are concerned in it. It stands in opposition to a high morality. Politics, indeed, regarded as the study and pursuit of the true, enduring good of a community, as the application of great unchangeable principles to public affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and action ; but politics, in its common sense, or considered as the invention of tem- porary shifts, as the playing of a subtile game, as the tactics of party for gaining power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of men above another, is a paltry and debasing concern. The laboring class are sometimes stimulated to seek power as a class, and this it is thought will raise them. But no class, as such, should bear rule among us. All conditions of society should be repre- sented in the government, and alike pro- tected by it ; nor can any thing be ex- pected but disgrace to the individual and the country from the success of any class in grasping at a monopoly of politi- cal power. I would by no means dis- courage the attention of the people to politics. They ought to study in earnest the interests of the country, the princi- ples of our institutions, the tendencies of public measures. But the unhappiness is, they do not study j and, until they do, they cannot rise by political action. A great amount of time, which, if well used, would form an enlightened population, is now wasted on newspapers and con- versations, which inflame the passions, which unscrupulously distort the truth, which denounce moral independence as treachery to one's party, which agitate the country for no higher end than a triumph over opponents ; and thus mul- titudes are degraded into men-worship- pers or men-haters, into the dupes of the ambitious, or the slaves of a faction. To rise, the people must substitute reflection for passion. There is no other way. By these remarks, I do not mean to charge on the laboring class all the passionate- ness of the country. AH classes partake of the madness, and all are debased by it. The fiery spirits are not confined to one portion of the community. The men, whose ravings resound through the halls 42 ON THE ELEVATION OF of Congress, and are then circulated through the country as eloquence, are not taken from among those who toil. Party prejudices break out as fiercely on the exchange, and even in the saloon, as in the workshop. The disease has spread everywhere. Yet it does not dishearten me, for I see that it admits of mitigation, if not of cure. I trust that these lectures, and other sources of intellectual enjoy- ment now opening to the public, will abate the fever of political excitement, by giving better occupation to the mind. Much, too, may be hoped from the growing self-respect of the people, which will make them shrink indignantly from the disgrace of being used as blinded partisans and unreflecting tools. Much also is to be hoped from the discovery, which must sooner or later be made, that the importance of government is enor- mously overrated, that it does not de- serve all this stir, that there are vastly more effectual means of human happi- ness. Political institutions are to be less and less deified, and to shrink into a narrower space ; and just in proportion as a wiser estimate of government pre- vails, the present frenzy of political ex- citement wiU be discovered and put to shame. I have now said what I do not mean by the elevation of the laboring classes. It is not an outward change of condition. It is not release from labor. It is not strug- gling for another rank. It is not polit- ical power. I understand something deeper. I know but one elevation of a human being, and that is elevation of soul. Without this, it matters nothing where a man stands or what he pos- sesses ; and with it, he towers, he is one of God's nobility, no matter what place he holds in the social scale. There is but one elevation for a laborer, and for all other men. There are not different kinds of dignity for different orders of men, but one and the same to all. The only elevation of a human being consists in the exercise, growth, energy of the higher principles and powers of his soul. A bird may be shot upward to the skies by a foreign force ; but it rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings and soars by its own hving power. So a man may be thrust upward into a conspicuous place by outward accidents ; but he rises, only in so far as he exerts himself, and ex- pands his best faculties, and ascends by a free effort to a nobler region of thought and action. Such is the elevation I de- sire for the laborer, and I desire no other. This elevation is indeed to be aided by an improvement of his outward condi- tion, and in turn it greatly improves his outward lot ; and thus connected, out- ward good is real and great ; but sup- posing it to exist in separation from inward growth and life, it would be nothing worth, nor would I raise a finger to promote it. I know it will be said, that such eleva- tion as I have spoken of is not and can- not be within the reach of the laboring multitude, and of consequence they ought not to be tantalized with dreams of its attainment. It will be said, that the principal part of men are plainly de- signed to work on matter for the acquisi- tion of material and corporeal good, and that, in such, the spirit is of necessity too wedded to matter to rise above it. This objection will be considered by and by ; but I would just observe, in passing, that the objector must have studied very carelessly the material world, if he sup- pose that it is meant to be the grave of the minds of most of those who occupy it. Matter was made for spirit, body for mind. The mind, the spirit, is the end of this living organization of flesh and bones, of nerves and muscles ; and the end of this vast system of sea and land, and air and skies. This unbounded creation of sun, and moon, and stars, and clouds, and seasons, was not or- dained merely to feed and clothe the body, but first and supremely to awaken, nourish, and expand the soul, to be the school of the intellect, the nurse of thought and imagination, the field for the active powers, a revelation of the Creator, and a bond of social union. We were placed in the material creation, not to be its slaves, but to master it, and to make it a minister to our highest powers. It is interesting to observe how much the material world does for the mind. Most of the sciences, arts, professions, and occupations of life, grow out of our con- nection with matter. The natural phi- losopher, the physician, the lawyer, the artist, and the legislator, find the objects or occasions of their researches in mat- ter. The poet borrows his beautiful im- agery from matter. The sculptor and painter express their noble conceptions THE LABORING CLASSES. 43 through matter. Material wants rouse the world to activity. The material organs of sense, especially the eye, wake up infinite thoughts in the mind. To maintain, then, that the mass of men are and must be so immersed in matter, that their souls cannot rise, is to contradict the great end of their connection with matter. I maintain that the' philosophy which does not see, in the laws and phenomena of outward nature, the means of awakening mind, is lamentably short- sighted ; and that a state of society which leaves the mass of men to be crushed and famished in soul by exces- sive toils on matter is at war with God's designs, and turns into means of bondage what was meant to free and expand the soul. Elevation of soul, this is to be desired for the laborer as for every human being ; and what does this mean ? The phrase, I am aware, is vague, and often serves for mere declamation. Let me strive to convey some precise ideas of it ; and in doing this, I can use no language which will save the hearer from the necessity of thought. The subject is a spiritual one. It carries us into the depths of our own nature, and I can say nothing about it worth saying, without tasking your pow- ers of attention, without demanding some mental toil. I know that these lectures are meant for entertainment rather than mental labor ; but, as 1 have told you, I have great faith in labor, and I feel that I cannot be more useful than in exciting the hearer to some vigorous action of mind. Elevation of soul, in what does this consist ? Without aiming at philoso- phical exactness, I shall convey a suffi- ' ciently precise idea of it, by saying that it consists, first, in force of thought exerted for the acquisition of truth ; secondly, in force of pure and generous feeling ; thirdly, in force of moral pur- pose. Each of these topics needs a lect- ure for its development. I must confine myself to the first ; from which, however, you may learn in a measure my views of the other two. — Before entering on this topic, let me offer one preUminary re- mark. To every man who would rise in dignity as a man, be he rich or poor, ignorant or instructed, there is one es- sential condition, one effort, one purpose, without which not a step can be taken. He must resolutely purpose and labor to free himself from whatever he knows to be wrong in his motives and life. He who habitually allows himself in any known crime or wrong-doing, effectually bars his progress towards a higher in- tellectual and moral life. On this point every man should deal honestly with himself. If he will not listen to his con- science, rebuking him for violations of plain duty, let him not dream of self- elevation. The foundation is wanting. He will build, if at all, in sand. I now proceed to my main subject. I have said that the elevation of a man is to be sought, or rather consists, first, in force of thought exerted for the ac- quisition of truth ; and to this I ask your serious attention. Thought, thought, is the fundamental distinction of mind, and the great work of life. All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought. To work effectually, he must think clearly. To act nobly, he must think nobly. In- tellectual force is a principal element of the soul's life, and should be proposed by every man as a principal end of his being. It is common to distinguish be- tween the intellect and the conscience^, between the power of thought and virtue, and to say that virtuous action is worth more than strong thinking. But we mu- tilate our nature by thus drawing lines between actions or energies of the soul, which are intimately, indissolubly bound together. The head and the heart are not more vitally connected than thought and virtue. Does not conscience include, as a part of itself, the noblest action of the intellect or reason ? Do we not de- grade it by making it a mere feeling ? Is it not something more ? Is it not a wise discernment of the right, the holy, the good ? Take away thought from virtue, and what remains worthy of a man ? Is not high virtue more than blind instinct ? Is it not founded on, and does it not in- clude clear, bright perceptions of what is lovely and grand in character and action ? Without power of thought, what we call conscientiousness, or a desire to do right, shoots out into illusion, exaggeration, pernicious excess. The most cruel deeds on earth have been perpetrated in the name of conscience. Men have hated and murdered one another from a sense of duty. The worst frauds have taken the name of pious. Thought, intelli- gence, is the dignity of a man, and no 44 ON THE ELEVATION OF man is rising but in proportion as he is learning to think clearly and forcibly, or directing the energy of his mind to the acquisition of truth. Every man, in whatsoever condition, is to be a student. No matter what other vocation he may have, his chief vocation is to Think. I say every man is to be a student, a thinker. This does not mean that he is to shut himself within four walls, and bend body and mind over books. Men thought before books were written, and some of the greatest thinkers never en- tered what we call a study. Nature, Scripture, society, and life, present per- petual subjects for thought ; and the man who collects, concentrates, employs his faculties on any of these subjects for the purpose of getting the truth, is so far a student, a thinker, a philosopher, and is rising to the dignity of a man. It is time that we should cease to hmit to professed scholars the titles of thinkers, philosophers. Whoever seeks truth with an earnest mind, no matter when or how, belongs to the school of intellectual men. In a loose sense of the word, all men may be said to think ; that is, a suc- cession of ideas, notions, passes through their minds from morning to night ; but in as far as this succession is passive, undirected, or governed only by acci- dent and outward impulse, it has little more claim to dignity than the experi- ence of the brute, who receives, with like passivenes, sensations from abroad through his waking hours. Such thought, if thought it may be called, having no aim, is as useless as the vision of an eye which rests on nothing, which flies without pause over earth and sky, and of consequence receives no distinct im- age. Thought, in its true sense, is an energy of intellect. In thought, the mind not only receives impressions or suggestions from without or within, but reacts upon them, collects its attention, concentrates its forces upon them, breaks them up and analyzes them like a living laboratory, and then combines them anew, traces their connections, and thus impresses itself on all the ob- jects which engage it. The universe in which we live was plainly meant by God to stir up such thought as has now been described. It is full of difficulty and mystery, and can only be penetrated and unravelled by the concentration of the intellect. Every object, even the simplest in nat- ure and society, every event of life, is made up of various elements subtly bound together ; so that, to understand any thing, we must reduce it from its complexity to its parts and principles, and examine their relations to one an- other. Nor is this all. Every thing which enters the mind not only contains a depth of mystery in itself, but is con- nected by a thousand ties with all other things. The universe is not a disor- derly, disconnected heap, but a beau- tiful whole, stamped throughout with unity, so as to be an image of the One Infinite Spirit. Nothing stands alone. All things are knit together, each ex- isting for all and all for each. The humblest object has infinite connec- tions. The vegetable, which you saw on your table to-day, came to you from the first plant which God made to grow on the earth, and was the product of the rains and sunshine of six thousand years. Such a universe demands thought to be understood ; and we are placed in it to think, to put forth the power within, to look beneath the surface of things, to look beyond particular facts and events to their causes and effects, to their reasons and ends, their mutual influences, their diversities and resem- blances, their proportions and harmo- nies, and the general laws which bind them together. This is what I mean by thinking ; and by such thought the mind rises to a dignity which humbly represents the greatness of the Divine intellect ; that is, it rises more and more to consistency of views, to broad gen- eral principles, to universal truths, to glimpses of the order and harmony and infinity of the Divine system, and thus to a deep, enlightened veneration of the Infinite Father. Do not be startled, as if I were holding out an elevation of mind utterly to be despaired of ; for all thinking, which aims honestly and earnestly to see things as they are, to see them in their connections, and to bring the loose, conflicting ideas of the mind into consistency and harmony, all such thinking, no matter in what sphere, is an approach to the dignity of which I speak. You are all capable of the thinking which I recommend. You have all practised it in a degree. The child, who casts an inquiring eye on a new toy, and breaks it to pieces that THE LABORING CLASSES. 45 he may discover the mysterious cause of its movements, has begun the work of which I speak, has begun to be a philosopher, has begun to penetrate the unknown, to seek consistency and har- mony of thought ; and let him go on as he has begun, and make it one great business of life to inquire into the ele- ments, connections, and reasons of whatever he witnesses in his own breast, or in society, or in outward nature, and, be his condition what it may, he will rise by degrees to a freedom and force of thought, to a breadth and unity of views, which will be to him an inward revelation and promise of the intel- lectual greatness for which he was cre- ated. You will observe, that in speaking of force of thought as the elevation of the laborer and of every human being, I have continually supposed this force to be exerted for the purpose of acquiring truth. I beg you never to lose sight of this motive, for it is essential to in- tellectual dignity. Force of thought may be put forth for other purposes, — to amass wealth for selfish gratification, to give the individual power over oth- ers, to blind others, to weave a web of sophistry, to cast a deceitful lustre on vice, to make the worse appear the bet- ter cause. But energy of thought, so employed, is suicidal. The intellect, in becoming a pander to vice, a tool of the passions, an advocate of lies, be- comes not only degraded, but diseased. It loses the capacity of distinguishing truth from falsehood, good from evil, right from wrong ; it becomes as worth- less as an eye which cannot distinguish between colors or forms. Woe to that mind which wants the love of truth ! For want of this, genius has become a scourge to the world, its breath a poi- sonous exhalation, its brightness a se- ducer into paths of pestilence and death. Truth is the light of the Infi- nite Mind, and the image of God in his creatures. Nothing endures but truth. The dreams, fictions, theories, which men would substitute for it, soon die. Without its guidance effort is vain, and hope baseless. Accordingly, the love of truth, a deep thirst for it, a deliberate purpose to seek it and hold it fast, may be considered as the very foundation of human culture and dig- nity. Precious as thought is, the love of truth is still more precious ; for with- out it, thought — thought wanders and wastes itself, and precipitates men into guilt and misery. There is no greater defect in education and the pulpit than that they inculcate so little an impar- tial, earnest, reverential love of truth, a readiness to toil, to live and die for it. Let the laboring man be imbued in a measure with this spirit ; let him learn to regard himself as endowed with the power of thought, for the very end of acquiring truth ; let him learn to re- gard truth as more precious than his daily bread ; and the spring of true and perpetual elevation is touched within him. He has begun to be a man ; he becomes one of the elect of his race. Nor do I despair of this elevation of the laborer. Unhappily little, almost nothing, has been done as yet to inspire either rich or poor with the love of truth for its own sake, or for the life, and inspiration, and dignity it gives to the soul. The jsrosperous have as little of this principle as the laboring mass. I think, indeed, that the spirit of lux- urious, fashionable life, is more hostile to it than the hardships of the poor. Under a wise culture, this principle may be awakened in aU classes, and wherever awakened, it will form phi- losophers, successful and noble think- ers. These remarks seem to me par- ticularly important, as showing how intimate a union subsists between the moral and intellectual nature, and how both must work together fiom the be- ginning. All human culture rests on a moral foundation, on an impartial, dis- interested spirit, on a willingness to make sacrifices to the truth. Without this moral power, mere force of thought avails nothing towards our elevation. I am aware that I shall be told that the work of thought which I have in- sisted on is difficult, — that to collect and concentrate the mind for the truth is harder than to toil with the hands. Be it so. But are we weak enough to hope to rise without toil ? Does any man, laborer or not, expect to invigorate body or mind without strenuous effort ? Does not the child grow and get strength by throwing a degree of hard- ship and vehemence and conilict into his very sports ? Does not life with- out difficulty become insipid and joy- less ? Cannot a strong interest turn 46 ON THE ELEVATION OF difficulty into pleasure ? Let the love of truth, of which I have spoken, be awakened, and obstacles in the way to it will whet, not discourage, the mind, and inspire a new delight into its acqui- sition. I have hitherto spoken of force of thought in general. My views will be given more completely and distinctly, by considering, next, the objects on which this force is to be exerted. These may be reduced to two classes, matter and mind, — the physical world which falls under our eyes, and the spiritual world. The working man is particularly called to make matter his study, because his business is to work on it, and he works more wisely, effect- ually, cheerfully, and honorably, in pro- portion as he knows what he acts upon, knows the laws and forces of which he avails himself, understands the reason of what he does, and can explain the changes which fall under his eye. Labor becomes a new thing when thought is thrown into it, when the mind keeps pace with the hands. Every farmer should study chemistry, so as to under- stand the elements or ingredients which enter into soils, vegetation, and manures, and the laws according to which they combine with and are loosened from one another. So, the mechanic should understand the mechanic powers, the laws of motion, and the history and composition of the various substances which he works on. Let me add, that the farmer and the mechanic should cul- tivate the perception of beauty. What a charm and new value might the farmer add to his grounds and cottage, were he a man of taste ? The product of the mechanic, be it great or small, a house or a shoe, is worth more, sometimes much more, if he can succeed in giv- ing it the grace of proportion. In France, it is not uncommon to teach drawing to mechanics, that they may get a quick eye and a sure hand, and may communicate to their works the attrac- tion of beauty. Every man should aim to impart this perfection to his labors. The more of mind we carry into toil, the better. Without a habit of thought, a man works more like a brute or machine than like a man. With it, his soul is kept alive amidst his toils. He learns to fix an observing eye on the processes of his trade, catches hints which abridge labor, gets glimpses of important dis- coveries, and is sometimes able to per- fect his art. Even now, after all the miracles of invention which honor our age, we little suspect what improve- ments of machinery are to spring from spreading intelligence and natural sci- ence among workmen. But I do not stop here. Nature is to engage our force of thought, not simply for the aid which the knowledge of it gives in working, but for a higher end. Nature should be studied for its own sake, because so wonderful a work of God, because impressed with ' his per- fection, because radiant with beauty, and grandeur, and wisdom, and benef- icence. A laborer, like every other man, is to be liberally educated, that is, he is to get knowledge, not only for his bodily subsistence, but for the life, and growth, and elevation of his mind. Am I asked, whether I expect the laborer to traverse the whole circle of the phys- ical sciences ? Certainly not ; nor do I expect the merchant, or the lawyer, or preacher to do it. Nor is this at all necessary to elevation of soul. The truths of physical science, which give greatest dignity to the mind, are those general laws of the creation which it has required ages to unfold, but which an active mind, bent on self-enlargement, may so far study and comprehend, as to interpret the changes of nature perpetually taking place around us, as to see in all the forces of the universe the workings of one Infinite Power, and in all its arrangements the manifestation of one unsearchable wisdom. And this leads me to observe the sec- ond great object on which force of thought is to be exerted, and that is mind, spirit, comprehending under this word God and all his intelligent offspring. This is the subject of what are called the metaphysical and moral sciences. This is the grand field for thought ; for the outward, material world is the shadow of the spiritual, and made to minister to it. This study is of vast extent. It comprehends theology, met- aphysics, moral philosophy, political science, history, literature. This is a formidable list, and it may seem to in- clude a vast amount of knowledge which is necessarily placed beyond the reach of the laborer. But it is an interesting thought, that the key to these various THE LABORING CLASSES. A7 sciences is given to every human being in his own nature, so that they are pe- culiarly accessible to him. How is it that I get my ideas of God, of my fel- low-creatures, of the deeds, suffering, motives, which make up universal his- tory ? I comprehend all these from the consciousness of what passes in my own soul. The mind within me is a type representative of all others, and there- fore 1 can understand all. Whence come my conceptions of the intelligence, and justice, and goodness, and power of God ? It is because my own spirit con- tains the germs of these attributes. The ideas of them are first derived from my own nature, and therefore I comprehend them in other beings. Thus the foun- dation of all the sciences which treat of mind is laid in every man's breast. The good man is exercising in his business and family faculties and affec- tions which bear a likeness to the attri- butes of the Divinity, and to the energies which have made the greatest men illustrious ; so that in studying himself, in learning the highest principles and laws of his own soul, he is in truth studying God, studying all human his- tory, studying the philosophy which has immortalized the sages of ancient and modern times. In every man's mind and life all other minds and lives are more or less represented and wrapped up. To study other things, I must go into the outward world, and perhaps go far. To study the science of spirit, I must come home and enter my own soul. The profoundest books that have ever been written do nothing more than bring out, place in clear light, what is passing in each of your minds. So near you, so within you, is the grandest truth. I have, indeed, no expectation that the laborer is to understand in detail the various sciences which relate to mind. Few men in any vocation do so under- stand them. Nor is it necessary ; though, where time can be commanded, the thor- ough study of some particular branch, in which the individual has a special interest, will be found of great utility. What is needed to elevate the soul is, not that a man should know all that has been thought and written in regard to the spiritual nature, not that a man should become an encyclopaedia, but that the great ideas, in which all dis- coveries terminate, which sum up all sciences, which the philosopher extracts from infinite details, may be compre- hended and felt. It is not the quantity, but the quality of knowledge, which de- termines the mind's dignity. A man of immense information may, through the want of large and comprehensive ideas, be far inferior in intellect to a laborer, who, with little knowledge, has yet seized on great truths. For example, I do not expect the laborer to study theology in the ancient languages, in the writings of the Fathers, in the history of sects, &c., &c. ; nor is this needful. All theology, scattered as it is through countless vol- umes, is summed up in the idea of God ; and let this idea shine bright and clear in the laborer's soul, and he has the es- sence of theological libraries, and a far higher light than has visited thousands of renowned divines. A great mind is formed by a few great ideas, not by an infinity of loose details. I have known very learned men who seemed to me very poor in intellect; because they had no grand thoughts. What avails it that a man has studied ever so minutely the histories of Greece and Rome, if the great ideas of freedom, and beauty, and valor, and spiritual energy, have not been kindled by these records into living fires in his soul ? The illumina- tion of an age does not consist in the amount of its knowledge, but in the broad and noble principles of which that knowledge is the foundation and inspirer. The truth is, that the most laborious and successful student is confined in his re- searches to a very few of God's works ; but this limited knowledge of things may still suggest universal laws, broad princi- ples, grand ideas, and these elevate the mind. There are certain thoughts, prin- ciples, ideas, which, by their nature, rule over all knowledge, which are intrinsi- cally glorious, quickening, all-compre- hending, eternal, and with these I desire to enrich the mind of the laborer and of every human being. To illustrate my meaning, let me give a few examples of the great ideas which belong to the study or science of mind. Of course, the first of these, the grand- est, the most comprehensive, is the idea of God, the Parent Mind, the Primitive and Infinite Intelligence. Every man's elevation is to be measured first and chiefly by his conception of this Great Being ; and to attain a just, and bright, 48 ON THE ELEVATION OF and quickening knowledge of Him, is the higliest aim of thought. In truth, the great end of the universe, of revela- tion, of life, is to develop in us the idea of God. Much earnest, patient, labori- ous thought is required to see this In- finite Being as He is, to rise above the low, gross notions of the Divinity, which rush in upon us from our passions, from our selfish partialities, and from the low- minded world around us. There is one view of God particularly suited to ele- vate us. I mean the view of Him as the " Father of our spirits ;" as having cre- ated us with great powers to grow up to perfection ; as having ordained all out- ward things to minister to the progress of the soul ; as always present to inspire and strengthen us, to wake us up to in- ward life, and to judge and rebuke our wrong-doing ; as looking with parental joy on our. resistance of evil ; as desiring to communicate himself to our minds for ever. This one idea, expanded in the breast of the laborer, is a germ of eleva- tion more fruitful than all science, no matter how extensive or profound, which treats only of outward finite things. It places him in the first rank of human beings. You hear tof great theologians. He only deserves the name, be his con- dition what it may, who has, by thought and obedience, purified and enlarged his conception of God. From the idea of God, I proceed to another grand one, that of man, of human nature ; and this should be the object of serious, intense thought. Few men know, as yet, what a man is. They know his clothes, his complexion, his property, his rank, his follies, and his outward life. But the thought of his in- ward being, his proper humanity, has hardly dawned on multitudes ; and yet, who can live a man's Hfe that does not know what is the distinctive worth of a human being ? It is interesting to ob- serve how faithful men generally are to their idea of a man ; how they act up to it. Spread the notion that courage is true manhood, and how many will die rather than fall short of that standard ; and hence, the true idea of a man, brought out in the laborer's mind, ele- vates him above every other class who may want it. Am I asked for my con- ception of the dignity of a human being ? I should say, that it consists, first, in that spiritual principle, called sometimes the reason, sometimes the conscience, which, rising above what is local and temporary, discerns immutable truth and everlasting right ; which, in the midst of imperfect things, conceives of perfec- tion ; which is universal and impartial, standing in direct opposition to the par- tial, selfish principles of human nature ; which says to me with authority, that my neighbor is as precious as myself, and his rights as sacred as my own ; which commands me to receive all truth, how- ever it may war with my pride, and to do all justice, however it may conflict with my interest ; and which calls me to re- joice with love in aU that is beautiful, good, holy, happy, in whatever being these attributes may be found. This principle is a ray of Divinity in man. We do not know what man is, still some- thing of the celestial grandeur of this principle in the soul may be discerned. There is another grand view of man, in- cluded indeed in the former, yet deserv- ing distinct notice. He is a firee being ; created to act from a spring in his own breast, to form himself and to decide his own destiny ; connected intimately with nature, but not enslaved to it ; connected still more strongly with God, yet not en- slaved even to the Divinity, but having power to render or withhold the service due to his Creator ; encompassed by a thousand warring forces, by physical ele- ments which inflict pleasure and pain, by dangers seen and unseen, by the influ- ences of a tempting, sinful world, yet en- dued by God with power to contend with all, to perfect himself by conflict with the very forces which threaten to overwhelm him. Such is the idea of a man. Happy he in whom it is unfolded by earnest thought ! Had I time, I should be glad to speak of other great ideas belonging to the science of mind, and which sum up and give us, in one bright expression, the speculations of ages. The idea of hu- man life, of its true end and greatness ; the idea of virtue, as the absolute and ultimate good ; the idea of liberty, which is the highest thought of political sci- ence, and which, by its intimate pres- ence to the minds of the people, is the chief spring of our country's life and greatness, — all these might be enlarged on ; and I might show how these may be awakened in the laborer, and may give him an elevation which many who are THE LABORING CLASSES. 49 above labor want. But, leaving all these, I will only refer to another, one of the most important results of the science of mind, and which the laborer, in comrnon with every man, may and should receive, and should strengthen by patient thought. It is the idea of his importance as an in- dividual. He is to understand that he has a value, not as belonging to a com- munity, and contributing to a general good which is distinct from himself, but on his own account. He is not a mere part of a machine. In a machine the parts are useless, but as conducing to the end of the whole, for which alone they subsist. Not so a man. He is not simply a means, but an end, and exists for his own sake, for the unfolding of his nature, for his own virtue and happi- ness. True, he is to work for others, but not servilely, not with a broken spirit, not so as to degrade himself ; he is to work for others from a wise self-regard, from principles of justice and benevo- lence, and in the exercise of a free will and intelligence, by which his own char- acter is perfected. His individual dignity, not derived from birth, from success, from wealth, from outward show, but consisting in the indestructible princi- ples of his soul, — this ought to enter into his habitual consciousness. I do not speak rhetorically or use the cant of rhapsodists, but I utter my calm, delib- erate conviction, when I say that the laborer ought to regard himself with a self-respect unknown to the proudest monarch who rests on outward rank. I have now illustrated what I mean by the great ideas which exalt the mind. Their worth and power cannot be exag- gerated. They are the mightiest influ- ;ences on earth. One great thought breathed into a man may regenerate him. The idea of freedom in ancient and modern republics, the idea of in- -spiration in various religious sects, the idea of immortality, how have these tri- umphed over worldly interests ! How many heroes and martyrs have they formed ! Great ideas are mightier, than the passions. To awaken them is the highest office of education. As yet it has been little thought of. The educa- tion of the mass of the people has con- sisted in giving them mechanical habits, in breaking them to current usages and modes of thinking, in teaching religion md morality as traditions. It is time that a rational culture should take the place of mechanical ; that men should learn to act more from ideas and princi- ples, and less from blind impulse and undiscerning imitation. Am I met here by the constantly recurring objection, that such great thoughts as have now been treated of are not to be expected in the multitude of men whose means of culture are so confined ? To this difficulty I shall reply in the next lecture ; but I wish to state a fact, or law of our nature, very cheering to those who, with few means, still pant for generous improvement. It is this, that great ideas come to ug less from outward, direct, laborious teaching, than from indirect influences, and from the native working of our own minds ; so that those who want the outward apparatus for extensive learning are not cut off from them. Thus, laborious teachers may instruct us for years in God, and virtue, and the soul, and we may remain nearly as ig- norant of them as at the beginning ; whilst a look, a tone, an act of a fellow- creature, who is kindled by a grand thought, and who is thrown in our path at some susceptible season of life, will do much to awaken and expand this thought within us. It is a matter of .experience that the greatest ideas often come to us, when right-minded, we know not how. They flash on us as lights from heaven. A man seriously given to the culture of his mind ia virtue and truth finds himself under better teaching than that of man. Rev- elations of his own soul, of God's inti- mate presence, of the grandeur of the creation, of the glory of disinterested- ness, of the deformity of wrong-doing, of the dignity of universal justice, of the might of moral principle, of the immutableness of truth, of immortality, and of the inward sources of happiness ; these revelations, awakening a thirst for something higher then he is or has, come of themselves to an humble, self- improving man. Sometimes a common scene in nature, one of the common re- lations of life, will open itself to us with a brightness and pregnancy of meaning unknown before. Sometimes a thought of this kind forms an era in life. It changes the whole future course. It is a new creation. And these great ideas are not confined to so ON THE ELEVATION OF men of any class. They are communi- cations of the Infinite Mind to all minds which are open to their reception ; and labor is a far better condition for their reception than luxurious or fashionable life. It is even better than a studious life, when this fosters vanity, pride, and the spirit of jealous competition. A childlike simplicity attracts these rev- elations more than a selfish culture of intellect, however far extended. — Per- haps a caution should be added to these suggestions. In speaking of great ideas, as sometimes springing up of them- selves, as sudden illuminations, I have no thought of teaching that we are to wait for them passively, or to give up our minds unthinkingly to their con- trol. We must prepare ourselves for them by faithfulness to our own powers, by availing ourselves of all means of culture within our reach ; and, what is more, these illuminations, if they come, are not distinct, complete, perfect views, but glimpses, suggestions, flashes, given us, like all notices and impressions from the outward world, to be thought upon, to be made subjects of patient reflec- tion, to be brought by our own intellect and activity into their true connection with all our other thoughts. A great idea, without reflection, may dazzle and bewilder, may destroy the balance and proportion of the mind, and impel to dangerous excess. It is to awaken the free, earnest exertion of our powers, to rouse us from passiveness to activity and life, that inward inspirations, and the teachings of outward nature, are accorded to the mind. I have thus spoken at large of that force of thought which the laborer is to seek as his true elevation ; and I will close the subject with observing, that on whatever objects, or for whatever purposes this force may be exerted, one purpose should be habitually predomi- nant, and that is, to gain a larger, clearer comprehension of aU the duties of life. Thought cannot take too wide a range ; but its chief aim should be to acquire juster and brighter perceptions of the right and the good, in every relation and condition in which we may be placed. Do not imagine that 1 am here talking professionally, or sliding unconsciously, by the force of habit, into the tone of the pulpit. The sub- ject of duty belongs equally to all pro- fessions and all conditions. It were as wise to think of living without breath, or of seeing without light, as to exclude moral and religious principle from the work of self-elevation. And I say this, because you are in danger of mistak- ing mere knowledge for improvement. Knowledge fails of its best end when it does not minister to a high virtue. I do not say that we are never to think, read, or study, but for the express pur- pose of learning our duties. The mind must not be tied down by rigid rules. Curiosity, amusement, natural tastes, may innocently direct reading and study to a certain extent. Even in these cases, however, we are bound to improve ourselves morally as well as intellectually, by seeking truth and re- jecting falsehood, and by watching against the taint which inheres in al- most all human productions. What avails intellectual without moral power ? How little does it avail us to study the outward world, if its greatness inspire no reverence of its Author, if its benefi- cence awaken no kindred love towards our fellow-creatures ! How httle does it avail us to study history, if the past do not help us to comprehend the dan- gers and duties of the present ; if from the sufferings of those who have gone before us, we do not learn how to suf- fer, and from their great and good deeds how to act nobly ; if the development of the human heart, in different ages and countries, do not give us a better knowledge of ourselves ! How htde does literature benefit us, if the sketches of life and character, the generous sen- timents, the testimonies to disinterest- edness and rectitude, with which it abounds, do not incite and guide us to wiser, purer, and more graceful action ! How little substantial good do we de- rive from poetry and the fine arts, if the beauty, which delights the imagina- tion, do not warm and refine the heart, and raise us to the love and admiration of what is fair, and perfect, and lofty, in character and life ! Let our studies be as wide as our condition will allow ; but let this be their highest aim, to in- struct us in our duty and happiness, in the perfection of our nature, in the true use of life, in the best direction of our powers. Then is the culture of intel- lect an unmixed good, when it is sa- credly used to enlighten the conscience, THE LABORING CLASSES. 51 feed the flame of generous senti- int, to perfect us in our common em- jyments, to throw a grace over our mmon actions, to make us sources of locent cheerfulness and centres of ly influence, and to give us courage, ength, stability, amidst the sudden anges and sore temptations and trials life. Lecture II. In my last lecture I invited youratten- n to a subject of great interest, — the ;vation of the laboring portion of the mmunity. I proposed to consider, first, what this elevation consists ; secondly, ; objections which may be made to practicableness ; thirdly, the circum- .nces which now favor it, and give us pe that it will be more and more ac- uplished. In considering the first id, I began with stating in what the vation of the laboring class does not isist, and then proceeded to show posi- ely what it is, what it does consist in. vant time to retrace the ground over ich we then travelled. I must trust your memories. I was obliged by my rrow limits to confine myself chiefly the consideration of the intellectual vation which the laborer is to pro- se ; though, in treating this topic, I )wed the moral, religious, social im- )vements which enter into his true ;nity. I observed that the laborer was be a student, a thinker, an intellectual n, as well as a laborer ; and suggested : qualifications of this truth which are [uired by his peculiar employment, by daily engagement in manual toil. I w come to consider the objections ich spring up in many minds, when :h views of the laborer's destiny are en. This is our second head. nrst, it will be objected, that the la- ding multitude cannot command a va- ty of books, or spend much time in ding ; and how, then, can they gain : force of thought, and the great ideas, ich were treated of in the former lect- : ? This objection grows out of the valent disposition to confound intel- tual improvement with book-learning. Tie seem to think that there is a kind magic in a printed page, that types e a higher knowledge than can be ned from other sources. Reading is isidered as the royal road to intel- lectual eminence. This prejudice I have virtually set aside in my previous re- marks ; but it has taken so strong a hold of many as to need some consideration. I shall not attempt to repel the objection by decrying books. Truly good books are more than mines to those who can understand them. They are the breath- ings of the great souls of past times. Genius is not embalmed in them, as is sometimes said, but lives in them per- petually. But we need not many books to answer the great ends of reading. A few are better than many, and a little time given to a faithful study of the few will be enough to quicken thought and enrich the mind. The greatest men have not been book-men. Washington, it has often been said, was no great reader. The learning commonly gathered from books is of less worth than the truths we gain from experience and reflection. Indeed, most of the knowledge from reading, in these days, being acquired with little mental action, and seldom or never reflected on and turned to use, is very much a vain show. Events stirring the mind to earnest thought and vigorous application of its resources, do vastly more to elevate the mind than most of our studies at the present time. Few of the books read among us deserve to be read. Most of them have no principle of Ufe, as is proved by the fact that they die the year of their birth. They do not come from thinkers, and how can they awaken thought ? A great proportion of the reading of this city is useless, I had almost said pernicious. I should be sorry to see our laborers exchanging their toils for the reading of many of our young ladies and young gentlemen, who look on the intellect as given them for amusement, who read, as they visit, for amusement, who discuss no great truths and put forth no energy of thought on the topics which fly through their minds. With this insensibiUty to the dignity of the intellect, and this frittering away of the mind on superficial reading, I see not with what face they can claim superior- ity to the laboring mass, who certainly understand one thing thoroughly, that is, their own business, and who are do- ing something useful for themselves and their fellow-creatures. The great use of books is to rouse us to thought ; to turn us to questions which great men have been working on for ages ; to furnish us 52 ON THE ELEVATION OF with materials for the exercise of judg- ment, imagination, and moral feeling ; to breathe into us a moral life from higher spirits than our own ; and this benefit of books may be enjoyed by those who have not much time for retired study. It must not be forgotten, by those who despair of the laboring classes because they cannot live in libraries, that the highest sources of truth, light, and eleva- tion of mind, are not libraries, but our inward and outward experience. Human life, with its joys and sorrows, its bur- dens and alleviations, its crimes and virt- ues, its deep wants, its solemn changes, and its retributions, always pressing on us ; what a library is this ! and who may not study it ? Every human being is a volume worthy to be studied. The books which circulate most freely through the community are those which give us pictures of human life. How much more improving is the original, did we know how to read it ? The laborer has this page always open before him ; and, still more, the laborer is every day writing a volume more full of instruction than all human productions, — I mean his own life. No work of the most exalted gen- ius can teach us so much as the revela- tion of human nature in the secrets of our own souls, in the workings of our own passions, in the operations of pur own intelligence, in the retributions which follow our own good and evil deeds, in the dissatisfaction with the present, in the spontaneous thoughts and aspirations which form part of every man's biography. The study of our own history from childhood, of all the stages of our development, of the good and bad influences which have beset us, of our mutations of feeling and purpose, and of the great current which is setting us to- wards future happiness or woe, — this is a study to make us nobly wise ; and who of us has not access to this fountain of eternal truth ? May not the laborer study and understand the pages which he is writing in his own breast ? In these remarks, I have aimed to re- move the false notion into which laborers themselves fall, that they can do little towards acquiring force and fulness of thought, because in want of books. I shall next turn to prejudices more con- fined to other classes. A very common one is, that the many are not to be called to think, study, improve their minds, because a privileged few are in- tended by God to do their thinking for them. "Providence," it is said, "raises up superior minds, whose office it is to discover truth for the rest of the race. Thinking and manual toil are not meant to go together. The division of labor is a great law of nature. One man is to serve society by his head, another by his hands. Let each class keep to its proper work." These doctrines I pro- test against. I deny to any individual or class this monopoly of thought. Who among men can show God's commission to think for his brethren, to shape pas- sively the intellect of the mass, to stamp his own image on them as if they were wax ? As well might a few claim a monopoly of light and air, of seeing and breathing, as of thought. Is not the in- tellect as universal a gift as the organs of sight and respiration ? Is not truth as freely spread abroad as the atmos- phere or the sun's rays ? Can we imagine that God's highest gifts of intel- ligence, imagination, and moral power, were bestowed to provide only for ani- mal wants ? to be denied the natural means of growth, which is action ? to be starved by drudgery ? Were the mass of men made to be monsters ? to grow only in a few organs and faculties, and to pine away and shrivel in others ? or were they made to put forth all the powers of men, especially the best and most distinguishing ? No man, not the lowest, is all hands, aU bones and muscles. The mind is more essential to human nature, and more enduring, than the limbs ; and was this made to lie dead .■' Is not thought the right and duty of all ? Is not truth alike precious to all ? Is not truth the natural aliment of the mind, as plainly as the wholesome grain is of the body ? Is not the mind adapt- ed to thought, as plainly as the eye to light, the ear to sound ? Who dares to withhold it from its natural action, its natural element and joy ? Undoubtedly some men are more gifted than others, and are marked out for more studious hves. But the work of such men is not to do others' thinking for them, but to help them to think more vigorously and effectually. Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intel- lectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse THE LABUKlIMLr Li./ii>iil:i.^. 30 them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves. The light and life which spring up in one soul are to be spread far and wide. Of all treasons against humanity, there is no one worse than his who employs great intellectual force to keep down the intellect of his less favored brother. It is sometimes urged by those who consider the multitude as not intended to think, that at best they can learn but little, and that this is likely to harm rather than to do them good. " A little learning," we are told, " is a dangerous thing." " Shallow draughts " of knowl- edge are worse than ignorance. The mass of the people, it is said, can go to the bottom of nothing ; and the result of stimulating them to thought will be the formation of a dangerous set of half- thinkers. To this argument I reply, first, that it has the inconvenience of proving too much ; for, if valid, it shows that none of any class ought to think. For who, I would ask, can go to the bottom of any thing? Whose " learning " is not " Uttle " ? Whose " draughts " of knowledge are not " shallow " ? Who of us has fathomed the depths of a single product 'of nature or a single event in history ? Who of us is not baffled by the mysteries in a grain of sand ? How contracted the range of the widest intellect ! But is our knowl- edge, because so little, of no worth ? Are we to despise the lessons which are taught us in this nook of creation, in this narrow round of human experience, because an infinite universe stretches a:round us, which we have no means of esiploring, and in which the earth, and sun, and planets, dwindle to a point .'' We should remember that the known, how- ever Kttle it may be, is in harmony with the boundless unknown, and a step tow- ards it. We should remember, too, that the gravest truths may be gathered from a very narrow compass of information. God is revealed in his smallest work as truly as in his greatest. The principles of human nature may be studied better in a family than in the history of the world. The finite is a manifestation of the infinite. The great ideas, of which I have formerly spoken, are within the reach of every man who thirsts for truth, and seeks it with singleness of liiind. I will only add, that the labor- ing class are not now condemned to draughts of knowledge so shallow as to merit scorn. Many of them know more of the outward world than all the philos- ophers of antiquity ; and Christianity has opened to them mysteries of the spir- itual world which kings and prophets were not privileged to understand. And are they, then, to be doomed to spiritual inaction, as incapable of useful thought ? It is sometimes said, that the multi- tude may think on the common busi- ness of life, but not on higher subjects, and especially on religion. This, it is said, must be received on authority ; on this, men in general can form no judg- ment of their own. But this is the last subjeat on which the individual should be willing to surrender himself to others' dictation. In nothing has he so strong an interest. In nothing is it so impor- tant that his mind and heart should be alive and engaged. In nothing has he readier means of judging for himself. In nothing, as history shows, is he more likely to be led astray by such as assume the office of thinking for him. ReHg- ion is a subject open to all minds. Its great truths have their foundation in the soul itself, and their proofs surround us on all sides. God has not shut up the evidence of his being in a few books, written in a foreign language, and locked up in the libraries of col- leges and philosophers ; but has written his name on the heavens and on the earth, and even on the minutest animal and plant ; and his word, taught by Jesus Christ, was not given to scribes and lawyers, but taught to the poor, to the mass of men, on mountains, in streets, and on the sea-shore. Let me not be told that the multitude do actually receive religion on authority, or on the word of others. I reply, that a faith so received seems to me of little worth. The pre- cious, the living, the effectual part of a poor man's faith, is that of which he sees the reasonableness and excellence ; that which approves itself to his intelli- gence, his conscience, his heart ; that which answers to deep wants in his own soul, and of which he has the witness in his own inward and outward experience. All other parts of his belief, those which he takes on blind trust, and in which he sees no marks of truth and divinity, do him little or no good. Too often they do him harm, by perplexing his simple rea- son, by substituting the fictions and arti- 54 ON THE ELEVATION OF ficial systems of theologians for the plain precepts of love, and justice, and humil- ity, and filial trust in God. As long as it was supposed that religion is to benefit the world by laying restraints, awaken- ing fears, and acting as a part of the system of police, so long it was natural to rely on authority and tradition as the means of its propagation ; so long it was desirable to stifle thought and inquiry on the subject. But now that we have learned that the true office of religion is to awaken pure and lofty sentiments, and to unite man to God by rational homage and enlightened love, there is something monstrous in placing religion beyond the thought and the study af the mass of the human race. I proceed to another prejudice. It is objected, that the distinction of ranks is essential to social order, and that this will be swept away by calling forth energy of thought in all men. This objection, indeed, though exceedingly insisted on in Europe, has nearly died out here ; but still enough of it lingers among us to deserve consideration. I reply, then, that it is a libel on social order to suppose that it requires for its support the reduction of the multitude of human beings to ignorance and ser- vility ; and that it is a libel on the Cre- ator to suppose that He requires, as the foundation of communities, the sys- tematic depression of the majority of his intelligent offspring. The suppo- sition is too grossly unreasonable, too monstrous, to require labored refuta- tion. I see no need of ranks, either for social order or for any other pur- pose. A great variety of pursuits and conditions is indeed to be desired. Men ought to follow their genius, and to put forth their powers in every useful and lawful way. I do not ask for a monotonous world. We are far too monotonous now. The vassalage of fashion, which is a part of rank, pre- vents continually the free expansion of men's powers. Let us have the great- est diversity of occupations. But this does not imply that there is a need of splitting society into castes or ranks, or that a certain number should arro- gate superiority, and stand apart from the rest of men as a separate race. Men may work in different departments of life, and yet recognize their brotherly relation^ and honor one another, and hold friendly communion with one another. Undoubtedly, men will prefer as friends and common associates those with whom they sympathize most. But this is not to form a rank or caste. For example, the intelligent seek out the intelligent ; the pious, those who rever- ence God. But suppose the intellectual and the rehgious to cut themselves off by some broad, visible distinction from the rest of society, to form a clan of their own, to refuse admission into their houses to people of inferior knowledge and virtue, and to diminish as far as possible the occasions of intercourse with them ; would not society rise up, as one man, against this arrogant ex- clusiveness ? And if intelligence and piety may not be the foundations of a caste, on what ground shall they, who have no distinction but wealth, supe- rior costume, richer ec^uipages, finer houses, draw lines around themselves and constitute themselves a higher class ? That some should be richer than others is natural, and is necessary, and could only be prevented by gross violations of right. Leave men to the free use of their powers, and some will accumulate more than their neighbors. But to be prosperous is not to be supe- rior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure to the prosperous the slightest consider- ation. The only distinctions which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, of incorrupti- ble integrity, of usefulness, of culti- vated intellect, of fidelity in seeking for truth. A man, in proportion as he has these claims, should be honored and welcomed everywhere. I see not why such a man, however coarsely if neatly dressed, should not be a re- spected guest in the most splendid mansions, and at the most brilliant meetings. A man is worth infinitely more than the saloons, and the cos- tumes, and the show of the universe. He was made to tread all these be- neath his feet. What an insult to hu- manity is the present deference to dress and upholstery, as if silk-worms, and looms, and scissors, and needles could produce something nobler than a man ! Every good man should protest against a caste founded on outward prosperity, because it exalts the outward above the inward, the material above the spir- IHlL l^AHUKJJVLr C^^.:)^^.^. 55 i'tual ; because it springs from and cherishes a contemptible pride in su- perficial and transitory distinctions ; because it alienates man from his brother, breaks the tie of common humanity, and breeds jealousy, scorn, and mutual ill-will. Can this be needed to social order ? It is true, that in countries where the mass of the people are ignorant and servile, the existence of a higher and a worshipped rank tends to keep them from outrage. It infuses a sentiment of awe, which prevents more or less the need of force and punishment. But it is worthy of remark, that the means of keeping order in one state of society may become the chief ex- citement of discontent and disorder in another, and this is peculiarly true of aristocracy or high rank. In rude ages, this keeps the people down ; but when the people by degrees have risen to some consciousness of their rights and essential equality with the rest of the race, the awe of rank naturally subsides, and passes into suspicion, jealousy, and sense of injury, and a disposition to resist. The very institution which once restrained, now provokes. Through this process the Old World is now pass- ing. The strange illusion, that a man, because he wears a garter or a riband, or was born to a title, belongs to another race, is fading away ; and society must pass through a series of revolutions, silent or bloody, until a more natural order takes place of distinctions which grew originally out of force. Thus, aristocracy, instead of giving order to society, now convulses it. So impos- sible is it for arbitrary human ordina- tions permanently to degrade human nature, or subvert the principles of justice and freedom.. 1 am aware that it will be said, " that the want of refinement of manners and taste in the lower classes will neces- sarily keep them an inferior caste, even though all political inequalities be re- moved." I acknowledge this defect of manners in the multitude, and grant that it is an obstacle to intercourse with the more improved, though often exag- gerated. But this is a barrier which must and will yield to the means of culture spread through our community. The evil is not necessarily associated with any condition of human life. An intelligent traveller* tells us, that in Norway, a country wanting many of our advantages, good manners and po- liteness are spread through all condi- tions ; and that the "rough way of talking to and living with each other, characteristic of the lower classes of society in England, is not found there." Not many centuries ago, the intercourse of the highest orders in Europe was sullied by indelicacy and fierceness ; but time has worn out these stains, and the same cause is now removing what is repulsive among those who toil with their hands. I cannot believe that coarse manners, boisterous conversa- tion, slovenly negligence, filthy customs, surliness, indecency, are to descend by necessity from generation to genera- tion in any portion of the community. I do not see why neatness, courtesy, dehcacy, ease, and deference to others' feelings, may not be made the habits of the laboring multitude. A change is certainly going on among them in re- spect to manners. Let us hope that it will be a change for the better ; that they will not adopt false notions of re- finement ; that they will escape the servile imitation of what is hollow and insincere, and the substitution of out- ward shows for genuine natural courtesy. Unhappily they have but imperfect models on which to form themselves. It is not one class alone which needs reform in manners. We all need a new social intercourse, which shall breathe genuine refinement ; which shall unite the two great elements of politeness, self-respect, and a delicate regard to the rights and feelings of others ; which shall be free without rudeness, and earnest without positiveness ; which shall be graceful, yet warm-hearted ; and in which communication shall be frank, unlabored, overflowing, through the absence of all assumption and pre- tence, and through the consciousness of being safe from heartless ridicule. This grand reform, which I trust is to come, will bring with it a happiness little known in social life ; and whence shall it come ? The wise and disinter- ested of all conditions must contribute to it ; and I see not why the laboring classes may not take part in the work. Indeed, when I consider the greater * See Laing's Travels in Norway. 56 ON THE ELEVATION OF simplicity of their lives and their greater openness to the spirit of Christianity, I am not sure but that the "golden age " of manners is to begin among those who are now despaired of for their want of refinement. In these remarks, I have given the name of " prejudices" to the old opinions re- specting rank, and respecting the need of keeping the people from much thought. But allow these opinions to have a foundation in truth ; suppose high fences of rank to be necessary to refinement of manners ; suppose that the happiest of all ages were the feudal, when aristoc- racy was in its flower and glory, when the noble, superior to the laws, com- mitted more murders in one year than the multitude in twenty. Suppose it best for the laborer to live and die in thoughtless ignorance. Allow all this, and that we have reason to look with envy on the past ; one thing is plain, the past is gone, the feudal castle is dis- mantled, the distance between classes greatly reduced. Unfortunate as it may be, the people have begun to think, to ask reasons for what they do and suffer and believe, and to call the past to ac- count. Old spells are broken, old reli- ances gone. Men can no longer be kept down by pageantry, state-robes, forms, and shows. Allowing it to be best that society should rest on the depression of the multitude, the multitude will no longer be quiet when they are trodden under foot, but ask impatiently for a reason why they too may not have a share in social blessings. Such is the state of things, and we must make the best of what we cannot prevent. Right or wrong, the people will think \ and is it not important that they should think justly ? that they should be inspired with the love of truth, and instructed how to seek it ? that they should be established by wise culture in the great principles on which religion and society rest, and be protected from scepticism and wild Speculation by intercourse with enlight- ened and virtuous men ? It is plain that, in the actual state of the world, nothing can avail us but a real improve- ment of the mass of the people. No stable foundation can be laid for us but in men's minds. Alarming as the truth is, it should be told, that outward institu- tions cannot now secure us. Mightier powers than institutions have come into play among us, ^ the judgment, the opin- ions, the feelings of the many ; and all hopes of stability which do not rest on the progress of the many must perish. But a more serious objection than any yet considered, to the intellectual ele- vation of the laboring class, remains to be stated. It is said, " that the laborer can gain subsistence for himself and his family only by a degree of labor which forbids the use of means of improve- ment. His necessary toils leave no time or strength for thought. Political econ- omy, by showing that population out- strips the means of improvement, passes an irrepealable sentence of ignorance and degradation on the laborer. He can live but for one end, which is to keep him- self alive. He cannot give time and strength to intellectual, social, and moral culture, without starving his family, and impoverishing the community. Nature has laid this heavy law on the mass of the people, and it is idle to set up our theories and dreams of improvement against nature." This objection applies with great forde to Europe, and is not without weight here. But it does not discourage me. I reply, first, to this objection, that it generally comes from a suspicious source. It comes generally from men who abound, and are at ease ; who think more of property than of any other human inter- est ; who have little concern for the mass of their fellow-creatures ; who are willing that others should bear all the burdens of life, and that any social order should continue which secures to themselves personal comfort or gratification. The selfish epicure and the thriving man of business easily discover a natural neces- sity for that state of things which accu- mulates on themselves all the blessings, and on their neighbor all the evils, of life. But no man can judge what is good or necessary for the multitude but he who feels for them, and whose equity and benevolence are shocked by the thought that all advantages are to be monopolized by one set of men, and all disadvantages by another. I wait for the judgment of profound thinkers and earnest philanthropists on this point, — a judgment formed after patient study of political economy, and human nature and human history ; nor even on such au- thority shall I readily despair of the mul- titude of my race. THE LABORING CLASSES. 57 n the next place, the objection under isideration is very much a repetition the old doctrine, that what has been St be ; that the future is always to re- It the past, and society to tread for ;r the beaten path. But can any thing plainer than that the present condition the world is peculiar, unprecedented ? ,t new powers and new principles are ivork ? that the application of science irt is accomplishing a stupendous rev- tion ? that the condition of the laborer n many places greatly improved, and intellectual aids increased ? that ises, once thought essential to so- ty, and which seemed entwined with its fibres, have been removed ? Do : mass of men stand where they did a J centuries ago ? And do not new cumstances, if they make us fearful, the same time keep us from despair ? e future, be it what it may, will not emble the past. The present has N elements, which must work out new al or woe. We have no right, then, the ground of the immutableness of man affairs, to quench, as far as we li. power, the hope of social progress. A.nother consideration, in reply to the ection that the necessary toils of life ;lude improvement, may be drawn not y from general history, but from the Derience of this country in particular, e working classes here have risen 1 are still rising intellectually, and ; there are no signs of starvation, nor I we becoming the poorest people on ■th. By far the most interesting view this country is the condition of the rking multitude. Nothing among us Serves the attention of the traveller much as the force of thought and iracter, and the self-respect awakened our history and institutions in the ss of the people. Our prosperous sses are much like the same classes ■oad, though, as we hope, of purer irals ; but the great working multitude ve far behind them the laborers of ler countries. No man of observa- n and benevolence can converse with ;m without being struck and delighted :h the signs they give of strong and md intellect and manly principle, id who is authorized to set bounds to s progress ? In improvement the it steps are the hardest. The difii- .ty is to wake up men's souls, not to itinue their action. Every accession of light and strength is a help to new acquisitions. Another consideration, in reply to the objection, is, that as yet no community has seriously set itself to the work of improving all its members, so that what is possible remains to be ascertained. No experiment has been made to deter- mine how far liberal provision can be made at once for the body and mind of the laborer. The highest social art is yet in its infancy. Great minds have nowhere solemnly, earnestly undertaken to resolve the problem, how the multi- tude of men may be elevated. The trial is to come. Still more, the multitude have nowhere comprehended distinctly the true idea of progress, and resolved deliberately and solemnly to reduce it to reaUty. This great thought, how- ever, is gradually opening on them, and it is destined to work won- ders. From themselves their salvation must chiefly come. Little can be done for them by others, till a spring is touched in their own breasts ; and this being done, they cannot fail. The peo- ple, as history shows us, can accomplish miracles under the power of a great idea. How much have they often done and suffered in critical moments for country, for religion ! The great idea of their own elevation is only beginning to unfold itself within them, and its energy is not to be foretold. A lofty conception of this kind, were it once distinctly seized, would be a new life breathed into them. Under this imijulse they would create time and strength for their high calling, and would not only regenerate themselves, but the com- munity. Again, I am not discouraged by tlje objection, that the laborer, if encouraged to give time and strength to the eleva- tion of his mind, will starve himself and impoverish the country, when I con- sider the energy and efficiency of mind. The highest force in the universe is mind. This created the heavens and earth. Tliis has changed the wilder- ness into fruitfulness, and linked distant countries in a beneficent ministry to one another's wants. It is not to brute force, to physical strength, so much as to art, to skill, to intellectual and moral energy, that men owe their mastery over the world. It is mind which has conquered matter. To fear, then, that 58 ON THE ELEVATION OF by calling forth a people's mind, we shali impoverish and starve them, is to be frightened at a shadow. I believe, that with the growth of intellectual and moral power in the community, its pro- ductive jjower will increase, that indus- try will become more efficient, that a wiser economy will accumulate wealth, that unimagined resources of art and nature will be discovered. I believe thai the means of living will grow easier, in proportion as a people shall become enlightened, self-respecting, resolute, and just. Bodily or material forces can be measured, but not the forces of the soul ; nor can the results of in- creased mental energy be foretold. Such a community will tread down ob- stacles now deemed invincible, and turn them into helps. The inward moulds the outward. The power of a people lies in its mind ; and this mind, if forti- fied and enlarged, will bring external things into harmony with itself. It will create a new world around it, corre- sponding to itself. If, however, I err in this belief ; if, by securing time and means io: improvement to the multi- tude, industry and capital should be- come less productive, I still say. Sacrifice the wealth, and not the mind of a peo- ple. Nor do I believe that the physical good of a community would in this way be impaired. The diminution of a coun- try's wealth, occasioned by general at- tention to intellectual and moral culture, would be followed by very different effects from those which would attend an equal diminution brought about by sloth, intemperance, and ignorance. There would indeed be less production in such a country, but the character and spirit of the people would effect a much more equal distribution of what would be produced ; and the happiness of a community depends vastly more 'on the distribution than on the amount of its wealth. In thus speaking of the future, I do not claim any special prophetical gift. As a general rule, no man is able to foretell distinctly the ultimate, per- manent results of any great social change. But as to the case before us, we ought not to doubt. It is a part of religion to believe that by nothing can a country so effectually gain happiness and lasting prosperity as by the eleva- don of all classes of its citizens. To ques- tion this seems an approach to crime. " If this faU, The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built on stubble." I am aware that, in reply to all that has been said in favor of the possibility of uniting self-improvement with labor, discouraging facts may be brought for- ward from our daily experience. It may be said that in this country, under advantages unknown in other lands, there is a considerable number on whom the burden or toil presses very heavily, who can scarcely live with all their efforts, and who are cut off by their hard condition from the means of intel- lectual culture ; and if this take place now, what are we to expect hereafter in a more crowded population ? I ac- knowledge that we have a number of depressed laborers, whose state is ex- ceedingly unpropitious to the education of the mind ; but this argument will lose much of its power when we inquire into the causes of this evil. We shall then see that it comes, not from outward necessity, not from the irresistible ob- stacles abroad, but chiefly from the fault or ignorance of the sufferers them- selves ; so that the elevation of the mind and character of the laborer tends directly to reduce, if not remove, the evil. Of consequence, this elevation finds support in what is urged against it. In confirmation of these views, allow me just to hint at the causes of that de- ■pression of many laborers which is said to show that labor and self -improvement cannot go on together. First, how much of this depression is to be traced to intemperance ? What a great amount of time, and strength, and money, might multitudes gain for self- improvement, by a strict sobriety ! That cheap remedy, pure water, would cure the chief evils in very many families of the ignorant and poor. Were the sums which are still lavished on ardent spirits appropriated wisely to the elevation of the people, what a new world we should live in ! Intemperance not only wastes the earnings, but the health and the minds of men. How many, were they to exchange what they call moderate drinking for water, would be surprised to learn that they had been living under a cloud, in half-stupefaction, and would become conscious of an intellectual en- ergy of which they had not before dreamed ! Their labors would exhaust THE LABORING CLASSES. .59 them less ; and less labor would be needed for their support ; and thus their inability to cultivate their high nature would in a great measure be removed. The working class, above all men, have an interest in the cause of temperance, and they ought to look on the individual who lives by scattering the means and ex- citements of drunkenness not only as the general enemy of his race, but as their own worst foe. In the next place, how much of the depression of laborers may be traced to the want of a strict economy ! The pros- perity of this country has produced a wastefulness that has extended to the laboring multitude. A man, here, turns with scorn from fare that in many coun- tries would be termed luxurious. It is, indeed, important that the standard of living in all classes should be high ; that is, it should include the comforts of Life, the means of neatness and order in our dwellings, and such supplies of our wants as are fitted to secure vigorous health. But how many waste their earnings on indulgences which may be spared, and thus have no resource for a dark day, and are always trembling on the brink of pauperism ! Needless expenses keep many too poor for self-improvement. And here let me say, that expensive habits among the more prosperous labor- ers often interfere with the mental cult- ure of themselves and their families. How many among them sacrifice im- provement to appetite 1 How many sacrifice it to the love of show, to the desire of outstripping others, and to habits of expense which grow out of this insatiable passion ! In a country so thriving and luxurious as ours, the laborer is in danger of contracting arti- ficial wants and diseased tastes ; and to gratify these he gives himself wholly to accumulation, and sells his mind for gain. Our unparalleled prosperity has not been an unmixed good. It has in- flamed cupidity, has diseased the imagi- nation with dreams of boundless success, and plunged a vast multitude into exces- sive toils, feverish competitions, and exhausting cares. A laborer having secured a neat home and a wholesome table, should ask nothing more for the senses ; but should consecrate his leisure, and what may be spared of his earnings, to the culture of himself and his family, to the best books, to the best teaching, to pleasant and profitable intercourse, to sympathy and the offices of humanity, and to the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art. Unhappily, the laborer, if prosperous, is anxious to ape the rich man, -instead of trying to rise above him, as he often may, by noble acquisi- tions. The young in particular, the ap- prentice and the female domestic, catch a taste for fashion, and on this altar sacrifice too often their uprightness, and almost always the spirit of improvement, dooming themselves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain show. Is this evil without remedy ? Is human nature always to be sacrificed to outward dec- oration ? Is the outward always to triumph over the inward man ? Is noble- ness of sentiment never to spring up among us ? May not a reform in this particular begin in the laboring class, since it seems so desperate among the more prosperous ? Cannot the laborer, whose condition calls him so loudly to simplicity of taste and habits, take his stand against that love of dress which dissipates and corrupts so many minds among the opulent ? Cannot the labor- ing class refuse to measure men by out- ward success, and pour utter scorn on all pretensions foundpd on outward show or condition ? Sure I am that, were they to study plainness of dress and simplicity of living, for the purpose of their own true elevation, they would surpass in in- tellect, in taste, in honorable qualities, and in present enjoyment, that great proportion of the prosperous who are softened into indulgence or enslaved to empty show. By such self-denial, how- might the burden of labor be lightened, and time and strength redeemed for im- provement ! Another cause of the depressed con- dition of not a few laborers, as I believe, is their ignorance on the subject of health. Health is the working man's fortune, and he ought to watch over it more than the capitalist over his largest investments. Health lightens the efi:orts of body and mind. It enables a man to crowd much work into a narrow com- pass. Without it, little can be earned, and that little by slow, exhausting toil. For these reasons 1 cannot but look on it as a good omen that the press is cir- culating among us cheap works, in which much useful knowledge is given of the structure, and functions, and laws of the bo ON THE ELEVATION OF human body. It is in no small measure through our own imprudence that disease and debility are incurred, and one rem- edy is to be found in knowledge. Once let the mass of the people be instructed in their own frames ; let them under- stand clearly that disease is not an acci- dent, but has fixed causes, many of which they can avert, and a great amount of suffering, want, and consequent intel- lectual depression will be removed. — I hope I shall not be thought to digress too far, when 1 add, that were the mass of the community more enlightened on these points, they would apply their knowledge, not only to their private habits, but to the government of the city, and would insist on municipal regu- lations favoring general health. This they owe to themselves. They ought to require a system of measures for effect- ually cleansing the city ; for supplying it with pure water, either at public ex- pense orby a private corporation ; and for prohibiting the erection or the letting of such buildings as must generate disease. What a sad thought is it, that in this metropolis, the blessings which God pours forth profusely on bird and beast, the blessings of air, and light, and water, should, in the case of many families, be so stinted or so mixed with impurities, as to injure instead of invigorating the frame ! With what face can the great cities of Europe and America boast of their civilization, when within their lim- its thousands and ten thousands perish for want of God's freest, most lavish gifts ! Can we expect improvement among people who are cut off from nature's common bounties, and want those cheering influences of the ele- ments which even savages enjoy 'i In this city, how much health, how many lives are sacrificed to the practice of letting cellars and rooms which cannot be ventilated, which want the benefits of light, free air, and pure water, and the means of removing filth ! We forbid by law the selling of putrid meat in the market. Why do we not forbid the renting of rooms in which putrid, damp, and noisome vapors are working as sure destruction as the worst food ? Did people understand that they are as truly poisoned in such dens as by tainted meat and decaying vegetables, would they not appoint commissioners for houses as truly as commissioners for markets ? Ought not the renting of un- tenantable rooms, and the crowding of such numbers into a single room as must breed disease, and may infect a neigh- borhood, be as much forbidden as the importation of a pestilence ? I have enlarged on this point, because I am persuaded that the morals, manners, decencies, self-respect, and intellectual improvement, as well as the health and physical comforts of a people, depend on no outward circumstances more than on the quality of the houses in which they live. The remedy of the grievance now stated lies with the people themselves. The laboring people must require that the health of the city shall be a leading ob- ject of the municipal administration, and in so doing they will protect at once the body and the mind. I will mention one more cause of the depressed condition of many laborers, and that is, sloth, "the sin which doth most easily beset us." How many are there who, working languidly and re- luctantly, bring little to pass, spread the work of one hour over many, shrink from difficulties which ought to excite them, keep themselves poor, and thus doom their families to ignorance as weU as to want ! In these remarks I have endeavored to show that the great obstacles to the improvement of the laboring classes are in themselves, and may therefore be overcome. They want nothing but the will. Outward difiiculty will shrink and vanish before them, just as far as they are bent on progress, just as far as the great idea . of their own elevation shall take possession of their minds. 1 know that many will smile at the sug- gestion, that the laborer may be brought to practise thrift and self-denial, for the purpose of becoming a nobler being. But such sceptics, having never expe- rienced the power of a grand thought or generous purpose, are no judges of others. They may be assured, how- ever, that enthusiasm is not wholly a dream, and that it is not wholly unnat- ural for individuals or bodies to get the idea of something higher and more in- spiring than their past attainments. III. Having now treated of the ele- vation of the laborer, and examined the objections to it, I proceed, in the last place, to consider some of the circum- stances of the times which encourage" THE LABORING CLASSES. 6l flopes of the progress of the mass of the people. My limits oblige me to confine myself to very few. — And, first, it is an encouraging circumstance, that the respect for labor is increasing, or rather that the old prejudices against manual toil, as degrading a man or put- ting him in a lower sphere, are wearing away ; and the cause of this change is full of promise ; for it is to be found in the progress of intelligence, Chris- tianity, and freedom, all of which cry aloud against the old barriers created between the different classes, and chal- lenge especial sympathy and regard for those who bear the heaviest burdens, and create most of the comforts of social life. The contempt of labor of which I have spoken is a rehc of the old aristocratic prejudices which for- merly proscribed trade as unworthy of a gentleman, and must die out with other prejudices of the same low origin. And the results must be happy. It is hard for a class of men to respect them- selves who are denied respect by all around them. A vocation looked on as degrading will have a tendency to de- grade those who follow it. Away, then, with the idea of something low in man- ual labor. There is something shock- ing to a religious man in the thought that the employment which God has ordained for the vast majority of the human race should be unworthy of any man, even of the highest. If, indeed, there were an employment which could not be dispensed with, and which yet tended to degrade such as might be de- voted to it, I should say that it ought to be shared by the whole race, and thus neutralized by extreme division, instead of being laid, as the sole voca- tion, on one man or a few. Let no human being be broken in spirit or trodden under foot for the outward prosperity of the State. So far is manual labor from meriting contempt or slight, that it will probably be found, when united with true means of spir- itual culture, to foster a sounder judg- ment, a keener observation,, a more creative imagination, and a purer taste, than any other vocation. Man thinks of the few, God of the many ; and the many will be found at length to have within their reach the most effectual means of progress. Another encouraging circumstance of the times is the creation of a popular literature, which puts within the reach of the laboring class the means of knowledge in whatever branch they wish to cultivate. Amidst the worthless volumes which are every day sent from the press for mere amusement, there are books of great value in all depart- ments, published for the benefit of the mass of readers. Mines of inestimable truth are thus open to all who are re- solved to think and learn. Literature is now adapting itself to all wants ; and I have little doubt that a new form of it will soon appear for the special ben- efit of the laboring classes. This will have for its object to show the progress of the various useful arts, and to pre- serve the memory of their founders, and of men who have laid the world under obligation by great inventions. Every trade has distinguished names in its history. Some trades can number, among those who have followed them, philosophers, poets, men of true gen- ius. I would suggest to the members of this Association whether a course of lectures, intended to illustrate the his- tory of the more important trades, and of the great blessings they have con- ferred on society, and of the eminent individuals who have practised them, might not do much to instruct, and, at the same time, to elevate them. Such a course would carry them far into the past, would open to them much inter- esting information, and at the same time introduce them to men whom they may well make their models. I would go farther. I should be pleased to see the members of an important trade setting apart an anniversary for the commem- oration of those who have shed lustre on it by their virtues, their discoveries, their genius. It is time that honor should be awarded on higher principles than have governed the judgment of past ages. Surely the inventor of the press, the discoverer of the compass, the men who have applied the power of steam to machinery, have brought the human race more largely into their debt than the bloody race of con- querors, and even than many benefi- cent princes. Antiquity exalted into divinities the first cultivators of wheat and the useful plants, and the first forgers of metals ; and we, in these maturer ages of the world, have still 62 ON THE ELEVATION OF greater names to boast in the records of useful art. Let their memory be preserved to kindle a generous emula- tion in those who have entered into their labors. Another circumstance, encouraging the hope of progress in the laboring class, is to be found in the juster views they are beginning to adopt in regard to the education of their children. On this foundation, indeed, our hope for all classes must chiefly rest. All are to rise chiefly by the care bestowed on the young. Not that I would say, as is sometimes rashly said, that none but the young can improve. I give up no age as desperate. Men who have lived thirty, or fifty years, are not to feel as if the door was shut Upon them. Every man who thirsts to become something better has in that desire a pledge that his labor will not be in vain. None are too old to learn. The world, from our first to our last hour, is our school, and the whole of life has but one great purpose, — education. Still, the child, uncor- rupted, unhardened, is the most hopeful subject ; and vastly more, I believe, is hereafter to be done for children, than ever before, by the gradual spread of a simple truth, almost too simple, one would think, to need exposition, yet up to this day wilfully neglected ; namely, that education is a sham, a cheat, unless carried on by able, accomplished teach- ers. The dignity of the vocation of a teacher is beginning to be understood ; the idea is dawning on us that no office can compare in solemnity and impor- tance with that of training the child ; that skill to form the young to energy, truth, and virtue, is worth more than the knowledge of all other arts and sci- ences ; and that, of consequence, the encouragement of excellent teachers is the first duty which a community owes to itself. I say the truth is dawning, and it must make its way. The instruc- tion of the children of all classes, espe- cially of the laboring class, has as yet been too generally committed to unpre- pared, unskilful hands, and of course the school is in general little more than a name. The whole worth of a school lies in the teacher. You may accumulate the most expensive apparatus for in- struction ; but without an intellectual, gifted teacher, it is little better than rubbish ; and such a teacher, without apparatus, may effect the happiest re- sults. Our university boasts, and with justice, ,of its library, cabinets, and phil- osophical instruments ; but these are lifeless, profitless, except as made effect- ual by the men who use them. A few eminent men, skilled to understand, reach, and quicken the minds of the pupils, are worth all these helps. And I say this, because it is commonly thought that the children of the labor- ing class cannot be advanced, in con- sequence of the inability of parents to furnish a variety of books and other apparatus. But in education, various books and implements are not the great requisites, but a high order of teachers. In truth, a few books do better than many. The object of education is not so much to give a certain amount of knowledge, as to awaken the faculties, and give the pupil the use of his own mind ; and one book, taught by a man who knows how to accomplish these ends, is worth more than libraries as usually read. It is not necessary that much should be taught in youth, but that a little should be taught philosophically, profoundly, livingly. For example, it is not necessary that the pupil be carried over the history of the world from the deluge to the present day. Let him be helped to read a single history wisely, to apply the principles of historical evi- dence to its statements, to trace the causes and effects of events, to pene- trate into the motives of actions, to observe the workings of human nature in what is done and suffered, to judge impartially of action and character, to sympathize with what is noble, to detect the spirit of an age in different forms from our own, to seize the great truths which are wrapped up in details, and to discern a moral Providence, a retribu- tion, amidst all corruptions and changes ; let him learn to read a single history thus, and he has learned to read all his- tories ; he is prepared to study, as he may have time in future life, the whole course of human events ; he is better educated by this one book than he would be by all the histories in aU lan- guages as commonly taught. The edu- cation of the laborer's children need never stop for want of books and appar ratus. More of them would do good, but enough may be easily obtained. What we want is, a race of teachers acquainted THE LABORING CLASSES. 03 with the philosophy of the mind, gifted men and women, who shall respect human nature in the child, and strive to touch and gently bring out his best powers and sympathies ; and who shall devote themselves to this as the great end of life. This good, I trust, is to come, but it comes slowly. The estab- lishment of normal schools shows that the want of it begins to be felt. This good requires that education shall be recognized by the community as its highest interest and duty. It requires that the instructors of youth shall take precedence of the money-getting classes, and that the woman of fashion shall fall behind the female teacher. It requires that parents shall sacrifice show and pleasure to the acquisition of the best possible helps and guides for their chil- dren. Not that a great pecuniary com- pensation is to create good teachers ; these must be formed by individual im- pulse, by a genuine interest in educa- tion ; but good impulse must be sec- onded by outward circumstances ; and the means of education will always bear a proportion to the respect in which the office of teacher is held in the commu- nity. Happily, in this country, the true idea of education, of its nature and supreme importance, is silently working and gains ground. Those of us who look back on half a century, see a real, great improvement in schools and in the standard of instruction. What should encourage this movement in this coun- try is, that nothing is wanting here to the intellectual elevation of the laboring class but that a spring should be given to the child, and that the art of thinking justly and strongly should be formed in early life; for, this prepc^^arion being made, the circumstances of future life will almost of themselves carry on the work of improvement. It is one of the inestimable benefits of free institutions, that they are constant stimulants to the intellect ; that they furnish, in rapid suc- cession, quickening subjects of thought and discussion. A whole people at the same moment are moved to reflect, rea- son, judge, and act on matters of deep and universal concern ; and where the capacity of thought has received wise culture, the intellect, unconsciously, by an almost irresistible sympathy, is kept perpetually alive. The mind, like the body, depends on the climate it lives in, on the air it breathes ; and the air of freedom is bracing, exhilarating, ex- panding, to a degree not dreamed of under a despotism. This stimulus of liberty, however, avails little, except where the mind has learned to think for the acquisition of truth. The unthink- ing and passionate are hurried by it into ruinous excess. The last ground of hope for the ele- vation of the laborer, and the chief and the most sustaining, is the clearer de- velopment of the principles of Chris- tianity. The future influences of this religion are not to be judged from the past. Up to this time it has been made a political engine, and in other ways perverted. But its true spirit, the spirit of brotherhood and freedom, is begin- ning to be understood, and this will undo the work which opposite princi- ples have been carrying on for ages. Christianity is the only effectual remedy for the fearful evils of modern civiliza- tion, — a system which teaches its mem- bers to grasp at every thing, and to rise above everybody, as the great aims of life. Of such a civilization the natural fruits are, contempt of others' rights, fraud, oppression, a gambling spirit in trade, reckless adventure, and commer- cial convulsions, all tending to impover- ish the laborer and to render every con- dition insecure. Relief is to come, and can only come, from the new application of Christian principles, of universal jus- tice and universal love, to social institu- tions, to commerce, to business, to active life. This application has begun, and the laborer, above all men, is to feel its happy and exalting influences. Such are some of the circumstances which inspire hopes of the elevation of the laboring classes. To these might be added other strong grounds of en- couragement, to be found in the princi- ples of human nature, in the perfections and providence of God, and in the pro- phetic intimations of his word. But these I pass over. From all I derive strong hopes for the mass of men. I do not, cannot see, why manual toil and self-improvement may not go on in friendly union. I do not see why the laborer may not attain to refined habits and manners as truly as other men. I do not see why conversation under his humble roof may not be cheered by wit 64 ON THE ELEVATION OF and exalted by intelligence. I do not see why, amidst his toils, he may not cast his eye around him on God's glo- rious creation, and be strengthened and refreshed by the sight. I do not see why the great ideas which exalt human- ity — those of the Infinite Father, of perfection, of our nearness to God, and of the purpose of our being — may not grow bright and strong in the laborer's mind. Society, I trust, is tending tow- ards a condition in which it will look back with astonishment at the present neglect or perversion of human powers. In the development of a more enlarged philanthropy, in the diffusion of the Christian spirit of brotherhood, in the recognition of the equal rights of every human being, we have the dawn and promise of a better age, when no man will be deprived of the means of ele- vation but by his own fault ; when the evil doctrine, worthy of the arch-fiend, that social order demands the depression of the mass of men, will be rejected with horror and scorn; when the great object of the community will be to accumulate means and influences for awakening and expanding the best powers of all classes; when far less will be expended on the body and far more on the mind ; when men of uncommon gifts for the instruc- tion of their race will be sent forth to carry light and strength into every sphere of human life ; when spacious libraries, collections of the fine arts, cabinets of natural history, and all the institutions by which the people may be refined and ennobled, will be formed and thrown open to all ; and when the toils of life, by a wise intermixture of these higher influences, will be rnade the instruments of human elevation. Such are my hopes of the intellectual, moral, religious, social elevation of the laboring class. I should not, however, be true to myself, did 1 not add that I have fears as well as hopes. Time is not left me to enlarge on this point ; but without a reference to it I should not give you the whole truth. I would not disguise from myself or others the true character of the world we live in. Hu- man imperfection throws an uncertainty over the future. Society, like the nat- ural world, holds in its bosom fearful elements. Who can hope that the storms which have howled over past ages have spent all their force ? It is possible that the laboring classes, by their reck- lessness, their passionateness, their jeal- ousies of the more prosperous, and their subserviency to parties and political leaders, may turn all their bright pros- pects into darkness, may blight the hopes which philanthropy now cherishes of a happier and holier social state. It is also possible, in this mysterious state of things, that evil may come to them from causes which are thought to prom- ise them nothing but good. The pres- ent anxiety and universal desire is to make the country rich, and it is taken for granted that its growing wealth is necessarily to benefit all conditions. But is this consequence sure t May not a country be rich, and yet great numbers of the people be wofuUy depressed ? In England, the richest nation under heav- en, how sad, how degraded the state of the agricultural and manufacturing classes ! It is thought that the institu- tions of this country give an assurance that growing wealth will here equally benefit and carry forward all portions of the community. I hope so ; but I am not sure. At the present time a mo- mentous change is taking place in our condition. The improvement in steam navigation has half annihilated the space between Europe and America, and by the progress of invention the two con- tinents are to be more and more placed side by side. We hail this triumph of the arts with exultation. We look for- ward to the approaching spring, when this metropolis is to be linked with England by a line of steamboats, as a proud era in our history. That a great temporary excitement will be given to industry, and that our wealth and num- bers will increase, admits no dispute ; but this is a small matter. The great question is. Will the mass of the people be permanently advanced in the com- forts of hfe, and, still more, in intelli- gence and character, in the culture of their highest powers and affections ? It is not enough to grow, if our growth is to resemble that of other populous places. Better continue as we are, bet- ter even decline, than tread in the steps of any great city, whether of past or present times. I doubt not that, under God's providence, the approximation of Europe and America is ultimately to be a blessing to both ; but without our vig- ilance, the nearer effects may be more THE LABORING CLASSES. 65 or less disastrous. It cannot be doubted that for a time many among us, espe- cially in the prosperous classes, will be more and more infected from abroad, will sympathize more with the institu- tions, and catch more the spirit and manners, of the Old World. As a people we want moral independence. We bow to " the great " of other countries, and we shall become for a time more and more servile in our imitation. But this, though bad, may not be the worst result. I would ask. What is to be the effect of bringing the laboring classes of Europe twice as near us as they now are ? Is there no danger of a competi- tion that is to depress the laboring classes here ? Can the workman here stand his ground against the half- famished, ignorant workmen of Europe, who will toil for any wages, and who never think of redeeming an hour for personal improvement ? Is there no danger that, with increasing intercourse with Europe,- we shall import the strik- ing, fearful contrasts which there divide one people into separate nations .'' Soon- er than that our laboring class should become a European populace, a good man would almost wish that perpetual hurricanes, driving every ship from the ocean, should sever wholly the two hem- ispheres from each other. Heaven pre- serve us from the anticipated benefits of nearer connection with Europe, if with these must come the degradation which we see or read of among the squalid poor of her great cities, among the overworked operatives of her manu- factories, among her ignorant and half- brutalized peasants ! Any thing, every thing should be done to save us from the social evils which deform the Old Worldj and to build up here an inteUi- gent, right-minded, self-respecting popu- lation. If this end should require us to change our present modes of life, to narrow our foreign connections, to desist from the race of commercial and manu- facturing competition with Europe ; if it should require that our great cities should cease to grow, and that a large portion of our trading population should return to labor, these requisitions ought to be obeyed. One thing is plain, that our present civilization contains strong tendencies to the intellectual and moral depression of a large portion of the com- munity ; and this influence ought to be thought of, studied, watched, withstood, with a stern, solemn purpose of with- holding no sacrifice by which it may be counteracted. Perhaps the fears now expressed may be groundless. I do not ask you to adopt them. My end will be gained if I can lead you to study, habitually and zealously, the influence of changes and measures on the character and condition of the laboring class. There is no subject on which your thoughts should turn more frequently than on this. Many of you busy yourselves with other questions, such as the prob- able result of the next election of Pres- ident, or the prospects of this or that party. But these are insignificant, com- pared with the great question, Whether the laboring classes here are destined to the ignorance and depression of the lower ranks of Europe, or whether they can secure to themselves the means of intellectual and moral progress. You are cheated, you are false to yourselves, when you suffer politicians to absorb you in their selfish purposes, and to draw you away from this great question. Give the first place in your thoughts to this. Carry it away with you from the present lecture ; discuss it together ; study it when alone ; let your best heads work on it ; resolve that nothing shall be wanting on your part to secure the means of intellectual and moral well-being to yourselves, and to those who may come after you. In these lectures, I have expressed a strong interest in the laboring portion of the community ; but I have no par- tiality to them considered merely as laborers. My mind is attracted to them because they constitute the majority of the human race. My great interest is in human nature, and in the working classes as its most numerous represent- atives. To those who look on this nature with contempt or utter distrust, such language may seem a mere form, or may be construed as a sign of the predominance of imagination and feel- ing over the judgment. No matter. The pity of these sceptics I can return. Their wonder at my creduHty cannot surpass the sorrowful astonishment with which I look on their indifference to the fortunes of their race. In spite of all their doubts and scoffs, human nat- ure is still most dear to me. When I 66 ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES. behold it manifested in its perfect pro- portions in Jesus Christ, I cannot but revere it as the true temple of the Divinity. When I see it as revealed in the great and good of all times, I bless God for those multiplied and growing proofs of its high destiny. When I see it bruised, beaten down, stifled by ignorance and vice, by op- pression, injustice, and grinding toil, I weep for it, and feel that every man should be ready to suffer for its redemp- tion. I do and I must hope for its progress. But in saying this, I am not blind to its immediate dangers. I am not sure that dark clouds and desolat- ing storms are not even now gathering over the world. When we look back on the mysterious history of the human race, we see that Providence has made use of fearful revolutions as the means of sweeping away the abuses of ages, and of bringing forward mankind to their present improvement. Whether such revolutions may not be in store for our own times, I know not. The present civilization of the Christian world presents much to awaken doubt and apprehension. It stands in direct hostility to the great ideas of Christian- ity. It is selfish, mercenary, sensual. Such a civilization cannot, must not, endure for ever. How it is to be sup- planted, I know not. I hope, however, that it is not doomed, like tlie old Ro- man civilization, to be quenched in blood. I trust that the works of ages are not to be laid low by violence, rap- ine, and the all-devouring sword. I trust that the existing social state con- tains in its bosom something better than it has yet unfolded. I trust that a brighter future is to come, not from the desolation, but from gradual, meliorating changes of the present. Among the changes to which I look for the salva- tion of the modern world, one of the chief is the intellectual and moral ele- vation of the laboring class. The im- pulses which are to reform and quicken society are probably to come, not from its more conspicuous, but from its ob- scurer divisions ; and among these I see with joy new wants, principles, and aspirations beginning to unfold them- selves. Let what is already won give us courage. Let faith in a parental Providence give us courage ; and if we are to be disappointed in the present, let us never doubt that the great inter- ests of human nature are still secure under the eye and care of an Almighty Friend. Note for the third head. — Under the third head of the lectures, in which some of the encouraging circumstances of the times are stated, I might have spoken of the singular advantages and means of progress enjoyed by the laborer in this metropolis. It is believed that there cannot be found another city in the world in which the laboring classes are as much improved^ possess as many helps, enjoy as much consideration, exert as much influence, as in this place. Had I pursued this subject, I should have done what I often wished to do ; I should have spoken of the obhgations of our city to my excellent friend, James Savage, Esq., to whose unwearied efforts we are chiefly indebted for two inesti- mable institutions, — the Provident In- stitution for Savings and the Primary Schools ; the former giving to the laborer the means of sustaining himself in times of pressure, and the latter placing almost at his door the means of instruction for his children from the earliest age. The union of the Primary Schools with the Grammar Schools and the High Schools in this place constitutes a system of public education unparalleled, it is be- lieved, in any country. It would not be easy to name an individual to whom our city is under greater obligations than to Mr. Savage. In the enterprises which I have named, he was joined and greatly assisted by the late Elisha Ticknor, Esq., whose name ought also to be associated with the Provident Institution and the Primary Schools. The subject of thfese lectures brings to my mind the plan of an institution which was laid before me by Mr. Ticknor, for teaching at once agriculture and the mechanic arts. He believed that a boy might be made a thorough farmer, both in theory and practice, and might at the same time learn a trade, and that by being skilled in both vocations he would be more useful, and would multiply his chances of comfortable subsistence. I was inter- ested by the plan, and Mr. Ticknor's practical wisdom led me to believe that it might be accomplished. HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 67 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. I Peter ii. 17 : " Honor all men." Among the many and inestimable blessings of Christianity, I regard as not the least the new sentiment with which it teaches man to look upon his fellow- beings ; the new interest which it awak- ens in us towards every thing human ; the new importance which it gives to the soul ; the new relation which it estab- lishes between man and man. In this respect it began a mighty revolution, which has been silently spreading itself through society, and which, 1 believe, is not to stop until new ties shall have taken the place of those which have hitherto, in the main, connected the human race. Christianity has as yet but begun its work of reformation. Under its influ- ences a new order of society isadvancing, surely though slowly ; and this benefi- cent change it is to accomplish in no small measure by revealing to men their own nature, and teaching them to " honor all" who partake it. As yet Christianity has done little, compared with what it is to do, in es- tablishing the true bond of union between man and man. The old bonds of society still continue in a great degree. They are instinct, interest, force. The true tie, which is mutual respect, calling forth mutual, growing, never-failing acts of love, is as yet little known. A new rev- elation, if I may so speak, remains to be ■ made ; or rather, the truths of the old revelation in regard to the greatness of human nature are to be brought out from obscurity and neglect. The soul is to be regarded with a religious rever- ence hitherto unfelt ; and the solemn claims of every being to whom this divine principle is imparted are to be established on the ruins of those pernicious princi- ples, both in church and state, which have so long divided mankind into the classes of the abject many and the self- exalting few. There is nothing of which men know so little as themselves. They understand incomparably more of the surrounding creation, of matter, and of its laws, than of that spiritual principle to which mat- ter was made to be the minister, and without which the outward universe would be worthless. Of course, no man can be wholly a stranger to the soul, for the soul is himself, and he cannot but be conscious of its most obvious work- ings. But it is to most a chaos, a region shrouded in ever-shifting mists, baffling the eye and bewildering the imagination. The affinity of the mind with God, its moral power, the purposes for which its faculties were bestowed, its connection with futurity, and the dependence of its whole happiness on its own right action and progress, — these truths, though they might be expected to absorb us, are to most men little more than sounds, and to none of us those living realities which, I trust, they are to become. That con- viction, without which we are all poor, of the unlimited and immortal nature of the soul, remains in a great degree to be developed. Men have as yet no just re- spect for themselves, and of consequence no just respect for others. The true bond of society is thus wanting ; and accordingly there is a great deficiency of Christian benevolence. There is, indeed, much instinctive, native benevolence, and this is not to be despised ; but the benevolence of Jesus Christ, which con- sists in a calm purpose to suffer, and, if need be, to die, for our fellow-creatures, the benevolence of Christ on the cross, which is the true pattern to the Christian, this is little known ; and what is the cause ? It is this. We see nothing in human beings to entitle them to such sacrifices ; we do not think them worth suffering for. Why should we be mar- tyrs for beings who awaken in us little more of moral interest than the brutes ? I hfild that nothing is to make man a true lover of man but the discovery of sbinething interesting and great in human nature. We must see and feel that a human being is something impor- tant, and of immeasurable importance. We must see and feel the broad distance between the spiritual life within us and the vegetable or animal life which acts around us. I cannot love the flower, however beautiful, with a disinterested affection which will make me sacrifice to 68 HONOR DUE TO^ALL MEN. it my own prosperity. You will in vain exhort me to attach myself, with my whole strength of affection, to the in- ferior animals, however useful or attrac- tive ; and why not ? They want the capacity of truth, virtue, and progress. They want that principle of duty which alone gives permanence to a being ; and accordingly they soon lose their indi- vidual nature, and go to mingle with the general mass. A human being deserves a different affection from what we bestow on inferior creatures, for he has a rational and moral nature, by which he is to en- dure for ever, by which he may achieve an unutterable happiness, or sink into an unutterable woe. He is more inter- esting, through what is in him, than the earth or heavens ; and the only way to love him aright is to catch some glimpse of this immortal power within him. Until this is done, all charity is little more than instinct ; we shall embrace the great interests of human nature with coldness. It may be said, that Christianity has done much to awaken benevolence, and that it has taught men to call one another brethren. Yes, to call one another so ; but has it as yet given the true feeling of brotherhood ? We undoubtedly feel our- selves to be all of one race, and this is well. We trace ourselves up to one pair, and feel the same blood flowing in our veins. But do we understand our spirit- ual brotherhood ? Do we feel ourselves to be derived from one Heavenly Parent, in whose image we are all made, and whose perfection we may constantly ap- proach ? Do we feel that there is one divine life in our own and in all souls .■■ This seems to me the only true bond of man to man. Here is a tie more sacred, more enduring, than all the ties of this earth. Is it felt, and do we in conse- quence truly honor one another ? Sometimes, indeed, we see men giving sincere, profound, and almost unmeas- ured respect to their fellow-creatures ; but to whom ? To great men ; to men distinguished by a broad line from the multitude ; to men pre-eminent by genius, force of character, daring effort, high station, brilliant success. To such honor is given ; but this is not to " honor all men ; " and the homage paid to such is generally unfriendly to that Christian es- timate of human beings for which I am now pleading. The great are honored at the expense of their race. They absorb and concentrate the world's admiration, and their less gifted fellow-beings are thrown by their brightness into a deeper shade, and passed over with a colder contempt. Now I have no desire to derogate from the honor paid to great men, but I say. Let them not rise by the depression of the multitude. I say, that great men, justly regarded, exalt our es- timate of the human race, and bind us to the multitude of men more closely; and when they are not so regarded, when they are converted into idols, when they serve to wean our interest from ordinary men, they corrupt us, they sever the sacred bond of humanity which should attach us to all, and our characters be- come vitiated by our very admiration of greatness. The true view of great men is, that they are only examples and mani- festations of our common nature, show- ing- what belongs to all souls, though unfolded as yet only in a few. The light which shines from them is, after all, but a faint revelation of the power which is treasured up in every human being. They are not prodigies, not miracles, but nat- ural developments of the human soul. They are indeed as men among children, but the children have a principle of growth which leads to manhood. That great men and the multitude of minds are of one family, is apparent, I think, in the admiration which the great inspire into the multitude. A sincere, enlightened admiration always springs from something congenial in him who feels it with him who inspires it. He that can understand and delight in greatness was created to partake of it ; the germ is in him ; and sometimes this admiration, in what we deem inferior minds, discovers a nobler spirit than belongs to the great man who awakens it ; for sometimes the great man is so absorbed in his own greatness as to admire no other ; and I should not hes- itate to say, that a common mind, which is yet capable of a generous admira- tion, is destined to rise higher than the man of eminent capacities, who can enjoy no power or excellence but his own. When I hear of great men, I wish not to separate them from their race, but to blend them with it. I es- teem it no small benefit of the philos- ophy of mind, that it teaches us that the elements of the greatest thoughts HONOR DUE TO ALL MEAT. 69 (if the man of genius exist in his lium- bler brethren, and that the faculties ■which the scientific exert in the pro- foundest discoveries are precisely the same with those which common men .employ in the daily labors of life. To show the grounds on which the obligation to honor all men rests, I might take a minute survey of that hu- man nature which is common to all, and set forth its claims to reverence. But, leaving this wide range, I observe that there is one principle of the soul which makes all men essentially equal, which places all on a level as to means of happiness, which may place in the first rank of human beings those who are the most depressed in worldly con- dition, and which therefore gives the most depressed a title to interest and respect. I rfifer to the sense of duty, to the power of discerning and doing right, to the moral and religious prin- ciple, to the inward monitor which speaks in the name of God, to the ca- pacity of virtue or excellence. This is the great gift of God. We can con- ceive no greater. In seraph and arch- angel, we can conceive no higher energy than the power of virtue, or the power of forming " themselves after the will and moral perfections of God. ^ This powerbreaks down all barriers between the seraph and the lowest human being ; it makes them brethren. Whoever has derived from God this perception and capacity of rectitude, has a bond of union with the spiritual world stronger than all the ties of nature. He pos- sesses a principle which, if he is faith- ful to it, must carry him forward for ever, and insures to him the improve- ment and happiness of the highest order of beings. It is this moral power which makes all men essentially equal, which 'anni- hilates all the distiuctioiisTpf'this world. Through this, the ignorant and the "poor may become the greatest of the race ; for the- g reatest i s ..hejshQ, Js most true to the principle of duty. It is not im- probable that the noblest human beings are._to be found in the least favored conditions., of society," among those whose names are never uttered beyond the narrow circle in which tliey toil and suffer, who have but " two mites " to give away, who have perhaps not even ■that, but who "desire to be fed with the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table ; " for in this class may be found those who have withstood the severest temptation, who have prac- tised the most arduous duties, who have confided in God under the heav- iest trials, who have been most wronged and'have forgiven most ; and these are the great, the exalted. It matters noth- ing what the particular duties are to which the individual is called, — how minute or obscure in their outward form. Greatness in God's sight lies, not in the extent of the sphere which is filled, or of the effect which is pro- duced, but altogether in the power of virtue in the soul, in the energy with which God's will is chosen, with which trial is borne, and goodness loved and pursued. The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God. The idea of right is the primary and the highest revelation of God to the human mind, and all out- ward revelations are founded on and addressed to it. All mysteries of sci- ence and theology fade away before the grandeur of the simple perception of duty which dawns on the mind of the little child. That perception brings him into the moral kingdom of God. That lays on him an everlasting bond. He in whom the conviction of duty is unfolded becomes subject from that moment to a law which no power.in.the universe can abrogate. He forms a new and indissoluble connection with God, that of an accountable being. He begins to stand before an inward tribunal, on the decisions of which his whole happiness rests ; he hears a voice which, if faithfuUy followed, will guide him to perfection, and in neglect- ing which he brings upon himself in- evitable misery. We little understand the solemnity of the moral principle in every human mind. We think not how awful are its functions. We forget that it is the genn of immortality. Did we understand it, we should look with a feeling of reverence on every being to whom it is given. Having shown, in the preceding re- marks, that there is a foundation in the human soul for the honor enjoined in our text towards all men, 1 proceed to observe, that, if we look next into Chris- tianity, we shall find this duty enforced by new and still more solemn consider- 70 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. ations. This whole religion is a testi- mony to the worth of man in the sight of God, to the importance of human nature, to the infinite purposes for which we were framed. God is there set forth as sending to the succor of his human family his Beloved Son, the bright image and representative of his own perfections ; and sending him, not simply to roll away a burdeff of pain and punishment (for this, however mag- nified in systems of theology, is not his highest work), but to create men after that 2 divine image which lie himself bears, to purify the soul from every ' staiii,' to communicate to it new power over evil, and to open before it immor- tality as its aim and destination, — im- mortality, by which we are to understand, not merely a perpetual, but an ever-im- proving and celestial being. Such are the views of Christianity. And these blessings it proffers, not to a few, not to the educated, not to the eminent, but to all human beings, to the poorest and the most fallen ; and we know that, through the power of its promises, it has in not a few instances raised the most fallen to true greatness, and given them in their present virtue and peace an earnest of the Heaven which it un- folds. Such is Christianity. Men, viewed in the light of this religion, are beings cared for by God, to whom he has given his Son, on whom he pours forth his Spirit, and whom he has cre- ated for the highest good in the uni- verse, for participation in his own perfections and happiness. My friends, such is Christianity. Our scepticism as to our own nature cannot quench the bright light which that religion sheds on the soul and on the prospects of mankind ; and just as far as we receive its truth, we shall honor all men. /l know I shall be told that Christian- ity speaks of man as a sinner, and thus points him out to abhorrence and scorn. I know it speaks of human ,siii, but it does- not speak of this as indissolubly bound up with the soul, as entering into the essence of human nature, but as_a tenajjorary stain, which it calls on us to wash away.^ Its greatest doctrine is, that the most lost are recoverable, that the most fallen may rise, and that there is no height of purity, power, felicity in the universe, to which the guiltiest mind may not, through penitence, at- tain. Christianity, indeed, gives us a deeper, keener feeling of the guilt of mankind than any other reUgion. / By the revelation of perfection in the cliar- acter of Jesus Christ, it shows us how impgffect even the best men are. But it reveals perfection in Jesus, not for our discouragement, but as our model, — reveals it only that we may thirst for and approach it. From Jesus I learn what man is to become, that is, if true to this new hght ; and true he may be.i Christianity, I have said, shows man as a sinner, but I nowhere meet in it those dark views of our race which would make us shrink from it as from a nest of venomous reptiles. Accord- ing to the courteous style of theology, man has been called half brute and half devil. But this is a perverse and pernicious exaggeration. The brute, as it is called, that is, animal, appetite is indeed strong in human beings ; but is there nothing within us but appetite ? Is there nothing to war with it ? Does this constitute the essence of the soul ? Is it not rather an accident, the result of the mind's union with matter ? Is not its spring in the body, and may it not be expected to perish with the body ? In addition to animal propen- sities, I see the tendency to criminal excess in all men's passions. I see not one only, but many tempters in every human heart. Nor am I insensible to the fearful power of these enemies to our virtue. But is there nothing in man but temptation, but propensity to sin ? Are there no counterworking powers ? no attractions in virtue ? no tendencies to God ? no sympathies with sorrow ?. no reverence for greatness .■' no moral conflicts ? no triumphs of principle ? This very strength of temp- tation seems to me to be one of the indications of man's greatness. It shows a being framed to make progress through difficulty, suffering, and con- flict ; that is, it shows a being designed for the highest order of virtues ; for we all feel by an unerring instinct that virtue is elevated in proportion to the obstacles which it surmounts, to the power with which it is chosen and held fast. I see men placed by their Crea- tor on a field of battle, but compassed with peril that they may triumph over it ; and, though often overborne, still summoned to new efforts, still privi- HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. 71 leged to approach the Source of all Power, and to seek "grace in time of need," and still addressed in tones of encouragement by a celestial Leader, who has himself fought and conquered, and holds forth to them his own crown of righteousness and victory. From these brief views of human nature and of Christianity, you will see the grounds of the solemn obligation of honoring all men, of attaching infi- nite importance to human nature, and of respecting it, even in its present infant, feeble, tottering state. This sentiment of honor or respect for human beings strikes me more and more as essential to the Christian character. I conceive that a more thorough understanding and a more faithful culture of this would do very much to carry forward the church and the world. In truth, I attach to this sentiment such importance, that I measure by its progress the progress of society. I judge of public events very much by their bearing on this. I estimate political revolutions chiefly by their tendency to exalt men's concep- tions of their nature, and to inspire them with respect for one another's claims. The present stupendous move- ments in Europe naturally suggest, and almost force upon me, this illustration of the importance which I have given to the sentiment enjoined in our text. Allow me to detain you a few moments on this topic. What is it, then, I ask, which makes the present revolutionary movement abroad so interesting ? I answer, that I see in it the principle of respect for human nature and for the human race developing itself more powerfully, and this to me constitutes its chief interest. I sea in it proofs, indications, that the mind is awakening to a consciousness of what it is, and of what it is made for. In this movement I see man be- coming to himself a higher object. I see him attaining to the conviction of the equal and indestructible rights of every human being. I see the dawning of that great principle, that, the individ- ual is not made to be the instrument of others, but tp_govern himself by an in- ward law, and to advance towards his proper perfection ; that he belongs to himself and to God, and to no human superior. I know, indeed, that, in the present state of the world, these con- ceptions are exceedingly unsettled and obscure ; and, in truth, little effort has hitherto been made to place them in a clear light, and to give them a definite and practical form in men's minds. The multitude know not with any dis- tinctness what they want. Imagination, unschooled by reason and experience, dazzles them with bright but baseless visions. They are driven onward with a perilous violence, by a vague con- sciousness of not having found their element ; by a vague yet noble faith in a higher good than they have attained ; by impatience under restraints which they feel to be degrading. In this vio- lence, however, there is nothing strange, nor ought it to discourage us. It is, I believe, universally true, that great principles, in. their first development, manifest themselves irregularly. It is so in religion. In history we often see religion, especially after long de- pression, breaking out in vehemence and enthusiasm, sometimes stirring up bloody conflicts, and through struggles establishing a calmer emj^ire over soci- ety. In like manner, political history shows us that men's consciousness of their rights and essential equality has at first developed itself passionately. Still the consciousness is a noble one, and the presage of a better social state. Am I asked, what I hope from the jDres- ent revolutionary movements in Europe ? I answer, that I hope a good which in- cludes all others, and which almost hides all others from my view. I hope the sub- version of institutions by which the true bond between man and man has been more or less dissolved, by which the will of one or a few has broken down the will, the heart, the conscience of the many ; and I hope that, in the place of these, are to grow up institutions which will express, cherish, and spread far and wide a just respect for human nature, which will strengthen in men a consciousness of their powers, duties, and rights, which will train the individual to moral and re- ligious independence, which will propose as their end the elevation of all orders of the community, and which will give full scope to the best minds in this work of general improvement. I do not say that I expect it to be suddenly realized. The sun, which is to bring on a brighter day, is rising in thick and threatening clouds. Perhaps the minds of men were never 72 HONOR DUE TO ALL MEN. more unquiet than at the present moment. Still I do not despair. That a higher order of ideas or principles is beginning to be unfolded ; that a wider philan- thropy is beginning to triumph over the distinctions of ranks and nations ; that a new feeling of what is due to the igno- rant, poor, and depraved, has sprung up ; that the right of every human being to such an education as shall call forth his best faculties, and train him more and more to control himself, is recognized as it never was before ; and that govern- ment is more and more regarded as in- tended not to elevate the few, but to guard the rights 5f all ; that these great revolutions in principle have commenced and are spreading, who can deny ? and to me they are prophetic of an improved condition of human nature and human affairs. — O, that this melioration might be accomplished without blood ! As a Christian, I feel a misgiving, when I re- joice in any good, however great, for which this fearful price has been paid. In truth, a good so won is necessarily imperfect and generally transient. War may subvert a despotism, but seldom builds up better institutions. Even when joined, as in our own history, with high principles, it inflames and leaves behind it passions which make liberty a feverish conflict of jealous parties, and which ex- pose a people to the tyranny of faction under the forms of freedom. Few things impair men's reverence for human nature more than war ; and did I not see other and holier influences than the sword working out the regeneration of the race, I should indeed despair. In this discourse I have spoken of the grounds and importance of that honor or respect which is due from us, and en- joined on us, towards all human beings. The various forms in which this princi^ pie is to be exercised or manifested, I want time to enlarge on. I would only say, " Honor all men." Honor man, from the beginning to the end of his earthly course. Honor the child. Wel- come into being the infant, with a feel- ing of its mysterious grandeur, with the feeling that an immortal existence has begun, that a spirit has been kindled which is never to be quenched. Honor the child. On this principle all good education rests. Never shall we learn to train up the child till we take it in our arms, as Jesus did, and feel distinctly that " of such is the kingdom of heavec " In that short sentence is taught the spirit of the true system of education ; and for want of understanding it, little effectual aid, I fear, is yet given to the heavenly principle in the infant soul. — Again. Honor the poor. This sentiment or re- spect is essential to improving the con- nection between the more and less prosperous conditions of society. This alone" makes beneficence truly godlike. Without it, almsgiving degrades the re- ceiver. We must learn how slight and shadowy are the distinctions between us and the poor ; and that the last in out- ward condition may be first in the best attributes of humanity. A fraternal union, founded on this deep conviction, and in- tended to lift up and strengthen the ex- posed and tempted poor, is to do infinitely more for that suffering class than all our artificial associations ; and till Christi- anity shall have breathed into us this spirit of respect for our nature, where- ever it is found, we shall do them little good. I conceive that, in the present low state of Christian virtue, we little apprehend the power which might be exerted over the fallen and destitute by a benevolence which should truly, thor- ouglily recognize in them the image of God. Perhaps none of us have yet heard or can comprehend the tone of voice in which a man, thoroughly impressed with this sentiment, would speak to a fellow- creature. It is a language hardly known on earth ; and no eloquence, I believe, ' has achieved such wonders as it is des-, tined to accomplish. I must stop, though ' I have but begun the application of the principle which I have urged. I will close as I began, with saying, that the great revelation which man now needs is a revelation of man to himself. The faith which is most wanted is a faith in what we and our fellow-beings may be- come, s^— a fcrtli in the divine germ or principle in every soul. In regard to niost of what~are called the mysteries of religion, we may innocently be ignorant. But the mystery within ourselves, the mystery of our spiritual, accountable, immortal nature, it behoves us to explore. Happy are they who have begun to pene- trate it, and in whom it has awakened feelings of awe towards themselves, and of deep interest and honor towards their fellow-creatures. MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 73 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR: Discourse delivered before the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, Boston, April 9, 1835. I^UKE iv. 18 : " The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor." We are met together on the first an- niversary of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, — an institution formed for the purpose of providing a ministry for the poor, and of thus communicating moral and spiritual blessings to the most destitute portion of the community. We may well thank God for Uving in a state of society in which such a design finds cordial support. We should rejoice in this token of human progress. Man has always felt for the outward wants and sufferings of man. This institution shows that he is alive to the higher ca- pacities, the deeper cravings, of his fel- low-beings. This institution is one of the forms in which the spirit of Christi- anity is embodied, — a spirit of reverence and love for the human soul, of sympathy with its fall, of intense desire for its re- demption. On this occasion there is but one topic of which I can speak, and that is the claims of the poor as moral, spiritual beings ; and it is a topic on which I enter with a consciousness of insuffi- ciency. The claims of outward and world- ly things I can comprehend. I can look through wealth, pomp, rank. I can meet unmoved the most imposing forms of earthly dignity ; but the immortal princi- ple in the heart of the poorest human being I approach with awe. There I see a mystery in which my faculties are lost. I see an existence, before which the duration of the world and the out- ward heavens is a span. I say that I see it. I am not surrendering myself to imagination ; I have a consciousness of truth, or rather a consciousness of fall- ing beneath the truth. I feel, then, my itieompetency to be just to this subject. But we must do what we can. No testi- mony, however feeble, if Hfted up in sincerity in behalf of great principles, Is ever lost. Through weak man, if sancti- fied by a simple, humble love of truth, a higher Power than man's is pleased to work. May that Power overshadow us, and work within us, and open every soul to truth ! To awaken a spiritual interest in the poor, this is my object. I wish not to diminish your sympathy with their out- ward condition ; I would increase it But tlieir physical sufferings are not their chief evils. The great calamity of the poor is not their poverty, understand- ing this word in the usual sense, but the tendency of their privations, and of their social rank , to degradation of mind. Give them the Christian spirit, and their lot would not be intolerable. Remove from them the misery which they bring on themselves by evil-doing, and separate from their inevitable sufferings the ag- gravations which come from crime, and their burden would be light compared with what now oppresses them. The outward condition of the poor is a hard one. I mean not to criticise it with the apathy of the stoic, to deny that pain is an evil, privation a loss of good. But when I compare together different classes as existing at this mo- ment in the civilized world, I cannot think the difference between the rich and the poor, in regard to mere physical suffering, so great as is sometimes im- agined. That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubt- edly true ; but vastly more in this com- munity die from eating too much than from eating too little ; vastly more from excess than starvation. So as to cloth- ing, many shiver from want of defences against the cold ; but there is vastly more suffering among the rich from ab- surd and criminal modes of dress, which fashion has sanctioned, than among the poor from deficiency of raiment. Our 74 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. daughters are oftener brought to the grave by their rich attire than our beg- gars by their nalcedness. So the poor are often overworked; but tliey suffer less than many among the rich who have no worlc to do, no interesting object to fill up hfe, to satisfy the infinite cravings of man for action. According to our present modes of education, how many of our daughters are victims of ennui, a misery unknown to the poor, and more intolerable than the weariness of exces- sive toil ! The idle young man spend- ing the day in exhibiting his person in the sti'eet ought not to excite the envy of the overtasked poor ; and this cum- berer of the ground is found exclusively among the rich. I repeat it, the condition of the poor deserves sympathy ; but let us not, by exaggeration of its pains, turn away our minds from the great inward sources of their misery. In this city, the condition of a majority of the indigent is such as would be thought eligible elsewhere. Insure to a European peasant an abun- dance of wheaten bread through every season of the year, and he would bless his easy lot. Among us, many a poor family, if doomed to live on bread, would murmur at its hard fare ; and accord- ingly the table of the indigent is daily spread with condiments and viands hardly known in the cottage of the trans- atlantic laborer. The Greenlander and Laplander, dwelling in huts, and living on food compared with which the accom- modations of our poor are abundant, are more than content. They would not ex- change their wastes for our richest soils and proudest cities. It is not, then, the physical suffering of the poor, but their relation to the rest of society, — the want of means of inward life, the degrading influences of their position, — to which their chief misery is to be traced. Let not the condition of the poor be spoken of as necessarily wretched. Give them the Christian spirit, and they would find in their lot the chief elements of good. For example, the domestic affec- tions may and do grow up among the poor, and these are to all of us the chief springs of earthly happiness. And it deserves consideration that the poor have their advantages as well as disad- vantages in respect to domestic ties. Their narrow condition obliges them to do more for oile another than is done among the rich ; and this necessity, as is well known, sometimes gives a vigor and tenderness to the love of parents and children, brothers and sisters, not always found in the luxurious classes, where wealth destroys this mutual de- pendence, this need of mutual help. Nor let it be said that the poor cannot enjoy domestic happiness for want of the means of educating their children. A sound moral judgment is of more value in edu- cation than all wealth and all talent. For want of this, the children of men of genius and opulence are often the worst trained in the community ; and if, by our labors, we can communicate this moral soundness to the poor, we shall open among them the fountain of the only pure domestic felicity. In this country, the poor might enjoy the most important advantages of the rich had they the moral and religious cultivation consistent with their lot. Books find their way into every house, however mean ; and especially that book which contains more nutriment for the intellect, imagination, and heart, than aU others, — I mean, of course, the Bible. And I am confident that among the poor are those who find in that one book more enjoyment, more awakening truth, more lofty and beautiful imagery, more culture to the whole soul, than thousands of the educated find in their general . studies, and vastly more than millions among the rich find in that superficial, transitory literature which consumes all their reading hours. Even the pleasures of a refined taste are not denied to the poor, but might easily be opened to them by a wise moral culture. True, their rooms are not lined with works of art ; but the living beauty of nature opens on the eyes of all her children ; and we know, from the history of self-educated genius, that^ sometimes the inhabitant of a hovel, looking out on the serene sky, the illumined cloud, the setting sun, has re- ceived into his rapt spirit impressions of divine majesty and loveliness, to which the burning words of poetry give but faint utterance. True, the rich may visit distant scenery, and feed their eyes on the rarest and most stupendous mani- festations of creative power ; but the earth and common sky reveal, in some of their changeful aspects, a grandeur as awful as Niagara or the Andes ; and nothing MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. is wanting to the poor man in his ordi- nary wallcs but a more spiritual eye to discern a beauty which has never yet been embodied in the most inspired worlcs of sculpture or painting. Thus for the poor, as for all men, there are provisions for happiness ; and it deserves remark that their happiness has a peculiar dignity. It is more hon- orable to be content with few outward means than with many ; to be cheerful amidst privation than amidst overflowing plenty. A poor man, living on bread and water, because he will not ask for more than bare sustenance requires, and leading a quiet, cheerful life through his benevolent sympathies, his joy in duty, his trust in God, is one of the true he- roes of the race, and understands better the meaning of happiness than we, who cannot be at ease unless we clothe our- selves " in purple, and fare sumptuously every day," — unless we surround, de- fend, and adorn ourselves with all the products of nature and art. His scanti- ness of outward means is a sign of in- ward fulness, whilst the slavery in which most of us live to luxuries and accom- modations shows the poverty within. I have given the fair side of the poor man's lot. I have shown the advantages placed within his reach ; but I do not therefore call him happy. His advan- tages are too commonly lost for want of inward culture. The poor are generally wretched, with many means of good. Think not that I mean to throw one false color on their actual state. It is miserable enough to awaken deep sym- pathy ; but their misery springs not so much from physical causes, which cannot be withstood, as from moral want. The moral influences of their condition, of their rank in society, of their connection with other classes, — these are more terrible than hunger or cold, and to these I desire to turn your chief regard. What, then, are the moral influences of poverty, its influences on character, which deserve our chief attention ? As one of its most fatal effects, I would observe, in the first place, that it im- pairs, often destroys, self-respect. I know, and rejoice to know, that the in- stitutions of this country do much to counteract this influence of poverty ; but still it exists and works frequent debase- ment. It is hard for any of us to inter- pret justly our own nature, and how peculiarly hard for the poor ! Unin- structed in the import and dignity of their rational and moral powers, they naturally measure themselves by their outward rank. Living amidst the wor- shippers of wealth, they naturally feel as if degraded by the want of it. They read in the looks, tones, and manners of the world the evidences of being re- garded as an inferior race, and want inward force to repel this cruel, dis- heartening falsehood. They hear the word respectable confined to other con- ditions, and the word low applied to their own. Now, habitual subjection to slight or contempt is crushing to the spirit. It is exceedingly hard for a hu- man being to comprehend and appre- ciate himself amidst outward humiliation. There is no greater man than he who is true to himself when all around deny and forsake him. Can we wonder that the poor, thus abandoned, should iden- tify themselves with their lot, — that in their rags they should see the sign of inward as well as outward degrada- tion ? Another cause which blights their seK- respect is their dependence for pecu- niary aid. It is hard to ask alms and retain an erect mind. Dependence breeds servility, and he who has stooped to another cannot be just to himself. The want of self-respect is a preparation for every evil. Degraded in their own and others' esteem, the poor are removed from the salutary re- straint of opinion ; and, having no caste to lose, no honor to forfeit, often aban- don themselves recklessly to the gross- est vice. 2. The condition of the poor is un- friendly to the action and unfolding of the intellect, — a sore calamity to a ra- tional being. In most men, indeed, the intellect is narrowed by exclusive cares for the body. In most, the conscious- ness of its excellence is crushed by the low uses to which it is perpetually doomed. But still, in most, a degree of activity is given to the mind by the vari- ety and extent of their plans for wealth or subsistence. The bodily wants of most carry them in a measure into the future, engage them in enterprises re- quiring invention, sagacity, and skill. It is the unhappiness of the poor that they are absorbed in immediate wants, 76 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. in provisions for the passing day, in ob- taining the next meal, or in throwing off a present burden. Accordingly their faculties "live and move," or rather pine and perish, in the present moment. Hope and imagination, the wings of the soul, carrpng it forward and upward, languish in the poor ; for the future is uninviting. The darkness of the pres- ent broods over coming years. The great idea which stirs up in other men a world of thought, the idea of a better lot, has almost faded from the poor man's mind. He almost ceases to hope for his children, as well as for himself. Even parental love, to many the chief quickener of the intellect, stagnates through despair. Thus poverty starves the mind. And there is another way in which it produces this effect, particularly worthy the notice of this assembly. The poor have no society beyond their own class, — that is^ beyond those who are con- fined to their own narrow field of thought. We all know that it is contact with other minds, and especially with the more active and soaring, from which the in- tellect receives its chief impulse. Few of us could escape the paralyzing in- fluence of perpetual intercourse with the uncultivated, sluggish, and narrow- minded ; and here we see — what I wish particularly to bring to view — how the poor suffer from the boasted civilization of our times, which is built so much on the idea of property. In communities little advanced in opulence, no impassa- ble barrier separates different classes, as among ourselves. The least improved are not thrown to a distance from those who, through natural endowment or pe- culiar excitement, think more strongly than the rest ; and why should such di- vision exist anywhere ? How cruel and unchristian are the pride and prejudice which form the enlightened into a caste, and leave the ignorant and depressed to strengthen and propagate ignorance and error without end ! 3. I proceed to another evil of pov- erty, — its disastrous influence on the domestic affections. Kindle these affec- tions in the poor man's hut, and you give him the elements of the best earthly happiness. But the more delicate sen- timents find much to chill them in the abodes of indigence. A family crowded into a single and often narrow apart- ment, which must answer at once the ends of parlor, kitchen, bed-room, nur- sery, and hospital, must, without great energy and self-respect, want neatness, order, and comfort. Its members are perpetually exposed to annoying, petty- interference. The decencies of life can be with difficulty observed. Woman, a drudge, and in dirt, loses her attractions. The young grow up without the modest reserve and delicacy of feeling in which purity finds so much of its defence. Coarseness of manners and language, too sure a consequence of a mode of life which allows no seclusion, becomes the habit almost of childhood, and hardens the mind for vicious intercourse in fut- ure years. The want of a neat, orderly home is among, the chief evils of the poor. Crowded in filth, they cease to respect one another. The social affec- tions wither amidst perpetual noise, confusion, and clashing interests. In these respects, the poor of ten fare worse than the uncivilized. True, the latter has a ruder hut, but his habits and tastes lead him to live abroad. Around him is a boundless, unoccupied nature, where he ranges at will, and gratifies his pas- sion for liberty. Hardened from in- fancy against the elements, he lives in the bright light and pure air of heaven. In the city, the poor man must choose between his close room and the narrow street. The appropriation of almost every spot on earth to private use, and the habits of society, do not allow him to gather his family, or meet his tribe, un- der a spreading tree. He has a home, without the comforts of home. He can- not cheer it by inviting his neighbors to share his repast. He has few topics of conversation with his wife and children, except their common wants. Of conse- quence, sensual pleasures are the only means of ministering to that craving for enjoyment which can never be destroyed in human nature. These pleasures, in other dwellings, are more or less refined by taste. The table is spread with neat- ness and order ; and a decency pervades the meal, which shows that man is more than a creature of sense. The poor man's table, strewed with broken food, and seldom approached with courtesy and self-respect, serves too often to nourish only a selfish, animal life, and to bring the partakers of it still nearer to the brute. I speak not of what is nee- MINISTRY FOR' THE POOR. 77 essary and universal ; for poverty, under sanctifying influences, may find a heaven in its narrow home ; but I speak of ten- dencies which are strong, and which only a strong religious influence can over- come. 4. I proceed to another unhappy in- fluence exerted on the poor. They live in the sight and in the midst of innu- merable indulgences and gratifications which are placed beyond their reach. Their connection with the affluent, though not close enough for spiritual communication, is near enough to in- flame appetites, desires, wants, which cannot be satisfied. From their cheer- less rooms they look out on the abodes of luxury. At their cold, coarse meal, they hear the equipage conveying others to tables groaning under plenty, crowned with sparkling wines, and fragrant with the delicacies of every clime. Fainting with toil, they meet others unburdened, as they think, with a labor or a care. They feel that all life's prizes have fallen to others. Hence burning desire. Hence brooding discontent. Hence envy and hatred. Hence crime, justified in a measure to their own minds, by what seem to them the unjust and cruel in- equalities of social life. Here are some of the miseries of civilization. The un- civilized man is not exasperated by the presence of conditions happier than his own. There is no .disproportion between his idea of happiness and his lot. Among the poor the disproportion is infinite. You all understand how much we judge our lot by comparison. Thus the very edifices, which a century ago seemed to our fathers luxurious, seem now to multitudes hardly comfortable, because surrounded by more commodious and beautiful dwellings. We little think of the gloom added to the poor by the con- tiguity of the rich. They are preyed on by artificial wants, which can only be Gratified by crime. They are surrounded y enjoyments, which fraud or violence can make their own. Unhappily the prevalent — I had almost said the whole — spirit of the rich increases these temp- tations of the poor. Very seldom does a distinct, authentic voice of wisdom come to them from the high places of society, telling them that riches are not happiness, and that a felicity which riches cannot buy is within reach of all. Wealth-worship is the spirit of the pros- perous, and this is the strongest possible inculcation of discontent and crime on the poor. The rich satisfy themselves with giving alms to the needy. They think little of more fatal gifts, which they perpetually bestow. They think little that their spirit and lives, their self- indulgence and earthliness, their idolatry of outward prosperity, and their con- tempt of inferior conditions, are perpet- ually teaching the destitute that there is but one good on earth, namely, property, — the very good in which the poor have no share. They little think that by these influences they do much to inflame, em- bitter, and degrade the minds of the poor, to fasten them to the earth, to cut off their communication with Heaven. 5. I pass to another sore trial of the poor. Whilst their condition, as we have seen, denies them many gratifica- tions which on every side meet their view and inflame desire, it places within their reach many debasing gratifi- cations. Human nature has a strong .thirst for pleasures which excite it above its ordinary tone, which relieve the mo- notony of life. This drives the prosper- ous from their pleasant homes to scenes of novelty and stirring amusement. How strongly must it act on those who are weighed down by anxieties and priva- tions ! How intensely must the poor desire to forget for a time the wearing realities of life ! And what means of escape does society afford or allow, them .'' What present do civilization and science make to the poor ? Strong drink, ardent spirits, liquid poison, liquid fire, a type of the fire of hell ! In every poor man's neighborhood flows a Lethean stream, which laps him for a while in oblivion of all his humiliations and sorrows ! The power of this temptation can be little understood by those of us whose thirst for pleasure is regularly supplied by a succession of innocent pleasures, who meet soothing and exciting objects wher- ever we turn. The uneducated poor, without resource in books, in their fam- ines, in a well-spread board, in cheer- ful apartments, in places of fashionable resort, and pressed down by disappoint- ment, debt, despondence, and exhausting toils, are driven, by an impulse dread- fully strong, to the haunts of intemper- ance ; and there they plunge into a misery sorer than all the tortures in- vented by man. They quench the light 78 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. of reason, cast off the characteristics of humanity, blot out God's image as far as they have power, and take their place among the brutes. Terrible misery ! And this, I beg you to remember, comes to them from the very civilization in which they live. They are victims to the progress of science and the arts; for these multiply the poison which destroys them. They are victims to the rich ; for it is the capital of the rich which erects the distillery, and surrounds them with temptations to self-murder. They are victims to a partial advancement of so- ciety, which multiplies gratifications and allurements, without awakening propor- tionate moral power to withstand them. Such are the evils of poverty. It is a condition which offers many and pe- culiar obstructions to the development of intellect and affection, of self-respect and self-control. The poor are pecul- iarly exposed to discouraging views of themselves, of human nature, of human life. The consciousness of their own intellectual and moral power slumbers. . Their faith in God's goodness, in virtue, in immortality, is obscured by the dark- ness of their present lot. Ignorant, de- sponding, and sorely tempted, have they not solemn claims on their more privi- leged brethren for aids which they have never yet received ? I have thus shown, as I proposed, that the chief evils of poverty are moral in their origin and character ; and for these I would awaken your concern. With physical sufferings we sympathize. When shall the greater misery move our hearts ? Is there nothing to startle us in the fact that in every large city dwells a multitude of human beings, falling or fallen into extreme moral degradation, living in dark, filthy houses, or in damp, unventilated cellars, where the eye lights on no beauty and the ear is continually wounded with discord, where the out- ward gloom is a type of the darkened mind, where the name of God is heard only when profaned, where charity is known only as a resource for sloth, where the child is trained amidst coarse manners, impure words, and the fumes of intemperance, and is thence sent forth to prowl as a beggar ? From these abodes issues a louder, more piercing cry for help and strength than physical want ever uttered. I do not mean that all the poor are such as I have described. Far from it. Among them are the ■' salt of the earth," the "hghts of the world," the elect of God. There is no neces- sary connection of poverty and crime. Christianity knows no distinction of rank, and has proved itself equal to the wants of all conditions of men. Still poverty has tendencies to the moral degradation which I have described ; and to counter- act these should be esteemed one of the most solemn duties and precious priv- ileges bequeathed by Christ to his fol- lowers. From the views now given of the chief evils of poverty, it follows that moral and religious culture is the great blessing to be bestowed on the poor. By this it is not intended that their physical condition demands no aid. Let charity minister to their pressing wants and sufferings. But let us bear it in mind that no charity produces per- manent good but that which goes be- neath the body, which reaches the mind, which touches the inward springs of im- provement, and awakens some strength of purpose, some pious or generous emotion, some self-respect. That char- ity is most useful which removes ob- structions to well-doing and temptations to evil from the way of the poor, and encourages them to strive for their own true good. Something, indeed, may be done for the moral benefit of the in- digent by wise legislation ; I do not mean by poor-laws, but by enactments intended to remove, as far as possible, degrading circumstances from their con- dition. For example, the laws should prohibit the letting of an apartment to a poor family which is not tenantable, which cannot but injure health, which cannot be ventilated, which wants the necessary means of preventing accumu- lations of filth. Such ordinances, con- nected with provisions for cleansing every alley, and for carrying pure, wholesome water in abundance to every dwelling, would do not a Uttle for the health, cleanliness, and self-respect of the poor ; and on these their moral well-being in no small degree depends. Our chief reliance, however, must be placed on more direct and powerful means than legislation. The poor need and must receive moral and religious culture, such as they have never yet enjoyed. I say culture ; and I select this term because it expresses the de- MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 79 velopment of inward principles ; and without this, nothing effectual can be done for rich or poor. Unhappily, re- ligion has been, for the most part, taught to the poor mechanically, super- ficially, as a tradition. It has been imposed on them as a restraint, or a form ; it has been addressed to the senses, or to the sensual imagination, and not to the higher principles. An outward hell, or an outward heaven, has too often been the highest motive brought to bear on their minds. But something more is wanted ; a deeper work, an inward culture, the develop- ment of the reason, the conscience, the affections, and the moral will. True religion is a Ufe unfolded within, not something forced on us from abroad. The poor man needs an elevating power within to resist the depressing tenden- cies of his outward lot. Spiritual cult- ure is the only effectual service we can send him, and let his misery plead with us to bestow it to the extent of our power. Had I time, I might show that moral and religious principles, as far as they are strengthened in the breasts of the poor, meet all the wants and evils which have now been portrayed ; that they give them force to bear up against all the adverse circumstances of their lot, inspire them with self-respect, refine their manners, give impulse to their in- tellectual powers, open to them the springs of domestic peace, teach them to see without murmuring the superior enjoyments of others, and rescue them from the excesses into which multitudes are driven by destitution and despair. But these topics are not only too exten- sive, but are to a degree famihar, though by no means felt as they should be. I conceive that I shall better answer the purpose of awakening a spiritual inter- est in this class of society, by confining myself to a single point, by showing that the moral and religious culture which I claim for the poor is the high- est cultivation which a human being can receive. We are all of us, I fear, blinded on this subject by the errors and prejudices of our own education. We are apt to imagine that the only im- portant culture of a human being comes from libraries, literary institutions, and elegant accomplishments ; that is, from means beyond the reach of the poor. Advantages offered by wealth seem to us the great and essential means of bringing forward the human mind. Per- haps we smile at hearing the word cul- tivation applied to the poor. The best light which their condition admits seems darkness compared with the knowledge imparted by our seminaries of learning ; and the highest activity of mind to which they can be excited is scornfully contrasted with what is called forth in their superiors by works of philosophy and genius. There is, among not a few, a contemptuous estimate of the culture which may be extended to the poor, of the good which they are capa- ble of receiving ; and hence much of the prevalent indifference as to furnish- ing them the means of spiritual growth. Now this is a weak and degrading prej- udice. I affirm that the highest culture is open alike to rich and poor. I affirm that the rich may extend their most precious acquisitions to the poor. There is nothing in indigence to exclude the noblest improvements. The impartial Father designs his best gifts for all. Exclusive good, or that which only a few can enjoy, is comparatively worth- less. Essential good is the most freely diffused. It is time to put away our childish notions as to human improve- ment ; it is time to learn that advan- tages which are a monopoly of the few are not necessary to the development of human nature, that the soul grows best by helps which are accessible to all. The truth is, that there is no cultiva- tion of the human being, worthy of the name, but that which begins and ends with the moral and religious nature. No other teaching can make a man. We are striving, indeed, to develop the soul almost exclusively by intellectual stimulants and nutriment, by schools and colleges, by accomplishments and fine arts. We are hoping to form men and women by literature and science ; but all in vain. We shall learn in time that moral and religious culture is the foundation and strength of all true cul- tivation ; that we are .deforming human nature by the means relied on for its growth, and that the poor who receive a care which awakens their consciences and moral sentiments, start under hap- pier auspices than the prosperous, who place supreme dependence on the edu- cation of the intellect and the taste. 8o MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. It is common to measure the cultiva- tion of men by their knowledge ; and this is certainly an important element and means of improvement. But knowl- edge is various, differing in different men according to the objects which most engage their minds ; and by these objects its worth must be judged. It is not the extent but the kind of knowl- edge which determines the measure of cultivation. In truth, 'it is foolish to talk of any knowledge as extensive. The most eminent philosopher is of yesterday, and knows nothing. New- ton felt that he had gathered but a few pebbles on the shores of a boundless ocean. The moment we attempt to penetrate a subject, we learn that it has unfathomable depths. The known is a sign of the infinite unknown. Every discovery conducts us to an abyss of darkness. In every thing, from the grain of sand to the stars, the wise man finds mysteries, before which his knowl- edge shrinks into nothingness. It is the kind not the extent of knowledge by which the advancement of a human being must be measured ; and that kind which alone exalts a man is placed within the reach of all. Moral and re- ligious truth, this is the treasure of the intellect, and all are poor without it. This transcends physical truth as far as mind transcends matter, or as heaven is lifted above earth. Indeed, physical science parts with its chief dignity when separated from morals, — when it is not used to shadow forth, confirm, and illustrate spiritual truth. The true cultivation of a human being consists in the development of great moral ideas ; that is, the ideas of God, of duty, of right, of justice, of love, of self-sacrifice, of moral perfection as manifested in Christ, of happiness, of immortality, of Heaven. The elements or germs of these ideas belong to every soul, constitute its essence, and are in- tended for endless expansion. These are the chief distinctions of our nature ; they constitute our humanity. To un- fold these is the great work of our being. The light in which these ideas rise on the mind, the love which they awaken, and the force of will with which they are brought to sway the out- ward and inward life, — here, and here only, are the measures of human culti- vation. These views show us that the highest culture is within the reach of the poor. It is not knowledge poured on us from abroad, but the development of the ele- mentary principles of the soul itself, which constitutes the true growth of a human being. Undoubtedly knowledge from abroad is essential to the awaken- ing 04 these principles. But that which conduces most to this end is offered alike to rich and poor. Society and experience, nature and revelation, our chief moral and religious teachers, and the great quickeners of the soul, do not open their schools to a few favorites, do not initiate a small caste into their mysteries, but are ordained by God to be lights and blessings to all. The highest culture, I repeat it, is in reach of the poor, and is sometimes at- tained by them. Without science, they are often wiser than the philosopher. The astronomer disdains them, but they look above his stars. The geologist disdains them, but they look deeper than the earth's centre ; they pene- trate their own souls, and find there mightier, diviner elements than up- heaved continents attest. In other words, the great ideas of which I have spoken may be, and often are, unfolded more in the poor man than among the learned or renowned ; and in this case the poor man is the most cultivated. For example, take the idea of justice. Suppose a man, eminent for acquisi- tions of knowledge, but in whom this idea is but faintly developed. By jus- tice he understands little more than re- spect for the rights of property. That it means respect for all the rights, and es- pecially for the moral claims, of every human being, of the lowest as well as the most exalted, has perhaps never en- tered his mind, much less been ex- panded and invigorated into a broad, living conviction. Take now the case of a poor man. to whom, under Christ's teaching, the idea of the Just has be- come real, clear, bright, and strong ; who recognizes, to its full extent, the right of property, though it operates against himself ; but who does not stop here ; who comprehends the higher rights of men as rational and moral beings, their right to exercise and un- fold all their powers, their right to the means of improvement, their right to search for truth and to utter their hen- MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 81 est convictions, their right to consult first the monitor in their own breasts, and to follow wherever it leads, their right to be esteemed and honored ac- cording to their moral efforts, their right, when injured, to sympathy and suc- cor against every oppressor. Suppose, I say, the poor man to rise to the com- prehension of this enlarged justice, to revere it, to enthrone it over his actions, to render to every human being, friend or foe, near or far off, whatever is his due, to abstain conscientiously, not only from injurious deeds, but from injuri- ous thoughts, judgments, feelings, and words. Is he not a more cultivated man, and has he not a deeper founda- tion and surer promise of truth, than the student, who, with much outward knowledge, does not comprehend men's highest rights, whose scientific labors are perhaps degraded by injustice tow- ards his rivals, who, had he the power, would fetter every intellect which threat- ens to outstrip his own ? The great idea on which human culti- vation especially depends is that of God. This is the concentration of all that is beautiful, glorious, holy, blessed. It transcends immeasurably in worth and dignity all the science treasured up in cyclopaedias or libraries ; and this may be unfolded in the poor as truly as in the rich. It is not an idea to be elabo- rated by studies, which can be pursued only in leisure or by opulence. Its ele- ments belong to every soul, and are es- pecially to be found in our moral nature, in the idea of duty, in the feeling of rev- erence, in the approving sentence which we pass on virtue, in our disinterested affections, and in the wants and aspira- tions which carry us towards the Infi- nite. There is but one way of unfolding these germs of the idea of God, and that is, faithfulness to the best convictions of duty and of the Divine Will which we have hitherto gained. God is to be known by obedience, by likeness, by sympathy ; that is, by moral means, which are open ahke to rich and poor. Many a man of science has not known Him. The pride of science, like a thick cloud, has hidden from the philosopher the Spiritual Sun, the only true light, and for want of this quickening ray he has fallen in culture far, very far, below the poor. These remarks have been drawn from me by the proneness of our times to place human culture in physical knowl- edge, and especially in degrees of it denied to the mass of the people. To this knowledge 1 would on no account deny great value. In its place, it is an important means of human improve- ment. I look with admiration on the intellectual force which combines and masters scattered facts, and by analy- sis and comparison ascends to the gen- eral laws of the material universe. But the philosopher who does not see in the force within him something nobler than the outward nature which he ana- lyzes, who, in tracing mechanical and chemical agencies, is unconscious of a higher action in his own soul, who is not led by all finite powers to the Om- nipotent, and who does not catch, in the order and beauty of the universe, some glimpses of spiritual perfection, stops at the very threshold of the tem- ple of truth. Miserably narrow is the culture which confines the soul to mat- ter, which turns it to the outward as to something nobler than itself. I fear the spirit of science at the present day is too often a degradation rather than the true culture of the soul. It is the bow- ing down of the heaven-born spirit be- fore unthinking mechanism. It seeks knowledge rather for animal, transitory purposes, than for the nutriment of the imperishable inward life ; and yet the worshippers of science pity or contemn the poor, because denied this means of cultivation. UnhapjDy poor ! shut out from libraries, laboratories, and learned institutes ! In view of this world's wis- dom, it avails you nothing that your own nature, manifested in your own and other souls, that God's word and works, that the ocean, earth, and sky, are laid open to you ; that you may ac- quaint yourselves with the Divine Per- fections, with the character of Christ, with the duties of life, with the virtues, the generous sacrifices, and the beautiful and holy emotions, which are a revela- tion and pledge of heaven. All these are nothing, do not lift you to the rank of cultivated men, because the mysteries of the telescope and microscope, of the air-pump and crucible, are not revealed to you ! I would they were revealed to you. I believe the time is coming when Christian benevolence will delight in spreading all truth and all refinements 82 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. through all ranks of society. But mean- while be not discouraged. One ray of moral and religious truth is worth all the wisdom of the schools. One lesson from Christ wiU carry you higher than years of study under those who are too en- lightened to follow this celestial guide. My hearers, do not contemn the poor man for his ignorance. Has he seen the right ? Has he felt the binding force of the everlasting moral law t Has the beauty of virtue, in any of its forms, been revealed to him ? Then he has entered the highest school of wis- dom. Then a light has dawned within him worth all the physical knowledge of all worlds. It almost moves me to indignation when I hear the student exalting his science, which at every step meets impenetrable darkness, above the idea ©f duty and above veneration for goodness and God. It is true, and ought to be understood, that outward nature, however tortured, probed, dis- sected, never reveals truths so sublime or precious as are wrapped up in the consciousness of the meanest individual, and laid open to every eye in the word of Christ. I trust it will not be inferred from what I have said of the superiority of moral and religious culture to physical science, that the former requires or in- duces a neglect or disparagement of the latter. No ; it is the friend of all truth, the enemy of none. It is propitious to intellect, and incites to the investigation of the laws and order of the universe. This view deserves a brief illustration, because an opposite opinion has some- times prevailed, because reproach has sometimes been thrown on religious cult- ure, as if it narrowed the mind and barred it against the lights of physical science. There cannot be a more groundless charge. Superstition con- tracts and darkens the mind ; but that living faith in moral and religious truth, for which I contend as the highest cult- ure of rich and poor, is in no respect narrow or exclusive. It does not fasten the mind for ever on a few barren doc- trines. In proportion to its growth, it cherishes our whole nature, gives a wide range to thought, opens the intellect to the true, and the imagination to the beautiful. The great principles of moral and religious science are, above all others, fruitful, life-giving, and have in- timate connections with all other truth. The love towards God and man, which is the centre in which they meet, is the very spirit of research into nature. It finds perpetual delight in tracing out the harmonies and vast and beneficent ar- rangements of creation, and inspires an interest in the works of the universal Father, more profound, intense, endur- ing, than philosophical curiosity. I con- ceive, too, that faith in moral and religious truth has strong afl5nities with the scientific spirit, and thus contributes to its perfection. Both, for example, have the same objects, — that is, uni- versal truths. As another coincidence, I would observe that it is the highest prerogative of scientific genius to inter- pret obscure signs, to dart from faint hints to sublime discoveries, to read in a few fragments the history of vanished worlds and ages, to detect in the falling apple the law which rules the spheres. Now it is the property of moral and religious faith to see in the finite the manifestation of the Infinite, in the present the germ of the boundless future, in the visible the traces of the Incomprehensible Unseen, in the powers and wants of the soul its imperishable destiny. Such is the harmony between the rehgious and the philosophical spirit. It is to a higher moral and re- ligious culture that I look for a higher interpretation of nature. The laws of nature, we must remember, had their origin in the mind of God. Of this they are the product, expression, and type ; and I cannot but believe that the human mind which best understands, and which partakes most largely of the divine, has a power of interpreting nature which is accorded to no other. It has har- monies with the system which it is to unfold. It contains in itself the princi- ples which gave birth to creation. As yet, science has hardly penetrated beneath the surface of nature. The principles of animal and vegetable life, of which all organized beings around us are but varied modifications, the forces which pervade or constitute matter, and the links between matter and mind, are as yet wrapped in darkness ; and how little is known of the adaptations of the phys- ical and the spiritual world to one another ! Whence is light to break in on these depths of creative wisdom ? I look for it to the spirit of philosophy, MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 83 oaptized, hallowed, exalted, made pierc- ing by a new culture of the moral and religious principles of the human soul. The topic opens before me as I advance. The superiority of moral and religious to all other culture is confirmed by a throng of arguments not yet touched. The peculiar wisdom which this culture gives, by revealing to us the end, the ultimate good of our being, which nothing else teaches ; the peculiar power which it gives, power over ourselves, so superior to the most extensive sway over the outward universe ; the neces- sity of moral and religious culture to make knowledge a blessing, to save it from being a curse ; these are weighty considerations which press on my mind, but cannot be urged. They all go to show that the culture which the poor may receive is worth all others ; that in sending among them religious and moral influences, you send the highest good of the universe. My friends, I have now set before you the chief evils of the poor, and have shown you the greatness and dignity of the culture which is within their reach ; and the great conviction which 1 wish by these views to carry home to every mind is, that we are solemnly bound to cherish and manifest a strong moral and religious interest in the poor, and to give them, as far as we have power, the means of moral and religious cultivation. Your sym- pathies with their bodily wants and pains I, of course, would not weaken. We must not neglect their bodies under pretence of caring for their souls ; nor must we, on the other hand, imagine that, in providing for their outward wants, we have acquitted ourselves of all Christian obligations. To scatter from our abundance occasional alms is not enough ; we must bring them to our minds as susceptible of deeper evils than hunger and cold, and as formed for higher good than food or the cheering flame. The love of Christ towards them should seem to us no extravagance, no blind enthusiasm, but a love due to human nature in all its forms. To look beyond the outward to the spiritual in man is the great distinction of Christian love. The soul of a fellow-creature must come out, if I may so say, and be- come more visible and prominent to us than his bodily frame. To see and esti- mate the spiritual nature of the poor is greater wisdom than to span earth or heaven. To elevate this is a greater work than to build cities. To give moral life to the fallen is a higher achievement than to raise the dead from their graves. Such is the philanthropy which char- acterizes our religion ; and without this we can do little effectual good to the poor. I am here teaching a difficult but great duty. To acquire and maintain an un- affected conviction of the superiority of the spiritual in man to every thing out- ward, is a hard task, especially to the prosperous, and yet among the most essential. In the poor man, walking through our streets with a haggard countenance and tottering step, we ought to see something greater than all the opulence and splendor which sur- round him. On this foundation of re- spect for every soul are built all social duties, and none can be thoroughly per- formed without it. On this point 1 feel that I use no swollen language. Words cannot exaggerate the worth of the soul. We have all felt, when looking above us into the atmosphere, that there was an infinity of space which we could not ex- plore. When I look into man's spirit, and see there the germs of an immortal life, I feel more deeply that an infinity lies hid beyond what 1 see. In the idea of duty, which springs up in every hu- man heart, I discern a law more sacred and boundless than gravitation, which binds the soul to a more glorious uni- verse than that to which attraction binds the body, and which is to endure though the laws of physical nature pass away. Every moral sentiment, every intellect- ual action, is to me a hint, a prophetic sign, of a spiritual power to be expanded for ever, just as a faint ray from a dis- tant star is significant of unimaginable splendor. And if this be true, is not a human being wronged, greatly wronged, who awakens in his fellow-creatures no moral concern, who receives from them no spiritual care .' It is the boast of our country that the civil and poHtical rights of every human being are secured, — that impartial law watches alike over rich and poor. But man has other, and more important, than civil rights ; and this is especially true of the poor. To him who owns nothing, what avails it that he lives in a country 84 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. where property is inviolable ; or what mighty boon is it to him, that every citi- zen is eligible to office, when his condi- tion is an insuperable bar to promotion ? To the poor, as to all men, moral rights are most important ; the right to be re- garded according to their nature, to be regarded, not as animals or material in- struments, but as men ; the right to be esteemed and honored, according to their fidelity to the moral law ; and their right to whatever aids their fellow-beings can offer for their improvement, for the growth of their highest powers. These rights are founded on the supremacy of the moral nature, and until they are rec- ognized the poor are deeply wronged. Our whole connection with the poor should tend to awaken in them the con- sciousness of their moral powers and responsibility, and to raise them in spirit and hope above their lot. They should be aided to know themselves, by the es- timate we form of them. They should be rescued from self-contempt, by seeing others impressed with the great purpose of their being. We may call the poor unfortunate, but never call them low. If faithful to their light, they stand among the high. They have no superiors, but in those who follow a brighter, purer light ; and to withhold from them re- spect, is to defraud their virtue of a support which is among the most sacred rights of man. Are they morally fallen and lost? They should still learn, in our unaffected concern, the worth of the fallen soul, and learn that nothing seems to us so fearful as its degradation. This moral, spiritual interest in the poor, we should express and make effect- ual, by approaching them, by establish- ing an intercourse with them, as far as consists with other duties. We must live with them, not as another race, but as brethren. Our Christian principles must work a new miracle, must exorcise and «xpel the spirit of caste. The out- ward distinctions of life must seem to us not ''a great gulf," but superficial lines, which the chances of a day may blot out, and which are broad only to the narrow-minded. How can the educated and improved communicate themselves to their less favored fellow-creatures but by coming near them ? The strength, happiness, and true civilization of a com- munity are determined by nothing more tnan by this fraternal union among all conditions of men. Without this, a civil war virtually rages in a state. For the sake of rich as well as poor, there should be a mutual interest binding them to- gether ; there should be but one caste, that of humanity. To render this connection interesting and useful, we must value and cultivate the power of acting morally on the poor. There is no art so divine as that of reaching and quickening other minds. Do not tell me you are unequal to this task. What ! call yourselves educated, and yet want power to approach and aid your unimproved fellow-creatures ! Of what use is education, if it do not fit us to receive and give freely in our various social connections ? How wasted has been our youth, if it has taught us only the dialect and manners of a select class, and not taught us the language of hu- manity, not taught us to mix with and act on the mass of our fellow-creatures ! How far are you raised above the poor, if you cannot comprehend, guide, or sway them ? The chief endowment of a social being — I mean the power of imparting what is true and good in your own souls — you have yet to learn. You cannot learn it too soon. Yes, I call you to seek and use the power of speaking to the minds of the ig- norant and poor, and especially of the poor child. Strive, each of you, to bring at least one human being to the happi- ness for which God made him. Awaken him to some inward moral activity ; for on this, not on mere outward teaching, the improvement of rich and poor alike depends. Strive to raise him above the crushing necessities of the body, by turning him to the great, kindhng pur- pose of his being. Show him that the fountain of all happiness is within us, and that this fountain may be opened alike in every soul. Show him how much virtue and peace he may gain by fidelity to his domestic relations ; how much progress he may make by devout and resolute use of his best opportuni- ties ; what a near union he may fornj with God ; how beneficent an influence he may exert in his narrow sphere; what heroism may be exercised amidst privations and pains ; how suffering may be turned to glory ; how heaven may begin in the most unprosperous condi- tion on earth. Surely he who can carry such truths to any human being is MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 85 charged with a glorious mission from above. In these remarks I have urged on all who hear me a personal interest in the moral well-being of the poor. I am aware, however, that many can devote but httle personal care to this work. But what they cannot do themselves, they can do by others ; and this I hold to be one of our most sacred duties as Christians. If we cannot often visit the poor ourselves, we may send those who are qualified to serve them better. We can support ministers to Study and apply the means of enlight- ening, comforting, reforming, and sav- ing the ignorant and depressed. Every man whom God has prospered is bound to contribute to this work. The Chris- tian ministry is indeed a blessing to all, but above all to the poor. We, who have leisure and quiet homes, and can gather round us the teachers of all ages in their writings, can better dispense with the living teacher than the poor, who are unused to learn from books, and unaccustomed to mental effort, who can only learn through the eye and ear, through the kind look and the thrill- ing voice. Send them the ministers of God's truth and grace. , And think not that this office may be filled by any who will take it. There are some, I know, perhaps not a few, who suppose the most common capacities equal to the Christian ministry in general, and who, of course, will incline to devolve the office of teaching the ignorant and destitute on men unfit for other voca- tions. Away with this disgraceful error ! If there be an office worthy of angels, it is that of teaching Christian truth. The Son of God hallowed it, by sustaining it in his own person. All other labors sink before it. Royalty is impotence and a vulgar show, com- pared with the deep and quickening power which many a Christian teacher has exerted on the immortal soul. Pro- found intellect, creative genius, thrill- ing eloquence, can nowhere find such scope and excitement as in the study and communication of moral and relig- ious truth, as in breathing into other minds the wisdom and love which were revealed in Jesus Christ ; and the time will come when they w-ill joyfully con- secrate themselves to this as their true Sphere. That the ministry of the poof may be sustained by a man wanting some qualifications for a common con- gregation, is true ; but he needs no ordinary gifts, — a sound judgment, a clear mind, an insight into human nat- ure, a spirit of patient research, the power of familiar and striking illustra- tion of truth, a glowing heart, an un- affected self-devotion to the service of mankind. Such men we are bound to provide for the poor, if they can be secured. He who will not contribute to the moral and religious culture of the destitute is unworthy to live in Christendom. He deserves to be ban- ished beyond the light which he will not spread. Let him deny his religion if he will ;. but to believe in it, and yet not seek to impart it to those who can receive no other treasure, is to cast contempt on its excellence, and to harden himself against the most sacred claims of humanity. My friends, it is a cause of gratitude that so much has been done in this city to furnish such a ministry as now has been described. The poor, I believe, are provided for here as in no other place in our country. The Fraternity of Churches, which I address, have in their service three ministers for this work, and the number, it is expected, will be increased ; and we all know that they have not labored in vain. Their good influence we cannot doubt. The cause has been signally prospered by God. Since the institution of this ministry, it has not only carried in- struction, counsel, reproof, hope, and moral strength to multitudes who would otherwise have heard no encouraging voice, would have met no outward remembrances of Christian duty, — it has produced in other classes of so- ciety still more promising effects ; it has produced a connection of the rich with the poor, a knowledge of their real state and wants, a sympathy with them, an interest in their well-being, which are the signs of a lasting im- provement in society. Th.s ministry has not been lifeless machinery. It has vitality, earnestness, force. It does not rest in a round of regular services, but seeks new means of reach- ing the poor. It particularly seeks to act on the children. Not content with gathering them in Sunday-schools, it forms congregations of them for wor- 86 MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. ship, and adapts to them the ordinary- services of the church, so as to fix attention and touch the heart. What an invaluable service to humanity ! Formerly, these children, unprovided with the means of public worship, never guided by their parents to the house of prayer, wasted and worse than wasted the Sunday in the streets, and found or made this holy season a day of pecuhar temptation and crime. Whilst the ministers of the poor are faithful to the adult, they give a spe- cial care to children, and through the child often reach the parent's heart. Through their efforts, the young who had been brought up to beg have often been sent to the public school or the Sunday-school, and in this way many a heedless foot, going down to ruin, has been turned to the path of duty. It is confidently stated that, since the establishment of this ministry a few years ago, street beggary has decreased, notwithstanding the rapid growth of our population. Happily, men of in- telligence and noble hearts are willing to enter this field, and new laborers are needed. It is important that the ministers of the poor should extend their care beyond the most indigent, to that class from which the ranks of indigence are recruited, — I mean to that class of laborers who are hov- ering over the brink of poverty, who depend on each day's toil for each day's food, and whom a short sickness or deficiency of employment reduces to want. Among these, the degrading infidelity of our days finds many of its victims, and on this account they pe- culiarly need to be visited by Christian friendship and the light of truth. To connect these with regular congrega- tions, and to incite them to contribute to the support of public worship some part of what they now too generally ex- pend in pernicious indulgences, would be to render an essential service to morals and religion. The work of a minister for the poor covers much ground, and it demands superior minds. This body of men are set apart, not only to act on individuals, but to study poverty in all its aspects, in its causes, its influences, its various shapes, its growth, and its decline, and thus to' give light to the legislator and philanthropist in the great work of its prevention and cure. To me, this min- istry is peculiarly interesting, regarded as the beginning of a series of opera- tions for banishing from society its chief calamity and reproach, and for changing the face of the civilized and Christian world. I see in it the ex- pression of a silently growing purpose, that Christian communities shall not always be deformed and disgraced by the presence of an ignorant, destitute, miserable horde ; that in the bosom of civilization there shall no longer exist a more wretched, degraded portion of human beings than can be found in sav- age life. This horrible contrast of con- dition, which all large cities present, has existed too long. Shall it endure for ever ? My friends, we all, as well as others, have hitherto been dreadfully insensible to this sorest evil under the sun. Long use has hardened us to it. We have lived comfortably, perhaps luxuriously, in our dwellings, whilst within a stone's throw were fellow- creatures, the children of our Father in heaven, as nobly born and gifted as ourselves, in whose countenances might be read brutal ignorance, hopeless mis- ery, and degrading vice. We have passed them in the street, not only withput a tear but without a thought. Oh, how seldom has a pang shot through our hearts at the sight of our ruined fellow-creatures ! Shall this insensi- bility continue for ever ? Shall not a new love succeed to this iron hardness of heart ? Do not call the evil reme- diless. Sure I am, that at this moment there is enough of piety, philanthropy, and moral power in this community to work deep changes in the poorer classes, could these energies, now scattered and slumbering, be brought to bear wisely and perseveringly on the task. Shall we decline this work .' If so, we decline the noblest labor of philanthropy. If so, we must suffer, and we ought to suffer. Society ought to be troubled, to be shaken, yea con- vulsed, until its solemn debt to the ignorant and poor be paid. Poor there will be, but they need not, must not, exist as a degraded, hopeless caste. They need not, must not, be cut off from the brotherhood of humanity. Their children must not be left to inherit and propagate their crimes and woes. To put an end to such a class is the MINISTRY FOR THE POOR. 87 highest office of Christian philanthropy. Do you aslc how it is to be done ? I answer, Christianity has wrought mighty revolutions, and in these we have an earnest of what it is able and destined to accomplish. Let us bring this into new contact with the poor. Let us send forth men, imbued with its spirit, to preach it to the poor, and still more to study poverty in all its forms, that the moral pestilence which has so long ravaged the Christian world may at last be stayed. I now see before me the representa- tives of several congregations of this city, which have united to support the ministry for the poor. Thanks to God for this manifestation of the spirit and power of Christianity. This connec- tion, framed only for purposes of Chris- tian philanthropy, looking only to the spiritual relief of our depressed fel- low-creatures, and incapable of being perverted to the accumulation of eccle- siastical power, is the happiest means which could be devised to bring our churches into stronger sympathy and closer friendship, without infringing, in the smallest degree, that principle of independence or self-government on which they are built. Is it not a plain truth, that every Christian congregation, besides providing for its own spiritual wants, is bound to devote itself to the general cause of Christianity, and to provide for spreading its own light and privileges to the destitute ? By this fraternity we are discharging, in part, this sacred obligation. May it be sus- tained with increasing zeal, with un-' shaken faith, with glorious success ! My friends, is it necessary that I should urge you to contribute of your substance to the work which has now been laid before you ? I am speaking to the prosperous. Let the Goodness which has prospered you teach you the spirit in which your wealth or compe- tence should be used. What is the true use of prosperity ? Not to minister to self-indulgence and ostentation ; not to widen the space between you and the less prosperous ; not to multiply signs of superior rank ; not to raise us to an eminence, whence we may look down on the multitude as an inferior race ; but to multiply our bonds of union with our fellow-creatures, to spread our sympa- thies far and wide, to give us nobler spheres of action, to make us more eminently the delegates and represent- atives of divine beneficence. What is the true use of increasing wealth in a city ? It is not that more magnificent structures should be reared, but that our dwellings should be inhabited by a more intelligent and virtuous people ; that in- stitutions for awakening intellectual and moral hfe should be brought to bear on the whole community ; that the individ- ual may be carried forward to his true happiness and perfection ; that society may be bound together by stronger and purer bonds, and that the rigid laws of earthly governments may be more and more superseded by the law ,of love. Without such influences, wealth is turned into a snare and curse. If, in- deed, our prosperity is to be used to spread luxurious and selfish modes of life, to form a frivolous class of fashion, to produce more striking contrasts be- tween unfeeling opulence and abject penury, to corrujjt manners and harden the heart, better were it for us that, by the just judgment of God, it should be sunk into the depths of the sea. It avails little that intercourse is more pol- ished, and a new grace is thrown over life. The simple question is, Do we better understand and more strongly feel our relations to God and to our fel- low-creatures ? Without this, our boasted civilization is a whited sepulchre, fair to the eye, but inwardly " full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." — But I can- not end this discourse with the voice of warning. You deserve to hear the voice of encouragement and hope. One good work you are carrying on, as this anni- versary testifies. One institution for instructing the ignorant and raising up the fallen, you have sustained. Let it not fall. Extend and strengthen it. Make it permanent. Bind it up with the institutions which you support for your own religious improvement. Trans- mit it to your children. Let your chil- dren learn, from this your e:^mple, to take part in the cause of Christ, of prophets and apostles, of holy men of all ages, in the work of regenerating society, and of extending to the whole human family the light and blessings of the Christian faith. ON PREACHING TO THE POOR ON PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR: Charge at the Ordination of Charles F. Barnard and Frederick T. Gray, as Ministers at Large, in Boston. You have now been set apart to the Christian ministry, according to the rites of the Congregational Church. A princi- pal design of these is to impress you with the importance and responsibleness of your office. That this impression may be strengthened, and that the duties now imposed on you may be brought dis- tinctly to your minds, I have been ap- pointed by the Council, here convened, to deliver to you the usual Charge. From the various topics which naturally occur to me on this occasion, I can se- lect but a few. For full instruction in your sacred calling, I refer you to the Scriptures, to the example of Christ, the first and only perfect teacher of his religion, to the labors and sufferings of the Apostles, and to the precepts relat- ing to the ministry scattered through their writings. These are able " to fur- nish you unto every good work, and to make you wise unto salvation." Preaching and private intercourse with the poor are henceforth to be the labors of your lives. First, you are to preach ; and in performing this office, let me exhort you to the scrupulous observance of a plain but often neg- lected precept. It is this, reverence truth. Preach what approves itself clearly to your own minds as true, and preach nothing else. Teach nothing, because others teach it. Inculcate noth- ing about which you have doubts, be- cause expected to inculcate it. Speab from no human master, from no human creed. Speak from your own calm con- victions, «and from nothing else. Do not use stronger language than your own minds warrant, for the sake of making greater impression. Do not seek the reputation of eloquence, by assuming a bold, confident tone, which exceeds your private belief. Exaggerate nothing. Paint nothing beyond the life. Be true, — the hardest lesson to the min- ister. Preach nothing, however gratify- ing to the imagination or the heart, which cannot stand the scrutiny of the deliber- ate judgment. Distort no truth for the sake of effect. Never hope to make the sword of the spirit more powerful by any human alloy. I have said, beware of exaggeration. Beware also of the op- posite vice, of softening down, diluting, obscuring the truth, till its power and pungency are gone, in order to accom- modate it to the prejudices and passions of men. No man is fit to preach who is not ready to be a martyr to truth. We indeed recommend to you pru- dence ; but the great office of prudence is not to disfigure or conceal the truth, but to secure it against misapprehen- sion, and to place it before men's minds in the light which will probably gain for it the readiest reception. Be pru- dent for the truth's sake, not for your own sake, not for the sake of popu- larity, not from weakness or timidity. Be cautious lest you be over-cautious. Fear to stifle any great truth. Let your preaching be the frank expression of the 'workings and convictions of your own minds. There is a peculiar freshness, charm, energy, in perfect sincerity. The preaching which manifests a profound reverence for truth, which is seen and felt to spring from an inward fountain, which reveals the real and whole mind of the speaker, wins confidence, and works conviction, far more than the most vehement outpourings of imagi- nation and passion. I have said, preach what approves itself to your own minds as true, and nothing else. I now say. preach it in your own style. Give it forth in the form to which your own minds prompt you. Be not imitators. Be not anx- ious to wield other men's weapons. Do not think that the mode of preaching which is effectual in another will there- ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. 89 fore succeed in you. You surely would not mimic his tones, because they pen- etrate his hearers. Look at subjects with your own eyes. Utter them in yt)uf own words. Be yourselves. Be natural. There is no other road to the human heart. Would you be increasingly useful ? Then be just to your own minds. Let them act freely. Form yourselves from within more than from without. You ought, indeed, to seek benefit by hear- ing other preachers ; but be benefited through sympathy, and by catching from them generous impulses, and not by making them models. So you must read what others have written ; but read, that the action of other minds may awaken your own intellectual activity, and not be a substitute for it. Listen in the first place to the whispers of truth in your own souls, and prize them more than the teachings of your fellow-creat- ures. Whenever you catch a new glimpse of God's character, of human nature, of human perfection, of life, of futurity, of the Christian spirit ; when- ever a familiar truth rises before you in a new aspect ; whenever a new princi- ple dawns on you from a numtjer of facts, which had before lain with- out connection in your minds ; when- ever a sentence in a human work, or a text of Scripture, reveals to you, as by a flash, some depths in your own souls, or scatters suddenly the mist which had before hung over some important doc- trine ; whenever a new light of this kind gleams on you, prize it more than volumes or libraries, feel that a higher teacher than man has approached you. Pray to the Father of lights that this new ray may brighten within you. It is by this welcome to truth, springing up in our own souls, that we are to grow in energy of thought and feehng ; and growth is the great condition of in- creasing usefulness. We charge you, then, to be just and generous to your own minds. Cherish every divine inspi- ration. Be no man's slaves. Seek truth for yourselves. Speak it from your- selves. Speak it in your own natural tones. You, of course, desire to avoid the greatest of all defects in a preacher, —that of being tame and dull ; and your security from this is to be found, not in starts and exclamations, not in noise and gesture, not in the commonplaces of passion, but in keeping your minds and hearts in free and powerful action. This inward life will give life to style and delivery, and nothing else will. This is the only secret of eloquence. Eloquence is not a trick of words. It is the utterance of great truths, so clearly discerned, so deeply felt, so bright, so burning, that they cannot be confined, tliat they create for themselves a style and manner which carry them far into other souls ; and of this eloquence there is but one fount, and that is inward life, force of thought, force of feeling. Perhaps it may be said that these re- marks apply little to ministers of the poor ; that the poor are as children ; and that little spiritual energy is re- quired for their instruction. We charge you, my friends, to beware of this com- mon error. Do not dishonor your high calling by supposing it to require little force of thought and feeling. The poor are generally ignorant, but in some re- spects they are better critics than the rich, and make greater demands on their teachers. A congregation of the more affluent and educated can be satisfied with proprieties of style and manner, can be held together by local attach- ment, by the elegance or fashionable- ness of the edifice in which it worships, or by the strong bonds of a creed or sect. The poor care for none of these things. Proprieties of style and man- ner, local feeling, fashion, show, or sec- tarian zeal are not attractions to them. They can only be brought and held together by a preaching which fastens their attention, or pierces their con- sciences, or moves their hearts. They are no critics of words, but they know when they are touched or roused, and by this test — a far truer one than you find in fastidious congregations — they judge the minister, and determine whether to follow or forsake him. The duty of preaching to the poor is ac- cordingly a difficult one. Their minis- ter has much to learn, and, what is harder, much to forget. He must forget the modes of address under which he was himself educated. He is to speak to those who cannot find a meaning in the vague language which he has gen- erally heard from the pulpit. He must find a new tongue. He must reach the understanding through the imagination and the heart. He must look, not upon 90 ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. his notes, but into tlie eyes of his hear- ers. He must appeal to the simple, uni- versal principles of human nature. There must be a directness, freedom, earnest- ness of manner, which are not required in the church of more refined worship- pers. To accomplish all this, books will do him Httle good. His best study is the poor man's narrow room. His best teacher is a keen observation of the workings of the poor man's heart, of his passions, perils, and spiritual wants. We charge you to beware of aiming to resemble ministers in other situations. You must invent modes of action for yourselves. You must make a new path. Cultivate by perpetual practice the power of extemporaneous address. Take your texts, as your Master did, from scenes, events, objects which are pressing on the notice of your hearers. Find your way to their minds and hearts. Be any thing but formal and mechanical. Better forsake your ministry than make it a monotonous repetition of the com- mon modes of teaching and action. But preaching is not your whole or chief work. Private intercourse is to you a more important instrument than the pulpit. You must not wait for the poor in the church. Go to them in their houses. Go where no other will go. Let no squalidness, or misery, or crime, repel you. Seek the friendless, the forsaken, the desponding, the lost. Penetrate the depths of poverty, the haunts of intem- perance, the strongholds of sin. Feel an attraction in what others shun, in the bleak room open to the winter's wind, in the wasted form and the haggard coun- tenance, in the very degradation of your lace. Go where suffering and guilt sum- mon you ; and what weapon shall you take with you for this contest with phys- ical and moral evil ? You will be told to arm yourselves with caution, to be- ware of deception, to take the shield of prudence, and to put on the breastplate of distrust ; and this lesson is indeed important ; but prudence and caution are only defensive armor. They will be se- curity to yourselves ; they give no power over misery, poverty, and vice. That power is to be found in a higher princi- ple ; and take heed lest this be quenched ' by that distrust in which you will be so plentifully instructed. The only power to oppose to evil is love, — strong, en- during love, — a benevolence which no crime or wretchedness can conquer, and which therefore can conquer all. Misera- ble indeed will be your office, if this spirit do not possess you, if a deep sympathy with your suffering fellow-creatures do not compel you, as it were, to seek their abodes, and do not identify you with them. Nothing but Christ's spirit, that which carried him to his cross, can carry you through your work. Go, then, with his love ; and it will be mightier than the sword of the magistrate, or the armies of monarchs, to conquer evil. It will touch the heart which has hardened it- self against aU- other influences. It will pierce the conscience which is impreg- nable against the most vehement rebuke. It will say to the reckless transgressor, in the only language he can under- stand, that he is not an outcast from his race ; and it will reveal to the de- sponding sufferer a love higher than your own, and bring back his lost faith in God. Love gives a new tongue, ^ the only one which all men can compre- hend. But by this I mean something more than the common kindness of the world. I mean the spirit of Christ and his Apostles, a love not born on the earth, but which came from heaven in the person of the Saviour, and is only to be nourished by communion with heaven. Seek it as your chief power. Guard it against the contagion of the spirit of this world. Cherish it by meditation and prayer, by intimacy with Christ and his true disciples, and by perpetual exercise in your intercourse with the poor. You must love the poor ; you must also respect them ; and, in truth, respect is the very soul of the love which I have enjoined. Honor the poor man. Let not his poverty for a moment hide you frQm his participation of your own nat- ure and of the divine image. N ever let the man be lost in the beggar. If you have not power to penetrate to the spirit within him, and to reverence that divine principle more than all outward magnifi- cence, you are unfit for your office. If there seem to you exaggeration, or a false sentimentality, in the language which pronounces the soul of one poor man worth more than the wealth of worlds, or than all material nature, then you want the spirit of your function, and can- not lay it aside too soon. Go to the poor, to awaken in them the conscious- ness of their relation to God, and of ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. 91 their immortality. Do not go as the representatives of the richer classes, to keep them in order ; but go in the name of Christians, to make them partakers of the highest distinctions and blessings in which any of us rejoice. Carry to them the gospel, not for purposes of worldly policy, but as a life-giving truth, imparted by God to lift them above all worldly greatness, to subject them to a nobler law than that of the state, to make them citizens of heaven. Present relig- ion to them in a generous form. Carry to them the very truths you would bear to the most prosperous and enlightened. Stir up the poor man to be active for his own improvement, and teach him that the power of improvement is communi- cated to him as liberally as to his pros- perous neighbor. Because he is poor, do not think that he is put into your hands as a passive material, to be shaped at your pleasure. Remember that he is as free as yourselves, and can only be carried forward by a spring of improve- ment in his own soul. The work of his salvation you cannot do for him. Awaken him to strive, watch, and pray for himself. Do not depress him. Do not, through a false sympathy, speak discouragingly of his condition, Show him that in his poverty he still has God's best gifts, — an immortal soul, and the means of its redemption and glory. Show him how much can be done for human nature in the humblest lot, Teach him that his condition has all the ele- ments of virtue and of the only durable happiness ; that suffering may be the occasion and incitement of fervent prayer, filial trust, and fervent forti- tude ; that the dews of God's spirit de- scend alike on rich and poor ; that every grace may strike root in the soil of pen- ury, and may gain strength from life's storms ; that, like the poor widow in the gospel, he can give even more gener- ously, can be more charitable in the sight of God, than the richest of his race ; and that even greatness is within his reach, for greatness lies not in what is outwardly done, but in strength of love and holy purpose put forth under sore temptation. Beware of depressing or degrading the poor, by giving them a low form of religion, or low views of their lot. Christ has pronounced bless- ings on them, and help them to put faith in his life-giving words. There is one particular on which I cannot forbear speaking. "Would you promote the present as well as future happiness of the poor ? Then labor much, let it be a leading aim, to cherish among them the domestic and benev- olent affections. Whoever knows the poor, must know how greatly the aspect of their abodes would be changed, and what a large proportion of their suffer- ings would be removed, by the substi- tution of a true love for selfishness, passion, and envy, for unkind words and unkind deeds. Open within them the fountain of kindness. Urge on them Christianity as a spring of disinterested and tender affection. Teach the poor that we who are prosperous find our chief earthly happiness in our domestic and other social bonds, and not in wealth ; and that without love mag- nificence is a vain show, and the palace embosoms less peace than many a hovel. I insist on this, because it is the common doctrine of the day, that the poor are to be raised by being taught to save, to hoard, to economize their scanty earn- ings. By all means teach prudence, but do not make the poor anxious, selfish, sordid. Teach prudence ; but still more teach love ; and so doing you will teach economy. Inspire the poor with strong and tender affections towards their fam- ilies and fellow-creatures, and they will deny themselves, and practise thrift with a cheerfulness and fidelity, not often learned from the maxims of worldly wisdom. I must not enlarge more on particular duties. In general, I would say to you. Honor your work. Think of it rever- ently. I use no exaggeration when I give it a place among the most impor- tant labors of the times ; for it bears on the very evil from which the social state has most to fear. We are accustomed to speak of the improvement of society ; but its progress has been attended with one disastrous circumstance, which at times almost makes us doubt whether the good has not been too dearly bought. I refer to the fact that the elevation of one part of the community has been accompanied with the depression of another. Society has not gone forward as a whole. By the side of splendid dwellings you descry the abodes of squalid poverty ; and within the city walls, which enclose the educated and 92 ON PREACHING TO THE POOR. refined, you may meet a half-civilized horde, given up to deeper degradation than the inhabitants of the wilderness. In England, the country advanced above all others in agriculture, manufactures, refinement, and literary institutions, are miserable multitudes^ degraded by de- pendence, uninstructed even in the being of a God, and dying of want before their time ; and such is the tendency of mod- ern civilization through the world. Soci- ety is not only disfigured but' endangered by the poverty, and ignorance, and vice of a multitude of its members ; and its security and happiness demand nothing so imperiously as that this wretched ihass should be enlightened, elevated, '.edeemed. Here is the chief sphere for philanthropy. Inequalities of property must indeed exist. But can it be neces- sary that multitudes of human beings should writhe under wants and hard- ships which palsy and almost extinguish their spiritual and moral power ? This greatest social evil is beginning to arrest the attention of the statesman as well as of the philanthropist and Christian. A louder and louder cry is beginning to break forth through the civilized world for a social reform which shall reach the most depressed ranks of the community. I see and rejoice to see in your office, my friends, a sign of this new move- naent, an earnest of this grand and holy revolution. I see in it a recognition of the right of every human being to the nieans of spiritual development, of moral and intellectual life. This is the most sacred right of humanity. Blessed are our eyes which see the day of its recog- nition. Feel, then, that you are conse- crated to the greatest work of your age ; and feel that you will be sustained in it by the prayers and zeal of our churches and their pastors. If, indeed, your min- istry for the poor should be sufEered to decline and fail, it would be a melan- choly proof that our ministry for ' the rich is of little avail. If in this age, *hen the improvement of society is the theme even of the unbeliever ; if, with every help from the spirit of the times. We, the .pastors of these churches, can- not awaken in them a sensibility to the intellectual and moral wants of multi- tudes around them, cannot carry home to their consciences and hearts the duty of raising up their depressed fellow- creatures, of imparting Christian light, strength, and comfort to ■ the ignorant and poor, then it is time that we should give up our pulpits to others who will better understand and inculcate the spirit of Christ and- his Apostles. It is time that our lips should be closed, if we can do nothing towards breathing into men the peculiar benevolence of the gospel, — a benevolence which feels for, and seeks to elevate and save, the human soul. It is time, too, that as a class of Christians we should disappear^ if we will not take our part in the great work of regenerating society. It is the order of nature that the dead should be buried ; and the sooner a dead, hfe- less, soulless sect is buried and forgotten the better. But, my friends, I cannot fear that you will be abandoned. Chris- tian love, I trust, has called you to this work, and will cheer and strengthen you in your heavenly mission. Go forth, then, my friends, with a con- fiding spirit. Go forth in the strength of faith, hope, and charity. Go forth to increase the holiness of earth and the happiness of heaven. Go to the dark alleys and the darker dwellings of the poor. Go in the spirit of that God to whom the soul of the poor man is as precious as your own. Go in the spirit of him who for our sakes was poor, and had not where to lay his head. Go in reliance on that omnipotent grace which can raise up the most fallen, cleanse the most polluted, enrich the poorest with more than royal wealth, console the deepest sorrows, and sanctify the sorest trials of life. Go cheerfully, for into the darkest dwelHngs you carry the light of life. And think not that you alone visit these humble habitations. God is there, — Christ is there, — angels are there. Feel their presence ; breathe their love ; and through your wise, un- wearied, effectual labors, may the poor man's dwelling become a consecrated place, the abode of love, " the house of God and the gate of heaven ! " CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION OF REV. R. C. WATERSTON. -95 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION OF MR. ROBERT C WATERSTON, AS MINISTER AT LARGE, November 24, 1839. [The following Charge, although prepared for the occasion, was not delivered, on account of the Author's state of health.] My Young Friend and Brother, — The Council here assembled for your ordination have assigned me the office of giving you the Charge; and I perform this work the more cheerfully, because of the relation which has long subsisted be- tween you and myself. You have grown up from childhood under my ministry, and you have given me reason to believe that impressions received in the church where you have worshipped have, in con- currence with other causes, led you to this consecration of yourself to the pas- toral office. Another consideration, which renders this occasion still more interest- ing, is, that you seem now to be placed, by a kind Providence, in the sphere for which you are particularly fitted, and in which all your faculties and affections may be expected to act and unfold freely, cheerfully, vigorously, and beneficially to yourself and others. I remember how, long ago, you felt the attraction of this ministry ; how a thirst for it followed you to your place of business, and over- came the spirit of gain ; and how pa- tiently you have labored to furnish your- self thoroughly for the work. These are good auguries, and they shed a bright hope over these solemnities. Listen now, , my brother, to a few counsels which may help you to fulfil our hopes. Many topics, belonging to this occasion, I formerly enlarged upon, in the Charge given to your predecessor, to which I refer you. There are others, then omitted or slightly touched upon, to which I now ask attention. You are now set apart to be a Minister at Large. This is the distinction of your office. Whilst other ministers gather worshippers into their churches from all the conditions of life, you expect to labor chiefly among the less prosperous, the destitute. It may be thought, at first, that this peculiarity must make a wide distinction between your office and the common ministry ; that it must demand almost a totally different style of preach- ing ; that all your labors must take a hue and impress from the condition of those whom you teach. I counsel you not to be misled by this natural impression. I see no great distinction between you and other ministers. I advise you to bring habitually to your mind, not the outward condition of men, but their spiritual nat- ure, their participation of that "divine humanity" which is the only wealth of rich or poor. The distinction of rich and poor, what is it in the eye of reason ? And what should it be to the Christian teacher ? It does not penetrate the skin, but is a distinction of clothes, fuel, meat, and drink. During life, it avails little or nothing against pain, illness, bereave- ment. Death turns it to utter scorn. The costliest winding-sheet, the most splendid coffin, cannot shut out the worm or protect against the humiUation of the tomb. In the next world, how often will present distinctions be reversed ! The first will be last ; the last first, It be- longs, then, to the Christian teacher to look through, and for the most part to forget, outward distinctions. To the Christian teacher all men of all ranks are much the same ; all rational, spiritual, immortal; all stained with guilt; all needing to be born again. Undoubtedly he is to adapt himself to differences of age and education. But in all there is the same human heart ; in all the same deep wants, the same chords to be touched, the same mighty obstacles to purity to be overcome. They all need essentially the same truths, though modi- fied slightly as to phraseology and form. 9?4 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION There are not different gospels for differ- ent conditions of men ; but one and the same truth for all ; just as the same sun sheds the same beams into every hu- man dwelling, and is equally needed and equally welcome wherever he shines. I would not have any class habitually addressed with reference to outward con- dition. It is a great object in all preach- ing, no matter to whom addressed, to raise the hearer above his outward con- dition, to make it seem as nothing to him in comparison with his immortal spirit and his inward wants. The poor should be spoken to as men, and as standing on the same ground with all other men. They are not to be condoled with as ob- jects of peculiar commiseration, but ad- dressed as those who have the essential goods of life, who may do its great work, and win its highest prize. The deepest vice of our present civilization is, that we count the distinction between wealth and poverty the greatest on earth. Do you show that you count it as nothing. My brother, look on your hearers as children and heirs of God ; and remem- ber that your work is to call out and to build up the divine nature within them ; and let such thoughts give you a con- sciousness of the dignity of your office. Do not measure this by the outward con- dition of those to whom you preach. Measure it by their souls, and feel that these are the equals of the most favored in outward lot. Some of the community undoubtedly think of you as having little more to do than to aid in keeping order in the city. You look infinitely above the order of the city, though that in its right place is not to be despised. Your function is to bring men to obey, not the laws of the land, but the eternal, immu- table, celestial law of righteousness ; not to make them quiet citizens, but members of the universal kingdom of God. It is in seeking this highest end that you will secure the lower. Religion only serves the state when it is infinitely exalted above the state, and taught and cherished for its own peerless worth. Nothing has so stripped Christianity of its power as the conversion of it into a state machine, as the polluting touch of the politician, who has caused it to be preached to the lower ranks, and to be professed by the higher, in order that the old pohty, with its inveterate abuses, may stand fast, and that the accumulation of property in a few hands may be undisturbed. Relig- ion, taught for such ends, is among the worst foes of social progress. It loses its vitality ; it paralyzes the intellect ; it strives to crush by persecution or dis- abilities those who would restore its primitive purity, or unfdld more distinctly its higher truths ; it teaches pretence to the great, and breathes servility into the multitude whom it ought especially to imbue with nobleness of mind. You, my young friend, have learned that re- ligion has a higher work to accomplish than that of police ; that its aim is to bring the individual, be his rank what it may, to a comprehension of his relation to the Infinite Father and the everlast- ing world, and to inspire him with dis- interested love of God and man ; and that in this way alone it makes good citizens, tender and faithful husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends. In these remarks I do not mean that you are never to allude to outward dis- tinctions. The poor have peculiar diffi- culties ; but they must never be left to imagine that they have aU the difficulties of life. Their burden is heavy, but there are still heavier on earth ; and the same high truths are needed to sustain all the suffer- ing children of humanity. So they have peculiar temptations ; and yet, tempta- tions to the very vices which abound most among the poor are exceedingly powerful among the more prosperous. The poor, it is said, are peculiarly incited by their condition to envy ; and yet are we sure that there is less envy among the rich, that there are fewer jealousies and heartburnings growing out of competi- tions and neglects in fashionable life, than spring from indigence ? I am not sure that there is more discontent among the needy than among those who abound. I incline to think that, on the whole, there is among the latter less submission to God's providence ; and for this plain reason, that success and abundance in- crease self-will. You must not, there- fore, preach to your congregation as if they monopolized any vice ; but speak to all as partakers of the universal corrup- tion. Never expect to reclaim men from a vice by singling them out for denun- ciation ; but by addressing to them those solemn truths and motives which are to stir up all men to resist moral evil. The sum of what I have now said Is, OF REV. R. C. WATERSTON. 95 do nothing to discourage your hearers. If cheering, animating language is to be used anywhere, it is among the poor. As a minister of Christ, you are to en- courage. Unhappily the gospel is too often used to break men's spirits. The gospel, as too often preached, instead of being glad tidings, is the saddest news ever told on earth. From your hps may it raise the dispirited to effort, and reveal to the indigent their boundless wealth ! At the beginning of this ministry, it was thought that its chief benefit would come from visiting ; and little compara- tively was expected from the pulpit. Ex- perience, however, has proved that public preaching is a powerful instrument for the moral recovery of the poor. The multitudes who throng the Chapel where you are to labor, and who devour with earnest attention the words of the min- ister, indicate that this is a sphere of action to which you are to devote much of your energies. You must labor to perfect yourself as a preacher. I say to perfect yourself ; for you will do little unless you aim at perfection. I might, had I time, repeat many exhortations as to preaching ; but two short rules may juffice you. They are these : Preach the truth, and preach it as the truth. First ; Preach the truth, and for this end you must seek and get it ; and this is among the hardest labors of life. To see things as they are, to see them through a clear, uncolored medium, to strip them of every disguise, to put to silence our own passions and prejudices, to resist the intolerance, the servility, the established errors and earthly modes of thought, the arrogant pretensions and the nervous fears of the multitude around us, and, amidst all these hindrances and obscurations, to discern the truth in its simplicity and majesty, — this is a labor which turns to sport the toil of the hands and the sweat of the brow ; and to hold fast this truth openly, fearlessly, amidst outcry, scorn, desertion, persecution, is a heroism before which the exploits of conquerors grow vulgar and tame. It is a common notion that it is no great task to acquire religious truths in a country which enjoys, as we do, a rev- elation from God. The revelation is thought to save us the trouble of re- search, — to do our work for us. But this is a great error. You should learn that the very familiarity of a revelation hides its truths from us, or is an obstacle to clear comprehension. Abstract words, continually sounded in our ears, lose their meaning and force, and are among the last words which we really under- stand. The language of Christianity, which has come down from distant ages ; which in every age has received a color' ing from prevalent errors, passions, and corruptions ; on which men of different conditions, interest, feelings, and mental powers, have fastened different interpre- tations ; which we heard before we could think, and to which we attached the nar- row, earthly conceptions of the opening intellect ; this language it is an immense toil to divest of all false associations, and to restore to its original significance. Add to this the difficulty which springs from the refined, spiritual, sublime char- acter of moral and religious truth, and you will learn what you must do to seize this pearl of great price. What a work is it to form a true idea of God ; to separate from Him all material forms and attributes, all human passions and hu- man limitations ! How hard to separate from Him all self-reference and arbitrari- ness, all love of rule, of homage, and kingly power ! How hard to contemplate Him as calm, unimpassioned reason; as impartial, disinterested, all-compre- hending love ; as having no will but the everlasting law of righteousness ; as having no favorites ; as the ever-present inspirer and judge of every soul ! How hard to look through the multiplied forces and agencies of the universe, to one central, all-pervading Power ; be- yond the endless mutations and conflicts of human life to one unchangeable, all- reconciling Wisdom ! The true idea of God, that highest thought of angels, de- mands for its development the study of a life. How hard, too, is it to attain to the true idea of Christian duty; to purify this from all debasing mixtures ; to keep it from being stained by the sophistry of the passions, by the inter- pretations of theologians, by the moral standard of our age, by the spirit and practice of the world and the church ! How hard, again, to attain to the true idea of a man ; to discern the greatness of pur nature, and its affinity with God, amidst its present ruins ; to comprehend it as revealed in the character and life of Christ ! My brother, do not think that you 96 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINATION know the truth because you are familiar with the words which envelop it. I re- peat it, the very commonness of Chris- tianity throws over it a mist not easily penetrated. You have to break the spell of habit, the spell of mental associations stronger than adamant. You must put forth more force of thought on the relig- ion, because it is so familiar. A true faith is as hard an attainment now as in the first age of Christianity. A revela- tion is not given to deliver us from the toil of seeking truth. This is the great work of every rational being, especially the great work of him who aspires to be a teacher. Thirst for the truth. Study, inquire, and pray for it. Welcome it from whatever quarter it may shine. Be willing to pay for it the price of ease, honor, life. Of all crimes, dread none more than that of shutting out God's light from your mind. But it is not enough to get the truth ; you must preach it as the truth. Christianity is often preached as false, or at least as a matter of doubt. God, Christ, duty, immortality, the soul, its greatness, its destiny, — these are spoken of as vague rumors which the teacher has chanced to hear, and not as realities ; not as what he knows ; not as matters of deliberate and deep conviction. Preach- ing is too often traditional, conventional, professional, the repetition of what is expected, of what it is the custom to say ; not the free, natural utterance of persuasion, of experience, of truths which have a substantial being within our souls. Undoubtedly the hearer is culpable for remaining dead under the light of God's word ; but how often does the want of life in the teacher put down the life of the taught ! Do you ask me, how you may come to feel the reality of the spiritual truth you are to dispense ? I answer, do not hope to accomplish this end by the methods commonly used by fanatics ; that is, by inflaming the im- agination ; by representing to yourself, in material forms, God, heaven, hell, the suffering of Christ ; or by applying perpetual stimulants to the passions. You must unite the forces of the intellect, the heart, and the life, and bring them all to bear on this great end, You must accustom yourself to concentrate thought on the truth which you have gained ; you must cultivate the hard but neces- sary art of meditation ; and must exalt meditation into prayer to the Father of light for his quickening spirit. Nor is this all. You must inwardly and out- wardly live up to the truth. You must strive against those appetites and pas- sions which cloud the inward eye and shut the inward ear. You must be true without compromise to your con- victions of duty. You must cherish and express disinterested affection. It is only by this joint and vigorous action of the moral and intellectual nature that spiritual vision becomes clear ; that the spiritual world is opened to us ; that God, and duty, and immortality come forth from the clouds which ordinarily envelop them into clear: and beautiful light ; that God's spirit becomes a dis- tinct voice in the soul. You cannot labor too devoutly that the religion which you preach may become thus real to you, may live in your understanding and heart. Without this, preaching is a tinkling cymbal, a vain show. With- out it, there may be prodigies of theo- logical learning. Without it, there may be eloquent declaimers, much admired and run after. But they work on the surface only. They show themselves, not the truth. They may excite transient emotions, but do not strike the deep fountains of thought and feeling in the human soul. He, alone, within whom Christian truth is a living, substantial presence, can give it forth in fresh, ge- nial, natural, quickening tones. Covet, as the minister's best gut, the divine art of speaking the truth as truth. Do not speak as a machine, an echo, but from a living soul. So important do I hold it to speak the truth, as truth, that, were I able, I would describe more particularly this style of preaching. But words do little to make it intelligible. I might say, that the truth-preacher is free from ail artifices and affectation of style and manner; that he is distinguished by simplicity, earnestness, naturalness, free- dom. But your own observation and consciousness can alone explain to you the characteristics of that truth in preaching which all feel, though none can describe. I would observe, how- ever, that all who are distinguished by this style bear one mark. They preach with faith, hope, confidence. Truth, when seen as a reality, always breathes faith and trust. Doubt and despondence OF REV. R. C. WATERSTON. 97 belong to error or superficial views. Truth is of God, and is bright with promise of that infinite good which all his perfections make sure to his crea- tion. God's supreme interest and joy in moral excellence ; the immutable glory and the omnipotence of rectitude and disinterested love ; and the utter feebleness of human passion and prej- udice, of sects and armies, of opinion and physical force, when arrayed against the cause of holiness, of Christ, of God, — these are among the clearest manifes- tations of truth, and indeed its very essence ; and, of consequence, he who knows the truth must be strong in faith, must tread doubt and fear under foot, and must speak with the energy of a living hope. One great reason of the inefficacy of the ministry is, the want of faith in a higher operation of Christianity, in a higher development of humanity, than is now witnessed. As long as the present wretched condition of the Christian world shall be regarded as ultimate ; as long as our religion shall be thought to have done already its chief work on earth ; as long as the present corruptions of the church and the state shall be acquiesced in as laws of nature, and shall stir up no deep, agonizing desire of reform, so long the ministry will be comparatively dead. My brother, may you receive from Christ and his disciples this glorious inheritance, a spirit of faith ! May you read every truth of the gospel with a prophet's eye, and see in it the prom- ise of that new spiritual creation which Christ came to accomplish on earth ! May you discover in God's attributes, in the perfection of the Saviour, in the virtues of eminent men, and in the workings and aspirations of your own soul, pledges, omens, predictions of a higher state of the church and of hu- manity ! This is indeed to know the truth, and this is the knowledge which gives power to preaching. Alas for • that community, civil or religious, which binds itself to the past, and has no faith in a higher futurity ! That com- munity which ceases to grow, begins to decay. In losing hope, it loses the breath of life. Where there is no faith there is no courage, and, of consequence, no victory over evil. You, in particular, will need faith ; for you will have con- tinually to do with what is to many minds full of discouragement, — I mean with pauperism, that dark cloud which hangs ominously over our modern civil- ization. But fear not. Study this great social evil, its causes, its prevention, its cure, with full confidence that in soci- ety, as in the natural body, there is a healing power, and that no evil is des- perate except despair. Had I time, I might suggest several rules or cautions particularly needed in such a ministry as yours. I will offer but one or two suggestions. In one important respect your work is to differ from the common ministry, — that is, in the distribution of your time. Your life is to be spent, not in retired study, but very much in visits from house to house ; and this has its advantages. It will bring you near to the poor, awaken your sympathies with them, acquaint you with their wants, and give them a confidence in your attachment which will open their hearts to your public instructions. But it has, too, its disadvantages. There is danger that your mind may be frittered away by endless details, by listening continually to frivolous communications and suspicious complaints. To escape these narrowing influences, you should steadily devote a part of every day to solitary study ; and, still more, you should make it your rule to regard the events and experiences of every day as lessons, and strive to extract from them general truths, so that the intellect may enlarge itself in the midst of the hum- blest concerns. In the meanest hovel, the great principles of human nature and of God's moral providence will be set before you for study and observation. Everyman is a volume, if you know how to read him. To seize the universal in the particular is the great art of wisdom, and this is especially important to one who is to live amidst details. Another peculiarity of your ministry is, that you are to see human nature more undisguised, naked, than as it falls under our common notice. You are to go among those who have not learned to cover up the deformities of the soul by courtesy and graceful speech. You will see more of the coarser appetites and passions. Not that you are to meet more guilt than the rest of us. The self- ishness and deceit of the exchange or of fashionable life, however wrapped up in refined manners, are not a whit the 98 CHARGE FOR THE ORDINA TION OF REV. R. C. WA TERSTOJV. fairer in God's sight than the artful or grasping habits of the poor. Still we are in peculiar danger of losing our re- spect for human nature when it offers itself to us in repulsive, uncouth, vulgar forms and language. Remember to be candid and just to the poor. Treasure up in memory the instances, which you will often meet among them, of generos- ity, patience, domestic love and self-con- trol ; and do not forget that their desti- tution and suffering add to these virtues a moral worth not belonging to the good deeds of prosperous life. Look beneath the outward to the spiritual, the immor- tal, the divine. Feel that each of the poor is as dear to God as the most ex- alted in condition, and approach them with humanity and respect. I do not mean by this that you should use flat- tering words. Be true, honest, plain. Speak to them your mind. Rebuke wrong-doing openly, firmly. The re- spect won by manly courage and sim- plicity will give you greater power than any attachment gained by soft and sooth- ing words. Be rough rather than affect- edly "complacent. But with plain dealing you can join a sympathizing heart, and in the union of these you will find strength. I might multiply instructions, and in- deed I know not where to stop ; but I have already transgressed the usual lim- its of this service, and I will add but a single admonition, which, if followed, will render all others useless. Go to Jesus Christ for guidance, inspiration, and strength in your office. This pre- cept is easily uttered, but not easily obeyed. Nothing, indeed, is harder than to place ourselves near Jesus Christ. The way to him is blocked up on every side. Interpreters, churches, sects, past and present, creeds, authorities, the in- fluences of education, all stand in our way. So many voices, declaring what Christ has said, break on our ears, that his own voice is drowned. The old cry still resounds, " Lo here ! and lo there ! " How hard is it to get near the true Christ, to see him as he was and is, to hear his own voice, and to penetrate beneath his works and words to his spirit, to his mind and heart, to the great principles of his religion, to the grand spiritual purpose of all which he said and did ! How hard to escape our age, to penetrate through the disguises in which works of art and of theology have wrapped up Jesus, and to receive immediate, unmixed impulses from his teaching and life ! And yet the privilege of communing with such a spirit is so great, and the duty of going from man to Christ is so solemn, that you must spare no effort to place yourself nearer and nearer to the Divine Master. Learn from him how to look on men, how to feel for them, how to bear with them, how to meet them courageously yet ten- derly, how to awaken in them the con- sciousness of their spiritual nature and destiny, and how to stir them up to the desire and pursuit of a new, inward, everlasting life. My brother, I conclude with remind- ing you of your great responsibilities. Your office is important ; but this is not all. You enter on it at a critical mo- ment. The ministry for the poor has indeed ceased to be an experiment ; its success has surpassed our hopes ; and yet it is not estabhshed as firmly as it should be. It awakens little interest in our churches. It receives little aid from them. The contributions to it from most of our congregations are small, and do little honor to us as a body of Christians. The success of the ministry thus far is due, under Provi- dence, not to the zeal of the churches, but to the devotion, the martyr-spirit of the men who have been charged with its duties. More faithful laborers, I beUeve, are not to be found in the ranks of the ministry through Christendom. Our brother, that faithful servant of God, who began this work, still lives ; but almost, if not quite, worn down by unremitted toils, he is waging a doubtful conflict with disease brought on him in the pulpit and in the hovels of the poor. How his successor has labored you need not be told. And now you are to enter into the labors of these faithful men, and to com- mend by like labors the cause for which they have struggled to the honor and confidence of our churches. Whether, this good work shall go on, rests not a little with you. This I say, not to stim- ulate you to labors beyond your strength. I beseech you not to waste in a few spas- modic efforts the strength and useful- ness of years. I beseech you to regard the care of your health as a duty to yourself, to us, and to the poor. But, within this limit, work with life, with ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 99 courage, with strength of purpose, with unfaltering faith in God. My brother, go forth to your labors with the spirit and power of him who first preached the gospel to the poor ; and may you, in fulfilment of his promise, perform greater works than those outward miracles which signalized his earthly ministry ! Through your teaching, may the spirit- ually islind see and the deaf hear, the lost be found and the dead raised ! May the blessing of them that are ready to perish come upon you ! May the poor, consoled, strengthened, sanctified by your ministry, be your crown and joy in the day of the Lord ! ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE: Delivered by request of the Council of the Massachusetts Temperance Society, at the Odeon, Boston, February 28, 1837, the day appointed for the simultaneous Meeting of the Friends of Tejnperance through- out the World. I SEE before me the representatives of various societies for the promotion of temperance. It is a good and great cause, and I shall be grateful to God if, by the service now allotted me, I can in any degree -encourage them in their work, or throw new light on their path. The present occasion may well animate a Christian minister. What a noble testimony does this meeting bear to the spirit and influences of the Christian faith ! Why is this multitude brought together ? Not for selfish gratification, not for any worldly end, but for the purpose of arresting a great moral and social evil, — of promoting the virtue, dignity, well-being of men. And whence comes this sympathy with the fallen, the guilty, the miserable ? Have we derived it from the schools of ancient philos- ophy, or from the temples of Greece and Rome ? No. We inherit it from Jesus Christ. We have caught it from his lips, his life, his cross. This meeting, were we to trace its origin, would carry us back to Bethlehem and Calvary. The impulse which Christ gave to the human soul, having endured for ages, is now manifesting itself more and more in new and increasing efforts of philanthropy for the redemption of the world from every form of evil. Within these walls the authority of Christ has sometimes been questioned, his character traduced. To the blasphemer of that holy name, what a reply is furnished by the crowd which these walls now contain ! A re- ligion, which thus brings and knits men together for the help, comfort, salvation of their erring, lost fellow-creatures, bears on its front a broad, bright, un- ambiguous stamp of Divinity. Let us be grateful that we were born under its light, and more grateful still if we have been, in any measure, baptized into its disinterested and divine love. . I cannot hope, in the present stage of the temperance effort, to render any important aid to your cause by novelty of suggestion. Its friends have thor- oughly explored the ground over which I am to travel. Still every man who is accustomed to think for himself, is nat- urally attracted to particular views or points in the most familiar subject ; and, by concentrating his thoughts on these, he sometimes succeeds in giving them a new prominence, in vindicating theii' just rank, and in securing to them an attention which they may not have re- ceived, but which is their due. On the subject of intemperance, I have sometimes thought, perhaps with- out foundation, that its chief, essential evil was not brought out as thoroughly and frequently as its secondary evils, and that there was not a sufl5cient conviction of the depth of its causes and of the rem- edies which it demands. With these im- pressions, I invite your attention to the following topics : — the great essential evil of intemperance, — the extent of its temptations, — its causes, — the means of its prevention or cure. lOO ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. I. I begin with asking, What is the great, essential evil of intemperance ? The reply is given when I say that in- temperance is the voluntary extinction of reason. The great evil is inward or spiritual. The intemperate man divests himself, for a time, of his rational and moral nature, casts from himself self- consciousness and self-command, brings on frenzy, and, by repetition of this in- sanity, prostrates more and more his rational and moral powers. He sins im- mediately and directly against the rational nature, — that divine principle which dis- tinguishes between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong action, which distinguishes man from the brute. This is the essence of the vice, what con- stitutes its peculiar guilt and woe, and what should particularly impress and awaken those who are laboring for its suppression. All the other evils of in- temperance are light compared with this, and almost all flow from this ; and it is right, it is to be desired, that all other evils should be joined with and follow this. It is to be desired, when a man hfts a suicidal arm against his highest life, when he quenches reason and con- science, that he and all others should re- ceive solemn, startling warning of the greatness of his guilt ; that terrible out- ward calamities should bear witness to the inward ruin which he is working ; that the handwriting of judgment and woe on his countenance, form, and whole condition, should declare what a fearful thing it is for a man, God's rational off- spring, to renounce his reason and be- come a brute. It is common for those who argue against intemperance to de- scribe the bloated countenance of the • drunkard, now flushed and now deadly pale. They describe his trembling, pal- sied limbs. They describe his waning prosperity, his poverty, his despair. They describe his desolate, cheerless home, his cold hearth, his scanty board, his heaii-broken wife, the squalidness of his children ; and we groan in spirit over the sad recital. But it is right that all this should be. It is right that he who, forewarned, puts out the lights of understanding and conscience within him, who abandons his rank among God's rational creatures, and takes his place among brutes, should stand a monument of wrath among his fellows, should be a teacher wherever he is seen. — a teacher, in every look and motion, of the awful guilt of destroying reason. Were we so constituted that reason could be extinguished, and the counte- nance retain its freshness, the form its grace, the body its vigor, the outward condition its prosperity, and no striking change be seen in one's home, so far from being gainers, we should lose some testimonies of God's parental care. His care and goodness, as well as his justice, are manifested in the fearful mark He has set on the drunkard, in the blight which falls on all the drunkard's joys. These outward evils, dreadful as they seem, are but faint types of the ruin within. We should see in them God's respect to his own image in the soul, his parental warnings against the crime of quenching the intellectual and moral life. We are too apt to fix our thoughts on the consequences or punishments of crime, and to overlook the crime itself. This is not turning punishment to its highest use. Punishment is an outward sign of inward evil. It is meant to reveal something more terrible than itself. The greatness of punishmeitt is a mode of embodying, making visible, the magni- tude of the crime to which it is attached. The miseries of intemperance, its loath- someness, ghastliness, and pains, are not seen aright, if they do not represent to us the more fearful desolation wrought by this sin in the soul. Among the evils of intemperance, much importance is given to the poverty of which it is the cause. But this evil, great as it is, is yet light in comparison with the essential evil of intemperance, which I am so anxious to place distinctly before you. What matters it that a man be poor, if he carry into his poverty the spirit, energy, reason, and virtues of a man ! What matters it that a man must, for a few years, live on bread and water ! How many of the richest are reduced by disease to a worse condition than this ! Honest, virtuous, noble-minded poverty is a comparatively light evil. The ancient philosopher chose it as the condition of virtue. It has been the lot of many a Christian. The poverty of the intem- perate man owes its great misery to its cause. He who makes himself a beggar, by having made himself a brute, is mis- erable indeed. He who has no solace, who has only agonizing recollections and harrowing remorse, as he looks on his ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. lOI cold hearth, his scanty table, his ragged children, has indeed to bear a crushing weight of woe. That he suffers, is a light thing. That he has brought on himself this suffering by the voluntary extinction of his reason, this is the ter- rible thought, the intolerable curse. We are told that we must keep this or that man from drunkenness, to save him from " coming on the town," from being a burden to the city. The motive is not to be overlooked ; but I cannot keep my thoughts fixed for a moment on the few hundred or thousand dollars which the intemperate cost. When I go to the poor-house, and see the degradation, the spiritual weakness, the abjectness, the half-idiot imbeciUty written on the drunkard's countenance, I see a ruin which makes the cost of his support a grain of dust in the scale. I am not sorry that society is taxed for the drunk- ard. I would it were taxed more. I would the burden of sustaining him were so heavy, that we should be compelled to wake up, and ask how he may be saved from ruin. It is intended, wisely in- tended by God, that sin shall spread its miseries beyond itself, that no human being shall suffer alone, that the man who falls shall draw others with him, if not into his guilt, at least into a portion of his woe. If one member of the social body suffer, others must suffer too ; and this is well. This is one of the depend- encies by which we become interested in one another's moral safety, and are summoned to labor for the rescue of the fallen. Intemperance is to be pitied and ab- horred for its own sake much more than for its outward consequences. These consequences owe their chief bitterness to their criminal source. We speak of the miseries which the drunkard carries into his family. But take away his own brutality, and how lightened would be these miseries ! We talk of his wife and children in rags. Let the rags continue ; but suppose them to be the effects of an innocent cause. Suppose the drunkard to have been a virtuofis husband and an affectionate father, and that sickness, not vice, has brought his family thus low. Suppose his wife and children bound to him by a strong love, which a life of labor for their support and of un- wearied kindness has awakened ; sup- pose them to know that his toils for their welfare had broken down his frame ; suppose him able to say, " We are poor in this world's goods, but rich in affec- tion and religious trust. I am going from you ; but 1 leave you to the Father of the fatherless and to the widow's God." Suppose this, and how changed these rags ! How changed the cold, naked room ! The heart's warmth can do much to withstand the winter's cold ; and there is hope, there is honor, in this virtuous indigence. What breaks the heart of the drunkard's wife ? It is not that he is poor, but that he is a drunkard. Instead of that bloated face, now dis- torted with passion, now robbed of every gleam of intelligence, if the wife could look on an affectionate countenance, which had for years been the interpreter of a well-principled rnind and faithful heart what an overwhelming load would be lifted from her ! It is a husband whose touch is polluting, whose infirm- ities are the witnesses of his guilt, who has blighted all her hopes, who has proved false to the vow which made her his ; it is such a husband who makes home a hell, not one whom toil and dis- ease and providence have cast on the care of wife and children. We look too much at the conse- quences of vice, too little at the vice itself. It is vice which is the chief weight of what we- call its consequence, — vice which is the bitterness in the cup of human woe. II. I proceed now to offer some re- marks on the extent of temptations to this vice. And on this point 1 shall not avail myself of the statistics of intemperance. I shall not attempt to number its victims. I wish to awaken universal vigilance, by showing that the temptations to this excess are spread through all classes of society. We are apt to speak as if the laborious, uneducated, unimproved, were alone in danger, and as if we ourselves had no interest in this cause, except ae others are concerned. But it is not so ; mul- titudes in all classes are in danger. In truth, when we recall the sad histories of not a few in every circle, who once stood among the firmest and then yielded to temptation, we are taught that none of us should dismiss fear, — that we too may be walking on Jke edge of the abyss. The young are apposed to intemperance, for youth wants fore- I02 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. thought, loves excitement, is apt to place happiness in gayety, is prone to convivial pleasure, and too often finds or makes this the path to hell ; nor are the old secure, for age unnerves the mind as well as the body, and silently steals away the power of self-control. The idle are in scarcely less peril than the over-worked laborer ; for uneasy cravings spring up in the vacant mind, and the excitement of intoxicating draughts is greedily sought as an es- cape from the intolerable weariness of having nothing to do. Men of a coarse, unrefined character fall easily into in- temperance, because they see little in its brutality to disgust them. It is a sadder thought that men of genius and sensibility are hardly less exposed. Strong action of the mind is even more exhausting than the toil of the hands. It uses up, if I may so say, the finer spirits, and leaves either a sinking of the system which craves for tonics, or a restlessness which seeks relief in deceitful sedatives. Besides, it is nat- ural for minds of great energy to hun- ger for strong excitement ; and this, when not found in innocent occupation and amusement, is too often sought in criminal indulgence. These remarks apply pecuharly to men whose genius is poetical, imaginative, allied with, and quickened by, peculiar sensibility. Such men, living in worlds of their own creation, kindling themselves with ideal beauty and joy, and too often losing themselves in reveries, in which imag- ination ministers to appetite, and the sensual triumphs over the spiritual nat- ure, are peculiarly in danger of losing the balance of the mind, of losing calm thought, clear judgment, and moral strength of will, become children of impulse, learn to despise simple and common pleasures, and are hurried to ruin by a feverish thirst of high-wrought, delirious gratification. In such men, these mental causes of excess are often aggravated by peculiar irritableness of the nervous system. Hence the rec- ords of literature are so sad. Hence the brightest lights of the intellectual world have so often undergone disas- trous eclipse ; and the inspired voice of genius, so thrilhng, so exalting, has died ^pay in the brutal or idiot cries of intemperance. I have now been speaking of the highest order of intel- lectual men ; but it may be said of men of education in general, that they must not feel themselves beyond peril. It is said that as large a proportion of intemperate men can be found among those who have gone through our col- leges as among an equal number of men in the same sphere of life who have not enjoyed the same culture. It must not, however, be inferred that the cultivation of the intellect affords no moral aids. The truth is, that its good tendencies are thwarted. Educated men fall victims to temptation as often as other men, not because education is inoperative, but because our public seminaries give a partial training, being directed almost wholly to the develop- ment of the intellect, and very little to moral culture, and still less to the invigoration of the physical system. Another cause of the evil is probably this, that young men, liberally educated, enter on professions which give at first little or no occupation, which expose them, perhaps for years, to the tempta- tions of leisure, the most perilous in an age of inexperience and passion. Ac- cordingly, the ranks of intemperance are recruited from that class which forms the chief hope of society. And I would I could stop here. But there is another prey on which intemperance seizes, still more to be deplored, and that is woman. I know no sight (ya, earth more sad than woman's counte- nance, which once knew no suHusion but the glow of exquisite feeling, or the blush of hallowed modesty, crim- soned, deformed by intemperance. Even woman is not safe. The delicacy of her physical organization exposes her to inequalities of feeling which tempt to the seductive relief given by cor- dials. Man with his iron nerves ht- tle knows what the sensitive frame of woman suffers, how many desponding imaginations throng on her in her sol- itudes, how often she is exhausted by unremitting cares, and how much the power of self-control is impaired by repeated derangements of her frail sys- tem. The truth should be told. In all our families, no matter what their condition, there are endangered indi- .viduals, and fear and watchfulness in regard to intemperance belong to all. Do not say that I exaggerate your exposure to intemperance. Let no man ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 103 say, when he thinks of the drunkard, broken in health and spoiled of intel- lect, " I can never so fall." He thought as little of falling in his earlier years. The promise of his youth was as bright as yours ; and even after he began his downward course he was as unsus- picious as the firmest around him, and would have repelled as indignantly the admonition to beware of intemperance. The danger of this vice lies in its almost imperceptible approach. Few who per- ish by it know its first accesses. Youth does not see or suspect drunkenness in the sparkling beverage which quick- ens all its susceptibilities of joy. The invalid does not see it in the cordial which his physician prescribes, and which gives new tone to his debiUtated organs. The man of thought and gen- ius detects no palsying poison in the draught which seems a spring of inspi- ration to intellect and imagination. The lover of social pleasure little dreams that the glass which animates conver- sation will ever be drunk in solitude, and will sink him too low for the inter- course in which he now dehghts. In- temperance comes with noiseless step, and binds its first cords with a touch too light to be felt. This truth of mournful experience should be treasured up by us all, and should influence the habits and arrangements of domestic and so- cial life in every class of the commu- nity. Such is the extent of the temptations of this vice. It is true, however, that whilst its ravages may be traced through all conditions, they are chiefly to be found in the poorer and laboring por- tions of society. Here its crimes and woes swell to an amount which startles and appals us. Here the evil is to be chiefly withstood. I shall, therefore, in my following remarks, confine my- self very much to the causes and rem- edies of intemperance in this class of the community. HI. Among the causes of intemjDer- ance in the class of which I have spo- ken, not a few are to be found in the present state of society, which every man does something to confirm, and which brings to most of us many priv- ileges. On these I shall now insist, because they show our obligation to do what we can to remove the evil. It is just that they who receive good should aid those who receive harm from our present social organization. Undoubt- edly, the primary cause of intemper- ance is in the intemperate themselves, in their moral weakness and irresolu- tion, in the voluntary surrender of themselves to temptation. Still, so- ciety, by increasing temptation and diminishing men's power to resist, becomes responsible for all v/ide-spread vices, and is bound to put forth all its energy for their sujopression. This leads me to consider some of the causes of intemperance which have their foun- dation in our social state. One cause of the commonness of intemperance in the present state of things is the heavy burden of care and toil which is laid on a large multitude of men. Multitudes, to earn subsist- ence for themselves and their families, are often compelled to undergo a degree of labor exhausting to the spirits and injurious to health. Of consequence, relief is sought in stimulants. We do not find that civilization lightens men's toils ; as yet it has increased them ; and in this effect I see the sign of a deep defect in what we call the prog- ress of society. It cannot be the de- sign of the Creator that the whole of life should be spent in drudgery for the supply of animal wants. That civiliza- tion is very imperfect in which the mass of men can redeem no time from bod- ily labor for intellectual, moral, and social culture. It is melancholy to witness the degradation of multitudes to the condition of beasts of burden. Exhausting toils unfit the mind to with- stand temptation, The man, spent with labor, and cut off by his condition from higher pleasures, is impelled to seek a deceitful solace in sensual excess. How the condition of society shall be so changed as to prevent excessive prc."- sure on any class, is undoubtedly a hard question. One thing seems plain, that there is no tendency in our pres- ent institutions and habits to bring re- lief. On the contrary, rich and poor seem to be more and more oppressed with incessant toil, exhausting fore- thought, anxious struggles, feverish competitions. Some look to legislation to lighten the burden of the laboring class. But equal laws and civil liberty have no power to remove the shocking contrast of condition which all civilized 104 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. communities present. Inward, spirit- ual improvement, I believe, is the only sure remedy for social evils. What we need is a new diffusion of Christian, fraternal love, to stir up the powerful and prosperous to succor liberally and encourage the unfortunate or weak, and a new diffusion of intellectual and moral force to make the multitude efficient for their own support, to form them to self-control, and to breathe a spirit of independence which will scorn to ask or receive unnecessary relief. Another cause, intimately connected with the last, is the intellectual depres- sion and the ignorance to which many are subjected. They who toil from morning to night, without seasons of thought and mental improvement, are of course exceedingly narrowed in their faculties, views, and sources of grat- ification. The present moment, and the body, engross their thoughts. The pleasures of intellect, of imagination, of taste, of reading, of cultivated so- ciety, are almost entirely denied them. What pleasures but those of the senses remain ? Unused to reflection and forethought, how dim must be their perceptions of religion and duty, and how little fitted are they to cope with temptation ! Undoubtedly in this coun- try this cause of intemperance is less operative than in others. There is less brutal ignorance here than elsewhere ; but, on the other hand, the facilities of excess are incomparably greater, so that for the uneducated the temptation to vice may be stronger in this than in less enlightened lands. Our outward prosperity, unaccompanied with pro- portionate moral and mental improve- ment, becomes a mighty impulse to intemperance, and this impulse the prosperous are bound to withstand. I proceed to another cause of intem- perance among the poor and laboring classes, and that is the general sensu- ality and earthliness of the community. There is, indeed, much virtue, much spirituality, in the prosperous classes, but it is generally unseen. There is a vastly greater amount in these classes of worldhness, of devotion to the senses, and this stands out in bold relief. The majority live unduly for the body. Where there is Httle intemperance, in the common acceptation of that term, there is yet a great amount of excess. Thousands, who are never drunk, place their chief happiness in pleasures of the table. How much of the intellect of this community is pal- sied, how much of the expression of the countenance blotted out, how much of the spirit buried, through unwise indulgence ! What is the great lesson which the more prosperous classes teach to the poorer ? Not self-denial, not spirituality, not the great Christian truth that human happiness lies in the triumphs of the mind over the body, in inward force and Iffe. The poorer are taught by the richer that the great- est good is ease, indulgence. The voice which descends from the pros- perous contradicts the lessons of Christ and of sound philosophy. It is the sensuality, the earthliness of those who give the tone to public sentiment, which is chargeable with a vast amount of the intemperance of the poor. How is the poor man to resist intemperance ? Only by a moral force, an energy of will, a principle of self-denial in his soul. And where is this taught him ? Does a higher morality come to him from those whose condition makes them his supe- riors ? The great inquiry which he hears among the better educated is, What shall we eat and drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? Unceasing strug- gles for outward, earthly, sensual good, constitute the chief activity which he sees around him. To suppose that the poorer classes should receive lessons of luxury and self-indulgence from the more prosperous, and should yet resist the most urgent temptations to excess, is to expect from them a moral force in which we feel ourselves to be sadly wanting. In their hard conflicts, how little of hfe-giving truth, of elevating thought, of heavenly aspiration, do they receive from those above them in worldly condition ! Another cause of intemperance is the want of self-respect which the present state of society induces among the poor and laborious. Just as far as wealth is the object of worship, the measure of men's importance, the badge of distinc- tion, so far there will ,be a tendency to self-contempt and self-abandonment among those whose lot gives them no chance of its acquisition. Such naturally feel as if the great good of life were de- nied them. They see themselves neg' ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 105 iected. Their condition cuts them off from communication with the improved. They think they have little stake in the general weal. They do not feel as if they had a character to lose. Nothing reminds them of the greatness of their nature. Nothing teaches them that in their obscure lot they may secure the highest good on earth. Catching from the general tone of society the ruinous notion that wealth is honor as well as happiness, they see in their narrow lot nothing to inspire self-respect. In this delusion they are not more degraded than the prosperous ; they but echo the voice of society ; but to them the de- lusion brings a deeper, immediate ruin. By sinking them in their own eyes it robs them of a powerful protection against low vices. It prepares them for coarse manners, for gross pleasures, for descent to brutal degradation. Of all classes of society, the poor should be treated with peculiar deference, as the means of counteracting their chief peril, — I mean, the loss of self-respect. But to all their other evil is added peculiar neglect. Can we then wonder that they fall ? I might name other causes in our so- cial constitution favoring intemperance ; but I must pass them, and will suggest one characteristic of our times which in- creases all the tendencies to this vice. Our times are distinguished by what is called a love of excitement ; in other words, by a love of strong stimulants. To be stimulated, excited, is the univer- sal want. The calmness, sobriety, plod- ding industry of our fathers, have been succeeded by a feverish restlessness. The books that are read are not the great, standard, immortal works of gen- ius, which require calm thought, and in- spire deep feeling ; but ephemeral works, which are run through with a railroad rapidity, and which give a pleasure not unlike that produced by exhilarating draughts. Business is become a race, and is hurried on by the excitement of great risks, and the hope of great profits. Even religion partakes the general rest- lessness. In some places, extravagant measures, which storm the nervous sys- tem, and drive the more sensitive to the borders of insanity, are resorted to for its promotion. Everywhere people go to church to be excited rather than im- proved. This thirst for stimulants can- not be shut up in certain spheres. It spreads through and characterizes the community. It pervades those classes who, unhappily, can afford themselves but one strong stimulus, intoxicating liquor; and among these the spirit of the age breaks out in intemperance. IV. I have now set before you some of the causes of intemperance in our pres- ent social state ; and this I have done that you may feel that society, in all its ranks, especially in the highest, is bound in justice to resist the evil ; and not only justice, but benevolence pleads with us to spare no efforts for its prevention or cure. The thought that in the bosom of our society are multitudes standing on the brink of perdition, multitudes who are strongly tempted to debase and de- stroy their rational nature, to sink into brutal excess, to seal their ruin in this world and in the world to come, ought to weigh on us as a burden, ought to in- spire deeper concern than the visitation of pestilence, ought to rouse every man who has escaped this degradation to do what he may to rescue the fallen, and, still more, to save the falling. The question now comes, How shall we arrest, how suppress, this great evil ? Such is our lasj: inquiry, and to this I answer, there are two modes of action. To rescue men, we must act on them inwardly or outwardly. We must either give them strength within to withstand the temptations to intemperance,- or we must remove these temptations without. We must increase the power of resist- ance, or diminish the pressure which is to be resisted. Both modes of influence are useful, but the first incalculably the most important. No man is safe against this foe but he who is armed with moral force, with strength in his own soul, with the might of principle, and a virtu- ous will. The great means, then, of re- pressing intemperance in those portions of society which are most exposed to it, is to communicate to them, or awaken in them, moral strength, the power of self-denial, a nobler and more vigorous action of conscience and religious prin- ciple. In other words, to save the labor- ing and poor from intemperance, we must set in action amongst them the means of intellectual, moral, and relig- ious improvement. We must strive to elevate them as rational and moral be- ings, to unfold their highest nature. It is idle to think that, whilst these classes io6 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. remain the same in other respects, they can be cured of intemperance. Intem- perance does not stand alone in their condition and character. It is a part or sign of general degradation. It can only be effectually removed by exalting their whole character and condition. To heal a diseased limb or organ, you must re- lieve and strengthen the whole body. So it is with the mind. We cannot, if we would, remove those vices from the poor which are annoying to ourselves, and leave them, in other respects, as corrupt as before. Nothing but a gen- eral improvement of their nature can fortify them against the crimes which make them scourges alike to themselves and to their race. And how may moral strength, force of principle, be communicated to the less prosperous classes of society ? I answer, first, the surest means is to in- crease it among the more favored. All classes of a community have connections, sympathies. Let selfishness and sen- suality reign among the prosperous and educated, and the poor and uneducated will reflect these vices in grosser forms. That man is the best friend to temper- ance, among high and low, whose char- acter and life express clearly and strongly moral energy, self-denial, superiority to the body, superiority to wealth, elevation of sentiment and principle. The greatest benefactor to society is not he who serves it by single acts, but whose general char- acter is the manifestation of a higher life and spirit than pervades the mass. Such men are the salt of the earth. The might of individual virtue surpasses all other powers. The multiplication of individuals of true force and dignity of mind would be the surest of all omens of the suppression of intemperance in every condition of society. Another means is, the cultivation of a more fraternal intercourse than now ex- ists between the more and less improved portions of the community. Our pres- ent social barriers and distinctions, in so far as they restrict sympathy, and substitute the spirit of caste, the bigotry of rankj for the spirit of humanity for reverence of our common nature ought to be reprobated as gross violations of the Christian law. Those classes of society which have light, strength, and virtue, are bound to communicate these to such as want them. The weak, ignorant, falling and fallen, ought not to be cut off from their more favor- ed brethren, ought not to be left to act continually and exclusively on one an- other, and thus to propagate their crimes and woes without end. The good should form a holy conspiracy against evil, should assail it by separate and joint exertion, should approach it, study it, weep and pray over it, and throw all their souls into efforts for its removal. My friends, you whom God has prospered, whom He has enlight- ened, in whose hearts He has awakened a reverence for Himself, what are you doing for the fallen, the falling, the mis- erable of your race ? When an improved Christian thinks of the mass of unpit- ied, unfriended guilt in this city, must he not be shocked at the hardness of all our hearts ? Are we not all of one blood, one nature, one heavenly de- scent ; and are outward distinctions, which to-morrow are to be buried for ever in the tomb, to divide us from one another, to cut off the communi- cations of brotherly sympathy and aid ? In a Christian community, not one human being should be left to fall, without counsel, remonstrance, sym- pathy, encouragement, from others more enlightened and virtuous than himself. Say not this cannot be done. I know it cannot be done without great changes in our habits, views, feelings ; but these changes must be made. A new bond must unite the scattered portions of men. A new sense of responsibility must stir up the enlightened, the pros- perous, the virtuous. Christianity de- mands this. The progress qf society demands it. I see blessed omens of this, and they are among the brightest features of our times. Again, to elevate and strengthen the more exposed classes of society, it is indispensable that a higher education should be afforded them. We boast of the means of education afforded to the poorest here. It may be said with truth, in regard to both rich and poor, that these means are very deficient. As to moral education, hardly any provisions are made for it in our public schools. To educate is something more than to teach those elements of knowledge which are needed to get a subsistence. It is to exercise and call out the higher faculties and affections of a human ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 107 Ceing. Education is not the authori- tative, compulsory, mechanical training of passive pupils, but the influence of gifted and quickening minds on the spirits of the young. Such education is, as yet, sparingly enjoyed, and can- not be too fervently desired. Of what use, let me ask, is the wealth of this community, but to train up a better generation than ourselves ? Of what use, I ask, is freedom, except to call forth the best powers of all classes and of every individual ? What, but human improvement, is the great end of society ? Why ought we to sustain so anxiously republican institutions, if they do not tend to form a nobler race of men, and to spread nobleness through all condi- tions of social life ? It is a melancholy and prevalent error among us, that per- sons in the laboring classes are denied by their conditions any considerable intellectual improvement. They must live, it is thought, to work, not to fulfil the great end of a human being, which is to unfold his divinest powers and affections. But it is not so. The poor- est child might and ought to have liberal means of self-improvement ; and were there a true reverence among us for human nature and for Christianity, he would find them. In a letter recently received from a most intelligent travel- ler in Germany, I am informed that in certain parts of that country there is found, in the most depressed classes, a degree of intellectual culture not gen- erally supposed to consist with their lot ; that a sense of the beautiful in nature and art produces much happiness in a portion of society which among us is thought to be disqualified for this in- nocent and elevated pleasure ; that the teaching in Sunday-schools is in some places more various than here, and that a collection of books and a de- gree of scientific knowledge may be met in cottages far inferior to the dwell- ings of our husbandmen. "In short," my friend adds, " I have seen abundant proof that intellectual culture, as found here, spreads its light and comfort through a class that hardly exists at all with us, or, where it does exist, is generally supposed to labor under a degree of physical wretchedness incon- sistent with such culture." Information of this kind should breathe new hope into philanthropic labors for the intel- lectual and moral life of every class in society. How much may be done in this city to spread knowledge, vigor of thought, the sense of beauty, the pleas- ures of the imagination and the fine arts, and, above all, the influences of religion, through our whole community ! Were the prosperous and educated to learn that, after providing for their fami- lies, they cannot better employ their possessions and influence than in for- warding the improvement and elevation of society, how soon would this city be regenerated 1 How many generous spir- its might be enlisted here by a wise bounty in the work of training their fel- low-creatures ! Wealth cannot be bet- ter used than in rescuing men of vig- orous and disinterested minds from worldly toils and cares, in giving them time and opportunity for generous self- culture, and in enabling them to devote their whole strength and being to a like culture of their race. The surest mark of a true civilization is, that the arts which minister to sensuality decrease, and spiritual employments are multi- plied, or that more and more of the highest ability in the state is withdrawn from labors for the animal life, and con- secrated to the work of calling forth the intellect, the imagination, the conscience, the pure affections, the moral energy of the community at large, and especially of the young. What is now wasted among us in private show and luxury, if conscientiously and wisely devoted to the furnishing of means of generous culture to all classes among us, would render this city the wonder and joy of the whole earth. What is thus wasted might supply not only the means of edu- cation in the sciences, but in the refined arts. Music might here be spread as freely as in Germany, and be made a lightener of toil, a cheerer of society, a relief of loneliness, a solace in the poor- est dwellings. Still more, what we now waste would furnish this city, in a course of years, with the chief attractions of Paris, with another Louvre, and with a Garden of Plants, where the gifted of all classes might have opportunity to cultivate the love of nature and art. Happily, the cause of a higher educa- tion begins to find friends here. Thanks to that enlightened and noble-minded son of Boston, whose ashes now slura- i ber on a foreiarn shore, but who has left io8 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. to his birthplace a testimony of filial love, in his munificent bequest for the diffusion of liberal instruction through this metropolis. Honored be the name of Lowell, the intellectual benefactor of his native city ! A community, directing its energies chiefly to a higher educa- tion of its rising members, to a generous development of human nature, would achieve what as yet has not entered human thought ; and it is for this end that we ought to labor. Our show and our luxury, how contemptible in com- parison with the improvement of our families, neighborhood, and race ! Allow me here to express an earnest desire that our legislators, provoked to jealousy by the spirit of improvement in other states, and rrioved by zeal for the ancient honor of this Commonwealth, may adopt some strong measures for the advancement of education among us. We need an institution for the formation of better teachers ; and until this step is taken we can make no important prog- ress. The most crying want in this Commonwealth is the want of accom- pli.shed teachers. We boast of our schools ; but our schools do compara- tively little, for want of educated instruc- tors. Without good teaching, a school is but a name. An institution for training men to train the young would be a fountain of living waters, sending forth streams to refresh present and future ages. As yet, our legislators have de- nied to the poor and laboring classes this principal means of their elevation. We trust they will not always prove blind to the highest interest of the state. We want better teachers and more teachers for all classes of society, for rich and poor, for children and adults. We want that the resources of the com- munity should be directed to the procur- ing of better instructors, as its highest concern. One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the ele- vation of the art of teaching to the high- est rank in the community. When a people shall learn that its greatest bene- factors and most important members are men devoted to the liberal instruction of all its classes, to the work of raising to life its buried intellect, it will have opened to itself the path of true glory. This truth is making its way. Socrates is now regarded as the greatest man in an age of great men. The name of King has grown dim before that of Apostle. To teach, whether by word or action, is the highest function on earth. It is commonly supposed that instruc- tors are needed only in the earlier years of life. But ought the education of a human being ever to cease ? And may it not always be forwarded by good in- struction ? Some of us, indeed, can dis- pense with all teachers save the silent book. But to the great majority the voice of living teachers is an indispen- sable means of cultivation. The discov- ery and supply of this want would give a new aspect to a community. Nothing is more needed than that men of super rior gifts and of benevolent spirit should devote themselves to the instruction of the less enlightened classes in the great end of life, in the dignity of their nature, in their rights and duties, in the history, laws, and institutions of their country, in the philosophy of their employments, in the laws, harmonies, and productions of outward nature, and especially in the art of bringing up children in health of body and in vigor and purity of mind. We need a new profession or vocation, the object of which shall be to wake up the intellect in those spheres where it is now buried in habitual slumber. We honor, and cannot too much honor, the philanthropist, who endows permanent institutions for the relief of human siif- fering ; but not less good, I apprehend, would be accomplished by inquiring for and seizing on men of superior ability and disinterestedness, and by sending them forth to act immediately on soci- ety. A philanthropist who should lib- erally afford to one such man the means of devoting himself to the cultivation of the poorer classes of society would con- fer invaluable good. One gifted man, with his heart in the work, who should live among the uneducated, to spread useful knowledge and quickening truth, by conversation and books, by frank and friendly intercourse, by encouraging meetings for improvement, by forming the more teachable into classes, and giving to these the animation of his presence and guidance, by bringing parents to an acquaintance with the principles of physical, intellectual, and moral education, by instructing families in the means and conditions of health, by using, in a word, all the methods which an active, generous mind would discover ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 109 or invent for awakening intelligence and moral life ; one gifted man, so devoted, might impart a new tone and spirit to a considerable circle ; and what would be the result were such men to be multi- plied and combined, so that a community might be pervaded by their influence ! We owe much to the writings of men of genius, piety, science, and exalted virtue. But most of thfese remain shut up in nar- row spheres. We want a class of liberal instructors, whose vocation it shall be to place the views of the most enlightened minds within the reach of a more and more extensive portion of their fellow- creatures. The \fealth of a community should flow out like water for the prep- aration and employment of such teach- ers, for enlisting powerful and generous minds in the work of giving impulse to their race. Jesus Christ, in instituting the ministry, laid the foundation of the intellectual and moral agency which I now urge. On this foundation we ought to build more and more, until a life-giv- ing influence shall penetrate all classes of society. What a painful thought is it, that such an immense amount of in- tellectual and moral power, of godlike energy, is this very moment lying dead among us ! Can we do nothing for its resurrection ? Until this be done, we may lop off the branches of intemper- ance, but its root will live ; and happy shall we be if its poisonous shade do not again darken our land. Let it not be said that the laborious can find no time for such instruction as is now proposed. More or less leisure, if sought, can be found in almost every life. Nor let it be said that men, able and disposed to carry on this work, must not be looked for in such a world as ours. Christianity, which has wrought so many miracles of beneficence, which has sent forth so many apostles and martyrs, so many Howards and Clarksons, can raise up laborers for this harvest also. Nothing is needed but a new pouring out of the spirit of Christian love, nothing but a new comprehension of the brotherhood of the human race, to call forth efforts which seem impossibilities in a self- seeking and self-indulging age. I will add but one more means of giving moral power and general im- provement to those portions of the community in which intemperance finds its chief victims. We must not only promote education in general, but es- pecially send among them Christian instruction, Christian teachers, who shall be wholly devoted to their spirit- ual welfare. And here I cannot but express my joy at the efforts made for establishing a ministry among the poor in this and other cities. Though not sustained as it should be, it yet subsists in sufficient vigor to show what it can accomphsh. I regard this institution as among the happiest omens of our times. It shows that the spirit of him who came to seek 'and to save that which was lost is not dead among us. Christianity is the mighty power before which intemperance is to fall. Chris- tianity, faithfully preached, assails and withstands this vice, by appealing, as nothing else can, to men's hopes and fears, by speaking to the conscience in the name of the Almighty Judge, by speaking to the heart in the name of the Merciful Father, by proffering strength to human weakness and par- don to human guilt, by revealing to men an immortal nature within, and an eter- nal state before them, by spreading over this life a brightness borrowed from the life to come, by awakening generous affections, and binding man by new ties to God and his race. But Christianity, to fulfil this part of its mission, to reach those who are most exposed to intemperance, must not only speak in the churches, where these are seldom found, but must enter their dwellings in the persons of its minis- ters, must commune with them in the language of friendship, must take their children under its guardianship and con- trol. The ministry for the poor, sus- tained by men worthy of the function, will prove' one of the most powerful barriers ever raised against intemper- ance. The means of suppressing this vice, on which I have hitherto insisted, have for their object to strengthen and ele- vate the whole character of the classes most exposed to intemperance. I would now suggest a few means fitted to ac- complish the same end, by diminishing or removing the temptations to this vice. The first means which I shall suggest of placing a people beyond the temp- tations to intemperance, is to furnish them with the means of innocent pleas- no ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. ure. This topic, I appreliend, has not been sufficiently insisted on. I feel its importance and propose to enlarge upon it, though some of the topics which 1 may introduce inay seem to some hardly consistent with the gravity of this oc- casion. We ought not, however, to respect the claims of that gravity which prevents a faithful exposition of what may serve and improve our fellow-creat- ures. I have said, a people should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by furnishing the means of innocent ones. By innocent pleasures I mean such as excite moderately ; such as produce a cheerful frame of mind, not boisterous mirth ; such as refresh, instead of exhausting, the system ; such as occur frequently, rather than continue long ; such as send us back to our daily duties invigorated in body and in spirit ; such as we can partake in the presence and society of respect- able friends ; such as consist with, and are favorable to, a grateful piety ; such as are chastened by self-respect, and are accompanied with the conscious- ness that life has a higher end than to be amused. In every community there must be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement ; and if innocent ones are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Man was made to enjoy, as well as to labor ; and the state of society should be adapted to this principle of human nature. France, especially before the revolution, has been represented as a singularly temperate country, — a fact to be explained, at least in part, by the constitutional cheerfulness of that peo- ple, and by the prevalence of simple and innocent gratifications, especially among the peasantry. Men drink to excess very often to shake off depres- sion, or to satisfy the restless thirst for agreeable excitement, and these motives are excluded in a cheerful com- munity. A gloomy state of society, in which there are few innocent recrea- tions, may be expected to abound in drunkenness, if opportunities are af- forded. The savage drinks to excess, because his hours of sobriety are dull and unvaried ; because, in losing the consciousness of his condition and his existence, he loses little which he wishes to retain. The laboring classes are most exposed to intemperance, because they have at present few other pleas- urable excitements. A man who, after toil, has resources of blameiess recre- ation, is less tempted than other men to seek self-oblivion. He has too many of the pleasures of a man to take up with those of a brute. Thus, the encourage- ment of simple, innocent enjoyments is an important means of temperance. These rsmarks show the importance of encouraging the efforts which have commenced among us for spreading the accomplishment of music through our whole community. It is now pro- posed that this shall'be made a regular branch in our schools ; and every friend of the people must wish success to the experiment. I am not now called to speak of all the good influences of mu- sic, particularly of the strength which it may and ought to give to the religious sentiment, and to all pure and generous emotions. Regarded merely as a re- fined pleasure, it has a favorable bear- ing on public morals. Let taste and skill in this beautiful art be spread among us, and every family will have a new resource. Home will gain a new attraction. Social intercourse will be more cheerful, and an innocent public amusement will be furnished to the community. Public amusements, bring- ing multitudes together to kindle with one emotion, to share the same inno- cent joy, have a humanizing influence ; and among these bonds of society per- haps .10 one produces so much unmixed good as music. What a fulness of en- joyment has our Creator placed within our reach, by surrounding us with an atmosphere which may be shaped into sweet sounds ! And yet this goodness is almost lost upon us, through want of culture of the organ by which this pro- vision is to be enjoyed. Dancing is an amusement which has been discouraged in our country by many of the best people, and not with- out reason. Dancing is associated in their minds with balls ; and this is one of the worst forms of social pleasure. The time consumed in preparation for a ball, the waste of thought upon it, the extravagance of dress, the late hours, the exhaustion of strength, the exposure of health, and the languor of the succeeding day, — these and other evils, connected with this amusement ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. Ill are strong reasons for banishing it from the community. But dancing ought not therefore to be proscribed. On the con- trary, balls should be discouraged for this among other reasons, that dancing, instead of being a rare pleasure, re- quiring elaborate preparation, may be- come an every-day amusement, and may mix with our common intercourse. This exercise is among the most health- ful. The body as well as the mind feels its gladdening influence. No amuse- ment seems more to have a foundation in our nature. The animation of youth overflows spontaneously in harmonious movements. The true idea of dancing entitles it to favor. Its end is, to real- ize perfect grace in motion ; and who does not know that a sense of the grace- ful is one of the higher faculties of our nature ? It is to be desired that dan- cing should become too common among us to be made the object of special preparation as in the ball ; that mem- bers of the same family, when confined by unfavorable weather, should recur to it for exercise and exhilaration ; that branches of the same family should en- liven in this way their occasional meet- ings ; that it should fill up an hour in all the assemblages for relaxation in which the young form a part. It is to be desired that this accomplishment should be extended to the laboring classes of society, not only as an in- nocent pleasure, but as a means of improving the manners. Why shall not gracefulness be spread through the whole community ? From the French nation we learn that a degree of grace and refinement of manners may pervade all classes. The philanthropist and Christian must desire to break down the partition-walls between human be- ings in different conditions ; and one means of doing this is to remove the conscious awkwardness which confine- ment to laborious occupations is apt to induce. An accompHshment, giving free and graceful movement, though a far weaker bond than intellectual or moral culture, still does something to bring those who partake it near each other. I approach another subject, on which a greater variety of opinion exists than on the last, and that is the theatre. In its present state, the theatre deserves no encouragement. It is an accumula- tion of immoral influences. It has nour- ished intemperance and all vice. In saying this, I do not say that the amuse- ment is radically, essentially evil. I can conceive of a theatre which would be the noblest of all amusements, and would take a high rank among the means of refining the taste and elevating the char- acter of a people. The deep woes, the mighty and terrible passions, and the sublime emotions of genuine tragedy, are fitted to thrill us with human sym- pathies, with profound interest in our nat- ure, with a consciousness of what man can do and dare and suffer, with an awed feeling of the fearful mysteries of life. The soul of the spectator is stirred from its depths ; and the lethargy in which so many live is roused, at least for a time, to some intenseness of thought and sensibility. The drama answers a high purpose when it places us in the presence of the most solemn and strik- ing events of human history, and lays bare to us the human heart in its most powerful, appalling, glorious workings. But how little does the theatre accom- plish its end ! How often is it disgraced by monstrous distortions of human nat- ure, and still more disgraced by profane- ness, coarseness, indelicacy, low wit, such as no woman, worthy of the name, can hear without a blush, and no man can take pleasure in without self-degra- dation ! Is it possible that a Christian and a refined people can resort to theatres where exhibitions of dancing are given fit only for brothels, and where the most licentious class in the community throng unconcealed to tempt and destroy? That the theatre should be suffered to exist in its present degradation is a re- proach to the community. Were it to fall, a better drama might spring up in its place. In the mean time, is there not an amusement, having an affinity with the drama, which might be usefully introduced among us ? I mean recita- tion. A work of genius, recited by a man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and powers of elocution, is a very pure and high gratification. Were this art culti- vated and encouraged, great numbers, now insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to their excellence and power. It is not easy to conceive of a more effectual way of spread- ing a refined taste through a community. The drama, undoubtedly, appeals more 112 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. strongly to the passions than recitation ; but the latter brings out the meaning of the author more. Shakspeare, worthily- recited, would be better understood than on the stage. Then, in recitation, we escape the weariness of listening to poor performers, who, after all, fill up most of the time at the theatre. Recitation, sufficiently varied, so as to include pieces of chaste wit, as well as of pathos, beauty, and sublimity, is adapted to our present intellectual progress as much as the drama falls below it. Should this exhi- bition be introduced among us success- fully, the result would be that the power of recitation would be extensively called forth, and this would be added to our social and domestic pleasures. I have spoken in this discourse of in- tellectual culture, as a defence against intemperance, by giving force and eleva- tion to the mind. It also does great good as a source of amusement ; and on this ground should be spread through the community. A cultivated mind may be said to have infinite stores of inno- cent gratification. Every thing may be made interesting to it, by becoming a subject of thought or inquiry. Books, regarded merely as a gratification, are worth more than all the luxuries on earth. A taste for literature secures cheerful occupation for the unemployed and lan- guid hours of life ; and how many per- sons, in these hours, for want of in- nocent resources, are now impelled to coarse and brutal pleasures ! How many young men can be found in this city who, unaccustomed to find a companion in a book, and strangers to intellectual activity, are almost driven, in the long, dull evenings of winter, to haunts of in- temperance and depraving society ! It ■ is one of the good signs of the times that lectures on literature and science are taking their place among our public amusements, and attract even more than theatres. This is one of the first fruits of our present intellectual culture. What a harvest may we hope for from its wider diffusion ! In these remarks, I have insisted on the importance of increasing innocent f ratifications in a community. Let us ecome a more cheerful and we shall become a more temperate people. To increase our susceptibility of innocent pleasure, and to remove many of the sufferings which tempt to evil habits, it would be well if physical as well as moral education were to receive greater attention. There is a puny, half-healthy, half-diseased state of the body too com- mon among us, which, by producing melancholy and restlessness, and by weakening the energy of the will, is a strong incitement to the use of hurtful stimulants. Many a case of intemper- ance has had its origin in bodily infirm- ity. Physical vigor is not only valuable for its own sake, but it favors temper- ance, by opening the mind to cheerful impressions, and by removing those in- describable feelings of sinking, disquiet, depression, which experience alone can enable you to understand. I have pleaded for mental culture ; but nothing is gained by sacrificing the body to the mind. Let not intellectual education be sought at the expense of health. Let not our children in their early years be instructed, as is too common, in close, unventilated rooms, where they breathe for hours a tainted air. Our whole nature must be cared for. We must be- come a more cheerful, animated people ; and for this end we must propose, in our systems of education, the invigoration of both body and mind. I am aware that the views now ex- pressed may not find unmixed favor with all the friends of temperance. To some, perhaps to many, religion and amuse- ment seem mutually hostile, and he who pleads for the one may fall under sus- picion of unfaithfulness to the other. But to fight against our nature is not to serve the cause of piety or sound morals. God, who gave us our.nature, who has constituted body and mind incapable of continued effort, who has implanted a strong desire for recreation after labor, who has made us for smiles much more than for tears, who has made laughter the most contagious of all sounds, whose Son hallowed a marriage feast by his presence and sympathy, who has sent the child fresh from his creating hand to develop its nature by active sports, and who has endowed both young and old with a keen susceptibility of enjoy- ment from wit and humor, — He, who has thus formed us, cannot have intended us for a dull, monotonous life, and can- not frown on pleasures which solace our fatigue and refresh our spirits for coming toils. It is not only possible to recon- cile amusement with duty, but to make; ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 113 it ihe means of more animated exertion, more faithful attachments, more grateful piety. True religion is at once author- itative and benign. It calls us to suffer, to die, rather than to swerve a hair's breadth from what God enjoins as right and good ; but it teaches us that it is right and good, in ordinary circumstances, to unite relaxation with toil, to accept God's gifts with cheerfulness, and to lighten the heart, in the intervals of exertion, by social pleasures. A religion, giving dark views of God, and infusing super- stitious fear of innocent enjoyment, in- stead of aiding sober habits, will, by making men abject and sad, impair their moral force, and prepare them for in- temperance as a refuge from depression or despair. Two other means remain to be men- tioned for removing the temptations to intemperance, and these are the dis- couragement of the use and the dis- couragement of the sale of ardent spirits in the community. First, we should discourage the use of ardent spirits in the community. It is very plain — too plain to be insisted on — that to remove what intoxicates is to remove intoxication. In proportion as ardent spirits are banished from our houses, our tables, our hospitalities ; in proportion as those who have influence and authority in the community abstain themselves, and lead their dependants to abstain, from their use ; in that pro- .portion the occasions of excess must be ■diminished, the temptations to it must disappear. It is objected, I know, that, if we begin to give up what others will abuse, we must give up every thing, be- cause there is nothing which men will not abuse. I grant that it is not easy to define the limits at which concessions are to stop. Were we called on to re- linquish an important comfort of life, be- cause others were perverting it into an instrument of crime and woe, we should be bound to pause and deliberate before we act. But no such plea can be set up in the case before us. Ardent spirits are not an important comfort, and in no ■degree a comfort. They give no strength ; they contribute nothing to health ; they can be abandoned without the slightest evil. They aid men neither to bear the burden nor to discharge the duties of life ; and in saying this, I stop short of the truth. It is not enough to say that they never do good ; they generally injure. In their moderate use, they act, in general, unfavorably on body and mind. According to respectable physi- cians, they are not digested like food, but circulate unchanged like a poison through the system. Like other poisons, they may occasionally benefit as medi- cines ; but when made a beverage by the healthy, they never do good ; they generally are pernicious. They are no more intended by Providence for drink than opium is designed for food. Con- sider next, that ardent spirits are not only without benefit when moderately used, but that they instigate to immod- erate use ; that they beget a craving, a feverish thirst, which multitudes want power to resist ; that in some classes of society great numbers become their vic- tims, are bereft by them of reason, are destroyed in body and soul, destroyed here and hereafter; that families are thus made desolate, parents hurried to a premature grave, and children trained up to crime and shame. Consider aU this, and then judge, as in the sight of God, whether you are not bound to use your whole influence in banishing the use of spirits, as one of the most perni- cious habits, from the community. If you were to see, as a consequence of this beverage, a loathsoftie and mortal disease breaking out occasionally in all ranks, and sweeping away crowds in the most depressed portion of society, would you not lift up your voices against it ? And is not an evil more terrible than pes- tilence the actual frequent result of the use of spirituous liquors ? That use you are bound to discourage ; and how ? By abstaining wholly yourselves, by exclud- ing ardent spirits wholly from your tables, by giving your whole weight and author- ity to abstinence. This practical, solemn testimony, borne by the good and re- spectable, cannot but spread a healthful public sentiment through the whole com- munity. This is especially our duty at the present moment, when a great com- bined effort of religious and philanthropic men is directed against this evil, and when an impression has been made on the community surpassing the most san- guine hopes. At the present moment, he who uses ardent spirits, or introduces them into his hospitalities, virtually ar- rays himself agamst the cause of tem- perance and humanity. He not merely 114 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. gives an example to his children and his domestics, which he may one day bitterly rue ; he withstands the good in their struggles for the virtue and happiness of mankind. He forsakes the standard of social reform, and throws himself into the ranks of its foes. After these remarks, it will follow that we should discourage the sale of ardent spirits. What ought not to be used as a beverage, ought not to be sold as such. What the good of the community re- quires us to expel, no man has a moral right to supply. That intemperance is dreadfully multiplied by the number of licensed shops for the retailing of spir- its, we all know. That these should be shut, every good man desires. Law, however, cannot shut them except in a limited extent, or only in a few favored parts of the country. Law is here the will of the people, and the legislature can do, little unless sustained by the public voice. To form, then, an enlight- ened and vigorous public sentiment, which will demand the suppression of these licensed nurseries of intemper- ance, is a duty to which every good man is bound, and a service in which each may take a share. And not only should the vending of spirits in these impure haunts be discouraged ; the vending of them by respectable men should be re- garded as a great public evil. The re- tailer takes shelter under the wholesale dealer, from whom he purchases the per- nicious draught ; and has he not a right so to do ? Can we expect that he should shrink from spreading on a small scale what others spread largely without re- buke ? Can we expect his conscience to be sensitive, when he treads in the steps of men of reputation ? Of the character of those who vend spirits I do not judge. They grew up in the be- lief of the innocence of the traffic, and this conviction they may sincerely retain. But error, though sincere, is error still. Right and wrong do not depend on hu- man judgment or human will. Truth and duty may be hidden for ages ; but they remain unshaken as God's throne ; and when, in the course of His provi- dence, they are made known to one or a few, they must be proclaimed, whoever may be opposed. Truth, truth, is the hope of the world. Let it be spoken in kindness, but with power. Some of the means of withstanding intemperance have now been stated. Other topics, were there time, 1 should be glad to offer to your attention. But I must pause. — I will only add, that every lover of his race has strong en- couragement to exert himself for the prevention of intemperance. The strik- ing success of societies instituted for this end should give animation and hope. But even had these associations and these efforts failed, I should not de- spair. From the very terribleness of the evil, we may derive incitement and hope in our labors for its suppression. It cannot be that God has created moral beings to become brutes, or placed them in circumstances irresistibly impelling them to this utter renunciation of the proper good of their nature. There are, there must be, means of prevention or cure for this deadliest moral disease. The unhappiness is, that too many of us, who call ourselves the friends of temperance, have not virtue and love enough to use powerfully the weapon's of the spirit for the succor of the tempted and fallen. We are ourselves too sen- sual to rescue others from sensuality. The difference between us and the in- temperate man is too small to fit us for his deliverance. But that there are means of withstanding intemperance ; that it is the design and tendency of Christianity to raise up men fit and worthy to wield these means ; and that there are always some who are prepared to lead the way in this holy work, I can- not doubt. I see, indeed, a terrible en- ergy in human appetites and passions. But I do not faint. Truth is mightier than error ; virtue, than vice ; God, than the evil man. In contending earnestly against intemperance, we have the help and friendship of Him who is Almighty. We have allies in all that is pure, ra- tional, divine in the human soul, in the progressive intelligence of the age, in whatever elevates pubhc sentiment, in re- ligion, in legislation, in philosophy, in the yearnings of the parent, in the prayers of the Christian, in the teaching of God's house, in the influences of God's Spirit. With these aUies, friends, help- ers, let good men not despair, but be strong in the faith that, in due time, they shall reap, if they faint, not. ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. J15 Notes. I have spoken of the causes of intem- perance which are found in our state of society. I should wrong, however, the community to which I belong were I to leave the impression that our social con- dition offers nothing but incitements to this vice, It presents obstacles as well as affords facilities to it. And this ought to be understood, as an encour- agement to the efforts which, according to the preceding remarks, we are bound to make for its suppression. The growth of intelligence among us is a powerful antagonist to intemperance. In propor- tion as we awaken and invigorate men's faculties, we help them to rise above a brutal life ; we take them out of the power of the present moment, enlarge their foresight, give them the means of success in life, open to them sources of innocent pleasure, and prepare them to bear part in respectable society. It is true, that intelligence or knowledge is not virtue. It may not overcome sel- fishness ; but it makes our self-love wiser and more reflecting, gives us a better understanding of our own inter- ests, teaches prudence if not generosity, and, in this way, is a powerful guardian against ruinous excess. We have an- other defence against intemperance in our freedom. Freedom nourishes self- respect, and, by removing all obstruc- tions to exertion, by opening to men the means of bettering their lot, favors an animated, hopeful industry, thus rescu- ing a people from depression, despond- ence, and languor, which are among the chief temptations to brutalizing excess. It is indeed said that freedom generates all forms of licentiousness, and, conse- quently, intemperance. But it is, I be- lieve, a well established fact that this vice hag decreased since our struggle for independence. The habits and manners of the last generation were more perilous to temperance than our own. Social in- tercourse was more deformed by excess. Men in mature life visited taverns, and the young could not meet without the danger of drowning reason in wine. It is a false notion that we are wholly indebted for our present reform in this particular to temperance societies. These have done great good, and deserve great praise ; but the influence which is now carrying us on preceded them. They are its effects, not causes. An important change of habits had com- menced before their institution, and this seems to me an important view, and one of the chief encouragements to joint and individual exertion for the suppres- sion of this vice. Did I beUeve that our present social condition offered nothing but materials to intemperapce, that it excluded all contrary influences, and that our whole hope for stemming this evil rested on the temperance societies, I should be tempted to despond. Such societies can avail little, except when they act in concurrence with causes in the condition of society. Such causes exist, and one great use of temperance societies is to bring them into more en- ergetic and extensive action. I have not insisted on one of the means of temperance on which great stress has been laid, — that is, the in- fluence of public opinion. To bring ■ this to bear against intemperance has been regarded by not a few as the chief method of subduing the evil. Too much, I think, is hoped from it. One obvious remark is, that the classes most exposed to intemperance are removed very much from the power of public opinion. But, passing over this, I think we generally look to this influence for more than it can accomplish. We lay upon it a greater weight than it can bear. Public opinion may even work against the cause which it is meant to support, when made a substitute for individual exertion. A man , temperate because pub lie opinion exacts it, has not the virtuf of temperance, nor a stable ground of temperance habits. The remark is especially applicable to these times. Opinion, in former days, was more per- manent than at present. There were few or no causes in operation to unsettle general conviction. Society was cast into fixed forms. Ages passed away, and slight changes were seen in man- ners and in modes of thinking. But the present is a revolutionary age. Society, breaking from its old moorings, is tossed on a restless and ever-stormy ocean. Opinion no longer affords that steady guidance which in former times supplied the place of private judgment and indi- vidual principle. There is no truth which sophistry does not now assail, no falsehood which may not become a party bond. The great work to which religion and benevolence are now called ii6 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. is, not to sweep away multitudes by- storm, not to lay on men the tempo- rary, brittle chains of opinion, but to fix deep, rational conviction in individuals, to awaken the reason to eternal truth and the conscience to immutable duty. We are apt to labor to secure to virtue the power of fashion. We must secure to it the power of conviction. It is the essence of fashion to change. Nothing is sure birt truth. No other foundation can sustain a permanent reform. The temperance which rests on other men's opinions and practice is not a man's own virtue, but a reflection of what exists around him. It lies on the sur- face. It has not penetrated the soul. That opinion may exert a great and useful influence is not denied ; but it must be enlightened opinion, appealing to the reason and the conscience of the individual ; not to passion, interest, or fear, ijor proscribing aU who differ. We want public opinion to bear on temper- ance, but to act rationally, generously, not passionately, tyrannically, and with the spirit of persecution. Men cannot be driven into temperance. Let the temperate become a party, and breathe the violence of party, and they will raise up a party as violent as their own. The friends of truth must not call passion to their aid, for the erroneous and vicious have a greater stock of passion than they, and can wield this weapon to more effect. It is not by numbers or a louder cry that good men are to triumph over the bad. Their goodness, their con- sciousness of truth and universal love, must be manifested in clear, strong, benevolent appeals to the reason and heart. They must speak in the tone of the friend of their race. This will do infinitely more than the clamor of hosts. It seems to me an important remark that public opinion cannot do for virtue what it does for vice. It is the essence of virtue to look above opinion. Vice is consistent with, and very often strength- ened by, entire subserviency to it. It is a motive to be cautiously used, be- cause the mind, which passively yields to it, will find it a debilitating rather than an invigorating influence. The moral independence which can with- stand public sentiment is men's only safety. Whenever public sentiment shall be enlightened enough to pro- mote this superiority to itself, it will be a noble spring. In proportion as it wars against this self- subsistence, it subverts the ofily foundation of sub- stantial, enduring reform. It is sometimes very hazardous to at- tempt to extirpate a common vice by making it disgraceful, and passing on it a sentence of outlawry. If, indeed, the vice be confined to the poor and obscure, the brand of infamy may easily be fixed on it ; but when it spreads higher, and is taken under the protection of fashion, it can not only parry the weapon of dis- grace in the hand of its adversaries, but turn this against them. Fashion is singularly expert in the use of ridicule. What it wants in reason it can supply in sneers and laughter. Sometimes it puts on indifference as a coat of mail. It has especially the art of attaching the idea of vulgarity to a good cause ; and what virtue has courage to encounter this most dreaded form of opinion ? REMARKS ON EDUCATION. t" American Annals of Education and Instruction." Edited by William C. Woodbridge. Boston. Svc] The work, of which we have placed the title at the head of this article, is devoted to what is generally acknowl- edged to be the most important interest of families and of the state. It has, therefore, no ordinary claims to pat- ronage, especially as it is the only work of the kind published in the coun- try. We learn, however, that the sup- port now given it not only falls short of its just claims, but is so insufiicient that, unless its circulation can be extended, it must be abandoned. We are not only grieved at this, but somewhat disap- pointed ; for, although we knew the ruling passion in the community for light and amusing reading, we did hope that the acknowledged importance of REMARKS ON EDUCATION. "7 education, and the necessity laid on every parent to watcli over and guide the young, would overcome the repug- nance to mental labor, and would com- municate an interest to details which, separate from their end, would be dry and repulsive. It seems, however, that the community are more disposed to talk of education in general than to enter patiently and minutely into its principles and methods, — more disposed to laud it than to labor for it ; and on this ac- count we feel ourselves bound to say something, however briefly and rapidly, of the obligation of regarding it as the paramount object of society, and of giv- ing encouragement to those who make it their task, or who devote themselves to its promotion. We know that we are repeating a thrice-told tale, are inviting attention to principles which the mul- titude most courteously acknowledge, and a^ readily forget. But all great truths are apt to grow trite ; and if the moral teacher should fail to enforce tliem, because they are worn by repeti- tion, religious and moral teaching would well nigh cease. One excellence of the periodical work before us is, that it is pledged to no par- ticular system of education, but starts with the acknowledgment of the great defects. of all systems, and with the dis- position to receive new lights, come from what quarter they may. It is no partisan. It is the instrument of no sect. It is designed to improve our modes of training the young ; to give more generous views of the objects of education and of the discipline by which tliey may be attained ; to increase the efficiency of existing institutions, and to aid in forming new ones more suited to our age and country ; to unfold and dif- fuse those great universal principles in which men of all parties may be expected to agree and to point out the applica- tion of them in our families and schools. Its pages are open to original sugges- tions, to. discoveries, to the zealous re- former, and even to the too sanguine innovator. Its aim is to be a medium of communication for all who think on the subject of education, to furnish new facts to the philosopher, and to make known the results of successful experi- ments. Its liberality gives it one strong claim to support. Perhaps, if it were more confined in its views, if it were designed to answer the purposes of a party or sect, it would be better sustained. Were it to pro- scribe one class, and to pander to the bad passions of another, it would not perhaps be obliged to sue for more gen- erous patronage. But is it true that a work on education cannot find readers without assuming the badge of party ? Cannot the greatness of its object se- cure attention to its teachings .' In what class of society ought it not to find friends ? What parent has not a deep interest in the improvement of -public and private education ? What philan- thropist does not see in this the chief preparation of a people for his schemes of usefulness ? What patriot does not see in this the main security of free in- stitutions ? This cause is commended alike to our private and public affections ; and must the only periodical devoted to it die through neglect ? We are aware that there are some who take an attitude of defence when pressed with earnest applications on the subject of education. They think its importance overrated. They say that circumstances chiefly determine the young mind, that the influence of par- ents and teachers is very narrow, and that they sometimes dwarf and distort, instead of improving the child, by tak- ing the work out of the hand of nature. These remarks are not wholly unfound- ed. The power of parents is often ex- aggerated. To strengthen their sense of responsibility, they are often taught that they are competent to effects which are not within their reach, and are often discouraged by the greatness of the task to which they are summoned. Nothing is gained by exaggeration. It is true, and the truth need not be disguised, that parents cannot operate at pleasure on the minds and characters of the young. Their influence is limited by their own. ignorance and imperfection, by the strength and freedom of the will of the child, and by its connection, from its breath, with other objects and beings. Parents are not the only educators of their offspring, but must divide the work with other and numerous agents. And in this we rejoice ; for, were the young confined to domestic influences, each generation would be a copy of the pre- ceding, and the progress of society would cease. The child is not put into the ii8 REMARKS ON EDUCA TION. hands of parents alone. It is not born to hear but a few voices. It is brought at birth into a vast, we may say an in- finite, school. The universe is charged with the office of its education. In- numerable voices come to it from all that it meets, sees, feels. It is not con- fined to a few books anxiously selected for it by parental care. Nature, society, experience, are volumes opened every- where and perpetually before its eyes. It takes lessons from every object within the sphere of its senses and its activity, from the sun and stars, from the flowers of spring and the fruits of autumn, from every associate, from every smiling and frowning countenance, from the pur- suits, trades, professions of the commu- nity in which it moves, from its plays, friendships, and dislikes, from the vari- eties of human character, and from the consequences of its actions. All these, and more than these, are appointed to teach, awaken, develop the mind of the child. It is plunged amidst friendly and hostile influences, to grow by co-operat- ing with the first, and by resisting the last. The circumstances in which we are placed form, indeed, a most impor- tant school, and by their help some men have risen to distinction in knowledge and virtue, with little aid from parents, teachers, and books. Still, the influence of parents and teachers is great. On them it very much depends whether the circum- stances which surround the child shall operate to his good. They must help him to read, interpret, and use wisely the great volumes of nature, society, and experience. They must fix his volatile glance, arrest his precipitate judgment, guide his observation, teach him to link together cause and effect in the outward world, and turn his thoughts inward on his own more mys- .terious nature. The young, left to the education of circumstances, — left with- out teaching, guidance, restraint, — will, in all probability, grow up ignorant, torpid in intellect, strangers to their own powers, and slaves to their pas- sions. The fact that some children, without aid from parents or schools, have struggled into eminence, no more proves such aid to be useless than the fact that some have grown strong under physical exposures which would destroy the majority of the race, would prove the worthlessness of the ordinary pre- cautions which are taken for the se- curity of health. We have spoken of parents as pos- sessing, and as bound to exert, an im- portant influence on the young. But they cannot do the whole work of edu- cation. Their daily occupation, the necessity of labors for the support of their families, household cares, the duty of watching over the health of their children, and other social rela- tions, render it almost impossible for parents to qualify themselves for much of the teaching which the young re- quire, and often deny thepa time and opportunity for giving instruction to which they are competent. Hence the need of a class of persons who shall devote themselves exclusively to the work of education. In all societies, ancient and modern, this want has been felt ; the profession of teachers has been known ; and to secure the best helps of this kind to children is one of the first duties of parents, for on these the progress of their children very much depends. One of the discouraging views of society at the present moment is, that whilst much is said of education, hardly any seem to feel the necessity of secur- ing to it the best minds in the com- munity, and of securing them at any price. A juster estimate of this office begins to be made in our great cities ; but, generally, it seems to be thought that anybody may become a teacher. The most moderate abihty is thought to be competent to the most important profession in society. Strange, too, as it may seem, on this point parents in- cline to be economical. They who squander thousands on dress, furniture, amusements, think it hard to pay com- paratively small sums to the instructor ; and through this ruinous economy, and this ignorance of the dignity of a teach- er's vocation, they rob their children of aid for which the treasures of worlds can afford no compensation. There is no office higher than that of a teacher of youth, for there is noth- ing on earth so precious as the mind, soul, character of the child. No office should be regarded with greater re- spect. The first minds in the com- munity should be encouraged to assume it. Parents should do all but impover- REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 119 ish ' themselves to induce such to be- come the guardians and guides of their children. To this good, all their show and luxury should be sacrificed. Here they should be lavish, whilst they straiten themselves in every thing else. They should wear the cheapest clothes, live on the plainest food, if they can in no other way secure to their families the best instruction. They should have no anxiety to accumulate property for their childr-en, provided they can place them under influences which will awaken their faculties, inspire them with pure and high principles, and fit them to bear a manly, useful, and honorable part in the world. No language can express the cruelty or folly of that economy which, to leave a fortune to a child, starves his intellect, impoverishes his heart. There should be no economy in education. Money should never be weighed against the soul of a child. It should be poured out like water for the child's intellectual and moral life. Parents should seek an educator for the young of their families who will become to them a hearty and efficient friend, counsellor, coadjutor, in their work. If their circumstances will allow it, they should so limit the school that the instructor may know intimately ev- ery child, may become the friend of each, and may converse frequently with them in regard to eacn, He should be worthy of their confidence, should find their doors always open, should be among their most welcome guests, and should study with them the discipline which the peculiarities of each pupil may require. He should give the par- ents warning of the least obliquity of mind which he discovers at school, should receive in return their sugges- tions as to the injudiciousness of his own methods in regard to one or another child, and should concert with them the means of arresting every evil at its fiist manifestation. Such is the teacher we need, and his value cannot bepaid in gold. A man of distinguished ability and virtue, whose mind should be concentrated in the work of training as many children as he can thoroughly understand and guide, would shed a light on the path of parents for which they often sigh, and would give an im- pulse to the young little comprehended under our present modes of teaching. No profession should receive so liberal remuneration. We need not say how far the community fall »hort of this estimate of the teacher's office. Very many send their children to school, and seldom or never see the instructor who is operating daily and deeply on their minds and characters. With a blind confidence, perhaps they do not ask how tliat work is advancing on whicli the dearest interests of the family depend. Perhaps they put the children under the daily control of one with whom they do not care to associate. Perliaps, were they told what they ought to pay for teaching, they would stare as if a proj- ect for robbing them were on foot, or would suspect the sanity of the friend who should counsel them to throw away so much money in purchasing that cheapest of all articles, that drug in every market, instruction for tneir children. We know not how society can be aided more than by the formation of a body of wise and efficient educators. We know not any class which would contribute so much to the stability of the state, and to domestic happiness. IVIuch as we respect the ministry of the gospel, we believe that it must yield in importance to the office of train- ing the young. In truth, the ministry now accomplishes little for want of that early intellectual and moral dis- cipline by which alone a community can be prepared to distinguish truth from falsehood, to comprehend the in- structions of the pulpit, to receive higher and broader views of duty, and to apply general principles to the diver- sified details of life. A body of cul- tivated men, devoted, with their whole hearts, to the improvement of educa- tion, and to the most effectual training of the young, would work a fundamci- tal revolution in society. They would leaven the community with just princi- ples. Their influence would penetrate our families. Our domestic discipline would no longer be left to accident and impulse. What parent has not felt the need of this aid, has not often been depressed, heart-sick, under the con- sciousness of ignorance in the great work of swaying the youthful mind! We have spoken of the office of the education of human beings as the no- blest on earth, and have spoken delib erately. It is more impcrtant than that I20 REMARKS ON EDUCA TION. of the statesman. The statesman may set fences round our property and dwell- ings ; but how much more are we in- debted to him who calls forth the powers and affections of those for whom our property is earned, and our dwellings are reared, and who renders our children objects of increasing love and respect ! We go farther. We maintain that higher ability is required for the office of an educator of the young than for that of a statesman. The highest ability is that which penetrates farthest into human nature, comprehends the mind in all its capacities, traces out the laws of thought and moral action, understands the per- fection of human nature and how it may be approached, understands the springs, motives, applications, by which the child is to be roused to the most vigorous and harmpnious action of all its faculties, un- derstands its perils, and knows how to blenti and modify the influences which outward circumstances exert on the youthful mind. The speculations of statesmen are shallow compared with these. It is the chief function of the statesman to watch over the outward interests of a people, — that of the edu- cator to quicken its soul. The statesrrian must study and manage the passions and prejudices of the community ; the ed- ucator must study the essential, the deepest, the loftiest principles of hu- man nature. The statesman works with coarse instruments for coarse ends ; the educator is to work by the most refined influences on that delicate, ethereal es- sence, the immortal soul. Nothing is more common than mis- takes as to the comparative importance of the different vocations of life. Noisy, showy .agency, which is spread over a great surface, and therefore seldom pen- etrates beneath the surface, is called glory. Multitudes are Winded by official dignity, and stand wondering at a pygmy, because he happens to be perched on £ome eminence in church or state. So the declaimer, who can electrify a crowd by passionate appeals, or splendid im- ages, which give no clear perceptions to the intellect, which develop no general truth, which l?'-eathe no firm, disinterested purpose, passes for a great man. How few reflect, that the greater man is he who, without noise or show, is wisely fixing in a few minds broad, pregnant, generous principles of judgment and ac- tion, and giving an impulse which will carry them on for ever ! Jesus, with that divine wisdom which separates him from all other teachers, declared that the first requisite for becoming "great in his kingdom," which was another phrase for exerting a great moral influence, was humility; by which he meant a spirit opposed to that passion for con- spicuous station with which he saw his disciples inflamed, — a spirit of deep, unpretending philanthropy, manifested in sympathy with the wants of the mind, and in condescension, to any efforts by which the ignorant and tempted might be brought to truth and virtue. Ac- cording to these views, we think it a greater work to educate a child, in the true and large sense of that phrase, than to rule a state. Perhaps the direction which benevo- lence is taking at the present day has some influence in turning from the office of education the high honor which is its due. Benevolence is now directing it- self very much to public objects, to the alleviation of misery on a grand scale, to the conversion of whole nations, to the instruction of large bodies, and in this form it draws the chief notice and ad- miration, of multitudes. Now we are far from wishing to confine this action of charity. We respect it, and recognize in it one of the distinctive fruits of Christianity. But it must not be for- gotten that the purest benevolence is that which acts on individuals, and is manifested in our particular social do- mestic relations. It requires no great improvement in charity to sympathize with the degradation and misery into which the millions of India are sunk by the worship of Juggernaut and other superstitions. It is a higher action of the intellect and heart to study and un- derstand thoroughly the character of an individual who is near us, to enter into his mind, to trace his defects and suffer- ings to their true spring, to bear quietly and gently with, his frowardness and re- lapses, and to apply to him patiently and encouragingly the means of intellectual and moral elevation. It is not the high- est attainment to be benevolent to those who are thousands of miles from us, whose miseries make striking pictures for the imagination, who never cross our paths, never interfere with our interests, never try us by their waywardness^ never REMARKS ON EDUCATION. \2\ shock us by their coarse manners, and whom we are to assist by an act of bounty which sends a missionary to their aid. The truest mode of enlarging our benevolence is not to quicken our sensibility towards great masses or wide^ spread evils, but to approach, compre- hend, sympathize with, and act upon, a continually increasing number of individ- uals. It is the glory of God to know, love, and act on every individual in his in- finite creation. Let us, if we can, do good far and wide. Let us send light and joy, if we can, to the ends of the earth. The charity which is now active for distant objects is noble. We only wish to say that it ranks behind the obscurer phi- lanthropy which, while it sympathizes with the race, enters deeply into the minds, wants, interests of the individ- uals within its reach, and devotes itself patiently and wisely to the task of bring- ing them to a higher standard of intel- lectual and moral worth. We would suggest it to those who are anxious to do good on a grand and im- posing scale, that they should be the last to cast into the shade the labors of the retired teacher of the young ; be- cause education is the germ of all other improvements, and because all their schemes for the progress of Society must fail without it. How often have the efforts of the philanthropist been foiled by the prejudices and brutal ig- norance of the community which he has hoped to serve, by their incapacity of understanding him, of entering into and co-operating with his views ! He has cast his seed on the barren sand, and of course reaped no fruit but dis- appointment. Philanthropists are too apt to imagine that they can accomplish particular reformations, or work partic- ular changes in a society, although no foundation for these improvements has been laid in its intellectual and moral culture. They expect a people to think and act wisely in special cases, although generally wanting in intelligence, sound judgment, and the capacity of under- standing and applying the principles of reason. But this, partial improvement is a vain hope. The physician who should spend his skiU on a diseased limb whilst all the functions were de- ranged, and the principle of life almost extinguished, would get no credit for skill. To do men permanent good, we must act on their whole nature, and es- pecially must aid, foster, and guide their highest faculties at the first period of their development. If left in early life to sink into intellectual and moral torpor, — if suffered to grow up unconscious of their powers, unused to steady and wise exertion of the understanding, and strangers to the motives which ought to stir and guide human activity, — they will be poor subjects for the efforts of the philanthropist. Benevolence is short- sighted, indeed, and must blame itself for failure, if it do not see in education the chief interest of the human race. One great cause of the low estimation in which the teacher is now held may be found in narrow views of education. The multitude think that to educate a child is to crowd into its mind a given amount of knowledge, to teach the mech- anism of reading and writing, to load the memory with words, to prepare a boy for the routine of a trade. No wonder, then, that they think almost everybody fit to teach. The true end of education, as we have again and again suggested, is to unfold and direct aright our whole nature. Its office is to call forth power of every kind, — power of thought, affection, will, and outward action ; power to observe, to reason, to judge, to contrive ; power to adopt good ends firmly, and to pursue them effi- ciently ; power to govern ourselves, and to influence others ; power to gain and to spread happiness. Reading is but an instrument, — education is to teach its best use. The intellect was created not to receive passively a few words, dates, facts, but to be active for the acquisition of truth. Accordingly, edu- cation should labor to inspire a profound love of truth, and to teach the processes of investigation. A sound logic — by which we mean the science or art which instructs us in the laws of reasoning and evidence, in the true methods of inquiry, and in the sources of false judgments — is an essential part of a good education. And yet how little is done to teach the right use of the in- tellect in the common modes of training either rich or poor ! As a general rule, the young are to be made, as far as pos- sible, their own teachers, the discover- ers of truth, the interpreters of nature, the framers of science. They are to be- helped to help themselves. They should 122 REMARKS ON EDUCATION. be taught to observe and study the world in which they live, to trace the connec- tions of events, to rise from particular facts to general principles, and then to apply these in explaining new phenom- ena. Such is a rapid outline of the in- tellectual education which, as far as possible, should be given to all human beings ; and with this moral education should go hand in hand. In proportion as the child gains knowledge, he should be taught how to use it well, how to turn it to the good of mankind. He should study the world as God's world, and as the sphere in which he is to form interesting connections with his fellow- creatures. A spirit of humanity should be breathed into him from all his studies. In teaching geography, the physical and moral condition, the wants, advantages, and striking peculiarities of different nations, and the relations of climates, seas, rivers, mountains, to their char- acters and pursuits, should be pointed out, so as to awaken an interest in man wherever he dwells. History should be constantly used to exercise the moral judgment of the young, to call forth sympathy with the fortunes of the hu- man race, and to expose to indigna- tion and abhorrence that selfish ambi- tion, that passion for dominion, which has so long deluged the earth with blood and woe. And not only should the excitement of just moral feeling be proposed in every study. The science of morals should form an important part of every child's instruction. One branch of ethics should be particularly insisted on by the government. Every school, established by law, should be specially bound to teach the duties of the citizen to the state, to unfold the principles of free institutions, and to train the young to an enlightened pa- triotism. From these brief and imper- fect views of the nature and ends of a wise education, we learn the dignity of the profession to which it is intrusted, and the importance of securing to it the best minds of the community. On reviewing these hints on the ex- tent of education, we see that one im- portant topic has been omitted. We have said that it is the office of the teacher to call into vigorous action the mind of the child. He must do more. He must strive to create a thirst, an insatiable craving for knowledge, — to give animation to study and make it a pleasure, and thus to communicate an impulse which will endure when the in- structions of the school are closed. The mark of a good teacher is, not only that he produces great effort in his pupils, but that he dismisses them from his care conscious of having only laid the foundation of knowledge, and anxious and resolved to improve themselves. One of the sure signs of the low state of instruction among us is, that the young, on leaving school, feel as if the work of intellectual culture were done, and give up steady, vigorous effort for higher truth and wider knowledge. Our daughters at sixteen and our sons at eighteen or twenty have yf«zj/2^^ their education. The true use of a school is, to enable and dispose the pupil to learn through life ; and if so, who does not see that the office of teacher requires men of enlarged and liberal minds, and of winning manners, — in other words, that it requires as cultivated men as can be found in society. If to drive and to drill were the chief duties of an instruc- tor ; if to force into the mind an amount of lifeless knowledge, to make the child a machine, to create a repugnance to books, to mental labor, to the acquisi- tion of knowledge, were the great ob- jects of the school-room, then the teach- er might be chosen on the principles which now govern the school-commit- tees in no small part of our country. Then the man who can read, write, cipher, and whip, and will exercise his gifts at the lowest price, deserves the precedence which he now too often enjoys. But if the human being be something more than a block or a brute ; if he have powers which proclaim him a child of God, and which were given for noble action and perpetual progress, then a better order of things should begin among us, and truly enlightened men should be summoned to the work of education. Leaving the subject of instruction, we observe that there is another duty of teachers which requires that they should be taken from the class of improved, wise, virtuous men. They are to gov- ern as well as teach. They must pre- serve order, and for this end must inflict punishment in some of its forms. We know that some philanthropists wish to banish all punishment from the scbooL REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 123 We would not discourage their efforts and hopes ; but we fear that the time for this reform is not yet come, and tliat as long as the want of a wise discipline at home supplies the teacher with so many lawless subjects, he will be com- pelled to use other restraints than kind- ness and reason. • Punishment, we fear, cannot be dispensed with ; but that it ought to be administered most deliber- ately, righteously, judiciously, and with a wise adaptation to the character of the child, we all feel ; and can it then be safely intrusted, as is too much the case, to teachers undisciplined in mind and heart ? Corporal punishment at present has a place in almost all our schools for boys, and perhaps in some for girls. It maybe necessary.. But ought not every parent to have some security that his child shall not receive a blow unless inflicted in wisdom, justice, and .kindness ? And what security can he have for this but in the improved char- acter of the instructor t We have known mournful effects of injudicious corporal punishment. We have known a blow to alienate a child from his father, to stir up bitter hatred towards his teacher, and to indispose him to study and the pursuit of knowledge. We cannot be too unwilling to place our children under the care of passionate teachers, who, having no rule over their own spirits, cannot or course rule others, or of weak and unskilful teachers, who are obliged to supply by severity the want of a wise firmness. It is wonder- ful how thoughtlessly parents expose their children to corporal punishment. Our laws have expunged whipping from the penal code, and the felon is ex- jempted from this indignity. But how many boys are subjected to a whippet in the shape of a schoolmaster, whose whole mystery of discipline lies in the ferule ! The discipline of a school is of vast importance in its moral influence. A boy compelled for six hours each day to see the countenance and hear the voice of an unfeeling, petulant, passion- ate, unjust teacher, is placed in a school of vice. He is all the time learning les- sons of inhumanity, hard-heartedness, and injustice. The English are con- sidered by the rest of Europe as inclined to_ cruelty. Their common people are said to be wanting in mercy to the infe- rior animals and to be ferocious in their quarrels ; and their planters enjoy the bad pre-eminence of being the worst masters in the West Indies, with the exception of the Dutch. It is worth consideration, whether these vices, if they really exist, may not be ascribed in part to the unrestrained, barbarous use of whipping in their schools. Of one thing we are sure, that the disci- pline of a school has an important in- fluence on the character of a child ; and that a just, mild, benevolent teacher, who procures order by methods which the moral sense of his pupils approves, is perpetually spreading around him his own virtues. Should not our teachers, then, be sought from the class of the most enlightened and excellent men ? Our limits allow us to add but one more remark on the qualifications of teachers. It is important that they should be able to co-operate with par- ents in awakening the religious principle in the young. We would not of course admit into schools the peculiarities of the denominations which divide the Christian world. But religion in its broadest sense should be taught. It should indirectly mix with all teaching. The young mind should be guided through nature and human history to the Creator and Disposer of the uni- verse ; and, still more, the practical prin- ciples and spirit of Christianity should be matters of direct inculcation. We know no office requiring greater wisdom, and none but the wise and good should be invited to discharge it. We know that it will be objected to the views now given, that few, very few, will be able to pay for such teachers as we recommend. We believe, however, that there is a large class who, if they had the will, and would deny themselves as they ought, might procure excellent instructors for their children ; and as for the rest, let them do their best, let them but throw their hearts into this cause and improvements will be effected which have not been anticipated, perhaps not conceived. We acknowledge, however, that our remarks have been intended chiefly for the opulent. Let an interest in education be awakened in this class, and let more generous means for its pro- motion be employed, and we are satisfied that the teaching of all classes will be advanced, the talent of the country will be more and more directed to the oiBce of instruction, and the benefit will spread through the whole community. 124 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. [Review of a Discourse concerning the Influence of America on the Mind ; being tlie Annual Oration delivered before the American Philosophical Soci- ety, at the University in Philadelphiaj October i8j .1823. By C. J. Ingersoll.] We shall use the work prefixed to this article as ministers are sometimes said to use their texts. We shall make it a point to start from, — not the subject of our remarks. Our purpose is to treat of the ir.iportance and means of a Na- tional Literature. The topic seems to us a great one, and to have intimate connections with morals and religion, as well as with all our public interests. Our views will be given with great free- dom ; and if they serve no other pur- pose than to recommend the subject to more general attention, one of our prin- cipal objects will be accomplished. We begin with stating what we mean by national literature. We mean the expression of a nation's mind in writing. We mean the production among a peo- ple of important works in philosophy, and in the departments of imagination and taste. We mean the contributions of new truths to the stock of human knowledge. We mean the thoughts of profound and original minds, elaborated by the toil of composition, and fixed and made immortal in books. We mean the manifestation of a nation's intellect in the only forms by which it can multiply itself at home, and send itself abroad. We mean that a nation shall take a place, by its authors, among the lights of the world. It will be seen that we include under literature all the writings of superior minds, be the subjects what they may. We are aware that the term is often confined to compositions which relate to human nature and human life ; that it is not generally extended to phys- ical science ; that mind, not matter, is regarded as its main subject and sphere. ^But the worlds of matter and mind are too intimately connected to admit of exact partition. All the objects of hu- man thought flow into one another. Moral and Dhvsical truths have manv bonds and analogies, and, whilst the former are the chosen and noblest themes of literature, we are not anxious to divorce them from the latter, or to shut them up in a separate department,. I The expression of superior mind in /writing we regard, then, as a nation's I literature. We regard its gifted men, whether devoted to the exact sciences, to mental and ethical philosophy, to his- tory and legislation, or to fiction and poetry, as forming a noble intellectual I brotherhood ; and it is for the purpose 161 quickening all to join their laljors for jthe public good^that we offer the pres- [^nt plea in behalf of a national literature. To show the importance which we at^ tach to the subject, we begin with some remarks on what we deem the distinction which a nation should most earnestly covet. We believe that more distinct, apprehensions on this point are needed, and that, for want of them, the work of improvement is carried on with less en- ergy, consistency,, and wisdom, than may and should be brought to bear upon it. The great distinction of a country, then, is, that it produces superior men. Its natural advantages are not to be dis- dained. But they are of secondary im-^ portance. No matter what races of ani- mals a country breeds, the great question is, Does it breed a noble race of men ? No matter what its soil may be, the great question is. How far is it prolific of moral and intellectual power ? No matter how stern its climate is, if it nourish force of thought and virtuous purpose. These are the products by which a country is to be tried, and insti- tutions have value only by the impulse which they give to the mind. It has- sometimes been said that the noblest men grow where nothing else will growi This we do not beheve, for mind is not the creature of climate or soil. But were it true, we should say that it were better to live among rocks and sandsi than in the most genial and productive region on the face of the earth. REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 125 As yet, the great distinction of a na- tion on which we have insisted has been scarcely recognized. The idea of form- I ing a superior race of men has entered (.little into schemes of policy. Invention and effort have been expended on matter much more than on mind, Lofty piles have been reared ; the earth has groaned under pyramids and palaces. The thought of building up a nobler order of intellect and character has hardly crossed the most adventurous statesman. We beg that we miy not be misapprehended. We offer these remarks to correct what we deem a disproportioned attention to physical good, and not at all to condemn .the expenditure of ingenuity and strength on the outward world. There is a har- mony between all our great interests, between inward and outward improve- ments ; and by establishing among them ' a wise order, all will be secured. We have no desire to shut up man in his own spiritual nature. The mind was made to act on matter, and it grows by ex- pressing itself in material forms. We believe, too, that in proportion as it shall gain intellectual and moral power, it will exert itself with increased energy and delight on the outward creation ; will ,pour itself forth more freely in useful and ornamental arts ; will rear more magnificent structures, and will call forth new beauties in nature. An intelli- gent and resolute spirit in a community perpetually extends its triumphs over matter. It can even subject to itself the most unpromising region. Holland, diked from the ocean, — Venice, rising a,raidst the waves, — ^and New England, bleak and rock-bound New England, converted by a few generations from a wilderness into smiling fields and opu- lent cities, — point us to the mind as the great source of physical good, and teach us that, in making the culture of man pur highest end, we shall not retard but advance the cultivation of nature. 'The question which we most solicit- ously ask about this country is, what race of men it is likely to produce. We consider its liberty of value only as far as It favors the growth of men. What IS liberty.? The. removal of restraint from human powers. Its benefit is, that It opens new fields for action and a wider range for the jnind. The only freedom TTOr'th pbssessmg is that which gives en- largement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues. The savage nm'kes his boast of freedom. But what i* its worth ? Free as he is, he continue'j for ages in the same ignorance, leads the same com- fortless life, sees the same untamed wilderness spread around him. He is indeed free from what he calls the yoke of civil institutions. But other and worse chains bind him. The very privation of civil government is in effect a chain ; for, by withholding protection from prop- erty, it virtually shackles the arm of industry, and forbids exertion for the melioration of his lot. Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty ; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom. We are the more earnest in enlarging on these views, because we feel that our attachment to our country must be very much proportioned to what we deem its tendency to form a generous race of men. We pretend not to have thrown off national feeling ; but we have some stronger feelings. We love our country rnuch, but mankind more. As men and Christians, our first desire is to see the improvement of human nature. We de- sire to see the soul of man wiser, firmer, nobler, more conscious of its imperish- able treasures, more beneficent and powerful, more alive to its connection with God, more able to use pleasure and prosperity aright, and more victorious over poverty, adversity, and pain. In our survey of our own and other coun- tries, the great question which comes to us is this. Where and under what insti- tutions are men most likely to advance ? Where are the soundest minds and the purest hearts formed? What nation possesses, in its history, its traditions, its government, its religion, its manners, its pursuits, its relations to other com- munities, and especially in its private and public means of education, the in- struments and pledges of a more resolute virtue and devotion to truth, than we now witness ? Such a nation, be it where it may, will engage our warmest interest. We love our country, but not blindly. In all nations we recognize one great family, and our chief wish for our native land is, that it may take the first rank among the lights and benefactors of the human race. These views will explain the vast im- portance which we attach to a national 126 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. literature. By this, as we have said, we understand the expression of a nation's mind in writing. J;Lis the artinn nf the most gifted understa ndin gs on the com- miinity . 1 1 throws into circulation through a wide sphere the most quickening and beautiful thoughts which have grown up in men of laborious study or creative genius. It is a much higher work than the communication of a gifted intellect in discourse. It Js the mind_giying_to multitudes, whoni no voice can reach ^its compressed and _selected thoughtsin the" most lucid order and attractive forms which it is capable of inventing. In other words, literature is the _concen- tration of intellect for the purpose of spreading itself abroad and multiplying its energy. Such being the nature of literature, it is plainly among the most powerful meth- ods of exalting the character of a nation, of forming a better race of men ; in truth, we apprehend that it may claim the first rank among the means of im- provement. We know nothing so fitted to the advancement of society as to bring its higher minds to bear upon the multi- tude ; as to establish close connections between the more or less gifted ; as to spread far and wide the light which springs up in meditative, profound, and sublime understandings, tt-is-the-ordi- nance of Gqdj and_ane-o£Jiis-mostJ)&ne- ^volent laws7that the human r ace shoul d be carried forward by_impulses which originate in a few mindsj perhaps in an individual ; and in this way the, most in- teresting relations and dependencj.es_o£- life are framed. Wj ien a great truth is to be revealed, it does^ notna sTTat once on the race, but dawns and brightens on a superior understanding, from which it is to emanate and to illumine future ages. On the faithfulness of great minds to this awful function, the progress and happiness of men chiefly depend. The most illustrious benefactors of the race have been men who, having risen to great truths, have held them as a sacred trust for their kind, and have borne wit- ness to them amid general darkness, under scorn and persecution, perhaps in the face of death. Such men, indeed, have not always made contributions to literature, for their condition has not al- lowed them to be authors ; but we owe the transmission, perpetuity, and im- mortal power of their new and high thoughts to kindred spirits, which have concentrated and fixed them in books. The quickening influences of liter- mature need not be urged on those who are familiar with the history of modern Europe, and who of course know the spring given to the human mind by the revival of ancient learning. Through their writings, the great men of antiq- uity have exercised a sovereignty over these later ages not enjoyed in their own. It is more important to observe that the influence of literature is per- petually increasing ; for, through the press and the spread of education, its sphere is indefinitely enlarged. Read- ing, once the privilege of a few, is now the occupation of multitudes, and is to become,_one of the chief gratifications of all. ^ Books penetrate everywhere, and some of the works of genius find their way to obscure dwellings which, a httle while ago, seemed barred against all intellectual light. Writing is now the mightiest instrument on earth. Through this the mind has acquired a kind of omnipresence. To literature we then look, as the chief means of forming a better race of human beings. To — swp&cior mind.s, which r^^y get through thiSj we look for the impulses by which their country is_ to be carried forward. . We would teacbl tlieniljhat they are the depositaries of the hig hesT power on „earth, and that on them tht best hopes of society rest. We are aware that some may thinl that we are exalting intellectual abov« moral and religious influence. Thej may tell us that the teaching of mora> and rehgious truth, not by philosophers and boasters of wisdom, but by the comparatively weak and foolish, is the great means of renovating the world. This truth we indeed regard as "the power of God unto salvation." But let none imagine that its chosen tem- j pie is an uncultivated mind, and that it selects, as its chief organs, the lips of the unlearned. Religi ous and mora l truth is indeed appointed to carry for- ward mankind ; but not as conceived and expounded by narrow minds, not as darkened by the ignorant, not as debased by the superstitious, not as subtilized by the visionary, not as thun- dered out by the intolerant fanatic, not as turned into a drivelling cant by the hypocrite. Like all other truths, it re- REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 127 quires for its fullxece.ptioii_and-„pow_er- ful communication a free and vigorous intellect. Indeed, its grandeur and in- finite connections demand a more ear- nest and various use of our faculties than any other subject. As a single illustration of this remark, we may ob- serve that all moral and religious truth may be reduced to one great and cen- tral thought, perfection of mind, — a thought which comprehends all that is glorious in the divine nature, and which reveals to us the end and happiness of our own existence. This perfection has as yet only dawned on the most gifted human beings, and the great pur- pose of our present and future exist- ence is to enlarge our conceptions of it without end, and to embody and make them manifest in character and life. And is this sublime thought to grow within us, to refine itself from error and impure mixture, to receive perpetual accessions of brightness from the study of God, man, and nature, and especially to be communicated powerfully to others, without the vig- orous exertion of our intellectual nat- ure ? Religion has been wronged by nothing more than by being separated from intellect ; than by being removed from the province of reason and free research into that of mystery and au- thority, of impulse and feeling. Hence it is that the prevalent forms or exhi- bitions of Christianity are compara- tively inert, and that most which is written on the subject is of little or no worth. Christianity was given, not to contradict and degrade the rational nat- ure, but to call it forth, to enlarge its ran^e and its powers. It admits of endless development. It is the last truth which should remain stationary. It ought to be so explored and so ex- pressed as to take the highest place in a nation's literature, as to exalt and ^"purify all other literature. From these remarks it will be seen that the eflScacy which we have ascribed to Hterary or intellectual influence in the work of human improvement, is consistent with the supreme importance of moral and 'religious truth. If we have succeeded in conveying the impressions which we have aimed to make, our readers are now prepared to inquire with interest into the con- dition and prospects of literature among ourselves. Do we possess, indeed, what may be called a national literature ? Have we produced eminent writers in the various departments of intellectual effort ? Are our chief resources of instruction and literary enjoyment fur- nished from ourselves ? We regret that the reply to these questions is so obvious. The few standard works which we have produced, and which promise to live, can hardly, by any courtesy, be denominated a national literature. On this point, if marks and proofs of our real condition were needed, we should find them in the current apologies for our deficiencies. Our writers are ac- customed to plead in our excuse out youth, the necessities of a newly settled country, and the direction of our best talents to practical life. Be the pleas sufficient or not, one thing they prove, and that is, our consciousness of having failed to make important contributions to the interests of the intellect. We have few names to place by the side of the great names in science and literature on the other side of the ocean. We want those lights which make a country conspicuous at a distance. Let it not be said that European envy denies our just claims. In an age like this, when the literary world forms a great family, and the products of mind are circulated more rapidly than those of machinery, it is a nation's own fault if its name be not pronounced with honor beyond it- self. We have ourselves heard, and delighted to hear, beyond the Alps, our country designated as the land of Frank- lin. This name had scaled that mighty barrier, and made us known where our institutions and modes of life were hardly better understood than those of the natives of our forests. We are accustomed to console our- selves for the absence of a commanding literature by urging our superiority to other _ nations in our institutions for the diffusion of elementary knowledge through all classes of the community, We have here just cause for boasting, though perhaps less than we imagine. That there are gross deficiencies in our common schools, and that the amount of knowledge which they communicate, when compared with the time spent in its acquisition, is lamentably small, the community begin to feel. There is a crying need for a higher and more 128 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. quickening kind of instruction than the laboring part of society have yet re- ceived, and we rejoice that the cry be- gins to be heard. But, allowing our elementary institutions to be ever so perfect, we confess that they do not sat- isfy us. We want something more. A •dead level of intellect, even if it should rise above wTiat is common in other nations, would not answer our wishes and hopes for our country. We want great minds to be formed among us, — minds which shall be felt afar, and through which we may act on the world. We want the human intellect to do its utmost here. We want this people to obtain a claim on the gratitude of the human race, by adding strength to the foundation, and fulness and splendor to the development, of moral and religious truth ; by originahty of thought, by dis- coveries of science, and by contribu- tions to the refining pleasures of taste and imagination. With these views, we do and must lament that, however we surpass other nations in providing for, and spreading elementary instruction, we fall behind many in provision for the liberal training of the intellect, for forming great scholars, for communicating that profound knowl- edge, and that thirst for higher truths, which can alone originate a commanding literature. The truth ought to be known. There is among us much superficial knowledge, but little severe, persevering research ; little of that consuming pas- sion for new truth which makes outward things worthless ; little resolute devotion to a high intellectual culture. There is nowhere a literary atmosphere, or such an accumulation of literary influence, as determines the whole strength of the mind to its own enlargement, and to the manifestation of itself in enduring forms. Few among us can be said to have fol- lowed out any great subject of thought patiently, laboriously, so as to know thoroughly what others have discovered and taught concerning it, and thus to occupy a ground from which new views may be gained. Of course, exceptions are to be found. /This country has pro- Induced original and profound thinkers. We have named Frankhn, and we may name Edwards, one of the greatest men of his age, though unhappily his mind was lost, in a great degree, to literature, and we fear to religion, by vassalage to a false theology. His work on the Will throws, indeed, no light on human nat- ure, and, notwithstanding the nobleness of the subject, gives no great or "jlevated thoughts ; but, as a specimen of logical acuteness and controversial power, it certainly ranks in the very highest class of metaphysical writings./ We might also name living authors who do honor- to their country. Still, we may say we chiefly prize what has been done among us as a promise of higher and more ex- tensive effort. Patriotism, as well as virtue, forbids us to burn incense to national vanity. The truth should be seen and felt. In an age of great intel- lectual activity, we rely chiefly for in- tellectual excitement and enjoyment on foreign minds ; nor is our own mind felt abroad. Whilst clamoring against de- pendence on European manufactures, we contentedly rely on Europe for the nobler and more important fabrics of the intellect. We boast of our political in- stitutions, and receive our chief teach- ings, books, impressions, from the school of monarchy. True, we labor under dis- advantages. But, if our liberty deserves the praise which it receives, it is more than a balance for these. We believe that it is. We believe that it does open to us an indefinite intellectual progress. Did we not so regard it, we should value it httle. If hereditary governments min- ister most to the growth of the mind, it were better to restore them than to cling to a barren freedom. Let us not expose liberty to this reproach. Let us prove, by more generous provisions for the dif- fusion of elementary knowledge, for the training of great minds, and for the joint culture of the moral and intellectual powers, that we are more and more in- structed by freedom in the worth and greatness of human nature, and in the obligation of contributing to its strength and glory. We have spoken of the condition of our literature. We now proceed to the con- sideration of the causes which obstruct its advancement ; and we are immedi- ately struck by one so prevalent as to deserve distinct notice. We refer to the common doctrine that we need, in this country, useful knowledge, rather than profound, extensive, and elegant litera- ture, and that this last, if we covet it, may be imported from abroad in such variety and abundance as to save us the REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. 129 necessit)' of producing it among our- selves. How far are tliese opinions just ? This question we purpose to answer. That useful Icnowledge should receive our first and chief care we mean not to dispute. But in our views of utility we may differ from some who take this po- sition. There are those who confine this term to the necessaries and com- forts of life, and to the means of pro- ducing them. And is it true that we need no knowledge but that which clothes and feeds us ? Is it true that all studies may be dispensed with but such as teach us to act on matter, and to turn it to our use ? Happily, human nature is too stubborn to yield to this narrow utiHty. It is interesting to ob- serve how the very mechanical arts, which are especially designed to min- ister to the necessities and comforts of life, are perpetually passing these limits, — how they disdain to stop at mere con- venience. A large and increasing pro- portion of mechanical labor is given to the gratification of an elegant taste. How simple would be the art of build- ing, if it limited itself to the construc- tion of a comfortable shelter ! How many ships should we dismantle, and how many busy trades put to rest, were dress and furniture reduced to the standard of convenience! This " utility " would work a great change in town and country, would level to the dust the wonders of architecture, would annihilate the fine arts, and blot out innumerable beauties which the hand of taste has spread over the face of the earth, Happily, human nature is too strong for the ultilitarian. It cannot satisfy itself with the con- venient. No passion unfolds itself sooner than the love of the ornamental. The savage decorates his person, and the child is more struck with the beauty than the uses of its raiment. So far from limiting ourselves to convenient food and raiment, we enjoy but little a repast which is not arranged with some degree of order and taste ; and a man who should consult comfort alone in his wardrobe, would find himself an unwel- come guest in circles which he would very reluctantly forego. We are aware that the propensity to which we have re- ferred often break's out in extravagance and ruinous luxury. We know that the love of ornament is often vitiated by vanity, and that, when so perverted, it impairs, sometimes destroys, the sound- ness and simplicity of the mind and the relish for true glory. Still it teaches, even in its excesses, that the idea of Jjeajity-is an indestructible principle of our nature, and this single truth is enough to put us on our guard against vulgar no- tions of utility. We have said that we prize, as highly as any, useful knowledge. But by this we mean knowledge which answers and ministers to our complex and various nature ; we mean that which is useful, not only to the animal man, but to the intellectual, moral, and religious man, — useful to a being of sjjiritual faculties, whose happiness is to be found in their free and harmonious exercise. We grant that there is primary necessity for that information and skill by which subsistence is earned and life is pre- served ; for it is plain that we must live in order to act and improve. But life is the means ; action and improvement the end ; and who will deny that the noblest utility belongs to that knowledge by which the chief purpose of our creation is accomplished ? According to these views, a people should honor and culti- vate, as unspeakably useful, that litera- ture which corresponds to, and calls forth, the highest faculties ; which ex- presses and communicates energy of thought, fruitfulness of invention, force of moral purpose, a thirst for the true, and a delight in the beautiful. Accord- ing to these views, we attach special importance to those branches of litera- ture which relate to human nature, and which give it a consciousness of its own powers. History has a noble use, for it shows us human beings in various and opposite conditions, in their strength and weakness, in their progress and re- lapses, and thus reveals the causes and means by which the happiness and vir- tue of the race may be enlarged. P oetry ia_Jiseful) by touching deep springs in theTiuman soul ; by_giyiBgJV2i£e-to-its more~ddil&Ee^eefi!igk4__h:y-J3i£athiiig out, aiid making more i ntelligible, the -tttit^l etweenjtlie symp atJiy whi ch sujjasl mind and the outward., u,nivexsfi-;._i3.y creating .keautifulTonus^-oL manifesta- tions for grea.t.mo.rai_tr.uths. Above all, that higher philosophy, which treats of the intellectual and moral constitution of man, of the foundation of knowledge, of duty, of perfection, of our relations I30 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. to the spiritual world, and especially to God ; this has a usefulness so peculiar as to throw other departments of knowl- edge into obscurity ; and a people among whom this does not find .honor has little ground to boast of its superi- ority to uncivilized tribes. It will be seen from these remarks that utihty, with us, has abroad meaning. In truth, we are slow to condemn as useless any researches or discoveries of original and strong minds, even when we discern in them no bearing on any interests of mankind ; for all truth is of a prolific nature, and has connections not imme- diately perceived ; and it may be that what we call vain speculations may, at no distant period, link themselves with some new facts or theories, and guide a profound thinker to the most important 1 results. The ancient mathematician, "when absorbed in solitary thought, lit- tle imagined that his theorems, after the lapse of ages, were to be applied by the mind of Newton to the solution of the mysteries of the universe, and not only to guide the astronomer through the heavens, but the navigator through the pathless ocean. For ourselves, we in- cline to hope much from truths which are particularly decried as useless ; for the noblest and most useful truth is of an abstract or universal nature ; and yet the abstract, though susceptible of infinite application, is generally, as we know, opposed to the practical. We maintain that a people which has any serious purpose of taking a place among improved communities, should studiously promote within itself every variety of intellectual exertion. It should resolve strenuously to be surpassed by none. It should feel that mind is the creative power through which all the re- sources of nature are to be turned to ac- count, and by which a people is to spread its influence, and establish the noblest form of empire. It should train within itself men able to understand and to use whatever is thought and*discovered over the whole earth. The whole mass of human knowledge should exist among a people, not in neglected hbraries, but in its higher minds. Among its most cherished institutions should be those which will ensure to it ripe scholars, explorers of ancient learning, profound historians and mathematicians, intel- lectual laborers devoted to physical and moral science, and to the creation of a refined and beautiful literature. Let us not be misunderstood. We have no desire to rear in our country a race of pedants, of solemn triflers, of laborious commentators on the myste- ries of a Greek accent or a rusty coin. We would have men explore antiquity, not to bury themselves in its dust, but to learn its spirit, and so to commune with its superior minds as to accumu- late on the present age the influences of whatever was great and wise in former times. What we want is, that those among us whom God has gifted to comprehend whatever is now known, and to rise to new truths, may find aids and institutions to fit them for their high calling, and may become at once springs of a higher intellectual life to their own country, and joint workers with the great of all nations and times in carrying forward their race. We know that it will be said that foreign scholars, bred under institu- tions which this country cannot sup- port, may do our intellectual work, and send us books and learning to meet our wants. To this we have much to an- swer. In the first place, we reply that, to avail ourselves of the higher litera- ture of other nations, we must place ourselves on a level with them. The products of foreign machinery we can use without any portion of the skill that prodifced them. But works of taste and genius, and profound investigations of philosophy, can only be estimated and enjoyed through a culture and power corresponding to that from which they sprung. In the next place, we maintain that it is an immense gain to a people to have in its own bosom, among its own sons, ■ men of distinguished intellect. Such men give a spring and life to a com- munity by their presence, their society, their fame ; and, what deserves remark, such men are nowhere so felt as in a republic like our own ; for here the dif- ferent classes of society flow together and act powerfully on each other, and a free communication, elsewhere un- known, is established between the gift- ed few and the many. It is one of the many good fruits of liberty that it in- creases the diffusiveness of intellect ; and accordingly a free country is, above all others, false to itself in withholding REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 131 y from its superior minds the means of enlargement. We next observe — and we think the observation important — tliat the facility with which we receive the literature of foreign countries, instead of being a reason for neglecting our own, is a strong motive for its cultivation. We mean not to be paradoxical, but we be- lieve that it would be better to admit no books from abroad than to make them substitutes for our own intellectual ac- tivity. The more we receive from other countries, the greater the need of an original literature. A people into whose minds the thoughts of foreigners are poured perpetually, needs an energy within itself to resist, to modify this mighty influence, and, without it, will inevitably sink under the worst bond- age,' will become intellectually tame and enslaved. We have Certainly no desire" to complete our restrictive system by adding to it a literary non-intercourse law. We rejoice in tha increasing in- tellectual connection between this coun- try and the Old World ; but sooner would we rupture it than see our coun- try sitting passively at the feet of for- eign teachers. . It were better to have no literature than form ourselves un- resistingly on a foreign one. The true sovereigns of a country are those who determine its mind, its modes of think- ing, its tastes, its principles ; and we cannot consent to -lodge this sover- eignty in the hands of strangers. A country, like an individual, has dignity and power only in proportion as it is self-formed. There is a great stir to secure to ourselves the manufactur- ing of our own clothing. We say, let others spin and weave for us, but let them not think for us. A people whose government and laws are nothing but the ejnbodying of public opinion, should jealously guard this opinion against for- eign dictation. We need a literature to counteract, and to use wisely the litera- ture which we import. We need an in- ward power proportionate to that which is exerted on us, as the means of self- subsistence. It is particularly true of a people whose institutions demand for their support a free and bold spirit, that they should be able to subject to a manly and independent criticism what- ever comes from abroad. These views seem to us to deserve serious attention. We are more and more a reading peo- ple. Books are already among the most powerful influences here. The question is, shall Europe, through these, fashion us after its pleasure 1 Shall America be only an echo of what is thought and written under the aristocracies beyond the ocean t Another view of the subject is this. A foreign literature will always, in a measure, be foreign. It has sprung from the soul of another people, which, however like, is still not our own soul. Every people has much in its own char- acter and feelings which can only be embodied by its own writers, and which, when transfused through literature, makes it touching and true, like the voice of our earliest friend. We now proceed to an argument in favor of native Uterature, which, if less obvious, is, we believe, not less sound than those now already adduced. We have hitherto spoken of literature as the expression, the communication, of the higher minds in a community. We now add that it does much more than is com- monly supposed to form such minds, so that, without it, a people wants one of the chief means of educating or perfect- ing talent and genius. One of the great laws of our nature, and a law singularly , important to social beings, is, that the intellect enlarges and strengthens itself by expressing worthily its best views. In this, as in other respects, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Supe- rior minds are formed, not merely by solitary thought, but almost as much by communication. Great thoughts are never fully possessed till he who has conceived them has given them fit ut- terance. One of the noblest and most invigorating labors of genius is to clothe its conceptions in clear and glorious forms, to give them existence in other souls. Thus literature creates, as well as manifests, intellectual power, and, without it, the highest minds will never be summoned to the most invigorating action. We doubt whether a man ever brings his faculties to bear with their whole force on a subject until he writes upon it for the instruction or gratification of others. To place it clearly before others, he feels the necessity of viewing it more vividly himself. By attempting to seize his thoughts, and fix them in an endur- 132 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. ing form, he finds them vague and un- satisfactory to a degree which he did not suspect, and toils for a precision and harmony of views of which he had never before felt the need. He places his subject in new lights, — submits it to a searching analysis, compares and con- nects with it his various knowledge, seeks for it new illustrations and anal- ogies, weighs objections, and through these processes often arrives at higher truths than he at first aimed to illustrate. Dim conceptions grow bright. Glorious thoughts, which had darted as meteors through the mind, are arrested, and gradually shine with a sunlike splendor, with prolific energy, on the intellect and heart. It is one of the chief distinctions of a great mind that it is prone to rush into twilight regions, and to catch faint glimmerings of distant and unbounded prospects ; and nothing perhaps aids it more to pierce the shadows which sur- round it than the labor to unfold to other minds the indistinct conceptions which (have dawned on its own. Even where "composition yields no such fruits, it is still a great intellectual help. It always favors comprehensive and systematical views. The laborious distribution of a great subject, so as to assign to each part or topic its just position and due proportion, is singularly fitted to give compass and persevering force of thought. If we confine ourselves simply to the consideration ofstykj we shall have rea- son to think that a people among whom this is neglected wants one important intellectual aid. In this, great power is exerted, and by exertion increased. To the multitude, indeed, language seems so natural an instrument, that to use it with clearness and energy seems no great effort. It is framed, they think, to the writer's hand, and so continually employed as to need little thought or skill. But in nothing is the creative power of a gifted writer seen more than in his style. True, his words may be found in the dictionary. But there they lie disjointed and dead. What a won- derful life does he breathe into them by compacting them into his sentences ! Perhaps he uses no term which has not yet been hackneyed by ordinary writ- ers ; and yet with these vulgar materials what miracles does he achieve ! What a world of thought does he condense into ,a phrase ! By new coml/inations of com- mon words, what delicate hues or what a blaze of light does he pour over i^is subject ! Power of style depends very little on the structure or copiousness of the language which the writer of genius employs, but chiefly, if not wholly, on his own mind. The words, arranged in his dictionary, are no more fitted to de- pict his thoughts than the block of mar- ble in the sculptor's shop to show forth the conceptions which are dawning in his mind. Both are inert materials. The power which pervades them comes from the soul ; and the same creative energy is manifested in the production of a noble style as in extracting beauti- ful forms from lifeless stone. How un- faithful, then, is a nation to its own intellect, in which grace and force of style receive no culture ! The remarks now made on the im- portance of literature as a means of educating talent and genius, we are aware, do not apply equally to all sub- jects or kinds of knowledge. In the exact or physical sciences, a man may acquire much without composition, and may make discoveries without register- ing them. Even here, however, we be- lieve that, by a systematic development of his views in a luminous style, he will bring great aid to his own faculties, as well as to others'. It is on the vast subjects of morals and human nature that the mind especially strengthens itself by elaborate composition ; and , these, let it be remembered, form the^ staple of the highest literature. MoraP truth, under which we include every! thing relating to mind and character, J is of a refined and subtile, as well as elevated nature, and requires the joint and full exercise of discrimination, in vention, imagination, and sensibihty, to give it effectual utterance. A writer who would make it visible and power ful, must strive to join an austere logic to a fervent eloquence ; must place it in various lights ; must create for it in- teresting forms ; must wed it to beauty,; must illuminate it by similitudes and contrasts ; must show its correspond- ence with the outward world ; perhaps must frame for it a vast machinery of fiction. How invigorating are these efforts ! Yet it is only in writing, in elaborate composition, that they are deliberately called forth and sustained^ REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE- 133 and without literature they would al- most cease. It may be said of many truths, that greater intellectual energy is required to express them with effect than to conceive them ; so that a nation which does not encourage this expres- sion impoverishes so far its own mind. Take, for example, Shakspeare's Ham- let. This is a development of a singu- larly interesting view of human nature. It shows us a mind to which life is a burden ; in which the powers of medita- tion and feeling are disproportioned to the active powers ; which sinks under its own weight, under the conscious- ness of wanting energies commensurate with its visions of good, with its sore trials, and with the solemn task which is laid upon it. To conceive clearly this form of human nature, shows in- deed the genius of the writer. But what a new power is required to bring it out in such a drama as Shakspeare's ; to give it life and action ; to invent for it circumstances and subordinate char- acters, fitted to call it forth ; to give it tones of truth and nature ; to show the hues which it casts over all the objects of thought ! This intellectual energy we all perceive ; and this was not merely manifested in Shakspeare's work, but, without such a work, it would not have been awakened. His invention would have slumbered, had he not desired to give forth his mind in a visible and en- during .form. Thus literature is the nurse of genius. Through this, genius learns its own strength, and continually accumulates it ; and of course, in a country without literature, genius, how- ever liberally bestowed by the Creator, will languish, and will fail to fulfil its great duty of quickening the mass amidst which it lives. We come now to our last — and what we deem a weighty — argument in fa- vor of a native literature. We desire and would cherish it, because we hope from it important aids to the cause of truth and human nature. We believe " that a literature, springing up in this new soil, would bear new fruits, and, in some respects, more precious fruits, than are elsewhere produced. We know that our hopes may be set down to the account of that national vanity which, with too much reason, is placed by for- eigners among our besetting sins. But we speak from calm and deliberate con- viction. We are inclined to believe that, as a people, we occupy a position from which the great subjects of liter- ature may be viewed more justly than from those which most other nations hold. Undoubtedly we labor under dis- advantages. We want the literary ap- paratus of Europe, — her libraries, her universities, her learned institutions, her race of professed scholars, her spots consecrated by the memory of sages, and a thousand stirring associ- ations which hover over ancient nur- series of learning. But the mind is not a local power. Its spring is within it- self, and, under the inspiration of lib- eral and high feeling, it may attain and worthily express nobler truth than out- ward helps could reveal. The great distinction of our country is, that we enjoy some peculiar advan- tages for understanding our own nature. Mair is the" great subject of litera- ture, and juster and profounder views of man may be expected here than else- where. In Europe, political and arti- ficial distinctions have, more or less," triumphed over and obscured our com- mon nature. In Europe, we meet kings, nobles, priests, peasants. How much rarer is it to meet men; by which we mean human beings conscious of their own nature, and conscious of the utter worthlessness of all outward distinctions compared with what is treasured up in their own souls. IVIan does not value himself as man. It is for his blood, his rank, or some artificial distinction, and not for the attributes of humanity, that he holds himself in respect. The institu- tions of the Old World all tend to throw obscurity over what we most need to know, and that is, the worth and claims of a human being. We know that great improvements in this respect are going on abroad. Still the many are too often postponed to the few. The mass of men are regarded as instruments to work with, as materials to be shaped for the use of their superiors. That conscious- ness of our own nature which contains, as a germ, all nobler thoughts, which teaches us at once self-respect and re- spect for others, and which binds us to God by filial sentiment and hope, — this has been repressed, kept down by es- tablishments founded in force ; and lit- erature, in all its departments, bears, we think, the traces of this inward dearrada- 134 REMARKS ON NATIONAL LITERATURE. tion. We conceive that our position favors a juster and profounder estimate of human nature. We mean not to boast, but there are fewer obstructions to that moral consciousness, tliat con- sciousness of humanity, of which we have spolien. Man is not hidden from us by so many disguises as in the Old World. The essential equality of all human beings, founded on the posses- sion of a spiritual, progressive, immortal nature, is, we hope, better understood ; and nothing more than this single con- viction is needed to work the mightiest changes in every province of human life and of human thought. We have stated what seems to us our most important distinction. But our position has other advantages. The mere circumstance of its being a new one gives reason to hope for some new intellectual activity, some fresher views of nature and life. We are not borne down by the weight of antiquated insti- Jutions, time-hallowed abuses, and the remnants of feudal barbarism. The ab- sence of a religious establishment is an immense gain, as far as originahty of mind is in question ; for an establish- ment, however advantageous in other respects, is, by its nature, hostile to dis- covery and progress. To keep the mind where it is, to fasten the notions of one age on all future time, is its aim and proper business ; and if it happened, as has generally been the case, to grow up in an age of strife and passion, when, as history demonstrates, the church was overrun with error, it cannot but per- petuate darkness and mental bondage. Among us, intellect, though far from being free, has broken some of the chains of other countries, and is more likely, we conceive, to propose to itself its legitimate object, truth, — everlast- ing and universal truth. We have no thought of speaking con- temptuously of the literature of the Old World. It is our daily nutriment. We feel our debt to be immense to the glorious company of pure and wise minds which in foreign lands have be- queathed us in writing their choicest thoughts and holiest feelings. Still, we feel that all existing hterature has been produced under influences which have necessarily mixed with it mucli error and corruption ; and that the whole of it ought to pass, and must pass, under rig- orous review. For example, we think that the history of the human race is to be rewritten. Men imbued with the preju- dices which thrive under aristocracies and state rehgions cannot understand it. Past ages, with their great events and great men, are to undergo, we think, a new trial, and to yield new results. It is plain that history is already viewed un- der new aspects, and we believe that the true principles for studying and writing it are to be unfolded here, at least as rapidly as in other countries. It seems to us that in literature an immense work is yet to be done. The most interesting questions to mankind are yet in debate. Great principles are yet to be settled in criticism, in morals, in politics ; and, above all, the true character of religion is to be rescued from the disguises and corruptions of ages. We want a refor-? mation. We want a liter a;tuf e, in which genius will pay supreme if not undi- vided homage to truth and virtue ; in which the childish admiration of what has been called greatness wiU give place to a wise moral judgment ; which will breathe reverence for the mind, and elevating thoughts of God. The part, which this country is to bear in this-' great intellectual reform we presume not to predict. We feel, however, that, if true to itself, it will have the glory and happiness of giving new impulses to the human mind. This is our cher- ished hope. We should have no heart to encourage native literature, did we not hope that it would become instinct with a new spirit. We cannot admit the thought that this country is to be only a repetition of the Old World. We delight to believe that God, in the fulness of time, has brought a new con- tinent to light, in order that the human mind should move here with a new free- dom, should frame new social institu- tions, should explore new paths, and reap new harvests. We are accustomed to estimate nations by their creative energies ; and we shall blush for our country if, in circumstances so pecul- iar, original, and creative, it shall sat- isfy itself with a passive reception and mechanical reiteration of the thoughts- of strangers. We have now completed our remarks on the importance of a native literature. The next great topic is, the means of pro- ducing it. And here our limits forbid us REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 135 to enlarge ; yet we cannot pass it over in silence. A primary and essential means of the improvement of our litera- ture is, that, as a people, we should feel its value, should desire it, should de- mand it, should encourage it, and should give it a hearty welcome. Itrwijl__cpme if called for ; and, under this conviction, we have^now labored to create a want for it in the community. We say that we must call for it ; by which we mean not merely that we must invite it by good wishes and kind words, but must make liberal provision for intellectual educa- tion. We must enlarge our literary in- stitutions, secure more extensive and profound teaching, and furnish helps and resources to men of superior talent for pontinued laborious research. As yet, intellectual labor, devoted to a thorough investigation and a full development of great subjects, is almost unknown among us ; and, without it, we shall certainly rear few lasting monuments of thought. We boast of our primary schools. We want universities worthy of the name, where a man of genius and literary zeal may possess himself of all that is yet known, and may strengthen himself by intercourse with kindred minds. We know it will be said that we cannot afford these. But it is not so. We are rich enough for ostentation, for intem- perance, for luxury. We can lavish millions on fashion, on furniture, on dress, on our palaces, on our pleasures ; but we have nothing to spend for the mind. Where lies our poverty ? In the purse, or in the soul ? We have spoken of improved insti- tutions as essential to an improved lit- erature. We beg, however, not to be misunderstood, as if these were invested with a creating power, or would neces- sarily yield the results which we desire. They are the means, not causes, of ad- [ vancement, Literature depends on indi- ' I vidual genius, and this, though fostered, ■ cannot be created by outward helps. No human mechanism can produce original thought. After all the attempts to ex- plain by education the varieties of intel- lect, we are compelled to believe that ' minds, like all the other products of nature, have original, and indestructible differences ; that they are not exempted from that great and beautiful law which joins with strong resemblances as strong diversities ; and, of consequence, we be- lieve that the men who are to be the lights of the world bring with them their commission and poweffrom God. Still, whilst institutions cannot create, they may and do unfold genius ; and, for want of them, great minds often slum- ber or run to waste, whilst a still larger class, who want genius, but possess ad- mirable powers, fail of that culture through which they might enjoy and approach their more gifted brethren. A people, as we have said, are to give aid to literature by founding wise and enlarged institutions. They may do much more. They may exert a nobler^ patronage. By cherishing in their own breasts the love of truth, virtue, and freedom, they may do much to nurse and kindle genius in its favored posses- sors. There is a constant reaction be- tween a community and the great minds which spring up within it, and they form one another. In truth, great minds are developed more by the spirit and char- acter of the people to which they belong than by all other causes. Thus, a free spirit, a thirst for new and higher knowl- edge in a community, does infinitely more for literature than the most splen- did benefactions under despotism. A nation under any powerful excitement becomes fruitful of talent. Among a people called to discuss great questions, to contend for great interests, to make great sacrifices for the public weal, we always find new and unsuspected ener- gies of thought brought out. A mer- cenary, selfish, luxurious, sensual people, toiling only to secure the pleasures of sloth, will often communicate their own softness and baseness to the superior minds which dwell among them. In this impure atmosphere the celestial spark burns -dim ; and well will it be if God's great gift of genius be not impi- ously prostituted to lust and crime. In conformity with the views now stated, we believe that literature is to be carried forward, here and elsewhere, chiefly by some new and powerful -im- pulses communicated to society ; and it is a question naturally suggested by this discussion, from what impulse, principle, excitement, the highest action of the mind may now be expected. When we look back, we see that literature has been originated and modified by a vari-, ety of principles : by patriotism and natlTjiSl' feeling, by reverence for an- 136 REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. tiquity, by the spirit of innovation, by enthusiasm; by scepticism, by the pas- sion for fame, by romantic love, and by ipolitical and religious convulsions. Now, "we do not expect from these causes any higher action of the mind than they have yet produced. Perhaps most of them have spent their force. The very im- provements of society seem to forbid the manifestation of their former energy. For example, the patriotism of antiquity and the sexual love of chivalrous ages, which inspired so much of the old litera- ure, are now seen to be feverish and 'icious excesses of natural principles, ,nd have gone, we trust, never to re- urn. Are we asked, then, to what impulse ir power we look for a higher literature vhan has yet existed ? We answer, to a new action or development of the relig- ious principle. This remark will prob- ably surprise not a few of our readers. It seems to us that the energy with which this principle is to act on the in- tellect is hardly suspected. Men identify religion with superstition, with fanati- cism, with the common forms of Chris- tianity ; and seeing it arrayed against intellect, leagued with oppression, fet- tering inquiry, and incapable of being blended with the sacred dictates of rea- son and conscience, they see in its prog- ress only new encroachments on free and enlightened thinking. Still man's relation to God is the great quickening truth, throwing ail other truths into in- significance, and a truth which, however obscured and paralyzed by the many errors which ignorance and fraud have hitlierto linked with it, has ever been a chief spring of human improvement. We look to it as the true life of the in- tellect. No man can be just to himself — can comprehend his own existence, can put forth all his powers with an heroic confidence, can deserve to be the guide and inspirer of other minds — till he h as risen to communion with the Supreme TVIiiid; till he feels his filial connection with the Universal Parent ; till he regards himself as the recipient and minister of the Infinite Spirit ; till he feels his consecration to the ends which religion unfolds ; till he rises above hu- man opinion, and is moved by a higher impulse than fame. - From these remarks it will be seen that our chief hopes of an improved literature rest on our hopes of an im- proved religion. From the prevalent theology which has come clown to us from the dark ages, we hope nothing. It has done its best. All that can grow up under its sad shade has already been brought forth. It wraps the divine nat- ure and human nature in impenetrable gloom. It overlays Christianity with, technical, arbitrary dogmas. True faith is of another lineage. It comes frorn the same source with reason, conscience, and our best affections, and is in har- mony with them all. True faith is essen- tially a moral conviction ; a confidence in the reality and immutableness of moral distinctions ; a confidence in dis- interested virtue or in spiritual excel- lence as the supreme good ; a confidence in God as its fountain and Almighty Friend, and in Jesus Christ as having lived and died to breathe it into the soul ; a confidence in its power, triumphs, and immortality ; a confidence, through which outward changes, obstructions, disasters, sufferings, are overcome, or rather made instruments of perfection. Such a faith, unfolded freely and power- fully, must " work mightily " on the^ intellect as well as on practice. By revealing to us the supreme purpose of the Creator, it places us, as it were, in the centre of the universe, from which the harmonies, true relations, and bright- est aspect of things are discerned. It unites calmness and enthusiasm, and" the concord of these seemingly hostile elements is essential to the full and healthy action of the creative powers of the soul. It opens the eye to beauty and the heart to love. Literature, under this influence, will become more ingen- uous and single-hearted ; will penetrate farther into the soul ; will find new in- terpretations of nature and life ; wiU breathe a martyr's love of truth, tem- pered with a never-failing charity ; and, whilst sympathizing with all human suf- fering, will still be pervaded by a health- ful cheerfulness, and will often break forth in tones of irrepressible joy, re- sponsive to that happiness which fiUs God's universe. We cannot close our remarks on the means of an improved literature without offering one suggestion. We earnestly recommend to our educated men a more extensive acquaintance with the intel- lectual labors of continental Europe. REMARKS ON NA TIONAL LITERA TURE. 137 Our reading is confined too much to English books, and especially to the more recent publications of Great Brit- ain. In this we err. We ought to know the different modes of viewing and dis- cussing great subjects in different na- tions. We should be able to compare the writings of the 'highest minds in a great variety of circumstances. Nothing can favor more our own intellectual inde- pendence and activity. Let English lit- erature be ever so fruitful and profound, we should still impoverish ourselves by making it our sole nutriment. We fear, however, that at the present moment English books want much which we need. The intellect of that nation is turned now to what are called practical and useful subjects. Physical science goes forward, and, what is very encour- aging, it is spread with unexampled zeal through all classes of the community. Abuses of government, of the police, of the penal code, of charity, of poor- laws, and corn-laws, are laboriously ex- plored. General education is improved. Science is applied to the arts with bril- liant success. We see much good in progress. But we find little profound or fervid thinking expressed in the higher forms of literature. The noblest subjects of the intellect receive little at- tention. We see an almost total indif- ference to intellectual and moral science. In England there is a great want of philosophy, in the true sense of that word. If we examine her reviews, in which much of the intellectual power of the nation is expended, we meet per- petually a jargon of criticism, which shows a singular want of great and gen- eral principles in estimating works of art. We have no ethical work of any living English writer to be compared with that of Degerando, entitled " Du Perfectionnement Moral ; " and, although we have little respect for the rash gen- eralizations of the bold and eloquent Cousin, yet the interest which his meta- physics awaken in Paris is, in our esti- mation, a better presage than the lethargy which prevails on such topics in Eng- land. In these remarks we have no desire to depreciate the literature of England, which, taken as a whole, we regard as the noblest monument of the human mind. We rejoice in our de- scent from England, and esteem our free access to her works of science and genius as among our high privileges. Nor do we feel as if her strength were spent. We see no wrinkles on her brow, no decrepitude in her step. At this moment she has authors, especially in poetry and fiction, whose names are "familiar in our mouths as household words," and who can never perish but with her language. Still, we think that at present her intellect is laboring more for herself than for mankind, and that our scholars, if they would improve our literature, should cultivate an intimacy not only with that of England, but of continental Euroj^e. We have now finished our remarks on the importance and means of an'im- proved literature among ourselves. Are we asked what we hope in this particular ? We answer, much. We see reasons for anticipating an increased and more effi- cient direction of talent to this object. But on these we cannot enlarge. There is, however, one ground of expectation, to which we will call a moment's atten- tion. We apprehend that literature is to make progress through an important change in society, which civihzation and good institutions are making more and more apparent. It seems to us that, through these causes, poUtical hfe is less and less regarded as the only or chief sphere for superior minds, and that influence and honor are more and more accumulated in the hands of liter- ary and thinking men. Of consequence, more and more of the intellect of com- munities is to be drawn to literature. The distinction between antiquity and the present times, in respect to the im- portance attached to political life, seems . to us striking ; and it is not an acci- dental difference, but founded on per- manent causes which are to operate with increased power. In ancient times, every thing, abroad and at home, threw men upon the public, and generated an in- tense thirst for political power. On the contrary, the improvement of later pe- riods inclines men to give importance to literature. For example, the instability ^ of the ancient republics, the unsettled relations of different classes of society, the power of demagogues and orators, the intensity of factions, the want of moral and religious restraints, the want i of some regular organ for expressing the j public mind, the want of precedents and \ precise laws for the courts of justice,^- | 138 REMARKS ON ASSOCIA TIONS. these and other circumstances gave to the ancient citizen a feeling as if revo- lutions and convulsions were inseparable from society, turned his mind with un- remitting anxiety to public affairs, and made a participation of political power an important, if not an essential, means of personal safety. Again, the ancient citizen had no home, in our sense of the word. He lived in the market, the forum, the place of general resort, and of course -his attention was very much engrossed by affairs of state. Again, religion, which now more than all things throws a man upon himself, was in ancient times a public concern, and turned men to po- litical life. The religion of the heart and fqloset was unknown. The relation of the gods to particular states was their most prominent attribute ; and to conciliate their favor to the community, the chief end of worship. Accordingly, religion consisted chiefly in public and national rites. In Rome, the highest men in the state presided at the altar, and, adding to their other titles that of Supreme Pontiff, performed the most solemn functions of the priesthood. Thus the whole strength of the religious principle was turned into political channels. The gods were thought to sustain no higher office than a political one, and of conse- quence this was esteemed the most glo- rious for men. Once more, in ancient times poUtical rank was vastly more effi- cient, whether for good or for evil, than at present, and of consequence was the object of a more insatiable ambition. It was almost the only way of access to the multitude. The public man held a sway over opinion, over his country, perhaos over foreign states, now unknown. It is the influence of the press and of good institutions to reduce the importance of the man of office. In proportion as pri- vate individuals can act on the public mind ; in proportion as a people read, think, and have the means of expressing and enforcing their opinions ; in propor- tion as laws become fixed, known, and sanctioned by the moral sense of the community ; in proportion as the inter- est of the state, the principles of admin- istration, and all public measures are subjected to free and familiar discussion, government becomes a secondary influ- ence. The power passes into the hands of those who think, write, and spread their minds far and wide. Accordingly, literature is to become more and more the instrument of swaying men, of doing good, of achieving fame. The contrast between ancient and modern times, in the particulars now stated, is too obvious to need illustration, and our great infer- ence is equally clear. The vast improve- ments which, in the course of ages, have taken place in social order, in domestic life, in religion, in knowledge, all con- spire to one result, all tend to introduce other and higher influences than political power, and to give to that form of intel- lectual effort which we call literature do- minion over human affairs. Thus truth, we apprehend, is more and more felt ; and from its influence, joined with our peculiar condition and free institutions, we hope for our country the happiness and glory of a pure, deep, rich, beautiful, and ennobling hterature. REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. [i. Fourth Annual Report to the American Unitarian Association, read and accepted May 26, 1829, with the Addresses at the Annual Meeting. *. The Second Annual Report of the Executive Com- mittee of the American Society for the Promo- tion of Temperance, presented January 28, 1S29. 3. First Annual Report of the General Union for Pro- moting the Observance of the Christian Sab- bath, adopted May 12, 1829.] We have affixed to this article the titles of several reports of societies, not so much for the purpose of discussing the merits of the several institutions whose labors they celebrate, as with the more general design of offering some remarks on the disposition which now prevails to form associations, and to ac- complish all objects by organized masses. A difference of opinion on this point has begun to manifest itself, and murmurs against the countless societies which modestly solicit or authoritatively claim our aid, which now assail us with fair promises of the good which they pur- REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 139 pose, and now with rhetorical encomi- ums on the good they have done, begin to break forth from the judicious and well disposed, as well as from the queru- lous and selfish. These doubts and com- plaints, however, are most frequently excited by particular cases of unfair or injurious operations in societies. As yet no general principles have been established, by which the value of this mode of action may be determined, or the relative claims of different associa- tions may be weighed. We will not promise to supply the deficiency, but we hope to furnish some help to a sounder judgment than yet prevails on the subject. That the subject deserves attention, no man who observes the signs of the times can doubt. Its importance forces itself on the reflecting. In truth, one of the most remarkable circumstances or features of our age is the energy with which the principle of combination, or of action by joint forces, by associated numbers, is manifesting itself. It may be said, without much exaggeration, that every thing is done now by societies. Men have learned what wonders can be accomplished in certain cases by union, and seem to think that union is compe- tent to every thing. You can scarcely name an object for which some institu- tion has not been formed. Would men spread one set of opinions or crush an- other? They make a society. Would they improve the penal code, or relieve poor debtors ? They make societies. Would they encourage agriculture, or manufactures, or science? They make societies. Would one class encourage horse-racing, and another discourage traveUing on Sunday ? They form soci- eties. We have immense institutions spreading over the country, combining hosts for particular objects. We have minute ramifications of these societies, penetrating everywhere except through the poor-house, and conveying resources from the domestic, the laborer, and even the child, to the central treasury. This principle of association is worthy the attention of the philosopher, who simply aims to understand society and its most powerful springs. To the philanthropist and the Christian it is exceedingly in- teresting, for it is a mighty engine, and must act either for good or for evil, to an extent which no man can foresee or comprehend. It is very easy, we conceive, to explain this great development of the principle of co-operation. The main cause is, the immense facility given to intercourse by modern itnprovements, by increased com- merce and travelling, by the post-office, by the steam-boat, and especially by the press, — by newspapers, periodicals, tracts, and other publications. Through these means, men of one mind, through a whole country, easily understand one another, and easily act together. The grand manoeuvre to which Napoleon owed his victories — we mean the con- centration of great numbers on a single point — is now placed within the reach of all parties and sects. It may be said that, by facilities of intercourse, men are brought within one another's attraction, and become arranged according to their respective affinities. Those who have one great object find one another out through a vast extent of country, join their forces, settle their mode of opera- tion, and act together with the uniform- ity of a disciplined army. So exten- sive have coalitions become, through the facilities now described, and so various and rapid are the means of communi- cation, that, when a few leaders have agreed on an object, an impulse may be given in a month to the whole country, whole states may be deluged with tracts and other publications, and a voice like that of many waters be called forth from immense and widely separated multi- tudes. Here is a new power brought to bear on society, and it is a great moral question how it ought to be viewed, and what duties it imposes. That this mode of action has advan- tages and recommendations is very ob- vious. The principal arguments in its favor may be stated in a few words. IVIen, it is justly said, can do jointly what they cannot do singly. The union of minds and hands works wonders. Men grow efficient by concentrating their powers. Joint effort conquers nat- ure, hews through mountains, rears pyr- amids, dikes out the ocean. Man, left to himself, hving without a fellow, — if he could indeed so live, — would be one of the weakest of creatures. Associated with his kind, he gains dominion over the strongest animals, over the earth and the sea, and, by his growing knowledge, may be said to obtain a kind of property in the universe. I40 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. Nor is this all. Men not only accu- mulate power by union, but gain warmth and earnestness. The heart is kindled. An electric communication is estab- lished between those who are brought nigh and bound to each other in com- mon labors. iVIan droops in solitude. No sound excites him like the voice of his fellow-creature. The mere sight of a human countenance, brightened with strong and generous emotion, gives new strength to act or suffer. Union not only brings to a point forces which be- fore existed, and which were ineffectual through separation, but, by the feeling and interest which it rouses, it becomes a creative principle, calls forth new forces, and gives the mind a conscious- ness of powers which would otherwise have been unknown. We have here given the common arguments by which the disposition to association is justified and recommend- ed. They may be summed up in a few words ; namely, that our social princi- ples and relations are the great springs of improvement, and of vigorous and efficient exertion. That there is much truth in this representation of the influ- ences of society we at once feel. -That, without impulses and excitements from abroad, without sympathies and com- munication with our fellow-creatures, we should gain nothing and accomplish noth- ing, we mean not to deny. StiU, we appre- hend that on this subject there is a want of accurate views and just discrimination. We apprehend that the true use of so- ciety is not sufficiently understood ; that the chief benefit which it is intended to confer, and the chief danger to which it exposes us, are seldom weighed, and that errors or crude opinions on these points deprive us of many benefits of our social connections. These topics have an obvious bearing on the subject of this article. It is plain that the bet- ter we understand the true use, the chief benefit, and the chief peril of our social principles and relations, the better we shall be prepared to judge of associa- tions which are offered to our patron- age. On these topics, then, we propose first to give our views ; and in so doing we shall allow ourselves a considerable latitude, because, in our judgment, the influences of society at present tend strongly to excess, and especially men- ace that individuality of character for which they can yield no adequate com- pensation. The great principle from which we start in this preliminary discussion, and in which all our views of the topics above proposed are involved, may be briefly expressed. It is this : — Society is chiefly important as it ministers to, and calls forth, intellectual and moral energy and freedom. Its action on the individual is beneficial in proportion as it awakens in him a power to act on himself, and to control or withstand the social influences to which he is at first subjected. Society serves us by fur- nishing objects, occasions, materials, excitements, through which the whole soul may be brought into vigorous ex- ercise, may acquire a consciousness of its free and responsible nature, may be- come a law to itself, and may rise to the happiness and dignity of framing and improving itself without limit or end. Inward, creative energy is the highest good which accrues to us from our social principles and connections. The mind is enriched, not by what it pas- sively receives from others, but by its own action on what it receives. We would especially affirm of virtue that it does not consist in what we inherit, or what comes to us from abroad. It is of inward growth, and it grows by nothing so much as by resistance of foreign in- fluences, by acting from our deliberate convictions, in opposition to the princi- ples of sjrmpathy and imitation. Ac- cording to these views, our social nature and connections are means. Inward- power is the end, — a power which is to triumph over and control the influence of society. We are told that we owe to society our most valuable knowledge. And true it is, that were we cast from birth into solitude we should grow up in brutal ignorance. But it is also true that the knowledge which we receive is of little value any farther than it is food and excitement to intellectual action. Its worth is to be measured by the energy with which it is sought and employed. Knowledge is noble, in proportion as it is prohfic, — in proportion as it quick- ens the mind to the acquisition of higher truth. Let it be rested in passively, and it profits us nothing. Let the judgment of others be our trust, so that we cease, to Judge for ourselves, and the intellect REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 141 is degraded into a worthless machine. The dignity of the mind is to be esti- mated by the energy of its efforts for its own enlargement. It becomes heroic when it reverences itself and asserts its freedom in a cowardly and servile age ; when it withstands society through a calm but invincible love of truth, and a consciousness of the dignity and pro- gressiveness of its powers. The indispensable necessity of in- struction from our fellow-creatures we in no degree question. But perhaps few are aware how imperfect are the conceptions received from the best in- structor, and how much must be done by our own solitary thinking to give them consistency and vividness. It may be doubted whether a fellow-creature can ever impart to us apprehensions of a complex subject which are altogether just. Be the teacher ever so unerring, his language can hardly communicate his mind with entire precision ; for few words a-*aken exactly the same thoughts in different men. The views which we receive from the most gifted beings are at best an approximation to truth. We have spoken of unerring teachers ; but where are these to be found ? Our daily intercourse is with fallible beings, most of whom are undisciplined in intellect, the slaves of prejudice, and unconscious of their own spiritual energies. The essential condition of intellectual prog- ress in such a world is the resistance of social influences, or of impressions from our fellow-beings. What we have said of intellectual is still more true of moral progress. No human being exists whose character can be proposed as a faultless model. But, could a perfect individual be found, -w^e should only injure ourselves by indis- criminate, servile imitation ; for much which is good in another is good in him alone, belongs to his peculiar constitu- tion, has been the growth of his peculiar experience, is harmonious and beautiful only in combination with his other at- tributes, and would be unnatural, awk- ward, and forced in a servile imitator. The very strength of emotion which in one man is virtue in another would be defect ; for virtue depends on the bal- ance which exists between the various principles of the soul ; and that intense- ness of feeling which, when joined with force of thought and purpose, Is health- ful and invigorating, would prove a dis- ease, or might approach insanity, in a weak and sensitive mind. No man should part with his individuality, and aim to become another. No process is so fatal as that which would cast all men into one mould. Every human being is intended to have a character of his own, to be what no other is, to do what no other can do. Our common nature is to be unfolded in unbounded diversities. It is rich enough for infi- nite manifestations. It is to wear in- numerable forms of beauty and glory. Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, in- fluences to exert which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach. Let him not, then, en- slave his conscience to others, but act with the freedom, strength, and dignity of one whose highest law is in his own breast. We know that it may be replied to us, that Providence, by placing us at birth in entire subjection to social in- fluences, has marked out society as the great instrument of determining the human mind. The child, it is said, is plainly designed to receive passively, and with unresisting simplicity, a host of impressions, thoughts, and feelings from those around him. This we know. But we know, too, that childhood is not to endure for ever. We know that the impressions, pleasures, pains, which throng and possess the infant mind, are intended to awaken in it an energy by which it is to subject them to itself ; by which it is to separate from the crude mass what is true and pure ; by which it is to act upon, and modify, and throw into new combinations, the materials forced upon it originally by sensation and society. It is only by putting forth this inward and self-forming power that we emerge from childhood. He who continues to be passively moulded pro- longs his infancy to the tomb. There is deep wisdom in the declaration of Jesus, that, to be his disciple, we must " hate father and mother ; " or, in other words, that we must surrender the preju- dices of education to the new lights which God gives us ; that the love of truth must triumph over the influences of our best and earliest friends ; that, forsaking the maxims of society, we must frame ourselves according to the 142 REMARKS ON ASS OCT A TIONS. standard of moral perfection set before us in the life, spirit, and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is interesting to ob- serve how the Creator, who has sub- jected the child at first to social influ- ences, has, even at that age, provided for its growing freedom, by inspiring it with an overflowing animation, an inex- pressible joy, an impatience of hmits, a thirst for novelty, a dehght in adventure, an ardent fancy, all suited to balance the authority of the old, and gradually mingling with the credulity of infancy that questioning, doubting spirit, on which intellectual progress chiefly de- pends. The common opinion is, that our dan- ger from society arises wholly from its bad members, and that we cannot easily be too much influenced by the good. But, to our apprehension, there is a peril in the influence both of good and bad. What many of us have chiefly to dread from society is, not that we shall acquire a positive character of vice, but that it will impose on us a negative character ; that we shall live and die passive beings ; that the creative and self- forming energy of the soul will not be called forth in the work of our improve- ment. Our danger is, that we shall sub- stitute the consciences of others for our own, that we shall paralyze our faculties through dependence on foreign guides, that we shall be moulded from abroad instead of determining ourselves. The pressure of society upon us is constant and almost immeasurable ; now open and direct in the form of authority and menace, now subtile and silent in the guise of blandishment and promise. What mighty power is lodged in a frown or a smile, in the voice of praise and flattery, in scorn or neglect, in public opinion, in domestic habits and preju- dices, in the state and spirit of the com- munity to which we belong ! Nothing escapes the cognizance of society. Its legislation extends even to our dress, movements, features ; and the individual bears the traces, even in countenance, air, and voice, of the social influences amidst which he has been plunged. We are in great peril of growing up slaves to this exacting, arbitrary sovereign ; of forgetting, or never learning, our true responsibility ; of living in unconscious- ness of that divine power with which we are invested over ourselves, and in which all the dignity of our nature is concentred ; of overlooking the sa- credness of our minds, and laying them open to impressions from any and all who surround us. Resistance of this foreign pressure is our only safeguard, and is essential to virtue. All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self-determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd, even towards the best ob- jects. We must act from an inward spring. The good as well as the bad may injure us, if through that intoler- ance which is a common infirmity of the good, they impose on us authoritatively their own convictions, and obstruct our own intellectual and moral activity. A state of society in which correct habits prevail, may produce in many a mechan- ical regularity and religion which is any thing but virtue. Nothing morally great or good springs from mere sym- pathy and imitation. These principles will only forge chains for us, and per- petuate our infancy, unless more and more controlled and subdued by that inward lawgiver and judge, whose au- thority is from God, and whose sway over our whole nature alone secures its free, glorious, and everlasting expan- sion. The truth is, and we need to feel it most deeply, that our connection with society, as it is our greatest aid, so it is our greatest peril. We are in constant danger of being spoiled of our moral judgment, and of our power over our- selves ; and, in losing these, we lose the chief prerogatives of spiritual beings. We sink, as far as mind can sink, into the world of matter, the chief distinction of which is, that it wants self-motion, or moves only from foreign impulse. The propensity in our fellow- creatures which we have most to dread is that which, though most severely con- demned by Jesus, is yet the most fre- quent infirmity of his followers, — we mean the propensity to rule, to tyrannize, to war with the freedom of their equals, to make themselves standards for other minds, to be lawgivers, instead of breth- ren and friends, to their race. Our great and most difficult duty, as social beings, is, to derive constant aid from society without taking its yoke ; to open our minds to the thoughts, reasonings, and persuasions of others, and yet to hold REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 143 fast the sacred right of private judg- ment ; to receive impulses from our fellow-beings, and yet to act from our own souls ; to sympathize with others, and yet to determine our own feelings ; to act with others, and yet to follow our own consciences ; to unite social defer- ence and self-dominion ; to join moral self-subsistence with social dependence ; to respect others without losing self- respect ; to love our friends and to rev- erence our superiors, whilst our su- preme homage is given to that moral perfection which no friend and no supe- rior has realized, and which, if faithfully pursued, will often demand separation from all around us Such is our great work as social beings, and to per- form it, we should look habitually to Jesus Christ, who was distinguished by nothing more than by moral independ- ence, — than by resisting and overcom- ing the world. The reverence for our own moral nature, on which jve have now insisted, needs earnest and perpetual inculcation. This virtue finds few aids from abroad. All religions and governments have more or less warred with it. Even that religion which came from God to raise man to a moral empire over him- self, has been seized on by the selfish and intolerant principles of human nat- ure, and all its sanctions have been brought to bear against that free, inde- pendent action of thought and con- science which it was chiefly intended to promote. In truth, men need to be in- structed in nothing more than in what they owe to their own spiritual faculties. The sacredness of the moral principle in every human breast ; its divine right of dominion ; the jealousy with which it ought to be protected against our own passions and the usurpations of society ; the watchful care with which it should be unfolded, refined, and fortified, by communion with ourselves, with great and good minds, with that brightest manifestation of God, Jesus Christ, and with God Himself ; the awe with which its deliberate dictates should be heard ; the energy which it may and should put forth in opposition to pleasure and pain, to human frowns or smiles ; the sublime tranquillity to which it may ascend ; the conscious union with God which it may attain, and through which it seems to partake of his omnipotence, — these prerogatives of the moral nature, of that element and spark of divinity in the soul, are almost forgotten in the condition of servitude to which the multitude are reduced by the joint tyr- anny of the passions and of society. It is interesting and encouraging 'to observe, that the enslaving power of society over the mind is decreasing, through what would seem at first to threaten its enlargement; — we mean, through the extension of social inter- course. This is a distinction of our age, and one of its chief means of im- provement. Men are widening their bounds, exchanging thoughts and feel- ings with fellow-beings far and wide, with inhabitants of other countries, with subjects of other governments, with pro- fessors of other modes of faith. Distant nations are brought near, and are acting on one another with a new power ; and the result is, that these differing and often hostile influences balance or neu- tralize one another, and almost compel the intellect to act, to compare, to judge, to frame itself. This we deem an immense benefit of the multiplication of books at the present day. The best books con- tain errors, and deserve a very limited trust. But wherever men of thought and genius publish freely, they will per- petually send forth new views, to keep alive the intellectual action of the world ; will give a frequent shock to received opinions ; will lead men to contemplate great subjects from new positions, and by thus awakening individual and inde- pendent energy, will work higher good than by the knowledge which they spread. The same effect is to be an- ticipated from the study of different lan- guages, which occupies more and more space in our systems of education ; and we believe this to be the happiest effect. A great man used to say that, in learn- ing a new language, he had gained a new soul, so fresh and original were the views which it opened to him. A new lan- guage, considered in itself, or without reference to the writings which it con- tains, seems to us a valuable possession, on account of the new combinations of thought which its vocabulary presents ; and when regarded as the key to the minds of a people whose institutions, education, climate, temperament, relig- ion, and history differ from our own, and in whom, of consequence, our com- 144 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. mon nature is taking a new form, it is, to one wlio has power to understand its use, an invaluable acquisition. In truth, we cannot express too strongly the im- portance we attach to an enlarged inter- course with other minds, considered as the means of freeing and quickening our own. This is the chief good of ex- tensive institutions for education. They place us under diversified social influ- ences ; connect us with the dead as well as with the living ; accumulate for us the thoughts of all ages and na- tions ; take us out of the narrow circle of a neighborhood, or church, or com- munity ; make us fellow-citizens with the friends of truth under the whole heaven, and, through these various and often hostile influences, aid and en- courage us to that independent moral judgment and intellectual discrimination by which our views are more and more purified and enlarged. We regret that religion has not done more to promote this enlarged inter- course of minds, — the great means, as we have seen, of reconciling social aids with personal independence. As yet, religion has generally assumed a sec- tarian form, and its disciples, making narrowness a matter of conscience, have too often shunned connection with men of different views as a pestilence, and yielded their minds to the exclusive in- fluences of the leaders and teachers of their separate factions. Indeed, we fear that in no department of life has the so- cial principle been perverted more into an instrument of intellectual thraldom than in religion. We could multiply proofs without end, but will content our- selves with a single illustration drawn from what are called " revivals of relig- ion." We have many objections to these as commonly conducted ; but nothing offends us more than their direct and striking tendency to everwhelm the mind with foreign influences, and to strip it of all self-direction. In these feverish seasons, religion, or what bears the name, is spread, as by contagion, and to escape it is almost as difficult as to avoid a raging epidemic. Whoever knows any thing of human nature, knows the effect of excitement in a crowd. When sys- tematically prolonged and urged onward, it subverts deliberation and self-control. The individual is lost in the mass, and borne away as in a whirlwind. The prevalent emotion, be it love or hatred, terror or enthusiasm, masters every mind which is not fortified by a rare energy, or secured by a rare insensi- bility. In revivals, a multitude are sub- jected at once to strong emotions, which are swelled and perpetuated by the most skilful management. The individual is never suffered to escape the grasp of the leading or subordinate agents in the work.* A machinery of social influ- ences, of " inquiry meetings,'' of " anx- ious meetings," of conferences, of prayer meetings, of perpetual private or public impulses, is brought to bear on the dis- eased subject, until, exhausted in body and mind, lie becomes the passive, power- less recipient of whatever form or im- pressions it may be thought fit to give him. Happily for mankind, our nature loses its sensibility to perpetual stimu- lants, and of consequence a revival is succeeded by what is called "a duU, dead, stupid season." This dull time is a merciful repose granted by Providence to the overwrought aiid oppressed mind, and gives some chance for calm, delib- erate, individual thought and action. Thus the kindness of nature is perpetu- ally counterworking the excesses of men, and a religion which begins in partial in- sanity is often seen to attain by degrees to the calmness and dignity of reason. In the preceding remarks we have stated, at greater length than we in- tended, our views of the true and high- est benefits of society. These seem to us great, — unspeakably great. At the same time, like aU other goods, they are accompanied with serious perils. So- ciety too often oppresses the energy which it was meant to quicken and exalt. — We now pass to our principal subject ; to the associations for public purposes, whether benevolent, moral, or religious, which are so multiplied in the present age. And here we must confine ourselves to two remarks ; the first in- tended to assign to such associations their proper place or rank, and the second, to suggest a principle by which * We recollect seeing the following direction gravely given for managin§| revivals, in the book of a minister experienced in this work : — "Be careful never to kindle more fires than you can tend." In other words, Do not awaken and alarm more persons than you can place under constant inspection, and iDeset with per- petual excitements. What a strange rule for persons who profess to believe that these fires" are "kin- dled" supernaturally by the Holy Spirit! REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 145 useful societies may be distinguished from such as are pernicious, and by which we may be aided in distributing among them our favor and patronage. Our first remark is, that we sliould beware of confounding together, as of equal importance, those associations which are formed by our Creator,- which spring from our very constitution, and are inseparable from our being, and those of which we are now treating, which man invents for particular times and exigencies. Let us never place our weak, short-sighted contrivances on a level with the arrangements of God. We have acknowledged the infinite im- portance of society to the development of human powers and affections. But when we speak flius of society, we mean chiefly the relations in which God has placed us ; we mean the connections of family, of neighborhood, of country, and the great bond of humanity, uniting us with our whole kind, and not mission- ary societies, peace societies, or charita- ble societies, which men have contrived. These last have their uses, and some do great good ; but they are no more to be compared with the societies in which nature places us, than the torches which we kindle on earth in the darkness of night are to be paralleled with the all- pervading and all-glorifying light of the sun. We make these remarks, because nothing is more common than for men to forget the value of what is familiar, natural, and universal, and to ascribe undue importance to what is extraordi- nary, forced, and rare, and therefore striking. Artificial associations have their use, but are not be named with those of nature ; and to these last, there- fore, we are to give our chief regard. We can easily illustrate by examples the inferiority of human associations. In Boston, there are two asylums for children, which deserve, we think, a high place among useful institutions. Not a little time is spent upon them. Hundreds conspire to carry them on, and we have anniversaries to collect crowds for their support. And what is the amount of good accomplished ? Be- tween one and two hundred children are^ provided for, a number worthy of all the care bestowed on these charities. But compare this number with all the chil- dren of this city, with the thousands who throng our streets and our schools. And how are these fed, clothed, edu- cated.'' We hear of no subscriptions, no anniversaries for their benefit ; yet how they flourish compared with the subjects of asylums ! These are pro- vided for by that unostentatious and unpraised society, which God has insti- tuted, — a family. That shelter, home, which nature rears, protects them, and it is an establishment worth infinitely more than all the institutions, great or small, which man has devised. In truth, just as far as this is improved, as its duties are performed and its blessings prized, all artificial institutions are su- perseded. Here, then, is the sphere for the agency of the wise and good. Im- prove the family, strengthen and purify the relations of domestic life, and more is done for the happiness and progress of the race than by the most splendid charities. — Let us take another example, the hospital in the same metropolis ; a noble institution, worthy of high praise. But where is it that the sick of our city are healed ? Must you look for them in the hospital ? You may find there, perhaps, and should rejoice to find there, fifty or sixty beds for the poor. The thousands who sicken and die among us are to be found in their homes, watched over by the nursing care of mothers and sisters, surrounded by that tenderness which grows up only at home. — Let us take another example, missionary so- cieties. This whole country is thrown into excitement to support missions. The rich are taxed, and the poor bur- 'dened. We do not say that they are burdened without object ; for Christi- anity is so infinite a blessing that we cotisent to any honest methods of send- ing it abroad. But what is the amount of good effected ? A few missionaries, we know not the precise number, are supported, of whom most have hitherto brought little to pass. Who can compare associations for this object with churches, or those congregations of neighbors for regular worship which Christianity has instituted, and to which nature has al- ways prompted the professors of the same faith ? Through these, incalculable aid is given to the support and diffusion of Christianity ; and yet, through the pro- pensity of human nature to exaggerate what is forced and artificial, one mis- sionary at a distance is thought of more importance than a hundred ministers 10 14© REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. near, and the sending of him abroad is extolled as an incomparably greater ex- ploit of piety than the support of our own places of worship. We mean not to discourage missionary societies ; but the truth is, that Christianity is to be dif- fused incomparably more by caring for and promoting it in our natural relations, in our homes^ in our common circles and churches, than by institutions endowed with the revenues of nations for sending it to distant lands. The great obstruc- tion to Christianity among foreign na- tions is its inoperativeness among the nations which profess it. We offer others a religion which, in their appre- hension, has done the givers no great good. The true course is to rely less on our machinery of cent societies and national societies, and to rely more on the connections and arrangements of nat- ure or of God. We beg not to be misunderstood. We would on no account discourage the asylum, the hospital, the mission- ary society. All receive our cheerful support. We only mean to say that our great sources of improvement and happiness are our natural relations and associations, and that to understand these better, and to attach ourselves more faithfully to their duties, are the great social means of carrying forward the world. A striking confirmation of these remarks may be found in the Romish Church. The probability is, that, under the Catholic religion in the dark ages, there were larger contribu- tions to the relief of the distressed, in proportion to the wealth of communi- ties, than at present, and contributions by associations which regarded alms- giving as one of their main duties, — we mean the monasteries. But the monks, who quitted the relations of nature, the society which God has in- stituted, in order to form new and arti- ficial bonds, more favorable, as they thought, to doing good, made a sad mistake. Their own characters were injured, and the very charities doled out from convents increased the beggary which they hoped to relieve. So sacred is nature, that it cannot be trampled on with impunity. We fear that some- thing similar to the error just noticed among Catholics is spreading among Protestants, — the error of exalting so- cieties of human device above our nat- ural relations. We have been told that cases occur among us, and are not rare, in which domestic claims on kindness are set aside for the sake of making contributions to our great societies, and especially to foreign missions. So pos- sessed are the minds of multitudes with the supreme importance of this object, that there seems to them a piety in withholding what would otherwise have been thought due to a poor relative, that it may be sent across oceans to . Pagan lands. We have heard that deli- cate kindnesses, which once flowed from the more prosperous to the less prosper- ous members of a large family, and which bound society together by that love which is worth all bonds, are diminished since the late excitement in favor of the heathen. And this we do not wonder at. In truth, we rather wonder that any thing is done for the temporal com- fort of friends, where the doctrine on which modem missions chiefly rest is beheved. We refer to the doctrine that the whole heathen world are on the brink of a bottomless and endless hell ; that thousands every day, and millions every year, are sinking into this abyss of torture and woe : and that nothing can save them but sending them our religion. We see not how they who so believe can give their families or friends a single conSort, much less an ornament of life. They must be strongly tempted, one would think, to stint themselves and their dependants to necessaries, and to cast their whole remaining substance into the treasury of missionary socie- ties. We repeat it, let us not be misunder- stood. Missionary societies, established on just principles, do honor to a Chris- tian community. We regard them with any feeling but that of hostility. The readers of this work cannot have for- gotten the earnestness with which we recommended the sopport of a mission in India, at a time when we thought that peculiar circumstances invited ex- ertion in that quarter. We only oppose the preference of these institutions to the natural associations and connec- tions of life. An individual who thinks that he is doing a more religious act in contributing to a missionary society than in doing a needful act of kindness to a relative, friend, or neighbor, is leav- ing a society of God's institution for REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 147 one of man's making. He shows a perverted judgment in regard to the duties of his religion and in regard to tlie best means of spreading it. All that has been done, or ever will or can be done, by associations for diffusing Christianity, is a mere drop of the bucket compared with what is done silently and secretly by the common daily duties of Christians in their fam- ines, neighborhoods, and business. The surest way of spreading Christianity is to improve Christian communities ; and, accordingly, he who frees this religion from corruption, and makes it a more powerful instrument of virtue where it is already professed, is the most effect- ual contributor to the great work of its diffusion through the world. We now proceed to our second re- mark, in which we proposed to suggest a principle by which the claims of dif- ferent associations may be estimated. It is this : The value of associations is to be measured by the energy, the freedom, the activity, the moral power, which they encourage and diffuse. In truth, the great object of all benevo- lence is to give power, activity, and freedom to others. We cannot, in the strict sense of the word, 7nake any be- ing happy. We can give others the means of happiness, together with mo- tives to the faithful use of them ; but on this faithfulness, on the free and full exercise of their own powers, their hap- piness depends. There is thus a fixed, impassable limit to human benevolence. It can only make men happy through themselves, through their own freedom and energy. We go further. We be- lieve that God has set the same limit to his own benevolence. He makes no being happy in any other sense than in that of giving him means, powers, mo- tives, and a field for exertion. We have here, we think, the great consideration to guide us in judging of associations. Those are good which communicate power, moral and intellectual action, and the capacity of useful efforts to the persons who form them, or to the per- sons on whom they act. On the other handj associations which in any degree impair or repress the free and full ac- tion of men's powers, are so far hurt- ful. On this principle, associations for restoring to men health, strength, the use of their limbs, the use of their senses, especially of sight and hearing, are highly to be approved, for such en- large men's powers ; whilst charitable associations, which weaken in men the motives to exertion, which offer a bounty to idleness, or make beggary as profitable as labor, are great calam- ities to society, and peculiarly calam- itous to those whom they relieve. On the same principle, associations whic>i are designed to awaken the human mind, to give to men of all classes a consciousness of their intellectual pow- ers, to communicate knowledge of ^ useful and quickening character, to en- courage men in thinking with freedon^ and vigor, to inspire an ardent love and pursuit of truth, — are most worthy of patronage ; whilst such as are designed or adapted to depress the human intel- lect, to make it dependent and servile, to keep it where it is, to give a limited amount of knowledge, but not to give impulse and an onward motion to men's thoughts, — all such associations, how- ever benevolent their professions, should be regarded as among the foes and ob- structions to the best interests of soci- ety. On the same principle, associations aiming to purify and ennoble the char- acter of a people, to promote true vir- tue, a rational piety, a disinterested charity, a wise temperance, and espe- cially aiming to accomplish these ends by the only effectual means, that is, by calling forth men's own exertions for a higher knowledge of God and duty, and for a new and growing control of themselves, — such institutions are among the noblest ; whilst no encour- agement is due to such as aim to make men reUgious and virtuous by paralyz- ing their minds through terror, by fas- tening on them a yoke of opinions or practices, by pouring upon them influ- ences from abroad which virtually an- nihilate their power over themselves, and make them instruments for others to speak through and to wield at pleas- ure. We beg our readers to carry with them the principle now laid down in judging of associations ; to inquire how far they are fitted to call forth energy, active talent, religious inquiry, a free and manly virtue. We insist on these remarks, because not a few associations seem to us exceedingly exceptionable, on account of their tendency to fetter men, to repress energy, to injure the 148 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. free action of individuals and society, and because tfiis tendency lurks, and is to be guarded against, even in good in- stitutions. On this point we cannot but enlarge, for we deem it of the highest importance. Associations often injure free action by a very plain and obvious operation. They accumulate power in a few hands, and this takes place just in proportion to the surface over which they sjaread. In a large institution, a few men rule, a few do every thing ; and, if the institution happens to be directed to objects about which conflict and controversy exist, a few are able to excite in the mass strong and bitter passions, and by these to ob- tain an immense ascendency. Through such an association, widely spread, yet closely connected by party feeling, a few leaders can send their voices and spirit far and wide, and, where great funds are accumulated, can league a host of in- struments, and by menace and appeals to interest can silence opposition. Ac- cordingly, we fear that in this country an influence is growing up, through widely spread societies, altogether at war with the spirit of our institutions, and which, unless jealously watched, will gradually but surely encroach on freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press. It is very striking to observe how, by such combinations, the very means of encouraging a free action of men's minds may be turned against it. We all esteem the press as the safeguard of our liberties, as the power which is to quicken intellect by giving to all minds an opportunity to act on all. Now, by means of tract societies spread over a whole community, and acting under a central body, a few individuals, perhaps not more than twenty, may determine the chief reading for a great part of the children of the community, and for a majority of the adults, and may deluge our country with worthless sectarian writings, fitted only to pervert its taste, degrade its intellect, and madden it with intolerance. Let associations de- voted to any objects which excite the passions be everywhere spread and leagued together for mutual support, and nothing is easier than to establish a control over newspapers. We are per- suaded that, by an artful multiplication of societies, devoted apparently to dif- ferent objects, but all swayed by the same leaders, and all mtended to bear against a hated party, as cruel a perse- cution may be carried on in a free coun- try as in a despotism. Public opinion may be so combined, and inflamed, and brought to bfear on odious individuals or opinions, that it will be as perilous to think and speak with manly freedom as if an inquisition were open before us. It is now discovered that the way to rule in this country is by an array of numbers which a prudent man will not like to face. Of consequence, all asso- ciations aiming or tending to estabhsh sway by numbers ought to be opposed. They create tyrants as effectually as standing armies. Let them be withstood from the beginning. No matter whether the opinions which they intend to put down be true or false. Let no opinion be put down by such means. Let no error be suppressed by an instrument which will be equally powerful against truth, and which must subvert that free- dom of thought on which all truth de- pends. • Let the best end fail if it cannot be accomplished by right and just means. For example, we would have criminals punished, but punished in the proper way, and by a proper authority. It were better that they should escape than be imprisoned or executed by any man who may think fit to assume the office ; for sure we are that, by this summary justice, the innocent would soon suffer more than the guilty ; and, on the same principle, we cannot con- sent that what we deem error should be crushed by the joint cries and denuncia- tions of vast societies directed by the tyranny of a few ; for truth has more to dread from such weapons than false- hood, and we know no truth against which they may not be "successfully turned. In this country, few things are more to be dreaded than organizations or institutions by which public opinion may be brought to bear tyrannically against individuals or sects. From the nature of things, public opinion is often unjust ; but, when it is not embodied and fixed by pledged societies, it easily relents, it may receive new impulses, it is opened to influences from the injured. On the contrary, when shackled and stimulated by vast associations, it is in danger of becoming a steady, unre- lenting tyrant, brow-beating the timid, proscribing the resolute, silencing free REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 149 speech, and virtually denying the dear- est religious and civil rights. We say not that all great associations must be thus abused. We know that some are useful. We know, too, that there are cases in which it is important that pub- lic opinion should be condensed, or act in a mass. We feel, however, that the danger of great associations is increased by the very fact that they are sometimes useful. They are perilous instruments. They ought to be suspected. They are a kind of irregular government created within our constitutional government. Let them be watched closely. As soon as we find them resolved or disposed to bear down a respectable man or set of men, or to force on the community measures about which wise and good men differ, let us feel that a dangerous engine is at work among us, and oppose to it our steady and stern disapproba- tion. We have spoken of the tendency of great institutions to accumulate power in a few hands. These few they make more active ; but they tend to produce dependence, and to destroy self-origi- nated action in the vast multitudes who compose them, and this is a serious in- jury. Few comprehend the extent of this evil. Individual action is the highest good. . What we want is, that men should do right more and more from their own minds, and less and less from imitation, from a foreign impulse, from sympathy ^yith a crowd. This is the kind of ac- tion which we recommend. Would you do good according to the gospel 1 Do it secretly, silently; so silently, that the left hand will not know what the right hand doeth. This precept does not favor the clamorous and far-published efforts of a leagued multitude. We mean not to sever men from others in well-doing, for we have said there are many .good ob- jects which can only be accomplished by numbers. But, generally speaking, we can do most good by individual action, and our own virtue is incomparably mc3re improved by it. It is vastly better, for example, that we should give our own money with our own hands, from our own judgment, and through personal interest in the distresses of others, than that we should send it by a sub- stitute. Second-hand charity is not as good to the giver, or receiver as im- mediate. There are, indeed, urgent cases where we cannot act immediately, or cannot alone do the good required. There let us join with others ; but where we can do good secretly, and sep- arately, or only with some dear friend, we shall almost certainly put forth in this way more of intellect and heart, more of sympathy and strenuous purpose, and shall awaken more of virtuous, sensibility in those whom we relieve, than if we were to be parts of a multi- tude in accomplishing the same end. Individual action is the great point to be secured. That man alone under- stands the true use of society who learns from it to act more and more from his own deliberate conviction, to think more for himself, to be less swayed by num- bers, to rely more on his own powers. One good action, springing from our own minds, performed from a principle within, performed without the excite- ment of an urging and approving voice from abroad, is worth more than hun- dreds which grow from mechanical im- itation, or from the heat and impulse which numbers give us. In truth, all great actions are solitary ones. All the great works of genius come from deep, lonely thought. The writings which have quickened, electrified, regenerated the human mind, did not spring from as- sociations. That is most valuable which is individual, — which is marked by what is peculiar and characteristic in him who accomplishes it. In truth, associations are chiefly useful by giving means and opportunities to gifted individuals to act out their own minds. A missionary society achieves Kttle good, except when it can send forth an individual who wants no teaching or training from the soci- ety, but who carries his commission and chief power in his own soul. We urge this, for we feel that we are all in danger of sacrificing our individuality and inde- pendence to our social connections. We dread new social trammels. They are too numerous already. From these views we learn that there is cause to fear and to withstand great associations, as far as they interfere with or restrain, indi- vidual action, personal independence, private judgment, free, self -originated effort. We do fear, from not a few associations which exist, that power is to be accumulated in the hands of a few, and a servile, tame, dependent spirit to be generated in the many. Such is the ISO REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. danger of our times, and we are bound as Christians and freemen to withstand it. We have now laid down the general principles which, as we think, are to be applied to associations for public objects. Another part of our work remains. We propose to offer some remarks on a few societies which at this time demand our patronage or excite particular attention. In doing this, we shall speak with our customary freedom ; but we beg that we may not be under- stood as censuring the motives of those whose plans and modes of operation we condemn. The associations for suppressing in- temperance form an interesting feature of our times. Their object is of un- doubted utility, and unites the hearts of all good men. They aim to suppress an undoubted and gross vice, to free its victims from the worst bondage, to raise them from brutal degradation to the lib- erty and happiness of men. There is one strong presumption in favor of the means which they have used. We have never heard of their awakening enmity and counteraction. In one particular, some of them may have erred. We re- fer to the compact formed by their mem- bers for abstaining from wine. When we consider that wine is universally ac- knowledged to be an innocent and often salutary beverage, that Jesus sanctioned its use by miraculously increasing it at the marriage feast, that the Scriptures teach us to thank God for it as a good gift, intended to " gladden the heart of man," and when to these considerations we add that wine countries are distin- guished for temperance, we are obliged to regard this pledge as injudicious ; and we regret it, because it may bring dis- trust and contempt on an excellent in- stitution, and because its abandonment — for it cannot long continue — may be construed by some as a warrant for re- turning to inebriating liquors. In one view, the success of the efforts against intemperance affords us peculiar satis- faction. It demonstrates a truth, little felt, but infinitely precious ; namely, the recoverableness of human nature from the lowest depths of vice. It teaches us never to despair of a human being. It teaches us that there is always some- thing to work on, a germ to be unfolded, a spark which may be cherished, in the human soul. Intemperance is the most hopeless state into which a man can fall ; and yet instances of recovery from this vice have rewarded the recent la- bors of the philanthropist. Let philan- thropy then rejoice in the belief that the capacity of improvement is never lost, and let it convert this conviction into new and more strenuous efforts for the recovery of the most depraved. We proceed now to Bible societies. These need no advocates. Their object is so simple, unexceptionable, benefi- cent, that all Protestants, at least, con- cur in their support. By spreading the Bible without note or comment, they es- pecially assert the right of private judg- ment, and are thus free from the great reproach of trenching on Christian free- dom. Perhaps they have not always been conducted with sufficient pru- dence. We have particularly feared that they might be open to the charge of indiscreet profusion. We believe it to be a good rule, that where the poor can give any thing for a Bible, no mat- ter how little, they should be encour- aged and incited to pay this part of the price. We believe that it will be more valued, and more carefully preserved, where it has cost something. We do not think of the Bible, as the supersti- tious among Catholics and heathens do of relics and charms as if its mere pres- ence in a family were a necessary good. We wish some pledge that it will be treated with respect, and we fear that this respect has been diminished by the lavishness with which it has been be- stowed. One cause of the evil is, that societies, like individuals, have a spice of vanity, and love to make a fair show in their annual reports ; and accordingly they are apt to feel as if a favor were conferred when their books are taken off their hands. We think that to se- cure respect to the Bible is even more important than to distribute it widely. For this purpose, its exterior should be attractive. It should be printed in a fair, large type, should" be well bound, and be provided with a firm case. This last provision seems tons especially im- portant. The poor have no book- cases. Their Bibles too often lie on the same shelves with their domestic utensils : nor can it be doubted that, when soiled, torn, dishonored by this exposure, they are regarded with less respect than if protected with peculiar care. REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. ISI We have a still more important remark to make in reference to 15ible societies. In our last number we noticed an edi- tion of the New Testament recently published in Boston, and differing from those in common use, by a new transla- tion of those passages of the Greek original, of which the true reading was lost or neglected when the received English version was made. This edi- tion of the New Testament we stated to be undoubtedly more correct, more conformed to the original, than our com- mon editions. On this point we speak strongly, because we wish to call to it the attention of Bible societies, and of all conscientious Christians. To such we say, — Here is a translation undoubt- edly more faithful to the original than that in common use. You have here in greater purity what Jesus Christ said, and what his apostles wrote ; and, if so, you are bound by your allegiance to Christ to substitute this for the common translation. We know that uneducated Christians cannot settle this question. We therefore respectfully, and with so- lemnity, solicit for it the attention of learned men, of Christian ministers, of professors of theology of every sect and name. We ask for the calmest and most deliberate investigation, and if, as we believe, there shall be but one opin- ion as to the claims of the version which we have recommended ; if all must ac- knowledge that it renders more faith- fully the words of the inspired and au- thorized teachers of Christianity, then we see not how it can be denied the re- ception and diffusion which it deserves. We conceive that, to Bible societies, this is a great question, and not to be evaded without unfaithfulness to our common Master, and without disrespect to the Holy Scriptures. We fear that there is a want of conscientiousness on this subject. We fear that the British and Foreign Bible Society has forfeited, in a measure, its claims to the gratitude and admiration of the church, by neg- lecting to secure the greatest possible accuracy and fidelity to the new trans- lations which they have set forth. We hear continual expressions of reverence for the Bible ; but the most unambigu- ous proofs of it — we mean, unwearied efforts to purify it from human addi- tions, mutilations, and corruptions — remain to be given. Before leaving the consideration of Bible societies, we cannot but refer to a very singular trans'action in relation to the Scriptures in which some of them are thought to be implicated. In some of our cities and villages, we are told that the rich as well as the poor have been visited for the purpose of ascer- taining whether they own the Bible. The object of this domiciliary inves- tigation we profess not to understand. We cannot suppose that it was intended to lavish on the rich the funds which were contributed for spreading the Script- ures among the poor. One thing we know, that a measure more likely to irri- tate and to be construed into an insult could not easily be contrived. As a sign of the times it deserves our notice. After this step, it ought not to surprise us should an inquisition be estabhshed, to ascertain who among us observe, and who neglect, the duties of private and_ family prayer. We might smile at this spirit, could we tell where it would stop. But it is essentially prying, restless, and encroaching, and its first movements ought to be withstood. We now proceed to another class of associations, — those which are designed to promote the observance of the Sab- bath. The motives which gave birth to these we respect. But we doubt the rectitude and usefulness of the object, and we fear that what has begun in con- scientiousness may end in intolerance and oppression. We cannot say of these associations, as of those which we have just noticed, that they aim at an unques- tionable good, about which all good men agree. Not a 'few of the wisest and best men dissent from the principle on which these societies are built ; namely, that the Jewish Sabbath is binding on Christians. Not a few of the pro- foundest divines and most exemplary followers of Christ have believed, and still believe, that the Sabbath enjoined in the fourth commandment is a part of Judaism, and not of the gospel ; that it is essentially different from the Lord's- day ; and that to enforce it on Christians is to fall into that error which Paul with- stood even unto death, — the error of adulterating Christianity by mixtures of a preparatory and very inferior religion. We beg to be understood. All Chris- tians, whom we know, concur in the opinion and the desire that the Lord's- 152 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. day, or the first day of the week, should be separated to the commemoration of Chrisfs resurrection, to public worship, to public Christian instruction, and in general to what are called the means of religion. This we gratefully accept and honor as a Christian rite. But not a few believe that the Lord's-day and the ancient Sabbath are not the same insti- tution, and ought not to be confounded ; that the former is of a nobler character, and more important than the latter ; and that the mode of observing it is to be determined by the spirit and purposes of Christianity, and not by any preced- ing law. This is a question about which Christians have differed for ages. We certainly wish that it may be debated till it is settled. But we grieve to see a questionable doctrine made the founda- tion of large societies, and to see Chris- tians leagued to pass the sentence of irreligjon on men equally virtuous with Ihemselves, and who perhaps better un- derstand the mind of Christ in regard to the Sabbath. We know that it is confidently afiirmed that God, at an earlier period than the Jewish law, enjoined the Sabbath as a perpetual, universal, irrepealable law for the whole human race. But can this position be sustained ? For ourselves, we cannot see a trace of it in the Script- ures, — those only sure records of God's revelation to mankind. We do, indeed, incline to believe — what many wise men have questioned — that there are appear- ances of the institution of the Sabbath at the beginning of the human race. We know that these are faint and few ; yet we attach importance to them, be- cause nature and reason favor the sup- position of a time having been set apart from the first as a religious memorial. Whilst, however, we incline to this view as most probable, we see no proofs of the perpetuity of the institution in the circumstance of its early origin. On the contrary, an ordinance or rite, given in the infancy of the human race, may be presumed to be temporary, unless its unchangeableness is expressly taught, or is necessarily implied in its very nat- ure. The positive or ritual religion, which was adapted to the earlier, can hardly suit the maturer periods of the race. Man is a progressive being, and needs a progressive religion. It is one of the most interesting and beautiful features of the sacred writings, and one of the strong evidences of their truth, that they reveal religion as a growing light, and manifest the Divine Legislator as adapting himself to the various and successive conditions of the world. Allowing, then, the Sabbath to have been given to Adam, we could no more infer its perpetuity than we can infer the perpetuity of capital punish- ment, as an ordinance of God, because He said to Noah, the second parent of the human race, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Our opinion leans, as we have said, to the early institution of the Sabbath ; but, we repeat it, the presumptions on which our judgments rest are too uncertain to authorize confidence, much less denun- ciation. The greater part of the early fathers of the church, according to Cal- met, believed that the law of the Sab- bath was not given before Moses ; and this, as we have observed, is the opinion of some of the most judicious and pious Christians of later times. AVhilst dis- posed to differ from these, we feel that the subject is to be left to the calm decision of individuals. We want no array of numbers to settle a doubtful question. One thing is plain, that, before Moses, not one precept is given in rela- tion to the Sabbath, nor a hint of its un- changeableness to the end of the world. One thing is plain, that the question of the perpetuity of this institution is to be settled by the teachings of Jesus Christ, the great Prophet, who alone is author- ized to determine how far the-institutions of religion which preceded him are bind- ing on his followers. For ourselves, we are followers of Christ, and not of Moses, or Noah, or Adam. \\'e call ourselves Christians, and the gospel is our only rule. Nothing in the Old Testament binds us, any further than it is recog- nized by, or incorporated into, the New. The great and only question, then, isj Does the New Testament, does Chris- tianity, impose on us the ancient Sab- bath ? To aid us in settling this question, we may first inquire into the nature and design of this institution ; and nothing can be plainer. Words can- not make it clearer. According to the Old Testament, the seventh, or last day of the week, was to be set apart, or sane- REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 153 tified, as a day of rest, in commemora- tion of God's having rested on that day from the work of creation.* The dis- tinguisliing feature of the institution is rest. The word Sabbath means rest. The event to be commemorated was rest. The reason for selecting the sev- enth was, that this had been to the Creator a day of rest. The cliief metli- od prescribed for sanctifying the day was rest. The distinctive character of the institution could not have been more clearly expressed. Whoever reads the fourth commandment will see that no mode of setting apart the day to God is there prescribed, except in imi- tation of his rest. How far this consti- tuted the sanctification of the Sabbath will be seen from such passages as the following : " You shall keep the Sab- bath, for it is holy unto you. Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death. For whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people." \ A still more re- markable proof that the sanctification of the Sabbath consisted in resting after the example of God, is furnished by Christ, who says, that " on the Sabbath- days the priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath.":]: So essential was rest to the hallowing of that day, that the work of offering victims, though pre- scribed by God Himself, is said to profane it. There are, indeed, some expressions of Moses, indicating other methods of observing the day, for he calls it "a holy convocation ; " but whether this phrase appUes to other places besides the Tem- ple is uncertain. It is not improbable, indeed, that the people resorted to the * We beg our readers to observe that we are now simply_ stating the account of the Sabbath which is given in the Old Testament. How this account Is to be interpreted is a question not involved in our present subject. We would, however, observe that the rest here ascribed to God must lae understood in a figurative sense. Properly speaking, God, who is incapable of fatigue, and whose almighty agency is un- ceasing, never rests In finishing the work of crea- tion, He did not sink into repose, or for a moment desist from the exercise of his omnipotence. A par- ticular mode of his agency was discontinued; and, in accommodation to an uncultivated age, this discon- oS""!? '™* <^\ii. rest. It seems to us, that the oabbath bears one mark of a temporary institution, ^'J *j!,^ ^^ct _ of its being founded on a representation o: God which^ is true only in a figurative or popular sense, and which gives something like a shock to a mind which has exalted its conceptions of the Divinity. Such an institution does not carry the impress of a perpetual and universal law. t Exod. xxxi. 14 ; also Jer. xvii. 22. \ Matt. xii. 5. Levites and prophets on the Sabbath rather than other days ; but we find no precept to this effect ; and it is well known that no synagogues or places of worship were built through Judea until after the captivity. Rest, then, was the great distinction of the day. This constituted it a memorial, and gave it its name ; and we conceive that the chief stress was laid on this circum- stance, because the Sabbath was in- tended to answer a humane as well as religious end ; that is, to give relief to persons in servitude, and to inferior ani- mals, — a provision very much needed in an unrefined and semi-barbarous age, when slavery had no acknowledged riglits, and when little mercy was shown to man or beast. In conformity to these views, we find the Jewish nation always ' regarding the Sabbath as a joyful day, — a festival. In the time of Christ, we find him bidden to a feast on the Sabbath-day, and accepting the invita- tion ; * and our impression is, that now, as in past times, the Jews divide the day between the synagogue and social en- joyment. The nature and end of the Sabbath cannot be easily misunderstood. It was the seventh or last day of the week, set apart by God as a day of rest, in imitation and in commemoration of his having rested on ■ that day from the cre- ation. That other religious observances were with great propriety introduced in- to the day, and that they were multiplied with the progress of the nation, we do not doubt. But the distinctive observ- ance, and the only one expressly en- joined on the whole people, was rest. Now we ask, Is the dedication of the seventh or last day of the week to rest, in remembrance of God's resting on that day, a part of the Christian relig- ion ? The answer seems to us plain. We afiirm, in the first place, what none will contradict, that this institution is not enjoined in .the New Testament, even by the faintest hint or implication ; and, in the next place, we maintain that the Christian world, so far from finding it there, have by their practice disowned its authority. . This last position may startle some of our readers. But it is not therefore less true. We maintain that the Christian * Ltike xiv. 1S4 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. world have in practice disowned the ob- ligation of the Sabbath established by the fourth commandment. There is, indeed, a body of Christians called Sab- batarians, who strictly and religiously observe the fourth commandment. But they are a handful ; they are lost, swal- lowed up in the immense majority of Christians, who have for ages ceased to observe the Sabbath prescribed from Sinai. True, Christians have their sa- cred day, which they call a Sabbath. But is it in truth the ancient Sabbath ? We say, no ; and we call attention to this point. The ancient Sabbath, as we have seen, was the last day of the week, set apart for rest, in commemoration of God's resting on that day. And is the first day of the week, a day observed in remembrance of Christ's resurrection from the dead, the same institution with this ? Can broader marks between two ordinances be conceived ? Is it possible that they can be confounded ? Is not the ancient Sabbath renounced by the Christian world ? Have we not thus the testimony of the Christian world to its having passed awaj- 1 Who of us can consistently plead for it as a uni- versal and perpetual law ? We know that it is said that the an- cient Sabbath remains untouched ; that Christianity has only removed it from the last to the first day of the week, and that this is a shght, unessential change, leaving the old institution whole and unbroken. To this we have several re- plies. In the first place, this change of days, which Christianity is supposed to make, is not unessential, but vital, and subversive of the ancient institution. The end of the ancient Sabbath was the commemoration of God's resting from his works ; and, for this end, the very day of the week on which He rested was most wisely selected. Now we maintain, that to select the first day of the week, the very day on which He be- gan his works, and to select and sepa- rate this in commemoration of another event, — of Clirist's resurrection, — is wholly to set aside the ancient Sabbath. We cannot conceive of a more essential departure from the original ordinance. This substitution, as it is called, is a literal as well as virtual abolition. Such is our first remark. — We say, secondly, that not a word is uttered in the New Testament of the first day being substi- tuted for the seventh. Surely so strik- ing a change would not have been made in a universal and perpetual law of God without some warning. We ask for some hint of this modification of the fourth commandment. We find not a- syllable. We say, thirdly, that the first Chris- tians knew nothing of this substitution. Our evidence here is complete. The first converts to Christianity were Jews, and these converts had at first no con- ception of the design of Christianity to supersede the law of J\Ioses. This law they continued to observe for years, and to observe it as rigorously as ever. When Paul visited Jerusalem, after many labors among the Gentiles, the elders said unto him, " Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous of the law." * Of course they aU observed the Jewish Sabbath, or sev- enth day of rest, the greatest of Jewish festivals, whilst, as we all believe, they honored also the first day, the remem- brancer of Christ's resurrection. This state of things existed for years in the primitive church. The two days were observed together. Nothing more seems necessary to disprove unanswerabl}- the common doctrine that the Apostles en- joined the substitution of the first for the seventh day. We will add one more argument. Paul commands the Colossian Christians to disregard the censures of those who judged or con- demned them for not observing the Sabbath. " Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." f This passage is very plain. It is evaded, however, by the plea that the word " Sabbath " was used to express not only the sev- enth day, but other festivals or days of rest. But when we recollect that the word is used by Paul in this place with- out any exception or limitation, and that it was employed at that time, most fre- quently and almost wholly, to express the seventh day, or weekly Sabbath, we shall see that we have the strongest reason for supposing this institution to be intended by the Apostle. That a Christian, after reading this passage, should " judge " or condemn his breth- ren for questioning or rejecting his * Acts xxi. 20. + Col. ii. 16. REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. 155 particular notion of the Sabbath, is a striking proof of the slow progress of tolerant and liberal principles among men. We need not add, after these remarks, how unjustifiable we deem it to enforce particular modes of observ- ing this day by an array of associations. Having thus stated what seem to us strong reasons against the perpetuity of the ancient Sabbath, perhaps some of our readers may wish to know our views of the Lord's-day ; and, although the subject may seem foreign to the present article, we will give our opinion in a few words. We believe that the first day of the week is to be set apart for the pub- Uc worship of God, and for the promo- tion of the knowledge and practice of Christianity, and that it was selected for this end in honor of the resurrection of Christ. To this view we are led by the following considerations : Wherever the gospel was preached, its professors were formed into churches or congrega- tions, and ministers were appointed for their instruction or edification. Wher- ever Christianity was planted, societies for joint religious acts and improvement were instituted, as the chief means of establishing and diffusing it. Now it is plain that for these purposes regular times must have been prescribed ; and, accordingly, we find that it was the cus- tom of the primitive Christians to hold their religious assemblies on the first day of the week, — the day of Christ's resurrection. This we learn from the New Testament, and from the universal testimony of the earliest ages of the church. Wherever Christianity was spread, the first day was established as the season of Christian worship and instruction. Such are the grounds on which this institution rests. We regard it as altogether a Christian institution, — as having its origin in the gospel, — as pecuUar to the new dispensation ; and we conceive that the proper ob- servation of it is to be determined wholly by the spirit of Christianity. We ^ meet in the New Testament no precise rules as to the mode of spend- ing the Lord's-day, as to the mode of worship and teaching, as to the distri- bution of the time not given to public services. And this is just what might be expected ; for the gospel is not a re- ligion of precise rules. It differs from Judaism in nothing more than in its free character. It gives great principles, broad views, general, prolific, all-com- prehensive precepts, and intrusts the application of them to the individual. It sets before us the perfection of our nature, the spirit which we should cher- ish, the virtues which constitute " the kingdom of heaven within us," and leaves us to determine for ourselves, in a great measure, the discipline by which these noble ends are to be secured. Let no man, then, bind what Christ has left free. The modes of worship and teaching on the Lord's-day are not pre- scribed, and who will say that they can- not be improved ? One reason of the neglect and limited influence of this in- stitution is that, as now observed, it does not correspond sufficiently to the wants of our times ; and we fear that it might even fall into contempt among the cultivated, should attempts be pros- ecuted to carry it back to the supersti- tious rigor by which it was degraded in a former age. The associations for promoting the observance of the Sabbath propose sev- eral objects, in which, to a certain ex- tent, we heartily concur, but which, from their nature, are not susceptible of precise definition or regulation, and which, therefore, ought to be left, where Christianity has left them, to the con- sciences of individuals. They undoubt- edly intend to discountenance labor on Sunday. Now, generally speaking, ab- stinence from labor seems to us a plain duty of the day ; for we see not how its ends can otherwise be accomplished to any considerable extent. We do not believe, indeed, that this abstinence was rigidly practised by the first Christians at Jerusalem, who, as we have seen, gave up the seventh day to entire rest, and whose social duties could hardly have admitted the same appropriation of the following day. Neither do we believe that the converts, who were made among the class of slaves in heathen countries, abstained from labor on_ the first day of the week ; for, in so doing, they would have exposed them- selves to the severest punishments, even to death, and we have no intimat'on that this portion of believers were regu- larly cut off by martyrdom. We know, however, that the early Christians, in proportion as they were relieved from the restrictions of heathenism and Juda- 156 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. ism, made the Lord's-day a season of abstinence from labor ; and the argu- ments for so doing are so obvious and strong, that later Christians have con- curred with them with hardly a dissent- ing voice. On this point there is, and can be, no difference. The change of Sunday into a working-day we should condemn as earnestly as any of our brethren. At the same time, we feel that, in this particular, a Jewish rigor is not to be imposed on Christians, and that there are exigencies justifying toil on the first day, which must be left to individual judgment. The great pur- poses of this festival may certainly be accomplished without that scrupulous, anxious shunning of every kind of work which marked a Jewish Sabbath, and which, however proper under a servile dispensation, and in an age of darkness, would be in us superstition. We do not, for example, think Christians bound to prepare on Saturday every meal for the following day, or to study through the week how to remove the necessity of every bodily exertion on the ap- proaching Sunday. We think, too, that cases may occur which justify severe toil on this day ; and we should judge a man unfaithful to himself and his fam- ily, ungrateful to Providence, and su- perstitious, who should lose a crop rather than harvest it during the por- tion of time ordinarily set apart for Christian worship. On these points, Christianity has left us free. The in- dividual must be his own judge, and we deprecate the attempts of societies to legislate on this indefinite subject for their fellow-Christians. Another purpose of the associations of which we speak is to stop the mail on Sunday. On this point a great differ- ence of opinion prevails among the most conscientious men. It may be remembered that, in a former number of this work, there was an article on the Sabbath, discouraging this attempt to interrupt the mail. We think it right to say, that among the contributors to this work, and among its best friends, a diversity of sentiment exists in regard to this difficult question. In one re- spect, however, we all agree ; and that is, in the inexpediency of organizing, in opposition to the Sunday mail, a vast association, which may be easily per- verted to political purposes, which, from its very object, will be tempted to med- dle with government, and wiiich, by setting up a concerted and joint cry. may overpower and load with reproach the most conscientious men in the com- munity. Another purpose of these associations is to discourage traveUing on the Lord's- day. Nothing can well be plainer than that unnecessary travelling on this day is repugnant to its duties and design, and is to be reproved in writing, preach- ing, and conversation. By unnecessary travelling, we mean that which is not required by some particular exigency. When we consider, however, that in such a community as ours, distin- guished by extent and variety of in- tercourse, exigencies must continually occur, we feel that here is another point with which societies have no right to interfere, and which must be left to the conscience of the individual. In such a community as ours, how many persons may be found on every Sunday, the state of whose health, the state of whose families, the state of whose affairs, may require them to travel ? It may happen that another's property confided to our care may be lost, that a good object may fail, that some dying or departing friend may go from us un- seen, if on this day we will not begin or pursue a journey. How often is it difficult for the traveller to find an inn, the quiet and comforts of which make it a fit residence for Sunday ? An as- sociation against travelling on Sunday seems to us a very hazardous expedient ; and its members, we think, will be for- tunate if they escape the guilt of cen- soriousness and dictation on a subject which Providence has plainly exempted from human legislation. We know that it will be said that the license which we give by these remarks will be abused ; and of this we have no doubt. We know no truth, no privilege, no power, no blessing, no right, which is not abused. But is liberty to be denied to men because they often turn it into licentiousness ? We have read of cer- tain sects which have denounced indis- criminately all sports and relaxations, because these, if allowed, v/ill be carried to excess ; and of others, which have prescribed by laws the plainest, coarsest dress, because ornament, if in any meas- ure tolerated, would certainly grow up REMARKS ON ASSOCIA TIONS. IS7 Into extravagance and vanity. And is this degrading legislation never to end ? Are men never to be trusted to them- selves ? Is it God's method to hem them in with precise prescriptions ? Does Providence leave nothing to in- dividual discretion ? Does Providence withhold every privilege which may be abused ? Does Christianity enjoin an exact, unvarying round of services, be- cause reason and conscience, if allowed to judge of duty, will often be misguided by partiality and passion ? How liberal, generous, confiding, are nature, Provi- dence, and Christianity, in their dealings with men ! And when will men learn to exercise towards one another the same liberal and coniiding spirit ? We have thus considered some of the particular purposes of the association for promoting the observance of the Sabbath. We say their "particular purposes." We apprehend there is a general one, which lurks in a portion of their members, which few perhaps have stated very distinctly to themselves, but which is not therefore the less real, and of which it is well to be forewarned. We apprehend that some, and not a small party, have a vague instinctive feeling that the kind of Christianity which they embrace requires for its dif- fusion a gloomy Sabbath, the Puritan Sabbath ; and we incline to beUeve that they are desirous to separate the Lord's- day as much as possible from all other days, to make it a season of rigid re- straint, that it may be a preparation for a system of theology, which the mind, in a natural, free, and cheerful state, can never receive. The Sabbath of the Puritans and their Calvinistic peculiari- ties go together. Now we wish the return of neither. The Puritans, meas- ured by their age, have indeed many claims on respect, especially those of them who came to this country, and who, through their fortunate exile, es- caped the corruption which the civil war and the possession of power engendered in the Puritan body of England. But sincere respect for the men of early times may be joined with a clear per- ception of their weaknesses and errors ; and it becomes us to remember, that errors, which in them were innocent, be- cause inevitable, may deserve a harsher appellation if perpetuated in their pos- terity. We have no desire, it will be seen, to create huge associations for enforcing or recommending the Lord's-day. We desire, however, that this interesting subject may engage more attention. We wish the LorcTs-day to be more honored and more observed ; and we believe that there is but one way for securing this good, and that is to make the day more useful, to turn it to better account, to introduce such changes into it as shall satisfy judicious men that it is adapted to great and happy results. The Sunday which has come down to us from our fathers seems to us exceed- ingly defective. The clergy have nat- urally taken it very much into their own hands, and we apprehend that as yet they have not discovered all the means of making it a blessing to mankind. It may well excite surprise how little knowledge has been communicated on the Lord's-day. We think that the present age admits and requires a more extensive teaching than formerly, — • a teaching not only in sermons, but in more instructive exercises, which will promote a critical and growing ac- quaintance with the Scriptures ; will unfold morality or duty, at once in its principles and vast details ; will guide the common mind to larger views, and to a more religious use of nature and history ; and will reveal to it its ov/n godlike powers. We think, too, that this great intellectual activity may be relieved and cheered by a mixture of greater benevolent activity ; by attention to pubUc and private charities, and by domestic and social kindnesses.* It seems to us that we are waking up to understand the various uses to which Sunday may be applied. The present devotion of a considerable portion of it to the teaching of children makes an important era in the history of the insti- tution. The teaching of the ignorant and poor, we trust, is to follow. On this subject we cannot enlarge, but enough has been said to show in what way Sun- day is to be recommended to the under- standings and consciences of men. In these remarks we have expressed our reverence for the Lord's-day. To * Would not the business of our public charities be done more effectually on the Lord's-day than on any other, and would not such an appropriation of a part of this time accord peculiarly with the spirit of Chris- tianity ? IS8 REMARKS ON ASSOCIATIONS. us it is a more important day, and con- secrated to nobler purposes, than the ancient Sabbath. We are bound, how- ever, to state that we cannot acquiesce in the distinctions which are often made between this and other days, for they seem to us at once ungrounded and per- nicious. We sometimes hear, for exam- ple, that the Lord's-day is set apart from our common lives to religion .'' What ! Are not all days equally set apart to re- ligion ? Has religion more to do with Sunday than with any other portion of time ? Is there any season over which piety should not preside ? So the day is sometimes distinguished as "holy." What ! Is there stronger obligation to holiness on one day than on another? Is it more holy to pray in the church than to pray in the closet, or than to withstand temptation in common life ? The true distinction of Sunday is, that it is consecrated to certain means or direct acts of religion. But these are not holier than other duties. They are certainly not more important than their end, which is a virtuous life. There is, we fear, a superstition on this point, un- worthy of the illumination of Chris- tianity. We earnestly recommend the Lord's-day, but we dare not esteem its duties above those of other days. We prize and recommend it as an institu- tion through which our whole lives are to be sanctified and ennobled ; and, without this fruit, vain, and worse than vain, are the most rigid observances, the most costly sacrifices, the loudest and most earnest prayers. We would on no account disparage the offices of the Lord's-day. We delight in this peace- ful season, so fitted to allay the feverish heat and anxieties of active life, to cher- ish self-communion, and communion with God and with the world to come. It is good to meet, as brethren, in the church to pray together, to hear the word of God, to retire for a time from ordinary labors, that we may meditate on great truths more deliberately, and with more continuous attention. In these duties we see a fitness, excel- lence, and happiness ; but still, if a com- parison must be made, they seem to us less striking proofs of piety and virtue than are found in the disinterestedness, the self-control, the love of truth, the scorn of ill-gotten wealth, the unshaken trust in God, the temperate and grateful enjoyment, the calm and courageous suf- ferings for duty, to which the Christian is called in daily life. It is right to adore God's goodness in the hour of prayer ; but does it not seem more ex- cellent to carry in our souls the convic- tion of this goodness, as our spring and pattern, and to breathe it forth in acts conformed to the beneficence of our Maker ? It is good to seek strength from God in the church ; but does it not seem more excellent to use well this strength in the sore conflicts of life and to rise through it to a magnanimous and victorious virtue ? Such comparisons, however, we have no pleasure in making, and they are obviously exposed to error. The enlightened Christian "esteemeth every day alike." To him all days bring noble duties ; bring occasions of a celestial piety and virtue ; bring trials, in wrestling with which he may grow strong ; bring aids and incitements, through which he may rise above him-, self. All days may be holy, and the holiest is that in which he yields him- self, with the most single-hearted, un- shrinking, uncompromising purpose, to the will of God. We intended to add remarks on some other associations, particularly on the Peace society. But we have exceeded our limits, and must forbear. Our re- marks have been free, but, we trust, will not be misunderstood. We look with interest and hope on the spirit of association which characterizes our times. We rejoice in this, as in every manifestation of a desire for the im- provement of mankind. We have done what we could to secure this powerful instrument against perversion. Through a wise and jealous care, we doubt not that it will minister to that only sure good, the intellectual and moral prog- ress of the human race. THE PRESENT AGE. IS9 THE PRESENT AGE: An Address delivered before the Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia, May ii, 1841. [To my venerable Fn'end, John Vaughan, Esq., who has made the past generation and the present his debtors by unwearied well-doing, this Address is affectionately and respectfully inscribed. — W. E. C] Gentlemen of the Mercantile Library Company, — I beg you to consider my appearance in this place as an expression 'of my interest in tliis and in kindred institutions. I welcome them as signs of the times, as promises and means of increased intellectual ac- tivity. I shall be glad, if a good word or a friendly effort on my part can serve them. I know that the lectures deliv- ered before such societies are called superficial ; but this does not discour- ■age me. All human productions, even those of genius, are very superficial, compared with the unfathomable depths of truth. The simple question is. Do these lectures rouse the mind to new action ? Do they give it new objects of thought, and excite a thirst for knowl- edge ? I am sure that they do ; and therefore, though the field is sometimes called humble, I enter it with pleasure. — Will you allow me to observe, that to render lectures useful one condition is necessary ; they must be frank, hon- est, free. He who speaks must speak what he thinks, — speak courteously, but uncompromisingly. What makes our communications unprofitable in this country is, the dread of giving offence, now to the majority, and now to the fashionable or refined. We speak with- out force because not true to our con- victions. A lecturer will, of course, desire to wound no man's prejudices or feelings ; but his first duty is to truth ; his chief power lies in simple, natural, strong utterance of what he believes ; and he should put confidence in his hearers that the tone of manly sincerity will be responded to by can- dor and. good-will. The subject to which I call your at- tention is the Present Age, — a vast theme, demanding volumes. An age is needed to expound an age ; and, of course, little is to be expected in a brief hour. I profess no great understand- ing of the subject, though I have given it much thought. In truth, it cannot be grasped, as yet, by the highest in- tellect. This age is the result, issue, of all former ages. All are pouring themselves into it. The struggles, pas- sions, discoveries, revolutions of all for- mer time survive in their influences on the present moment. To interpret the present thoroughly we must understand and unfold all the past. This work I shall not undertake. I am not now to be a historian. Do not fear that I shall compel you to journey backward to the Deluge or to Paradise. I shall look only at the present ; nor do I think of unfolding all the present. I shall seize on a single characteristic of our age, if not the profoundest, yet the most prominent, and the best fitted to an address like the present. In perform- ing this task my aim will be to speak the simple truth. I wish to say what the age is, not to be its advocate ; and yet I hope to lead you to look tenderly and trustfully on it, to love it, and to resolve, with generous, stout hearts, that you will serve it, as far as God may give you ability. In looking at our age I am struck im- mediately with one commanding char- acteristic, and that is, the tendency in all its movements to expansion, to dif- fusion, to universality. To this I ask your attention. This tendency is di- rectly opposed to the spirit of exclusive- ness, restriction, narrowness, monopoly, which has prevailed in past ages. Hu- man action is now freer, more uncon- fined. All goods, advantages, helps. i6o THE PRESENT AGE. are more open to all. The privileged, petted individual is becoming less, and the human race are becoming more. The multitude is rising from the dust. Once we heard of the few, now we hear of the many ; once of the pre- rogatives of a part, now of the rights of all. We are looking as never before through the disguises, envelopments of ranks and classes to the common nat- ure which lies below them, and are be- ginning to learn that every being who partakes of- it has noble powers to cul- tivate, solemn duties to perform, inal- ienable rights to assert, a vast destiny to accomplish. The grand idea of hu- manity, of the importance of man as man, is spreading silently but surely. Not that the worth of the human being is at all understood as it should be ; but the truth is glimmering through the darkness. A faint consciousness of it has seized on the public mind. Even the most abject portions of society are visited by some dreams of a better con- dition for which they were designed. The grand doctrine, that every human being should have the means of self- culture, — of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happi- ness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man,. — this is slowly taking its place as the highest social truth. That the world was made for all, and not for a few ; that society is to care for all ; that no human being shall perish but through his own fault ; that the great end of government is to spread a shield over the rights of all, — these propositions are growing into axioms, and the spirit of them is com- ing forth in all the departments of life. If we look at the various movements of our age, we shall see in them this tendency to universality and diffusion. Look- first at science and literature. Where is science now ? Locked up in a few colleges, or royal societies, or inac- cessible volumes ? Are its experiments mysteries for a few privileged eyes ? Are its portals guarded by a dark phrase- ology which to the multitude is a foreign tongue ? No ; science has now left her retreats, her shades, her selected com- pany of votaries,, and with familiar tone begun the work of instructing the race. Through the press, discoveries and the- ories, once the monopoly of philosophers, have become the property of the multi- tude. Its professors, heard not Ion ago in the university or some narroi school, now speak in the mechanic ir stitute. The doctrine that the labore should understand the principles of hi art, should be able to explain the law and processes which he turns to account that, instead of working as. a machine he should join intelligence to his toil, i no longer listened to as a dream. Sci ence, once the greatest of distinctions is becoming popular. A lady gives u Conversations on Chemistry, revealin, to the minds of our youth vast laws c the universe which fifty years ago hai not dawned on the greatest minds. Th school-books of our children contai: grand views of the creation. There ar parts of our country -in which lyceum spring up in almost every village for th purpose of mutual aid in the study o natural science. The characteristic o our age, then, is not the improvemen of science, rapid as this is, so much a its extension to all men. The same characteristic will appear, i we inquire into the use now made o science. Is it simply a matter of spec ulation, a topic of discourse, an employ ment of the intellect ? In this case, thi multitude, with all their means of in struction, would find in it only a hurriei gratification. But one of the distinc tions of our time is, that science ha; passed from speculation into life. In deed, it is not pursued enough for it; intellectual and contemplative uses. I is sought as a mighty power, by whicl nature is not only to be opened t( thought, but to be subjected to ou needs. It is conferring on us that do minion over earth, sea, and air, whicl was prophesied in the first comman( given to man by his Maker ; and thi dominion is now employed, not to exal a few, but to multiply the comforts am ornaments of hfe for the multitude o men. Science has become an inexhaust ible mechanician ; and by her forges and mills, and steam -cars, and printer' presses, is bestowing on milUons, no only comforts, but luxuries which wer once the distinction of a few. Another illustration of the tendency o science to expansion and univers^it may be found in its aims and objects Science has burst all bounds and is aire ing to comprehend the universe, an thus it multiplies fields of inquiry fo THE PRESENT AGE. I6l all orders of minds. There is no prov- ince of nature which it does not invade. Not content with exploring the darkest periods of human history, it goes behind the birth of the human race, and studies the stupendous changes which our globe experienced for hundreds of centuries, to become prepared for man's abode. Not content with researches into visible nat- ure, it is putting forth all its energies to detect the laws of invisible and imponder- able matter. Difficulties only provoke it to new efforts. It would lay open the secrets of the polar ocean and of un- trodden barbarous lands. Above all, it investigates the laws of social progress, of arts and institutions of government and political economy, proposing as its great end the alleviation of all human burdens, the weal of all the members of the human race. In truth, nothing is more characteristic of our age than the vast range of inquiry which is opening more and more to the multitude of men. Thought frees the old bounds to which men used to confine themselves. It holds nothing too sacred for investiga- tion. It calls the past to account ; and treats hoary opinions as if they were of yesterday's growth. No reverence drives it back. No great name terrifies it. The foundations of what seems most settled must be explored. Undoubtedly this is a perilous tendency. Men forget the limits of their powers. They question the infinite, the unsearchable, with an audacious self-reliance. They shock pi- ous and revering minds, and rush into an extravagance of doubt more unphilo- sophical and foolish than the weakest creduHty. Still, in this dangerous wild- ness we see what I am stating, the ten- dency to expansion in the movements of thought. I have hitherto spoken of science ; and what is true of science is still more true of literature. Books are now placed within reach of all. Works once top costly except for the opulent are now to be found on the laborer's shelf. Genius sends its light into cottages. The great names of literature are become house- hold words among the crowd. Every party, religious or political, scatters its sheets on all the winds. We may la- ment, and too justly, the small compara- tive benefit as yet accomplished by this agency ; but this ought not to surprise or discourage us. In our present stage of improvement, books of little worth, deficient in taste and judgment, and ministering to men's prejudices and pas- sions, will almost certainly be circulated too freely. Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power. Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance. It is an undoubted fact that, silently, books of a higher order are taking place of the worthless. Happily, the instability of the human mind works sometimes for good as well as evil. Men grow tired at length even of amusements. Works of fiction cease to interest them ; and they turn from novels to books which, having their origin in deep principles of our nature, retain their hold of the human mind for ages. At any rate, we see in the present diffusion of literature the tendency to universality of which I have spoken. The same tendency will appear, if we consider the kind of literature which is obtaining the widest favor. The works of genius of our age breathe a spirit of universal sympathy. The great poet of our times, Wordsworth, — one of the few who are to live, — has gone to common life, to the feelings of our universal nat- ure, to the obscure and neglected por- tions of society, for beautiful and touch- ing themes. Nor ought it to be said that he has shed over these the charms of his genius, as if in themselves they had nothing grand or lovely. Genius is not a creator, in the sense of fancying or feigning what does not exist. Its dis- tinction is to discern more of truth than common minds. It sees under disguises and humble forms everlasting beauty. This it is the prerogative of Wordsworth to discern and reveal in the ordinary walks of life, in the common human heart. He has revealed the loveUness of the primitive feelings, of the universal affections of the human soul. The grand truth which pervades his poetry is, that the beautiful is not confined to the rare, the new, the distant, — to scenery and modes of life open only to the few ; but that it is poured forth profusely on the common earth and sky, that it gleams from the loneliest flower, that it lights up the humblest sphere, that the sweet- est affections lodge in lowly hearts, that there is sacredness, dignity, and loveli- ness in lives which few eyes rest on ; that, even in the absence of all intellect- 1 62 THE PRESENT AGE. ual culture, the domestic relations can quietly nourish that disinterestedness which is the element of all greatness, and without which intellectual power is a splendid deformity. Wordsworth is the poet of humanity ; he teaches rever- ence for our universal nature ; he breaks down the factitious barriers between hu- man hearts. The same is true, in an inferior de- gree, of Scott, whose tastes, however, were more aristocratic. Scott had a childish love of rank, titles, show, pa- geants, and, in general, looked with keener eye on the outward life than into the soul. Still, he had a human heart, and sympathized with his race. With few exceptions, he was just to all his human brethren. A reconciling spirit breathes through his writings. He seizes on the interesting and beautiful features in all conditions of life ; gives us bursts of tender and noble feehngs even from rude natures ; and continually knits some new tie between the reader and the vast varieties of human nature which start up under his teeming pen. He delighted, indeed, in Highland chiefs, in border thieves and murderers, in fierce men and fierce encounters. But he had an eye to catch the stream of sweet affec- tions as it wound its way through hum- ble life. What light has Jeanie Deans shed on the path of the obscure ! He was too wanting in the religious senti- ment to comprehend the solemn bearing, the stern grandeur of the Puritans. But we must not charge with narrowness a writer who embodied in a Jewish maiden his highest conceptions of female noble- ness. Another writer illustrating the liberal- izing, all-harmonizing tendency of our times is Dickens, whose genius has sought and found subjects of thrilling interest in the passions, sufferings, vir- tues of the mass of the people. He shows that life in itS' rudest forms may wear a tragic grandeur ; that, amidst follies and sensual excesses provoking laughter or scorn, the moral feelings do not wholly die ; and that the haunts of the blackest crimes are sometimes light- ed up by the presence and influence of the noblest souls. He has, indeed, greatly erred in turning so often the degradation of humanity into matter of sport ; but the tendency of his dark pict- ures is to awaken sympathy with our race, to change the unfeehng indiffer- ence which has prevailed towards the depressed multitude into sorrowful and indignant sensibility to their wrongs and woes. The remarks now made on literature might be extended to the fine arts. In these we see, too, the tendency to uni- versality. It is said that the spirit ol the great artists has died out ; but the taste for their works is spreading. By the improvements of engraving, and the invention of casts, the genius of the great masters is going abroad. Their conceptions are no longer pent up in galleries open to but few, but meet us in our homes, and are the household pleasures of millions. Works designed for the halls and eyes of emperors, popes, and nobles, find their way, in no poor representations, into humble dwell- ings, and sometimes give a conscious- ness of kindred powers to the child of poverty. The art of drawing, which lies at the foundation of most of the fine arts, and is the best education of the eye for nature, is becoming a branch of common education, and in some coun- tries is taught in schools to which all classes are admitted. I am reminded by this remark of the most striking feature of our times, and showing its tendency to universality, and that is, the unparalleled and con- stantly accelerated diffusion of educa- tion. This greatest of arts, as yet little understood, is making sure progress, because its principles are more and more sought in the common nature of man ; and the great truth is spreading, that every man has a right to its aid. Ac- cordingly education is becoming the work of nations. Even in the despotic governments of Europe, schools are open for every child without distinc- tion ; and not only the elements of reading and writing, but music and drawing are taught, and a foundation is laid for future progress in history, geography, and physical science. The greatest minds are at work on popular education. The revenues of states are applied most liberally, not to the uni- versities for the few, but to the common schools. Undoubtedly much remains to be done ; especially a new rank in so- ciety is to be given to the teacher ; but even in this respect a revolution has commenced, and we are beginning to THE PRESENT AGE. 163 look on the guides of the young as the chief benefactors of mankind. 1 thought that I had finished ray illus- trations on this point ; but there has suddenly occurred to me another sign of the tendency to universal intellectual action in this country, — a sign which we are prone to smile at, but which is yet worthy of notice. I refer to the com- monness among us of public speaking. If we may trust our newspapers, we are a nation of orators. Every meeting overflows with eloquence. Men of all conditions find a tongue for public de- bate. Undoubtedly there is more sound than sense in bur endless speeches be- fore all kinds of assemblies and socie- ties. But no man, I think, can attend our public meetings without being struck with the force and propriety of expres- sion in multitudes whose condition has confined them to a very imperfect cult- ure. This exercise of the intellect, which has almost become a national characteristic, is not to be undervalued. Speech is not merely the dress, as it is often called, but the very body of thought. It is to the intellect what the muscles are to the principle of physical hfe. The mind acts and strengthens it- self through words. It is a chaos till defined, organized by language. The attempt to give clear, precise utterance to thought is one of the most effectual processes of mental disciphne. It is, therefore, no doubtful sign of the grow- ing intelligence of a people when the power of expression is cultivated exten- sively for the purpose of acting on mul- titudes. We have here one invaluable influence of popular institutions. They present at the same moment to a whole people great subjects of thought, and bring multitudes to the earnest discus- sion of them. Here are, indeed, moral dangers ; but still, strong incitements to -'general intellectual action. It is in such stirring schools, after all, that the mind of a people is chiefly formed. Events of deep general interest quicken us more than formal teaching ; and by these the civilized world is to be more and more trained to thought. Thus we see in the intellectual move- ments of our times the tendency to expansion, to universality ; and this must continue. It is not an accident, or an inexphcable result, or a violence on nature ; it is founded in eternal truth. Every mind was made for growth,, for knowledge ; and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance. The divine gift of intelligence was be- stowed for higher uses than bodily labor, than to make hewers of wood, drawers of water, ploughmen, or servants. Every being so gifted is intended to acquaint himself with God and his works, and to perform wisely and disinterestedly the duties of life. Accordingly, when we see the multitude of men beginning to thirst for knowledge, for intellectual action, for something more than an animal life, we see the great design of nature about to be accomplished ; and society, having received this impulse, will never rest till it shall have taken such a for-m as will place within every man's reach the means of intellectual culture. This is the revolution to which we are tending ; and without this all outward political changes would be but children's play, leaving the great work of society yet to be done. I have now viewed the age in its intel- lectual aspects. If we look next at its religious movements, we shall see in these the same tendency to universality. It is more and more understood that religious truth is every man's property and right ; that it is committed to no order or individual, to no priest, minis- ter, student, or sage, to be given or kept back at will ; but that every man may and should seek it for himself ; that every man is to see with his own mind, as well as with his own eyes ; and that God's illuminating spirit is alike prom- ised to every honest and humble seeker after truth. This recognition of every man's right of judgment appears in the teachings of all denominations of Chris- tians. In all, the tone of authority is giving place to that of reason and per- suasion. Men of all ranks are more and more addressed as those who must weigh and settle for themselves the grandest truths of religion. The same tendency to uhiversaUty is seen in the generous toleration which marks our times, in comparison with the past. Men, in general, cannot now endure to think that their own narrow church holds all the goodness on the earth. Religion is less and less regarded as a name, a form, a creed, a church, and more and more as the spirit of Christ, which works under all forms 1 64 THE PRESENT AGE. and all sects. True, much intolerance remains ; its separating walls are not fallen ; but, with a few exceptions, they no longer reach to the clouds. Many of them have crumbled away, till the men whom they sever can shake hands, and exchange words of fellow- ship, and recognize in one another's faces the features of brethren. At the present day the grand truth of religion is more and more brought out, — I mean the truth, that God is the Universal Father, that every soul is infinitely precious to Him, that He has no favorites, no partial attach- ments, no respect of persons, that ' He desires alike the virtue and everlasting good of all. In the city of Penn I can- not but remember the testimony to this truth borne by George Fox and his fol- lowers, who planted themselves on the grand principle that God's illuminating spirit is shed on every soul, not only within the -bounds of Christendom, but through the whole earth. This universal, impartial love of God is manifested to us more and more by science, which re- veals to us vast, all-pervading laws of nature, administered with no favoritism, and designed for the good of all. I know that this principle is not univer- sally received. Men have always been in- clined to frame a local, partial, national, or sectarian God, to shut up the Infinite One in some petty enclosure ; but at this moment larger views of God are so far extended that they illustrate the spirit of the age. If we next consider by whom religion is taught, we shall see the same ten- dency to diffusion and universality. Religious teaching is passing into all hands. It has ceased to be a monopoly. For example, what an immense amount of instruction is communicated in Sun- day-schools ! These are spreading over the Christian world, and through these the door of teaching is open to crowds, — to almost all, indeed, who would bear a part in spreading religion. In like man- ner, associations of vast extent are spring- ing up in our cities for the teaching of the poor. By these means woman, es- pecially, is becoming an evangelist. She is not only a priestess in her own home, instilling with sweet, loving voice the first truths of reKgion into the opening mind, but she goes abroad on missions of piety. Woman, in one other his toy, is now sharing more and more with him the highest labors. Through the press, especially, she is heard far and wide. The press is a mightier power than the pulpit. Books outstrip the voice ; and woman, avail- ing herself of this agency, becomes the teacher of nations. In churches, where she may not speak, her hymns are sung ; the inspirations of her gefiius are felt. Thus our age is breaking down the monopohes of the past. But a more striking illustration re- mains. One of the great distinctions of our times is found in the more clear and vital perception of the truth, that the universal, impartial love which is the glory of God is the characteristic spirit and glory of Christianity. To this we owe the extension of philan- thropic and religious effort beyond all former experience. How much we are better on the whole than former times I do not say ; but that benevolence is acting on a larger scale, in more va- rious forms, to more distant objects, this we cannot deny. Call it preten- sion, or enthusiasm, or what you will, the fact remains ; and it attests the diffusive tendencies of our times. Be- nevolence now gathers together her ar- mies. Vast associations are spread over whole countries for assailing evils which it is thought cannot be met by the single-handed. There is hardly a form of evil which has not awakened some antagonist effort. Associated be- nevolence gives eyes to the bhnd and ears to the deaf, and is achieving even greater wonders ; that is, it approaches the mind without the avenues of eye and ear, and gives to the hopelessly blind and deaf the invaluable knowledge which these senses afford to others. Benevolence now shuts out no human being, however low, from its regard.'. It goes to the cell of the criminal with words of hope, and is laboring to miti- gate public punishment, — to make it the instrument, not of vengeance, but re- form. It remembers the slave, pleads his cause with God and man, recognizes in him a human brother, respects in- him the sacred rights of humanity, and claims for him, not as a boon, but as a right, that freedom without which hu- manity withers and God's child is de- graded into a tool or a brute. Still THE PRESENT AGE. 165 more, benevolence now is passing all limits of country and ocean. It would send our own best blessing to the ends of the earth. It would make the wilder- ness of heathenism bloom, and join all nations in the bonds of one holy and loving faith. Thus, if we look at the religious movements of the age, we see in them that tendency to diffusion and universaUty which I have named as its most striking characteristic. Let me briefly point out this same tendency in government. Here, indeed, it is too obvious for illustration. To what is the civilized world tending ? To popular institutions, or, what is the same thing, to the influence of the peo- ple, of the mass of men, over public affairs. A little while ago, and the peo- ple were unknown as a power in the state. Now they are getting all power into their hands. Even in despotisms, where they cannot act through institu- tions, they act through public opinion. Intelligence is strength ; and in propor- tion as the many grow intelligent they must guide the world. Kings and no- bles fill less and less place in history ; and the names of men who once were lost amidst the glare of courts and ti- tles are now written there imperishably. Once history did not know that the multitude existed, except when they were gathered together on the field of battle to be sabred and shot down for the glory of their masters. Now they are coming forward into the foreground of her picture. It is now understood that government exists for one end, and one alone ; and that is, not the glory of the governor, not the pomp and pleasure of a few, but the good, the safety, the rights of all. Once gov- ernment was an inherited monopoly, guarded by the doctrine of divine right, of an exclusive commission from the Most High. Now office and dignity are thrown open as common things, and nations are convulsed by the mul- titude of competitors for the prize of public power. Once the policy of gov- ernments had no higher end than to concentrate property into a few hands, and to confirm the relation of depend- ant and lord. Now it aims to give to each the means of acquiring property, and of carving out his fortune for him- self. Such is the political current of our times. Many look on it with dark forebodings, as on a desolating torrent ; while others hail it as a fertilizing stream. But in one thing both agree ; whether torrent or stream, the mighty current exists, and overflows, and can- not be confined ; and it shows us in the political, as in the other movements of our age, the tendency to universality, to diffusion. I shall notice but one more move- ment of the age as indicating the ten- dency to universality, and this is, its industry. How numberless are the forms which this takes ! Into how many channels is human labor pouring itself forth ! How widely spread is the. passion for acquisition, not for simple means of subsistence, but for wealth ! What vast enterprises agi- tate the community ! What a rush into all the departments of trade ! How next to universal the insanity of spec- ulation ! What new arts spring up ! Industry pierces the forests, and star- tles with her axe the everlasting silence. To you, gentlemen, commerce is the commanding interest ; and this has no limits but the habitable world. It no longer creeps along the shore, or Hn- gers in accustomed tracks ; but pene- trates into every inlet, plunges into the heart of uncivilized lands, sends its steam-ships up unexplored rivers, gir- dles the earth with railroads, and thus breaks down the estrangements of na- tions. Commerce is a noble calling. It mediates between distant nations, and makes men's wants, not, as for- merly, stimulants to war, but bonds of j)eace. The universal intellectual ac- tivity of which I have spoken is due, in no small degree, to commerce, which spreads the thoughts, inventions, and writings of great men over the earth, and gathers scientific and literary men everywhere into an intellectual repub- lic. So it carries abroad the mission- ary, the Bible, the Cross, and is giving universality to true religion. Gentle- men, allow me to express an earnest desire and hope that the merchants of this country will carry on their calling with these generous views. Let them not pursue it for themselves alone. Let them rejoice to spread improvements far and wide, and to unite men in more friendly ties. Let them adopt maxims of trade which will establish general confidence. Especially, in their inter- I66 THE PREShi/T AGE. course with less cultivated tribes, let them feel themselves bound to be har- bingers of civilization. Let their voy- ages be missions of humanity, useful . arts, science, and religion. It is a pain- ful thought that commerce, instead of enlightening and purifying less priv- ileged communities, has too often made the name of Christian hateful to them, has carried to the savage, not our use- ful arts and mild faith, but weapons of war and the intoxicating draught. I call not on God to smite with his light- nings, to overwhelm with his storms, the.- accursed ship which goes to the ignorant, rude native, freighted with poison and death ; which goes to add new ferocity to savage life, new licen- tiousness to savage sensuality. I have learned not to call down fire from heav- en. But, in the name of humanity, of religion, of God, I implore the mer- chants of this country not to use the light of a higher civilization to corrupt, to destroy our uncivilized brethren. Brethren they are, in those rude huts, in that wild attire. Establish with them an intercourse of usefulness, justice, and charity. Before they can under- stand the name of Christ, let them see his spirit in those by whom it is borne. It has been said that the commerce of our country is not only corrupting un- civilized countries, but that it wears a deeper, more damning stain ; that, in spite of the laws of the land and the protest of nations, it sometimes lends itself to the slave-trade ; that, by its capital and accommodations, and swift sailers, and false papers, and prosti- tuted flag, it takes part in tearing the African from his home and native shore, and in dooming him, first to the hor- rors of the middle passage, and then to the hopelessness of perpetual bond- age. Even on men so fallen I call down no curse. May they find for- giveness from God through the pains of sincere repentance ! but, continuing what they are, can I help shrinking from them as among the most infa- mous of their race ? Allow me to say a word to the mer- chants of our country on another sub- ject. The time is come when they are particularly called to take yet more gen- erous views of their vocation, and to give commerce a universality as yet un- known. I refer to the juster principles which are gaining ground on the subject of free trade, and to the growing dispo- sition of nations to promote it. Free trade ! — this is the plain duty and plain interest of the human race. To level all barriers to free exchange ; to cut up the system of restriction, root and branch ; to open every port on earth to every product ; this is the office of en- lightened humanity. To this » free nation should especially pledge itself. Freedom of the seas ; freedom of har- bors ; an intercourse of nations, free as the winds ; — this is not a dream of philanthropists. We are tending to- wards it, and let us hasten it. Under a wiser and more Christian civilization we shall look back on our present re- strictions as we do on the swaddling bands by which in darker times the hu- man body was compressed. The grow- ing freedom of trade is another and glorious illustration of the tendency of our age to universality. I have thus aimed to show in the prin- cipal movements of our time the charac- ter of diffusion and universality, and in doing this I have used language imply- ing my joy in this great feature of our age. But you will not suppose that I see in it nothing but good. Human affairs admit no unmixed good. This very tendency has its perils and evils. To take but one example : the opening of vast prospects of wealth to the mul- titude of men has stirred up a fierce competition, a wild spirit of speculation, a feverish, insatiable cupidity, under which fraud, bankruptcy, distrust, dis- tress are fearfully multiplied, so that the name of American has become a by-word beyond the ocean. I see the danger of the present state of society, perhaps as clearly as any one. But still I rejsice to have been born in this age. It is still true that human nature was made for growth, expansion ; this is its proper life, and this must not be checked because it has perils. The child, when it shoots up into youth, ex- changes its early repose and security for new passions, for strong emotions, which are full of danger ; but would we keep him for ever a child ? Danger we cannot avoid. It is a grand element of human life. We always walk on precipices. It is unmanly, unwise, it shows a want of faith in God and hu- manity, to deny to others and ourselves THE PRESENT AGE. 167 free scope and the expansion of our best powers because of the possible coUisions and pains to be feared from extending activity. Many, indeed, sigh for security as the supreme good. But God intends us for something better, for effort, conflict, and progress. And is it not well to live in a stirring and mighty world, even though we suffer from it ? If we look at outward nat- ure, we find ourselves surrounded with vast and fearful elements, — air, sea, and fire, — which sometimes burst all bounds, and overwhelm man and his labors in ruin. But who of us would annihilate these awful forces, would make the ocean a standing pool, and put to silence the loud blast, in order that life may escape every peril ? This mysterious, infinite, irresistible might of nature, breaking out in countless forms and motions, makes nature the true school for man, and gives it all its interest. In the soul still mightier forces are pent up, and their expansion has its perils. But all are from Gpd, who has blended with them checks, restraints, balances, reactions, by which all work together for good. Let us never forget that, amidst this fearful stir, there is a paternal Providence, under which the education of our race has gone on, and a higher condition of humanity has been achieved. There are, however, not a few who have painful fears of evil from the restless, earnest action which we have seen spreading itself more and more through all departments of society. They call the age wild, lawless, pre- sumptuous, without reverence. All men, they tell us, are bursting their spheres, quitting their ranks, aspiring selfishly after gain and pre-eminence. The bUnd multitude are forsaking their nat- ural leaders. The poor, who are the majority, are contriving against the rich. Still more, a dangerous fanat- icism threatens destruction to the \vorld under the name of reform ; society tot- ters ; property is shaken ; and the uni- versal freedom of thought and action, of which so many boast, is the precur- sor_ of social storms which only des- potism can calm. Such are the alarms of not a few ; and it is right that fear should utter its prophecies, as well as hope. But it is the true office of fear to give a wise direction to human effort, not to chill or destroy it. To despair of the race, even in the worst times, is unmanly, unchristian. How much%nore so in times like the present ! What I most lament in these apprehensions is the utter distrust of human nature which they discover. Its highest pow- ers are thought to be given only to be restrained. They are thought to be safe only when in fetters. To me, there is an approach to impiety in think- ing so meanly of God's greatest work. Human nature is not a tiger which needs a constant chain. In this case it is the chain which makes the tiger. It is the oppressor who has made man fit only for a yoke. When I look into the great move- ments of the age, particularly as mani- fested in our own country, they seem to me to justify no overwhelming fear. True, they are earnest and wide spread- ing ; but the objects to which they are directed are pledges against extensive harm. For example, ought the general diffusion of science and literature and thought to strike dread ? Do habits of reading breed revolt 1 Does the astronomer traverse the skies, or the geologist pierce the earth, to gather ma- terials for assault on the social state ? Does the study of nature stir up re- bellion against its Author ? Is it the lesson which men learn from history, that they are to better their condition by disturbing the state ? Does the reading of poetry train us to insurrec- tion? Does the diffusion of a sense of beauty through a people incline them to tumult ? Are not works of genius and the fine arts soothing influences ? Is not a shelf of books in a poor man's house some pledge of his keeping the peace ? It is not denied that thought, in its freedom, questions and assails the holiest truth. But is truth so weak, so puny, as to need to be guarded by bayonets from assault ? Has truth no beauty, no might ? Has the human soul no power to weigh its evidence, to reverence its grandeur ? Besides, does not freedom of thought, when most unrestrained, carry a* conserva- tive power in itself ? In such a state of things the erring do not all embrace the same error. Whilst truth is one and the same, falsehood is infinitely various. It is a house divided against itself, and cannot stand. Error soon 1 68 THE PRESENT AGE. passes away, unless upheld by restraint on thought. History tells us, and the lesstJh is invaluable, that the physical force which has put down free inquiry has been the main bulwark of the superstitions and illusions of past ages. In the next place, if we look at the chief direction of the universal activity of the age, we shall find that it is a con- servative one, so as to render social convulsion next to impossible. On what, after all, are the main enej-gies of this restlessness spent ? On property, on wealth. High and low, rich and poor, are running the race of accumulation. Property is the prize for which all strain their nerves ; and the vast majority com- pass in some measure this end. And is such a society in danger of convulsion ? Is tumult the way to wealth ? Is a state of insecurity coveted by men who own something and hope for more ? Are civil laws, which, after all, have prop- erty for their chief concern, very likely to be trodden under foot by its worship- pers ? Of all the dreams of fear, few seem to me more baseless than the dread of anarchy among a people who are pos- sessed almost to a man with the pas- sion for gain. I am especially amused when, among such a people, I sometimes hear of danger to property and society from enthusiastic, romantic reformers who preach levelling doctrines, equality of wealth, quaker plainness of dress, vegetable food, and community-systems where all are to toil and divide earnings alike. What ! Danger from romance and enthusiasm in this money-getting, self- seeking, self-indulging, self-displaying land ? I confess that to me it is a com- fort to see some outbreak of enthusiasm, whether transcendental, philanthropic, or religious, as a proof that the human spirit is not wholly engulfed in matter and business, that it can lift up a little the mountains of worldliness and sense with which it is so borne down. It will be time enough to fear when we shall see fanaticism of any kind stopping, ever so little, the wheels of business or pleasure, driving, ever so little, from man's mind the idea of gain, or from woman's the love of display. Are any of you dreading an innovating enthusi- asm ? You need only to step into the streets to be assured that property and the world are standing their ground against the spirit of reform as stoutly as the most worldly man could desire. Another view which quiets my fear as to social order, from the universal ac- tivity of the times, is the fact that this activity appears so much in the form of steady labor. It is one distinction of modern over ancient times, that we have grown more patient of toil. Our danger is from habits of drudgery. The citi- zens of Greece and Rome were above work. We seem to work with some- thing of the instinct of the ant and the bee ; and this is no mean security against lawlessness and revolt. Another circumstance of our times which favors a quiet state of things is the love of comforts which the progress of arts and industry has spread over the community. In feudal ages and ancient times the mass of the population had no such pleasant homes, no such defences against cold and storms, no such decent apparel, no such abundant and savory meals, as fall to the lot of our popula- tion. Now it must be confesrsed, though not very flattering to human nature, that men are very slow to part with these comforts even in defence of a good cause, much less to throw them away in wild and senseless civil broils. Another element of security in the present is the strength of domestic affection. Christianity has given new sacredness to home, new tenderness to love, new force to the ties of husband and wife, parent and child. Social or- der is dear to us all, as encirchng and sheltering our homes. In ancient and rude times the family bond was compar- atively no restraint. We should all pause before we put in peril beings whom we hold most dear. Once more : Christianity is a pledge of social order which none of us suffi- ciently prize. Weak as its influence seems to be, there are vast numbers into whom it has infused sentiments of jus- tice, of kindness, of reverence for God, and of deep concern for the peace and order of the state. Rapine and blood- shed would awaken now a horror alto- gether unknown in ages in which tliis mild and divine truth had not exerted its power. With all these influences in favor of social influence, have we much to fear from the free, earnest, universal move- ments of our times ? I believe that the THE PRESENT AGE. 169 very extension of human powers is to bring with it new checlcs against their abuse. The prosperous part of society are, of course, particularly liable to the fear of which I have spoken. They see danger especially in the extension of power and freedom of all kinds to the laboring classes of society. They look with a jealous eye on attempts to elevate these, though one would think that to improve a man was the surest way to disarm his violence. They talk of agrarianism. They dread a system of universal pil- lage. They dread a conspiracy of the needy against the rich. Now the man- ual laborer has burdens enough to bear without the load of groundless suspicion or reproach. It ought to be understood that the great enemies to society are not found in its poorer ranks. The mass may, indeed, be used as tools ; but the stirring and guiding powers of insur- rection are found above. Communities fall by the vices of the prosperous ranks. We are referred to Rome, which was robbed of her liberties and reduced to the most degrading vassalage by the lawlessness of the Plebeians, who sold themselves to demagogues, and gave the republic into the hands of a dic- tator. But what made the Plebeians an idle, dissolute, rapacious horde .'' It was the system of universal rapine whicli, under the name of conquest, had been carried on for ages by Patricians, by all the powers of the state, — a system which glutted Rome with the spoils of the pillaged world ; which fed her population without labor, from the pub- lic treasures, and corrupted them by public shows. It was this which helped to make the metropolis of the earth a sink of crime and pollution such as the world had never known. It was time that the grand robber-state should be cast down from her guilty eminence. Her brutish populace, which followed Csesar's car with shouts, was not worse than the venal, crouching senate which registered his decrees. Let not the poor bear the burden of the rich. At this moment we are groaning over the depressed and dishonored state of our country ; and who, let me ask, have shaken its credit, and made so many of its institutions bankrupt ? The poor or the rich ? Whence is -it that the in- comes of the widow, the orphan, the aged, have been narrowed, and multi- tudes on both sides of the ocean brought to the brink of want ? Is it from an outbreak of popular fury ? Is it from gangs of thieves sprung from the mob ? We know the truth, and it shows us where the great danger to property Hes, Communities fall by the vices of the great, not the small. The French Revo-' lution is perpetually sounded in our ears as a warning against the lawlessness of the people. But whence came this Revolution ? Who were the regicides ? Who beheaded Louis the Sixteenth ? You tell me the Jacobins ; but history tells a different tale. I will show you the beheaders of Louis the Sixteenth. They were Louis the Fourteenth, and the Regent who followed him, and Louis the Fifteenth. These brought their de- scendant to the guillotine. The priest- hood who revoked the edict of Nantz, and drove from France the skill and industry and virtue and piety which were the sinews of her strength ; the statesmen who intoxicated Louis the Fourteenth with the scheme of univer- sal empire ; the profligate, prodigal, shameless Orleans ; and the still more brutalized Louis the Fifteenth, with his court of panders and prostitutes ; — these made the nation bankrupt, broke asunder the bond of loyalty, and over- whelmed the throne and altar in ruins. We hear of the horrors of the Revolu- tion ; but in this, as in other things, we recollect the effect without thinking of the guiltier cause. The Revolution was indeed a scene of horror ; but when I look back on the reigns which preceded it, and which made Paris almost one great stew and gaming-house, and when 1 see altar and throne desecrated by a licentiousness unsurpassed in any form- er age, I look on scenes as shocking to the calm and searching eye of reason and virtue as the tenth of August and the massacre of September. Blood- shed is indeed a terrible spectacle ; but there are other things ahnost as fearful as blood. There are crimes that do not make us start and turn pale like the guillotine, but are deadlier in their workings. God forbid that I should say a word to weaken the thrill of hor- ror with which we contemplate the out- rages of the French Revolution ! But when I hear that Revolution quoted to I/O THE PRESENT AGE. frighten us from reform, to show us the danger of hfting up the depressed and ignorant mass, I must ask whence it came ; and the answer is, that it came from the intolerable weight of misgov- ernment and t)Tanny, from the utter want of culture among the mass of the people, and from a corruption of the great too deep to be purged away ex- cept by destruction. I am also com- pelled to remember that the people, in this their singular madness, wrought far less woe than kings and priests have wrought, as a familiar thing, in all ages of the world. All the murders of the French Revolution did not amount, I think, by one-fifth, to those of the Mas- sacre of St. Bartholomew's. The priest- hood and the throne, in one short night and day, shed more blood, and that the best blood of France, than was spilled by Jacobinism and all other forms of violence during the whole Revolution. Even the atheism and infidelity of France were due chiefly to a licentious priesthood and a licentious court. It was religion, so called, that dug her own grave. In offering this plea for the multitude I have no desire to trans- fer to the multitude uncontrolled politi- cal power. I look at power in all hands with jealousy. I wish neither rich nor poor to be my masters. What I wish is, the improvement, the elevation of all classes, and especially of the most numerous class, because the most nu- merous, because, the many are mankind, and because no social progress can be hoped but from influences which pene- trate and raise the mass of men. The mass must not be confined and kept down through a vague dread of revolu- tions. A social order requiring such a sacrifice would be too dearly bought. No order should satisfy us but that which is in harmony with universal im- provement and freedom. In the general tone of this discourse it may be thought that 1 have proposed to vindicate the present age. I have no such thought. I would improve, not laud it. I feel its imperfections and corruptions as deeply as any, though I may be most shocked by features that give others little pain. The saddest aspect of the age, to me, is that which undoubtedly contributes to social order. It is the absorption of the multitude of men in outward, material interests ; it is the selfish prudence which is never tired of the labor of accumulation, and which keeps men steady, regular, re- spectable drudges from morning to night. The cases of a few murders, great crimes, lead multitudes to ex- claim. How wicked this age ! But the worst sign is the chaining down of al- most all the minds of a community to low, perishable interests. It is a sad thought, that the infinite energies of the soul have no higher end than to cover the back, and fill the belly, and keep caste in society. A few nerves, hardly visible, on the surface of the tongue, create most of the endless stir around us. Undoubtedly, eating and drink- ing, dressing, house-building, and caste- keeping, are matters not to be despised ; most of them are essential. But surely life has a higher use than to adorn this body which is so soon to be wrapped in grave-clothes, than to keep warm and flowing the blood which is so soon to be cold and stagnant in the tomb. I rejoice in the boundless activity of the age, and I expect much of it to be given to our outward wants. But over all this activity there should preside the great idea of that which is alone our- selves, — of our inward, spiritual nat- ure ; of the thinking, immortal soul ; of our supreme good, our chief end, which is to bring out, cultivate, and perfect our highest powers, to become wise, holy, disinterested, noble beings, to unite ourselves to God by love and adoration, and to revere his image in his children. The vast activity of this age, of which I have spoken, is too much confined to the sensual and ma- terial, to gain and pleasure and show. Could this activity be swayed and puri- fied by a noble aim, not a single com- fort of life would be retrenched, whilst its beauty and grace and interest would be unspeakably increased. There is another dark feature of this age. It is the spirit of collision, con- tention, discord, which breaks forth in re- ligion, in politics, in business, in private affairs, — a result and necessary issue of the selfishness which prompts the endless activity of life. The mighty forces which are this moment acting in society are not and cannot be in har- mony, for they are not governed by love. They jar ; they are discordant. Life now has little music in it. It is THE PRESENT AGE. 171 not only on the field of battle that men fight. They fight on the exchange. Business is war, a conflict of skill, management, and, too often, fraud ; to snatch the prey from our neighbor is the end of all this stir. Religion is war ; Christians, forsaking their one Lord, gather under various standards to gain victory for their sects. Politics are war, breaking the whole people into fierce and unscrupulous parties, which forget their country in conflicts for ofiice and power. The age needs nothing more than peace-makers, men of serene, commanding virtue, to preach in life and word the gospel of human brother- hood, to allay the fires of jealousy and hate. I have named discouraging aspects of our time to show that I am not blind to the world I live in. But I still hope for the human race. Indeed, I could not live without hope. Were I to look on the world as many do, were I to see in it a maze without a plan, a whirl of changes without aim, a stage for good and evil to fight without an issue, an endless motion without progress, a world where sin and idolatry are to triumph for ever, and the oppressor's rod never to be broken, 1 should turn from it with sickness of heart, and care not how soon the sentence of its de- struction were fulfilled. History and philosophy plainly show to me in human nature the foundation and promise of a better era, and Christianity concurs with these. The thought of a higher con- dition of the world was the secret fire which burned in the soul of the great Founder of our religion, and in his first followers. That he was to act on all future generations, that he was sowing a seed which was to grow up and spread its branches over all nations, — this great thought never forsook him in life and death. That under Christianity a civil- ization has grown up containing in itself nobler elements than are found in earlier forms of society, who can deny ? Great ideas and feelings, derived from this source, are now at work. Amidst the prevalence of crime and selfishness, there has sprung up in the human heart a sentiment or principle unknown in earlier ages, an enlarged and trustful philanthropy, which recognizes the right of every human being, which is stirred by the terrible oppressions and corrup- tions of the world, and which does not shrink from conflict with evil in its worst forms. There has sprung up, too, a faith, of which antiquity knew nothing, in the final victory of truth and right, in the elevation of men to a clearer intelligence, to more fraternal union, and to a purer worship. This faith is taking its place among the great springs of hu- man action, is becoming even a passion in more fervent spirits. I hail it as a prophecy which is to fulfil itself. A nature capable of such an aspiration cannot be degraded for ever. Ages rolled away before it was learned that this world of matter which we tread on is in constant motion. We are begin- ning to learn that the intellectual, moral, social world has its motion too, not fixed and immutable like that of matter, but one which the free will of men is to carry on, and which, instead of return- ing into itself like the earth's orbit, is to stretch forward for ever. This hope lightens the mystery and burden of life. It is a star which shines on me in the darkest night ; and I should rejoice to reveal it to the eyes of my fellow-creat- ures. I have thus spoken of the present age. In these brief words what a world of thought is comprehended ! what infinite movements ! what joys and sorrows ! what hope and despair ! what faith and doubt ! what silent grief and loud lament ! what fierce conflicts and subtle schemes of policy ! what private and pubhc revolutions ! In the period through which many of us have passed what thrones have been shaken ! what hearts have bled ! what millions have been butchered by their fellow- creatures ! what hopes of philanthropy have been blighted ! And, at the same time, what magnificent enterprises have been achieved 1 what new provinces won to science and art ! what rights and liberties secured to nations ! It is a privilege to have lived in an age so stirring, so pregnant, so eventful. It is an age never to be forgotten. Its voice of warning and encouragement is never to die. Its impression on histoiy is in- delible. Amidst its events, the Ameri- can Revolution, the first distinct, solemn assertion of the rights of men, and the French Revolution, that volcanic force which shook the earth to its centre, are never to pass from men's minds. Over 172 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. this age the night will, indeed, gather more and more as time rolls away ; but in that night two forms will appear, Washington and Napoleon, the one a lurid meteor, the other a benign, serene, and undecaying star. Another Amer- ican name will live in history, your Franklin ; and the kite which brought lightning from heaven will be seen sail- ing in the clouds by remote posterity, when the city where he dwelt may be known only by its ruins. There is, however, something greater in the age than its greatest men ; it is the appear- ance of a new power in the world, the appearance of the multitude of men on that stage where as yet the few have acted their parts alone. This influence is to endure to the end of time. What more of the present is to survive ? Per- haps much, of which we now take no note. The glory of an age is often hid- den from itself. Perhaps some word has been spoken in our day which we have not deigned to hear, but which is to grow clearer and louder through all ages. Perhaps some silent thinker among us is at work in his closet whose name is to fill the earth. Perhaps there sleeps in his cradle some reformer who is to move the church and the world, who is to open a new era in history, who is to fire the human soul with new hope and new daring. What else is to sur- vive the age ? That which the age has little thought of, but which is living in us all, — 1 mean the soul, the immortal spirit. Of this all ages are the unfold- ings, and it is greater than all. We must not feel, in the contemplation of the vast movements of our own and former times, as if we ourselves were nothing. I repeat it, we are greater than all. We are to survive our age, to comprehend it, and to pronounce its sentence. As yet, however, we are en- compassed with darkness. The issues of our time how obscure ! The future into which it opens who of us can fore- see ? To the Father of all ages I commit this future with humble, yet courageous and unfaltering hope. SPIRITUAL FREEDOM: Discourse preached at the Annual Election, May 26, 1830. John viii. 31, 32, 36: "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." " If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." The Scriptures continually borrow from nature and social life illustrations and emblems of spiritual truth. The character, rehgion, and blessings of Jesijs Christ are often placed before us by sensible images. His influences on the mind are shadowed forth by the light of the sun, by the vital union of the head with the members, by the shep- herd bringing back the wandering flock, by the vine which nourishes and fructi- fies the branches, by the foundation sustaining the edifice, by bread and wine invigorating the animal frame. In our text we have a figurative illustra- tion of his influence on religion, pecu- liarly intelligible and dear to this com- munity. He speaks of himself as giving freedom, that great good of individuals and states ; and by this similitude he undoubtedly intended to place before men, in a strong and attractive light, that spiritual and inward liberty which" his truth confers on its obedient disci- ples. Inward spiritual liberty, this is the great gift of Jesus Christ. This will be the chief topic of the present discourse. I wish to show that this is the supreme good of men, and that civil and political liberty has but little" worth but as it springs from and invig- orates this. From what I have now said the gen- eral tone of this discourse may be easily anticipated. I shall maintain that the highest interest of communities, as well as individuals, is a spiritual interest ; SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 173 that outward and earthly goods are of little worth but as bearing on the mind, and tending to its liberation, strength, and glory. And I am fully aware that in taking that course I lay myself open to objection. I shall be told that I show my ignorance of human nature in attempting to interest men by such refined views of society ; that I am too speculative ; that spiritual liberty is too unsubstantial and visionary to be pro- posed to statesmen as an end in legisla- tion ; that the dreams of the closet should not be obtruded on practical men ; that gross and tangible realities can alone move the multitude ; and that to talk to politicians of the spiritual in- terests of society as of supreme impor- tance, is as idle as to try to stay with a breath the force of the whirlwind. I anticipate such objections. But they do not move me. I firmly believe - that the only truth which is to do men lasting good is that which relates to the soul, which carries them into its depths, which reveals to them its pow- ers and the purposes of its creation. The progress of society is retarded by nothing more than by the low views which its leaders are accus- itomed to take of human nature. Man has a mind as well as a body, and this he ought to know ; and till he knows it, feels it, and is deeply penetrated by it, he knows nothing aright. His body should, in a sense, vanish away before his mind ; or, in the language of Christ, he should hate his animal life in com- parison with the intellectual and moral life which is to endure for ever. This doctrine, however, is pronounced too refined. Useful and practical truth, ac- cording to its most improved exposi- tors, consists in knowing that we have an animal nature, and in making this our chief care ; in knowing that we have mouths to be filled, and limbs to be clothed; that we live on the earth, which it is our business to till ; that we have a power of accumulating wealth, and that this power is the measure of the greatness of the community ! For such doctrines I have no respect. I know no wisdom but that which reveals man to himself, and which teaches him to regard all social institutions, and his whole life, as the means of unfolding and exalting the spirit within him. All policy which does not recognize this truth seems to me shallow. The states- man who does not look at the bearing of his measures on the mind of a nation is unfit to touch one of men's great interests. Unhappily, statesmen have seldom understood the sacredness of human nature and human society. Hence policy has become almost a contaminated word. Hence govern- ment has so often been the scourge of mankind. I mean not to disparage political science. Tlie best constitution and the best administration of a state are subjects worthy of the profoundest thought. But there are deeper foun- dations of public prosperity than these. The statesman who would substitute these for that virtue which they ought to subserve and exalt will only add his name to the long catalogue which his- tory preserves of bafiled politicians. It is idle to hope, by our short-sighted contrivances, to insure to a people a happiness which their own character has not earned. The everlasting laws of God's moral government we cannot repeal ; and parchment constitutions, j however wise, will prove no shelter from the retributions which fall on a degraded community. With these convictions, I feel that no teaching is so practical as that which impresses on a people the importance of their spiritual interests. With these convictions, I feel that I cannot better meet the demands of this occasion than by leading you to prize, above all other rights and Uberties, that inward free- dom which Christ came to confer. To this topic I now solicit your attention. And first, I may be asked what I mean by inward spiritual freedom. The com- mon and true answer is, that it is freedom from sin. I apprehend, how- ever, that to many, if not to most, these words are too vague to convey a full and deep sense of the greatness of the blessing. Let me, then, offer a brief explanation ; and the most important remark in illustrating this freedom is, that it is not a negative state, not the mere absence of sin ; for such a free- dom maybe ascribed to inferior animals, or to children before becoming moral agents. Spiritual freedom is the attri-" bute of a mind in which reason and conscience have begun to act, and which is free through its own energy, through 174 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. fidelity to the truth, through resistance of temptation. J cannot, therefore, bet- ter give my views of spiritual freedom, than by saying that it is moral energy or force of holy purpose put forth against the senses, against the pas- sions, against the world, and thus lib- erating the intellect, conscience, and will, so that they may act with strength and unfold themselves for ever. The essence of spiritual freedom is power, A man liberated from sensual lusts by a palsy would not therefore be free. He only is free who, through self-conflict and moral resolution, sustained by trust in God, subdues the passions which have de- based him, and, escaping the thraldom of low objects, binds himself to pure and lofty ones. That mind alone is free which, looking to God as the inspirer and re- warder of virtue, adopts his law, writ- ten on the heart and in his word, as its supreme rule, and which, in obedience to this, governs itself, reveres itself, exerts faithfully its best powers, and unfolds itself by well-doing in what- ever sphere God's providence assigns. It has pleased the All-wise Disposer to encompass us from our birth by diffi- culty and allurement, to place us in a world where wrong-doing is often gain- ful, and duty rough and perilous, where many vices oppose the dictates of the inward monitor, where the body presses as a weight on the mind, and matter, by its perpetual agency on the senses, be- comes a barrier between us and the spiritual world. We are in the midst of influences which menace the intellect and heart ; and to be free is to withstand and conquer these. I call that mind free which masters the senses, which protects itself against animal appetites, which contemns pleas- ure and pain in comparison with its own energy, which penetrates beneath the body and recognizes its own reality and greatness, which passes life, not in ask- ing what it shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and seeking after righteousness. I call that mind fifee which escapes the bondage of matter, which, instead of stopping at the material universe and making it a prison wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds in the radiant signatures which it everywhere bears of the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own spir- itual enlargement. I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instructions from abroad not to supersede but to quicken and ex-^ alt its own energies. I call that mind free which sets no bounds to its love, which is not impris- oned in itself or in a sect, which recog- nizes in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger, and sloth, and offers itself up a willing victim to the cause of mankind. I call that mind free which is not pas- sively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of _ accidental impulse, but which bends events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring,- from im- mutable principles which if has delib- erately espoused." ' I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal than man's, which respects a higher law than fashion, which respects itself too much to be the slave or tool of the many or the few. I call that mind free which, through confidence in God and in the power of virtue, has cast off all fear but that of wrong-doing, which no menace or peril can enthrall, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself though all else be lost. I call that mind free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not me- chanically repeat itself and copy the past, which does not live on its old virt- ues, which does not enslave itself to precise rules, but which forgets what is behind, hstens for new and higher mo- nitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh and higher ex- ertions. I call that mind free which is jealous of its own freedom, which guards itself ^ from being merged in others, which SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 175 guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world, ~ In fine, I call that mind free which, conscious of its affinity with God, and confiding in his promises by Jesus Christ, devotes itself faithfully to the unfolding of all its powers, which passes the bounds of time and death, which hopes to advance for ever, and which finds inexhaustible power, both for ac- tion and suffering, in the prospect of immortality. .. Such is the spiritual freedom which Christ came to give. It consists in moral force, in seU-control, in the en- largement of thought and affection, and in the unrestrained action of our best powers. This is the great good of Christianity, nor can we conceive a greater within the gift of God. I know that to many this will seem too refined a good to be proposed as the great end of society and government. But our scepticism cannot change the nature of things. I know how little this freedom is understood or enjoyed, how enslaved men are to sense, and passion, and the world ; and I know, too, that through this slavery they are wretched, and that while it lasts no social institution can give them happiness. I now proceed, as I proposed, to show that civil or political liberty is of little worth but as it springs from, expresses, and invigorates this spiritual freedom, 'I account civil liberty as the chief good of states, because it accords with, and ministers to, energy and elevation of mind. Nor is this a truth so remote "or obscure as to need laborious proof or illustration. For consider what civil lib- erty means. It consists in the removal ,-of all restraint but such as the public weal demands. And what is the end and benefit of removing restraint ? It is that men may put forth their powers and act from themselves. Vigorous and invigorating action is the chief fruit of lall outward freedom. Why break the chains from the captive but that he may bring into play his liberated limbs ? Why open his prison but that lie may go forth and open his eyes on a wide prospect, and exert and enjoy his vari- ous energies ? Liberty, which does not mmister to action and the growth of power, is only a name, is no better than slavery. The chief benefit of free institutions is clear and unutterably precious. Their chief benefit is that they aid freedom of mind, that they give scope to man's fac- ulties, that they throw him on his own resources, and summon him to work out his own happiness. It is that, by remov- ing restraint from intellect, they favor force, originality, and enlargement of thought. It is that, by removing re- straint from worship, they favor the ascent of the soul to God. It is that, by removing restraint from industry, they stir up invention and enterprise to explore and subdue the material world, and thus rescue the race from those sore physical wants and pains which narrow and blight the mind. It is that they cherish noble sentiments, frank- ness, courage, and self-respect. Free institutions contribute in no small degree to fi'eedom and force of mind, by teaching the essential equal- ity of men, and their right and duty to govern themselves ; and I cannot but consider the superiority of an elective government as consisting very much in the testimony which it bears to these' ennobling truths. It has often been said that a good code of laws, and not the form of government, is what deter- mines a people's happiness. But good laws, if not springing from the commu- nity, if imposed by a master, would lose much of their value. The best code is that which has its origin in the will of the people who obey it ; which, whilst ' it speaks with authority, still recognizes self-government as the primary right and duty of a rational being ; and which thus cherishes in the individual, be his condition what it may, a just . self-respect. We may learn that the chief good and the most precious fruit of civil liberty is spiritual freedom and power, by considering what is the chief evil of tyranny. I know that tyranny does evil by invading men's outward inter- ests, by making property and life inse- cure, by robbing the laborer to pamper the noble and king. But its worst in- fluence is within. Its chief curse is uiat it breaks and tames the spirit, sinks man in his own eyes, takes away vigor of thought and action, substitutes for conscience an outward rule, makes him abject, cowardly, a parasite, and a cringing slave. This is the curse of tyranny. It wars with the soul, and 176 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. thus it wars with God. We read in theologians and poets of angels figlit- ing against the Creator, of battles in heaven. But God's throne in heaven is unassailable. The only war against God is against his image, against the divine principle in the soul, and this is waged by tyranny in all its forms. We here see the chief curse of tyranny ; and this should teach us that civil free- dom is a blessing, chiefly as it rever- ences the human soul and ministers to its growth and power. Without this inward spiritual free- dom outward liberty is of little worth. What boots it that I am crushed by no foreign yoke if, through ignorance and vice, through selfishness and fear, I want the command of my own mind ? The worst tyrants are those which es- tablish themselves in our own breast. The man who wants force of principle and purpose is a slave, however free the air he breathes. The mind, after all, is our only possession, or, in other words, we possess all things through Its energy and enlargement ; and civil institutions are to be estimated by the free and pure min^s to which they give birth. Lt will be seen from these remarks, that I consider the freedom or moral strength of the individual mind as the supreme good, and the highest end of government. I am aware that other views are often taken. It is said that government is intended for the public, for the community, not for the individ- ual. The idea of a national interest prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought that the individual may be sacrificed. But I would main- tain, that the individual is not made for the state so much as the state for the individual. A man is not created for political relations as his highest end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is placed in political relations as the means of his progress. The human soul is greater, more sacred, than the state, and must never be sacrificed to it. The human soul is to outlive all earthly institutions. The distinction of nations is to pass away. Thrones, which have stood for ages, are to meet the doom pronounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind survives, and the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to a power never wielded by earthly potentates. A human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a machine, intended only to contrib- ute to some general, joint result. He was created, not to be merged in the whole, as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on the sea-shore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being, made for his own perfection as the highest end, made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as consists with his own virtue and progress. Hith- erto governments have tended greatly" to obscure this importance of the indi- vidual, to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an outward in- terest more important than the invisible soul, and of an outward authority more sacred than the voice of God in his own secret conscience. Rulers have called the private man the property of the state, meaning generally by the state themselves, and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have even believed that this was their high- est destination. These views cannot be too earnestly withstood. Nothing seems to me so 'needful as to give to the mind the consciousness, which gov- ernments have done so much to sup-, press, of its own separate worth. Let the individual feel that, through his im- mortality, he may concentrate in his own being a greater good than that of nations. Let him feel that he is placed . in the community, not to part with his individuahty or to become a tool, but that he should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation for immortal glory. To me, the progress ■ of society consists in nothing more" than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his' own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind. In thus maintaining that the individ- ual is the end of social institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and the sacrifice of private in- terests to the state. Far from it. No man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-be- ings so effectually, so fervently, as he who is not their slave, — as he who, casting off every other yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disinter- ested and generous spirit as man's glory SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 177 and likeness to his Maker. Individu- ality, or moral self-subsistence, is the surest foundation of an all-compre- hending love. No man so multiplies his bonds with the community as he who watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the state and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever called to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should joyfully sur- render to the state. But his soul he must never stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, he should not recoil ; but for no good of others ought he to part with self-con- trol or violate the inward law. We speak of the patriot as sacrificing him- self to the public weal. Do we mean that he sacrifices what is most prop- erly himself, the principle of piety and virtue ? Do we not feel that, however great may be the good which, through his sufferings, accrues to the state, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself, and that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services is the strength of resolution and philanthropy which is accumulated in his own soul .? I have thus endeavored to illustrate and support the doctrine that spiritual freedom, or force and elevation of soul, is the great good to which civil freedom is subordinate, and which all social in- stitutions should propose as their su- preme end, I proceed to point out some of the means by which this spiritual liberty may be advanced ; and, passing over a great variety of topics, I shall confine myself to two, — religion and govern- ment. I begin with religion, the mightiest agent in human affairs. To this be- longs pre-eminently the work of freeing and elevating the mind. All other means are comparatively impotent. The sense of God is the only spring by 'which the crushing weight of sense, of the world, and temptation, can be withstood. With- out a consciousness of our relation to God, all other relations will prove ad- verse to spiritual life and progress. I have spoken of the religious sentiment as the mightiest agent on earth. It has accomplished more — it has strengthen- ed men to do and suffer more — than all other principles. It can sustain the mind against all other powers, Of all prin- ciples it is the deepest, the most inerad- icable. In its perversion, indeed, it has been fruitful of crime and woe ; but the very energy which it has given to the passions, when they have mixed with and corrupted it, teaches us the omnip- otence with which it is imbued. Religion gives life, strength, elevation to the mind, by connecting it with the Infinite Mind ; by teaching it to regard itself as the offspring and care of the Infinite Father, who created it that He might communicate to it his own spirit and perfections, who framed it for truth and virtue, who framed it for himself, who subjects it to sore trials, that by conflict and endurance it may grow strong, and who has sent his Son to purify it from every sin, and to clothe it with immortality. It is religion alone which nourishes patient, resolute hopes and efforts for our own souls. Without it we can hardly escape self-contempt and the contempt of our race. Without God our existence has no support, our life no aim, our improvements no per- manence, our best labors no sure and enduring results, our spiritual weakness; no power to lean upon, and our noblest aspirations and desires no pledge of be- ing realized in a better state. Struggling virtue has no friend ; suffering virtue no promise of victory. Take away God, and life becomes mean, and man poorer than the brute. I am accustomed to speak of the greatness of human nature ; but it is great only through its parentage ; great, because descended from God, because connected with a goodness and power from which it is to be enriched for ever ; and nothing but the conscious- ness of this connection can give that hope of elevation through which alone the mind is to rise to true strength and liberty. All the truths of religion conspire to one end, — spiritual liberty. All the ob- jects which it offers to our thoughts are sublime, kindling, exalting. Its funda- mental truth is the existence of one God, one Infinite and Everlasting Father ; and it teaches us to look on the universe as pervaded, quickened, and vitally joined into one harmonious and beneficent 178 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. ■whole, by his ever-present and omnip- otent love. By this truth it brealcs tlie power of matter and sense, of present pleasure and pain, of anxiety and fear. It turns the mind from the visible, the outward and perishable, to the Unseen, Spiritual, and Eternal, and, allying it with pure and great objects, makes it free. I well know that what I now say may seem to some to want the sanction of experience. By many religion is per- haps regarded as the last principle to give inward energy and freedom. I may be told of its threatenings, and of the bondage which they impose. I acknowl- edge that religion has threatenings, and it must have them ; for evil, misery, is necessarily and unchangeably bound up with wrong-doing, with the abuse of moral power. From the nature of things, a mind disloyal to God and duty must suffer ; and religion, in uttering this, only re-echoes the plain teaching of con- science. But let it be remembered that the single end of the threatenings of religion is to make us spiritually free. They are all directed against the passions which enthrall and degrade us. They are weapons given to conscience, with which to fight the good fight and to es- tablish its throne within us. When not thus used, they are turned from their end ; and if by injudicious preaching they engender superstition, let not the fault be laid at the door of religion. I do not indeed wonder that so many doujDt the power of religion to give strength, dignity, and freedom to the mind. What bears this name too often yields no such fruits. Here, religion is a form, a round of prayers and rites, an attempt to propitiate God by flattery and fawning. There, it is terror and sub- jection to a minister or priest ; and there, it is a violence of emotion, bearing away the mind like a whirlwind, and robbing it of self-direction. But true religion disclaims connection with these usurpers of its name. It is a calm, deep convic- tion of God's paternal interest in the im- provement, happiness, and honor of his creatures, — a practical persuasion that He delights in virtue and not in forms and flatteries, and that He especially delights in resolute effort to conform ourselves to the disinterested love and rectitude which constitute his own glory. It is for this religion that I claim the honor of giving dignity and freedom to the mind. The need of religion to accomplish this work is in no degree superseded by what is called the progress of society. I should say that civilization, so far from being able of itself to give moral strength and elevation, includes causes of degra- dation which nothing but the religious principle can withstand. It multiplies, undoubtedly, the comforts and enjoy- ments of life ; but in these I see sore trials and perils to the soul. These minister to the sensual element in hu- man nature, to that part of our constitu- tion which allies — and too often enslaves — us to the earth. Of consequence, civilization needs that proportional aid should be given to the spiritual element in man, and I know not where it is to be found but in religion. Without this the civilized man, with all his properties and refinements, rises little in true dignity above the savage whom he disdains. You tell me of civilization, of its arts and sciences, as the sure instruments of _ human elevation. You tell me, how by these man masters and bends to his use the powers of nature. I know he mas- ters them, but it is to become in turn their slave. He explores and cultivates the earth, but it is to grow more earthly. : He explores the hidden mine, but it is to forge himself chains. He visits all re- gions, but therefore lives a stranger to . his own soul. In the very progress of civilization I see the need of an antag- onist principle to the senses, of a power to free man from matter, to recall him from the outward to the inward world ; and religion alone is equal to so great a work. The advantages of civilization have their peril. In such a state of society opinion and law impose salutary re- straint, and produce general order and security. But the power of opinion grows into a despotism which more than all things represses original and free thought, subverts individuahty of character, reduces the community to a spiritless monotony, and chills the love ' of perfection. Religion, considered { simply as the principle which balances the power of human opinion, which . takes man out of the grasp of custom and fashion, and teaches him to refer himself to a higher tribunal, is an infi- nite aid to moral strength and elevation. SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 179 An important benefit of civilization, of which we hear much from the polit- ical economist, is the division of labor, by which arts are perfected. But this, by confining the mind to an unceasing round of petty operations, tends to break it into littleness. We possess improved fabrics, but deteriorated men. Another advantage of civilization is, that manners are refined and accom- phshments multiplied ; but these are continually seen to supplant simplicity of character, strength of feeling, the love of nature, the love of inward beauty and glory. Under outward courtesy we see a cold selfishness, a spirit of calcu- lation, and little energy of love. I confess 1 look round on civilized society with many fears, and with more and more earnest desire that a regener- ating spirit from heaven, from religion, may descend upon and pervade it. I particularly fear that various causes are acting powerfully among ourselves to inflame and madden that enslaving and degrading principle, the passion for property. For example, the absence of hereditary distinctions in our coun- try gives prominence to the distinction of wealth, and holds up this as the chief prize to ambition. Add to this the epi- curean, self-indulgent habits which our prosperity has multiplied, and which crave insatiably for enlarging wealth as the only means of gratification. This peril is increased by the spirit of our times, which is a spirit of commerce, industry, internal improvements, me- chanical invention, political economy, and peace. Think not that I would dis- parage commerce, mechanical skill, and especially pacific connections among states. But there is danger that these blessings may by perversion issue in a slavish love of lucre. It seems to me that some of the objects which once moved men most powerfully are grad- ually losing their sway, and thus the mind is left more open to the excite- ment of wealth. For example, military distinction is taking the inferior place which it deserves ; and the consequence will be, that the energy and ambition which have been exhausted in war will seek new directions ; and happy shall we be if they do not flow into the chan- nel of gain. So I think that political eminence is to be less and less coveted ; and there is danger that the energies absorbed by it will be spent in seeking another kind of dominion, — the domin- ion of property. And if such be the result, what shall we gain by what is called the progress of society .' What shall we gain by national peace if men, instead of meeting on the field of battle, wage with one another the more inglori- ous strife of dishonest and rapacious traific ? What shall we gain by the waning of political ambition if the in- trigues of the exchange take place of those of the cabinet, and private pomp and luxury be substituted for the splen- dor of public life 'i I am no foe to civ- ilization. I rejoice in its progress. But I mean to say that, without a pure re- ligion to modify its tendencies, to inspire and refine it, we shall be corrupted, not ennobled by it. It is the excellence of the religious principle, that it aids and carries forward civilization, extends science and arts, multiphes the conven- iences and ornaments of life, and at the same time spoils them of their en- slaving power, and even converts them into means and ministers of that spirit- ual freedom which, when left to them- selves, they endanger and destroy. In order, however, that religion should yield its full and best fruits, one thing is necessary ; and the times require that I should state it with great distinctness. It is necessary that religion should be held and professed in a liberal spirit. Just as far as it assumes an intolerant, exclusive, sectarian form, it subverts, instead of strengthening, the soul's free- dom, and becomes the heaviest and most galling yoke which is laid on the intellect and conscience. Religion must be viewed, not as a monopoly of priests, ministers, or sects ; not as conferring on any man a right to dictate to his fellow-beings ; not as an instrument by which the few may awe the many ; not as bestowing on one a prerogative which is not enjoyed by all ; but as the prop- erty of every human being, and as the great subject for every human mind. It must be regarded as the revelation of a Common Father, to whom all have equal access, who invites all to the like imme- diate communion, who has no favorites, who has appointed no infallible ex- pounders of his will, who opens his works and word to every eye, and calls upon all to read for themselves, and to follow fearlessly the best convictions of 80 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. heir own understandings. Let religion e seized on by individuals or sects, as beir special province ; let them clothe liemselves with God's prerogative of idgment ; let them succeed in enforc- ig their creed by penalties of law or enalties of opinion ; let them succeed I fixing a brand on virtuous men, whose nly crime is free investigation ; and eligion becomes the most blighting yranny which can establish itself over he mind. You have all heard of the utward evils which religion, when thus urned into tyranny, has inflicted ; how t has dug dreary dungeons, kindled .res for the martyr, and invented instru- lents of exquisite torture. But to me II this is less fearful than its influence ver the mind. When I see the super- titions which it has fastened on the onscience, the spiritual terrors with ?hich it has haunted and subdued the jnorant and susceptible, the dark, ap- palling views of God which it has spread ar and wide, the dread of inquiry which t has struck into superior understand- Qgs, and the servility of spirit which it las made to pass for piety, — when 1 ee all this, the fire, the scaffold, and he outward inquisition, terrible as they re, seem to me inferior evils. I look /ith a solemn joy on the heroic spirits I'ho 'have met freely and fearlessly pain nd death in the cause of truth and hu- nan rights. But there are other victims if intolerance on whom I look with un- nixed sorrow. They are those who, pell-bound by early prejudice, or by ntimidations from the pulpit and the )ress, dare not think ; who anxiously title every doubt or misgiving in regard their opinions, as if to doubt were a Time ; who shrink from the seekers iter truth as from infection ; who deny ill virtue which does not wear the liv- iry of their own sect ; who, surrendering o others their best powers, receive un- esistingly a teaching which wars against eason and conscience ; and who think t a merit to impose on such as live with- n their influence the grievous bondage vhich they bear themselves. How much :o be deplored is it that religion, the ^ery principle which is designed to raise nen above the judgment and power of nan, should become the chief instru- nent of usurpation over the soul. Is it said that in this country, where :he rights of private judgment, and of speaking and writing according to our convictions, are guaranteed with every solemnity by institutions and laws, re- ligion can never degenerate into tyr- anny ; that here its whole influence must conspire to the liberation and dig- nity of the mind ? I answer, we dis- cover little knowledge of human nature if we ascribe to constitutions the power of charming to sleep the spirit of intol- erance and exclusion. Almost every other bad passion may sooner be put to rest ; and for this plain reason, that in- tolerance always shelters itself under the name and garb of religious zeal. Because we live in a country where the gross, outward, visible chain is broken, we must not conclude that we are neces- sarily free. There are chains not made of iron, which eat more deeply into the soul. An espionage of bigotry may as effectually close our lips and chill our hearts as an armed and hundred-eyed police. There are countless ways by which men in a free country may en- croach on their neighbors' rights. In religion, the instrument is ready made and always at hand. I refer to opinion combined and organized in sects and swayed by the clergy. We say we have no Inquisition. But a sect skilfully or- ganized, trained to utter one cry, com- bined to cover with reproach whoever may differ from themselves, to drown the free expression of opinion by de- nunciations of heresy, and to strike terror into the multitude by joint and perpetual menace, — such a sect is as perilous and palsying to the intellect as the Inquisition. It serves the ministers as effectually as the sword. The pres- ent age is notoriously sectarian, and_ therefore hostile to liberty. One of the strongest features of our times is the tendency of men to run into associa- . tions, to lose themselves in masses, to think and act in crowds, to act from the excitement of numbers, to sacrifice indi- viduality, to identify themselves with parties and sects. At such a period we ought to fear — and cannot too much dread — lest a host should be marshalled under some sectarian standard, so nu- merous and so strong as to overawe opinion, stifle inquiry, compel dissenters to a prudent silence, and thus accom- plish the end, without incurring the odium, of penal laws. We have indeed no small protection against this evil in SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. ISI the multiplicity of sects. But let us not forget that coalitions are as practicable and as perilous in church as in state ; and that minor differences^ as they are called, may be sunk for the purpose of joint exertion against a common foe. Happily, the spirit of this people, in spite of all narrowing influences, is es- sentially liberal. Here lies our safety. The liberal spirit of the people, I trust, is more and more to temper and curb that exclusive spirit which is the beset- ting sin of their religious guides. In this connection I may be permitted to say — and I say it with heartfelt joy — that the government of this Common- wealth has uniformly distinguished itself by the spirit of religious freedom. In- tolerance, however rife abroad, has found no shelter in our halls of legis- lation. As yet, no sentence of proscrip- tion has been openly or indirectly passed on any body of men for religious opin- ions. A wise and righteous jealousy has watched over our religious liberties, and been startled by the first movement, the faintest sign, of sectarian ambition. Our Commonwealth can boast no higher glory. May none of us live to see it ^de away ! I have spoken with great freedom of the sectarian and exclusive spirit of our age. I would earnestly recommend lib- erality of feeling and judgment towards men of different opinions. But, in so doing, I intend not to teach that opin- ions are of small moment, or that we should make no effort for spreading such as we deem the truth of God. I do mean, however, that we are to spread them by means which will not enslave ourselves to a party or bring others into bondage. We must respect alike our own and others' minds. We must not demand a uniformity in religion which exists nowhere else, but expect, and be willing, that the religious principle, like other principles of our nature, should manifest itself in different methods and degrees. Let us not forget that spirit- ual, like animal life, may subsist and grow under various forms. Whilst ear- nestly recommending what we deem the pure and primitive faith, let us remem- ber that those who differ in word or speculation may agree in heart ; that the spirit of Christianity, though mixed and encumbered with error, is still divine ; and that sects • which assign different ranks to Jesus Christ may still adore that godlike virtue which constituted him the glorious representative of his Father. Under the disguises of Papal and Protestant creeds, let us learn to recognize the lovely aspect of Christi- anity, and rejoice to believe that, amidst dissonant forms and voices, the common Father discerns and accepts the same deep filial adoration. This is true free- dom and enlargement of mind, — a lib- erty which he who knows it would not barter for the widest dominion which priests and sects have usurped over the human soul. I have spoken of religion ; I pass to government, another great means of promoting that spiritual liberty, that moral strength and elevation, which we have seen to be our supreme good. I thus speak of government, not because it always promotes this end, but because it may and should thus operate. Civil institutions should be directed chiefly to a moral or spiritual good, and until this truth is felt they will continue, I fear, to be perverted into instruments of crime and misery. Other views of their design, I am aware, prevail. We are some- times told that government has no pur- pose but an earthly one ; that whilst religion takes care of the soul, govern- ment is to watch over outward and . bodily interests. This separation of our interests into earthly and spiritual seems to me unfounded. There is a unity in our whole being. There is one . great end for which body and mind were created, and all the relations of life were ordained ; one central aim, to which our whole being should tend ; and this is the unfolding of our intellectual and moral nature ; and no man thoroughly understands government but he who reverences it as a part of God's stupen- dous machinery for this sublime design. I do not deny that government is insti- tuted to watch over our present inter- ests. But still it has a spiritual or moral purpose, because present inter- ests are, in an important sense, spirit- ual ; that is, they are instruments and occasions of virtue, calls to duty, sources of obligation, and are only blessings when they contribute to the health of the soul. For example, property, the principal object of legislation, is the material, if I may so speak, on which justice acts, or through which this car- 1 82 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. dinal virtue is exercised and expressed ; and property has no higher end than to invigorate, by caUing forth, the principle of impartial rectitude. Government is the great organ of civil society, and we should appreciate the former more justly if we better under- stood the nature and foundation of the latter. I say, then, that- society is throughout a moral institution. It is something very different from an as- semblage of animals feeding in the same pasture. It is the combination of ra- tional beings for the security of right. Right, a moral idea, lies at the very foundation of civil communities ; and the highest happiness which they confer is the gratification of moral affections. We are sometimes taught that society is the creature of compact and selfish cal- culation ; that men agree to live together -for the protection of private interests. But no. Society is of earlier and higher origin. It is God's ordinance, and an- swers to what is most godlike in our nature. The chief ties that hold men together in communities are not self- interests, or compacts, or positive in- stitutions, or force. They are invisible, refined, spiritual ties, bonds of the mind and heart. Our best powers and affec- tions crave instinctively for society as the sphere in which they are to find their life and happiness. That men may greatly strengthen and improve society by writ- ten constitutions, I readily grant. There is, however, a constitution which pre- cedes all of men's making, and after which all others are to be formed ; a constitution, the great lines of which are drawn in our very nature ; a primitive law of justice, rectitude, and philan- thropy, which all other laws are bound to enforce, and from which all others derive their vaHdity and worth. Am I now asked how government is to promote energy and elevation of moral principle ? I answer, not by making the various virtues matters of legislation, not by preaching morals, not by establishing religion ; for these are not its appro- priate functions. It is to serve the cause of spiritual freedom, not by teach- ing or persuasion, but by action ; that is, by rigidly conforming itself, in all its measures, to the moral or Christian law ; by the most public and solemn manifestations of reverence for right, for justice, for the general weal, for the principles of virtue. Government is the most conspicuous of human in- stitutions, and were moral rectitude written on its front, stamped conspicu- ously on all its operations, an immense power would be added to pure principle in the breasts of individuals. To be more particular, a government may, and .should, ennoble the mind of the citizen, by continually holding up to him the idea of the general good. This idea should be impressed in char- acters of light on all legislation ; and a government directing itself resolutely and steadily to this end, becomes a minister of virtue. It teaches the citi- zen to attach a sanctity to the public weal, carries him beyond selfish regards, nourishes magnanimity, and the purpose of sacrificing himself, as far as virtue will allow, to the commonwealth. On the other hand, a gpvernment which wields its power for selfish interests, which sacrifices the many to a few, or the state to a party, becomes a public preacher of crime, taints the mind of the citizen, does its utmost to make him base and venal, and prepares him, by its example, to sell or betray that public interest for which he should be ready to die. Again, on government, more than on any institution, depends that most im- portant principle, — the sense of justice in the community. To promote this, it should express in all its laws a rever- ence for right, and an equal reverence for the rights of high and low, of rich and poor. It should choose to sacrifice the most dazzling advantages rather than break its own faith, rather than unsettle the fixed laws of property, or in any way shock the sentiment of justice in the community. Let me add one more method by which government is to lift up and enlarge the minds of its citizens. In its relations to other governments it should inviolably adhere to the principles of justice and philanthropy. By its moderation, sin- cerity, uprightness, and pacific spirit to- wards foreign states, by abstaining from secret arts and unfair advantages, by cultivating free and mutually beneficial intercourse, it should cherish among its citizens the ennobling consciousness of belonging to the human family, and of having a common interest with the whole human race. Government only fulfils SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. 183 its end when.it thus joins with Christi- anity in inculcating the law of universal love. Unhappily, governments have seldom recognized as the highest duty the obli- gation of strengthening pure and noble principle in the community. I fear they are even to be numbered among the chief agents in corrupting nations. ■ Of all the doctrines by which vice has propagated itself, I know none more pernicious than the maxim that statesmen are exempted from the common restraints of morality, that nations are not equally bound with individuals by the eternal laws of justice and philanthropy. Through . this doc- trine vice has lifted its head unblush- ingly in the most exalted stations. Vice has seated itself on the throne. The men who have wielded the power and riveted the gaze of nations have lent the sanction of their greatness to crime. In the very heart of nations, in the cabinet of rulers, has been bred a moral pesti- lence which has infected and contami- nated all orders of the state. Through the example of rulers, private men have learned to regard the everlasting law as a temporary conventional rule, and been blinded to the supremacy of virtue. That the prosperity of a people is in- timately connected with this reverence for virtue which I have inculcated on legislators, is most true, and cannot be too deeply felt. There is no foundation for the vulgar doctrine, that a state may flourish by arts and crimes. Nations and individuals are subjected to on§ law. The moral principle is the life of communities. No calamity can befall a people so great as temporary success through a criminal policy, as the hope thus cherished of trampling with im- punity on the authority of God. Sooner or later, insulted virtue avenges itself terribly on states as well as on private men. We hope, indeed, security and the quiet enjoyment of our wealth from our laws and institutions. But civil laws find their chief sanction in the law writ- ten within by the finger of God. In proportion "as a people enslave them- selves to sin, the fountain of public justice becomes polluted. The most wholesome statutes, wanting the sup- port of public opinion, grow impotent. Self-seekers, unprincipled men, by flat- tering bad passions, and by darkening the public mind, usurp the seat of judg- ment and places of power and trust, and turn free institutions into lifeless forms or instruments of oppression. I espe- cially believe that communities suffer sorely by that species of immorality which the herd of statesmen have in- dustriously cherished as of signal util- ity, — I mean, by hostile feeling towards other countries. The common doctrine has been, that prejudice and enmity to- wards foreign states are means of foster- ing a national spirit, and of confirming union at home. But bad passions, ^nce instilled into a people, will never ex- haust themselves abroad. Vice never yields the fruits of virtue. Injustice to strangers does not breed justice to our friends. Malignity, in every form, is a fire of hell, and the policy which feeds it is infernal. Domestic feuds and the madness of party are its natural and necessary issues ; and a people hostile to others will demonstrate, in its history, that no form of inhumanity or injustice escapes its just retribution. Our great error as a people is, that we put an idolatrous trust in our free institutions ; as if these, by some magic power, must secure our rights, however we enslave ourselves to evil passions. We need to learn that the forms of lib- erty are not its essence ; that whilst the letter of a free constitution is preserved its spirit may be lost ; that even its wisest provisions and most guarded powers may be made weapons of tyr- anny. In a country called free, a ma- jority may become a faction, and a proscribed minority may be insulted, robbed, and oppressed. Under elec- tive governments, a dominant party may become as truly a usurper, and as treasonably conspire against the state, as an individual who forces his way by arms to the throne. I know that it is supposed that politi- cal wisdom can so form institutions as . to extract from them freedom, notwith- | standirtg a people's sins. The chief ex-" pedient for this purpose has been to balance, as it is called, men's passions and interests against each other ; to use one man's selfishness as a check against his neighbor's ; to produce peace by the counteraction and equilibrium of hostile forces. This whole theory I distrust. The vices can by no management or skilful poising be made to do the work of virtue. Our own history has al- 1 84 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. ready proved this. Our government was founded on the doctrine of checks and balances ; and what does experience 'teach us ? It teaches, Wliat the prin- ciples of our nature might have taught, that whenever the country is divided in- to two great parties, the dominant party will possess itself of both branches of the legislature, and of the different de- partments of the state, and will move towards its objects with as little check, and with as determined purpose, as if all p'owers were concentrated in a sin- gle body. There is no substitute for virtue. Free institutions secure rights only when secured by, and when invig- orating that spiritual freedom, that moral power and elevation, which I have set before you as the supreme good of our nature. According to these views, the first duty of a statesman is to build ujd the moral energy of a people. This is their first interest ; and he who weakens it inflicts an injury which no talent can repair ; nor should any splendor of ser- vices, or any momentary success, avert from him the infamy which he has earned. Let public men learn to think more reverently of their function. Let them feel that they are touching more vital interests than property. Let them fear nothing so much as to sap the moral convictions of a people by un- righteous legislation or a selfish policy. Let them cultivate in themselves the spirit of religion and virtue, as the first requisite to public station. Let no ap- parent advantage to the community, any more than to themselves, seduce them to the infraction of any moral law. Let them put faith in virtue as the strength of nations. Let them not be disheart- ened by temporary ill success in up- right exertion. Let them remember that, while they and their contempora- ries live but for a day, the state is to live for ages ; and that Time, the un- erring arbiter, will vindicate the wis- dom as well as the magnanimity of the public man who, confiding in the power of truth, justice, and philanthropy, as- serts their claims, and reverently fol- lows their monitions, amidst general disloyalty and corruption. 1 have hitherto spoken of the general influence which government should ex- ert on the moral interests of a people, by expressing reverence for the moral law in Its whole policy and legislation. " It is also bound to exert a more particu- lar and direct influence. I refer to its duty of preventing and punishing crime. This is one of the chief ends of govern- ment, but it has received as yet very little of the attention which it deserves. ' Government, indeed, has not been slow to punish crime, nor has society suf- fered for want of dungeons and gib- bets. But the prevention of crime and the reformation of the offender have nowhere taken rank among the first objects of legislation. Penal codes, breathing vengeance, and too often written in blood, have been set in array against the violence of human passions, and the legislator's conscience has been satisfied with enacting these. Whether by shocking humanity he has not mul- tiplied offenders, is a question into which he would do wisely to inquire. On the means of preventing crime I want time, and stiU more ability, to en- large. 1 would only say that this ob- ject should be kept in view through the whole of legislation. For this end, laws should be as few and as simple as may be ; for an extensive and obscure code multiplies occasions of offence, and brings the citizen unnecessarily into collision with the state. Above all, let the laws bear broadly on their front the impress of justice and humanity, so that the moral sense of the community may become their sanction. Arbitrary and offensive laws invite offence, and take irom disobedience the consciousness of guilt. It is even wise to abstain from laws which, however wise and good in themselves, have the semblance of in- equality, which find no response in the heart of the citizen, and which will be evaded with little remorse. The wis- dom of legislation is especially seen in grafting laws on conscience. I add, what seems to me of great importance, that the penal code should be brought to bear with the sternest impartiality on the rich and exalted as well as on the poor and fallen. Society suffers from the crimes of the former n8l less than by those of the latter. It has been truly said, that the amount of property taken by theft and forgery is small compared with what is taken by dishonest insol- vency. Yet the thief is sent to prison, ■ and the dishonest bankrupt lives per- haps in state. The moral sentiment of SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. the community is thus corrupted ; and, for this and other solemn reasons, a re- form is greatly needed in the laws which respect insolvency. I am shocked at the imprisonment of the honest debtor ; and the legislation which allows a cred- itor to play the tyrant over an innocent man would disgrace, I think, a barbar- ous age. I am not less shocked by the impunity with which criminal insolvents continually escape, and by the lenity of the community towards these transgres- sors of its most essential laws. Another means of preventing crime is to punish it wisely ; and by wise punish- ment I mean that which aims to reform the offender. I know that this end of punishment has been questioned by wise and good men. But what higher or more practicable end can be pro- posed ? You say we must punish for example. But history shows that what is called exemplary punishment cannot boast of great efficiency. Crime thrives under severe penalties, thrives on the blood of offenders. The frequent exhi- bition of such punishments hardens a people's heart, and produces defiance and reaction in the guilty. Until re- cently, government seems to have la- bored to harden the criminal by throw- ing him into a crowd of offenders, into the putrid atmosphere of a common prison. Humanity rejoices in the re- form which, in this respect, is spreading through our country. To remove the convict from bad influences is an essen- tial step to his moral restoration. It is, however, but a step. To place him un- der the aid of good influence is equally important ; and here individual exertion must come to the aid of legislative pro- visions. Private Christians, selected at once for their judiciousness and philan- thropy, must connect themselves with the solitary prisoner, and by manifesta- tions of a sincere fraternal interest, by conversation, books, and encourage- ment, must touch within him chords which have long ceased to vibrate ; must awaken new hopes ; must show him that all is not lost, — that God, and Christ, and virtue, and the friendship of the virtuous, and honor, and immortality, may yet be secured. Of this glorious ministry of private Christianity I do not despair. I know I shall be told of the failure of all efforts to reclaim criminals. They have not always failed. And be- sides, has philanthropy, has genius, has the strength of humanity, been fairly and fervently put forth in this great concern ? I find in the New Testament no class of human beings whom charity is instructed to forsake. I find no ex- ception made by Him who came to seek and save that which was lost. I must add, that the most hopeless subjects are not always to be found in prisons. That convicts are dreadfully corrupt, I know ; but not more corrupt than some who walk at large, and are not excluded from our kindness. The rich man who defrauds is certainly as criminal as the poor man who steals. The rich man who drinks to excess contracts deeper guilt than he who sinks into this vice under the pressure of want. The young man who seduces innocence deserves more richly the house of correction than the unhappy female whom he allured into the path of destruction. Still more, I cannot but remember how much the guilt of the convict results from the general corruption of society. When I reflect how much of the responsibility for crimes rests on the state, how many of the offences which are most severely punished are to be traced to neglected education, to early squalid want, to temptations and exposures which soci- ety might do much to relieve, — 1 feel that a spirit of mercy should temper legislation ; that we should not sever ourselves so widely from our fallen brethren ; that we should recognize in them the countenance and claims of humanity ; that we should strive to win them back to God. I have thus spoken of the obligation of government to contribute by various means to the moral elevation of a peo- ple. I close this head with expressing sorrow that an institution, capable of such purifying influences, should so often be among the chief engines of a nation's corruption. In this discourse I have insisted on the supreme importance of virtuous principle, of moral force, and elevation in the community ; and I have thus spoken, not that I might conform to professional duty, but from deep per- sonal conviction. I feel — as I doubt not many feel — that the great distinction of a nation, the only one worth possessing, and which brings after it all other bless- ings, is the prevalence of pure principle i86 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. among the citizens. I wish to belong to a state in the character and institu- tions of which I may find a spring of improvement, which I can speak of with an honest pride, in whose records I may- meet great and honored names, and which is making the world its debtor by its discoveries of truth, and by an example of virtuous freedom. Oh, save me from a country which worships wealth and cares not for true glory ; in which intrigue bears rule ; in which patriotism borrows its zeal from the prospect of office ; in which hungry syc- ophants besiege with supplications all the departments of state ; in which pub- lic men bear the brand of vice, and the seat of government is a noisome sink of private licentiousness and political cor- ruption ! Tell me not of the honor of belonging to a free country. I ask, does our liberty bear generous fruits ? Does it exalt us in manly spirit, in public virtue, above countries trodden under foot by despotism ? Tell me not of the extent of our territory. 1 care not how large it is if it multiply degenerate men. Speak not of our prosperity. Better be one of a poor people, plain in manners, revering God and respecting themselves, than belong to a rich country which knows no higher good than riches. Earnestly do I desire for this country that, instead of copying Europe with an undiscerning servility, it may have a character of its own, corresponding to the freedom and equality of our institu- tions. One Europe is enough. One Paris is enough. How much to be de- sired is it that, separated as we are from the eastern continent by an ocean, we should be still more widely separated by simplicity of manners, by domestic pu- rity, by inward piety, by reverence for human nature, by moral independence, by withstanding that subjection to fash- ion and that debilitating sensuality, which characterize the most civilized portions of the Old World. Of this country I may say with pecu- liar emphasis that its happiness is bound up in its virtue. On this our union can alone stand firm. Our union is not like that of other nations, confirmed by the habits of ages and riveted by force. It is a recent, and, still more, a voluntary union. It is idle to talk of force as binding us together. Nothing can re- tain a member of this confederacy when resolved on separation. The only bonds that can permanently unite us are moral ones. That there are repulsive powers, principles of discord, in these States, we all feel. The attraction which is to counteract them is only to be found in a calm wisdom, controlling the passions, in a spirit of equity and regard to the common weal, and in virtuous patriot- ism, clinging to union as the only pledge of freedom and peace. The union is threatened by sectional jealousies and collisions of local interests, which can be reconciled only by a magnanimous lib- erality. It is endangered by the prosti- tution of executive patronage, through which the public treasury is turned into a fountain of corruption, and by the lust for power which perpetually convulses the country for the sake of throwing office into new hands ; and the only remedy for these evils is to be found in the moral indignation of the community, in a pure, lofty spirit, which will over- whelm with infamy this selfish ambition. To the chief magistrate of this Com- monwealth, and to those associated with him in the executive and legislative de- partments, I respectfully commend the truths which have now been delivered ; and, with the simplicity becoming a minister of Jesus Christ, I would re- mind them of their solemn obligations to God, to their fellow-creatures, and to the interests of humanity, freedom, virtue, and religion. We trust that, in their high stations, they will seek, not themselves, but the public weal, and will seek it by inflexible adherence to the principles of the constitution, and still more to the principles of God's everlasting law. IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY. IS7 IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY. Few men suspect, perhaps no naan comprehends, the extent of the support given by religion to the virtues of ordi- nary life. No man, perhaps, is aware how much our moral and social senti- ments are fed from this fountain ; how powerless conscience would become without the belief of a God ; how pal- sied would be human benevolence, were there not the sense of a higher benevo- lence to quicken and sustain it ; how suddenly the whole social fabric would quake, and with what a fearful crash it would sink into hopeless ruins, were the ideas of a Supreme Being, of account- ableness, and of a future life, to be utterly erased from every mind. Once let men thoroughly believe that they are the work and sport of chance ; that no superior intelligence concerns itself with human affairs ; that all their improve- ments perish for ever at death ; that the weak have no guardian and the injured no avenger ; that there is no recompense for sacrifices to uprightness and the pub- Uc good ; that an oath is unheard in heaven ; that secret crimes have no wit- ness but the perpetrator ; that human existence has no purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend; that this brief life is every thing to us, and death is total, everlasting extinction ; — once let men thoroughly abandon religion, and who can conceive or describe the extent of the desolation which would follow ? We hope, perhaps, that human laws and natural sympathy would hold society together. As reasonably might we believe that, were the sun quenched in the heavens, our torches could illumi- nate and our fires quicken and fertilize the earth. What is there in human nat- ure to awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day ? and what is he more, if atheism be true ? Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffering having no solace or hope, would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sor- did self-interest would supplant every other feeling, and man would become in fact, what the theory of atheism declares him to be, a companion for brutes. It particularly deserves attention in this discussion, that the Christian re- ligion is singularly important to free communities. In truth, we may doubt whether civil freedom can subsist with- out it. This at least we know, that equal rights and an impartial administration of justice have never been enjoyed where this religion has not been understood. It favors free institutions, first, because its spirit is the very spirit of liberty ; that is, a spirit of respect for the inter- ests and rights of others. Christianity recognizes the essential equality of man- kind ; beats down with its whole might those aspiring and rapacious principles of our nature which have subjected the many to the few ; and, by its refining influence, as well as by direct precept, turns to God, and to him only, that su- preme homage which has been so im- piously lavished on crowned and titled fellow-creatures. Thus its whole ten- dency is free. It lays deeply the only foundations of liberty, which are the principles of benevolence, justice, and respect for human nature. The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes im- agine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, an unwillingness to be oppressed ourselves, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trainpled under foot. Now this is the spirit of Christianity ; and liberty has no security, any farther than this uprightness and benevolence of sen- timent actuates a community. In another method religion befriends liberty. It diminishes the necessity of public restraints, and supersedes in a great degree the use of force in admin- istering the laws ; and this it does by making men a law to themselves, and by i88 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. repressing, the disposition to disturb and injure society. Talte away tlie purify- ing and restraining influence of religion, and selfishness, rapacity, and injustice will break out in new excesses ; and amidst the increasing perils of society government must be strengthened to defend it, must accumulate means of re- pressing disorder and crime ; and this strength and these means may be, and often have been, turned against the free- dom of the state which they were meant to secure. Diminish principle, and you increase the need of force in a com- munity. In this country government needs not the array of power which you meet in other nations, — no guards of soldiers, no hosts of spies, no vexatious regulations of police ; but accomplishes its beneficent purposes by a few unarmed judges and civil officers, and operates so silently around us, and comes so seldom in contact with us, that many of us enjoy its blessings with hardly a thought of its existence. This is the perfection of freedom ; and to what do we owe this condition ? I answer, to the power of those laws which rehgion writes on our hearts, which unite and concentrate pub- lic opinion against injustice and oppres- sion, which spread a spirit of equity and good-will through the community. Thus religion is the soul of freedom, and no nation under heaven has such an inter- est in it as ourselves. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. Romans i. i6 : "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ" Part I. These words of Paul are worthy of his resolute and disinterested spirit. In uttering them he was not an echo of the multitude, a servile repeater of es- tablished doctrines. The vast majority around him were ashamed of Jesus. The cross was then coupled with in- famy. Christ's name was scorned as a malefactor's, and to profess his religion was to share his disgrace. Since that time what striking changes have oc- curred ! The cross now hangs as an ornament from the neck of beauty. It blazes on the flags of navies and the standards of armies. Millions bow be- fore it in adoration, as if it were a shrine of the divinity. Of course, the tempta- tion to be ashamed of Jesus is very much diminished. Still it is not wholly re- moved. Much of the homage now paid to Christianity is outward, political, worldly, and paid to its corruptions much more than to its pure and lofty spirit ; and accordingly its conscientious a'nd intrepid friends must not think it a strange thing to be encountered with occasional coldness or reproach. We may still be tempted to be ashamed of our religion, by being thrown among sceptics who deny and deride it. We may be tempted to be ashamed of the simple and rational doctrines of Christ, by being brought into connection with narrow zealots, who enforce their dark and perhaps degrading peculiarities as essential to salvation. We may be tempted to be ashamed of his pure, meek, and disinterested precepts, by being thrown among the licentious, self- seeking, and vindictive. Against these perils we should all go armed. To be loyal to truth and conscience under such trials is one of the signal proofs of virtue. No man deserves the name of Christian but he who adheres to his principles amidst the unbelieving, the intolerant, and the depraved. " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." So said Paul. So would I say. Would to God that I could catch the spirit as well as the language of the Apostle, and bear my testimony to Chris' tianity with the same heroic resolution ! Do any ask, why I join in this attesta- tion to the gospel ? Some of my reasons I propose now to set before you ; and, in doing so, I ask the privilege of speak- ing, as the Apostle has done, in the first person ; of speaking in my own name, and of laying open my own mind in the EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 189 most direct language. There are cases in wliich tlie ends of public discourse may be best answered by the frank ex- pression of individual feeling ; and this mode of address, when adopted with such views, ought not to be set down to the account of egotism. I proceed to state the 'reasons why I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ; and 1 begin with one so important that it will occupy the present discourse. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it is true. This is my first reason. The religion is true, and no consideration but this could induce me to defend it. I adopt it, not because it is popular, for false and ruinous sys- tems have enjoyed equal reputation ; nor because it is thought to uphold the order of society, for I believe that nothing but truth can be permanently useful. It is true; and I say this not lightly, but after deliberate examination. I am not repeating the accents of the nursery. I do not affirm the truth of Christianity because I was so taught before I could inquire, or because I was brought up in a community pledged to this belief. It is not unliliely that my faith and zeal will be traced by some to these sources ; and believing such imputations to be groundless, fidelity to the cause of truth binds me to repel them. The circum- stance of having been born and educated under Christianity, so far from disposing me to implicit faith, has often been to me the occasion of serious distrust of our religion. On observing how com- mon it is for men of all countries and names, whether Christians, Jews, or Mahometans, to receive the religion of their fathers, I have again and again asked myself whether I too was not a slave, wliether I too was not blindly walking in the path of tradition, and yielding myself as passively as others to an hereditary faith, I distrust and fear the power of numbers and of general opinion over my judgment; and few things incite me more to repel a doctrine than intolerant attempts to force it on my understanding. Perhaps my Chris- tian education and connections have inclined me to scepticism, rather than bowed my mind to authority. It may still be said that the pride and prejudices and motives of interest which belong to my profession as a Christian minister throw a suspiciousness over my reasoning and judgment on the present subject. I reply, that to myself I seem as free from biases of this kind as the most indifferent person. I have no priestly prepossessions. I know and acknowledge the corruptions and per- versions of the ministerial office from the earliest age of the church. I repro- bate the tyranny which it exercises so often over the human mind. I recognize no peculiar sanctity in those who sus- tain it. I think, then, that I come to the examination of Christianity with as few blinding partialities as any man. I in- deed claim no exemption from error ; I ask no implicit faith in my conclusions ; I care not how jealously and thoroughly my arguments are sifted. I only ask that I may not be prejudged as a servile or interested partisan of Christianity. I ask that I may be heard as a friend of truth, desirous to aid my fellow-creat- ures in determining a question of great and universal concern. I appear as the advocate of Christianity, solely because it approves itself to my calmest reason as a revelation from God, and as the purest, brightest light which He has shed on the human mind. I disclaim all other motives. No policy, no vas- salage to opinion, no dread of reproach even from the good, no private interest, no desire to uphold a useful superstition, nothing, in short, but a deliberate con- viction of the truth of Christianity in- duces me to appear in its ranks. I should be ashamed of it did I not be- lieve it true. In discussing this subject, I shall ex- press my convictions strongly ; I shall speak of infidelity as a gross and peril- ous error. But in so doing I beg not to be understood as passing sentence on the character of individual unbelievers. I shall show that the Christian religion is true, is from God ; but I do not therefore conclude that all who reject it are the enemies of God, and are to be loaded with reproach. I would uphold the truth without ministering to unchari- tableness. The criminality, the damna- ble guilt of unbelief in all imaginable circumstances, is a position which I think untenable ; and persuaded as I am that it prejudices the cause of Chris- tianity, by creating an antipathy between its friends and opposers which injures both, and drives the latter into more de- termined hostility to the truth, I think it I go EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. worthy of a brief consideration in this stage of the discussion. I lay it down as a principle that unbe- lief, considered in itself, has no moral quality, is neither a virtue nor a vice, but must receive its character, whether good or bad, from the dispositions or motives which produce or pervade it. Mere acts of the understanding are neither right nor wrong. When I speak of faith as a holy or virtuous principle, I extend the term beyond its primitive meaning, and include in it not merely the assent of the intellect, but the dis- position or temper by which this assent is determined, and which it is suited to confirm ; and I attach as broad a signifi- cation to unbelief, when I pronounce it a crime. The truth is, that the hunjan mind, though divided by our philosophy into many distinct capacities, seldom or never exerts them separately, but gen- erally blends them in one act. Thus, in forming a judgment, it exerts the will and affections, or the moral principles of our nature, as really as the power of thought. Men's passions and interests mix with, and are expressed in, the decisions of the intellect. In the Script- ures, which use language freely, and not with philosophical strictness, faith and unbelief are» mental acts of this complex character, or joint products of the understanding and heart ; and on this account alone they are objects of approbation or reproof. In these views, I presume, reflecting Christians of every name agree. According to these views, opinions cannot be laid down as unerring and immutable signs of virtue and vice. The very same opinion may be virtuous in one man and vicious in another, sup- posing it, as is very possible, to have originated in different states of mind. For example, if through envy and malig- nity, I should rashly seize on the slight- est proofs of guilt in my neighbor, my judgment of his criminality would be morally wrong. Let another man arrive at the same conclusion, in consequence of impartial inquiry and love of truth, and his decision would be morally right. Still more, according to these views, it is possible for the behef of. Christianity to be as criminal as unbelief. Undoubt- edly the reception of a system so pure in spirit and tendency as the gospel is to be regarded in general as a favor- able sign. But let a man adopt this religion because it will serve his interest and popularity ; let him shut his mind against objections to it, lest they should shake his faith in a gainful system ; let him tamper with his intellect, and for base and selfish ends exhaust its strength in defence of the prevalent faith, and he is just as criminal in believing as another would be in rejecting Christianity under the same bad impulses. Our religion is at this moment adopted and passionately defended by vast multitudes, on the ground of the very same pride, worldl'- ness, love of popularity, and blind devo- tion to hereditary prejudices, which led the Jews and Heathens to reject it in the primitive age ; and the faith of the first is as wanting in virtue as was the infidelity of the last. To judge of the character of faith and unbelief, we must examine the times and the circumstances in which they exist. At the first preaching of the gospel, to believe on Christ was a strong proof of an upright mind ; to enlist among his followers was to forsake ease, honor, and worldly success ; to confess him was an act of signal loyalty_ to truth, virtue, and God. To believe in Christ at the present moment has no such sig- nificance. To confess him argues no moral courage. It may even betray a servility and worldliness of mind. These remarks apply in their spirit to unbelief. At different periods, and in different conditions of society, unbelief may ex- press very different states of mind. Be- fore we pronounce it a crime" and doom it to perdition, we ought to know the circumstances under which it has sprung up, and to inquire with candor whether they afford no palliation or defence. When Jesus Christ was on earth, when his miracles were wrought before men's eyes, when his voice sounded in their ears, when not a shade of doubt could be thrown over the reality of his super- natural works, and not a human corrup- tion had mingled with his doctrine, there was the strongest presumption against the uprightness and the love of truth of those who rejected him. He knew, too, the hearts and lives of those who surrounded him, and saw distinctly in their envy, ambition, worldliness, sensu- ality, the springs of their unbelief ; and accordingly he pronounced it a crime. Since that period, what changes have EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 191 taken place ! Jesus Christ has left the world. His miracles are events of a remote age, and the proofs of them, though abundant, are to many perfectly unknown ; and, what is incomparably more important, his rehgion has under- gone corruption, adulteration, disastrous change, and its likeness to its Founder is in no small degree effaced. The clear, consistent, quickening truth, which came from the lips of Jesus, has been ex- changed for a hoarse jargon and vain babblings. The stream, so pure at the fountain, has been polluted and poisoned through its whole course. Not only has Christianity been overwhelmed by absurdities, but by impious doctrines, which have made the Universal Father, now a weak and vain despot, to be pro- pitiated by forms and flatteries, and now an almighty torturer, foreordaining mul- titudes of his creatures to guilt, and then glorifying his justice by their everlasting woe. When I think what Christianity has become in the hands of politicians and priests, how it has been shaped into a weapon of power, how it has crushed the human soul for ages, how it has struck the intellect with palsy and haunted the imagination with superstitious phantoms, how it has broken whole nations to the yoke, and frowned on every free thought ; when I think how, under almost every form of this religion, its ministers have taken it into their own keeping, have hewn and compressed it into the shape of rigid creeds, and have then pursued by menaces of everlasting woe whoever should question the divinity of these works of their hands ; — when I consider, in a word, how, under such influences, Christianity has been and still is exhib- ited, in forms which shock alike the reason, conscience, and heart, I feel deeply, painfully, what a different system it is from that which Jesus taught, and I dare not apply to unbelief the terms of condemnation which belonged to the infidelity of the primitive age. Perhaps I ought to go further. Per- haps I ought to say that to reject Chris- tianity under some of its corruptions is rather a virtue than a crime. At the present moment, I would ask whether it isa vice to doubt the truth of Chris- tianity as it is manifested in Spain and Portugal? When a patriot in those benighted countries, who knows Chris- tianity only as a bulwark of despotism, as a rearer of inquisitions, as a stern jailer immuring wretched women in the convent, as an executioner stained and reeking with the blood of the friends of freedom ; I say, when the patriot, who sees in our religion the instrument of these crimes and woes, beheves and affirms that it is not from God, are we authorized to charge his unbelief on dishonesty and corruption of mind, and to brand him as a culprit ? May it not be that the spirit of Christianity in his heart emboldens him to protest with his lips against what bears the name ? And if he thus protest, through a deep sym- pathy with the oppression and suffer- ings of his race, is he not nearer the kingdom of God than the priest and inquisitor who boastingly and exclu- sively assume the Christian name ? Jesus Christ has told us that " this is the condemnation " of the unbelieving, "that they love darkness rather than light ; " and who does not see that this ground of condemnation is removed just in proportion as the light is quenched, or Christian truth is buried in darkness and debasing error ? I know I shall be told that a man in the circumstances now supposed would still be culpable for his unbelief, be- cause the Scriptures are within his reach, and these are sufficient to guide him to the true doctrines of Christ. But in the countries of which I have spoken, the Scriptures are not com- mon ; and if they were, I apprehend that we should task human strength too severely, in requiring it, under every possible disadvantage, to gain the truth from this source alone. A man, born and brought up in the thickest dark- ness, and amidst the grossest corrup- tions of Christianity, accustomed to hear the Scriptures disparaged, accustomed to connect false ideas with their princi- pal terms, and wanting our most com- mon, helps of criticism, can hardly be expected to detach from the mass of error which bears the name of the gos- pel, the simple principles of the primi- tive faith. Let us not exact too much of our fellow-creatures. In our zeal for Christianity let us not forget its spirit of equity and mercy. In these remarks I have taken an extreme case. I have supposed a man subjected to the greatest disadvantages in regard to the knowledge of Christianity. But obsta- 192 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. cles less serious may exculpate the un- believer. In truth, none of us can draw the line which separates between inno- cence and guilt in this particular. To measure the responsibility of a man who doubts or denies Christianity, we must know the history of his mind, his capacity of judgment, the early influ- ences and prejudices to which he was exposed, the forms under which the religion and its proofs first fixed his thoughts, and the opportunities since en- joyed of eradicating errors, which struck root before the power of trying them was unfolded. We are not his judges. At another and an unerring tribunal he must give account. I cannot, then, join in the common cry against infidelity as the sure mark of a corrupt mind. That unbelief often has its origin in evil dispositions I can- not doubt. The character of the unbe- liever often forces us to acknowledge that he rejects Christianity to escape its rebukes ; that its purity is its chief offence ; that he seeks infidelity as a refuge from fear and virtuous restraint. But to impute these unholy motives to a man of pure life is to judge rashly, and it may be unrighteously. 1 cannot look upon unbelief as essentially and unfailingly a crime. But I do look upon it as among the greatest of ca- lamities. It is the loss of the chief aid of virtue, of the mightiest power over temptation, of the most quickening knowledge of God, of the only unfail- ing light, of the only sure hope. The unbeliever would gain unspeakably by parting with every possession for the truth which he doubts or rejects. And how shall we win him to the faith ? Not by reproach, by scorn, by tones of superiority ; but by paying due respect to his understanding, his virtues, and his right of private judgment ; by set- ting before him Christianity in its simple majesty, its reasonableness, and .won- derful adaptation to the wants of our spiritual nature ; by exhibiting its proofs without exaggeration, yet in their full strength ; and, above all, by showing in our own characters and lives that there is in Christianity a power to purify, elevate, and console, which can be found in no human teaching. These are the true instruments of conversion. The ignorant and superstitious may indeed be driven into a religion by menace and reproach. But the reflect- ing unbeliever cannot but distrust a cause which admits such weapons. lie must be reasoned with as a man, an equal, and a brother. Perhaps we may silence him for a time by spreading through the community a fanatical ex- citement and a persecuting hatred of infidelity. But as by such processes Christianity would be made to take a more unlovely and irrational form, its secret foes would be multiplied ; its brightest evidence would be dimmed, its foundation sapped, its energy im- paired ; and whenever the time should arrive for throwing off the mask (and that time would come), we should learn that in the very ranks of its nominal disciples there had been trained a host of foes, who would burn to prostrate the intolerant faith which had so long sealed their lips, and trampled on the rights and freedom of the human mind. According to these views, I do not condemn the unbeliever, unless he bear witness against himself by an immoral and irreligious life. It is not given me to search his heart. But this power is given to himself, and, as a friend, I call upon him to exert it ; I ask him to look honestly into his own mind, to question his past life, and to pronounce impartial sentence on the causes of his unbelief. Let him ask himself whether he has inquired into the principles and proofs of Christianity deliberately and in the love of truth ; whether the desire to discover and fulfil his duties to God and his fellow-creatures has governed his examination ; whether he has sur- rendered himself to no passions or pur- suits which religion and conscience rebuke, and which bar the mind and sear the heart against the truth. If, thus self- questioned, his heart acquit him, let no man condemn him, and let him heed no man's condemnation. But if conscience bear witness against him, he has cause to suspect and dread his unbelief. He has reason to fear that it is the fruit of a depraved mind, and that it will ripen and confirm the de- pravity from which it sprung. I know that there are those who will construe what they will call my lenity towards unbelief into treachery towards Christianity. There are those who think that unless scepticism be ranked among the worst crimes, and the infidel be EVIDENCES OF -CHRISTIANITY. 193 marked out for abhorrence and dread, the multitude of men will lose their hold on the gospel. An opinion more discreditable to Christianity cannot ea- sily be advanced by its friends. It virtually admits that the proofs of our religion, unless examined under the influence of terror, cannot work son- viction ; that the gospel cannot be left, hke other subjects, to the calm and unbiassed judgment of mankind. It discovers a distrust of Christianity with which I have no sympathy. And here I would remark that the worst abuses of our religion have sprung from this cowardly want of confidence in its power. Its friends have feared that it could not stand without a variety of artificial buttresses. They have im- agined that men must now be bribed into faith by annexing to it temporal privileges, now driven into it by mena- ces and inquisitions, now attracted by gorgeous forms, now awed by mysteries and superstitions ; in a word, that the multitude must be imposed upon, or the religion will fall. I have no such dis- trust of Christianity ; I believe in its invincible powers. It is founded in our nature. It meets our deepest wants. Its proofs as well as principles are adapted to the common understandings of men, and need not to be aided by appeals to fear or any other passion, which would discourage inquiry or dis- turb the judgment. I fear nothing for Christianity if left to speak in its own tones, to approach men with its un- veiled, benignant countenance. I do fear much from the weapons of policy and intimidation which are framed to uphold the imagined weakness of Chris- tian truth. I now come to the great object of this discourse, — an exhibition of the proofs of Christianity ; and I begin with a topic which is needed to prepare some, if not many, to estimate these proofs fairly, and according to their true weight. I begin with the position, that there is nothing in the general idea of revelation at which reason ought to take offence, nothing inconsistent with any established truth, or with our best views of God and nature. This topic meets a prejudice not very rare. I repeat it, then, revela- tion is nothing incredible, nothing wfhich carries contradiction on its face, nothing at war with any great principles of rea- son or experience. On hearing of God's teaching us by some other means than the fixed order of nature, we ought not to be surprised, nor ought the suggestion to awaken resistance in our minds. Revelation is not at war with nature. From the necessity of the case, the earliest instruction must have come to human beings from this source. If our race had a beginning (and nothing but the insanity of atheism can doubt this), then its first members, created as they were without human parentage, and hav- ing no resource in the experience of fellow-creatures who had preceded them, required an immediate teaching from their Creator ; they would have perished without it. Revelation was the very ccfmmencement of human history, the foundation of all later knowledge and improvement. It was an essential part of the course of Providence, and must not then be regarded as a discord in God's general system. Revelation is not at war with nature. Nature prompts us to expect it from the relation which God bears to the human race. The relation of Creator is the most intimate which can subsist ; and it leads us to anticipate a free and affec- tionate intercourse with the creature. That the Universal Father should be bound by a parental interest to his off- spring, that He should watch over and assist the progress of beings whom He has enriched with the divine gifts of reason and conscience, is so natural a doctrine, so accordant with his charac- ter, that various sects, both philosophical and religious, both anterior and subse- quent to Christianity, have believed not only in general revelation, but that God reveals himself to every human soul. When I think of the vast capacities of the human mind, of God's nearness to it and unbounded love towards it, I am disposed to wonder, not that revelations have been made, but that they have not been more variously vouchsafed to the wants of mankind. Revelation has a striking agreement with the chief method which God has instituted for carrying forward individ- uals and the race, and is thus in harmony with his ordinary operations. Whence is it that we all acquire our chief knowledge ? Not from the outward uni- verse, — not from the fixed laws of material nature, — but from intelligent 13 194 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. beings more advanced than ourselves. The teachings of the wise and good are our chief aids. Were our connection with superior minds brolcen off, had we no teacher but nature, with its fixed laws, its unvarying revolutions of night and day and seasons, we should remain for ever in the ignorance of childhood. Nat- ure is a volume which we can read only by the help of an intelligent interpreter. The great law under which man is placed is that he shall receive illumination and impulse from beings more improved than himself. Now revelation is only an ex- tension of this universal method of car- rying forward mankind. In this case, God takes on himself the office to which all rational beings are called. He be- comes an immediate teacher to a feV, communicating to them a higher order of truths than had before been attained, which they in turn are to teach to their race. Here is no new power or element introduced into the system, but simply an enlargement of that agency on which the progress of man chiefly depends. Let me next ask you to consider why or for what end God has ordained, as the chief means of human improvement, the communication of light from superior to inferior minds ; and if it shall then ap- pear that revelation is strikingly adapted to promote a similar though more im- portant end, you will have another mark of agreement between revelation and his ordinary providence. Why is it that God has made men's progress dependent on instruction from their fellow-beings ? Why are the more advanced commis- sioned to teach the less informed ? A great purpose, I believe the chief pur- pose, is to establish interesting relations among men, to bind them to one another by generous sentiments, to promote af- fectionate intercourse, to call forth a purer love than could spring from a com- munication of mere outward gifts. Now it is rational to believe that the Creator designs to bind his creatures to himself as truly as to one another, and to awaken towards himself even stronger gratitude, confidence, and love ; for these senti- ments towards God are more happy and ennobling than towards any other being ; and it is plain that revelation, or immedi- ate divine teaching serves as effectually to establish these ties between God and man as human teaching to attach men to one another. We see, then, in revela- tion an end corresponding to what the Supreme Being adopts in his common providence. That the end here affirmed is worthy of his interposition, who can doubt ? His benevolence can propose no higher purpose than that of raising the minds and hearts of his creatures to himself. His parental character is a pledge that he must intend this ineffable happiness for his rational offspring ; and revelation is suited to this end, not only by unfolding new doctrines in relation to God, but by the touching proof which it carries in itself of the special interest which He takes in his human family. There is plainly an expression of deeper concern, a more affectionate character, in this mode of instruction, than in teaching us by the fixed order of nature. Revelation is God speaking to us in our own language, in the accents which hu- man friendship employs. It shows a love, breaking through the reserve and distance, which we all feel to belong to the method of teaching us by his works alone. It fastens our minds on him. We can look on nature, and not think of the Being whose glory it declares ; but God is indissolubly connected with, and indeed is a part of, the idea of revelation. How much nearer does this direct inter- course bring him to the mass of man- kind ! On this account revelation would seem to me important, were it simply to repeat the teachings of nature. This reiteration of great truths in a less formal style, in kinder, more familiar toneSj is peculiarly fitted to awaken the soul to the presence and benignity of its heavenly Parent. I see, then, in revela- tion a purpose corresponding with that for which human teaching was instituted. Both are designed to bring together the teacher and the taught in pure affec- tions. Let me next ask you to consider what is the kind of instruction which the higher minds among men are chiefly called to impart to the inferior. You will here see another agreement be- tween revelation and that ordinary human teaching which is the great in- strument of improving the race. What kind of instruction is it which parents, which the aged and experienced, are most anxious to give to the young, and on which the safety of this class mainly depends ? It is instruction in relation to the future, to their adult years, such EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 195 as is suited to prepare them for the life that is opening before them. It is God's will, when He gives us birth, that we should be forewarned of the future stages of our being, of approaching manhood or womanhood, of the scenes, duties, labors, through which we are to pass ; and for this end He connects us with beings who have traversed the paths on which we are entering, and whose duty it is to train us for a more advanced age. Instruction in regard to futurity is the great means of improve- ment. Now the Christian revelation has for its aim to teach us on this very sub- ject, — to disclose the life which is be- fore us, and to fit us for it. A future state is its constant burden. That God should give us hght in regard to that state, if He designs us for it, is what we should expect from his solicitude to teach us in regard to what is future in our earthly existence. Nature thirsts for, and analogy almost promises, some illumination on the subject of human destiny. This topic I shall insist on more largely hereafter. I wish now simply to show you the agreement of revelation, in this particular, with the ordinary providence of God. I proceed to another order of reflec- tions, which to my own mind is particu- larly suited to meet the vague idea that revelation is at war with nature. To judge of nature, we should look at its highest rank of beings. We should in- quire of the human soul, which we all feel to be a higher existence than mat- ter. Now I maintain that there are in the human soul wants, deep wants, which are not met by the influences and teach- ing which the ordinary course of things affords. I am aware that this is a topic to provoke distrust, if not derision, in the low-minded and sensual ; but I speak what I do know ; and nothing moves me so little as the scoffs of men who despise their own nature. One of the most striking views of human nature is the disproportion between what it conceives and thirsts for, and what it finds or can secure in the range of the present state. It is prone to stretch be- yond its present bounds. Ideas of ex- cellence and happiness spring up which it cannot realize now. It carries within itself a standard, of which it daily and hourly falls short. This self-contradic- tion is the source of many sharp pains. There is, in most men, a dim conscious- ness, at least, of being made for some- thing higher than they have gained, a feeling of internal discord, a want of some stable good, a disappointment in merely outward acquisitions ; and in proportion as these convictions and wants become distinct, they break out in desires of illumination and aids from God not found in nature. I am aware that the wants of which I have spoken are but faintly developed in the major- ity of men. Accustomed to give their thoughts and strength to the outward world, multitudes do not penetrate and cannot interpret their own souls. They impute to outward causes the miseries which spring from an internal fountain. They do not detain, and are scarcely con- scious of, the better thoughts and feel- ings which sometimes dart through their minds. Still there are few who are not sometimes dissatisfied with themselves, who do not feel the wrong which they have done to themselves, and who do not desire a purer and nobler state of mind. The suddenness with which the multitude are thrilled by the voice of fervent eloquence, when it speaks to them of the spiritual world in tones of reality, shows the deep wants of human nature even amidst ignorance and deg- radation. But all men do not give them- selves wholly to outward things. There are those, and not a few, who are more true to their nature, and ought therefore to be regarded as its more faithful rep- resentatives ; and in such the wants of which I have spoken are unfolded with energy. There are those who feel pain- fully the weight of their present imper- fection ; who are fired by rare examples of magnanimity and devotion ; who de- sire nothing so intensely as power over temptation, as elevation above selfish passions, as conformity of will to the in- ward law of duty, as the peace of con- scious rectitude and religious trust ; who would rejoice to lay down the present life for that spotless, bright, disinter- ested virtue, of which they have the type or germ in their own minds. Such men can find no resource but in God, and are prepared to welcome a revela- tion of his merciful purposes as an un- speakable gift. I say, then, that the human mind has wants which nature does not answer. And these are not accidental feelings, unaccountable ca- ig6 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.- prices, but are deep, enduring, and reproduced in all ages under one or another fomi. They breathe through the works of genius ; they burn in the loftiest souls. Here are principles im- planted by God in the highest order of his creatures on earth, to which revela- tion is adapted : and I say, then, that revelation is any thing but hostility to nature. I will offer but one more view in illus- tration of this topic. 1 ask you to con- sider on what principle of human nature the Christian revelation 'is intended to bear and to exert influence, and then to inquire whether the peculiar importance of this principle be not a foundation for peculiar interposition in its behalf. If so, revelation may be said to be a de- mand of the human soul, and its imag- ined incongruity with nature will disap- pear. For what principle or faculty of the mind, then, was Christianity in- tended ? It was plainly not given to enrich the intellect by teaching philos- ophy, or to perfect the imagination and taste by furnishing sublime and beauti- ful models of composition. It was not meant to give sagacity in public life, or skill and invention in common affairs. It was undoubtedly designed to develop all these faculties, but secondarily, and through its influence on a higher prin- ciple. It addresses itself primarily, and is especially adapted, to the moral power in man. It regards and is designed for man as a moral being, endued with con- science or the principle of duty, who is capable of that peculiar form of excel- lence which we call righteousness or virtue, and exposed to that peculiar evil, guilt. Now the question offers itself. Why does God employ such extraordi- nary means for promoting virtue rather than science, for aiding conscience rather than intellect and our other pow- ers ? Is there a foundation in the moral principle for peculiar interpositions in its behalf? I affirm that there is. I affirm that a broad distinction exists between our moral nature and our other capacities. Conscience is the supreme power within us. Its essence, its grand characteristic, is sovereignty. It speaks with a divine authority. Its office is to command, to rebuke, to reward ; and happiness and honor depend on the reverence with which we listen to it. All our other powers become useless, and worse than useless, unless controlled by the principle of duty. Virtue is the supreme good, the supreme beauty, the divinest of God s gifts, the healthy and harmonious unfolding of the soul, and the germ of immortality. It is worth every sacrifice, and has power to trans- mute sacrifices and sufferings into crowns of glory and rejoicing. Sin, vice, is an evil of its own kind, and not to be con- founded with any other. Who does not feel at once the broad distinction be- tween misfortune and crime, between disease of body and turpitude of soul .'' Sin, vice, is war with the highest power in our own breasts, and in the universe. It makes a being odious to himself, and arms against him the principle of recti- tude in God and in all pure beings It poisons or dries up the fountains of enjoyment, and adds unspeakable weight to the necessary pains of life. It is not a foreign evil, but a blight and curse in the very centre of our being. Its natural associates are fear, shame, and self-torture ; and, whilst it robs the present of consolation, it lea-ves the future without hope. Now I say that in this peculiar ruin wrought by morai evil, and in this peculiar worth of moral goodness, we see reasons for special interpositions of God in behalf of virtue, in resistance of sin. It becomes the Infinite Father to manifest peculiar interest in the moral condition and wants of his creatures. Their great and con- tinued corruption is an occasion for peculiar methods of relief ; and a reve- lation given to restore them, and carry them forward to perfection, has an end which justifies, if it does not demand, this signal expression of parental love. The preceding views have been of- fered, not as sufficient to prove that a revelation has been given, but for the purpose of removing the vague notion that it is at war with nature, and of showing its consistency with the spirit and principles of the divine administra- tion. I proceed now to consider the direct and positive proofs of Christian- ity, beginning with some remarks on the nature and sufficiency of the evidence on which it chiefly relies. Christianity sprung up about eighteen hundred years ago. Of course its evi- dences are to be sought in history. We must go back to the time of its birth, and understand the condition in which EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 197 ft. found the world, as well as the cir- cumstances of its origin, progress, and establishment ; and happily, on these ■points, we have all the light necessary to a just judgment We must not imag- me that a religion which bears the date of so distant an age must therefore be involved in obscurity. We know enough of the earliest times of Christianity to place the question of its truth within our reach. The past may be known as truly as the present ; and I deem this principle, so important in the present discussion that I ask your attention to it. The past, I have said, may be known ; nor is this all ; we derive from it our most important knowledge.' Former times are our chief instructors. Our political as well as. religious, institutions., our laws, customs, modes of thinking, arts of life,, have come down from ear- lier ages, and most of them are unintel- ligible without a light borrowed from history. Not only are we able to know the nearest of past ages, or those which touch on our own times, but those which are remote. No educated man doubts any more of the victories of Alexander or Caesar, before Christ, than of Napo- leon's conquests in our own day. So open is our communication with some ages of antiquity, so many are the rec- ords which they have transmitted, that we know them even better than nearer times : and a religion whiich grew up eighteen hundred years ago may be more intelligible and accompanied with more decisive proofs of truth or false- hood, than one which is not separated from us by a fourth part of that dura- tion. From the nature of things, we may and must know much of the past ; for the present has grown out of the past, — is its legacy, fruit, representative, and is deeply impressed with it. Events do not expire at the moment of their occur- rence. Nothing takes place without leaving traces, behind it ; and these are in. many cases so distimct and various as to leave not a doubt of their cause. We all understand, how, in the material world, events testify of themselves to future ages. Should we visit an un- known region, and behold masses of lava covere,d with soil of diflerent de- grees of thickness, and surrounding a blackened crater, we should have as firm .a persuasion of the occurrence of re- mote and successive volcanic eruptions as if we had lived through the ages in which they took place. The chasms of the earth would report how terribly it had been shaken, and the awful might of long-extinguished fires would be written in desolations which ages had failed to efface. Now conquest, and civil and religious revolutions, leave equally tlieir impressions on society, leave institutions, manners, and a vari- ety of monuments, which are inexpli- cable without them, and which, taken together, admit not a doubt of their occurrence.. The past stretches into the future, the present is crowded with it,, and can be interpreted only by the light of history. But besides these effects and remains of earlier times, we have other and more distinct memorials of the past, which, when joined with the former, place it clearly within our knowledge. I refer to books. A book is more than a monu- ment of a preceding age. It is a voice coming to us over the interval of cen- turies. Language, when written, as truly conveys to us another's mind as when spoken. It is a species of per- sonal intercourse. By it the wise of former times give us their minds as really as if by some miracle they were to rise from the dead and communicate with us by speech. From these remarks we learn that Christianity is not placed beyond the reach of our investigations by the re- moteness of its origin ; and they are particularly applicable to the age in which the gospel was first given to the world. Our religion did not spring up before the date of authentic history. Its birth is. not hidden in the obscurity of early and fabulous times. We have abundant means of access to its earliest stages; and, what is very important, the deep and peculiar interest which Christianity has awakened has fixed the earnest attention of the most learned and sagacious, men on the period of its original publication, so that no age of antiquity is so- thoroughly understood. Christianity sprung up at a time when the literature and philosophy of Greece was spread far and wide, and had given a great impulse to the human mind ; and when Rome, by unexampled conquests, 198 EVIDENCES O^ CHRISTIANITY. had become a centre and bond of union to the civilized world and to many half- civilized regions, and had established a degree of communication between distant countries before unknown. We are not, then, left to grope our way by an un- steady light. Our means of information are various and great. We have incon- testable facts in relation to the origin of our religion, from which its truth may be easily deduced. A few of these facts, which form the first steps of our reason- ing on this subject, I will now lay before you. 1. First, then, we know with certainty the th7ie when Christianity was founded. As to this fact, there is and can be no doubt. Heathen and Christian histo- rians speak on this point with one voice. Christianity was first preached in the age of Tiberius. Not a trace of it exists before that period, and afterwards the marks and proofs of its existence are so obvious and acknowledged as to need no mention. Here is one important fact placed beyond doubt. 2. In the next place, we know the place where Christianity sprung up. No one can dispute the country of its birth. Its Jewish origin is not only testified by aU history, but is stamped on its front and woven into its frame. The lan- guage in which it is conveyed carries us at once to Judea. Its name is derived from Jewish prophecy. None but Jews could have written the New Testament. So natural, undesigned, and perpetual are the references and allusions of the writers to the opinions and manners of that people, so accustomed are they to borrow from the same source the metaphors, similitudes, t3Tpes, by which they illustrate their doctrines, that Chris- tianity, as to its outward form, may be said to be steeped in Judaism. We have, then, another established fact. We know where it was born. 3. Again, we know the individual by whom Christianity was founded. We know its Author, and from the nature of the case this fact cannot but be known. The founder of a rehgion is naturally and necessarily the object of general inquiry. Wherever the new faith is carried, the first and most eager questions are, " From whom does it come ? On whose authority does it rest ? " Curiosity is never more intense than in regard to the individual who claims a divine commission and sends forth a new religion. He is the iast man to be overlooked or mistaken. In the case of Christianity especially, its Founder may be said to have been forced on men's notice, for his history forms an essential part of his religion. Christianity is not an abstract doctrine, which keeps its Author out of sight. He is its very soul. It rests on him, and finds its best illustration in his life. These reflections, however, may be spared^ The simple consideration that Christianity must have had an author, and that it has been always ascribed to Jesus, and to no one else, places the great fact which I would establish be- yond doubt. 4. I next observe, that we not only know the Founder of Christianity, but the ministers by whom he published and spread it through the world. A new religion must have propagators, first teachers, and with these it must be- come intimately associated. A com- munity can no more be ignorant as to the teachers who converted it to a new faith, than as to the conqueror who sub- jected it to a new government ; and where the art of writing is known and used for recording events, the latter fact will not more certainly be trans- mitted to posterity than the former. We have the testimony of all ages that the men called Apostles were the first propagators of Christianity, nor have any others been named as sustaining this office ; and it is impossible that, on such a point, such testimony should be false. 5. Again, we know not only when, and where, and by whom Christianity was introduced ; we know, from a great variety of sources, what in the main this religion was, as it came from the hands of its Founder. To assure ourselves on this point, we need not recur to any sacred books. From the age following that of Christ and the Apostles, down to the present day, we have a series, and an almost numberless host, of writers on the subject of Christianity ; and whilst we discover in them a great diversity of opiiiions and opposite inter- pretations of some of Christ's teachings, yet on the whole they so far agree in the great facts of his history, and in certain great principles of his religion, that we cannot mistake as to tlie general EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 character of the system which he taught. There is not a shadow of reason for the opinion that the original system which Jesus taught was lost, and a new one substituted and fastened on the world in his name. The many and great cor- ruptions of Christianity did not and could not hide its principal features. The greatest corruptions took place in the century which followed the death of the Apostles, when certain wild and visionary sects endeavored to establish a union between the new religion and the false philosophy to which they had been wedded in their heathen state. You may judge of their character and claims, when I tell you that they gen- erally agreed in believing that the God who made the world, and who was wor- shipped by the Jews, was not the su- preme God, but an inferior and imperfect deity, and that matter had existed from eternity, and was essentially and un- changeably evil. Yet these sects en- deavored to sustain themselves on the writings which the great body of Chris- tians received and honored as the works of the Apostles ; and, amidst their de- lusions, they recognized and taught the miracles of Christ, his resurrection, and the most important principles of his re- ligion ; so that the general nature of Christianity, as it came from its Found- er, may be ascertained beyond a doubt. Here another great point is fixed. 6. 1 have now stated to you several particulars relating to Christianity which admit no doubt ; and these indisputa- ble facts are of great weight in a dis- cussion of the Christian evidences. There is one point more, of impor- tance, which cannot be settled so expe- ditiously as these. 1 hope, however, enough may be said to place it beyond doubt, without exceeding the limits of a discourse ; and I invite to it your serious attention. I say, then, that we not only know in general what Chris- tianity was at its first promulgation ; but we know precisely what its first propagators taught, for we- have their writings. We have their religion under their own hands. We have particu- lariy four narratives of the life, works, and words of their Master, which put us in possession of his most private as well as public teaching. It is true that without those writings we should still have strong arguments for the truth of Christianity ; but we should be left in doubt as to some of its important prin- ciples ; and its internal evidence, which corroborates, and, as some think, ex- ceeds the external, would be very much impaired. The possession of the writ- ings of the first propagators of the gos- pel must plainly render us great aid in judging of its claims. These writings, I say, we have, and this point I would now establish. I am aware that the question to which I now ask your attention is generally confined to professed students. But it is one on which men of good sense are competent to judge, and its great im- portance gives it a claim to the serious consideration of every Christian. The question is, whether the four Gospels are genuine, — that is, whether they were written by those to whom they are ascribed. To answer it, let us consider how we determine the genuineness of books in general. I begin with the obvious remark that to know the author of a work, it is not necessary that we should be eye-wit- nesses of its composition. Perhaps of the numberless publications of the pres- ent day, we have not seen one growing under the pen of the writer. By far the greater number come to us across the ocean, and yet we are as confident in regard to their authors as if we had actually seen them first committed to paper. The ascription of a book to an individual, during his life, by those who are interested in him, and who have the best means of knowing the truth, removes all doubts as to its author. A strong and wide-spread conviction of this kind must have a cause, and can only be explained by the actual produc- tion of the work by the reputed writer. It should here be remembered that there is a strong disposition in men to ascertain the author of an important and interesting work. We have had a remarkable illustration of this in our own times. The author of "Waver- ley " saw fit to wrap himself for a time in mystery ; and what was the conse- quence ? No subject in politics or science was agitated more generally than the question to whom the work belonged. It was not only made a topic in almost every periodical publi- cation, but one book was expressly written to solve the problem. The in- 200 EVIDENCES OF CHniSTIANITY. stance, I know, was remarkable ; but this inquisitiveness in regard to books Is a principle of our nature, and is par- ticularly active when the book in de- bate is a work of singular authority. I have spoken of the confidence which we feel as to the authors of books published in our own times. But our certainty is not confined to these. Every reading man is as sure that Hume and Robertson wrote the histories which bear their names, as that Scott has in our own time sent out the " Life of Bonaparte." Those emi- nent men were born more than a hun- dred years ago, and they died before the birth of most to whom I speak ; but the communication between their times and our own is so open and vari- ous, that we know their literary labors as well as those of the present day. Not a few persons now living have had intercourse with some of the contem- poraries of these historians ; and through this channel in particular we of this generation have the freest access to the preceding, and know its convictions in regard to the authors of interesting books as fully as if we had lived in it ourselves. That the next age will have the same communication with the pres- ent as the present has with the past, and that these convictionsi of our pre- decessors will be transmitted by us to our immediate successors, you will eas- ily comprehend ; and you will thus learn the respect which is due to the testi- mony of the third generation on such a subject. In what has now been said, we see with what confidence and certainty we determine the authors of writings pub- lished in our own age or in the times nearest our own. These remarks may be easily applied to the productions of antiquity. When the question arises, whether an ancient book was written by the individual whose name it bears, we must inquire into the opinion of his contemporaries, or of those who suc- ceeded his contemporaries so nearly as to have intimate communication with them. The competency of these to a just judgment on the subject we have seen ; and if they have transmitted their convictions to us in undisputed writ- ings, it ought to be decisive. On this testimony, we ascribe many ancient books to their authors with the firmest faith ; and, in truth, we receive as genu- ine many works of antiquity on far in- ferior proofs. There are many books of which no notice can be found for several ages- after the time of their re- puted authors. Still the fact that, as soon as they are named, they are as- cribed undoubtingly, and by general consent, to certain authors, is esteemed a sufiicient reason for regarding them as their productions, unless some oppo- site proof can be adduced. This gen- eral reception of a work as having come from a. particular writer is an effect which requires a cause ; and the most natural and obvious explanation of his being named, rather than any other man, is that he actually composed it. I now proceed to apply these princi- ples to the four histories of Christ, com- monly called Gospels. The question is. What testimony respecting their au- thors' has come down to us from the age of their reputed authors, or from times so near it and so connected with it, as to be faithful representatives of its convictions ? By this testimony, as we have seen, the genuineness of the books must be decided. And I begin with admitting that no evidence on the subject is to be derived from contem- porary writers No author, living in the age of the first propagators of Christianity, has named the Gospels. The truth is, that no undisputed writ- ings of their immediate converts have been- preserved. A few tracts, bearing the name of men acquainted with the Apostles, have indeed come down to us ; but so much uncertainty hangs over their origin that I am unwilhng to ground on them any reasoning. Nor ought we to wonder that the works of private Christians of the primitive age are wanting to us ; for that was an age of persecution, when men were called to die rather than ■write for their religion. I suppose, too, that during the times of the Apostles, little importance was at- tached to any books but such as were published or authorized by these emi- nent men; and, of course, what was written by others was littl« circulated, and soon passed away. The undisputed writings of th« early Christians begin about seventy years after the times of the Apostles. At that period there probably remained none of the first converts or contempo- EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 201 raries of the Apostles. But there were livmg not a few who had been acquainted with the last survivors of that honored g'eneration. When the Apostles died, rthey must have left behind a multitude who had known them ; and of these not a few must have continued many years, and must have had intercourse with the new generation which sprung up after the apostolic age, Now in the times of this generation, the series of Christian authors begins. Although, then, we have no productions of the apostolic age to bear witness to the Gospels, we have writings from the ages which immedi- ately followed it, and which, from their connection with it, ought, as we have seen, to be regarded as most credible witnesses on such a subject. What, then, do these writings teach ? I an- swer, their testimony is clear and full. We learn fr»m them not only that the Gospels existed in those times, but that they were widely diffused, that they were received as the writings of the men whose names they bear, and that they were re- garded with a confidence and veneration yielded to no other books. They are quoted as books given by their revered authors to the Christian community, to be public and enduring records of the religion ; and they are spoken of as read in the assemblies which were held for the inculcation and extension of the faith, I ask you to weigh this testi- mony. It comes to us from times con- nected intimately with the first age. Had the Gospels been invented and first circulated among the generation which succeeded the Apostles, could that gen- eration have received them as books known and honored before their time, and as the most authoritative and preci- ous records transmitted to them from their fathers and predecessors ? The case may seem too plain to require ex- planation ; but as many are unaccus- tomed to inquiries of this kind, I will Offer an example. You well know that nearly a century ago a great religious excitement was spread through this country chiefly by the ministry of Wliite- field. Suppose, now, that four books were at this moment to come forth, bearing the names of four of the most distinguished men of that period, of Whitefield, of the venerable Edwards, and of two others intimately associated with them in their religious labors ; and suppose these books not only to furnish narratives of what then took place, but to contain principles and rules urged with all possible earnestness and au- thority on the disciples or admirers of these religious leaders. Do you think it possible that their followers of the present day, and the. public, could be made to believe that these books had been published by their pretended au- thors, had been given as standards to a religious community, and had been handed down as venerated books, when no such works had been heard of be- fore ?. This is but a faint illustration ; for Whitefield and Edwards are names of little weight or authority, compared with what the Apostles possessed in the primitive church. We have, then, strong and sufficient reasons for believing that the histories called Gospels were received, in the times of the Apostles, as works of those whose names they bear ; and were handed down as theirs with veneration by their contemporaries. Will any say that all this may be true, but that, during the lives of the Apostles, books forged in their names may ihave obtained general currency ? To this extravagant suppo- sition it would be sufficient to reply, ac- cording to my previous remarks, that the general ascription of a book to an author during his life is the ground on which the genuineness of the most unques- tioned works depends. But I would add that this evidence is singularly con- clusive in the present case. The orig- inal propagators of Christianity, to whom the Gospels were ascribed, were, from, their office, among the pubUc men of their' age. They must have travelled extensively. They must have been con- sulted by inhabitants of various coun- tries on the subject of the new religion. They must have been objects of deep interest to the first converts. They lived in the world's eye. Their move- ments, visits, actions, words, and ^vrit- ings must have awakened attention. Books from their hands must have pro- duced a great sensation. We cannot conceive a harder task than to impose writings, forged in their name, on Chris- tians and Christian communities thus intimately connected with them, and so alive to their efforts for the general cause. The opportunities of detecting the falsehood were abundant ; and to 202 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. imagine falsehood to prosper under such circumstances argues a strange igno- rance of hterary history and of human nature. Let me add, that the motives of the first Christians to ascertain distinctly whether writings ascribed to the Apos- tles were truly theirs, were the strongest which can be conceived. I have men- tioned, in my previous remarks, the solicitude of the world to learn the author of "Waverley." The motive was mere curiosity ; and yet to what earnest inquiries were multitudes im- pelled. The name of the author was of little or no moment. The book was the same, its portraits equally vivid, its de- velopments of the human heart equally true and powerful, whether the author were known or not. So it is with most works. Books of science, philosophy, morals, and polite literature, owe their importance and authority, not to their writers, but to their contents. Now, the four Gospels were different in this re- spect. They were not the same to the first converts, come from whom they might. If written by Apostles or by their associates, they had an authority and sacredness which could belong to them on no other condition. They became books of laws to the Christian community, became binding on their consciences and lives. To suppose such books received blindly and with- out inquiry, by great numbers who had all the means of ascertaining their true origin, is to suppose the first converts insane or idiots, — a charge which I be- lieve their worst enemies will not think of urging against them, and which the vast superiority of their religious and moral system to all the philosophical systems of the times abundantly disproves. I have now finished what is called the historical or external evidence of the genuineness of the four Gospels, — that is, the evidence drawn from their being received and revered as the writings of the Apostles in the first and succeeding ages of Christianity. But before leav- ing this head, I would notice a difficulty which may press on some minds. I suppose that many of you have -heard that very early, probably about the be- ginning of the second century, writings were forged in the name of the Apos- tles ; and some may ask why the four Gospels may not belong to this descrip- tion. The answer is, that the Gospels, as we have seen, were received and hon- ored by the great body of Christians, in the first and succeeding ages of Christi- anity, as writings of Apostles or their as- sociates. The forgeries are known to be forgeries, because they were not so re- ceived, because they were held in no ven- eration, but were rejected as fictitious by the Christian community. Here is a broad line of distinction. It must not surprise us that, in the great excitement produced by the first publication and triun^Dhs of Christianity, a variety of extravagant notions should spring up, and that attempts should be made to blend the new religion with established systems ; and as the names of the first propagators of the gospel were held in peculiar reverence, we cannot wonder that the leaders of sects should strive to attach an apostolic sanction to their opinions, by sending abroad partly true and partly false accounts of the preach- ing of these eminent men. Whether these writings were sent forth as com- positions of the Apostles, or only as records of their teaching, made by their hearers, is a question open to debate ; but as to their origin there can be littie doubt. We can account for their exist- ence, and for the degree of favor which they obtained. They were generally written to give authority to the dreams or speculations of some extravagant sects, to which they were very much confined, and with which most of them passed away. There is not a shadow of reason for confounding with these our Gospels, which were spread from the beginning through the Christian world, and were honored and transmitted as the works of the venerated men by whose names they were called. Having now given the historical argu- ment in favor of the genuineness of the Gospels, that is, in favor of their being written by their reputed authors, I now add that there are several presumptive and internal proofs of the same truth, which, taken alone, have great weight, and, when connected with the preceding, form an amount of evidence not easily withstood. I have time to glance at only a few of these. It is a presumption in favor of the claims of an author, that the book as- cribed to him has never been assigned to any other individual. Now I am not EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 203 aware that unbelief has in any age named any individuals to whom the Gospels maybe traced rather than to those whose names they bear. We are not called upon to choose between different writers. In common cases, this absence of rival claims is considered as decisive in favor of the reputed author, unless the books themselves give ground to suspect an- other hand. Why shall not this prin- ciple be applied to the Gospels as well as to all other works ? Another presumption in favor of the belief that these histories were written by the first propagators of Christianity, arises from the consideration that such books were to be expected from them. It is hardly conceivable that the Apos- tles, wliose zeal carried abroad their system through so many nations, and who lived in an age of reading and writing, should leave their doctrines to tradition, should neglect the ordinary pre- caution of embodying them in the only permanent form, the only one in which they could be accurately transmitted, and by which all other systems were preserved. It is reasonable to sujopose that they wrote what they taught; and if so, it is hardly possible that their writings should be lost. Their accounts must have been received and treasured up just as we know the Gospels were cherished ; and hence arises a strong presumption in favor of the genuineness of these books. Again, these books carry one strong mark of having been written in the time of the Apostles. They contain no trace of later times, nothing to indicate that the authors belonged to another age. Now, to those of you who are acquainted with such subjects, it is hardly necessary to observe how difficult it is for a writer to avoid betraying the period in wliich he lives; and the cause is very obvious. Every age has its peculiarities, — has manners, events, feelings, words, phrases of its own ; and a man brought up among these falls so naturally under their influ- ence, and incorporates them so fully with his own mind, that they break out and manifest themselves, almost necessarily and without his consciousness, in his words and. writings. The present makes an impression incomparably more vivid than the past, and accordingly traces of the real age of a writer may almost always be discovered by a critical eye, however anxious he may be to assume the style and character of a preceding age. Now the Gospels betray no marks of the feelings, manners, contentions, events of a period later than that in which the Apostles lived ; and when we consider that, with the exception of Luke's history, they have all the appear- ance of having come from plain men, unused to composition, this argument applies to them with peculiar force. Under this head, I might place before you the evidence of the genuineness of these books derived from the language, dialect, idiom, in which they are written. You can easily understand that by these helps the country and age of a writing may often be traced ; but the argument belongs to the learned. It may, how- ever, be satisfactory to know, that the profoundest scholars see in the dialect and idiom of the Gospels a precise accordance with what might be expected of Jews, writing in the age of the Apos- tles. Another internal proof, and one within the reach of all, may be gathered from the style and character of the evangelical narratives. They are written with the simplicity, minuteness, and ease which are the natural tones of truth, which belong to writers thoroughly acquainted with their subjects, and writing from reality. You discover in them nothing of the labor, caution, and indistinctness which can scarcely be escaped by men who are assuming a character not their own, and aiming to impose on the world. There is a difference which we have all discerned and felt, though we cannot describe it, between an honest, simple- hearted witness, who tells what he has seen or is intimately acquainted with, and the false witness, who affects an intimate knowledge of events and indi- viduals, which are in whole or in part his own fabrication. Truth has a native frankness, an unaffected freedom, a style and air of its own, and never were narra- tives more strongly characterized by these than the Gospels. It is a striking circumstance in these books, that whilst the life and character which they portray are the most extraordinary in history, the style is the most artless. There is no straining for epithets or for elevation of language to suit the dignity of the great personage who is the subject. You hear plain men teUing you what 204 EVIDENCES. OF CHRISTIANITY. they know, of a. character which they venerated too much to think of adorning or extoUing. It is also worthy of remark, that the character of Jesus, though the most pecuUar and exalted in history, though the last to be invented and the hardest to be sustained, is yet unfolded through a great variety of details and conditions with perfect unity and con- sistency. The strength of this proof can only be understood by those who are sufSciently acquainted with Uterary history to appreciate the difficulty of accomplishing a consistent and success- ful forgery. Such consistency is, in the present case, an almost infallible test. Suppose four writers, of a later age, to have leagued together in. the scheme of personating the first propagators of Christianity, and of weaving, in their name, the histories of their Master's life. Removed as these men would have been from the original, and having no model or type of his character in the elevation of their own minds, they must have portrayed him with an unsteady hand, must have marred their work with incongruous features, must have brought down their hero on some occasion to the ordinary ^views and feelings of men, and in particular must have been warped in their selection and representation of in- cidents by the private purpose which led them to this singular co-operation. That four writers, under such circum- stances, should sustain, throughout so' peculiar and elevated a cliaracter as Jesus, and should harmonize with each other in the delineation, would be a prodigy which no genius, however pre- eminent, could achieve. I say, then, that the narratives bear strong internal marks of having been drawn from the living original, by those who had the best means, of knowing his character and life. So various, strong, sufficient are the proofs, that the four Gospels are the works, of the first preachers of Chris- tianity, whose name they bear.. I will only add that tlie genuineness of few ancient books is supported by proofs, equally strong. Most of the works which have come down to us from an- tiquity, and which are ascribed to their reputed writers with undoubting con- fidence, are so ascribed on evidence iaiferior to that on which the claims of the Evangelists rest. On this point, therefore, not a. doubt should remain. Here I pause. The proofs of Chris- tianity which are involved in or founded on the facts now established, will be the subjects of future discussion. Part II. I HAVE now stated some of the grea* facts relating to the origin of Christian- ity of which we have clear and full proof. We know when and where this religion sprung up. We know its Author, and the men whom he employed as the first propagators of his doctrine. We know the great features of the religion as it was originally taught ; and still more, we have the writings of its first teachers, by which its precise character is placed beyond doubt. I now proceed to lay before you some of the arguments in support of Christianity which are in- volved in or are founded on these facts. I must confine myself to a few, and will select those to which some justice may be done in the compass of a discourse. I. I believe Christianity to be true, or to have come from God, because it seems to me impossible- to trace it to any other origin. It must have had a cause, and no other adequate cause can be assigned. The incongruity between this religion and all the circumstances amidst which it grew tip is so: remark- able,, that we are compelled to look beyond and above this world for its explanation. When I go back to the. origin of Christianity, and place myself in the age and country of its birth, I can find nothing in the opinions, of men, or in the state of society, which can account for its beginning or diffusion.. There was no power on earth to create oi uphold such a system. There was noth- ing congenial with it in Judaism, in heathenism, or in the state of society among the most cultivated communities.. If you study the religions, governments:, and philosophical systems of that age^ you will discover in- them not even a leaning towards Christianity. It sprung up in opposition to all, making no com- promise with human prejudice or pas- sion v and it sprung up, not only superior to all, but possessing at its very begin- ning a perfection which has been the admiration of ages, and which, instead of being dimmed by time, has come forth more brightly, in proportion ta the progress of the human mind. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. .205 I know, indeed, that at the origin of our religion, the old heathen worship had fallen into disrepute among the enlightened classes through the Roman Empire, and was gradually losing its hold on the populace. Accordingly, some have pretended that Christianity grew from the ruins of the ancient faith. But this is not true ; for the decline of the heathen systems was the product of causes singularly adverse to the orig- ination of such a system as Christianity. One cause was the monstrous depravity of the age, which led multitudes to an utter scorn of religion in all its forms and restraints, and which prepared others to exchange their old worship for still grosser and more licentious ■superstitions, particularly for the mag- ical arts of Egypt. Surely this corrup- tion of manners, this wide-wasting moral pestilence, will not be considered by any as a germ of the Christian religion. Another principal agent in loosening the foundations of the old systems was philosophy, — a noble effort, indeed, of the human intellect, but one which did nothing to prepare the way for Chris- tianity. The most popular systems of philosophy at the birth of Christianity were the Sceptical and the Epicurean, the former of which turned religion into a jest, denied the possibility of arriving at truth, and cast the mind on an ocean of doubt in regard to every subject of inquiry ; whilst the latter placed hap- piness in ease, inculcated a calm indif- ference both as to this world and the next, and would have set down the Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice, of suffering for truth and duty, as absolute insanity. Now I ask in what single point do these systems touch Christi- anity, or what impulse could they have given to its invention? There was, indeed, another philosophical sect of a nobler character, — I mean the Stoical. This maintained that virtue was the supreme good, and it certainly nurtured some firm and lofty spirits amidst the despotism which then ground all classes in the dust. But the self-reliance, sternness, apathy, and pride of the Stoic, his defiance and scorn of man- kind, his want of sympathy with human suffering, and his extravagant exagger- ations of his own virtue, placed this sect in singular opposition to Chris- tianity ; so that our religion might as soon have sprung from Scepticism and Epicureanism, as from Stoicism. There was another system, if it be worthy of the name, which prevailed in Asia, and was* not unknown to the Jews, often called the oriental philosophy. But this, though certainly an improvement on the common heathenism, was visionary and mystical, and placed happiness in an intuition or immediate perception of God, which was to be gained by con- templation and ecstasies, by emaciation of the body, and desertion of the world. I need not tell you how infinitely re- moved was the practical, benevolent spirit of Christianity from this spurious sanctity and profitless enthusiasm. I repeat it, then, that the various causes which were silently operating against the established heathen systems in the time of Christ had no tendency to sug- gest and spread such a rehgion as he brought, but were as truly hostile to it as the worst forms of heathenism. /We cannot find, then, the origin of Christianity in the heathen world. Shall we look for it in the Jewish ? This topic is too familiar to need much exposition. You know the character, feelings, ex- pectations of the descendants of Abra- ham at the appearing of Jesus ; and you need not be told that a system more opposed to the Jewish mind than that which he taught cannot be imagined. There was nothing friendly to it in the soil or climate of Judea. As easily might the luxuriant trees of our forest spring from the sands of an Arabian desert. There was never perhaps a national character so deeply stamped as the Jew- ish. Ages after ages of unparalleled suffering have done little to wear away its indelible features. In the time of Jesus the whole influence of education and religion was employed to fix it in every member of the state. In the bosom of this community, and among its humblest classes, sprung up Chris- tianity, — a religion as unfettered by Jewish prejudices, as untainted by the earthly, narrow views of the age, as if it had come from another world. Judaism was all around it, but did not mar it by one trace, or sully its brightness by a' single breath. Can we find, then, the cause of Christianity in the Jewish any more than in the heathen world ?/ Christianity, I maintain, was not th« growth of any of the circumstances, 206 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. principles, or feelings of the age in which it appeared. In truth, one of the great distinctions of the Gospel is, that it did not grow. The conception which filled the mind of Jesus, of a religion more spiritual, generous, comprehensive, and unworldly than Judaism, and des- tined to take its place, was not of grad- ual formation. We detect no signs of it, and no efforts to realize it, before his time ; nor is there an appearance of its having been gradually matured by Jesus himself. Christianity was delivered from the first in its full proportions, in a style of singular freedom and boldness, and without a mark of painful elaboration. This suddenness with which this religion broke forth, this maturity of the system at the very moment of its birth, this ab- sence of gradual development, seems to me a strong mark of its divine original. If Christianity be a human invention, then I can be pointed to something in the history of the age which impelled and fitted the mind of its author to its production ; then I shall be able to find some germ of it, some approximation to it, in the state of things amidst which it first appeared. How was it that from thick darkness there burst forth at once meridian hght ? Were I told that the sciences of the civilized world had sprung up to perfection at once, amidst a barbarous horde, I should pronounce it incredible. Nor can I easily believe that Christianity, — the religion of unbound- ed love, a religion which broke down the barrier between Jew and Gentile, and the barriers between nations, which pro- claimed one Universal Father, which abolished forms and substituted the wor- ship of the soul, which condemned alike the false greatness of the Roman and the false holiness of the Jew, and which taught an elevation of virtue that the growing knowledge of succeeding ages has made more admirable, — I say, I cannot easily believe that such a religion was suddenly, immediately struck out by human ingenuity, among a people dis- tinguished by bigotry and narrowness of spirit, by superstitious reliance on outward worship, by hatred and scorn of other nations, and by the proud, im- patient hope of soon bending all nations to their sway. Christianity, I repeat it, was not the frowth of the age in which it appeared, t had no sympathy with that age. It was the echo of no sect or people. It stood alone at the moment of its birth. It used not a word of conciliation. It stooped to no error or passion. It had its own tone, — the tone of authority and superiority to the world. It struck at the root of what was everywhere called glory, reversed the judgments of all for- mer ages, passed a condemning sentence on the idols of this world's admiration, and held forth, as the perfection of hu- man nature, a spirit of love, so pure and divine, so free and full, so mild and for- giving, so invincible in fortitude yet so tender in its sympathies, that even now few comprehend it in its extent and elevation. Such a religion had not its origin in this world. I have thus sought to unfold one of the evidences of Christianity. Its in- congruity with the age of its birth, its freedom from earthly mixtures, its orig- inal, unborrowed, solitary greatness, and the suddenness with which it broke forth amidst the general gloom, these are to me strong indications of its divine de- scent. I cannot reconcile them with a human origin. II. Having stated the argument in favor of Christianity, derived from the impossibility of accounting for it by the state of the world at the time of its birth, I proceed, in the second place, to observe that it cannot be accounted for by any of the motives which instigate men to the fabrication of rehgions. Its aims and objects are utterly irreconcil- able with imposture. They are pure, lofty, and worthy of the most illustrious delegate of heaven. This argument de- serves to be unfolded with some par- ticularity. Men act from motives. The invent- ors of religions have purposes to answer by them. Some systems have been framed by legislators to procure rever- ence to their laws, to bow the minds of the people to the civil power ; and some have been forged by priests, to establish their sway over the multitude, to form themselves into a dominant caste, and to extort the wealth of the industrious. Now, I affirm that Christianity cannot be ascribed to any selfish, ambitious, earthly motive. It is suited to no pri- vate end. Its purpose is generous and elevated, and thus bears witness to its heavenly origin. The great object which has seduced EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 207 men to pretend to inspiration, and to spread false religions, has been power, in one form or another, — sometimes political power, sometimes spiritual, sometimes both. Is Christianity to be explained by this selfish aim ? I answer. No. I affirm that the love of power is the last principle to be charged on the Founder of our religion. ChristiAiity is distinguished by nothing more than by its earnest enforcement of a meek and humble spirit, and by its uncompromis- ing reprobation of that passion for do- minion which had in all ages made the many the prey of the few, and had been worshipped as the attribute and impulse of the greatest minds. Its tone on this subject was original, and altogether its own. Jesus felt, as none had felt before, and as few feel now, the baseness of self- ish ambition, and the grandeur of that benevolence which waives every mark of superiority, that it may more effectually bless mankind. He taught this les- son, not only in the boldest language, but, accommodating himself to the em- blematical mode of religious instruction prevalent in the East, he set before his disciples a little child as their pattern, and himself washed their feet. His whole life was a commentary on his teaching. Not a trace of the passion for distinction and sway can be detected in the artless narratives of his historians. He wore no badge of superiority, ex- acted no signs of homage, coveted no attentions, resented no neglect, He discouraged the ruler who prostrated himself before him with flattering salu- tations, but received with affection- ate sensibiHty the penitent who bathed his feet with her tears. He lived with his obscure disciples as a friend, and mixed freely with all ranks of the com- munity. He placed himself in the way of scorn, and advanced to meet a death more suited than any other imaginable event to entail infamy on his name. Stronger marks of an infinite superiority to what the world calls glory cannot be conceived than we meet in the history of Jesus. _ I have named two kinds of power, po- litical and spiritual, as the ordinary ob- jects of false religions. I wish to show you more particularly the elevation of Christianity above these aims. That the gospel was not framed for political purposes is too plain to require proof ; but its peculiarity in this respect is not sufficiently considered. In ancient times religion was everywhere a national con- cern. In Judea the union between re- ligion and government was singularly close ; and political sovereignty was one of the chief splendors with which the Jew- ish imagination had surrounded the ex- pected Messiah. That in such an age and country a religion should arise which hardly seems to know that gov- ernment exists ; which makes no refer- ence to it except in a few general incul- cations of obedience to the civil powers ; which says not a word nor throws out a hint of allying itself with the state ; which assumes to itself no control of political affairs, and intermeddles with no iJublic concerns ; which has no ten- dency, however indirect, to accumulate power in parti ;ular hands; which pro- vides no form of national worship as a substitute for those which it was in- tended to destroy ; and which treats the distinctions of rank and office as worth- less in comparison with moral influence and an unostentatious charity ; — that such a religion should spring up in such a state of the world is a remarkable fact. We here see a broad line between Chris- tianity and other systems, and a striking proof of its originality and elevation. Other systems were framed for commu- nities ; Christianity approached men as individuals. It proposed, not the glory of the state, but the perfection of the individual mind, So far from being contrived to build up political power, Christianity tends to reduce and gradu- ally to supplant it, by teaching men to substitute the sway of truth and love for menace and force, by spreading through all ranks a feeling of brotherhood alto- gether opposed to the spirit of domina- tion, and by establishing principles which nourish self-respect in every human be- ing, and teach the obscurest to look with an undazzled eye on the most powerful of their race. Christianity bears no mark of the hands of a politician. One of its main purposes is to extinguish the very spirit which the ambitious statesman most anxiously cherishes, and on which he founds his success. It proscribes a narrow patriotism, shows no mercy to the spirit of conquest, requires its disci- ples to love other countries as truly as their own, and enjoins a spirit of peace 208 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ajid forbearance in language so broad and earnest, that not a few of its profes- sors consider war in every shape and under all circumstances as a crime. The hostility between Christianity and all the political maxims of that age cannot easily be comprehended at the present day. No doctrines were then so rooted as that con- quest was the chief interest of a nation, and that an exclusive patriotism was the first and noblest of social virtues. Chris- tianity, in loosening the tie which bound man to the state, that it might connect liim with his race, opposed itself to what was deemed the vital principle of na- tional safety and grandeur, and com- menced a political revolution as original and unsparing as the religious and moral reform at which it aimed. ~ Christianity, then, was not framed for political purposes. But I shall be asked whether it stands equally clear of the charge of being intended to accumulate .spiritual power. Some may ask, whether its Founder was not instigated by the passion for religious domination, — whether he did not aim to subdue men's minds, to dictate to the faith of the world, to make himself the leader of a spreading sect, to stamp his name as a prophet on human history, and thus to secure the prostration of multitudes to his will, more abject and entire than kings and conquerors can achieve ? To this I might reply by what I have said of the character of Jesus, and of -the spirit of his religion. It is plain that the Founder of Christianity had a perception quite peculiar to himself of the moral beauty and greatness of a disinterested, meek, and self-sacrificing spirit ; and such a person was not likely to meditate the subjugation of the world to himself. But, leaving this topic, I observe that, on examining Christianity, we discover none of the features of a religion framed for spiritual domination. One of the infallible marks of such a system is, that it makes some terms with the passions and prejudices of men. It does not — cannot — provoke and ally against itself all the powers, whether civil or religious, of the world. Christianity was throughout uncompro- mising and exasperating, and threw it- self in the way of hatred and scorn. Such a system was any thing but a scheme for seizing the spiritual empire of the world. There is another mark of a religion which springs from the love of spiritual domination. It infuses a servile spirit. Its author, desirous to stamp his name and image on his followers, has an inter- est in curbing the free action of their minds, imposes on them arbitrary doc- trines, fastens on them badges which may separate them from others, and besets them with rules, forms, and dis- tinctive observances, which may perpet- ually remind them of their relation to their chief. Now I see notliing in Christianity of this enslaving legisla- tion. It has but one aim, which is, not to exalt its teacher, but to improve the disciple ; not to fasten Christ's name on mankind, but to breathe into them his spirit of universal love. Christianity is not a religion of forms. It has but two ceremonies, as simple as they are ex- pressive ; and these hold so subordinate a place in the New Testament that some of the best Christians question or deny their permanent obligation. Neither is it a narrow creed, or a mass of doctrines which find no support in our rational nature. It may be summed up in a few great, universal, immutable principles, which reason and conscience, as far as they are unfolded, adopt and rejoice in as their own everlasting laws, and which open perpetually enlarging views to the mind. As far as I am a Christian, I am free. My religion lays on me not one chain. It does not prescribe a certain range for my mind beyond which nothing can be learned. It speaks of God as the Universal Father, and sends me to all his works for instruction. It does not hem me round with a mechanical ritual, does not enjoin forms, attitudes, and hours of prayer, does not descend to details of dress and food, does not put on me one outward badge. It teaches and enkindles love to God, but com- mands no precise expressions of this sentiment. It prescribes prayer; but lays the chief stress on the prayer of the closet, and treats aU worship as worthless but that of the mind and heart. It teaches us to do good, but leaves us to devise for ourselves the means by which we may best serve mankind. In a word, the whole relig- ion of Christ may be summed up in the love of God and of mankind, and it leaves the individual to cherish and express this spirit by the methods most EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 209 accordant with his own condition and peculiar mind. Christianity is eminently the religion of freedom. The views which it gives of the parental, impartial, universal goodness of God, and of the equal right of every human being to inquire into his will, and its inculcations of candor, forbearance, and mutual re- spect, contribute alike to freedom of thought and enlargement of the heart. I repeat it, Christianity lays on me no chains. It is any thing but a contriv- ance for spiritual domination. I am aware that I shall be told that Christianity, if judged by its history, has no claim to the honorable title of a re- ligion of liberty. I shall be told that no system of heathenism ever weighed more oppressively on men's souls ; that the Christian ministry has trained tyrants, who have tortured, now the body with material fire, and now the mind with the dread of fiercer flames, and who have proscribed and punished free thought and free speech as the worst of crimes. I have no disposition to soften the feat- ures of priestly oppression ; but I say, let not Christianity be made to answer for it. Christianity gives its ministers no such power. They have usurped it in the face of the sternest prohibitions, and in opposition to the whole spirit of their Master. Christianity institutes no priesthood, in the original and proper sense of that word. It has not the name of priest among its oflScers ; nor does it confer a shadow of priestly power. It invests no class of men with peculiar sanctity, ascribing to their intercessions a special influence over God, or sus- pending the salvation of the private Christian on ceremonies which they alone can administer. Jesus, indeed, ap- pointed twelve of his immediate disciples to be the great instruments of propagat- ing his religion ; but nothing can be simpler than their office. They went forth to make known through all nations the life, death, resurrection, and teach- ings of Jesus Christ ; and this truth they spread freely and without reserve. They did not give it as a mystery to a few who were to succeed them in their office, and according to whose direction it was to be imparted to others. They communicated it to the whole body of converts, to be their equal and common property, thus securing to all the invalu- able rights of the mind. It is true, they appointed ministers or teachers in the va- rious congregations which they formed ; and in that early age, when the religion was new and unknown, and when oral teaching was the only mode of com- municating it, there seems to have been no way for its diffusion but this appoint- ment of the most enlightened disciples to the work of instruction. But the New Testament nowhere intimates that these men were to monopoHze the priv- ilege of studying their religion or of teaching it to others. Not a single man can claim under Christianity the right to interpret it exclusively, or to impose his interpretation on his brethren. The Christian minister enjoys no nearer ac- cess to God, and no promise of more immediate illumination, than other men. He is not intrusted with the Christian records more than they, and by these records it is both their right and duty to try his instructions. I have here pointed out a noble peculiarity of Christianity. It is the religion of liberty. It is in no degree tainted with the passion for spirit- ual power. " Call no man master, for ye are all brethren," is its free and gener- ous inculcation, and to every form of freedom it is a friend and defence. We have seen that Christianity is not to be traced to the love of power, that master passion in the authors of false religions. I add, that no other object of a selfish nature could have led to its in- vention. The Gospel is not of this world. At the time of its origin no in- genuity could have brought it to bear on any private or worldly interest. Its spirit is self-denial. Wealth, ease, and honor it counts among the chief perils of life, and it insists on no duty more earnestly than on that of putting them to hazard and casting them fro* us if the cause of truth and humanity so re- quire. And these maxims were not mere speculations or rhetorical common- places in the times of Christ and his Apostles. The first propagators of Christianity were called upon to prac- tise what they preached, to forego every interest on its account. They could not but foreknow that a religion so uncom- promising and pure would array against them the world. They did not merely take the chance of suffering, but were sure that the whole weight of scorn, pain, and worldly persecution would de- scend on their heads. How inexplicable, 14 2IO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. then, is Christianity by any selfish ob- ject or any low aim ! The Gospel has but one object, and that too plain to be mistaken. In read- ing the New Testament, we see the greatest simplicity of aim. There is no lurking purpose, no by-end, betraying itself through attempts to disguise it. A ' perfect singleness of design runs through the records of the religion, and is no mean evidence of their truth. This end of Christianity is the moral perfection of the human soul. It aims and it tends, in all its doctrines, pre- cepts, and promises, to rescue men from the power of moral evil ; to unite them to God by filial love, and to one another in the bonds of brotherhood ; to inspire them with a philanthropy as meek and unconquerable as that of Christ ; and to kindle intense desire, hope, and pursuit of celestial and im- mortal virtue And now, I ask, what is the plain inference from these views ? If Chris- tianity can be traced to no selfish or worldly motive, — if it was framed, not for dominion, not to compass any pri- vate purpose, but to raise men above themselves, and to conform them to God, — can we help pronouncing it wor- thy of God ? And to whom but to God can we refer its origin ? Ought we not to recognize in the first propagators of such a faith the holiest of men, the friends of their race, and the rpessen- gers of Heaven ? Christianity, from its very nature, repels the charge of imposture. It carries in itself the proof of pure intention. Bad men could not have conceived it, much less have adopted it, as the great object of their lives. The supposition of selfish men givingflp every private interest to spread a system which condemned themselves, and which tended only to purify man- kind, is an absurdity as gross as can be found in the most irrational faith. Christianity, therefore, when tried by its motives, approves itself to be of God. III. I now proceed to another and very important ground of my belief in the divine origin of Christianity. Its truth was attested by miracles. Its first teachers proved themselves the minis- ters of God by supernatural works. They did what man cannot do, what bore the impress of a divine power, and what thus sealed the divinity of their mission. A religion so attested must be true. This topic is a great one, and I ask your patient attention to it. I am aware that a strong prejudice exists in some minds against the kind of evidence which I have now adduced. Miracles seem to them to carry a con- futation in themselves. The presump- tion against them seems next to infinite. In this respect, the present times differ from the past. There have been ages when men believed any thing and every thing ; and the more monstrous the story, the more eagerly was it received by the credulous multitude. In the progress of knowledge, men have come to see that most of the prodigies and supernatural events in which their fore- fathers believed were fictions of fancy, or fear, or imposture. The light of knowledge has put to flight the ghosts and witches which struck terror into earher times. We now know that not a few of the appearances in the heavens which appalled nations, and were inter- preted as precursors of divine ven- geance, were natural effects. We have learned, too, that a highly excited im- agination can work some of the cures once ascribed to magic ; and the lesson taught us by these natural solutions of apparent miracles is, that accounts of supernatural events are to be sifted with great jealousy and received with peculiar care. But the result of this new light thrown on nature and history is, that some' are disposed to discredit all mira- cles indiscriminately. So many having proved groundless, a sweeping sentence of condemnation is passed on all. The human mind, by a natural reaction, has passed from extreme credulousness to the excess of incredulity. Some per- sons are even hardy enough to deride the very idea of a miracle. They pro- nounce the order of nature something fixed and immutable, and all suspen- sions of it incredible. This prejudice, for such it is, seems to deserve particu- lar attention ; for, until it is removed, the evidences of Christian miracles will have little weight. Let us examine it patiently and impartially. The sceptic tells me that the order of nature is fixed. I ask him. By whom or by what is it fixed ? By an iron fate ? — by an inflexible necessity ? Does not EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 21 I nature bear the signatures of an intelli- gent Cause ? Does not the very idea of its order imply an ordaining or dis- posing Mind ? Does not the universe, the more it is explored, bear increasing testimony to a Being superior to itself .'' Then the order of nature is fixed by a Will which can reverse it. Then a power equal to miracles exists. Then miracles are not incredible. It niay be replied, that God indeed can work miracles, but that he will ijot. He will not ? And how does the scep- tic know this ? Has God so told him ? This language does not become a being of our limited faculties ; and the pre- sumptuousness which thus makes laws for the Creator, and restricts his agency to particular modes, is as little the spirit of true philosophy as of religion. The sceptic sees nothing in miracles but ground of offence. To me, they seem to involve in their very nature a truth so great, so vital, that I am not only reconciled to them, but am dis- posed to receive joyfully any sufficient proofs of their having been performed. To the sceptic, no principle is so impor- tant as the uniformity of nature, the constancy of its laws. To me, there is a vastly higher truth, to which miracles bear witness, and to which I welcome their aid. What I wish chiefly to know is, that mind is the supreme power in the universe ; that matter is its instru- ment and slave ; that there is a will to which nature can offer no obstruction ; that God is unshackled by the laws of the universe, and controls them at his pleasure. This absolute sovereignty of the Divine Mind over the universe is the only foundation of hope for the triumph of the human mind over mat- ter, over physical influences, over im- perfection and death. Now, it is plain that the strong impressions which we receive through the senses from the material creation, joined to our experi- ence of its regularity, and to our instinc- tive trust in its future uniformity, do obscure this supremacy of God, do tempt us to ascribe a kind of omnipo- tence to nature's laws, and to limit our hopes to the good which is promised by these. There is a strong tendency in men to attach the idea of necessity to an unchanging regularity of operation, and to imagine bounds to a being who keeps one undeviating path, or who re- peats himself perpetually. Hence I say that I rejoice in miracles. They show and assert the supremacy of mind in the universe. They manifest a spiritual power which is in no degree enthralled by the laws of matter. I rejoice in these witnesses to so great a truth. I rejoice in whatever proves that this order of nature, which so often weighs on me as a chain, and which contains no promise of my perfection, is not supreme and immutable, and that the Creator is not restricted to the narrow modes of operation with which I am most familiar. Perhaps the form in which the objec- tion to miracles is most frequently ex- pressed is the following : " It is deroga- tory," says the sceptic, " to the perfect wisdom of God, to suppose him to break in upon the order of his own works. It is only the unskilful artist who is obliged to thrust his hand into the machine for the purpose of supplying its defects, and of giving it a new im- pulse by an immediate agency." To this objection I reply that it proceeds on false ideas of God and of the creation. God is not an artist, but a mOral Parent and Governor ; nor is the creation a machine. If it were, it might be urged with greater speciousness that miracles cannot be needed or required. One of the most striking views of the creation is the con- trast or opposition of the elements of which it consists. It includes not only matter but mind, — not only lifeless and unconscious masses, but rational beings, free agents ; and these are its noblest parts and ultimate objects. The mate- rial universe was framed not for itself, but for these. Its order was not ap- pointed for its own sake, but to instruct and improve a higher rank of beings, the intelligent offspring of God ; and when- ever a departure from this order, — that is, whenever miraculous agency can con- tribute to the growth and perfection of his intelligent creatures, — it is demand- ed by his wisdom, goodness, and all his attributes. If the Supreme Being pro- posed only such ends as mechanism can produce, then He might have framed a machinery so perfect and sure as to need no suspension of its ordinary move- ments. But He has an incomparably nobler end. His great purpose is to educate to rescue from evil, to carry for- ward for ever the free, rational mind or 212 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. soul ; and who that understands what a free mind is, and what a variety of teach- ing and discipline it requires, will pre- sume to affirm that no lights or aids but such as come to it through an invariable order of nature, are necessary to unfold it? Much of the difficulty in regard to miracles, as I apprehend, would be re- moved if we were to consider more par- ticularly that the chief distinction of intelligent beings is moral freedom, the power of determining themselves to evil as well as good, and consequently the power of involving themselves in great misery. When Godmade man, He framed not a machine, but a free being, who was to rise or fall according to his use or abuse of his powers. This capacity, at once the most glorious and the most fearful which we can conceive, shows us how the human race may have come into a condition to which the illumination of nature was inadequate. In truth, the more we consider the freedom of intelli- gent beings, the more we shall question the possibility of establisfiing an un- changeable order which will meet fully all their wants ; for such beings, having of necessity a jvide range of action, may bring themselves into a vast variety of conditions, and of course may come to need a relief not contained in the re- sources of nature. The history of the human race illustrates these truths. At the introduction of Christianity, the hu- man family were plunged into gross and debasing error, and the light of nature had not served for ages to guide them back to truth. Philosophy had done its best, and failed. A new element, a new power, seems to have been wanting to the progress of the race. That in such an exigence miraculous aid should be imparted accords with our best views of God. I repeat it, — were men mechanical beings, an undeviating order of nature might meet all their wants. They are free beings, who bear a moral relation to God, and as such may need, and are worthy of, a more various and special care than is extended over the irrational creation. When I examine nature, I see reasons for believing that it was not intended by God to be the only method of instruct- ing and improving mankind. I see rea- sons, as I think, why its order or regular course should be occasionally suspended, and why revelation should be joined to it in the work of carrying forward the race. I can offer only a few considera- tions on this point, but they seem to me worthy of serious attention. The first is, that a fixed, invariable order of nat- ure does not give us some views of God which are of great interest and impor- tance, or at least it does not give them with that distinctness which we all de- sire. It reveals him as the Universal Sovereign who provides for the whole or for the general weal, but not, with suffi- cient clearness, as a tender father, in- terested in the individual. I see, in this fixed order, his care of the race, but not his constant, boundless concern for myself. Nature speaks of a general divinity, not of the friend and benefactor of each living soul. This is a necessary defect attending an inflexible, unvary- ing administration by general laws ; and it seems to require that God, to carry forward the race, should reveal himselE by some other manner than by general laws. No conviction is more important to human improvement than that of God's paternal interest in every human being ; and how can He communicate this persuasion so effectually as by suspending nature's order, to teach, through an inspired messenger, his pa- ternal love ? My second remark is, that, whilst nature teaches many important lessons, it is not a direct, urgent teacher. Its truths are not prominent, and conse- quently men may neglect it, and place themselves beyond its influence. For example, nature holds out the doctrine of One God, but does not compel atten- tion to it. God's name is not written in the sky in letters of light which all na- tions must read, nor sounded abroad in a voice deep and awful as thunders, so that all must hear. Nature is a gentle — I had almost said a reserved — teacher, demanding patient thought in the learner, and may therefore be unheeded. Men may easily shut their ears and harden their hearts against its testimony to God. Accordingly we learn that, at Christ's coming, almost all nations had lost the knowledge of the true glory of the Crea- tor, and given themselves up to gross superstitions. To such a condition of the world nature's indirect and unim- posing mode of instruction is not fitted, and thus it furnishes a reason for a EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 213 more immediate and impressive teach- ing. In such a season of moral darlc- ness, was it not worthy of God to kindle another and more quiclcening beam ? When the long-repeated and almost monotonous language of creation was not heard, was it unworthy of God to speak with a new and more startiing voice ? What fitter method was there for rousing those whom nature's quiet regularity could not teach, than to in- terrupt its usual course ? I proceed to another reason for ex- pecting revelation to be added to the light of nature. Nature, I have said, is not a direct or urgent teacher, and men may place themselves beyond its voice. I say, thirdly, that there is one great point, on which we are deeply concerned to know the truth, and which is yet taught so indistinctly by nature, that men, however disposed to learn, cannot by that light alone obtain full conviction. What, let me ask, is the question in which each man has the deepest interest ? It is this : Are we to live again, or is this life all .' Does the principle of thought perish with the body, or does it survive ? And if it survive, where ? how 1 in what condi- tion.? under what law? There is an inward voice which speaks of judgment to come. Will judgment indeed come .' and if so, what award may we hope or fear ? The future state of man, — this is the great question forced on us by our changing life and by approaching death. I will not say that on this topic nature throws no light. I think it does ; and this liglit continually grows brighter to them whose eyes revelation has couched and made strong to see. But nature alone does not meet our wants. I might prove this by referring you to the ages preceding Christ, when the anxious spirit of man constantly sought to penetrate the gloom beyond the grave, — when imagination and philoso- phy alike plunged into the future, but found no resting-place. But every man must feel that, left to nature as his only guide, he must wander in doubt as to the life to come. Where but from God himself can I learn my destination ? I ask at the mouth of the tomb for intelli- gence of the departed, and the tomb gives me no reply. I examine the vari- ous regions of nature, but I can discover no process for restoring the mouldering body, and no sign or track of the spirit's ascent to another sphere. I see the need of a power above nature to restore or perpetuate life after death ; and if God intended to give assurance of this life, I see not how He can do it but by supernatural teaching, — by a miraculous revelation. Miracles are the appropri- ate, and would seem to be the only, mode of placing beyond doubt man's future and immortal being ; and no miracles can be conceived so pecuUarly adapted to this end as the very ones which hold the highest place in Christianity, — I mean the resurrection of Lazarus, and, still more, the resurrection of Jesus. No man will deny that, of all truths, a future state is most strengthening to virtue and consoling to humanity. Is it, then, unworthy of God to employ miracles for the awakening or the con- firmation of this hope ? May they not even be expected if nature, as we have seen, sheds but a faint light on this most interesting of all verities .? I add one more consideration in sup- port of the position that nature was not intended to be God's only method of teaching mankind. In surveying the human mind, we discover a principle which singularly fits it to be wrought upon and benefited by miraculous agen- cy, and which might therefore lead us to expect such interposition. I refer to that principle of our nature by which we become in a measure insensible or indifferent to what is familiar, but are roused to attention and deep interest by what is singular, strange, supernatural. This principle of wonder is an important part of our constitution ; and that God should employ it in the work of our education is what reason might antici- pate. I see, then, a foundation for miracles in the human mind ; and, when I consider that the mind is God's noblest work, I ought *:o look to this as the in- terpreter of his designs. We are plainly so constituted that the order of nature, the more it is fixed, excites us the less. Our interest is blunted by its ceaseless uniformity. On the contrary, departures from this order powerfully stir the soul, break up its old and slumbering habits of thought, turn it with a new solicitude to the Almighty Interposer, and prepare it to receive with awe the communica- tions of his will. Was it unworthy of God, who gave us this sensibility to the 214 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. . wonderful, to appeal to it for the recovery of his creatures to himself? I here close my remarks on the great objection of scepticism, that miracles are inconsistent with the divine perfec- tions ; that the Supreme Being, having established an order of operation, cannot be expected to depart from it. To me such reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, is of no weight. When I con- sider God's paternal and moral relation to mankind, and his interest in their progress ; when I consider how accord- ant it is with his character that He should make himself known to them by methods most fitted to awaken the mind and heart to his goodness ; when I con- sider the need we have of illumination in regard to the future life, more distinct and full than the creation affords ; when I consider the constitution and condition of man, his free agency, and the corrup- tion into which he had fallen ; when I consider how little benefit a being so depraved was likely to derive from an order of nature to which he had grown familiar, and how plainly the mind is fitted ta be quickened by miraculous interposition ; — 1 say, when I take all these things into view, I see, as 1 think, a foundation in nature for supernatural light and aid, and I discern in a miracu- lous revelation such as Christianity a provision suited at once to the frame and wants of the human soul, and to the perfections of its Author. There are other objections to miracles, though less avowed, than that which I have now considered, yet perhaps not less influential, and probably operating on many minds so secretly as to be un- perceived. At two of these I will just glance. Not a few, I am confident, have doubts of the Christian miracles, because they see none now. Were their scep- ticism to clothe itseU in language, it would say, " Show us miracles, and we will be- lieve them. We suspect them, because they are confined to the past." Now this objection is a childish one. It may be resolved into the principle, that nothing in the past is worthy of belief which is not repeated in the present. Admit this, and where will incredulity stop ? How many forms and institutions of society, recorded in ancient history, have passed away ? Has history, then, no title to respect ? If, indeed, the human race were standing still ; if one age were merely a copy of preceding ones ; if each had precisely the same wants, then the miracles required at one period would be reproduced in all. But who does not know that there is a progress in human affairs ? that formerly mankind were in a different stage from that through which they are now passing? that of course the education of the race must be varied ? and that miracles, important once, may be superfluous now ? Shall we bind the Creator to invariable modes of teaching and training a race whose capacities and wants are undergoing a perpetual change? Because in periods of thick darkness God introduced a new religion by supernatural works, shall we expect these works to be repeated, when the darkness is scattered and their end attained ? Who does not see that mira- cles, from their very nature, must be rare, occasional, limited ? Would not their power be impaired by frequency ? and would it not wholly cease, were they so far multiplied as to seem a part of the order of nature ? The objection I am now considering shows us the true character of scep- ticism. Scepticism is essentially a nar- rowness of mind, which makes the present moment the measure of the past and future. It is the creature of sense. In the midst of a boundless universe, it can conceive no mode of operation but what falls under its imme- diate observation. The visible, the pres- ent, is every thing to the unbeliever. Let him but enlarge his views ; let him look round on the immensity of the uni- verse ; let him consider the infinity of resources which are comprehended in omnipotence ; let him represent to him- self the manifold stages through which the human race is appointed to pass ; let him remember that the education of the ever-growing mind must require a great variety of discipline ; and espe- cially let him admit the sublime thought, of which the germ is found in nature, that man was created to be trained for, and to ascend to, an incomparably higher order of existence than the present, — and he will see the childishness of mak- ing his narrow experience the standard of all that is past and is to come in human history. It is strange, indeed, that men of sci- ence should fall into this error. The improved science of the present day EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 215 teaches them that this globe of ours, which seems so unchangeable, is not now what it was a few thousand years ago. They find proofs, by digging into the earth, that this globe was inhabited before the existence of the human race by classes of animals which have per- ished, and the ocean peopled by races now unknown, and that the human race are occupying a ruined and restored world. Men of science should learn to free themselves from the vulgar narrow- ness which sees nothing in the past but the present, and should learn the stu- pendous and infinite variety of the dis- pensations of God. There is another objection to miracles, and the last to be now considered, which is drawn from the well-known fact, that pretended miracles crowd the pages of ancient history. No falsehoods, we are told, have been more common than ac- counts of prodigies, and therefore the miraculous character of Christianity is a presumption against its truth. I acknowl- edge that this argument has its weight ; and 1 am ready to say, that, did I know nothing of Christianity but that it was a religion full of miracles ; did I know nothing of its doctrines, its purpose, its influences, and whole history, I should suspect it as much as the unbeliever. There is a strong presumption against miracles, considered nakedly, or sepa- rated from their design and from all cir- cumstances which explain and support them. There is a Hke presumption against events not miraculous, but of an extraordinary character. But this is only a reason for severe scrutiny and slow belief, not for resisting strong and multiplied proofs. I blame no man for doubting a report of miracles when first brought to his ears. Thousands of ab- surd prodigies have been created by ignorance and fanaticism, and thousands more been forged by imposture. I invite you, then, to try scrupulously the miracles of Christianity ; and, if they bear the marks of the superstitious leg- ends of false religions, do not spare them. I only ask for them a fair hear- ing and calm investigation. It is plainly no sufficient argument for rejecting all miracles that men have be- lieved in many which are false. If you go back to the times when miraculous stories were swallowed most greedily, and read the books then written on his- tory, geography, and natural science, you will find all of them crowded with error ; but do they therefore contain nothing worthy your trust ? Is there not a vein of truth running through the prevalent falsehood ? And cannot a sagacious mind very often detach the real from the fictitious, explain the origin of many mis- takes, distinguish the judicious and hon- est from the credulous or interested narrator, and by a comparison of testi- monies detect the latent truth ? Where will you stop if you start with believing nothing on points where former ages have gone astray ? You must pronounce all religion and all morality to be delu- sion, for on both topics men have grossly erred. Nothing is more unworthy of a philosopher than to found a universal censure on a limited number of unfavor- able facts, This is much like the rea- soning of the misanthrope, who, because he sees much vice, infers that there is no virtue, and, because he has sometimes been deceived, pronounces all men hyp- ocrites. I maintain that the multiplicity of false miracles, far from disproving, gives sup- port to those on which Christianity rests ; for, first, there is generally some foun- dation for falsehood, especially when it obtains general belief. The love of truth is an essential principle of human nature ; men generally embrace error on account of some precious ingredient of truth mixed with it, and for the time insepa- rable from it. The universal belief of past ages in miraculous interpositions is to me a presumption that miracles have entered into human history. Will the unbeliever say that it only shows the insatiable thirst of the human mind for the supernatural ? I reply, that in this reasoning he furnishes a weapon against himself ; for a strong principle in the human mind, impelling men to seek for and to cling to miraculous agency, affords a presumption that the Author of our being, by whom this thirst for the super- natural was given, intended to furnish objects for it, and to assign it a place in the education of the race. But 1 observe, in the next place, and it is an observation of great importance, that the exploded miracles of ancient times, if carefully examined, not only furnish a general presumption in favor of the existence of genuine ones, but yield strong proof of the truth of those 2l6 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. in particular upon which Christianity rests. I say to the sceptic, You affirm nothing but truth in declaring history to abound in false miracles ; I agree with you in exploding by far the greater part of the supernatural accounts of which ancient religions boast. But how do we know these to be false ? We do not so judge without proofs. We discern in them the marks of delusion. Now I ask you to examine these marks, and then to answer me honestly, whether you find them in the miracles of Christianity. Is there not a broad line between Christ's works and those which we both agree in rejecting ? I maintain that there is, and that nothing but ignorance can confound the Christian miracles with the prodigies of heathenism. The contrast between them is so strong as to forbid us to refer them to a common origin. The'miracles of superstition can-y the brand of false- hood in their own nature, and are dis- proved by the circumstances under which they were imposed on the multitude. The objects for which they are said to have been wrought are such as do not require or justify a divine interposition. Many of them are absurd, childish, or extravagant, and betray a weak intellect or diseased imagination. Many can be explained by natural causes. Many are attested by persons who lived in differ- ent countries and ages, and enjoyed no opportunities of inquiring into their truth. We can see the origin of many in the self-interest of those who forged them, and can account for their reception by the condition of the world. In other words, these spurious miracles were the natural growth of the ignorance, pas- sions, prejudices, and corruptions of the times, and tended to coniirm them. Now it is not enough to say, that these various marks of falsehood cannot be found in the Christian miracles. We find in them characters directly the reverse. They were wrought for an end worthy of God ; they were wrought in an age of improve- ment ; they are marked by a majesty, beneficence, unostentatious simplicity, and wisdom, which separate them im- measurably from the dreams of a dis- ordered fancy, or the contrivances of imposture. They can be explained by no interests, passions, or prejudices of men. They are parts of a rehgion which was singularly at variance with estab- lished ideas and expectations, which breathes purity and benevolence, which transcended the improvements of the age, and which thus carries with it the presumption of a divine original. Whence this immense distance between the two classes of miracles ? Will you trace both to one source, and that a polluted one ? Will you ascribe to one spirit works as different as light and darkness, as earth and heaven ? I am not, then, shaken in my faith by the false miracles of other religions. I have no desire to keep them out of sight ; I summon them as ray witnesses. They show me how naturally imposture and superstition leave the stamp of themselves on their fictions. They show how man, when he aspires to counterfeit God's agency, be- trays more signally his impotence and folly. When I place side by side the mighty works of Jesus and the prodigies of heathenism, I see that they can no more be compared with one another than the machinery and mock thunders of the theatre can be likened to the awful and beneficent powers of the universe. In the preceding remarks on miracles, I have aimed chiefly to meet those gen- eral objections by which many are preju- diced against supernatural interpositions universally, and are disinclined to weigh any proof in their support. Hoping that this weak scepticism has been shown to want foundation in nature and reason, I proceed now to state more particularly the principal grounds on which I be- lieve that the miracles ascribed to Jesus and the first propagators of Christianity were actually wrought in attestation of its truth. The evidences of facts are of two kinds, presumptive and direct, and both meet in support of Christian miracles. First, there are strong presumptions in its favor. To this class of proofs be- long the views already given of the accordance of revelation and miracles with the wants and principles of human nature, with the perfections of God, with his relations to his human family, and with his ordinary providence. These I need not repeat. I will only observe that a strong presumption in support of the miracles arises from the importance of the religion to which they belong. If I were told of supernatural works performed to prove that three are more than one, or that human life requires food for its support, I should know EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 217 that they were false. The presumption against them would be invincible. The Author of nature could never supersede its wise and stupendous order to teach what falls within the knowledge of every child. Extraordinary interpositions of God suppose that truths of extraordi- nary dignity and beneficence are to be imparted. Now, in Christianity I find truths of transcendent importance, which throw into shade all the discoveries of science, and which give a new character, aim, and interest to our existence. Here is a fit occasion for supernatural inter- position. A presumption exists in favor of miracles, by which a religion so wor- thy of God is sustained. But a presumption in favor of facts is not enough. It, indeed, adds much force to the direct proofs ; still these are needed, nor are they wanting to Chris- tianity. The direct proofs of facts are chiefly of two kinds ; they consist of testimony, oral or written, and of effects, traces, monuments, which the facts have left behind them. The Christian miracles are supported by both. We have, first, the most unexceptionable testimony, nothing less than that of contemporaries and eye- witnesses, of the companions of Jesus, and the first propagators of his religion. We have the testimony of men who could not have been deceived as to the facts which they report ; who bore their witness amidst perils and persecutions ; who bore it on the very spot where their Master lived and died ; who had nothing to gain, and every thing to lose, if their testimony were false ; whose writings breathe the sincerest love of virtue and of mankind ; and who at last sealed their attestations with their blood. More unexceptionable witnesses to facts can- not be produced or conceived. Do you say, " These witnesses lived ages ago ; could we hear these accounts from their own lips, we should be satis- fied " 1 I answer. You have something better than their own lips, or than their own word taken alone. You have, as has been proved, their writings. Per- haps you hear with some surprise that a book may be a better witness than its author ; but nothing is more true, and I will illustrate it by an imaginary case in our own times. Suppose, then, that a man claiming to be an eye-witness should relate to me the events of the three memorable days of July, in which the last revolution of France was achieved; suppose, next, that a book, a history of that revolution, published and received as true in France, should be sent to me from that country. Which is the best evidence of the facts 1 I say the last. A single witness may deceive ; but that a writer should pub- lish in France the history of a revolu- tion which never occurred there, or which differed essentially from the true one, is in the highest degree improbable ; and that such a history should obtain currency, that it should not be instantly branded as a lie, is utterly impossible. A ■ history received by a people as true, not only gives us the testimony of the writer, but the testimony of the nation among whom it obtains credit. It is a concen- tration of thousands of voices, of many thousand witnesses. I say, then, that the writings of the first teachers of Christi- anity, received as they were by the mul- titude of Christians in their own times and in those which immediately fol- lowed, are the testimonies of that mul- titude as well as of the writers. Thousands nearest to the events, join in bearing testimony to the Christian miracles. But there is another class of evidence, sometimes more powerful than direct witnesses, and this belongs to Chris- tianity. Facts are often placed beyond doubt by the effects which they leave behind them. This is the case with the miracles of Christ. Let me explain this branch of evidence. I am told, when absent and distant from your city, that on a certain day a tide, such as had never been known, rose in ^your harbor, overflowed your wharves, and rushed into your streets ; I doubt the fact ; but hastening here, I see what were once streets strewed with sea-weed, and shells, and the ruins of houses, and I cease to doubt. A witness may deceive, but such effects cannot lie. All great events leave effects, and these speak di- rectly of the cause, What, I ask, are the proofs of the American revolution ? Have we none but written or oral testi- mony ? Our free constitution, the whole form of our society, the language and spirit of our laws, all these bear witness to our English origin, and to our suc- cessful conflict for independence. Now the miracles of Christianity have left effects which equally attest their reality, 2l8 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. and cannot be explained without them. I go back to the age of Jesus Christ, and I am immediately struck with the com- mencement and rapid progress of the most remarkable revolution in the an- nals of the world. I see a new religion, of a character altogether its own, which bore no likeness to any past or existing faith, spreading in a few years through all civilized nations, and introducing a new era, a new state of society, a change of the human mind, which has broadly distinguished all following ages. Here is a plain fact, which the sceptic will not deny, however he may explain it. I see this religion issuing from an obscure, despised, hated people. Its Founder had died on the cross, a mode of pun- ishment as disgraceful as the pillory or gallows of the present day. Its teachers were poor men, without rank, office, or education, taken from the fishing-boat and other occupations which had never furnished teachers to mankind. I see these men beginning their work on the spot where their Master's blood had been shed, as of a common malefactor ; and I hear them summoning first his murderers, and then all nations and all ranks, the sovereign on the throne, the priest in the temple, the great and the learned, as well as the poor and the ig- norant, to renounce the faith and the worship which had been hallowed by the veneration of all ages, and to take the yoke of their crucified Lord. I see passion and prejudice, the sword of the magistrate, the curse of the priest, the scorn of the philosopher, and the fury of the populace, joined to crush this com- mon enemy ;- and yet, without a human weapon and in opposition to all human power, I see the humble Apostles of Jesus winning their way, overpowering prejudice, breaking the ranks of their opposers, changing enemies into friends, breathing into multitudes a calm spirit of martyrdom, and carrying to the bounds of civilization, and even into half-civilized regions, a religion which has contributed to advance society more than all other causes combined. Here is the effect. Here is a monument more durable than pillars or triumphal arches. Now I ask for an explanation of these effects. If Jesus Christ and his Apos- tles were indeed sent and empowered by God, and wrought miracles in attes- tation of their mission, then the estab- lishment of Christianity is explained. Suppose them, on the other hand, to have been insane enthusiasts, or selfish impostors, left to meet the whole strength of human opposition, with nothing but their own power, or rather their own weakness, and you have no cause for the stupendous effect I have described. Such men could no more have changed the face of the world than they could have turned back rivers to their sources, sunk mountains into valleys, or raised valleys to the skies. Christianity, then, has not only the evidence of unexcep- tionable witnesses, but that of effects, — a proof which wiU grow stronger by com- paring its progress with that of other religions such as Mahometanism, which sprang from human passions, and were advanced by human power. IV. Having given my views on the subject of Christian miracles, I now pass to the last topic of this discourse. Its extent and importance will lead me to enlarge upon it in a subsequent dis- course ; but a discussion of Christian evidences in which it should find no place would be essentially defective. I refer to the proof of Christianity derived from the character of its Author. The character of Jesus was original. He formed a new era in the moral history of the human race. His perfection was not that of his age, nor a copy of the greatness which had long engrossed the world's admiration. Jesus stood apart from other men. He borrowed from none and leaned on none. Surrounded by men of low thoughts, he rose to the conception of a higher form of human virtue than had yet been realized or imagined, and deliberately devoted him- self to its promotion, as the supreme object of his life and death. Conscious of being dedicated to this great work, he spoke with a calm dignity, an unaffected elevation, which separated him from all other teachers. Unsupported, he never wavered : sufficient to himself, he re- fused alliance with wealth or power. Yet, with all this self- subsistence and uncompromising energy, his character was the mildest, the gentlest, the most attractive, ever manifested among men. It could not have been a fiction, for who could have conceived it, or who could have embodied the conception in such a Hfe as Jesus is said to have led in ac- tions, words, manners, so natural and EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 219 itudied, so imbued with reality, so rtliy of tlie Son of God ? riie great distinction of Jesus was a lantliropy witliout mixture and with- bounds ; a pliilanthropy uniting ndeur and meekness in beautiful portions ; a philanthropy as wise as /as fervent, which comprehended the e wants and the true good of man, ich compassionated, indeed, his suf- ings from abroad, but which saw in soul the deep fountain of his miser- , and labored, by regenerating this, _ bring him to a pure and enduring jpiness. So peculiar, so unparalleled 3 the benevolence of Jesus, that it I impressed itself on all future times, ere went forth a virtue, a beneficent uence from his character, which op- tes even now. Since the death of rist, a spirit of humanity, unknown ore, has silently diffused itself over onsiderable portion of the earth. A V standard of virtue has gradually isessed itself of the veneration of n. A new power has been acting on iety, which has done more than all er causes combined to disarm the self- passions, and to bind men strongly one another and to God. What a nument have we here to the virtue Jesus ! and if Christianity has such Founder, it must have come from aven. There are other remarkable proofs the power and elevation of the .racter of Christ. It has touched I conciliated not a few of the de- mined adversaries of his religion, idelity, whilst it has laid unsparing ids on the system, has generally unk from offering violence to its thor. In truth, unbelievers have asionally borne eloquent testimony the benignant and celestial virtues Jesus ; and I record this with pleas- , not only as honorable to Chris- lity, but as showing that unbelief :s not universally sear the moral lings, or breathe hostility to good- s. Nor is this all. The character Christ has withstood the most deadly 1 irresistible foe of error and un- nded claims, — I mean Time. It lost nothing of its elevation by the irovements of ages. Since he ap- red, society has gone forward, men's ws have become enlarged, and phil- phy has risen to conceptions of far purer virtues than were the boast of antiquity. But, however the human mind may have advanced, it must still look upward if it would see and under- stand Christ. He is still above it. Nothing purer, nobler, has yet dawned on human thoughts. Then Christianity is true. The delineation of Jesus in the Gospels, so warm with life, and so unrivalled in loveliness and grandeur, required the existence of an original. To suppose that this character was invented by unprincipled men, amidst Jewish and heathen darkness, and was then imposed as a reality in the very age of the Founder of Christianity, argues an excess of credulity, and a strange ignorance of the powers and principles of human nature. The char- acter of Jesus was real ; and if so, Jesus must have been what he professed to be, the Son of God, and the revealer of his mercy and his will to mankind. I have now completed what I pro- posed in this discourse. I have laid before you some of the principal evi- dences of Christianity. I have aimed to state them without exaggeration. That an honest mind, which thoroughly comprehends them, can deny their force, seems to me hardly possible. Stronger proofs may, indeed, be conceived ; but it is doubtful whether these could be given in consistency with our moral nature, and with the moral government of God. Such a government requires that truth should not be forced on the mind, but that we should be left to gain it by an upright use of our understand- ings, and by conforming ourselves to what we have already learned. God might, indeed, shed on us an overpow- ering light, so that it would be impos- sible for us to lose our way ; but in so doing He would annihilate an impor- tant part of our present probation. It is, then, no objection to Christianity that its evidences are not the very strongest which might be given, and that they do not extort universal assent. In this respect it accords with other great truths. These are not forced on , our belief. Whoever will may shut his eyes on their proofs and array against them objections. In, the measure of evidence with which Cliristianity is ac- companied, I see a just respect for the freedom of the mind, and a wise adap- tation to that moral nature which it is 220 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. the great aim of this religion to carry forward to perfection. I close as 1 began. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is true. It is true ; and its truth is to brealc forth more and more gloriously. Of this I have not a doubt. I know, indeed, that our religion has been questioned, even by intelligent and good men ; but this does not shake my faith in its divine original or in its ultimate tri- umphs. Such men have questioned it, because they have known it chiefly by its corruptions. In proportion as its original simplicity shall be restored, the doubts of the well-disposed will yield. I have no fears from infidelity ; espe- cially from that form of it which some are at this moment laboring to spread through our country, — I mean that in- sane, desperate unbelief which strives to quench the light of nature as well as of revelation, and to leave us, not only without Christ, but without God. This I dread no more than I should fear the efforts of men to pluck the sun from his sphere, or to storm the skies with the artillery of the earth. We were made for religion ; and unless the enemies of our faith can change our nature, they will leave the foundation of religion un- shaken. The human soul was created to look above material nature. It wants a Deity for its love and trust, an immor- tahty for its hope. It wants consola- tions not found in philosophy, wants strength in temptation, sorrow, and death, which human wisdom cannot minister ; and knowing, as I do, that Christianity meets these deep wants of men, I have no fear or doubt as to its triumphs. Men cannot long live with- out religion. In France there is a spreading dissatisfaction with the scep- tical spirit of the past generation. A philosopher in that country would now blush to quote Voltaire as an authority in religion. Already atheism is dumb where once it seemed to bear sway. The greatest minds in France are work- ing back their way to the light of truth. Many of them, indeed, cannot yet be called Christians ; but their path, like that of the wise men of old, who came star-guided from the East, is towards Christ. I am not ashamed of the gos- pel of Christ. It has an immortal life, and will gather strength from the vio- lence of its foes. It is equal to all the wants of men. The greatest minds have found in it the light which they most anxiously desired. The most sor- rowful and broken spirits have found in it a healing balm for their woes. It has inspired the sublimest virtues and the loftiest hopes. For the corruptions of such a religion I weep, and I should blush to be their advocate ; but of the gospel itself I can never be ashamed. THE EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION: Discourse before the University in Cambridge, at the Dudlcian Lecture, 14th March, 1821. John iii. 2 : "The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." The evidences of revealed religion are the subject of this lecture, — a sub- ject of great extent as well as of vast importance. In discussing it, an im- mense variety of learning has been employed, and all the powers of the intellect been called forth. History, metaphysics, ancient learning, criticism, ethical science, and the science of hu- man nature, have been summoned to the controversy, and have brought impor- tant contributions to the Christian cause. To condense into one discourse what scholars and great men have written on this point is impossible, even if it were desirable ; and I have stated the extent of sp*'culation into which our subject has led, not because I propose to give EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 221 an abstract of others' labors, but be- cause I wish you to understand that the topic is one not easily despatched, and because I would invite you to follow me in a discussion which will require con- centrated and continued attention. A subject more worthy of attention than the claims of that religion which was impressed on our childhood, and which is acknowledged to be the only firm foundation of the hope of immortality, cannot be presented ; and our minds must want the ordinary seriousness of human nature, if it cannot arrest us. That Christianity has been opposed is a fact implied in the estabUshment of this lecture, That it has had adversa- ries of no mean intellect, you know. I propose in this discourse to make some remarks on what seems to me the great objection to Christianity, on the general principle on which its evidences rest, and on some of its particular evidences. The great objection to Christianity — • the only one which has much influence at the present day — meets us at the very threshold. We cannot, if we would, evade it, for it is founded on a primary and essential attribute of this religion. The objection is oftener felt than ex- pressed, and amounts to this, that miracles are incredible, and that the supernatural character of an alleged fact is proof enough of its falsehood. So strong is this propensity to doubt of departures from the order of nature, that there are sincere Christians who incline to rest their religion wholly on its internal evidence, and to overlook the outward extraordinary interposition of God by which it was at first estab- lished. But the difficulty cannot in this way be evaded ; for Christianity is not only confirmed by miracles, but is in it- self, in its very essence, a miraculous religion. It is not a system which the human mind might have gathered in the ordinary exercise of its powers from the ordinary course of nature. Its doc- trines, especially those which relate to ite Founder, claim for it the distinction of being a supernatural provision for the recovery of the human race. So that the objection which I have stated still presses upon us, and, if it be well grounded, it is fatal to Christianity. Itis proper, then, to begin the dis- cussion with inquiring whence the dis- position to discredit miracles springs, and how far it is rational. A prelimi- nary remark of some importance is, that this disposition is not a necessary part or principle of our mental constitution, like the disposition to trace effects to adequate causes. We are indeed so framed as to expect a continuance of that order of nature which we have uni- formly experienced ; but not so framed as to revolt at alleged violations of that order, and to account them impossible or absurd. On the contrary, men at large discover a strong and incurable propensity to believe in miracles. Al- most all histories, until within the two last centuries, reported seriously super- natural facts. Scepticism as to miracles is comparatively a new thing, if we ex- cept the Epicurean or atheistical sect among the ancients ; and so far from being founded in human nature, it is re- sisted by an almost infinite preponder- ance of belief on the other side. Whence, then, has this scepticism sprung ? It may be explained by two principal causes, i. It is now an ac- knowledged fact among enlightened men that in past times and in our own a strong disposition has existed, and stiU exists, to admit miracles without examination. Human credulity is found to have devoured nothing more eagerly than reports of prodigies. Now it is argued that we discover here a principle of human nature, namely, the love of the supernatural and marvellous, which accounts sufficiently for the belief of miracles wherever we find it ; and that it is, consequently, unnecessary and un- philosophical to seek for other causes, and especially to admit that most im- probable one, — the actual existence of miracles. This sweeping conclusion is a specimen of that rash habit of gen- eralizing which rather distinguishes our times, and shows that philosophical rea- soning has made fewer advances than we are apt to boast. It is true that there is a principle of credulity as to prodigies in a considerable part of society, a dis- position to beUeve without 'due scrutiny. But this principle, like every other in our nature, has its limits ; acts accord- ing to fixed laws ; is not omnipotent, — cannot make the eyes see, and the ears hear, and the understanding credit de- lusions under all imaginable circum- stances ; but requires the concurrence of various circumstances and of other 222 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. principles of our nature in order to its operation. For example, the belief of spectral appearances has been very com- mon ; but under what circumstances and in what state of mind has it occurred ? Do men see ghosts in broad day and amidst cheerful society ? or in solitary places ; in grave-yards ; in twilights or mists, where outward objects are so un- defined as easily to take a form from imagination ; and in other circumstances favorable to terror, and associated with the delusion in question ? The princi- ple of credulity is as regular in its op- eration as any other principle of the mind ; and is so dependent on circum- stances and so restrained and checked by other parts of human nature, that some- times the most obstinate in credulity is found in that very class of people whose easy belief on other occasions moves our contempt. It is well known, for example, that the efiicacy of the vaccine inoculation has been encoun- tered with much more unyielding scep- ticism among the vulgar than among the improved ; and in general it may be afiirmed, that the credulity of the igno- rant operates under the control of their strongest passions and impressions, and that no class of society yield a slower assent to positions which manifestly subvert their old modes of thinking and most settled prejudices. It is, then, very unphilosophical to assume this principle as an explanation of all mira- cles whatever. I grant that the fact, that accounts of supernatural agency so generally prove false, is a reason for looking upon them with peculiar dis- trust. Miracles ought on this account to be sifted more than common facts. But if we find that a belief in a series of supernatural works has occurred un- der circumstances very different from those under which false prodigies have been received, under circumstances most unfavorable to the operation of credulity, then this belief cannot be resolved into the common causes which have blinded men in regard to supernatural agency. We must look for other causes, and if none can be found but the actual exist- ence of the miracles, then true philos- ophy binds us to believe them. I close this head with observing that the pro- pensity of men to believe in what is strange and miraculous, though a pre- sumption against particular miracles, is not a presumption against miracles uni- versally, but rather the reverse ; for great principles of human nature have generally a foundation in truth, and one explana- tion of this propensity so common to man- kind is obviously this, that in the earlier ages of the human race miraculous in- terpositions, suited to man's infant state, were not uncommon, and, being the most striking facts of human history, they spread through all future times a behef and expectation of miracles. I proceed now to the second cause of the scepticism in regard to supernatural agency which has grown up, especially among the more improved, in later times. These later times are distinguished, as you well know, by successful researches into nature ; and the discoveries of sci- ence have continually added strength to that great principle, that the phenomena of the universe are regulated by general and permanent laws, or that the Author of the universe exerts his power accord- ing to an established order. Nature, the more it is explored, is found to be uniform. We observe an unbroken suc- cession of causes and effects. Many phenomena, once denominated irregular, and ascribed to supernatural agency, are found to be connected with preceding circumstances as regularly as the most common events. The comet, we leam, observes the same attraction as the sun and planets. When a new phenomenon now occurs, no one thinks it miraculous, but believes that, when better under- stood, it may be reduced to laws already known, or is an example of a law not yet investigated. Now this increasing acquaintance with the uniformity of nature begets a distrust of alleged violations of it, and a rational distrust too ; for, while many causes of mistake in regard to alleged miracles may be assigned, there is but one ade- quate cause of real miracles, that is, the power of God ; and the regularity of nat- ure forms a strong presumption against the miraculous exertion of this power, except in extraordinary circumstances, and for extraordinary purposes, to which the established laws of the creation are not competent. But the observation of the uniformity of nature produces, in multitudes, not merely this rational dis- trust of alleged violations of it, but a secret feeling, as if such violations were impossible. That attention to the pow- EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 223 ers of nature which is implied in sci- entific research tends to weaken tlie practical conviction of a higher power ; and the laws of the creation, instead of being regarded as the modes of Divine operation, come insensibly to be con- sidered as fetters on his agency, — as too sacred to be suspended even by their Author. This secret feeling, essentially atheistical, and at war with all sound philosophy, is the chief foundation of that scepticism which prevails in regard to miraculous agency, and deserves our particular consideration. To a man whose beUef in God is strong and practical, a miracle will appear as possible as any other effect, as the most common event in life ; and the argument against miracles, drawn from the uniformity of nature, will weigh with him onlyas far as this uniformity is a pledge and proof of the Creator's dis- position to accomplish his purposes by a fixed order or mode of operation. Now it is freely granted that the Crea- tor's regard or attachment to such an order maybe inferred from the steadiness with which He observes it ; and a strong presumption lies against any violation of it on slight occasions, or for purposes to which the established laws of nature are adequate. But this is the utmost which the order of nature authorizes us to infer respecting its Author. It forms no presumption against miracles univer- sally, in all imaginable cases ; but may even furnish a presumption in their favor. We are never to forget that God's adherence to the order of the universe is not necessary and mechanical, but in- telligent and voluntary. He adheres to it, not for its own sake, or because it has a sacredness which compels him to respect it, but because it is most suited to accomplish his purposes. It is a means, and not an end ; and, like all other means, must give way when the end can best be promoted without it. It is the mark of a weak mind to make an idol of order and method ; to cling to established forms of business when they clog instead of advancing it. If, then, the great purposes of the universe can best be accomplished by departing from its established laws, these laws will undoubtedly be suspended ; and though broken in the letter, they will be observed in their spirit, for the ends for which they were first instituted will be advanced by their violation. Now the question arises, For what purposes were nature and its order appointed ? and there is no presumption in saying that the highest of these is the improvement of intelligent beings. Mind (by which we mean both moral and intellectual powers) is God's first end. The great purpose for which an order of natuM is fixed, is plainly the formation of mind. In a creation without order, where events would follow without any regular suc- cession, it is obvious that mind must be kept in perpetual infancy ; for, in such a universe, there could be no reasoning from effects to causes, no induction to establish general truths, no adaptation of means to ends ; that is, no science relating to God, or matter, or mind ; no action ; no virtue. The great purpose of God, then, I repeat it, in establishing the order of nature, is to form and ad- vance the mind ; and if the case should occur in which the interests of the mind could best be advanced by departing from this order, or by miraculous agency, then the great purpose of the creation, the great end of its laws and regularity,- would demand such departure ; and miracles, instead of warring against, would concur with nature. Now we Christians maintain that such a case has existed. We affirm that, when Jesus Christ came into the world, nature had failed to communicate in- structions to men in which, as intel- ligent beings, they had the deepest concern, and on which the full develop- ment of their highest faculties essen- tially depended ; and we affirm, that there was no prospect of relief from nature ; so that an exigence had occurred in which additional communications, su- pernatural lights, might rationally be expected from the Father of spirits. Let me state two particulars out of many in which men needed intellectual aids not given by nature. I refer to the doctrine of one God and Father, on which all piety rests ; and to the doc- trine of immortality, which is the great spring of virtuous effort. Had I time to enlarge on the history of that period, I might show you under what heaps of rubbish and superstition these doctrines were buried. But I should repeat only what you know familiarly. The works of ancient genius, which form your 224 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. studies, carry on their front the brand of polytheism, and of debasing error on subjects of the first and deepest concern. It is more important to ob- serve, that the very uniformity of nature had some tendency to obscure the doc- trines which I have named, or at least to impair their practical power, so that a departure from this uniformity was needed to fasten them on men's minds. That a fixed order of nature, though a proof of the One God to reflecting and enlarged understandings, has yet a tendency to hide him from men in gen- eral, will appear, if we consider, first, that as the human mind is constituted, what is regular and of constant occur- rence excites it feebly ; and benefits flowing to it through fixed, unchanging laws, seem to come by a kind of neces- sity, and are apt to be traced up to natural causes alone. Accordingly, re- ligious convictions and feelings, even in the present advanced condition of society, are excited not so much by the ordinary course of God's providence, as by sudden, unexpected events which rouse and startle the mind, and speak of a Power higher than nature. There is another way in which a fixed order of nature seems unfavorable to just im- pressions respecting its Author. It dis- covers to us in the Creator a regard to general good rather than an affection to individuals. The laws of nature, operating as they do with an inflexible steadiness, never varying to meet the cases and wants of individuals, and in- flicting much private suffering in their stern administration for the general weal, give the idea of a distant, reserved sovereign much more than of a tender parent ; and yet this last view of God is the only effectual security from su- perstition and idolatry. Nature, then, we fear, would not have brought back the world to its Creator. And as to the doctrine of immortality, the order of the natural world had little tendency to teach this, at least with clearness and energy. The natural world contains no provisions or arrangements for reviving the dead. The sun and the rain, which cover the tomb with verdure, send no vital influences to the mouldering body. The researches of science detect no secret processes for restoring the lost powers of life. If man is to hve again, he is not to live through any known laws of nature, but by a power higher than nature ; and how, then, can we be assured of this truth but by a mani- festation of this power, that is, by miraculous agency, confirming a future life ? I have labored in these remarks to show that the uniformity of nature is no presumption against miraculous agency when employed in confirmation of such a religion as Christianity. Nature, on the contrary, furnishes a presumption in its favor. Nature clearly shows to us a power above itself, so that it proves miracles to be possible. Nature re- veals purposes and attributes in its Author with which Christianity remark- ably agrees. Nature, too, has deficien- cies, which show that it was not in- tended by its Author to be his whole method of instructing mankind ; and in this way it gives great confirmation to Christianity, which meets its wants, supplies its cliasms, explains its mys- teries, and lightens its heart- oppressing cares and sorrows. Before quitting the general consider- ation of miracles, I ought to take some notice of Hume's celebrated argument on this subject ; not that it merits the attention which it has received, but because it is specious, and has de- rived weight from the name of its author. The argument is briefly this, — " That belief is founded upon and regulated by experience. Now we often ejcperience testimony to be false, but never witness a departure from the order of nature. That men may de- ceive us when they testify to miracles, is therefore more accordant with experi- ence than that nature should be irregu- lar ; and hence there is a balance of proof against miracles, a presumption so strong as to outweigh the strongest testimony." The usual replies to this argument I have not time to repeat. Dr. Campbell's work, which is acces- sible to all, will show you that it rests on an equivocal use of terms, and will furnish you with many fine remarks on testimony and on the conditions or qualities which give it validity. I will only add a few remarks which seem to me worthy of attention. I. This argument aflSrms that the credibihty of facts or statements is to be decided by their accordance with the established order of nature, and by this EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 22!; standard only. Now, if nature compre- hended all existences and all powers, this position might be admitted. But if there is a Being higher than nature, the origin of all its powers and motions, and whose character falls under our notice and experience as truly as the creation, then there is an additional standard to which facts and statements are to be referred ; and works which violate nature's order will still be credi- ble, if they agree with the known prop- erties and attributes of its Author ; because for such works we can assign an adequate cause and sufficient rea- sons, and these are the qualities and conditions on which credibility de- pends. 2. This argument of Hume proves too much, and therefore proves nothing. It proves too ■ much ; for if I am to reject the strongest testimony to mira- cles because testimony has often de- ceived me, whilst nature's order has never been found to fail, then I ought to reject a miracle, even if I should see it with my own eyes, and if all my senses should attest it ; for all my senses have sometimes given false re- ports, whilst nature has never gone astray ; and, therefore, be the circum- stances ever so decisive or inconsistent with deception, still I must not believe what I see, and hear, and touch,— what my senses, exercised according to the most deliberate judgment, declare to be true. All this the argument re- quires ; and it proves too much ; for disbelief in the case supposed is out of our power, and is instinctively pro- nounced absurd ; and what is more, it would subvert that very order of nature on which the argument rests ; for this order of nature is learned only by the exercise of my senses and judgment, and if these fail me in the most un- exceptionable circumstances, then their testimony to nature is of little worth. Once more ; this argument is built on an ignorance of the nature of testimony. Testimony, we are told, cannot prove a miracle. Now the truth is that testi- mony of itself and immediately proves no facts whatever, not even the most common. Testimony can do nothing more than show us the state of another's mind in regard to a given fact. It can only show us that the testifier has a belief, a conviction, that a certain phe- nomenon or event has occurred. Here testimony stops ; and the reality of the event is to be judged altogether from the nature and degree of this conviction, and from the circumstances under which it exists. This conviction is an effect, which must hav.e a cause, and needs to be ex- plained ; and if no cause can be found but the real occurrence of the event, then this occurrence is admitted as true. Such is the extent of testimony. Now a man who affirms a miraculous phenomenon or event, may give us just as decisive proofs, by his character and conduct, of the strength and depth of his conviction, as if he were affirming a common occur- rence. Testimony, then, does just as much in the case of miracles as of com- mon events ; that is, it discloses to us the conviction of another's mind. Now this conviction in the case of miracles requires a cause, an explanation, as much as in every other ; and if the circum- stances be such that it could not have sprung up and been established but by the reality of the alleged miracle, then" that great and fundamental principle of human belief, namely, that every effect must have a cause, compels us to admit the miracle. It may be observed of Hume and of other philosophical opposers of our re- ligion, that they are much more inclined to argue against miracles in general than against the particular miracles on which Christianity rests. And the reason is obvious. Miracles, when considered in a general, abstract manner, that is, when divested of all circumstances, and sup- posed to occur as disconnected facts, to stand alone in history, to have no expla- nations or reasons in preceding events, and no influence on those which follow, are indeed open to great objection, as wanton and useless violations of nat- ure's order ; and it is accordingly against miracles, considered in this naked, gen- eral form, that the arguments of infidel- ity are chiefly urged. But it is great disingenuity to class under this head the miracles of Christianity. They are palpably different. They do not stand alone in history ; but are most inti- mately incorporated with it. They were demanded by the state of the world which preceded them, and they have left deep traces on all subsequent ages. In fact, the history of the whole civilized world, since their alleged occurrence, 226 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. has been swayed and colored by them, and is wholly inexplicable without them. Now such miracles are not to be met, and disposed of by general reasonings, which apply only to insulated, unim- portant, uninfluential prodigies. I have thus considered the objections to miracles in general ; and 1 would close this head with observing, that these objections will lose their weight just in proportion as we strengthen our conviction of God's power over nature and of his parental interest in his creat- ures. The great repugnance to the belief of miraculous agency is founded in a lurking atheism, which ascribes supremacy to nature, and which, whilst it professes to believe in God, questions his tender concern for the improvement of men. To a man who cherishes a sense of God, the great difficulty is, not to account for miracles, but to account for their rare occurrence. One of the mys- teries of the universe is this, that its Author retires so continually behind the veil of his works, that the great and good Father does not manifest himself more distinctly to his creatures. There is something like coldness and repul- siveness in instructing us only by fixed, inflexible laws of nature. The inter- course of God with Adam and the patri- archs suits our best conceptions of the relation which He bears to the human race, and ought not to surprise us more than the expression of a human parent's tenderness and concern towards his off- spring. After the remarks now made to re- move the objection to revelation in gen- eral, I proceed to consider the evidences of the Christian religion in particular ; and these are so numerous that should I attempt to compress them into the short space which now remains, I could give but a syllabus, — a dry and uninteresting index. It will be more useful to state to you, with some distinctness, the gen- eral principle into which all Christian evidences may be resolved, and on which the whole religion rests, and then to illustrate it in a few striking partic- ulars. AH the evidences of Christianity may be traced to this great principle, — that every effect must have an adequate cause. We claim for our religion a divine orig- inal, because no adequate cause for it can be found in the powers or passions of human nature, or in the circumstances under which it appeared ; because it can only be accounted for by the interpo- sition of that Being to whom its first preachers universally ascribed it, and with whose nature it perfectly agrees. Christianity, by which we mean not merely the doctrines of the religion, but every thing relating to it, its rise, its progress, the character of its Author, the conduct of its propagators, — Christi- anity, in this broad sense, can only be accounted for in two ways. It either sprung from the principles of human nature, under the excitements, motives, impulses of the age in which it was first preached, or it had its origin in a higher and supernatural agency. To which of these causes the religion should be referred is not a question beyond our reach ; for, being partakers of human nature, and knowing more of it than of any other part of creation, we can judge with sufficient accuracy of the operation of its principles, and of the effects to which they are competent. It is indeed true that human powers are not exactly defined, nor can we state precisely the bounds beyond v.'hich they cannot pass ; but still, the disproportion between hu- man nature and an effect ascribed to it may be so vast and palpable as to sat- isfy us at once that the effect is inex- plicable by human power. I know not precisely what advances may be made by the intellect of an unassisted savage ; but that a savage in the woods could not compose the " Principia " of Newton, is about as plain as that he could not create the world. I know not the point at which bodily strength must stop ; but that a man cannot carry Atlas or Andes on his shoulders, is a safe position. The ques- tion, therefore, whether the principles of human nature, under the circumstances in which it was placed at Christ's birth, will explain his religion, is one to which we are competent, and is the great ques- tion on which the whole controversy turns. Now we maintain that a great variety of facts belonging to this religion, — such as the character of its Founder; its peculiar principles ; the style and character of its records ; its progress ; the conduct, circumstances, and suffer- ings of its first propagators ; the recej)- tion of it from the first on the ground of miraculous attestations ; the prophecies EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 227 which it fulfilled and which it contains ; its influence on society, and other cir- cumstances connected with it — are ut- terly inexplicable by human powers and principles, but accord with, and are fully explained by, the power and perfections of God. These various particulars I cannot attempt to unfold. One or two may be illustrated to show you the mode of ap- plying the principles which I have laid down. I will take first the character of Jesus Christ. How is this to be ex- plained by the principles of human nat- ure ? We are immediately struck with this peculiarity in the Author of Chris- tianity, that, whilst all other men are formed in a measure by the spirit of the age, we can discover in Jesus no impres- sion of the period in which he lived. We know with considerable accuracy the state of society, the modes of think- ing, the hopes and expectations of the country in which Jesus was born and grew up ; and he is as free from them, and as exalted above them, as if he had Uved in another world, or with every sense shut on the objects around him. His character has in it nothing local or temporary. It can be explained by nothing around him. His history shows him to us a solitary being, living for purposes which none but himself com- prehended, and enjoying not so much as the sympathy of a single mind. His Apostles, his chosen companions, brought to him the spirit of the age ; and nothing shows its strength more strikingly than the slowness with which it yielded in these honest men to the instructions of Jesus. Jesus came to a nation expecting a Messiah ; and he claimed this character. But instead of conforming to the opin- ions which prevailed in regard to the Messiah, he resisted them wholly and without reserve. To a people anticipat- ing a triumphant leader, under whom vengeance as well as ambition was to be glutted by the prostration of their op- pressors, he came as a spiritual leader, teaching humility and peace. This un- disguised hostility to the dearest hopes and prejudices of his nation ; this dis- dain of the usual compliances by which ambition and imposture conciliate ad- herents ; this deliberate exposure of hiniself to rejection and hatred, cannot easily be explained by the common principles of human nature, and ex- cludes the possibility of selfish aims in the Author of Christianity. One striking peculiarity in Jesus is the extent, the vastness, of his views. Whilst all around him looked for a Messiah to Uberate God's ancient peo- ple, whilst to every other Jew, Judea was the exclusive object of pride and hope, Jesus came, declaring himself to be the deliverer and light of the world, and in his whole teaching and life you see a consciousness which never for- sakes him, of a relation to the whole human race. This idea of blessing man- kind, of spreading a universal religion, was the most magnificent which had ever entered man's mind. All previous religions had been given to particular nations. No conqueror, legislator, phil- osopher, in the extravagance of ambition, had ever dreamed of subjecting all na tions to a common faith. This conception of a universal relig- ion, intended alike for Jew and Gentile, for all nations and climes, is wholly in- explicable by the circumstances of Jesus. He was a Jew, and the first and deepest and most constant impression on a Jew's mind was that of the superiority con- ferred on his people and himself by the national religion introduced by Moses. The wall between the Jew and the Gen- tile seemed to reach to heaven. The abolition of the pecuharity of Moses, the prostration of the temple on Mount Zion, the erection of a new religion, in which all men would meet as brethren, and which would be the common and equal property of Jew and Gentile, these were of all ideas the last to spring up in Judea, the last for enthusiasm or im- posture to originate. Compare next these views of Christ with his station in life. He was of hum- ble birth and education, with nothing in his lot, with no extensive means, no rank, or wealth, or patronage, to infuse vast thoughts and extravagant plans. The shop of a carpenter, the village of Nazareth, were not spots for ripening a scheme more aspiring and extensive than had ever been formed. It is a principle of human nature that, except in case of insanity, some proportion is observed between the power of an indi- vidual and his plans and hopes. The purpose to which Jesus dev/3ted him- self was as ill suited to his condition as 228 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. an attempt to change the seasons, or to make the sun rise in the west. That a young man in obscure Hfe, belonging to an oppressed nation, should seriously think of subverting the time-halloTved and deep-rooted reUgions of the world, is a strange fact ; but with this purpose we see the mind of Jesus thoroughly imbued ; and, sublime as it is, he never falls below it in "his language or conduct, but speaks and acts with a conscious- ness of superiority, with a dignity and authority, becoming this unparalleled destination. Jn this connection I cannot but add another striking circumstance in Jesus, and that is, the calm confidence with which he always looked forward to the accomplishment of his design. He fully knew the strength of the passions and powers which were arrayed against him, and was perfectly aware that his life was to be shortened by violence ; yet not a word escapes him implying a doubt of the ultimate triumphs of his religion. One of the beauties of the Gospels, and one of the proofs of their genuineness, is found in our Saviour's indirect and obscure allusions to his approaching sufferings, and to the glory which was to follow, — allusions showing us the workings of a mind thoroughly con- scious of being appointed to accomplish infinite good through great calamity. This entire and patient relinquishment of immediate success, this ever-present persuasion that he was to perish before his religion would advance, and this calm, unshaken anticipation of distant and unbounded triumphs, are remark- able traits, throwing a tender and sol- emn grandeur over our Lord, and wholly inexplicable by human principles, or by the circumstances in which he was placed. The views hitherto taken of Christ relate to his public character and ofBce. If we pass to what may be called his private character, we shall receive the same impression of inexplicable excel- lence. The most striking trait in Jesus was, undoubtedly, benevolence ; and, al- though this virtue had existed before, yet it had not been manifested in the same form and extent. Christ's benev- olence was distinguished first by its ex- pansiveness. At that age an unconfined philanthropy, proposing and toiling to do good without distinction of country or rank, was unknown. Love to man as man, love comprehending fhe hated Samaritan and the despised publican, was a feature which separated Jesus from the best men of his nation and ol the world. Another characteristic of the benevolence of Jesus was its gentle- ness and tenderness, forming a strong contrast with the hardness and ferocity of the spirit and manners which then prevailed, and with that sternness and inflexibility which the purest philosophy of Greece and Rome inculcated as the perfection of virtue. But its most dis- tinguishing trait was its superiority to injury. Revenge was one of the recog- nized rights of the age in which he lived ; and though a few sages, who had seen its inconsistency with man's dig- nity, had condemned it, yet none had inculcated the duty of regarding one's worst enemies with that kindness which God manifests to sinful men, and of re- turning curses with blessings and pray- ers. This form of benevolence, the most disinterested and divine form, was, as you well know, manifested by Jesus Christ in infinite strength, amidst in- juries and indignities which cannot be surpassed. Now this singular eminence of goodness, this superiority to the de- gradinginfluences of the age, under which all other men suffered, needs to be ex- plained ; and one thing it demonstrates, that Jesus Christ was not an unprincipled deceiver, exposing not only his own hfe but the lives of confiding friends in an enterprise next to desperate. I cannot enlarge on other traits of the character of Christ. I will only observe that it had one distinction which more than any thing forms a perfect char- acter. It was made up of contrasts ; in other words, it was a union of excel- lences which are not easily reconciled, which seem at first sight incongruous, but which, when blended and duly pro- portioned, constitute moral harmony, and attract with equal power love and veneration. For example, we discover in Jesus Christ an unparalleled dignity of character, a consciousness of great- ness never discovered or approached by any other individual in history ; andyet this was blended with a condescension, lowliness, and unostentatious simplicity which had never before been thought consistent with greatness. In like man- ner, he united an utter superiority to the EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 229 world, to its pleasures and ordinary in- terests, with suavity of manners and freedom from austerity. He joined strong feeling and self-possession ; an indignant sensibility to sin, and compas- sion to the sinner ; an intense devotion to his v\rork, and calmness under opposi- tion and ill success ; a universal philan- thropy, and a susceptibility of private attachments ; the authority which be- came the Saviour of the world, and the tenderness and gratitude of a son, Such was the Author of our religion. And is his character to be explained by im- posture or insane enthusiasm ? Does it not bear the unambiguous marks of a heavenly origin ? Perhaps it may be said this character never existed. Then the invention of it is to be explained, and the reception which this fiction met with ; and these perhaps are as difficult of explanation on natural principles as its real existence. Christ's history bears all the marks of reality ; a more frank, simple, unlabor- ed, unostentatious narrative was never penned. Besides, his character, if in- vented, must have been an invention of singular difficulty, because no models ex- isted on which to frame it. He stands alone in the records of time. The concep- tion of a being, proposing such new and exalted ends, and governed by higher principles than the progress of society had developed, implies singular intellectual power. That several individuals should join in equally vivid conceptions of this character, and should not merely de- scribe in general terms the fictitious be- ing to whom it was attributed, but should introduce him into real life, should place him in a great variety of cir- cumstances, in connection with various ranks of men, with friends and foes, and should in all preserve his identity, show the same great and singular mind always acting in harmony with itself ; this is a supposition hardly credible, and, when the circumstances of the writers of the New Testament are considered, seems to be as inexplicable on human prin- ciples as what I before suggested, the composition of Newton's "Principia" by a savage. The character of Christ, though delineated in an age of great moral darkness, has stood the scrutiny of ages ; and, in proportion as men's mora} sentiments have been refined, its beauty has been more seen and felt. To suppose it invented is to suppose that its authors, outstripping their age, had attained to a singular delicacy and elevation of moral perception and feeling. But these at- tainments are not very reconcilable with the character of its authors, supposing it to be a fiction ; that is, with the char- acter of habitual liars and impious de- ceivers. But we are not only unable to discover powers adequate to this invention. There must have been motives for it ; for men do not make great efforts without strong motives ; and, in the whole compass of human incitements, we challenge the in- fidel to suggest any which could have prompted to the work now to be ex- plained. Once more, it must be recollected that this invention, if it were one, was re- ceived as real at a period so near to the time ascribed to Christ's appearance that the means of detecting it were in- finite. That men should send out such a forgery, and that it should prevail and triumph, are circumstances not eas- ily reconcilable with the principles of our nature. The character of Christ, then, was real. Its reality is the only explanation of the mighty revolution produced by his religion. And how can you account for it, but by that cause to which he always referred it, — a mission from the Father? Next to the character of Christ, his religion might be shown to abound in circumstances which contradict and re- pel the idea of a human origin. For example, its representations of the pater- nal character of God ; its inculcation of a universal charity ; the stress which it lays on inward purity ; its substitution of a spiritual worship for the forms and ceremonies which everywhere had usurped the name and extinguished the life of religion ; its preference of humil- ity, and of the mild, unostentatious, passive virtues, to the dazzling qualities which had monopolized men's admira- tion ; its consistent and bright discover- ies of immortality ; its adaptation to the wants of man as a sinner ; its adaptation to all the conditions, capacities, and sufferings of human nature ; its pure, sublime, yet practicable morality ; its high and generous motives ; and its fit- ness to form a character which plainly prepares for a higher life than the pres- 230 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. ent ; these are peculiarities of Chris- tianity, which will strike us more and more in proportion as we understand distinctly the circumstances of the age and country in which this religion ap- peared, and for which no adequate hu- man cause has been or can be assigned. Passing over these topics, each of which might be enlarged into a dis- course, I will make but one remark on this religion, which strikes my own mind very forcibly. Since its introduc- tion, human nature has made great progress, and society experienced great c.hanges ; and in this advanced condi- tion of the world Christianity, instead of losing its application and importance, is found to be more and more congenial and adapted to man's nature and wants. Men have outgrown the other institu- tions of that period when Christianity appeared, — its philosophy, its modes of warfare, its policy, its public and private economy ; but Christianity has never shrunk as intellect has opened, but* has always kept in advance of men's facul- ties, and unfolded nobler views in pro- portion as they have ascended. The highest powers and affections which our nature has developed find more than ad- equate objects in this religion. Christi- anity is indeed pecuUarly fitted to the more improved stages of society, to the more delicate sensibilities of refined minds, and especially to that dissatis- faction with the present state which al- ways grows with the growth of our moral powers and affections. As men advance in civilization, they become susceptible of mental sufferings to which ruder ages are strangers ; and these Christianity is fitted to assuage. Imagination and in- tellect become more restless : and Chris- tianity brings them tranquillity, by the eternal and nTagnificent truths, the sol- emn and unbounded prospects, which it unfolds. This fitness of our religion to more advanced stages of society than that in which it was introduced, to wants of human nature not then developed, seems to me very striking. The relig- ion bears the marks of having come from a Being who perfectly understood the human mind, and had power to provide for its progress. This feature of Chris- tianity is of the nature of prophecy. It was an anticipation of future and dis- tant ages ; and, when we consider among whom our religion sprung, where, but in God, can we find an explanation of this peculiarity ? I have now offered a few hints on the character of Christ, and ou the charac- ter of his religion ; and before quitting these topics I would observe, that they form a strong presumption in favor of the miraculous facts of the Christian his- tory. These miracles were not wrought by a man whose character in other re- spects was ordinary. They were acts of a being, whose mind was as singular as his works, who spoke and acted with more than human authority, whose moral qualities and sublime purposes were in accordance with superhuman powers. Christ's miracles are in unison with his whole character, and bear a proportion to it like that which we observe in the most harmonious productions of nature ; and in this way they receive from it great confirmation. And the same pre- sumption in their favor arises from his religion. That a religion carrying in it- self such marks of divinity, and so inex- plicable on human principles, should receive outward confirmations from Omnipotence, is not surprising. The extraordinary character of the rehgion accords with and seems to demand ex- traordinary interpositions in its behalf. Its miracles are not solitary, naked, un- explained, disconnected events, but are bound up with a system which is worthy of God, and impressed with God ; which occupies a large space, and is operating, with great and increasing energy, in human affairs. As yet I have not touched on what seem to many writers the strongest proofs of Christianity, — I mean the di- rect evidences of its miracles ; by which we mean the testimony borne to them, in- cluding the character, conduct, and con- dition of the witnesses. These I have not time to unfold ; nor is this labor needed ; for Paley's inestimable work, whichis one of your classical books, has stated these proofs with great clearness and power. I would only observe that they may all be resolved into this single principle ; namely, that the Christian miracles were originally believed under such cir- cumstances that this belief can only be explained by their actual occurrence. That Christianity was received at first on the ground of miracles, and that its first preachers and converts proved the depth and strength of their conviction EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. 231 of these facts by attesting them in suf- ■ ferings and in death, we know from the most ancient records which relate to this religion, both Christian and heathen ; and, in fact, this conviction can alone explain their adherence to Christianity. Now, that this conviction could only ■ have sprung from the reahty of the mir- acles, we infer from the known circum- stances of these witnesses, whose pas- sions, interests, and strongest prejudices were originally hostile to the new relig- ion ; whose motives for examining with care the facts on which it rested were as urgent and solemn, and whose means and opportunities of ascertaining their truth were as ample and unfailing, as can be conceived to conspire ; so that the supposition of their falsehood can- not be admitted without subverting our trust in human judgment and human testimony under the most favorable cir- cumstances for discovering truth ; that is, without introducing universal scepti- cism. There is one class of Christian evi- dences to which I have but slightly referred, but which has struck with pe- culiar force men of reflecting minds. I refer to the marks of truth and reality which are found in the Christian rec- ords ; to the internal proofs which the books of the New Testament carry with them of having been written by men who lived in the first age of Christianity, who believed and felt its truth, who bore a part in the labors and conflicts which attended its establishment, and who wrote from personal knowledge and deep conviction. A few remarks to il- lustrate the nature and power of these internal proofs, which are furnished by the books of the New Testament, I will now subjoin. The New Testament consists of his- tories and epistles. The historical books, namely, the Gospels and the Acts, are a continued narrative, embracing many years, and professing to give the history of the rise and progress of the religion. Now it is worthy of observation that these writings completely answer their end ; that they completely solve the problem, how this peculiar religion grew up and established itself in the world ; that they furnish precise and adequate causes for this stupendous revolution in human affairs. It is also worthy of re- mark that they relate a series of facts which are not only connected with one another, but are intimately linked with the long series which has followed them, and agree accurately with subsequent history, so as to account for and sustain it. Now, that a collection of fictitious narratives, coming from different hands, comprehending many years, and spread- ing over many countries, should not only form a consistent whole, wheri taken by themselves, but should also connect and interweave themselves with real history so naturally and intimately as to furnish no clue for detection, as to exclude the ajDpearance of incongruity and discord- ance, and as to give an adequate ex- planation, and the only explanation, of acknowledged events, of the most im- portant revolution in society ; this is a supposition from which an intelligent man at once revolts, and which, if ad- mitted, would shake a principal founda- tion of history. I have before spoken of the unity and consistency of Christ's character as de- veloped in the Gospels, and of the agree- ment of the different writers in giving us the singular features of his mind. Now there are the same marks of truth running through the whole of these nar- ratives. For example, the effects pro- duced by Jesus on the various classes of society ; the different feelings of ad- miration, attachment, and envy, which he called forth ; the various expressions of these feelings ; the prejudices, mis- takes, and gradual illumination of his discijDles ; these are all given to us with such marks of truth and reahty as could not easily be counterfeited. The whole history is precisely such as might be expected from the actual appearance of such a person as Jesus Christ, in such a state of society as then existed. The Epistles, if possible, abound in marks of truth and reality even more than the Gospels. They are imbued thoroughly with the spirit of the first age of Christianity. They bear all the marks of having come from men plunged in the conflicts- which the new religion excited, alive to its interests, identified with its fortunes. They be- tray the very state of mind which must have been generated by the peculiar condition of the first propagators of the religion. They are letters written on real business, intended for immediate effects, designed to meet prejudices and 232 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION. passions which such a religion must at first have awakened. They contain not a trace of the circumstances of a later age, or of the feelings, impressions, and modes of thinking by which later times were characterized, and from which later writers could not easily have escaped. The letters of Paul have a remarkable agreement with his history. They are precisely such as might be expected from a man of a vehement mind, who had been brought up in the schools of Jewish literature, who had been con- verted by a sudden, overwhelming mir- acle, who had been intrusted with the preaching of the new religion to the Gen- tiles, and who was everywhere met by the prejudices and persecuting spirit of his own nation. They are full of ob- scurities growing out of these points of Paul's history and character, and out of the. circumstances of the infant church, and which nothing but an intimate ac- quaintance with that early period can illustrate. This remarkable infusion of the spirit of the first age into the Chris- tian records cannot easily be explained but by the fact that they were written in that age by the real and zealous propa- gators of Christianity, and that they are records of real convictions and of actual events. There is another evidence of Chris- tianity stiU more internal than any on which I have yet dwelt, — an evidence to be felt rather than described, but not less real because founded on feeling. I refer to that conviction of the divine original of our religion which springs up and continually gains strength in those who apply it habitually to their tempers and lives, and who imbibe its spirit and hopes. In such men there is a con- sciousness of the adaptation of Chris- tianity to their noblest faculties, — a consciousness of its exalting and con- soling influences, of its power to confer the true happiness of human nature, to give that peace which the world cannot give ; which assures them that it is not of earthly origin, but a ray from the Everlasting Light, a stream from the Fountain of heavenly wisdom and love. This is the evidence which sustains the faith of thousands who never read and cannot understand the learned books of Christian apologists, who want, perhaps, words to explain the ground of their belief, but whose faith is of adamantine firmness, who hold- the Gospel with a conviction more intimate and unwavering than mere argument ever produced. But I must tear myself from a subject which opens upon me continually as I proceed. Imperfect as this discussion is, the conclusion, I trust, is placed be- yond doubt, that Christianity is true. And, my hearers, if true, it is the greatest of all truths, deserving and demanding our reverent attention and fervent grati- tude. This religion must never be con- founded with our common blessings. It is a revelation of pardon which, as sin- ners, we all need. Still more, it is a revelation of human immortality, — a doctrine which, however undervalued amidst the bright anticipations of inex- perienced youth, is found to be oiu- strength and consolation, and the only effectual spring of persevering and vic- torious virtue, when the realities of life have scattered our visionary hopes ; when pain, disappointment; and tempta- tion press upon us ; when this worlds enjoyments are found unable to quench that deep thirst of happiness which burns in every breast ; when friends, whom we love as our own souls, die ; and our own graves open before us. To all wlio hear me, and especially to my young hearers, I would say, let the truth of this religion be the strongest conviction of your understandings ; let its motives and precepts sway with an absolute power your characters and lives. CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 233 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. Romans i. 16: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." Such was the language of Paul ; and every man will respond to it who com- prehends the character and has felt the influence of Christianity. In a former discourse, I proposed to state to you some reasons for adopting as our own the words of the Apostle, for joining in his open and resolute testimony to the gospel of Christ. I observed that I was not ashamed of the gospel, first, because it i3 true, and to this topic the discourse was devoted. I wish now to continue the subject, and to state another ground of undisguised and unshaken adhe- rence to Christianity. I say, then, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, be- cause it is a rational religion. It agrees with reason ; therefore I count it worthy of acceptation ; therefore I do not blush to enroll myself among its friends and advocates. The object of the present discourse will be the illustration of this claim of Christianity. I wish to show you the harmony which subsists be- tween the light of God's word and that primitive light of reason which He has kindled within us to be our perpetual guide. If, in treating this subject, I shall come into conflict with any class of Christians, I trust I shall not be con- sidered as imputing to them any moral or intellectual defect. I judge men by their motives, dispositions, and lives, and not by their speculations or peculiar opinions ; and I esteem piety and virtue equally venerable whether found in friend or foe. ' Christianity is a rational religion. Were it not so, I should be ashamed to profess it. I am aware that it is the fashion with some to decry reason, and to set up revelation as an opposite authority. This error, though counte- nanced by good men, and honestly main- tained for the defence of the Christian cause, ought to be earnestly withstood ; for it virtually surrenders our religion into the hands of the unbeliever. It saps the foundation to strengthen the building. It places our religion in hos- tility to human nature, and gives to its adversaries the credit of vindicating the rights and noblest powers of the mind. We must never forget that our ra- tional nature is the greatest gift of God. For this we owe him our chief gratitude. It is a greater gift than any outward aid or benefaction, and no doctrine which degrades it can come from its Author. The development of it is the end of our being. Revelation is but a means, and is designed to concur with nature, prov- idence, and God's sjDirit, in carrying for- ward reason to its perfection. 1 glory in Christianity because it enlarges, in- vigorates, exalts my rational nature. If I could not be a Christian without ceas- ing to be rational, I should not hesitate ■as to my choice. I feel myself bound to sacrifice to Christianity property, reputation, life ; but I ought not to sacrifice to any religion that reason which lifts me above the brute and constitutes me a man, I can conceive no sacrilege greater than to prostrate or renounce the highest faculty which we ' have derived from God. In so doing we should offer violence to the divinity within us. Christianity wages no war with reason, but is one with it, and is given to be its helper and friend. I wish, in the present discourse, to illustrate and confirm the views now given. My remarks will be arranged under two heads. I propose, first, to show that Christianity is founded on and supposes the authority of reason, and cannot therefore oppose it without subverting itself. My object in this part of the discourse will be to expose the error of those who hope to serve revelation by disparaging reason. I shall then, in the second place, compare Christianity and the light of reason, to show their accordance ; and shall prove, by descending to particulars, that Chris- tianity is eminently a rational religion. My aim, under this head, will be to vin- dicate the gospel from the reproaches of the unbeliever, and to strengthen the 234 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. faith and attachment of its friends. Before 1 begin, let me observe that this discussion, from the nature of the subject, must assume occasionally an abstract form, and will demand serious attention. I am to speak of reason, the chief faculty of the mind ; and no sim- plicity of language in treating such a topic can exempt the hearer from the necessity of patient effort of thought. I am to begin with showing that the Christian revelation is founded on the authority of reason, and consequently cannot oppose it ; and here it may be proper to settle the meaning of the word reason. One of the most impor- tant steps towards the truth is to de- termine the import of terms. Very often fierce controversies have sprung from obscurity of language, and the parties, on explaining themselves, have discovered that they have been spend- ing their strength in a war of words. What, then, is reason ? The term reason is used with so much latitude that to fix its precise limits is not an easy task. In this respect it agrees with the other words which ex- press the intellectual faculties. Que idea, however, is always attached to it. All men understand by reason the high- est faculty or energy of the mind. With- out laboring for a philosophical definition that will comprehend all its exercises, I ' shall satisfy myself with pointing out two of its principal characteristics or functions. First, it belongs to reason to compre- hend universal truths. This is among its most important offices. There are particular and there are universal truths. The last are the noblest, and the ca- pacity of perceiving them is the distinc- tion of intelligent beings ; and these belong to reason. Let me give my meaning by some illustrations. I see a stone faUing to the ground. This is a particular truth ; but I do not stop here. I believe that not only this par- ticular stone falls towards the earth, but that every particle of matter, in what- ever world, tends, or, as is sometimes said, is attracted towards all other mat- ter. Here is a universal truth, a prin- ciple extending to the whole material creation, and essential to its existence. This truth belongs to reason. Again, I see a man producing some effect, — a manufacture, a house. Here is a par- ticular truth. But I am not only capa- ble of seeing particular causes and effects ; I am sure that every thing which begins to exist, no matter when or where, must have a cause, that no change ever has taken place or ever will take place without a cause. Here is a universal truth, something true here and every- where, true now and through eternity; and this truth belongs to reason. Again, I see with my eyes, I traverse with my hands, a limited space ; but this is not all. I am sure that, beyond the limits which my limbs or senses reach, there is an unbounded space ; that, go where I will, an infinity will spread around me. Here is another universal truth, and this belongs to reason. The idea of infinity is indeed one of the noblest conceptions of this faculty. Again, I see a man con- ferring a good on another. Here is a particular truth or perception. But my mind is not confined to this. I see and feel that it is right for all intelligent be- ings, exist when or where they may, to do good, and wrong for them to seek the misery of others. Here is a univer- sal truth, — a law extending from God to the lowest human being ; and this belongs to reason. I trust I have con- veyed to you my views in regard to the first characteristic of this highest power of the soul. Its office is to discern uni- versal truths, great and eternal princi- ples. But it does not stop here. Reason is also exercised in applying these uni- versal truths to particular cases, beings, events. For example, reason teaches me, as we have seen, that all changes without exception require a cause : and, in conformity to this principle, it prompts me to seek the particular causes of the endless changes and appearances which fall under my observation. Thus reason is perpetually at work on the ideas fur- nished us by the senses, — by conscious- ness, by memory, — associating them with its own great truchs, or investing them with its own universality. I now proceed to the second function of reason, which is indeed akin to the first. Reaspjijs the power which tends ; and is perpetually strLving to reduce our \ variojis, thoughts to, unity_or_consistency. \ Perhaps the most fundamental convic-;; tion of reason js,_ that all truths agree t together, — that inconsistency is the 'mark of error. Its intensest, most ear- nest effort is to bring concord into the CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 235 intellect, to reconcile what seem to be clashing views. On the observation of a new fact, reason strives to incorporate it with former knowledge. It can allow nothing to stand separate in the mind. It labors to bring together scattered truths, and to give them the strength and beauty of a vital order. Its end and delight is harmony. It is shocked by an inconsistency in belief, just as a fine ear is wounded by a discord. It carries within itself an instinctive con- sciousness that all things which exist are intimately bound together ; and it cannot rest until it has connected what- ever we witness with the infinite whole. Reason, according to this view, is the most glorious form or exercise of the intellectual nature. It corresponds to the unity of God and the universe, and seeks to make the soul the image and mirror of this sublime unity. I have thus given my views of reason ; but, to prevent all perversion, before I proceed to the main discussion, let me offer a word or two more of explana- tion. In this discourse, when I speak of the accordance of revelation with reason, I suppose this faculty to be used deliberately, conscientiously, and with the love of truth. Men often baptize with the name of reason their prejudices, unexamined notions, or opinions adopted through interest, pride, or other unwor- thy biases. It is not uncommon to hear those who sacrifice the plainest dictates of the rational nature to im- pulse and passion, setting themselves up as oracles of reason. Now, when I say revelation must accord with reason, I do not mean by the term the corrupt and superficial opinions of men who have betrayed and debased their rational powers. I mean reason calmly, hon- estly exercised for the acquisition of truth and the invigoration of virtue. After these explanations, I proceed to the discussion of the two leading prin- ciples to which this discourse is de- voted. First, I am to show that revelation is founded on the authority of reason, and cannot therefore oppose or disparage it without subverting itself. Let me state a few of the considerations which con- vince me of the truth of this position. The first is, that reason alone makes us capable of receiving a revelation. It must previously exist and operate, or we should be wholly unprepared for the communications of Christ. Revelation, then, is built on reason. You will see the truth of these remarks if you will consider to whom revelation is sent. Why is it given to men rather than to brutes ? Why have not God's messen- gers gone to the fields to proclaim his glad tidings to bird and beast ? The answer is obvious. These want reason ; and wanting this, they have no capacity or preparation for revealed truth. And not only would revelation be lost on the brute ; let it speak to the child, before his rational faculties have been awak- ened, and before some ideas of duty and his own nature have been devel- oped, and it might as well speak to a stone. • Reason is the preparation and ground of revelation. This truth will be still more obvious if we consider not only to whom, but in what way, the Christian revelation is communicated. How is it conveyed ? In words. Did it make these words ? No. They were in use ages before its birth. Again I ask, Did it make the ideas or thoughts which these words express .' No. If the hearers of Jesus had not previously attached ideas to the terms which he employed, they could not have received his meaning. He might as well have spoken to them in a foreign tongue. Thus the ideas which enter into Christianity subsisted be- fore. They were ideas of reason ; so that to this faculty revelation owes the materials of which it is composed. Revelation, we must remember, is not our earUest teacher. Man is not born with the single power of reading God's word, and sent immediately to that guide. His eyes open first on another volume, — that of the creation. Long before he can read the Bible he looks round on the earth and sky. He reads the countenances of his friends, and hears and understands their voices. He looks, too, by degrees, within himself, and acquires some ideas of his own soul. Thus his first school is that of nature and reason, and this is necessary to prepare him for a communication from heaven. Revelation does not find the mind a blank, a void, prepared to receive unresistingly whatever may be offered -, but finds it in possession of various knowledge from nature and experience, and, still more, in possession of great 236 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. principles, fundamental truths, moral ideas, which are derived from itself, and which are the germs of all its future im- provement. This last view is peculiarly important. The mind does not receive every thing from abroad. Its great ideas arifee from itself, and by those na- tive lights it reads and comprehends the volumes of nature and revelation. We speak, indeed, of nature and revelation as making known to us an intelligent First Cause ; but the ideas of intelli- gence and causation we derive originally from our own nature. The elements of the idea of God we gather from our- selves. Power, wisdom, love, virtue, beauty, and happiness, — words which contain all that is glorious in the uni- verse and interesting in our ejMstence, — express attributes of the mind, and are understood by us only through con- sciousness. It is true, these ideas or principles of reason are often obscured by thick clouds and mingled with many and deplorable errors. Still, they are never lost. Christianity recognizes them, is built on them, and needs them as its interpreters. If an illustration of these views be required, I would point you to what may be called the most funda- mental idea of religion, — I mean the idea of right, of duty. Do we derive this origimlly and wholly from sacred books ? Has not every human being, whether born within or beyond the bounds of revelation, a sense of the dis- tinction between right and wrong ? Is there not an earlier voice than revela- tion approving or rebuking men accord- ing to their deeds ? In barbarous ages is not conscience heard ? And does it not grow more articulate with the progress of society .' Christianity does not create, but presupposes the idea of duty ; and the same may be said of other grea,t convictions. Revelation, then, does not stand alone, nor is it addressed to a blank and passive mind. It was meant to be a joint worker with other teachers, with nature, with Providence, with con- science, with our rational powers ; and as these all are given us by God, they cannot differ from each other. God must agree with himself. He*has but one voice. It is man who speaks with jarring tongues. Nothing but harmony can come from the Creator ; and, accord- ingly, a religion claiming to be from God can give no surer proof of falsehood than by contradicting those previous truths which God is teaching by our very nat- ure. We have thus seen that reasor prepares us for a divine communication, and that it furnishes the ideas or mate- rials of which revelation consists. This is my first consideration. I proceed to a second. I affirm, then, that revelation rests on the authority oi reason, because to this faculty it submits the evidences of its truth, and nothing but the approving sentence of reasor binds us to receive and obeyit. This is a very weighty consideration. Chris- tianity, in placing itself before the tribu- nal of reason, and in resting its claims on the sanction of this faculty, is one ol the chief witnesses to the authority and dignity of our rational nature. That 1 have ascribed to this faculty its true and proper ofiice may be easily made tc appear. I take the New Testament ir hand, and on what ground do I receive its truths as divine ? I see nothing or its pages but the same letters in whicl other books are written. No miraculous voice from heaven assures me that it is God's word, nor does any mysterious voice within my soul command me tc believe the supernatural works of Christ How, then, shall I settle the question oi the origin of this religion ? I musi examine it by the same rational faculties by which other subjects are tried. 1 must ask what are its evidences, and 1 must lay them before reason, the onl3 power by which evidence can be weighed I have not a distinct faculty given m< for judging a revelation. I have no' two understandings, one for inquiring into God's wotd and another into his works. As with the same bodily eye 1 now look on the earth, now on the heav ens, so with the same power of reason ] examine now nature, now revelation Reason must collect and weigh th< various proofs of Christianity. It mus especially compare this system with thos( great moral convictions which are wi-it ten by the finger of God on the heart and which make man a law to himself A religion subverting these it must no hesitate to reject, be its evidences wha they may. A religion, for example commanding us to \^Xs. and injure soci ety, reason must instantly discard, with out even waiting to examine its proofs Fron^^these views we learn, not only tha it is the province of reason to judge o CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 237 the truth of Christianity, but, what is still more important, that the rules or tests by which it judges are of its own dictation. The laws which it applies in thfe case have their origin in itself. No one will pretend that revelation can pre- scribe the principles by which the ques- tion of its own truth should be settled ; for, until proved to be true, it has no authority. Reason must prescribe the tests or standards to which a professed communication from God should be re- ferred ; and among these none are more important thaii that moral law which be- longs to the very essence and is the deepest conviction of the rational nature. Revelation, then, rests on reason, and in opposing it would act for its own destruction. I have given two views. I have shown that revelation draws its ideas or mate- rials from reason, and that it appeals to this power as the judge of its truth. I now assert, thirdly, that it rests on the authority of reason, because it needs and expects this faculty to be its inter- preter, and without this aid would be worse than useless. How is the right of interpretation, the real meaning, of Scriptures to be ascertained ? I answer, by reason. I know of no process by which the true sense of the New Tes- tament is to pass from the page into my mind without the use of my rational facuhies. It will not be pretended that this book is so exceedingly plain, its words so easy, its sentences so short, its meaning so exposed on the surface, that the whole truth may be received in a moment and without any int^lectual effort. There is no such miraculous simplicity in the Scriptures. In truth, no book can be written so simply as to need no exercise of reason. Almost every word has more than one meaning, and judgment is required to select the particular sense intended by the writer. Of all books, perhaps the Scriptures need most the use of reason for their just interpretation ; and this, not from any imperfection, but from the strength, boldness, and figurative character of their style, and from the distance of the time when they were written. I open the New Testament and my eye lights on this passage : " If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee." Is this language to be interpreted in its plainest and most obvious sense ? Then I must mutilate my body, and become a suicide. I look again, and I find Jesus using these words to the Jews : " Fill ye up the measure of your iniquities." Am I to interpret this according to the lettei or the first ideas which it suggests ? Then Jesus commanded his hearers to steep themselves in crime, and was him- self a minister of sin. It is only by a deUberate use of reason that we can penetrate beneath the figurative, hyper- bolical,, and often obscure style of the New Testament, to the real meaning. Let me go to the Bible, dismissing my reason and taking the first impression which the words convey, and there is no absurdity, however gross, into which I shall not fall. I shall ascribe a limited body to God, and unbounded knowledge to man, for I read of God having limbs, and of man knowing all things. Noth- ing is plainer than that I must compare passage with passage, and limit one by another, and especially limit all by those plain and universal principles of reason which are called common-sense, or I shall make revelation the patron of every folly and vice. So essential is reason to the interpretation of the Christian rec- ords. Revelation rests upon its author- ity. Can it then oppose it, or teach us to hold it in light esteem ? I have now furnished the proofs of . my first position, that revelation is founded on reason ; and in discussing this, I have wished not only to support the main doctrine, but to teach you to reverence, more perhaps than you have done, your rational nature. This has been decried by theologians, until men have ceased to feel its sacredness and dignity. It ought to be regarded as God's greatest gift. It is his image within us. To renounce it would be to offer a cruel violence to ourselves, to take our place among the brutes. Better pluck out the eye, better quench the light of the body than the light within us. We all feel that the loss of reason, when produced by disease, is the most terrible calamity of life ; and we look on a hospital for the insane as the re- ceptacle for the most pitiable of our race. B'ut, in one view, insanity is not so great an evil as the prostration of reason to a religious sect or a religious chief ; for the first is a visitation of Providence, the last is a voluntary act, the work of our own hands. 238 CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. I am aware that those who have spoken most contemptuously of human reason have acted from a good motive, — their aim has been to exalt revelation. They have thought that by magnifying this as the only means of divine teaching, they were adding to its dignity. But truth gains nothing by exaggeration ; and Christianity, as we have seen, is under- mined by nothing more effectually than by the sophistry which would bring dis- credit on our rational powers. Revela- tion needs no such support. For myself, I do not find that to esteem Christianity, I must think it the only source of in- struction to which I must repair. I need not make nature dumb to give power or attraction to the teaching of Christ. The last derives new interest and confirmation from its harmony with the first. Christianity would furnish a weapon against itself, not easily repelled, should it claim the distinction of being the only light vouchsafed by God to men ; for, in that case, it would repre- sent a vast majority of the human race as left by their Creator without guidance or hope. I believe, and rejoice to be- lieve, that a ray from heaven descends on the path of every fellow-creature. The heathen, though in darkness when compared with the Christian, has still his light ; and it comes from the same source as our own, just as the same sun dispenses, now the faint dawn, and now the perfect day. /Let not nature's teach- ing be disparaged. It is from God as truly as his word. It is sacred, as truly as revelation. Both are manifestations of one infinite mind, and harmonious manifestations ; and without this agree- ment the claims of Christianity could not be sustained. / In offering these remarks, I have not forgotten that they will expose me to the reproach of ministering to " the pride of reason ; " and I may be told that there is no worse form of pride than this: The charge is so common as to deserve a moment's attention. It will app.ear at once to be groundless, if you consider that pride finds its chief nour- ishment and delight in the idea of our own superiority. It is built on some- thing peculiar and distinctive, on some- thing which separates us from others and raises us above them, and not on powers which we share with all around us. Now, in speaking as I have done of the worth and dignity of reason, have constantly regarded and repr sented this faculty as the common pro erty of all human beings. I have spok( of its most important truths as univers and unconfined, such as no individu can monopolize or make the grounds personal distinction or elevation. I ha-' given, then, no occasion and furnishf no nutriment to pride. /I know, indee that the pride of reason or of intelle exists ; but how does it chiefly manife itself? Not in revering that ration nature which all men have derived fro God ; but in exaggerating our particul; acquisitions or powers, in magnifyir our distinctive views, in looking co; temptuously on other minds, in makir ourselves standards for our brethren, : refusing new lights, and in attemptir to establish dominion over the unde standings of those who are placed with: our influence. Such is the most commc form of the pride of intellect. It is vice confined to no sect, and perha] will be found to prevail most where it most disclaimed/ /\ doubt not that they who insist s continually on the duty of exaltir Scripture above reason, consider ther selves as particularly secured again the pride of reason. Yet none, I appr hend, are more open to the charg Such persons are singularly prone enforce their own interpretations i Scripture on others, and to see pei and crime in the adoption of differe: views from their own. Now, let me as by what power do these men interpr revelation ? Is it not by their reasor Have they any faculties but the ration ones by which to compare Scriptu with Scripture, to explain figurative la: guage, to form conclusions as to the w of God ? Do they not employ on God word the same intellect as on his worki And are not their interpretations of bo equally results of reason? It follow that in imposing on others their exp cations of the Scriptures, they as tru arrogate to themselves a superiority reason as if they should require co formity to their explanations of natui Nature and Scripture agree in this, th they cannot be understood at a glanc Both volumes demand patient investig tion, and task all our powers of thougl Accordingly, it is well known that much intellectual toil has been spent ( CHRISTIANITY A RA TIONAL RELIGION. 239 theological systems as on the natural sciences ; and unhappily it is not less known that as much intellectual pride has been manifested in framing and defending the first as the last. I fear, indeed, that this vice has clung with peculiar obstinacy to. the students of revelation. /Nowhere, I fear, have men manifested such infatuated trust in their own infallibility, such overweening fond- ness for their own conclusions, such positiveness, such impatience of contra- diction, such arrogance towards the ad- vocates of different opinions, as in the interpretation of the Scriptures ; and yet these very men, who so idolize their own intellectual powers, profess to humble reason, and consider a criminal rehance on it as almost exclusively chargeable on others. The true defence against the pride of reason is, not to speak of it contemptuously, but to rever- ence it as God's inestimable gift to every human being, and as given to all for never-ceasing improvements, of which we see but the dawn in the present acquisitions of the noblest mind. I have now completed my views of the first principle which I laid down in this discourse ; namely, that the Chris- tian revelation rests on the authority of reason. Of course, it cannot oppose reason without undermining and de- stroying itself. I maintain, however, that it does not oppose, — that it per- fecdy accords with reason. It is a rational religion. This is my second great position, and to this I ask your continued attention. This topic might easily be extended to a great length. I might state, in succession, all the prin- ciples of Christianity, and show their accordance with reason. But I be- lieve that more general views will be more useful, and such only can be given within the compass of a dis- course. In the account which I gave you of reason in the beginning of this dis- course, I confined mjfself to two of its functions ; namely, its comprehension of universal truths, and the effort it constantly makes to reduce the thoughts to harmony or consistency. Universal- ity and consistency are among the chief attributes of reason. Do we find these in Christianity ? If so, its claim to the character of a rational religion will be established. These tests I will there- fore apply to it, and I will begin with consistency. That a religion be rational, nothing more is necessary than that its truths should consist or agree with one an- other, and with all other truths, whether derived from outward nature or our own souls. Now I affirm that the Christian doctrines have this agreement ; and the more we examine, the more brightly this mark of truth will appear. 1 go to the gospel, and I first compare its vari- ous parts with one another. Among these I find perfect harmony ; and what makes this more remarkable is, that Christianity is not taught systematically or hke a science. Jesus threw out, if I may so speak, his precepts and doc- trines incidentally, or as they were re- quired by the occasion, and yet, when they are brought together, they form a harmonious whole. I do not think it necessary to enlarge on this topic, be- cause I believe it is not questioned by infidelity. I will name but one example of this harmony in Christianity. All its doctrines and all its precepts have that species of unity which is most essential in a rehgion, — that is, they all tend to one object. They all agree in a single aim or purpose, and that is to exalt the human character to a height of virtue never known before. Let the sceptic name, if he can, one Christian principle which has not a bearing on this end. A consistency of this kind is the strongest mark of a rational re- ligion which can be conceived. Let me observe, in passing, that, besides this harmony of the Christian doctrines with one another, there is a striking and beautiful agreement between the teach- ings of Jesus and his character, which gives confirmation to both. Whatever Jesus taught, you may see embodied in himself. There is perfect unity be- tween the system and its Founder. His life republished what fell from his lips. With his lips he enjoined ear- nestly, constantly, a strong and disin- terested philanthropy ; and how har- moniously and sublimely did his cross join with his word in enforcing this exalted virtue ! With his lips he taught the mercy of God to sinners ; and of this attribute he gave a beautiful illus- tration in his own deep interest in the sinful, in his free intercourse with the most fallen, and in his patient efforts 240 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. to recover them to virtue and to filial reliance on their Father in heaven. So, his preaching turned much on the importance of raising the mind above the world ; and his own life was a con- stant renunciation of worldly interests, a cheerful endurance of poverty that he might make many truly rich. So, his discourses continually revealed to man the doctrine of immortality ; and in his own person he brought down this truth to men's senses, by rising from the dead and ascending to another state of being. I have only glanced at the unity which subsists between Jesus and his religion. Christianity, from every point of view, will be found a harmonious system. It breathes throughout one spirit and one purpose. Its doctrines, precepts, and examples have the con- sistency of reason. But this is not enough. A rational religion must agree not only with itself, but with all other truths, whether re- vealed by the outward creation or our own souls. I take, then, Christianity into the creation ; I place it by the side of nature. Do they agreei. ^ I say. Perfectly. I can discover nothing,~'in what claims to be God's word, at vari- ance with his works. This is a bright proof of the reasonableness of Christi- anity. When I consult nature with the lights modern science afiorfls, I see continually multiplying tracQg of the doctrine of One God. The more I ex- tend my researches into nature, the more I see that it is a whole, the pro- duct of one wisdom, power, and good- ness. It bears witness to one Author ; nor has its testimony been without effect ; for although the human mind has often multiplied its objects of wor- ship, still it has always tended towards the doctrine of the ' divine unity, and has embraced it more and more firmly in the course of human improvement. The heathen, while he erected many altars, generally believed in one su- preme divinity, to whom the inferior deities were subjected and from whom they sprung. Need I tell you of the harmony which subsists between nature and revelation in this particular ? To Christianity belongs the glory of hav- ing proclaimed this primitive truth with new power, and of having spread it over the whole civilized world. Again : Nature gives intimation of another truth, — I mean of the universal, im- partial goodness of God. When I look round on the creation, I see nothing to lead me to suspect that its Author con- fines his love to a few. The sun sends no brighter beam into the palace of the proudest king than into the hut of the meanest peasant. The clouds select not one man's fields rather than his neighbor's, but shed down their bless- ings on rich and poor, and, still more, on the just and the unjust. True, there is a variety of conditions among men ; but this takes place, not by any interpo- sition of God, but by fixed and general laws of nature. Impartial, universal goodness is the character in which God is revealed by his works, when they are propejLy^ .understood ; and need T tell you how brightly this truth shines in the pages of Christianity, and how this religion has been the great means of establishing it among men ? Again : When J - look through nature, nothing strikes me more than the union which subsists among all its works. Nothing stands alone in the creation. The hum- blest plant has intimate connections with the air, the clouds, the sun. Har- mony is the great law of nature, and how strikingly does Christianity coin- cide here with God's works ! for what is the design of this religion but to bring the human race, the inteUigent creation of God, into a harmony, union, peace, like that which knits together the outward universe ? I will give an- other illustration. It is one of the great laws of nature that good shall come to us through agents of God's appointment ; that beings shall receive life, support, knowledge, and safety through the interposition and labors and sufferings of others. Sometimes whole communities are rescued from oppression and ruin chiefly by the efforts and sacrifices of a wise, disin- terested, and resolute individual. How accordant with this ordination of nature is the doctrine of Christianity, that our heavenly Father, having purposed our recovery froni sin and death, has insti- tuted for this end the agency and medi- ation of his Son ; that He has given an illustrious deliverer to the world, through whose toils and sufferings we may rise to purity and immortal life. I say, then, that revelation is consistent with nature, when nature is truly interpreted CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 241 by reason. I see it bringing out with noonday brightness the truths which dawn in nature ; so that it is reason in its most perfect form. I have thus carried Christianity abroad into nature. I now carry it within, and compare it with the human soul ; and is it consistent with the great truths of reason which I discover there ? I afSrm that it is. When I loolc into the soul, I am at once struck with its immeasurable superiority to the body. I am struck with the contrast between these different elements of my nature, — between this active, soaring mind, and these limbs and material organs which tend perpet- ually to the earth, and are soon to be resolved into dust. How consistent is Christianity with this inward teaching ! In Christianity, with what strength, with what bold relief, is the supremacy of the spiritual nature brought out ! What contempt does Jesus cast on the body and its interests, when compared with the redemption of the soul ! ', Another great truth dawns on me when I look within. I learn more and more that the great springs of happiness and misery are in the mind, and that the efforts of men to secure peace by other processes than by inward purification are vain strivings ; and Christianity is not only consistent with, but founded on,, this great truth ; teaching us that the king- dom of heaven is within us, and propos- ing, as its great end, to rescue the mind from evil, and to endue it with strength and dignity worthy its divine origin. Again : When 1 look into the soul I meet intimations of another great truth. I discern in it capacities which are not fully unfolded here. I see desires which find no adequate good on earth. I see a principle of hope always pressing for- ward into futurity. Here are marks of a nature not made wholly for this world ; and how does Christianity agree with this teaching of our own souls ? Its great doctrine is that of a higher life, where the spiritual germ within us will open for ever, and where the immortal good after which the mind aspires will prove a reality. Had I time, I might survey distinctly the various principles of the soul, — the intellectual, moral, social, and active, — ■ and might show you how Christianity accords with them all, enlarging their scope and energy, pro- posing to them nobler objects, and aid- rfi ing their development by the impulse of a boundless hope. But, commending these topics to your private meditation, I will take but one more view of the soul. When I look within, I see stains of sin, and fears and forebodings of guilt ; and how adapted to such a nature is Chris- tianity, — a religion which contains blood-sealed promises of forgiveness to the penitent, and which proffers heavenly strength to fortify us in our conflict with moral evil ! I say, then, Christianity con- sists with the nature within us as well as with nature around us. The highest truths in respect to the soul are not only responded to, but are carried out by Christianity, so that it deserves to be called the perfection of reason. I have now shown, in a variety of particulars, that Christianity has the character of consistency, and thus satis- fies the first demand of reason. It does not divide the mind against itself, — does not introduce discord into the intellect, by proposing doctrines which our con- sciousness and experience repel. But these views do not exhaust the present topic. It is not enough to speak of Chris- tianity as furnishing views which harmo- nize with one another, and with all known truth. It gives a new and cheering con- sistency to the views with which we are furnished by the universe. Nature and providence, with all their beauty, regu- larity, and beneficence, have yet perplex- ing aspects. Their elements are often seen in conflict with one another. Sun- shine and storms, pleasure and pain, suc- cess and disaster, abundance and want, health and sickness, life and death, seem to ordinary spectators to be mixed together confusedly and without aim. Reason desires nothing so earnestly, so anxiously, as to solve these discordant appearances, as to discover some great, central, reconciling truth, around which they may be arranged, and from which they may borrow light and harmony. This deep want of the rational nature Christianity has supplied. It has dis- closed a unity of purpose in the seem- ingly hostile dispensations of providence, and opened to the mind a new world of order, beauty, and benevolent design. Christianity, revealing, as it does, the unbounded mercy of God to his sinful creatures ; revealing an endless futurity, in which the inequalities of the present state are to be redressed, and which re- 242 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. duces by its immensity the sorest pains of life to light and momentary evils ; re- vealing a moral perfection, which is worth all pain and conflicts, and which is most effectually and gloriously won amidst suffering and temptation ; revealing in Jesus Christ the sublimity and rewards of tried and all-enduring virtue ; re- vealing in him the Founder of a new moral kingdom or power, which is des- tined to subdue the world to God ; and proffering the Holy Spirit to aU who strive to build up in themselves and . others the reign of truth and virtue ; — Christianity, I say, by these revelations, has poured a flood of light over nature and providence, and harmonized the in- finite complexity of the works and ways of God. Thus it meets the first want of the rational nature, the craving for con- sistency of views. It is reason's most effectual minister and friend. Is it not, then, eminently a rational faith ? Having shown that Christianity has the character of consistency, I proceed to the second mark or stamp of' 'reason on a reUgion, that is, universality ; and this I claim for Christianity. This, in- deed, is one of the most distinguishing features of our religion, and so obvious and striking as to need httle illustration. When I examine the doctrines, precepts, and spirit of Christianity, I discover, in them aU, this character of universality. I discover nothing narrow, temporary, local. The gospel bears the stamp of no particular age or country. It does not concern itself with the perishable interests of communities or individuals ; but appeals to the spiritual, immortal, unbounded principle in human nature. Its aim is to direct the mind to the In- finite Being, and to an infinite good. It is not made up, like other religions, of precise forms and details ; but it incul- cates immutable and all-comprehending principles of duty, leaving every man to apply them for himself to the endless variety of human conditions. It sepa- rates from God the partial, limited'views of Judaism and heathenism, and holds him forth in the sublime attributes of the Universal Father. In like' maimer, it inculcates philanthropy without ex- ceptions or bounds, — a love to man as man, a love founded on that immortal nature of which all men partake, and which binds us to recognize in each a child of God and a brother. The spirit of bigotry, which confines its charity to 3 sect, and the spirit of aristocracy, which looks on the multitude as an inferior race, are alike rebuked by Christianity ; which, eighteen hundred years ago, in a narrow and superstitious age, taught, what the present age is beginning to understand, that all men are essentially equal, and that all are to be honored, because made for immortality and en- dued with capacities of ceaseless im- provement. The more I examine Chris- tianity, the more I am struck with its universality. I see in it a religion made for all regions and all times, for all classes and all stages of society. It is fitted, not to the Asiatic or the Euro- pean, but to the essential principles of human nature, — to man under the trop- ical or polar skies, to all descriptions of intellect and condition. It speaks a lan- guage which all men need and all can understand ; enjoins a virtue which is man's happiness and glory in every age and clime ; and ministers consolations and hopes which answer to man's uni- versal lot, — to the sufferings, the fear, and the self-rebuke which cleave to our nature in every outward change. I see in it the light, not of one nation, but of the world ; and a light reaching beyond the world, beyond time, to higher modes of existence and to an interminable futurity. Other religions have been intended to meet the exigencies of par- ticular countries or times, and there- fore society in its progress has outgrown them ; but Christianity meets more and more the wants of the soul in propor- tion to the advancement of our race, and thus proves itself to be eternal truth. After these remarks, may I not claim for Christianity that character of universality which is the highest dis- tinction of reason ? To understand fully the confirmation which these views give to the gospel, you must compare it with the religions prevalent in the age of Christ, all of which bore the marks of narrow, local, temporary institutions. How striking the contrast! And how singular the fact, that amid this dark- ness there sprung up a religion so con- sistent and universal as to deserve to be called the perfection of reason ! I do and must feel, my friends, that the claim of Christianity to the honor of being a rational religion is fully estab- lished. As such I commend it to you. CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 243 As such it will more and more approve itself in proportion as you study and practise it. You will never find cause to complain that by adopting it you have enslaved or degraded your highest powers. Here, then, I might stop, and might consider my work as done. But I am aware that objections have been made to the rational character of our religion which may still linger in the minds of some of my hearers. A brief notice of these may aid the purpose, and will form a proper conclusion, of this discourse. I imagine that were some who are present to speak, they would tell me that if Christianity be judged by its fruits, it deserves any character but that of rational. I should be told that no religion has borne a more abundant harvest of extravagance and fanaticism. I should be told that reason is a calm, reflecting, sober principle, and I should be asked whether such is the character of the Christianity which has overspread the world. Perhaps some of you will remind me of the feverish, wild, pas- sionate religion which is now systemat- ically dispersed through our country, and I shall be asked whether a system under which such delusions prevail can be a rational one, To these objections I answer, You say much that is true. I grant that reason is a calm and reflecting princi- ple, and I see little calmness or reflection among many who take exclusively the name of Christ. But I say, you have no right to confound Christianity with its professors. This religion, as you know, has come down to us through many ages of darkness, during which it must have been corrupted and obscured. Common candor requires that you should judge of it as it came from its Founder. Go, then, to its original records ; place your- selves near Jesus ; and tell me if you ever found yourselves in the presence of so calm a teacher. We indeed dis- cern in Jesus great earnestness, but joined with entire self-control. Sensi- bihty breathes through his whole teach- ing and life, but always tempered with wisdom. Amidst his boldest thoughts and expressions, we discover no marks of ungoverned feeling or a diseased im- agination. Take, as an example, his longest discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. How weighty the thoughts ! How grave and dignified the style ! You recollect that the multitude were aston- ished, not at the passionate vehemence, but at the authority, with wliich he spoke. Read next the last discourse of Jesus to his disciples in St. John's Gos- pel. What a deep yet mild and subdued tenderness mingles with conscious great- ness in that wonderful address ! Take what is called the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus gave as the model of all prayer to God. Does that countenance fanatical fervor or violent appeals to our Creator ? Let me further ask, Does Jesus any- where place religion in tumultuous, un- governed emotion ? Does he not teach us, that obedience, not feeling, marks and constitutes true piety, and that the most acceptable offering to God is to exercise mercy to our fellow-creatures ? When I compare the clamorous preach- ing and passionate declamation too com- mon in the Christian world, with the composed dignity, the deliberate wisdom, the freedom from all extravagance, which characterized Jesus, I can imagine no greater contrast ; and I am sure that the fiery zealot is no representative of Christianity. I have done with the first objection ; but another class of objections is often urged against the reasonable character of our religion. It has been strenuous- ly maintained tliat Christianity contains particular doctrines which are irrational, and which involve the whole religion to which they are essential in their own condemnation. To this class of objec- tions I have a short reply. I insist that these offensive doctrines do not belong to Christianity, but are human additions, and therefore do not derogate from its reasonableness and truth. What is the doctrine most frequently adduced to fix the charge of irrationality on the gos- pel ? It is the Trinity. This is pro- nouncedby the unbeliever a gross offence to reason. It teaches that there is one God, and yet that there are three divine persons. According to the doctrine these three persons perform different offices, and sustain different relations to each other. One is Father, another his Son. One sends, another is sent. They love each other, converse with each other, and make a covenant with each other ; and yet, with all these distinc- tions, they are, according to the doc- trine, not different beings, but one 244 CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. being, one and the same God. Is this a rational doctrine ? has often been the question of the objector to Christianity. I answer, No. I can as easily believe that the whole human race are one man, as that three infinite persons, performing such different offices, are one God. But I maintain that, because the Trinity is irrational, it does not follow that the same reproach belongs to Christianity ; for this doctrine is no part of the Chris- tian religion. I know there are passages which are continually quoted in its de- fence ; but allow me to prove doctrines in the same way, — that is, by detaching texts from their connection and inter- preting them without reference to the general current of Scripture, and I can prove any thing and every thing from the Bible. I can prove that God has human passions. I can prove transub- stantiation, which is taught much more explicitly than the Trinity. Detached texts prove nothing. Christ is called God ; the same tide is given to Moses and to rulers. Christ has said, " I and my Father are one ; " so he prayed that all his disciples might be one, meaning not one and the same being, but one in affection and purpose. I ask you, be- fore you judge on this point, to read the Scriptures as a whole, and to inquire into their general strain and teaching in regard to Christ. I find him uniformly distinguishing between himself and God, calling himself, not God the Son, but the Son of God, — continually speaking of himself as sent by God, continually referring his power and miracles to God. I hear him saying that of himself he can do nothing, and praying to his Father under the character of the only true God. Such I affirm to be the tenor, the current, the general strain of the New Testament ; and the scattered passages on which a different doctrine is built should have no weight against this host of witnesses. Do not rest your faith on a few texts. Sometimes these favorite texts are no part of Scripture. For example, the famous passage on which the Trinity mainly rests, " There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one," — this text, I say, though found at present in John's Epistle, and read in our churches, has been pronounced by the ablest critics a forgery ; and a vast majority of the educated ministers of this country are satisfied that it is not a part of Scripture. Suffer no man, then, to select texts for you as decisive of religious contro- versies. Read the whole record for yourselves, and possess yourselves of its general import. I am very desirous to separate the doctrine in question from Christianity, because itfastens the charge of irrationality on the whole religion. It is one of the great obstacles to the pro- pagation of the gospel. The Jews will not hear of a Trinity. I have seen in the countenance, and heard in the tones of the voice, the horror with which that people shrink from the doctrine that God died on the cross. Mahometans, too, when they hear this opinion from Christian missionaries, repeat the first article of their faith, " There is one God ; " and look with pity or scorn on the disciples of Jesus as deserters of the plainest and greatest truth of religion. Even the Indian of our wilderness, who worships the Great Spirit, has charged absurdity on the teacher who has gone to indoctrinate him in a Trinity. How many, too, in Christian countries, have suspected the whole reh'gion for this one error. Believing, then, as I do, that it forms no part of Christianity, my alle- giance to Jesus Christ calls me openly to withstand it. In so doing I would wound no man's feelings. I doubt not, that (hey who adopt this doctrine intend, equally with those who oppose it, to render homage to the truth and service to Christianity. They think that their peculiar faith gives new interest to the character and new authority to the teach- ing of Jesus. But they grievously err. The views by which they hope to build up love towards Christ detract from the perfection of his Father ; and I fear that the kind of piety which prevails now in the Christian world bears witness to the sad influence of this obscuration of the true glory of God. We need not desert reason or corrupt Christianity to insure the purest, deepest love towards the only true God, or towards Jesus Christ, whom He has sent for our re- demption. I have named one doctrine which is often urged against Christianity as irra- tional. There is one more, on which I would offer a few remarks.!^ Christianity has often been reproachedwith teaching that God brings men into life totally de- CHRISTIANITY A RATIONAL RELIGION. 245 praved, and condemhs immense multi- tudes to everlasting misery for sins to which tlieir nature has irresistibly im- pelled them. This is said to be irra- tional, and consequently such must be the religion which teaches it. I cer- tainly shall not attempt to vindicate this theological fiction. A more irrational doctrine could not, I think, be con- trived; and it is something worse, — it is as immoral in its tendency as it is un- reasonable. It is suited to alienate men from God and from one another, Were it really believed (which it cannot be), men would look up with dread and de- testation to the Author of their being, and look round with horror on their fellow-creatures. It would dissolve so- ciety. Were men to see in one another wholly corrupt beings , — incarnate fiends , without one genuine virtue, — society would become as repulsive as a den of lioris or a nest of vipers... All confi- dence, esteem, love, would die ; and without these the interest, charm, and worth of existence would expire. What a pang would shoot through a parent's heart, if he were to see in the smiling infant a moral being continually and wholly propense to sin, in whose mind were thickly sown the seeds of hatred to God and goodness, and who had com- menced his existence under the curse of his Creator ! What good man could consent to be a parent, if his offspring were to be born to this infinitely wretched inheritance ? I say, the doctrine is of imrnoral tendency ; but I do not say that they who profess it are immoral. The truth is, that none do or can hold it in its full and proper import. I have seen its advocates smile as benignantly on the child whom their creed has made a demon as if it were an angel ; and I have seen them mingling with their fellow- creatures as cordially and confidingly as if the doctrine of total depravity had never entered their ears. Perhaps the most mischievous effect of the doctrine is the dishonor which it has thrown on Christianity. This dishonor I would wipe away. Christianity teaches no such doctrine. Where do you find it in the New Testament ? Did Jesus teach it, when he took Uttle children in his arms and blessed them, and said, " Of iuch is the kingdom of God ? " Did Paul teach it when he spoke of the Gen- tiles, who have not the law or a written revelation, but who do by nature the things contained in tlie law ? Christi- anity indeed speaks strongly of human guilt, but always treats men as beings who have the power of doing right, and who have come into existence under the smile of their Creator.^ I have now completed my vindication of the claim of the gospel to the char- acter of a rational religion ; and my aim has been, not to serve a party, but the cause of our common Christianity. At the present day, one of the most urgent duties of its friends is, to rescue it from the reproach of waging war with reason. The character of our age demands this. There have been times when Christi- anity, though loaded with unreasonable doctrines, retained its hold on men's faith ; for men had not learned to think. They received their religion as children learned the catechism ; they substituted the priest for their own understandings, and cared neither what nor why they believed. But that day is gone by, and the spirit of freedom which has suc- ceeded it is subjecting Christianity to a scrutiny more and more severe ; and if this religion cannot vindicate itself to the reflecting, the calm, the wise, as a reasonable service, it cannot stand. Fanatical sects may, for a time, spread an intolerant excitement through a com- munity, and impose silence on the objec- tions of the sceptical. But fanaticism is the epidemic of a season ; it wastes it- self by its own violence. Sooner or later the voice of reflection will be heard. Men will ask. What are the claims of Christianity ? Does it bear the marks of truth .? And if it be found to war with nature and reason, it will be, and it ought to be, abandoned. On this ground, I am anxious that Christianity should be cleared from all human additions and corruptions. If, indeed, irrational doc- trines belong to it, then I have no desire to separate them from it. 1 have no desire, for the sake of upholding the gospel, to wrap up and conceal, much tss to deny, any of its real principles. /Did I think that it was burdened with one irrational doctrine, I would say so, and I would leave it, as I found it, with this mill-stone round its neck. i3ut I know none such. I meet, indeed, some difiSculties in the narrative part of tha New Testament ; and there are argu- ments in the Epistles which, however 246 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. suited to the Jews, to whom they were first addressed, are not apparently adapted to men at large ; but 1 see not a principle of the religion which my reason, calmly and impartially exercised, pronounces inconsistent with any great truth. I have the strongest conviction that Christianity is reason in its most perfect form, and therefore I plead for its disengagement from the inutional ad- ditions with which it has been clogged for ages/ With these views of Christianity, I do and 1 must hold it fast. I cannot sur- render it to the cavils or scoffs of infi- delity. I do not blush to own it, for it is a rational religion. It satisfies the wants of the intellect as well as those of the heart. I know that men of strong minds have opposed it. But, as if Prov- idence intended that their sophistry should carry a relEutation on its own front, they "have generally fallen into errors so gross and degrading as to prove them to be any thing rather than the apostles of reason. When I go from the study of Christianity to their writings, I feel as if I were passing from the warm, bright sun into a chilling twi- light which too often deepens into utter darkness. I am not, then, ashamed of the gospel. I see it glorified by the hostile systems which are reared for its destruction. I follow Jesus, because he is eminently " the Light ; " and I doubt not that, to his true disciples, he will be a guide to that world where the obscuri- ties of our present state will be dis- persed, and where reason as well as virtue will be unfolded under the quick- ening influence and in the more manifest presence of God. THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY: Discourse at the Installation of th'e Rev. M. I. Motte, Boston, 1 828. 2 Timothy i. 7 : " For God hath not given us the spirit of fear ; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Why was Christianity given ? Why did Christ seal it with his blood .^ Why is it to be preached ? What is the great happiness it confers ? What is the chief blessing for which it is to be prized ? What is its pre-eminent glory, its first claim on the gratitude of mankind .' These are great questions. I wish to answer them plainly, according to the light and ability which God has given me. I read the answer to them in the text. There I learn the great good which God confers through Jesus Christ. " He hath given us, not the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." The glory of Chris- tianity is the pure and lofty action which it communicates to the human mind. It does not breathe a timid, ab- ject spirit. If it did, it would deserve no praise. It gives power, energy, courage, constancy to the will ; love, disinterestedness, enlarged affection to the heart ; soundness, clearness, and vigor to the understanding. It rescues him who receives it from sin, from the sway of the passions ; gives him the full and free use of his best powers ; brings out and brightens the divine im- age in which he was created ; and in this way not only bestows the promise but the beginning of heaven. This is the excellence of Christianity. This subject I propose to illustrate. Let me begin it with one remark which I would willingly avoid, but which seems to me to be demanded by the circum- stances in which I am placed. I beg you to remember that in this discourse I speak in my own name and in no other. I am not giving you the opinions of any sect or body of men, but my own. I hold myself alone responsible for what I utter. Let none listen to me for the purpose of learning what others think. I indeed belong to that class of Chris- tians who are distinguished by believ- ing that there is one God, even the Fa- ther, and that Jesus Christ is not this THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 247 one God, but his dependent and obe- dient Son. But my accordance with these is far from being universal, nor have I any desire to extend it. What other men believe is to me of little mo- ment. Their arguments I gratefully hear. Their conclusions I am free to receive or reject. I have no anxiety to wear the livery of any party. I in- deed take cheerfully the name of a Unitarian, because unwearied efforts are used to raise against it a popular cry ; and I have not so learned Christ as to shrink from reproaches cast on what I deem his truth. Were the name more honored 1 should be glad to throw it off , for I fear the shackles which a party connection imposes. I wish to regard myself as belonging not to a sect, but to the community of free minds, of lovers of truth, of followers of Christ, both on earth and in heaven. I desire to escape the narrow walls of a particular church, and to live under the open sky, in the broad light, look- ing far and wide, seeing with my own eyes, hearing with my own ears, and following truth meekly, but resolutely, however arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads. I am, then, no or- gan of a sect, but speak from myself alone ; and I thank God that I live at a time and under circumstances which make it my duty to lay open my whole mind with freedom and simplicity. I began with asking, What is the main design and glory of Christianity t and I repeat the answer, that its design is to give, not a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. In this its glory chiefly consists. In other words, the influence which it is intended to exert on the human mind constitutes its supreme honor and hap- piness. Christ is a great Saviour, as he redeems or sets free the mind, cleansing it from evil, breathing into it the love of virtue, calling forth its noblest faculties and affections, enduing it with moral power, restoring it to order, health, and liberty. Such was his great aim. To illustrate these views will be the object of the present discourse. In reading the New Testament I everywhere meet the end here ascribed to Jesus Christ. He came, as I am there taught, not to be an outward but inward deliverer ; not to rear an outward throne, but to establish his kingdom within us. He came, according to the express lan- guage and plain import of the sacred writers, "to save us from sin," "to bless us by turning us from our iniqui- ties," "to redeem us " from corruptions "handed down by tradition," to form "a glorious and spotless church-" or com- munity, to " create us anew after the im- age of God," to make us by his "prom- ises partakers of a divine nature," and to give us pardon and heaven by calling us to repentance and a growing virtue. In reading the New Testament I every- where learn that Christ lived, taught, died, and rose again, to exert a purify- ing and ennobling influence on the hu- man character ; to make us victorious over sin, over ourselves, over peril and pain ; to join us to God by filial love, and, above all, by likeness of nature, by participation of his spirit. This is plainly laid down in the New Testament as the supreme end of Christ. Let me now ask. Can a nobler end be ascribed to Jesus ? I affirm that there is, and can be, no greater work on earth than to purify the soul from evil, and to kindle in it new light, life, energy, and love. I maintain that the true measure of the glory of a religion is to be found in the spirit and power which it com- municates to its disciples. This is one of the plain teachings of reason. The chief blessing to an intelligent being, that which makes all other blessings poor, is the improvement of his own mind. Man is glorious and happy, not by what he has, but by what he is. He can receive nothing better or nobler than the unfolding of his own spiritual nature. The highest existence in the universe is mind ; for God is mind ; and the development of that principle which assimilates us to God must be our su- preme good. The omnipotent Creator, we have reason to think, can bestow nothing greater than intelligence, love, rectitude, energy of will and of benevo- lent action ; for these are the splendors of his own nature. We adore him for these. In imparting these, he imparts, as it were, himself. We are too apt to look abroad for good. But the only true good is within. In this outward universe, magnificent as it is, in the bright day and the starry night, in the earth and the skies, we can discover nothing so vast as thought, so strong as the unconquerable purpose of duty, so 248 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. sublime as the spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice. A mind which with- stands all the powers of the outward universe, all the pains which fire and sword and storm can inflict, rather than swerve from uprightness, is nobler than the universe. Why will we not learn the glory of the soul ? We are seeking a foreign good. But we all possess within us what is of more worth than the external creation. For this outward sys- tem is the product of mind. AH its har- mo.ny, beauty, and beneficent influences are the fruits and manifestations of thought and love ; and is it not nobler and happier to be enriched with these energies, from which the universe springs, and to which it owes its mag- nificence, than to possess the universe itself ? It is not what we have, but what we are, which constitutes our glory and felicity. The only true and durable riches belong to the mind. A soul, nar- row and debased, may extend its pos- sessions to the ends of the earth, but is poor and wretched still. It is through inward health that we enjoy aU outward things. Philosophers teach us that the mind creates the beauty which it ad- mires in nature ; and we all know that, when abandoned to evil passions, it can blot out this beauty, and spread over the fairest scenes the gloom of a dungeon. We all know that by vice it can turn the cup of social happiness into poison, and the most prosperous condition of life into a curse. From these views we learn that the true friend and saviour is not he who acts for us abroad, but who acts within, who sets the soul free, touches the springs of thought and affection, binds us to God, and, by assimilating us to the Creator, brings us into harmony with the creation. Thus the end which we have ascribed to Christ is the most glorious and beneficent which can be ac- complished by any power on earth or in heaven. That the highest purpose of Chris- tianity is such as has now been affirmed, might easily be shown from a survey of all its doctrines and precepts. It might be shown that every office with which Jesus Christ is invested was intended to give him power over the human character ; and that his great distinction consists in the grandeur and beneficence of his in- fluence on the soul. But a discussion of this extent cannot be comprehended in a single discourse. Instead of a general survey of the subject, I shall take one feature of it, — a primary and most im- portant one, — and shall attempt to show that the great aim of this is to call forth the soul to a higher life, to a nobler ex- ercise of its power and affections. This leading feature of Christianity is the knowledge which it gives of the character of God. Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father. In the prophesies concerning him in the Old Testament, no characteristic is so frequently named as that he should spread the knowledge of the true God. Now I ask, What con- stitutes the importance of such a revela- tion ? Why has the Creator sent his Son to make himself known ? I answer, God is most worthy to be known, be- cause He is the most quickening, puri- fying, and ennobling object for the mind ; and his great purpose in revealing him- self, is tuat He may exalt and perfect human nature. God, as He is manifested by Christ, is another name for intellec- tual and moral excellence; and in the knowledge of him our intellectual and moral powers find their element, nutri' ment, strength, expansion, and happi- ness. To know God is to attain to thf sublimest conception in the universe. To love God is to bind ourselves to a being who is fitted, as no other being is, to penetrate and move our whole hearts ; in loving whom we exalt ourselves ; in loving whom we love the great, the good, the beautiful, and the infinite ; and under whose influence the soul unfolds itself as a perennial plant under the cherishing sun. This constitutes the chief glory of religion. It ennobles the soul. In this its unrivalled dignity and happiness con- sist,,. I fear that the world at large think religion a very different thing from what has now been set forth. Too many think it a depressing rather than an elevating service ; that it breaks rather than ennobles the spirit ; that it teaches us to cower before an almightj' and iVrresistible being ; and I must confess that religion, as it has been generally taught, is any thing but an elevating principle. It has been used to scare the child and appal the adult. Men have been virtually taught to glo- rify God by flattery rather than by becoming excellent and glorious them- selves, and thus doing honor to their THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 Maker. Our dependence on God has been so taught as to extinguish 1 the consciousness of our free nature and moral power. Religion^ in one or an- other form, has always been an engine for crushing the human soul. But such is not the religion of Christ. If it were, it would deserve no respect. ^_We are not — we cannot be — bound to prostrate ourselves before a deity who makes us abject and base. That moral principle within us which calls us to watch over and to perfect our own souls, is an inspiration which no teach- ing can supersede or abolish. But I cannot bear, even in way of argument, to speak of Christianity as giving views of God depressing and debasing to the human mind. Christ hath revealed to us God as the Father, and as a Father in the noblest sense of that word.- He hath revealed him as the author and lover of all souls, desiring to redeem all from sin, and to impress his likeness more and more resplendently on all ; as proffering to all that best gift in the universe, his " holy spirit ; " as having sent his beloved Son to train us up, and to introduce us to an "inheritance, in- corruptible, undefiled, and unfading in the heavens." Such is the God of Jesus Christ ; a being not to break the spirit, but to breathe trust, courage, constancy, magnanimity, — in a word, all the senti- ments which form an elevated mind. This sentiment, that the knowledge of God as given by Christ is important and glorious, because quickening and exalting to the human soul, needs to be taught plainly and forcibly. The main ground of the obligation of being re- ligious, I fear, is not understood among the multitude of Christians. Ask them why they must know and worship God ? and 1 fear that, were the heart to speak the answer would be. Because he can do with us what he will, and conse- quently our first concern is to secure his favor. Religion is a calculation of interest, a means of safety. God is worshipped too often on the same prin- ciple on which flattery and personal attentions are lavished on human supe- riors, and the worshipper cares not how abjectly he bows, if he may win to his side the power which he cannot resist. I look with deep sorrow on this com- mon perversion of the highest principle of the soul. My friends, God is not to be worshipped because he has much to give, for on this principle a despot who should be munificent to his slaves would merit homage. He is not to be adored for mere power ; for power, when joined with selfishness and crime, ought to be withstood ; and the greater the might of an evil agent, the holier and the loftier is the spirit which will not bend to him. True religion is the worship of a perfect being, who is the author of perfection to those who adore him. On this ground, and on no other, religion rests. Why is it, my hearers, that God has discovered such solicitude, if I may use the word, to make himself known and obtain our worship .^ Think you that he calls us to adore him from a love of homage or service ? Has God man's passion for ruling, man's thirst for ap- l^lause, man's desire to have his name shouted by crowds ? Could the accla- mations of the universe, though con- centrated into one burst of praise, give our Creator a new or brighter conscious- ness of his own majesty and goodness ? Oh ! no. He has manifested himself to us because in the knowledge and adoration of his perfections our own in- tellectual and moral perfection is found. What he desires is, not our subjection, but our excellence. He has, no love of praise. He calls us as truly to honor goodness in others as in himself, and only claims supreme honor because he transcends all others, and because he communicates to the mind which re- ceives him a light, strength, purity, which no other being can confer. God has no love of empire. It could give him no pleasure to have his footstool worn by the knees of infinite hosts. It is to make us his children in the highest sense of that word, to make us more and more llTe partakers of his own nature, not to multiply slaveSjJhat he hath sent his Son to make himself known. God indeed is said to seek his own glory ; but the glory of a creator must consist in the glory of his works ; and we may be assured that he cannot wish any recognition of himself but that which will perfect his noblest, highest work, — the immortal mind. Do not, my friends, forget the great end for which Christ enjoins on us the worship of God. It is not that we may ingratiate ourselves with an almighty 2^0 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. agent whose frown is destruction. It is tliat we may hold communion with an intelligence and goodness infinitely- surpassing our own ; that we may rise above imperfect and finite natures ; that we may attach ourselves by love and reverence to the best Being in the uni- verse ; and that, through veneration and love, we may receive into our own minds the excellence, disinterestedness, wis- dom, purity, and power which we adore. This reception of the divine attributes I desire especially to hold forth as the most glorious end for which God reveals himself. To praise him is not enough. That homage which has no power to assimilate us to him is of little or no worth. The truest admiration is that by which we receive other minds into our own. True praise is a sympathy with excellence, gaining strength by utterance. Such is the praise which God demands. Then only is the pur- pose of Christ's revelation of God ac- complished when, by reception of the doctrine of a Paternal Divinity, we are quickened to "follow him, as dear chil- dren," and are '-filled with his fulness," and become "his temples," and "dwell in God, and have God dwelling in our- selves." I have endeavored to show the great purpose of the Christian doctrine re- specting God, or in what its importance and glory consist. Had I time I might show that every other doctrine of our religion has the same end. 1 might par- ticularly show how wonderfully fitted are the character, example, life, death, res- urrection, and all the ofiices of Christ, to cleanse the mind from moral evil, to quicken, soften, elevate, and trans- form it into the divine image ; and I might show that these are the influ- ences v?hich true faith derives from him, and through which he works out our salvation. But I cannot enter on this fruitful subject. Let me only say that I see everywhere in Christianity this great design of liberating and raising the hu- man mind on which I have enlarged. I see in Christianity nothing narrowing or depressing, nothing of the littleness of the systems which human fear, and craft, and ambition have engendered. 1 meet there no minute legislation, no descending to precise details, no arbi- trary injunctions, no yoke of ceremo- nies, no outward religion. Every thing breathes freedom, liberality, enlarge ment. I meet there not a formal, rigic creed, binding on the intellect througl all ages the mechanical, passive repeti tion of the same words and the sami ideas ; but I meet a few grand, all-com prehending truths, which are given t( the soul to be developed and applied bi itself ; given to it as seed to the sower to be cherished and expanded by it: own thought, love, and obedience int( more and more glorious fruits of wisdon and virtue. I see it everywhere incul eating an enlarged spirit of piety anc philanthropy, leaving each of us to mani fest this spirit according to the monition: of his individual conscience. I hear i everywhere calling the soul to freedon and power, by calling it to guard agains the senses, the passions, the appetites through which it is chained, enfeebled destroyed. I see it everywhere aiminj to give the mind power over the outwarc world, to make it superior to events, t( suffering, to material nature, to persecu tion, to death. I see it everywhere aim ing to give the mind power over itself to invest it with inward sovereignty, t( call forth within us a mighty energy foi our. own elevation. I meet in ChriS' tianity only discoveries of a vast, bold illimitable character, fitted and designee to give energy and expansion to the soul By lis doctrine of a Universal Father it sweeps away .all the barriers of sect party, rank, and nation in which mei have labored to shut up their love makes us members of an unboundec family ; and establishes syrhpathies Tje tween man and the whole intelligen creation. In the character of Christ i sets before us moral perfection, tha greatest and most quickening miracle ii human history, a purity which shows m stain or touch of the earth, an excel lence unborrowed, unconfined, bearing no impress of any age or ^ny nation the very image of the Universal Fajther and it encourages us, by assurances o God's merciful aid, to propose this en larged, unsullied virtue as the model anc happiness of our moral nature. By thi cross of Christ it sets forth the spirit o sejf-sacrifice with an energy never knowi before, and, in thus, crucifying selfish ness^ frees the mind froih its wors chain. By Christ's resurrection it link this short life with eternity, discovers ti us in the fleeting present the germ of ai THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 251 endless future, reveals to us the human mind ascending to other worlds, breath- ing a freer air, forming higher connec- tions, and summons us to a force of holy purpose becoming such a destination. To conclude, Christianity everywhere sets before us God in the character of infinitely free, rich, boundless grace, in a clemency which is " not overcome by evil, but overcomes evil with good ; " and a more animating and ennobling truth who of us can conceive ? 1 have hardly glanced at what Christianity con- tains. But who does not see that it was sent from heaven, to call forth and exalt human nature, and that this is its great glory ? It has been my object in this discourse to lay open a great truth, — a central, all-comprehending truth of Christianity. Whoever intelligently and cordially em- braces it obtains a standard by which to try all other doctrines, and to measure the importance of all other truths. Is it so embraced ? I fear not. I apprehend that it is dimly discerned by many who acknowledge it, whilst on many more it has hardly dawned. I see other views prevailing, and prevailing in a greater or less degree among all bodies of Chris- tians, and they seem to me among the worst errors of our times. Some of these! would now briefly notice. I. There are those who, instead of placing the glory of Christianity in the pure and powerful action which it gives to the human mind, seem to think that it is rather designed to substitute the ac- tivity of another for our own. Tjiey im- agine the benefit of the religion tdbe that it enlists on our side an Almighty Being who does every thing for ^us. To dis- parage human agency seems to them the essence of piety. They think Christ's glory to consist not in quickening free agents to act powerfully on themselves, but in changing them by an irresistible energy. They place a Christian's hap- piness not so much in powers and affec- tions unfolded in his own breast, as in a foreign care extended over him, in a foreign wisdom which takes the place of his own intelligence. Now the great purpose of Christianity is not to pro- cure or offer to the mind a friend on whom it may. passively lean, but to make the mind itself wise, strong, and efficient. Its end is not that wisdom and strength, as subsisting in another, should do every thing for us, but that these attributes should grow perpetually in our own souls. According to Christianity, we are not carried forward as a weight by a foreign agency ; but God, by means suited to our moral nature, quickens and strengthens us to walk ourselves. The great design of Christianity is to build up in our own souls a power to withstand, to endure, to triumph. Inward vigor is its aim. That we should do most for ourselves and most for others ; this is the glory it confers, and in this its happiness is found. 2. I pass to another illustration of the insensibility of men to the great doc- trine, that the happiness and gloiy of Christianity consist in the healthy and lofty frame to which it raises the mind. I refer to the propensity of multitudes to make a wide separation between re- ligion or Christian virtue and its rewards. That the chief reward lies in the very spirit of religion, they do not dream. They think of being Christians for the sake of something beyond the Christian character, and something more precious. They think that Christ has a greater good to give than a strong and generous love towards God and mankind, and ■ would almost turn from hun in scorn if they thought him only a benefactor to the mind. It is this low view which dwarfs the piety of thousands. Multi- tudes are serving God for wages distinct from the service, and hence superstition, slavishness, and formality are substi- tuted for inward energy and spiritual worship. 3. Men's ignorance of the great truth stated in this discourse is seen in the low ideas attached by multitudes to the word salvation., ^^sk multitudes what is the chief evil from which Christ came to save them, and they will tell you, " From hell, from penal fires, from future pun- ishment." Accordingly, they think that salvation is something which another may achieve for them, very much as a neighbor may -quench a conflagration that menaces their dwellings and lives. That word hell, which is used so sel- dom in the sacred pages, which in a faithful translation would not once occur in the writings of Paul, and Peter, and John, which we meet only in four or five discourses of Jesus, and which all per- sons acquainted with Jewish geography know to be a metaphor, a figure c£ 252 THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. speech, and not a literal expression, — this word, by a perverse and exaggerat- ed use, has done unspeakable injury to Christianity. It has possessed and dis- eased men's imaginations with outward tortures, shrieks, and flames ; giving them the Hea of an outward ruin as what they have chiefly to dread ; turned their thoughts to Jesus as an outward deliverer ; and thus blinded them to his true glory, which consists in his setting free and exalting" the soul. Men are flying from an outward hell, when in truth they carry within them the h':!! which they should chiefly dread. The salvation which man chiefly needs, and that which brings with it all other de- liverance, is salvation from the evil of his own mind. There is something far worse than outward punishment. It is sin ; it is the state of the soul which has revolted from God, and cast off its al- legiance to conscience and the divine word ; which renounces its Father, and hardens itself against Infinite Love ; which, endued with divine powers, en- thralls itself to animal lusts ; which makes gain its god ; which has capac- ities of boundless and ever-growing love, and shuts itself up in the dungeon of private interests ; which, gifted with a self-directing power, consents to be a slave, and is passively formed by custom, opinion, and changing events ; which, living under God's eye, dreads man's frown or scorn, and prefers hu- man praise to its own calm conscious- ness of virtue ; which tamely yields to temptation, shrinks with a coward's baseness from the perils of duty, and sacrifices its glory and peace in parting with self-control. No ruin can be com- pared to this. This the impenitent man carries with him beyond the grave, and there meets its natural issue and inevi- table retribution, in remorse, self-torture, and woes unknown on earth. This we cannot too strongly fear. To save, in the highest sense of that word, is to lift the fallen spirit from this depth, to heal the diseased mind, to restore it to en- ergy and freedom of thought, conscience, and love. This was chiefly the salva- tion for which Christ shed his blood. For this the holy spirit is given ; and to this all the truths of Christianity conspire^ 4. Another illustration of the error which 1 am laboring to expose, and which places the glory and importance of Christianity in something besides its quickening injfluence on the soul, is af- forded in/the common apprehensions formed of heaven, and of the methods by which it may be obtained. Not a few, I suspect, conceive of heaven as a foreign good. It is a distant country to which we are to be conveyed by an out- ward agency. How slowly do men learn that heaven is the perfection of the mind, and that Christ gives it now just as far as he raises the mind to celestial truth and virtue. It is true that this word is often used to express a future felicity ; but the blessedness of the fut- ure world is only a continuance of what is begun here. There is but one true happiness, — that of a mind unfolding its best powers, and attaching itself to great objects ; and Christ gives heaven only in proportion as he gives this eleva- tion of character. The disinterested- ness, and moral strength, and filial piety of the Christian, are not mere means of heaven, but heaven itself, and heaven now./ The most exalted idea we can form of the future state is that it brings and joins us to God. But is not approach to this great Being begun on earth ? Another delightful view of heaven is that.it unites us with the good and great of our own race, and even with higher orders of beings. But this union is one of spirit, not of mere place ; it is accord- ance of thought and feeling, not an outward relation ; and does not this harmony begin even now? and is not virtuous friendship on earth essentially the pleasure which we hope hereafter ? What place would be drearier than the future mansions of Christ to one who should want sympathy with their inhab- itants, who could not understand their language, who would feel himself a for- eigner there, who would be taught, by the joys which he could not partake, his own Ibneliness and desolation ? These views, I know, are often given with greater or less distinctness ; but they seem to me not to have brought home to men the truth, that the fountain of happiness must be in our own souls, ^ross ideas of futurity still prevail. I should not be surprised if to some f among us the chief idea of heaven were that of a splendor, a radiance, like that which Christ wore on the Mount of Transfiguration. Let us all consider — THE GREAT PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY. 253 and it is a great truth — that heaven has no lustre surpassing that of intellectual and moral worth ; and that, were the effulgence of the sun and stars concen- trated in the Christian, even this would be darkness compared with the pure beamings of wisdom, love, and power from his mind. Think not, then, that Christ has come to give heaven as some- thing distinct from virtue./ Heaven is the freed and sanctified mind, enjoying God through accordance with his attri- butes, multiplying its bonds and sym- pathies with excellent beings, putting forth noble powers, and ministering, in union with the enlightened and holy, to the happiness and virtue of the uni- verse. My friends, I fear I have been guilty of repetition. But I feel the greatness of the truth which I deliver, and I am anxious to make it plain. Men need to be taught it perpetually. They have al- ways been inclined to look to Christ for something better, as they have dreamed, than the elevation of their own souls. The great purpose of Christianity to unfold and strengthen and lift up the mind, has been perpetually thrown out of sight. In truth, this purpose has been more than overlooked. It has been reversed. The very religion given to exalt human nature has been used to make it abject. The very religion which was given to create a generous hope has been made an instrument of servile and torturing fear. The very religion which came from God's goodness to en- large the human soul with a kindred goodness has been employed to narrow it to a sect, to rear the Inquisition, and to kindle fires for the martyr. The very- religion given to make the understand- ing and conscience free has, by a crim- inal perversion, served to break them into subjection to priests, ministers, and human creeds. Ambition and craft have seized on the solemn doctrines of an omnipotent God and of future punish- ment, and turned them into engines against the child, the trembling female, the ignorant adult, until the sceptic has been emboldened to charge on religion the chief miseries and degradation of human nature. It is from a deep and sorrowful conviction of the injuries in- flicted on Christianity and on the human soul by these perversions and errors. that I have reiterated the great truth of this discourse. I would rescue our holy faith from this dishonor. Christianity has no tendency to break the human spirit or to make man a slave. It has another aim ; and, as far as it is under- stood, it puts forth another power. God sent it from heaven, Christ sealed it with his blood, that it might give force of thought and purpose to the human mind, might free it from all fear but the fear of wrong-doing, might make it free of its fellow-beings, might break from it every outward and inward chain. My hearers, I close with exhorting you to remember this great purpose of our religion. Receive Christianity as given to raise you in the scale of spirit- ual being. Expect from it no good any farther than it gives strength and worth to your characters. Think not, as some seem to think, that Christ has a higher gift than purity to bestow, even pardon to the sinner. He does bring pardon. But once separate the idea of pardon from purity; once imagine that forgive- ness is possible to him who does not forsake sin ; once make it an exemption from outward punishment, and not the admission of the reformed mind to favor and communion with God ; and the doc- trine of pardon becomes your peril, and a system so teaching it is fraught with evil. Expect no good from Christ any farther than you are exalted by his char- acter and teaching. Expect nothing from his cross unless a power comes from it strengthening you to "bear his cross," to "drink his cup," with his own uncon- querable love. This is its highest influ- ence. Look not abroad for the blessings of Christ. His reign and chief blessings are within you. The human soul is his kingdom. There he gains his victories, there rears his temples, there lavishes his treasures. His noblest monument is a mind redeemed from iniquity, Tjrought back" and "devoted to God, forming itself after the perfection of the Saviour, great through its power to suffer for truth, lovely through its meek and gentle virt- ues. No other monument does Christ desire ; for this ■\vill endure and increase in splendor when earthly thrones shall have fallen, and even when the present order of the outward universe shall have accompUshed its work and shall have passed away. 2S4 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. We live at a time when the obligation of extending Christianity is more felt than in many past ages. There is much stir, motion, and zeal around us in this good cause. Even those who seem not to be burdened by an excess of piety themselves are in earnest to give it to others. The activity of multitudes is taking strongly this direction ; and as men are naturally restless, and want room for action, and will do mischief rather than do nothing, a philanthropist will rejoice that this new channel is opened for carrying off the superabun- dant energies of multitudes, even if no other good should result from it. We hope, however, much other good. We trust that, whilst many inferior mo- tives and many fanatical impulses are giving birth and action to large associa- tions in Christendom ; whilst the love of sway in some, and the love of congre- gating in others, and the passion for doing something great and at a distance in all, are rearing mighty institutions among us, — still many sincere Chris- tians are governed in these concerns by a supreme desire of spreading Christi- anity. They have found the gospel an infinite good, and would communicate it to their fellow-beings. They have drunk from the Fountain of Life, and would send forth the stream to gladden every wilderness and solitary place, and to as- suage the thirst of every anxious and afflicted mind. They turn with contin- ual pleasure to the prophetic passages of Scripture, and, interpreting them by their wishes, hope a speedy change in the moral state of the world, and are im- patient to bear a part in this stupendous renovation. That they are doing good we doubt not, though perhaps not in the way which they imagine or would prefer. The immediate ana general success of their attempts would perhaps be ulti- mately injurioas to Christianity. They are sending out, together with God's word, corrupt interpretations of some parts of it, which considerably neutral- ize its saving power, and occasionally make it a positive injury. They are ] haps to do good not by success so m as by failure. Almost all great en prises are accomplished gradually, by methods which have been lear from many unsuccessful trials, froi slow accumulation of experience, first laborers often do little more i teach those who come after them w to avoid and how to labor more effi ually than themselves. But be the is what it may, sincere Christians who i bark in this good work, not from pa: spirit and self-conceit, as if they their sect were depositaries of all ti and virtue, but from unaffected phi] thropy and attachment to Jesus Chi will have their reward. Even a deg of extravagance in such a cause r be forgiven. Men are willing that imagination should be kindled on ot subjects ; that the judgment she sometimes slumber, and leave the fections to .feed on hopes brigl than reality ; that patriotism, and j lanthropy, and the domestic affectic should sometimes break out in chi' rous enterprises, and should seek tl ends by means on which the rea, may look coldly. Why, then, shall frown on every deviation from the str est judiciousness in a concern which peals so strongly to the heart as extension of Christianity ? Men may too rational as well as too fervent ; : the man whose pious wish of the spei conversion of the world rises intc strong anticipation of the event, ; who, taking his measure of duty fr the primitive disciples, covets sacrifi in so good a cause, is an incompara nobler spirit than he who, believing t the moral condition of the world is invariable as the laws of material nati and seeking pretexts for sloth in a he; chiUing philosophy, has no concern the multitudes who are sitting in da ness, and does nothing to spread the ligion which he believes to have co from heaven. There is one danger, however, a MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. 2SS period like the present, wlien we are aiming to send Christianity to a dis- tance, wliicli demands attention. It is the danger of neglecting the best meth- ods of propagating Christianity, of over- looking much plainer obligations than that of converting heathens, of forget- ting the claims of our religion at home and by our firesides. It happens that on this, as on almost every subject, our most important duties are quiet, retired, noiseless, attracting little notice, and administering little powerful excitement to the imagination. The surest efforts for extending Christianity are those which few observe, which are recorded in no magazine, blazoned at no anniver- saries, immortahzed by no eloquence. Such efforts, being enjoined only by conscience and God, and requiring steady, patient, unwearied toil, we are apt to overlook, and perhaps never more so than when the times furnish a popu- lar substitute for them, and when we can discharge our consciences by labors which, demanding little self-denial, are yet talked of as the highest exploits of Christian charity. Hence it is that when most is said of labors to propagate Chris- tianity, the least may be really and effect- ually done. We hear a torrent roaring, and imagine that the fields are plenti- fully watered, when the torrent owes its violence to a ruinous concentration of streams which before moved quietly in a thousand little channels, moistening the hidden roots, and publishing their course, not to the ear but to the eye, by the refreshing verdure which grew up around them. It is proper, then, when new methods are struck out for sending Christianity abroad, to remind men often of the old-fashioned methods of promot- ing it, to insist on the superiority of the means which are in almost every man's reach, which require no extensive asso- ciations, and which do not subject us to the temptations of exaggerated praise. We do not mean that any exertion which promises to extend our religion in any tolerable state of purity is to be declined. But the first rank is to be given to the efforts which God has made the plain duties of men in all ranks and condi- tions of life. Two of these methods will be briefly mentioned. First, every individual should feel that, whilst his influence over other men's hearts and character is very bounded, his power over his own heart is great and constant, and that his zeal for extending Christianity is to appear chiefly in extending it through his own mind and life. Let him remember that he as truly enlarges God's kingdom by invigorating his own moral and religious principles, as by communicating them to others. Our first concern is at home, our chief work is in our own breasts. It is idle to talk of our anxiety for other men's souls if we neglect our own. Without personal virtue and religion we cannot, even if we would, do much for the cause of Christ. It is only by purifying our own conceptions of God and duty that we can give clear and useful views to others. We must first feel the power of religion, or we cannot recommend it with an unaffected and prevalent zeal. Would we, then, promote pure Christi- anity ? Let us see that it be planted and take root in our own minds, and that no busy concern for others take us from the labor of self -inspection and the retired and silent offices of piety. The second method is intimately con- nected with the first. It is example. This is a means within the reach of all. Be our station in life what it may, it has duties in performing which faithfully we give important aid to the cause of morality and piety. The efficacy of this means of advancing Christianity cannot be easily calculated. Example has an in- sinuating power, transforming the ob- server without noise, attracting him withoilt the appearance of effort. A truly Christian life is better than large contributions of wealth for the propaga- tion of Christianity. The most promi- nent instruction of Jesus on this point is that we must let men " see our good works," if we would lead them to "glo- rify our Father in heaven." Let men see in us that religion is something real, something more than high-sounding and empty words, a restramt from sin, a bulwark against temptation, a spring of upright and useful action ; let them see it not an idle form, nor a transient feel- ing, but our companion through life, in- fusing its purity into our common pur- suits, following us to our homes, setting a guard round our integrity in the re- sorts of business, sweetening our tem- pers in seasons of provocation, disposing us habitually to sympathy with others, to patience and cheerfulness under our 2S6 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. own afflictions, to candid judgment, and to sacrifices for others' good ; and we may hope that our light will not shine uselessly, that some slumbering con- science will be roused by this testimony to the excellence and practicableness of religion, that some worldly professor of Christianity will learn his obligations and blush for his criminal inconsistency, and that some, in whom the common arguments for our religion may have failed to work a full belief, will be brought to the knowledge of the truth by this plain practical proof of the heavenly nature of Christianity. Every man is surrounded with beings who are moulded more or less by the principles of sympathy and imitation ; and this social part of our nature he is bound to press into the service of Christianity. It will not be supposed from these re- marks on the duty of aiding Christianity by our example, that religion is to be worn ostentatiously, and that the Chris- tian is studiously to exhibit himself and his good works for imitation. That same book which enjoins us to be pat- terns, tells us to avoid parade, and even to prefer entire secrecy in our charities and our prayers. Nothing destroys the weight of example so much as labor to make it striking and observed. Good- ness, to be interesting, must be humble, modest, unassuming, not fond of show, not waiting for great and conspicuous occasions, but disclosing itself without labor and without design in pious and benevolent offices, so simple, so minute, so steady, so habitual, that they will carry a conviction of the singleness and purity of the heart from which they proceed. Such goodness is never lost. It glorifies itself by the very humility which encircles it, just as the lights of heaven often break with peculiar splen- dor through the cloud which threatened to obscure them. A pure^example, which is found to be more consistent in proportion as it is more _ known, is the best method of preaching and extending Christianity. Without it, zeal for converting men brings reproach on the cause. A bad man, or a man of only ordinary good- ' ness, who puts himself forward in this work, tlirows a suspiciousness over the efforts of better men, and thus the world come to set down all labor for spreading Christianity as mere pretence. Let not him who will _not submit to the toil of making_.himseif _ Tpetfef ,7 become a re- former at home or abroad. Let not him who is known to be mean, or dishonest, or intriguing, or censorious, or unkind in his neighborhood, talk of his concern for other men's souls. His life is an injury to religion, which his contribu- tions of zeal, or even of wealth, cannot repair, and its injuriousness is aggra- vated by these very attempts to expiate its guilt, to reconcile him to himself. It is well known that the greatest obstruction to Christianity in heathen countries is the palpable and undeniable depravity of Christian nations. They abhor our religion because we are such unhappy specimens of it. They are un- able to read our books, but they can read our lives ; and what wonder if they reject with scorn a system under which the vices seem to have flourished so luxuriantly. The Indian of both hemi- spheres has reason to set down the Christian as little better than himself. He associates with the name perfidy, fraud, rapacity, and slaughter. Can we wonder that he is unwilling to receive a religion from the hand which has chained or robbed him ? Thus, bad example is the great obstruction to Christianity abroad^ as well as at home ; and perhaps little good is to lie done abroad until we become better at home, until real Chris- tians understand and practise their re- ligion more thoroughly, and by their example and influence spread it among their neighbors and through their coun- try, so that the aspect of Christian nations shall be less shocking and re- pulsive to the Jew, Mahometan, and Pagan. Our first labor should be upon ourselves ; and indeed if our religion be Incapable of bearing more fruit among ourselves, it hardly seems to deserve a very burning zeal for its prop- agation. The question is an important one, — Would much be gained to hea- then countries were we to make them precisely what nations called Christians now are? That the change would be beneficial, we grant ; but how many dark stains would remain on their characters ! They would continue to fight and shed blood as they now do, to resent injuries hotly, to worship present gain and dis- tinction, and to pursue the common business of life on the principles of un- disguised selfishness ; and they would THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 257 learn one lesson of iniquity which they have not yet acquired, and that is, to condemn and revile their brethren who should happen to view the most per- plexed points of theology differently from themselves. The truth is, Chris- tian nations want a genuine reformation, one worthy of the name. They need to have their zeal directed, not so much to the spreading of the gospel abroad, as to the application of its plain precepts to their daily business, to the education of their children, to the treatment of their domestics and dependants, and to their social and religious intercourse. They need to understand that a man's piety is to be estimated, not so much by his professions or direct religious exer- cises, as by a conscientious surrender of his will, passions, worldly interests, and prejudices, to the acknowledged duties of Christianity, and especially by a philanthropy resembling in its great features of mildness, activity, and en- durance, that of Jesus Christ. They need to give up their severe inquisition into their neighbors' opinions, and to begin in earnest to seek for themselves, and to communicate to others, a nobler standard of temper and practice than they have yet derived from the Script- ures. In a word, they need' to learn the real value and design of Christianity by the only thorough and effectual process ; that is, by drinking deeply into its spirit of love to God and man. If, in this age of societies, we should think it wise to recommend another institution for the propagation of Christianity, it would be one the members of which should be pledged to assist and animate one an- other in living according to the Sermon on the Mount. How far such a meas- ure would be effectual we venture not to predict ; but of one thing we are sure, that, should it prosper, it would do more for spreading the gospel than all other associations which are now re- ceiving the patronage of the Christian world. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY: Discourse at the Dedication of Divinity Hall, Cambridge, 1826. Luke iv. 32 : " His word was with power." We are assembled to set apart and consecrate this building to the education of teachers of the Christian religion. Regarding, as we do, this religion as God's best gift to mankind, we look on these simple walls, reared for this holy and benevolent work, with an interest which more splendid edifices, dedicated to inferior purposes, would fail to in- spire. We thank God for the zeal which has erected them. We thank him for the hope that here will be trained, and hence will go forth, able ministers of the New Testament. God accept our offering and fulfil our trust ! May He shed on this spot the copious dew of his grace, and compass it with his favor as with a shield ! To what end do we devote this build- ing? How may this end be accom- plished ? These questions will guide our present reflections. To what end is this edifice dedicated ? The answer to this question may be given in various forms or expanded into various particulars. From this wide range of topics I shall select one which, from its comprehensiveness and impor- tance, will be acknowledged to deserve pecuUar attention. I say, then, that this edifice is dedicated to the training of ministers, whose word, like their Mas- ter's, shall be '■'■with power.'" Power, energy, efliciency, that is the endow- ment to be communicated most assidu- ously by a theological institution. Such is the truth which I would now develop. My meaning may easily be explained. By the power of which I have spoken I mean that strong action of the un- derstanding, conscience, and heart, on 258 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. moral and religious truth, through which the preacher is quickened and quahfied to awaken the same strong action in others. I mean energy of thought and feeling in the minister, creating for itself an appropriate expression, and propa- gating itself to the hearer. What this power is all men understand by experi- ence. All know how the same truth differs when dispensed by different lips ; how doctrines, inert and uninteresting as expounded by one teacher, come fraught with life from another, — arrest atten- tion, rouse emotion, and give a new spring to the soul. In declaring this power to be the great object of a theo- logical institution, I announce no dis- covery. I say nothing new. But this truth, like many others, is too often ac- knowledged only to be slighted. It needs to be brought out, to be made prominent, to become the living, guid- ing principle of education for the minis- try. Power, then, I repeat it, is the great good to be communicated by theo- logical institutions. To impart knowl- edge is indeed their indispensable duty, but not their whole, nor most arduous, nor highest work. Knowledge is the means, power the end. The former, when accumulated, as it often is, with no strong action of the intellect, no viv- idness of conception, no depth of con- viction, no force of feeling, is of little or no worth to the preacher. It comes from him as a faint echo, with nothing of that mysterious energy which strong conviction throws into style and utter- ance. His breath, which should kindle, chills his hearers, and the nobler the truth with which he is charged the less he succeeds in carrying it far into men's souls. We want more than knowledge. We want force of thought, feehng, and purpose. What profits it to arm the pupil with weapons of heavenly temper, unless his hands be nerved to wield them with vigor and success ? The word of God is indeed "quick and pow- erful, and sharper than any two-edged sword ; " but when committed to him who has no kindred energy, it does not and cannot penetrate the mind. Power is the attribute which crowns all a min- ister's accomplishments. It is the cen- tre and grand result in which all his studies, meditations, and prayers should meet, and without which his office be- comes a form and a show. And yet how seldom is it distinctly and earnestly pro- posed as the chief qualification for the sacred office ! How seldom do we meet it ! How often does preaching remind us of a. child's arrows shot against a fortress of adamant ! How often does it seem a mock fight ! We do not see the earnestness of real warfare ; of men bent on the accomplishment of a great good. We want powerful ministers, not graceful declaimers, not elegant essay- ists, but men fitted to act on men, to make themselves felt in society. I have said that the communication of power is the great end of a theological institution. Let not this word give alarm. I mean by it, as you must have seen, a very different power from that which ministers once possessed, and which some still covet. There have been times when the clergy were rivals in dominion with kings ; when the mitre even towered above the diadem ; when the priest, shutting God's word on the people, and converting its threat- enings and promises into instruments of usurpation, was able to persuade men that the soul's everlasting doom hung on his ministry, and even succeeded in establishing a sway over fiery and fero- cious spirits which revolted against all other control. This power, suited to barbarous times, and, as some imagine, a salutary element of society in rude, lawless ages, has been shaken almost everywhere by the progress of intel- lect ; and in Protestant countries it is openly reprobated and renounced. It is not to re-establish this that these walls have been reared. We trust that they are to be bulwarks against its encroach- ments, and that they are to send forth influences more and more hostile to every form of spiritual usurpation. Am I told that this kind of power is now so fallen and so contemned that to disclaim or to oppose it seems a waste of words ? I should rejoice to yield myself to this belief. But unhappily the same enslaving and degrading power may grow up under Protestant as under CathoHc institutions. In all ages and all churches terror confers a temendous influence on him who can spread it; and through this instrument the Prot- estant minister, while disclaiming Papal pretensions, is able, if so minded, to build up a spiritual despotism. That this means of subjugating the mind THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 259 should be too freely used and dread- fully perverted, we cannot wonder, when we consider' that no talent is required to spread a panic, and that coarse minds and hard hearts are signally gifted for this work of torture. The progress of intelligence is undoubtedly narrowing the power which the minister gains by excessive appeals to men's fears, but has by no means destroyed it ; for as yet the intellect, even in Protestant countries, has exerted itself compara- tively little on religion; and ignorance begetting a passive, servile state of mind, the preacher, if so disposed, finds little difficulty in breaking some, if not many, spirits by terror. The effects of this ill-gotten power are mournful on the teacher and the taught, The panic-smitten hearer, instructed that safety is to be found in bowing to an unintelligible creed, and too agitated for deliberate and vigorous thought, re- signs himself a passive subject to his spiritual guides, and receives a faith by which he is debased. Nor does the teacher escape unhurt ; for all usurpa- tion on men's understandings begets in him who exercises it a dread and resist- ance of the truth which threatens its subversion. Hence ministers have so often fallen behind their age, and been the chief foes of the master-spirits who have improved the world. They have felt their power totter at the tread of an independent thinker. By a kind of instinct, they have fought against the light before which the shades of su- perstition were vanishing, and have received their punishment in the dark- ness and degradation of their own minds. To such power as we have described we do not dedicate these walls. We would not train here, if we could, agents of terror to shake weak nerves, to dis- ease the imagination, to lay a spell on men's faculties, to guard a creed by fires more consuming than those which burned on Sinai. Believing that this method of dominion is among the chief obstructions to an enlightened faith, and abhorring tyranny in the pulpit as truly as on the throne, we would con- secrate this edifice to the subversion, not the participation, of this unhallowed power. Is it, then, asked what I mean by the power which this institution should aim to communicate ? I mean power to act on intelligent and free beings, by means proportioned to their nature. I mean power to call into healthy exertion the intellect, conscience, affections, and moral will of the hearer. I mean force of conception, and earnestness of style and elocution. I mean that truth should be a vital principle in the soul of the teacher, and should come from him as a reality. I mean that his whole moral and intellectual faculties should be sum- moned to his work ; that a tone of force and resolution should pervade his ef- forts ; that, throwing his soul into his cause, he should plead it with urgency, and should concentrate on his hearers all the influences which consist with their moral freedom. Every view which we can take of the ministry will teach us that nothing less than the whole amount of power in the individual can satisfy its demands. This we learn, if we consider, first, the weight and grandeur of the subjects which the minister is to illustrate and enforce. He is to speak of God, the King and Father Eternal, whose praise no tongue of men or angels can worthily set forth. He is to speak of the soul, that ray of the Divinity, the partaker of God's own immortality, to which the outward uni- verse was made to minister, and which, if true to itself, will one day be clad with a beauty and grandeur such as nature's loveliest and subliraest scenery never wears. He is to speak not of this world only, but of invisible and more advanced states of being ; of a world too spir- itual for the fleshly eye to see, but of which a presage and earnest may be found in the enUghtened and purified mind. He has to speak of virtue, of human perfection, of the love which is due to the Universal Father and to fellow-beings, of the intercourse of the soul with its Creator, and of all the duties of life as hallowed and elevated by a reference to God and to the future world. He has to speak of sin, that essential evil, that only evil, which, by its unutterable fearfulness, makes aU other calamities unworthy of the name. He is to treat not of ordinary hfe, nor of the most distinguished agents in ordinary history, but of God's super- natural interpositions ; of his most sen- sible ^ and immediate providence ; of men inspired and empowered to work the most important revolutions in soci- 26o THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. ety ; and especially of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the theme of prophecy, the revealer of grace and truth, the Saviour from sin, the conqueror of death, who hath left us an example of immaculate vir- tue, whose love passeth knowledge, and whose history — combining the strange and touching contrasts of the cross, the resurrection, and a heavenly throne — surpasses all other records in interest and grandeur. He has to speak not of transitory concerns, but of happiness and misery transcending in duration and degree the most joyful and suffering condition of the present state. He has to speak of the faintly shadowed but solemn consummation of this world's eventful history ; of the coming of the Son of Man, the resurrection, the judg- ment, the retributions of the last day. Here are subjects of intense interest. They claim and should call forth the mind's whole power, and are infinitely wronged when uttered with cold lips and from an unmoved heart. If we next consider the effects which, through these truths, the minister is to produce, we shall see that his function demands and should be characterized by power. The first purpose of a minister's function, which is to enlighten the un- derstanding on the subject of religion, is no easy task; for all religious truth is not obvious, plain, shining with an irresistible evidence, so that a glance of thought will give the hearer possession of the teacher's mind. We sometimes talk, indeed, of the simplicity of religion, as if it were as easy as a child's book, as if it might be taught with as little labor as the alphabet. But all analogy for- bids us to believe that the sublimest truths can be imparted or gained with little thought or effort, and the prevalent ignorance confirms this presumption. Obstacles neither few nor small to a clear apprehension of religion are found in the invisibleness of its objects ; in the disproportion between the Infinite Creator and the finite mind ; in the proneness of human beings to judge of superior natures by their own, and to transfer to the spiritual world the prop- erties of matter and the affections of sense ; in the perpetual pressure of out- ward things upon the attention ; in the darkness which sin spreads over the in- tellect ; in the ignorance which yet pre- vails in regard to the human mind ; and, though last not least, in the errors and superstitions which have come down to us from past ages, and which exert an unsuspected power on our whole modes of religious thinking. These obstacles are strengthened by the general indis- position to investigate religion freely and thoroughly. The tone of authority with which it has been taught, the terror and obscure phraseology in which it has been shrouded, and the unlovely aspect which it has been made to wear, have concurred to repel from it deliberate and earnest attention, and to reconcile men to a superficial mode of thinking which they would scorn on every other subject. Add to this, that the early inculcation and frequent repetition of religion, by making it familiar, expose it to neglect. The result of all these unfavorable in- fluences is, that religious truth is more indistinctly apprehended, is more shad- owy and unreal to the multitude, than any other truth ; and, unhappily, this remark applies with almost equal truth to all ranks of society and all orders of intellect. The loose conceptions of Christianity which prevail among the high as well as the low, do not deserve the name of knowledge. The loftiest minds among us seldom put forth their strength on the very subject for which intelligence was especially given. A great revolution is needed here. The human intellect is to be brought to act on religion with new power. It ought to prosecute this inquiry with an intense- ness with which no other subject is in- vestigated. And does it require no en- ergy in the teacher to awaken this power and earnestness of thought in others, to bring religion before the intellect as its worthiest object, to raise men's tradi- tional, lifeless, superficial faith into de- liberate, profound conviction ? That the ministry should be charac- terized by power and energy will be made more apparent, if we consider that it is instituted to quicken not only the intellect but the conscience ; to enforce the obligations as well as illustrate the truth of religion. It is an important branch of the minister's duty to bring home the general principles of duty to the individual mind ; to turn it upon itself ; to rouse it to a resolute, imparr tial survey of its whole responsibili- ties and ill deserts. And is not energy needed to break through the barriers THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 261 of pride and self-love, and to place the individual before a tribunal in his own breast as solemn and searching as that which awaits him at the last day ? It is not, indeed, so difficult to rouse in the timid and susceptible a morbid suscep- tibility of conscience, to terrify weak people into the idea that they are to answer for sins inherited from the first fallen pair, and entailed upon them by a stem necessity. But this feverish action of the conscience is its wealcness, not its strength ; and the teacher who would rouse the moral sense to discriminating judgment and healthful feeling, has need of a vastly higher kind of power than is required to darken and disease it. Another proof that the ministry should be characterized by power, is given to us by the consideration that it is intended to act on the affections ; to exhibit re- ligion in its loveliness and venerableness, as well as in its truth and obligation ; to concentrate upon it all the strength of moral feeling. The Christian teacher has a great work to do in the human heart. His function has for its highest aim to call forth towards God the pro- foundest awe, attachment, trust, and joy, of which human nature is capable. Re- ligion demands tliat He who is supreme in the universe should be supreme in the human soul. God, to whom belongs the mysterious and incommunicable at- tribute of infinity ; who is the fulness and source of life and thought, of beauty and power, of love and happiness ; on whom we depend more intimately than the stream on the fountain, or the plant on the earth in which it is rooted, — this Great Being ought to call forth peculiar emotions, and to move and sway the soul, as He pervades creation, with un- rivalled energy. It is his distinction, that He unites in his nature infinite majesty and infinite benignity, the most awful with the most endearing attri- butes, the tenderest relations to the in- dividual with the grandeur of the uni- versal sovereign ; and, through this nature, He is fitted to act on the mind as no other being can, — to awaken a love more intense, a veneration more profound, a sensibility of which the soul knows notits capacity until it is pene- trated and touched by God. To bring the created mind into living union with the Infinite Mind, so that it shall re- spond to him through its whole being, is the noblest function which this har- monious and beneficent universe per- forms. For this revelation was given. For this the ministry was instituted. The Christian teacher is to make more audible, and to interpret, the voice in which the beauty and awfulness of nat- ure, the heavens, the earth, fruitful sea- sons, storms and thunders, recall men to their Creator. Still more, he is to turn them to the clearer, milder, more attractive splendors in which the Divin- ity is revealed by Jesus Christ. His great purpose, I repeat it, is to give vitality to the thought of God in the human mind ; to make his presence felt ; to make him a reality, and the most powerful reality to the soul. And is not this a work requiring energy of thought and utterance ? Is it easy, in a world of matter and sense, amidst crowds of impressions rushing in from abroad, amidst the constant and visible agency of second causes, amidst the anxieties, toils, pleasures, dissipations, and competitions of life, in the stir and bustle of society, and in an age when luxury wars with spirituality, and the development of nature's resources is turning men's trust from the Creator, — is it easy, amidst these gross interests and distracting influences, to raise men's minds to the invisible Divinity, to fix im- pressions of God deeper and more en- during than those which are received from all other beings^ to make him the supreme object, spring, and motive of the soul ? We have seen how deep and strong are the affections which the minister is to awaken towards God. But strength of religious impression is not his whole work. From the imperfections of our nature this very strength has its dan- gers. Religion, in becoming fervent, often becomes morbid. It is the min- ister's duty to inculcate a piety char- acterized by wisdom as much as by warmth ; to mediate, if I may so speak, between the reason and the affections, so that, with joint energy and in blessed harmony, they may rise together and offer up the undivided soul to God. "Whoever understands the strength of emotion in man's nature, and how hardly the balance of the soul is preserved, need not be told of the arduousness of this work. Devout people, through love of excitement, and through wrong views 262 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. of the love of God, are apt to cherish the devotional feelings, at the expense, if not to the exclusion, of other parts of our nature. They seem to imagine that piety, like the tJpas tree, makes a desert where it grows, — that the mind, if not the body, needs a cloister. The natural movements of the soul are re- pressed ; the social affections damped ; the grace, and ornament, and innocent exhilarations of life frowned upon ; and a gloomy, repulsive religion is culti- vated, which, by way of compensation for its privations, claims a monopoly of God's favor, abandoning all to his wrath who will not assume its own sad liv- ery and echo its own sepulchral tones. Through such exhibitions religion has lost its honor ; and though the most ennobling of all sentiments, dilating the soul with vast thoughts and an un- bounded hope, has been thought to contract and degrade it. The minister is to teach an earnest but enlightened religion, — a piety wnich, far from wast- ing or eradicating, will protect, nourish, freshen the mind's various affections and powers ; which will add force to reason, as well as ardor to the heart ; which will at once bind us to God, and cement and multiply our ties to our families, our country, and mankind ; which will heighten the relish of life's pleasures, whilst it kindles an unquench- able thirst for a purer happiness in the life to come. Religion does not muti- late our nature. It does not lay waste our human interests and affections, that it may erect for God a throne amidst cheerless and solitary ruins, but widens fhe range of thought, feeling, and en- ioyment. Such is religion ; and the Christian ministry, — having for its end the communication of this healthful, well-proportioned, and all-comprehend- ing piety, — demands every energy of thought, feeling, and utterance which the individual can bring to the work. The time would fail me to speak of the other affections and sentiments which the ministry is instituted to ex- cite and cherish, and I hasten to another object of the Christian teacher, which, to those who know themselves, will peculiarly illustrate the power which his office demands, It is his duty to rouse men to self-conflict, to warfare with the evil in their own hearts. This is, in truth, the supreme evil. The sorest calamities of life — sickness, poverty, scorn, dungeons, and death — form a less amount of desolation and suffering than is included in that one word, sin, — in revolt from God, in disloyalty to con- science, in the tyranny of the passions, in the thraldom of the soul's noblest powers. To redeem men from sin was Christ's great end. To pierce them with a new consciousness of sin, so that they shall groan under it, and strive against it, and, through prayer and watching, master it, is an essential part of the minister's work. Let him not satisfy himself with awakening by his elo- quence occasional emotions of grati- tude or sympathy. He must rouse the soul to solemn, stern resolve against its own deep and cherished corruptions, or he only makes a show of assault, and leaves the foe intrenched and un- broken within. We see, then, the ardu- ousness of the minister's work. He is called to war with the might of the human passions, with the whole power of moral evil. He is to enlist men, not for a crusade, nor for extermination of heretics, but to fight a harder battle within, to expel sin in all its forms, and especially their besetting sins, from the strongholds of the heart. 1 know no task so arduous, none which demands equal power. I shall take but one more view of the objects for which the Christian min- istry was instituted, and from which we infer that it should be fraught with energy. It is the duty of the Christian teacher to call forth in the soul a con- viction of its immortality, a thirst for a higher existence, and a grandeur and elevation of sentiment becoming a being who is to live, enjoy, and advance for ever. His business is with men, not as inhabitants of this world, but as related to invisible beings and to purer and happier worlds. The minister should look with reverence on the human soul as having within itself the germ of heaven. He should recognize, in the ignorant and unimproved, vast spiritual faculties given for perpetual enlarge- ment, just as the artist of genius sees in the unhewn marble the capacity of being transformed into a majesty and grace which will command the admira- tion of ages. In correspondence with these views, let him strive to quicken men to a consciousness of their inward THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 203 nature and of its affinity with God, and to raise tiieir steadfast aim and liope to its interminable progress and felicity. Such is his function. Perhaps I may be told that men are incapable of ris- ing, under the best instruction, to this height of thought and feeling. But let us never despair of our race. There is, I am sure, in the human soul a deep consciousness, which responds to him who sincerely, and with the language of reality, speaks to it of the great and everlasting purposes for which it was created. There are sublime instincts in man. There is in human nature a want which the world cannot supply ; a thirst for objects on which to pour forth more fervent admiration and love than visible things awaken ; a thirst for the unseen, the infinite, and the everlasting. Most of you who hear have probably had moments when a new light has seemed to dawn, a new life to stir within you ; when you have aspired after an unknown good ; when you have been touched by moral great- ness and disinterested love ; when you have longed to break every chain of selfishness and sensuality, and enjoy a purer being. It is on this part of our nature that religion is founded. To this Christianity is addressed. The power to speak to this is the noblest which God has imparted to man or angel, and should be coveted above all things by the Christian teacher. The need of power in the ministry has been made apparent, from the greatness of the truths to be dispensed and the effects to be wrought by the Christian teacher. The question then comes, How may the student of theology be aided in gaining or cherishing this power ? Under what influences should he be placed ? What are the springs or foundations of the energy which he needs ? How may he be quickened and trained to act most efficiently on the minds of men ? In answering these questions, we of course determine the character which belongs to a theological institution, the spirit which it should cherish, the discipline, the mode of teaching, the excitements, which it should employ. From this wide range I shall select a few topics which are recommended at once by their own im- portance and by the circumstances in which we are now placed. I. To train the student to power of thought and utterance, let him be left, and, still more, encouraged, to free in- vestigation. Without this a theological institution becomes a prison to the in- tellect and a nuisance to the church. The mind grows by free action. Con- fine it to beaten paths, prescribe to it the results in which all study must end, and you rob it of elasticity and life. It will never spread to its full dimensions. Teach the young man that the instruc- tions of others are designed to quicken, not supersede his own activity ; that he has a divine intellect for which he is to answer to God, and that to surrender it to another is to cast the crown from his head, and to yield up his noblest birth- right. Encourage him in all great ques- tions to hear both sides, and to meet fairly the point of every hostile argu- ment. Guard him against tampering with his own mind, against silencing its whispers and objections, that he may enjoy a favorite opinion undisturbed. Do not give him the shadow for the substance of freedom, by telling him to inquire, but prescribing to him the con- victions at which he must stop. Better show him honestly his chains than mock the slave with the show of liberty. I know the objection to this course. It puts to hazard, we are told, the relig- ious principles of the young. The ob- jection is not without foundation. The danger is not unreal. But I know no method of forming a manly intellect or a manly character without danger. Peril is the element in which power is devel- oped. Remove the youth from every hazard, keep him in leading-strings lest he should stray into forbidden paths, surround him with down lest he should be injured by a fall, shield him from wind and storms, and you doom him to perpetual infancy. All liberty is peril- ous , as the despot truly affirms ; but who would therefore seek shelter under a despot's throne ? Freedom of will is almost a tremendous gift ; but still a free agent, with all his capacity of crime, is infinitely more interesting and noble than the most harmonious and beautiful machine. Freedom is the nurse of intellectual and moral vigor. Better expose the mind to error than rob it of hardihood and individualit}-. Keep not the destined teacher of man- kind from the perilous field where the 264 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. battle between truth and falsehood is fought. Let him grapple with difficulty, sophistry, and error. Truth is a con- quest, and no man holds her so fast as he who has won her by conflict. That cases of infidelity may occur in institutions conducted on free princi- ples is very possible, though our own experience gives no ground for fear. But the student who, with all the aids to Christian belief which are furnished in a theological seminary, still falls a prey to scepticism, is not the man to be trusted with the cause of Christ. He is radically deficient. He wants that con- geniality with spiritual and lofty truths without which the evidences of religion work no deep conviction, and without which the faith that might be instilled by a slavish institution would be of little avail. An upright mind may indeed be disturbed and shaken for a time by the arguments of scepticism ; but these will be ultimately repelled, and, like con- quered foes, will strengthen the princi- ple by which they have been subdued. Nothing, I am sure, can give power like a free action of the mind. Accumu- late teachers and books, for these are indispensable. But the best teacher is he who awakens in his pupils the power of thought, and aids them to go alone. It is possible to weaken and encumber the mind by too much help. The very splendor of a teacher's talents may injure the pupil ; and a superior man, who is more anxious to spread his own creed and his own praise than to nourish a strong intellect in others, will only waste his life in multiplying poor copies, and in sending forth into the churches tame mimics of himself. To free inquiry, then, we dedicate these walls. We invite into them the ingenuous young man, who prizes liberty of mind more than aught within the gift of sects or of the world. Let heaven's free air circulate, and heaven's unob- structed light shine here, and let those who shall be sent hence go forth, not to echo with serviUty a creed imposed on their weakness, but to utter, in their own manly tones, what their own free investigation and deep conviction urge them to preach as the truth of God. 2. In the second place, to give power to the teacher, he should be imbued, by all possible inculcation and excitement, with a supreme and invincible love of truth. This is at once the best defence against the perils of free inquiry, and the inspirer of energy both in thought and utterance. The first duty of a rational being is to his own intellect ; for it is through soundness and honesty of intellect that he is to learn all other duties. I know no virtue more impor- tant and appropriate to a teacher, and especially a religious teacher, than fair- ness and rectitude of understanding, — than a. love of truth stronger than the love of gain, honor, life ; and yet, so far from being cherished, this virtue has been warred against, hunted down, driven to exile, or doomed to the stake, in almost every Christian country, by ministers, churches, religious seminaries, or a mad- dened populace. In the glorious com- pany of heroes and martyrs, a high rank belongs to him who, superior to the frowns or the sneers, the pity or the wrath, which change of views would bring upon him, and in opposition to the warping influences of patronage, of pri- vate friendship, or ambition, keeps his mind chaste, inviolate, a sacred temple for truth, ever open to new light from heaven ; and who, faithful to his delib- erate convictions, speaks simply and firmly what his uncorrupted mind be- lieves. This love of truth gives power, for it secures a growing knowledge of truth ; and truth is the mighty weapon by which the victories of religion are to be wrought out. This endures, whilst error carries with it the seeds of decay. Truth is an emanation from God, a beam of his wisdom, and immutable as its source ; and although its first influences may seem to be exceeded by those of error, it grows stronger, and strikes deeper root, amidst the fluctuations and ruins of false opinions. Besides, this loyalty to truth not only leads to its acquisition, but, still more, begets a vital acquaintance with it, a peculiar con- viction, which gives directness, energy, and authority to teaching. A minister who has been religiously just to his own understanding speaks with a tone of reality, of calm confidence, of conscious uprightness, which cannot be caught by the servile repeater of other men's no- tions, or by the passionate champion of an unexamined creed. A look, an accent, a word, from a single-hearted inquirer after truth, expressing his deliberate convictions, has a peculiar power in for- THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 265 tifying the convictions of others. To the love of truth, then, be these walls consecrated, and here may every influ- ence be combined to build it up in the youthful heart 1 3. To train powerful ministers, let an institution avail itself of the means of forming a devotional spirit, and imbuing the knowledge of the student with re- ligious sensibility. Every man knows that a cultivated mind, under strong and generous emotion, acquires new com- mand of its resources, new energy and fulness of thought and expression ; whilst in individuals of a native vigor of intel- lect feeling almost supplies the place of culture, inspiring the unlettered teacher with a fervid, resistless eloquence, which no apparatus of books, teachers, criti- cism, ancient languages, and general literature can impart. This power of sensibility to fertilize and vivify the in- tellect is not difficult of explanation. A strong and pure affection concentrates the attention on its objects, fastens on them the whole soul, and thus gives vividness of conception. It associates intimately all the ideas which are con- genial with itself, and thus causes a rush of thought into the mind in moments of excitement. Indeed, a strong emotion seems to stir up the soul from its foun- dations, and to attract to itself, and to impregnate with its own fire, whatever elements, conceptions, illustrations, can be pressed into its own service. Hence it is that even ordinary men, strongly moved, abound in arguments, analogies, and fervent appeals, which nothing but sensibility could have taught. Every minister can probably recollect periods when devotional feeling has seemed to open a new fountain of thought in the soul. Religious affection instinctively seeks and seizes the religious aspect of things. It discerns the marks of God, and proofs and illustrations of divine truth, in all nature and providence ; and seems to surround the mind with an atmosphere which spreads its own warm hues on every object which enters it. This attraction, or affinity, if I may so say, which an emotion establishes among the thoughts which accord with itself, is one of the very important laws of the mind, and is chiefly manifested in poetry, eloquence, and all the higher efforts of intellect by which man sways his fellow- beings. Religious feeling, then, is indis- pensable to a powerful minister. Without it learning and fancy may please, but cannot move men profoundly and per- manently. It is this which not only suggests ideas, but gives felicity and energy of expression. It prompts "the words that burn" — those mysterious combinations of speech, which send the speaker's soul like lightning through his hearers, which breathe new life into old and faded truths, and cause an instan- taneous gush of thought and feeling in susceptible minds. We dedicate this institution, then, to religious feeling. Here let the heart muse till the fire burns. Here let pray- er, joined with meditation on nature and Scripture, and on the fervid writ- ings of devout men, awaken the whole strength of the affections. But on no point is caution more needed than on this. Let it never be forgotten that we want genuine feeling ; not its tones, looks, and gestures, not a forced ardor and factitious zeal. Woe to that insti- tution where the young man is expected to repeat the language of emotion whether he feel it or not ; where per- petual pains are taken to chafe the mind to a warmth which it cannot sus- tain! The affectiotis are delicate, and must not be tampered with. They can- not be compelled. Hardly any thing is more blighting to genuine sensibility than to assume its tones and badge where it does not exist. Exhort the student to cherish devout feeling by intercourse with God, and with those whom God has touched. But exhort him as strenuously to abstain from every sign of emotion which the heart does not prompt. Teach him that nothing grieves more the Holy Spirit, or sooner closes the mind against heavenly influ- ences, than insincerity. Teach him to be simj^le, ingenuous, true to his own soul. Better be cold than affect to feel. In truth, nothing is so cold as an as- sumed, noisy enthusiasm. Its best em- blem is the northern blast of winter, which freezes as it roars. Be this spot sacred to Christian ingenuousness and sincerity ! Let it never be polluted by pretence, by affected fervor, by cant and theatric show ! 4. Another source of power in the ministry is faith ; by which we mean, not a general belief in the truths of Christianity, but a confidence in the 266 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. great results which this religion and the ministry are intended to promote. It has often been observed, that a strong faith tends to realize its objects ; that all things become possible to him who thinks them so. Trust and hope breathe animation and force. He who despairs of great effects never accomplishes them. All great works have been the results of a strong confidence inspiring and sustaining strong exertion. The young man who cannot conceive of higher effects of the ministry than he now beholds, who thinks that Chris- tianity has spent all its energies in pro- ducing the mediocrity of virtue which characterizes Christendom, and to whom the human soul seems to have put forth its whole power and to have reached its full growth in religion, has no call to the ministry. Let not such a man put forth his nerveless hands in de- fence of the Christian cause. A voice of confidence has been known to rally a retreating army and to lead it back to victory ; and this spirit-stirring tone be- longs to the leaders of the Christian host. The minister, indeed, ought to see and feel, more painfully than other men, the extent and power of moral evil in individuals, inr the church, and in the world. Let him weep over the rav- ages of sin. But let him feel, too, that the mightiest power of the universe is on the side of truth and virtue ; and with sorrow and fear let him join an unfaltering trust in the cause of human nature. Let him look on men as on mysterious beings endued with a spir- itual life, with a deep central principle of holy and disinterested love, with an intellectual and moral nature which was made to be receptive of God. To nour- ish this hopeful spirit, this strengthen- ing confidence it is important that the minister should understand and feel that he is not acting alone in his efforts for reHgion, but in union with God and Christ, and good beings on earth and in heaven. Let him regard the spiritual renovation of mankind as God's chief purpose, for which nature and prov- idence are leagued in holy co-operation. Let him feel himself joined in counsel and labor with that great body of which Christ is the head, with the noble broth- erhood of apostles and martyrs, of the just made perfect, and, I will add, of angels ; and speaking with a faith be- coming this sublime association, he will not speak in vain. To this faith, to prophetic hope, to a devout trust in the glorious issues of Christianity, we ded- icate these walls ; and may God here train up teachers worthy to mingle and bear a part with the holy of both worlds in the cause of man's redemption ! 5. Again, that the ministry may be imbued with new power, it needs a spirit of enterprise and reform. They who enter it should feel that it may be im- proved. We live in a stirring, advanc- ing age ; and shall not the noblest function on earth partake of the general progress ? Why is the future mmistry to be a servile continuation of the past ? Have all the methods of operating on human beings been tried and exhausted ? Are there no unessayed passages to the human heart ? If we live in a new era, must not religion be exhibited under new aspects, or in new relations ? Is not scepticism taking a new form ? Has not Christianity new foes to contend with ? And are there no new weapons and modes of warfare by which its tri- umphs are to be insured ? If human nature is manifesting itself in new lights, and passing through a new and most interesting stage of its progress, shall it be described by the commonplaces, and appealed to exclusively by the motives, which belonged to earlier periods of society ? May not the mind have be- come susceptible of nobler incitements than those which suited ruder times ? Shall the minister linger behind his age, and be dragged along, as he often has been, in the last ranks of improvement ? Let those who are to assume the minis- try be taught that they have something more to do than to handle old topics in old ways, and to walk in beaten and long-worn paths. Let them inquire if new powers and agents may not be brought to bear on the human charac- ter. Is it incredible that the progress of intellect and knowledge should de- velop new resources for the teacher of religion as well as for the statesman, the artist, the philosopher? Are there no new combinations and new uses of the elements of thought as well as of the elements of nature ? Is it impossible that in the vast compass of Scripture, of nature, of Providence, and of the soul, there should be undisclosed or dimly- defined truths which may give a new THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 267 impulse to the human mind ? We ded- icate this place not only to the contin- uance but to the improvement of the ministry ; and let this improvement be- gin, at once, in those particulars where the public, if not the clergy, feel it to be wanted. Let those who are to be edu- cated here be admonished against the frigid eloquence, the school-boy tone, the inanimate diction too common in the pulpit, and which would be endured nowhere else. Let them speak in tones of truth and nature, and adopt the style and elocution of men who have an urgent work in hand, and who are thirsting for the regeneration of individuals and so- ciety. 6. Another source of power, too ob- vious to need elucidation, yet too im- portant to be omitted, is an indepen- dent spirit. By which I mean not an unfeeling defiance of the opinions and usages of society, but that moral cour- age which, through good report and evil report, reverently hears and fearlessly obeys the voice of conscience and God. He who would instruct men must not fear them. He who is to reform society must not be anxious to keep its level. Dread of opinion effeminates preaching and takes from truth its pungency. The minister so subdued may flourish his weapons in the air to the admiration of spectators, but will never pierce the con- science. The minister, like the good knight, should be without fear. Let him cultivate that boldness of speech for which Paul prayed. Let him not flatter great or small. Let him not wrap up re- proof in a decorated verbiage. Let him make no compromise with evil because •followed by a multitude, but for this very cause lift up against it a more earnest voice. Let him beware of the shackles which society insensibly fastens on the mind and the tongue. Moral courage is not the virtue of our times. The love of popularity is the all-taint- ing vice of a repubUc. Besides the in- creasing connection between a minister and the community, whilst it liberalizes the mind and counteracts professional prejudices, has a tendency to enslave him to opinion, to wear away the energy of virtuous resolution, and to change him from an intrepid guardian of virtue and foe of sin into a merely elegant and amiable companion. Against this dis- honorable cowardice, which smoothes the thoughts and style of the teacher, until they glide through the ear and the mind without giving a shock to the most delicate nerves, let the young man be guarded. We dedicate this institution to Christian independence. May it send forth brave spirits to the vindication of truth and religion ! 7. I shall now close with naming the chief source of power to the minister, — one, indeed, which has been in a meas- ure anticipated, and all along implied, but which ought not to be dismissed without a more distinct annunciation. I refer to that spirit, or frame, or senti- ment, in which the love of God, the love of men, the love of duty, meet as their highest result, and in which they are perfected and most gloriously displayed ; I mean the spirit of self-sacrifice, — the spirit of martyrdom. This was the per- fection of Christ, and it is the noblest inspiration which his followers derive from him. Say not that this is a height to which the generality of ministers must not be expected to rise. This spirit is of more universal obligation than many imagine. It enters into all the virtues which deeply interest us. In truth, there is no thorough virtue without it. Who is the upright man ? He who would rather die than defraud. Who the good parent ? He to whom his children are dearer than life. Who the good patriot ? He who counts not life dear in his coun- try's cause. Who the philanthropist.? He who forgets himself in an absorbing zeal for the mitigation of h-iman suffer- ing, — for the freedom, virtue, arid illu- mination of men. It is not Christianity alone which has taught self-sacrifice. Conscience and the divinity within us have in all ages borne testimony to its loveliness and grandeur, and history bor- rows from it her chief splendors. But Christ on his cross has taught it with a perfection unknown before, and his glory consists in the power with which he breathes it. Into this spirit Christ's mean- est disciple is expected to drink. How much more the teachers and guides of his church ! He who is not moved with this sublime feature of our religion, who cannot rise above himself, who cannot, by his own consciousness, comprehend the kindling energy and solemn joy which pain or peril in a noble cause has often inspired, — he to whom this Ian-' guage is a mystery wants one great 2S8 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. mark of his vocation to the sacred office. Let him enlist under any standard rather than the cross. To preach with power, a man must feel Christianity to be worthy of the blood which it has cost ; and, es- pousing it as the chief hope of the human race, must contemn life's ordinary inter- ests, compared with the glory and hap- piness of advancing it. This spirit of self-exposure and self-surrender throws into preachers an energy which no other principle can give. In truth, such power resides in disinterestedness, that no man can understand his full capacity of thought and feeling — his strength to do and suffer — until he gives himself, with a single heart, to a great and holy cause. New faculties seem to be created, and more than human might sometimes im- parted, by a pure, fervent love. Most of us are probably strangers to the re- sources of power in our own breasts, through the weight and pressure of the chains of selfishness. We consecrate this institution, then, to that spirit of martyrdom, of disinterested attachment to the Christian cause, through which it first triumphed, and for want of which its triumphs are now slow. In an age of luxury and self-indulgence, we would devote these walls to the training of warm, manly, generous spirits. May they never shelter the self-seeking slaves of ease and comfort, — pupils of Epicurus rather than of Christ ! God send from this place devoted and effi- cient friends of Christianity and the hu- man race ! My friends, I have insisted on the need, and illustrated the sources, of power in the ministry. To this end may the institution in whose behalf we are now met together be steadily and sacredly devoted. I would say to its guardians and teachers. Let this be your chief aim. I would say to the students. Keep this in sight in all your studies. Never forget your great vocation, — that you are to prepare yourselves for a strong, deep, and beneficent agency on the minds of your fellow-beings. Everywhere I see a demand for the power on which I have now insisted. The cry comes to me from society and from the church. The condition of society needs a more efficient administration of Christianity. Great and radical changes are needed in the community to make it Christian. There are those, indeed, who, mistaking the courtesies and refinements of civil- ized life for virtue, see no necessity of a great revolution in the woild. But civilization, in hiding the grossness, does not break the power of evil propensities. Let us not deceive ourselves. Multi- tudes are livmg with few thoughts of God, and of the true purpose and glory of their being. Among the nominal be- lievers in a Deity and in a judgment to come, sensuality and ambition, and the love of the world, sit on their thrones and laugh to scorn the impotence of preaching. Christianity has yet a hard war to wage and many battles to win ■, and it needs intrepid, powerful ministers, who will find courage and excitement, not dismay, in the strength and number of their foes. Christians, you have seen in this dis- course the purposes and claims of this theological institution. Offer your fer- vent prayers for its prosperity. Be- siege the throne of mercy in its behalf. Cherish it as the dearest hope of our churches. Enlarge its means of useful- ness, and let your voice penetrate its walls, calling aloud and importunately for enlightened and powerful teachers. Thus joining in effort with the directors and instructors of this seminary, doubt not that God will here train up ministers worthy to bear his truth to present and future generations. If, on the contrary, you and they slumber, you will have erected these walls, not to nourish en- ergy, but to be its tomb, not to bear witness to your zeal, but to be a melan- choly monument of fainting effort and betrayed truth. But let me not cast a cloud over the prospects of this day. In hope I began, — with hope I will end. This institu- tion has noble distinctions, and has afforded animating pledges. It is emi- nently a free institution, — an asylum from the spiritual despotism .which, in one shape or another, overspreads the greatest part of Christendom. It has already given to the churches a body of teachers who, in theological acquisitions and ministerial gifts, need not shrink from comparison with their predeces- sors or contemporaries. I see in it means and provisions, nowhere sur- passed, for training up enlightened, free, magnanimous, self-sacrificing friends of truth. In this hope let us then proceed to the work which has brought us to- DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 269 gether. With trust in God, with love to manlcind, with unaffected attachment to Cliristian truth, with earnest wishes for its propagation through all lands and its transmission to remotest ages, let us now, with one heart and one voice, ded- icate this edifice to the One living and true God, to Christ and his Church, to the instruction and regeneration of the human soul. THE DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY: Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. E. S. Gannett, Boston, 1824. Matthew x. i6 : " Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves : be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves,'" The communication of moral and re- ligious truth is the most important office committed to men. The Son of God came into the world not to legislate for nations, not to command armies, not to sit on the throne of universal monarchy ; but to teach religion, to establish truth and holiness. The highest end of hu- man nature is duty, virtue, piety, excel- lence, moral greatness, spiritual glory ; and he who effectually labors for these is taking part with God, in God's noblest work. The Christian ministry, then, which has for its purpose men's spirit- ual improvement and salvation, and which is intrusted for this end with weapons of heavenly temper and power, deserves to be ranked amongst God's most beneficent institutions and men's most honorable labors. The occasion requires that this institution should be our principal topic. How happy a change has taken place since the words of Christ in the text were spoken ! Ministers are no longer sent forth into the midst of wolves. Through the labors, sufferings, and tri- umphs of apostles, martyrs, and good and great men in successive ages, Chris- tianity has become the professed and honored religion of the most civilized nations, and its preachers are exposed to very different temptations from those of savage persecution. Still our text has an application to the present time. We see our Saviour commanding his Apostles to regard in their ministry the circumstances of the age in which they hved. Surrounded with foes, they were to exercise the wisdom or prudence of which the serpent was in ancient times the emblem, and to join with it the in- nocence and mildness of the dove. And, in like manner, the Christian minister is at all periods to regard the signs, the distinctive marks and character of the age to which he belongs, and must ac- commodate his ministry to its wants and demands. Accordingly, I propose to consider some of the leading traits of the present age, and the influence which they should have on a Christian teacher. /l. The state of the world, compared with the past, may be called enlight- ened, and requires an enlightened min- istry. It hardly seems necessary to prove that religion should be dispensed by men who at least keep pace with the intellect of the age in which they live. Some passages of Scripture, however, have been wrested to prove that an unlearned ministry is that which God particularly honors. He always chooses, we are told, " the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." But texts of this description are misunderstood through the very ignorance which they are adduced to support. The wise, who are spoken of contemptuously in the New Testament, were not really enlight- ened men, but pretenders to wisdom, who substituted dreams of imagination and wild hypotheses for sober inquiry into God's works, and who knew com- paratively nothing of nature or the human mind. The present age has a quite different illumination from that in which ancient philosophy prided itself. It is marked by great and obvious im- 2 70 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. provements in the methods of reason- ing and inquiry, and by the consequent discovery and diffusion of a great mass of physical and moral truth wholly un- known in the time of Christ. Now we affirm that such an age demands an enlightened ministry. We want teach- ers who will be able to discern and unfold the consistency of revealed re- Hgion with the new lights which are breaking in from nature ; and who will be able to draw, from all men's discov- eries in the outward world and in their own souls, illustrations, analogies, and arguments for Christianity./ We have reason to believe that God, the Author of nature and revelation, has established a harmony between them, and that their beams are intended to mingle and shed a joint radiance ; and, consequently, other things being equal, that teacher is best fitted to dispense Christianity whose compass of mind enables him to com- pare what God is teaching in his works and in his word, and to present the truths of religion with those modifica- tions and restraints which other ac- knowledged truths require. Christianity now needs dispensers who will make history, nature, and the improvements of society tributary to its elucidation and support ; who will show its adap- tation to man- as an ever-progressive being ; who will be able to meet the objections to its truth which will natu- rally be started in an active, stirring, inquiring age ; and, though last not least, who will have enough of mental and moral courage to detect and re- nounce the errors in the church on which such objections are generally built. In such an age, a ministry is wanted which will furnish discussions of religious topics, not inferior at least in intelligence to those which people are accustomed to read and hear on other subjects. Christianity will suffer if, at a time when vigor and acuteness of thinking are carried into all other departments, the pulpit should send forth nothing but wild declamation, pos- itive assertion, or dull commonplaces, with which even childhood is satiated. Religion must be seen to be the friend and quickener of intellect. It must be exhibited with clearness of reasoning and variety of illustration ; nor ought it to be deprived of the benefits of a pure and felicitous diction and of rich and glowing imagery, where these gifts fall to the lot of the teacher. It is not meant that every minister must be a man of genius, — for genius is one of God's rarest inspirations ; and of all the breath- ings of genius, perhaps the rarest is eloquence. I mean only to say that the age demands of those who devote them- selves to the administration of Chris- tianity, that they should feel themselves called upon for the highest cultivation and fullest development of the intellect- ual nature. Instead of thinking that the ministry is a refuge for dulness, and that whoever can escape from the plough is fit for God's spiritual husbandry, we ought to feel that no profession demands- more enlarged thinking and more vari- ous acquisitions of truth. In proportion as society becomes en- lightened, talent acquires influence. In rude ages bodily strength is the most honorable distinction, and in subsequent times military prowess and skill confer mastery and eminence. But as society advances, mind, thought, becomes the sovereign of the world ; and accordingly, at the present moment, profound and glowing thought, though breathing only from the silent page, exerts a kind of omnipotent and omnipresent energy. It crosses oceans and spreads through nations ; and, at one»and the same mo- ment, the conceptions of a single mind are electrifying and kindling multitudes through wider regions than the Roman eagle overshadowed. This agency of mind on mind, I repeat it, is the true sovereignty of the world, and kings and heroes are becoming impotent by the side of men of deep and fervent thought. In such a state of things, religion would wage a very unequal war if divorced from talent and cultivated intellect, if committed to weak and untaught minds. God plainly intends that it should be advanced by human agency ; and does He not then intend to summon to its aid the mightiest and noblest power with which man is gifted ? Let it not be said that Christianity has an intrinsic glory, a native beauty, which no art or talent of man can heighten; that Christianity is one and the same by whatever lips it is communicated, and that it needs nothing but the most naked exposition of its truths to accom- plish its saving purposes. Who does not know that all truth takes a hue and DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 271 form from the soul through which it passes, that in every mind it is invested with peculiar associations, and that, con- sequently, the same truth is quite a different thing when exhibited by men of different habits of thought and feel- ing? Who does not know that the sub- limsst doctrines lose in some hands all their grandeur, and the loveliest all their attractiveness ? Who does not know how much the diffusion and power of any system, whether physical, moral, or political, depend on the order according to which it is arranged, on the broad and consistent views which are given of it, on the connections which it is shown to hold with other truths, on the analogies by which it is illustrated, adorned, and enforced, and, though last not least, on the clearness and energy of the style in which it is conveyed ? " Nothing is needed in religion," some say, "but the naked truth." But I apprehend that there is no such thing as naked truth, at least as far as moral subjects are con- cerned. Truth which relates to God, and duty, and happiness, and a future state, is always humanized, if I may so use the word, by passing through a human mind; and when communicated powerfully, it always comes to us in drapery thrown round it by the imag- ination, reason, and moral feelings of the teacher. It comes to us warm and living with the impressions and affec- tions which it has produced in the soul from which it issues ; and it ought so to come _; for the highest evidence of moral truth is found in the moral principles and feelings of our nature, and therefore it fails of its best support unless it is seen to accord with and to act upon these. The evidence of Christianity which operates most universally is not history nor mir- acles, but its correspondence to the noblest capacities, deepest wants, and purest aspirations of our nature, to the cravings of an immortal spirit; and when it comes to us from a mind in which it has discovered nothing of this adaptation, and has touched none of these springs, it wants one of its chief signa- tures of divinity. Christianity is not, then, to be exhibited nakedly. It owes much of its power to the mind which communicates it ; and the greater the enlargement and development of the mind of which it has possessed itself, and from which it flows, the wider and deeper wiU be Us action on other souls. /it maybe said without censoriousness, that the ordinary mode in which Chris- tianity has been exhibited in past times does not suit the illumination of the present. That mode has been too nar- row, technical, pedantic. Religion has been made a separate business, — and a dull, unsocial, melancholy business, too, — instead of being manifested as a truth which bears on and touches every thing human, as a universal spirit which ought to breathe through and modify all our desires and pursuits, all our trains of thought and emotion. And this narrow, forbidden mode of exhibit- ing Christianity is easily explained by its early history. Monks shut up in cells ; a priesthood cut off by celibacy from the sympathies and most interest- ing relations of life ; and universities enslaved to a scholastic logic, and taught to place wisdom in verbal subtilties and unintelligible definitions ; these took Christianity into their keeping, and at their chilling touch this generous relig- ion, so full of life and affection, became a dry, frigid, abstract system. Chris- tianity, as it came from their hands, and has been transmitted by a majority of Protestant divines, reminds us of the human form compressed by swathing- bands, until every joint is rigid, every movement constrained, and almost all the beauty and grace of nature obliter- ated, ^nstead of regarding it as a heav- enly institution, designed to perfect our whole nature, to offer awakening and purifying objects to the intellect, imag- ination, and heart, to develop every capacity of devout and social feeling, to form a rich, various, generous virtue, divines have cramped and tortured the gospel into various systems, composed in the main of theological riddles and contradictions ; and this religion of love has been made to inculcate a monkish and dark-visaged piety, very hostile to the free expansion and full enjoyment of all our faculties and social affections. ) Great improvements indeed in this par- ticular are taking place among Chris- tians _ of almost every denomination. Religion has been brought from the cell of the monk and the school of the ver- bal disputant into life and society ; and its connections with all our pursuits and feelings have been made manifest. Still, 2/2 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. Christianity, I apprehend, is not viewed in sufficiently broad lights to meet the spirit of an age which is tracing con- nections between all objects of thought and branches of knowledge, and which cannot but distrust ?.n alleged revelation, in as far as it is seen to want harmonies and affinities with other parts of God's system, and especially with human nature and human life. II. The age in which we live demands not only an enlightened but an earnest ministry, for it is an age of earnestness and excitement. Men feel and think at present with more energy than formerly. There is more of interest and fervor. We learn now from experience what might have been inferred from the pur- poses of our Creator, that civilization and refinement are not, as has been sometimes thought, inconsistent with sensibility ; that the intellect may grow without exhausting or overshadowing the heart. The human mind was never more in earnest than at the present moment. The political revolutions which form such broad features and distinc- tions of our age have sprung from a new and deep working in the human soul. Men have caught glimpses, however indistinct, of the worth, dignity, rights, and great interests of their nature ; and a thirst for untried good and impatience of long endured wrongs have broken out wildly, like the fires of Etna, and shaken and convulsed the earth. It is impossible not to discern this increased fervor of mind in every department of life. A new spirit of improvement is abroad. The imagination can no longer be confined to the acquisitions of past ages, but is kindling the passions by vague but noble ideas of blessings never yet attained. Multitudes, unwilling to wait the slow pace of that great inno- vator. Time, are taking the work of re- form into their own hands. Accordingly, the reverence for antiquity and for age- hallowed establishments, and the pas- sion for change and amelioration, are now arrayed against each other in open hostility, and all great questions affect- ing human happiness are debated with the eagerness of party. The character of the age is stamped very strongly on its literary productions. Who that can compare the present with the past is not struck with the bold and earnest spirit of the literature of our times ? It re- fuses to waste itself on trifles or to min- ister to mere gratification. Almost all that is written has now some bearing on great interests of human nature. Fic- tion is no longer a mere amusement ; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine ; and under the light tale is breathing through the community either its reverence for the old or its thirst for the new, — communicates the spirit and lessons of history, unfolds the operations of religious and civil institutions, and defends or assails new theories of education or morals by ex- hibiting them in life and action. The poetry of the age is equally character- istic. It has a deeper and more impres- sive tone than comes to us from what has been called the Augustan age of English literature. The regular, elab- orate, harmonious strains, which de- lighted a former generation, are now accused, I ,say not how justly, of playing too much on the surface of nature and of the heart. Men want and demand a more thrilling note, a poetry which pierces beneath the exterior of life to the depths of the soul, and which lays open its mysterious workings, borrowing from the whole outward creation fresh images and correspondences with which to illuminate the secrets of the world within us. So keen is this appetite, that extravagances of imagination, and gross violations both of taste and moral sen- timent are forgiven, when conjoined with what awakens strong emotion ; and un- happily the most stirring is the most popular poetry, even though it issue from the desolate soul of a misanthrope and a libertine, and exhale poison and death. Now, religion ought to be dispensed in accommodation to this spirit and char- acter of our age. Men desire excite- ment, and religion must be communi- cated in a more exciting form. It must be seen not only to correspond and to be adapted to the intellect, but to fur- nish nutriment and appeals to the highest and profoundest sentiments of our nat- ure. It must not be exhibited in the dry, pedantic divisions of a scholastic theology ; nor must it be set forth and tricked out in the light drapery of an artificial rhetoric, in prettinesses of style, DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 273 in measured sentences with an insipid floridness, and in tiie form of elegantly feeble essays. No ; it must come from the soul in the language of earnest con- viction and strong feeling. Men will not now be trifled with. They listen impatiently to great subjects treated with apathy. They want a religion which will take a strong hold upon them ; and no system, I am sure, can now main- tain its ground which wants the power of awakening real and deep interest in the soul. It is objected to Unitarian Chris- tianity that it does not possess this heart- stirring energy ; and if so, it will, and still more, it ought, to fall ; for it does not suit the spirit of our times, nor the essential and abiding spirit of human nature. Men will prefer even a fanat- icism which is in earnest, to a pretended rationality which leaves untouched all the great springs of the soul, which never lays a quickening hand on our love and veneration, our awe and fear, our hope and joy. It is obvious, I think, that the spirit of the age, which demands a more excit- ing administration of Christianity, begins to be understood, and is responded to by preachers. Those of us whose memory .extends back but a little way, can see a revolution taking place in this country. "The repose of the pulpit" has been disturbed. In England, the Established Church gives broad symptoms of awak- ing ; and the slumbering incumbents of a state religion, either roused by sym- pathy, or aware of the necessity of self- defence, are beginning to exhibit the energy of the freer and more zealous sects around them. In such an age, earnestness should characterize the ministry ; and by this I mean not a louder voice or a more vehement gesture ; I mean no tricks of oratory ; but a solemn conviction that religion is a great concern, and a solemn purpose that its claims shall be felt by others. To suit such an age, a minister must communicate religion — not only as a result of reasoning but as a matter of experience — with that inexpressible character of reality, that life and power which accompany truths drawn from a man's own soul. We ought to speak of religion as something which we ourselves know. Its influences, struggles, joys, sorrows, triumphs, should be delineated from our own history. The life and sen- 18 sibility which we would spread should be strong in our own breasts. This is the only genuine, unfailing spring of an earnest ministry. Men may work them- selves for a time into a fervor by artifi- cial means ; but the flame is unsteady, " a crackling of thorns " on a cold hearth ; and, after all, it is hard for the most suc- cessful art to give, even for a time, that soul-subduing tone to the voice, that air of native feeling to the countenance, and that raciness and freshness to the concep- tions, which come from an experimental conviction of religious truth ; and, ac- cordingly, I would suggest that the most important part of theological education, even in this enlightened age, is not the communication of knowledge, essential as that is, but the conversion and exalta- tion of religious knowledge into a living, practical, and soul-kindling conviction. Much as the age requires intellectual culture in a minister, it requires still more that his acquisitions of truth should be instinct with life and feeling ; that he should deliver his message, not mechan- ically and "in the line of his profession," but with the sincerity and earnestness of a man bent on great effects ; that he should speak of God, of Christ, of the dignity and loveliness of Christian vir- tue, of heaven and redemption, not as of traditions and historical records about which he has only read, but as of reali- ties which he understands and feels in the very depths of his soul. III. The present is an age of free and earnest inquiry on the subject of relig- ion, and, consequently, an age in which the extremes of scepticism and bigotry,, and a multiplicity of sects, and a diver- sity of interpretations of the Sacred Volume, must be expected ; and these circumstances of the times influence and modify the duties of the ministry. Free inquiry cannot exist without generating a degree of scepticism ; and against this influence, more disastrous than any error of any sect, a minister is bound to erect every barrier. The human mind, by a natural reaction, is undoubtedly tending, after its long vassalage, to licentious speculation. Men have begun to send keen, searching glances into old insti- tutions, whether of religion, literature, or policy; and have detected so many abuses, that a suspicion of what is old has in many cases taken place of the veneration for antiquity. In such an 274 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. age Christianity must be subjected to a rigid scrutiiiy. Church establishments and state patronage cannot screen it from investigation ; and its ministers, far from being called to remove it from the bar of reason, where God has chosen that it should appear, are only bound to see that its claims be fairly and fully made known ; and to this they are sol- emnly bound ; and, consequently, it is one of their first duties to search deeply and understand thoroughly the true foundations and evidences on which the rehgion stands. Now it seems to me, that just in proportion as the human mind makes progress, the inward evi- dences of Christianity, the marks of divinity which it wears on its own brow, are becoming more and more important. I refer to the evidences which are drawn from its excellence, purity, and happy influences ; from its adaptation to the spiritual wants, to the weakness and the greatness of human nature ; from the original and unborrowed character, the greatness of soul, and the celestial love- liness of its Founder ; from its unbound- ed benevolence, corresponding with the spirit of the universe ; and from its views of God's parental character and purposes, of human duty and perfection, and of a future state, — views manifestly tending to the exaltation and perpet- ual improvement of our nature, yet wholly opposed to the character of the age in which they were unfolded. The historical and miraculous proofs of Christianity are indeed essential and impregnable ; but, without superseding these, the inward proofs of which I speak are becoming more and more necessary, and exert a greater power, in proportion as the moral discernment and sensibilities of men are strength- ened and enlarged. And, if this be true, then Christianity is endangered, and scepticism fortified by nothing so much as by representations of the re- ligion which sully its native lustre and darken its inward signatures of a heav- enly origin ; and, accordingly, the first and most solemn duty of its ministers is to rescue it from such perversions ; to see that it be not condemned for doc- trines for which it is in no respect re- sponsible ; and to vindicate its character as eminently a rational religion, that is, a religion consistent with itself, with the great principles of human nature, with God's acknowledged attributes, and with those indestructible convictions which spring almost instinctively from our moral constitution, and which grow stronger and stronger as the human mind is developed. A professed rev- elation, carrying contradiction on its front, and wounding those sentiments of justice and goodness which are the highest .tests of moral truth, cannot stand ; and those who thus exhibit Christianity, however pure their aim are shaking its foundations more deeply than its open and inveterate foes. But free inquiry not only generates occasional scepticism, but much more a diversity of opinion among the be- lievers of Christianity ; and to this the ministry must have a special adaptation. In such an age the ministry must in a measure be controversial. In particu- lar, a minister who, after serious inves- tigation, attaches himself to that class of Christians to which we of this re- ligious society are known to belong, cannot but feel that the painful oflice of conflict with other denominations is laid upon him ; for, whilst we deny the Christian name to none who acknowl- edge Jesus as their Saviour and Lord, we do deliberately believe that, by many who confess him, his religion is mournfully disfigured. We believe that piety at present is robbed in no small degree of its singleness, energy, and happiness, by the multiplication in the church of objects of supreme worship ; by the division of the One God into three persons, who sustain different re- lations to mankind ; and above all, by the dishonorable views formed of the moral character and administration of the Deity. Errors relating to God seem to us among the most pernicious that can grow up among Christians ; for they darken, and, in the strong language of Scripture, "turn into blood" the Sun of the Spiritual Universe. Around just views of the Divine character all truths and all virtues naturally gather ; and although some minds of native irrepressible vigor may rise to great- ness in spite of dishonorable concep- tions of God, yet, as a general rule, human nature cannot spread to its just and full proportions under their appall- ing, enslaving, heart-withering control We discover very plainly, as we think, in the frequent torpor of the conscience DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 275 and heart in regard to religious obliga- tion, the melancholy influences of that system, so prevalent among us, which robs our heavenly Father of his pa- rental attributes. Indeed it seems im- possible for the conscience, under such injurious representations of the divine character, to discharge intelligently its solemn office of enforcing love to God as man's highest duty ; and, accord- ingly, when religious excitements take place under this gloomy system, they bear the marks of a morbid action much more than of a healthy restora- tive process of the moral nature. These errors a minister of liberal views of Christianity will feel himself bound to withstand. But let me not be understood as if I would have the min- istry given chiefly to controversy, and would turn the pulpit into a battery for the perpetual assault of adverse sects. Oh, no. Other strains than those of warfare should predominate in this sa- cred place. A minister may be faithful to truth without brandishing perpetually the weapons of controversy. Occa- sional discussions of disputed doctrines are indeed demanded by the zeal with which error is maintained. But it be- comes the preacher to remember that there is a silent, indirect influence more sure and powerful than direct assault on false opinions. The most effectual method of expelling error is not to meet it sword in hand, but gradually to instil great truths with which it cannot easily coexist, and by which the mind outgrows it. Men who have been re- covered from false systems will gener- ally tell you that the first step of their deliverance was the admission of some principle which seemed not to menace their past opinions, but which prepared the mind for the entrance of another and another truth, until they were brought, almost without suspecting it, to look on almost every doctrine of religion with other eyes, and in an- other and more generous light. The old superstitions about ghosts and dreams were not expelled by argument, for hardly a book was written against them ; but men gradually outgrew them ; and the spectres which had haunted the terror-stricken soul for ages, fled before an improved philosophy, just as they were supposed to vanish before the ri.sing sun. And in the same manner the errors which disfigure Christianity, and from which no creed is free, are to yield to the growth of the human mind. Instead of spending his strength in track- ing and refuting error, let the minister who would serve the cause of truth labor to gain and diffuse more and more en- larged and lofty views of our religion, of its nature, spirit, and end. Let him labor to separate what is of universal and everlasting application from the local and the temporary ; to penetrate beneath the letter to the spirit ; to de- tach the primary, essential, and all- comprehending princi|)les of Christi- anity from the incrustations, accidental associations, and subordinate append- ages by which they are often obscured ; and to fix and establish these in men's minds as the standard by which more partial views are to be tried. Let him especially set forth the great moral pur- pose of Christianity, always teacfiing that Christ came to deliver from the power still more than from the punish- ment of sin ; that his most important operation is within us ; and that the highest end of his mission is the erec- tion of God's throne in the soul, the inspiration of a fervent filial piety, — a piety founded in confiding views of God's parental character, and manifest- ed in a charity corresponding to God's unbounded and ever-active love. In addition to these efforts, let him strive to communicate the just principles of interpreting the Scriptures, that men, reading them more intelligently, may read them with new interest, and he will have discharged his chief duty in relation to controversy. It is an interesting thought that, through the influences now described, /a sensible progress is taking place in men's conceptions of Christianity. It is a plain matter-of-fact that the hard features of that religious system which has been " received by tradition from our fathers " are greatly softened ; and that a necessity is felt by those who hold it, of accommodating their repre- sentations of it more and more to the im- proved philosophy of the human mind, and to the undeniable principles of nat- ural and revealed religion. Uncondi- tional election is seldom heard of among us. The imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is hastening to join the exploded doctrine of transubstantiation. 2/6 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. The more revolting representations of man's state by nature are judiciously kept out of sight ; and, what is of still greater importance, preaching is incom- parably more practical than formerly. And all these changes are owing not to theological controversy so much as to the general progress of the human mind.^' This progress is especially discernible in the diminished importance now as- cribed to the outward parts of Christi- anity. Christians, having grown up to understand that their religion is a spirit and not a form, are beginning to feel the puerility as well as guilt of breaking Christ's followers into factions, on such questions as these. How much a bishop differs from a presbyter ? and. How great a quantity of water should be used in baptism ? And, whilst they desire to ascertain the truth in these particulars, they look back on the un- charitable heat with which these and similar topics were once discussed with something of the wonder which they feel on recollecting the violence of the Papists during the memorable debate. Whether the Virgin Mary were born with original sin ? / It is a consoling and delightful thought that God, who uses Christianity to advance civilization and knowledge, makes use of this very ad- vancement to bring back Christianity to a purer state, thus binding together and carrying forward by mutual action the cause of knowledge and the cause of religion, and strengthening perpetually their blended and blessed influences on human nature./ IV. The age is in many respects a corrupt one, and needs and demands in the ministry a spirit of reform. The age, I say, is corrupt ; not because I consider it as falling below the purity of past times, but because it is obviously and grossly defective when measured by the Christian standard and by the lights and advantages which it enjoys. I know nothing to justify the cry of modern de- generacy, but rather incline to the belief that here at least the sense of religion was never stronger than at present. In comparing different periods as to virtue and piety, regard must be had to differ- ence of circumstances. It would argue little wisdom or candor to expect the same freedom from luxury and dissipation in this opulent and flourishing community as marked the first settlement of our coim- try, when the inhabitants, scarcely sh2l- tered from the elements, and almost wholly cut off from intercourse with the civilized world, could command little more than the necessaries of life ; and yet it is through superficial comparisons in such particulars that the past is often magnified at the expense of the present. I mean not to strike a balance between this age and former ones. I look on this age in the light of Christianity, as a minister ought to look upon it ; and whilst I see much to cheer and encour- age, I see much to make a good man mourn, and to stir up Christ's servants to prayer and toil. That our increased comforts, improved arts, and overflowing prosperity are often abused to licentious- ness ; that Christianity is with multi- tudes a mere name and form ; that a practical atheism, which ascribes to nat- ure and fortune the gifts and operations of God, and a practical infidelity, which lives and cares and provides only for the present state, abound on every side of us ; that much which is called moral- ity springs from a prudent balancing of the passions and a discreet regard to worldly interests ; that there is an insen- sibility to God which, if our own hearts were not infected by it, would shock and amaze us ; that education, instead of guarding and rearing the moral and re- ligious nature as its supreme care, often betrays and sacrifices it to accomplish- ments and acquisitions which relate only to the present life ; that there is a mourn- ful prevalence of dissoluteness among the young, and of intemperance among the poor ; that the very religion of peace is made a torch of discord ; and that the fires of uncharitableness and bigotry, fires kindled from hell, often bum on altars consecrated to the true God ; — that such evils exist, who does not know ? What Christian can look round him and say that the state of society corresponds to what men may and should be under the light of the gospel, and in an age of advanced intelligence ? As for that man who, on surveying the world, thinks its condition almost as healthy as can be desired or hoped ; who sees but a few superficial blots on the general aspect of society ; who thinks the ministry established for no higher end than to perpetuate the present state of morals and religion ; whose heart is never burdened and sorrow-smitten by DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. 277 the fearful doom to which multitudes around him are thoughtlessly hasten- ing ; ^ Oh ! let not that man take on him the care of souls. The physician, who should enter a hospital to congrat- ulate his dying patients on their pleas- ant sensations and rapid convalescence, would be as faitliful to his trust as the minister who sees no deep moral mala- dies around him. No man is fitted to withstand great evils with energy unless he be impressed by their greatness. No man is fitted to enter upon that warfare with moral evil to which the ministry is set apart who is not pained and pierced by its extent and woes, — who does not burn to witness and advance a great moral revolution in the world. Am I told that "romantic expecta- tions of great changes in society will do more harm than good ; that the world will move along in its present course, let the ministry do what it may ; that we must take the present state as God has made it, and not waste our strength in useless lamentation for incurable evils " ? I hold this language, though it takes the name of philosophy, to be wholly unwarranted by experience and revelation. If there be one striking feature in human nature, it is its sus- ceptibleness of improvement ; and who is authorized to say that the limit of Christian improvement is reached ? that, whilst science and art, intellect and im- agination, are extending their domains, the conscience and affections, the moral and religious principles of our nature, are incapable of increased power and elevation 'i Have we not pledges in man's admiration of disinterested, heroic love ; in his power of conceiving and thirsting for unattained heights of exicel- lence ; and in the splendor and sub- limity of virtue already manifested in not a few who " shine as lights " in the darkness of past ages, that man was created for perpetual moral and religious progress ? True, the minister should not yifeld himself to romantic anticipations ; for disappointment may deject him. Let him not expect to break in a moment chains of habit which years have riv- eted, or to bring back to immediate intimacy with God souls which have wandered long and far from him. This is romance ; but there is something to be dreaded by the minister more than this, — I mean that frigid tameness of mind, too common in Christian teach- ers, which confounds the actual and the possible ; which cannot burst the shackles of custom ; which never kin- dles at the thought of great improve- ments of human nature ; which is satisfied if religion receive an outward respect, and never dreams of enthroning it in men's souls ; which looks on the strongholds of sin with despair ; which utters by rote the solemn and magnifi- cent language of the gospel, without expecting it to " work mightily ; " which sees in the ministry a part of the mech- anism of society, a useful guardian of public order, but never suspects the powers with which it is armed by Chris- tianity. The ministry is indeed armed with great powers for great effects. The doctrines which Christianity commits to its teachers are mighty engines. The perfect character of God ; the tender and solemn attributes which belong to him as our Father and Judge ; his pur- poses of infinite and everlasting mercy towards the human race ; the character and history of Christ ; his entire, self- immolating devotion to the cause of mankind ; his intimate union with his followers ; his sufferings and cross, his resurrection, ascension, and interces- sion; the promised aids of the lioly Spirit ; the immortality of man ; the retributions which await the unrepent- ing, and the felicities and glories of heaven, — here are truths able to move the whole soul and to war victoriously with its host of passions. The teacher to whom are committed the infinite realities of the spiritual world, the sanc- tions of eternity, " the powers of the life to come," has instruments to work with which turn to feebleness all other means of influence. There is not heard on earth a voice so powerful, so penetrat- ing, as that of an enlightened minister, who, under the absorbing influence of these mighty truths, devotes himself a living sacrifice, a whole burnt-offering, to the cause of enlightening and saving his fellow-creatures. No ; there is no romance in a minis- ter's proposing and hoping to forward a great moral revolution on the earth ; for the religion which he is appointed to preach was intended and is adapted to work deeply and widely, and to change the face of society. Christianity was 278 DEMANDS OF THE AGE ON THE MINISTRY. not ushered into • the world with such a stupendous preparation ; it was not fore- shown through so many ages by enrapt- ured prophets ; it was not proclaimed so joyfully by the songs of angels ; it was not preached by such holy lips, and sealed by such precious blood, to be only a pageant, a form, a sound, a show. Oh, no. It has come from heaven, with heaven's life and power, — come to "make aU things new," to make "the wilderness glad and the desert blos- som as the rose," to break the stony heart, to set free the guilt-burdened and earth-bound spirit, and to "present it faultless before God's glory with exceed- ing joy." With courage and hope be- coming such a religion, let the minister bring to his work the concentrated pow- ers of intellect and affection, and God, in whose cause he labors, will accom- pany and crown the labor with an almighty blessing. My brother, you are now to be set apart to the Christian ministry. I bid you welcome to its duties, and implore for you strength to discharge them, a long and prosperous course, increasing success, and everlasting rewards. I also welcome you to the connection which is this day formed between you and myself. I thanic God for an associate in whose virtues and endowments I have the promise of personal comfort and relief, and, still more, the pledges of usefulness to this people. I have lived too long to expect unmingled good in this or in any relation of life ; nor am I ignorant of the difficulties and trials which are thought to attend the union of different minds and different hands in the care of the same church. God grant us that single- ness of purpose, that sincere concern for the salvation of our hearers, which will make the success of each the hap- piness of both ! I know, for I have borne, the anxieties and sufferings which belong to the first years of the Christian ministry, and I beg you to avail yourself of whatever aid my experience can give you. But no human aid can lift every burden from your mind ; nor would the truest kindness desire for you exemption from the universal lot. i\Iay the disci- pline which awaits you give purity and loftiness to your motives ; give energy and tenderness to your character, and prepare you to minister to the wants of a tempted and afflicted world, with that sympathy and wisdom which fellowship in suffering can alone bestow ! May you grow in grace and in the spirit of the ministry as you grow in years ; and when the voice which now speaks to you shall cease to be heard within these walls, may you, my brother, be left to enjoy and reward the confidence, to point out the path and the perils, to for- tify the virtues, to animate the piety, to comfort the sorrows, to save the souls of this much-loved people ! Brethren of this Christian society ! I rejoice in the proof which this day affords of your desire to secure the ad- ministration of Christ's word and ordi- nances to }-ourselves and your children ; and 1 congratulate you on the prospects which it opens before you. The recol- lections which rush upon my mind of your sympathy and uninterrupted kind- ness through the vicissitudes of my health and the frequent suspensions of my labors, encourage me to anticipate for my young brother that kindness and candor on which the happiness of a min- ister so much depends. I cannot ask for him sincerer attachment than it has been my lot to enjoy. I remember, however, that the reciprocation of kind feelings is not the highest end of the ministry ; and, accordingly, my most earnest desire and prayer to God is, that with a new pastor He may send you new influences of his Spirit, and that, through our joint labors, Christianity, being root- ed in your understandings and hearts, may spring up into a rich harvest of uni- versal goodness. May a more earnest concern for salvation, and a thirst for more generous improvement, be excited in your breasts ! May a new life breathe through the worship of this house, and a new love join the hearts of the wor- shippers ! May our ministry produce everlasting fruits ; and on that great day which will summon the teacher and the taught before the judgment-seat of Christ, may you, my much-loved and re- spected people, be " our joy and crown ; " and may we, when all hearts shall be re- vealed, be seen to have sought your good with unfeigned and disinterested love ! THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 279 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION: Being Extracts from Observations on the Proposition for Increasing the Means of such Education at the University in Cambridge. 1816. As a proposition is now before the public for increasing the means of theo- logical education at Harvard University, it is thought that a few observations on the subject may be acceptable to those who have not been able to give to it much attention, and whose aid and pat- ronage may be solicited. It may perhaps be asked by some, though I hope the question will be con- fined to a few, Why ought we to be so solicitous for the education of ministers ? The answer is obvious. The object of the ministry is peculiarly important. To the Christian minister are intrusted in a measure the dearest and most valuable interests of the human race. He is called to watch over the morals of soci- ety, and to awaken and cultivate the principles of piety and virtue in the hearts of individuals. He is set apart to dispense that religion which, as we believe, came from God, which was given to reform, exalt, and console us, and on the reception of which the happiness of the future life depends. Ought we not to be solicitous for the wise and effect- ual training of those by whom this relig- ion is to be unfolded and enforced, and to whose influence our own minds and those of our children are to be so often exposed ? Our interest in a minister is very pe- culiar. He is to us what no other pro- fessional man can be. We want him, not to transact our business and to receive a compensation, but to be our friend, our guide, an inmate in our families ; to en- ter our houses in affliction; and to be able to give us lig;ht, admonition, and consolation, in suffering, sickness, and the last hours of life. Our connection with men of other professions is transient, accidental, rare. With a minister it is habitual. Once in the week, at least, we are to meet him and sit under his instructions. We are to give up our minds in a measure to his influence, and to receive from him im- pressions on a subject which, more than all others, concerns us, and with which our improvement and tranquillity through life and our future peace are intimately connected. We want the minister of religion to address our understandings with clear- ness ; to extend and brighten our moral and religious conceptions ; to throw light over the obscurities of the Sacred Volume ; to assist us in repelling those doubts which sometimes shake our con- victions of Christian truth ; and to es- tablish us in a firm and rational belief. We want him not only to address the understanding with clearness, but, still more, to speak to the conscience and heart with power ; to force, as it were, our thoughts from the world ; to rouse us from the slumbers of an unreflecting life ; to exhibit religion in an interesting form, and to engage our affections on the side of duty. Such are the ofBces and aids which we need from the Chris- tian minister. Who does not see in a moment that much preparation of the intellect and heart is required to render Tiim successful in these high and gen- erous labors ? These reasons for being interested in the education of ministers grow out of the nature and importance of religion. Another important remark is, that the state of our country demands that greater care than ever should be given to this object. It will not be denied, I presume, that this. country is, on the whole, ad- vancing in intelligence. The means of improvement are more liberally and more generally afforded to the young than in former times. A closer connection sub- sists with the cultivated minds in other countries. A variety of institutions are 280 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. awakening our powers, and communicat- ing a degree of general knowledge which was not formerly diffused among us. Taste is more extensively cultivated, and the finest productions of polite lit- erature find their way into many of our families. Now, in this state of things, in this increasing activity of intellect, there is peculiar need of an enlightened ministry. Religion should not be left to feeble and ignorant advocates, to men of narrow and unfurnished minds. Its ministers should be practical proofs that it may be connected with the noblest improvements of the understanding ; and they should be able to convert into weapons for its defence the discoveries of philosophy and the speculations of genius. Religion must be adapted, in its mode of exhibition, to the state of society. The form in which we present it to the infant will not satisfy and in- terest the advanced understanding. In the same manner, if in a cultivated age religious instruction does not partake the general elevation, it will be shghted by the very minds whose influence it is most desirable to engage on the side of virtue and piety. I have observed that an enlightened age requires an enlightened ministry. On the other hand, it may be observed, that an enlightened ministry is a power- ful agent in continuing and accelerating the progress of light, of refinement, and of all social improvements. The limits of this essay will not admit the full development of this sentiment. I will only observe, that perhaps the most reflecting men are not aware how far a society is indebted for activity of in- tellect, delicacy of manners, and the strength of all its institutions, to the silent, subtile influence of the thoughts- and feelings which are kept alive in the breasts of multitudes by religious in- struction. There is another most important con- sideration for promoting an enlightened ministry. Religious teachers there cer- tainly will be, of one description or another ; and if men of well-furnished minds cannot be found for this office, we shall be overwhelmed by the ignorant and fanatical. The human heart is dis- posed, by its very nature, to religious impressions, and it wants guidance, wants direction, wants the light and fervor of other minds, in this most inter- esting concern. Conscious of weakness, and dehghting in excitement, it wiU fol- low the blindest guide who speaks with confidence of his communications with God, rather than advance alone in the religious life. An enlightened ministry is the only barrier against fanaticism. Remove this, and popular enthusiasts would sweep away the multitude as with a torrent, would operate with an unre- sisted power on the ardent imagination of youth, and on the devotional sus- ceptibility of woman, and would even prostrate cultivated minds in which feel- ing is the most prominent trait. Few of us consider the proneness of the human heart to extravagance and fanat- icism, or how much we are all indebted for our safety to the good sense and intellectual and religious improvement of ministers of religion. Ignorant ministers are driven almost by necessity to fanaticism. Unable to interest their hearers by appeals to the understanding, and by clear, judicious,, and affecting delineations of religion, they can only acquire and maintain the ascendency which is so dear to them by inflaming the passions, by exciting a distempered and ungoverned sensibility, and by perpetuating ignorance and error. Every man of observation must have seen melancholy illustrations of this truth ; and what an argument does it afford in favor of an enlightened min- istry ! Nothing more is needed to show the great interest which the community ought to feel in the education of young men for the ministry. But it will be asked, Are not our present means suflS- cient ? Are not our pulpits filled with well-furnished and enlightened teachers ? Why seek to obtain additional aids for this important end ? I answer, first, that a sufficient number of enlightened ministers is not trained for our pulpits. There is a demand beyond the supply, even if we look no farther than this Commonwealth ; and if we look through the whole country, we shall see an im- mense tract of the spiritual vineyard uncultivated, and uncultivated for want of laborers. I answer, in the second place, that whilst in our pulpits we have ministers whose gifts and endowments entitle them to respect, we yet need and ought to possess a more enlightened ministry. Many of our religious teach- THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 281 ers will lament to us the deficiencies of their education, will lament that the nar- rowness of their circumstances com- pelled them to too early an entrance on their work, will lament that they were deprived, by the imperfection of our institutions, of many aids which the preparation for the ministry requires. We have indeed many good ministers. But we ought to have better. We may have better. But unless we will sow more liberally, we cannot expect a richer harvest. The education of ministers decides very much their future charac- ter, and where this is incomplete, we must not expect to be blessed with pow- erful and impressive instruction. The sum is, we need an increase of the means of theological education. But it will be asked, Why shall we advance funds for the education of min- isters rather than of physicians or law- yers ? Why are such peculiar aid and encouragements needed for this profes- sion ? Will not the demand for ministers obtain a supply, just as the demand for every other species of talent ? This reasoning is founded on a principle gen- erally true, that demand creates a supply ; but every general rule has its exceptions, and it is one of the highest offices of practical wisdom to discern the cases where the rule fails in its applica- tion. All reasoning should give place to fact. Now it is an undeniable fact, that whilst the other learned professions in our country are crowded and overstocked, whilst the supply vastly surpasses the demand, the profession of the ministry is comparatively deserted, and candi- dates of respectable standing, instead of obtruding themselves in crowds, are often to be sought with a degree of care and difficulty. The reason of this is to be found in the difference between the ministry and other professions. Other professions hold out the strong lures of profit and distinction. They appeal to the ambi- tion, the love of gain, the desire of rising in the world, which are so operative on youthful minds. These lures are not, and ought not to be, exhibited by the ministry. This profession makes its chief appeal to the moral and religious feelings of the young ; and we all know how much fainter these are than those which I have previously mentioned. Can we wonder, then, that the ministry is less crowded ? I proceed to another remark. The professions of law and medicine do not imperiously demand any high moral qualifications in those who embrace them. A young man, whose habits are not altogether pure, or whose character is marked by levity, may enter on the study of these professions without in- curring the reproach of impropriety or inconsistency of conduct. The ministry, on the other hand, demands not merely unexceptionable morals, but a serious- ness of mind, and a propensity to con- templative and devout habits, which are not the ordinary characteristics of that age when a choice must be made of the business of life. On this account, the number of the young who are inclined by their own feelings, and advised by others, to enter the ministry, is com- paratively small. I am now led to another reflection, growing out of the last. The profes- sion of the ministry has an aspect not inviting to the young. Youth is the period of animation and gayety. But, to the hasty observation of youth, there is a gloominess, a solemnity, a painful self-restraint belonging to the life of a minister. Even young men of pure morals and of devotional susceptibility shrink from an employment which they think will separate them from the world, and impose a rigorous discipline and painful circumspection. That path, which they would probably find most tranquil and most flowery, seems to them beset with thorns. Do we not see many obstructions to a sufficient supply of students of theology ? I now proceed to another most im- portant consideration. We have seen that a large number of young men, qualified by their habits and feelings for the ministry, is not to be expected. It is also a fact, and a very decisive fact, that young men thus qualified gen- erally belong to families whose circum- stances are confined, and whose means of educating their children are exceed- ingly narrow. From this class of soci- ety the ministerial profession, as is well known, receives its largest supplies. Do we not at once discover from this statement, that this profession demands from the community peculiar encourage- ment ? Let me briefly repeat what I 282 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. have said. From the nature of the ministry, but a small proportion of the young are disposed or fitted to enter it, and of this number a considerable part are unable to defray the expenses of their education ; and yet the community has the highest possible interest in giv- ing them the best education which the improvements of the age and the opu- lence of the country will admit. Is it not clear that there ought to be pro- vided liberal funds for this most valu- able object ? Will it here be asked, why the candi- date for the ministry cannot borrow money to defray the charges of his education ? I answer, it is not always easy for him to borrow. Besides, a debt is a most distressing incumbrance to a man who has a prospect of a salary so small that, without exertions foreign to his profession, it wiU hardly support him. Can we wonder that the profes- sion is declined, in preference to such a burden ? Where this burden, however, is chos- en, the effect is unhappy, and the cause of religion is often a sufferer. The candidate, unwilling to contract a larger debt than is indispensable to his object, hurries through his studies, and enters unfurnished and unprepared on the min- istry. His first care is, as it should be, to free himself from his pecuniary obli- gations ; and for this end he endeavors to unite some secular employment with his sacred calling. In this way the spirit of study and of his profession is damped. He forms negligent habits in his preparation for the pulpit, which he soon thinks are justified by the wants of a growing family. His im- perfect education, therefore, is never completed. His mind remains station- ary. A meagre library, which he is un- able to enlarge, furnishes the weekly food for his flock, who are forced to. subsist on an uninteresting repetition of the same dull thoughts. This is the melancholy history of too many who enter the ministry. Few young men among us are in fact suffi- ciently prepared, and the consequence is that religious instruction is not what it should be. The community at large cannot perhaps understand how exten- sive a preparation the ministry requires. There is one idea, however, which should teach them that it ought to be more extensive than that which is demanded for any other profession. A lawyer and physician begin their employment with a small number of clients or patients, and their practice is confined to the least important cases within their re- spective departments. They have there- fore much leisure for preparation after entering on their pursuits, and gradu- ally rise into public notice. Not so the minister. He enters at once on the stage. All the duties of a parish im- mediately devolve upon him. His con- nection at the first moment extends to as large a number as he will ever be called to serve. His station is at first conspicuous. He is literally burdened and pressed with duties. The mere labor of composing as many sermons as are demanded of him is enough to ex- haust his time and strength. If, then, his education has been deficient, how is it to be repaired "i Amidst these dis- advantages, can we wonder that the mind loses its spring, and soon be- comes satisfied with very humble pro- ductions ? How important is it that a good foundation should be laid, that the theological student should have time to accumulate some intellectual treasures, and that he should be trained under circumstances more suited to give him an unconquerable love of his profes- sion, of study, and of the cause to which he is devoted ! CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF REV. J. S. DWIGHT. 283 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT, As Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Northampton, Massachusetts, May 20, 1840. My YOUNG Friend, — The Ecclesias- tical Council, assembled here to intro- duce you to the office of a Christian minister, according to the simple and affecting rites of the Congregational churches, have appointed me to deliver the Charge ; or, in other words, to ex- pound to you and to enforce the duties of the sacred ofHce. In doing this, I claim no right to dictate to your faith, I ask no passive obedience or assent ; and yet there is an authority of divine truth, and in proportion as a man is possessed by it, he cannot but speak with the en- ergy of a divine messenger, and with the consciousness of a right to respectful attention. I shall confine myself to your duties as a public teacher of religion ; not that the more private labors of your office want importance ; but because it will be more useful_ to enter with some thor- oughness into a part, than to give su- perficial notices of the whole, of your functions. It is well to start with some compre- hensive view of our work, be it what it may ; and I therefore begin with observ- ing that the great idea which ought to shine out in all preaching is that of moral perfection. This is the very es- sence of God ; our highest conception of the divinity being that of absolute, unbounded, eternal, omnipotent recti- tude and love. Of this perfection, Christ is the bright, unsullied image. To bring men to this was the grand purpose of his coming, teaching, miracles, and cross. In this we have the explanation of our present being, the end of all its duties, temptations, conflicts, and pains. This is, in truth, the everlasting life, the heaven, which he came to unfold and promise to mankind. Your fitness for your office is to be measured by your comprehension of this perfection, by your faith in it, by your aspirations after it, by the power with which this supreme beauty smites and stirs your soul, and by your power of awakening the thought and desire of it in the souls of others. Your work, then, is to preach the perfect. Preach the perfection of God, that He may be loved, not with passion or selfish regards, but with en- lightened, disinterested, ever-growing love. Preach the perfection of Christ. Strive to seize the true idea of his char- acter, to penetrate the mists with which the errors of ages have shrouded him, to see him in his simple majesty, to trace in his history the working of his soul, the peculiarity of his love, the grandeur of his purpose. Be nc^t anx- ious to settle his rank in the universe, but to comprehend the divinity of his spirit, that you may awaken towards him generous, purifying affections. Preach the perfection to which man is called by Christianity. Preach the nobleness and beauty of human virtue. Believe in man as destined to make prog- ress without end. Help him to under- stand his high caUing as a Christian, and to see God working within and around him for his perfection. These views might easily be extended, but these are sufficient to show you the grandeur of thought which belongs to your profession. Moral perfection is its beginning and end. How sublime and awakening the theme of the min- istry ! And yet religion, in consequence of its being so familiar, and of its having been cramped so long in human creeds, shrinks in most minds into a small com- pass, and wears any form but that of grandeur. You have seen in schools the solar system, with its majestic worlds, represented by circles of wire and balls 284 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION of pith. In like manner, religion is dwarfed and degraded. Strive to think of it nobly, justly, vividly, and hold it forth as the sublimest reality. You are to preach the perfect ; and for what end ? Not simply that men may discern and admire it. This is but the beginning of your work. The great aim must be to stir up men to the sol- emn, stern, invincible purpose of doing, of becoming, what they acknowledge and admire, of realizing their conceptions of the right, the perfect, the divine. The highest oifice of the ministry is to breathe this energy, this indomitable force of wiU. It is not enough to awaken enthusiasm by touching manifestations of moral beauty, of Christian greatness of soul. Sensibility without moral res- olution avails nothing. All duties, and especially the highest, are resisted in the breasts of our hearers, by strong temp- tations, by the senses, the passions, by selfish hopes and fears, by bad habits and sins ; and unless you can awaken energy to put down this resistance, you preach in vain. It is the existence of this mighty antagonist force to virtue in human nature which makes Christianity necessary, which makes the ministry necessary. The grand purpose of all the doctrines, teachings, promises, in- stitutiqns, and spiritual aids of our re- ligion, is to infuse an aU-conquering will in opposition to temptation, to bind the soul to the choice and pursuit of perfec- tion in the face of pleasure, pain, honor, interest, loss, and death. Propose dis- tinctly to yourself, as your grand work, the excitement of this energy of the will ; and this single thought will do much to give a living power to your preaching. Having spoken of the end of the Christian teacher, I proceed to consider the means by which it is to be accom- plished. His great instrument is the truth revealed by God through Jesus Christ, and through his own soul. To gain this must, of course, be the labor of his life ; and he is to gain it chiefly by study and by inward experience. A minister must be a student, — a patient, laborious student. There are those, in- deed, who seem to think that rehgious truth comes by inspiration ; and it is certain that light often flashes on the mind as from heaven. But inspiration does not visit the idle, passive mind. We receive it in the use and faithful use of our powers. You must study, you must work. Your parish must contain no harder laborer than yourself. To study is not to read, that we may know what others have thought ; but to put forth the utmost strength of our facul- ties for the acquisition of just, strong, living convictions of truth. It is to con- centrate the mind ; to pierce beneath the apparent and particular, to the real and permanent and universal ; to grap- ple with difBculties ; to separate false associations and accidental adjuncts from the truth. Study human nature and the divine. Study human life, that you may penetrate through its mysteries and endless mutations to its one all-com- prehending design. Study God's works, that amidst their infinite agencies you may discern the one power and spirit from which all spring. Study, espe- cially, the Holy Scriptures, the records of God's successive revelations to the human race. Strive to gain profound, generous, and fruitful conceptions of Christianity ; to penetrate into the im- port of its records ; to seize its distinc- tive character, and to rise above what was local, temporary, partial in Christ's teaching, to his universal, all-compre- hending truth. To gain this knowledge of Christianity, your first and chief re- sort will be, of course, to the New Testament ; but remember, that there are difficulties in the way of a just inter- pretation of this venerable record. Other books are left to act on our minds freely and without control, to exert on us their native, genuine influence ; but such a host of interpreters thrust themselves between the sacred volume and the reader, so many false associations of ideas with its phraseology are formed from the cradle, and long familiarity has so hardened us to its most quickening passages, that it is more difficult to bring ourselves into near communication with a sacred writer than with any other. The student in theology must labor earnestly to escape the power of habit, and to receive immediate impressions from the Scriptures ; and when by his efforts he is able to catch the spirit which had before lain hid beneath the letter ; to feel a new power in words which had often fallen lifelessly on his ear ; to place himself in the midst of the past, and thus to pierce into the heart of OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 285 passages which he had been accustomed to interpret according to modern modes of thought ; he ought to rejoice as in the acquisition of untold treasure, and to feel that he is arming himself with the most effectual weapons for his spiritual warfare. You will, of course, read other books besides the Bible ; but beware lest these diminish your power. Perhaps in no department of literature are works of vigorous and original thought rarer than in theology. No profession is so overwhelmed with commonplace, weak, worthless books as ours. No text has been so obscured and oppressed by un- discerning commentators as the Bible. In theology, as in all branches of knowl- edge, confine yourself very much to the works of men who have written not from tradition or imitation, but from consciousness, experience, reflection, and research ; and study these, that your own faculties may be roused to a kindred energy. Especially beware of giving yourself up to the popular liter- ature of the day ; which, however inno- cent or useful as an amusement, is the last nutriment to form a powerful mind, and which, 1 fear, is more pernicious to men of our profession than of any other. Study laboriously, for much is to be learned. Do not destroy your intellect- ual life by imagining that all truth is discovered, and that you have nothing to do but to repeat what others have taught. 1 know not a more fatal mistake to a teacher. It were better for you to burn your books, and to devote yourself to solitary, painful researches after truth, than to sleep on others' acquisitions, than to make the activity of others' minds a substitute for your own. It is intended by our Creator that truth should be our own discovery, and therefore He has sur- rounded us with fallible beings, whom we are impelled to distrust. Paradoxical as it may seem, we ought to discover the truths which we have been taught by others ; for the light which our own earnest free thought will throw on these will make them so different from what they were when first passively received, that they will be virtually rediscovered by ourselves. Study laboriously, for much is to be learned. Do not feel as if Christianity had spoken its last word, and had noth- ing more to say. It is the characteristic of divine truth that it is inexhaustible, infinitely fruitful. It does not stand alone in the mind, but combines with, explains, irradiates our other knowledge. It is the office of a great moral truth to touch the deep springs of thought within us, to awaken the soul to new activity, to start a throng of suggestions to be followed out by patient contemplation. An arid, barren religion, which reveals a precise, rigid doctrine, admitting no ex- pansion, and kindling no new life in the intellect, cannot be from God. It wants an essential mark of having come from the Creator of the human ^oul, for the great distinction of soul is its desire to burst its limits and grow for ever. But I need not in this town urge the importance of study. Can a minister breathe the atmosphere in which Ed- wards lived, and content himself with taking passively what others teach ? I exhort you to visit the spot where Ed- wards brought forth his profound works ; and let the spiritual presence of that in- tensest thinker of the New World and of the age in which he lived stir you up to energy of thought. His name has shed a consecration over this place. In many things, indeed, you differ from him ; but you will not therefore rever- ence the less his single-hearted and un- wearied devotion of his great powers to the investigation of truth ; and in the wide and continued influence of his writings you will learn that secret study, silent thought, is, after aU, the mightiest agent in human affairs. I have enlarged beyond my purpose on study ; I proceed to observe that something more than the action of intel- lect is needed to secure to you a living knowledge of Christian truth. On moral subjects no study can avail us without inward experience. To comprehend re- ligion, you must be religious. A new revelation of truth is gained by bringing the truth to bear on our own hearts and lives. Study the best books ; but re- member that no " tongue of men or an- gels," no language of heaven or earth, can give you that intimate perception of God, that faith in the invisible, which comes from inward purity, from likeness to the Divinity. There is a light to which others are strangers, that visits the in- ward eye of the man who contends with evil in himself, and is true to his convic- 286 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION tions of duty. This is the highest in- spiration, surpassing that of prophets ; for the ancient prophet comprehended but imperfectly tlie revelation with which he was charged, and sometimes shranli from communicating it to the world. Christian truth will never become your own until something congenial with it is unfolded in your own soul. We learn the Divinity through a divine principle within ourselves. We learn the majesty and happiness of virtue by conscious- ness, by experience, by giving up all to virtue, and in no other way. Disinter- ested, impartial love is the perfection of the intellect as well as of the heart. Without it, thought is barren and super- ficial, clinging to things narrow, selfish, and earthly. This love gave being, unity, harmony to the universe, and is the only light in which the universe can be read. Preach from this highest in- spiration, and you will preach with power. Without this inward experi- ence, intellect, imagination, passion, rhetoric, genius, may dazzle, and be rapturously praised and admired, but they cannot reach the depths of the human soul. Watch, then, over your own spiritual life ; be what you preach ; know by consciousness what you incul- cate. Remember that the best prepara- tion for enforcing any Christian virtue is to bring it into vigorous action in your own breast. Let the thirst for perfec- tion grow up in you into a holy enthusi- asm, and you will have taken the most effectual step towards perfecting them that hear you. I have now spoken of the two princi- pal means of obtaining Christian truth ; they are study and inward experience. Having thus sought the truth, how shall it be communicated? A few sugges- tions only can be made. I exhort you, first, to communicate it with all possible plainness and simplicity. Put confi- dence in the power of pure, unsophisti- cated truth. Do not disguise or distort it, or overlay it with ornaments or false colors, to make it more effectual. Bring it out in its native shape and hues, and, if possible, in noonday brightness. Beware of ambiguous words, of cant, of vague abstractions, of new-fangled phrases, of ingenious subtilties. Es- pecially exaggerate nothing for effect, — that most common sin of the pulpit. Be willing to disappoint your hearers, to be unimpressive, to seem cold, rather than to " o'erstep the modesty " of truth. In the long run, nothing is so strong as simphcity. Do not, to be striking, dress up truth in paradoxes. Do not make it virtually falsehood, by throwing it out without just modification and restraint. Do not destroy its fair proportions by extravagance. Undoubtedly strong emo- tion often breaks out in hyperboles. It cannot stop to weigh its words ; and this free, bold language of nature I do, not mean to condemn ; for this, even when most daring, is simple and intelligible. I would caution you, not against nature, but against artificial processes, against distrust of simple truth, against strain- ing for effect, against efforts to startle or dazzle the hearer, against the quack- ery which would pass off old thoughts for new, or common thoughts for more than their worth, by means of involved or ambitious phraseology. Prefer the true to the dazzling, the steady sunlight • to the meteor. Truth is the power which is to conquer the world ; and you cannot toil too much to give clear perceptions of it. I may seem to waste words on so plain a point ; but I apprehend that few ministers understand the importance of helping men to see religious truth dis- tinctly. No truth, I fear, is so faintly apprehended. On the subject of relig- ion, most men walk in a mist. The words of the Bible and of the preacher convey to multitudes no definite import. Theology, being generally taught with- out method, and as a matter of authority, and before the mind can comprehend it, is too often the darkest and most con- fused of all the subjects of thought. How little distinct comprehension is carried away by multitudes from our most important discourses ! My brother, help men to see. Christianity was called light, and you will be its worthy teacher only by being, like its first ministers, a "light of the world." It is a common error that, to avoid dulness, -^the most unpardonable sin of the pulpit, — the preacher can find more effectual means than the clear expression of simple truth. Accordingly, some have recourse to crude novelties ; some to mysticism, as if truth, to be imposing, must be en- throned in clouds ; some to vehemence ; some to strong utterance of feeling. Of course, I would say nothing in dispar- agement of feeling ; but I am satisfied OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 28f that there is no more effectual security against dulness than the unfolding of truth distinctly and vividly, so that the hearer can lay a strong hold on great principles, can take in a larger extent of thought, and can feel that he has a rock for faith and opinion to rest on. In the natural world it is light that wakes us in the morning, and keeps us awake through the day ; and I believe that to bring light into God's house is one of the surest ways of driving slumber out of its walls. Let me add, that to give at once clear- ness and interest to preaching, nothing is more necessary than that comprehen- sive wisdom which discerns what is prominent and commanding in a sub- ject, which seizes on its great points, its main features, and throws lesser matters into the background, thus securing unity and, of consequence, distinctness of im- pression. Nothing is so dull as a dead level, as monotony, as want of relief and perspective, want of light and shade ; and this is among the most common causes of the dulness of the pulpit. The remarks made under the present head are liable to a misapprehension, which may be usefully guarded against. I have condemned affected and obscure phraseology. Do not imagine that I would recommend to you a hackneyed style. The minister, to give distinct, vivid impression, must especially beware of running the round of commonplace expressions. He must breakaway from the worn-out phraseology of the pulpit. He must not confine himself to terms and modes of speech which familiarity has deadened. So mighty is the influ- ence of time and habit in emptying words of Hfe and significance, that truth in every age needs new forms, fresh manifestations. Happy the teacher who is able to give out truth in language original and bold, yet simple and un- forced, and such as causes no offence to cultivated taste or religious feeling. Perhaps it may be objected to the advice now given, that 1 have recom- mended a plainness and distinctness not to be attained by the preacher. It may be said that religion relates to the Infi- nite ; that its great object is the Incom- prehensible God ; that human life is surrounded with abysses of mystery and darkness ; that the themes on which the minister is to speak stretch out beyond the power of imagination, and of course do not admit of mathematical precise- ness of statement ; that he has aspira- tions and feelings too high, and deep, and vast, to be accurately defined ; that at times he only catches glimpses of truth, and cannot set it forth in all its proportions. All this is true. But it is also true that a minister speaks to be understood ; and if he cannot make him- self intelligible he should hold his peace. Language has but one function, and that is to help another to understand what passes in the speaker's breast. What though he is surrounded with the in- comprehensible ? Is he, therefore, au- thorized to speak in an unknown tongue ? Amid the vague and the obscure, are there not facts, principles, realities, of unutterable moment, on which he and others may lay hold ? Even when he catches broken glimpses, he can report these simply and faithfully, so as to be apprehended by a prepared mind. The more difficult the subject, the more anx- iously the art of clear expression should be cultivated ; and the pulpit, which gathers together the multitude, and ad- dresses its rapid instruction to the ear, demands such culture above all other spheres. This is the last place for dark sayings ; and yet he who carefully studies expression will find the pulpit a place for communicating a great amount of pro- found and soul-stirring thought to the world. I have said, you must preach plainly. I now add, preach with zeal, fervor, earnestness. To rouse, to quicken, is the end of all preaching, and plainness which does not minister to this is of little worth. This topic is too familiar to need expansion ; and I introduce it simply to guard you against construing it too narrowly. The minister is often exhorted to be earnest in the pulpit. You will be told that fervor in delivering your discourse is the great means of impression. I would rather exhort you to be fervent in preparing it. Write with earnestness, and you will find little difficulty in preaching earnestly ; and if you have not poured out your soul in writing, vehemence of delivery will be of little avail. To enunciate with voice of thunder and vehement gestures a cold discourse, is to make it colder still. The fire which is to burn in the pulpit must be kindled in the study. Preach with zeal. But let it be a kindly zeal. Al- 288 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATIOJV ways speak in love. Let not earnestness be a cover for anger, or for a spirit of menace and dictation. Always speak as a brother. With the boldest, stern- est, most scornful, most indignant re- proofs of baseness and crime, let the spirit of humanity, of sorrowful concern be blended. In too much of the zeal of the pulpit there is a hardness, unfeel- ingness, inhumanity, more intolerable to a good mind than sleepy dulness or icy indifference. I have said, preach plainly and preach earnestly ; I now say, preach with moral courage. Fear no man, high or low, rich or poor, taught or untaught. Honor all men ; love all men ; but fear none. Speak what you account great truths frankly, strongly, boldly. Do not spoil them of life to avoid offence. Do not seek to propitiate passion and prejudice by compromise and concession. Beware of the sophistry which reconciles the conscience to the suppression, or vague, lifeless utterance of unpopular truth. Do not wink at wrong deeds or unholy prejudices, because sheltered by custom or respected names. Let your words breathe a heroic valor. You are bound indeed to listen candidly and respect- fully to whatever objections may be urged against your views of truth and duty. You must also take heed lest you baptize your rash, crude notions, your hereditary or sectarian opinions, with the name of Christian doctrine. But having deliberately, conscientiously sought the truth, abide by your con- viction at all hazards. Never shrink from speaking your mind through dread of reproach. Wait not to be backed by numbers. Wait not till you are sure of an echo from a crowd. The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own. Put faith in truth as mightier than error, prejudice, or passion, and be ready to take a place among its martyrs. Feel that truth is not a local, temporary in- fluence, but immutable, everlasting, the same in all worlds, one with God, and armed with his omnipotence. Courage even on the side of error is power. How must it prove on the side of truth ! A minister speaking not from selfish calculation, but giving out his mind in godly sincerity, uttering his convictions in natural tones, and always faithful to the light which he has received, however he may give occasional offence, will not speak in vain ; he will have an aUy in the moral sense, the principle of justice, the reverence for virtue, which is never wholly extinguished in the human souL You are peculiarly called to cherish moral courage, because it is not the virtue of our times and country, and because ministers are especially tempted to moral weakness. The Protestant minister, mixing freely with society, sustaining all its relations, and depend- ing on opinion for bread, has strong inducements to make a compromise with the world. Is there not reason to fear that, under these influences, religion and fhe world often shake hands ? Is there not a secret understanding that the min- istry, while it condemns sin in the mass, must touch gently the prejudices, wrongs, and abuses which the community has taken under its wing ? Is not preaching often disarmed by this silent, almost unconscious, concession to the world? Whether a ministry sustained as it now is can be morally free, is a problem yet to be solved. If not, the minister must now, as of old, leave all for ChristJ, look- ing solely for aid to those, however few or poor, who share his own deep interest in the Christian cause. Better earn your bread with the sweat of your brow, than part with moral freedom. It is natural that you should desire to win the affection of your people ; but beware lest this interfere with moral courage. There is always danger to dignity and force of character in aiming to win the hearts of others. Dear as affection is, we must be able to renounce it, to live without sympathy, to forfeit this man's confidence and that man's friendship by speaking truth. I exhort you to prize respect more than affection. Respect, gradually won by faithfulness to principle, is more unwavering than personal attachment, and secures more intelligent attention to preaching. We are indeed told that truth is never so effectual as from the lips of him whom we love. But it is to be desired that truth should be received for its own sake, that it should have its root in the hearer's reason and conscience, and not in the partiality of friendship. I wish for you the love (jf this congregation ; but still more that they may reverence you as ever ready to sacrifice human love and honor to principle and truth. OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. 289 Hitherto I have guarded you against selfish fear. There is a more refined fear, to which ingenuous minds are liable. I refer to the apprehension which springs from a consciousness of inferiority and inability. This often disheartens the minister, subdues his voice, tames his countenance, dims the eye, throws an air of constraint over his form and mo- tions, locks up his soul, suffering no sensibility to gush out, no quickening communication to be established be- tween his own and other souls. To defend yourself from this fear, impress yourself deeply with the divine original and the infinite dignity of the religion you are to preach. You will, indeed, often stand before your superiors in age and acquisitions. But do not fear. Re- member that you are preaching a religion, in the presence of which all human wis- dom ought to be humble, and that you are teaching a virtue which ought to strike a conviction of deep deficiency into the most improved, and by which the most gifted and powerful are soon to be judged. In the contemplation of the majesty of Christian truth, of the work which it is appointed to accom- plish, and of the omnipotence by which it is sustained, you should forget your- self ; you should forget the world's ephemeral dignities, and speak with the nati\e, unaffected authority of a witness to immortal verities, of a messenger of the Most High. I am aware that what has been said to encourage a spirit of fearlessness and independence is liable to abuse. There are those who confound moral courage with defiance of established opinion, and Christian independence with an over- weening fondness for their own conceits. I trust to your humility and soundness of mind for a sober construction of my counsels. I trust you will feel such a respect for past times, and for the max- ims and institutions of the society to which you belong, as will induce you to weigh cautiously and with self-distrust whatever peculiar views spring up in your mind. You are too wise to bolt from the beaten path, in order to prove that you do not tamely follow others' steps ; too wise to be lawless, that you may escape the reproach of servility. The authority of usage is a wholesome restraint on the freaks, follies, and rash experiments of youth and inexperience. But usage must not restrain the intellect and heart. Whilst deferring to the rules which society has settled, you must still act from your own convictions. You must stand out as an individual, and not be melted in the common mass. Whilst you honor antiquity, you must remem- ber that the past has not done and could not do the work of the present ; that in religion, as in all things, progress is the law and happiness of the race ; that our own time has its task, and has wants which the provisions of earlier times cannot satisfy. Remember, too, that each man has his own way of working, and can work powerfully in no other, and do not anxiously and timidly model yourself after those whom you admire. To escape the sin of presumption, do- not be mechanical. To escape eccen- tricity, do not shut your eyes on what is peculiar in your lot, and fear to meet it by peculiar efforts. The minister too- often speaks feebly, because his voice is only the echo of echoes, because he dares not trust to the inspirations of hiS' own soul. To conclude this head, — be humble, be modest, but be not weak. Fear God and not man. Respect your deliberately consulted conscience. This energy of spirit will give a greater power to your ministry than all the calculations of selfish prudence or all the compro- mises of selfish fear. My brother, one exhortation more. Feel the greatness of your otfice. Let not its humble exterior, or the opinion of the world, or its frequent inefficacy, hide from you its unspeakable dignity. Regard it as the highest human voca- tion, as greater than thrones, or any other distinctions which relate merely to the present life. The noblest work on earth, or in heaven, is to act on the soul ; to inspire it with wisdom and magnanimity, with reverence for God, and love towards man. This is the highest function of sages and inspired poets, and also of statesmen worthy of the name, who comprehend that a na- tion's greatness is to be laid in its soul. Glory in your office. Feel that it asso- ciates you with the elect of past ages, with Jesus Christ, and apostles, and confessors, and martyrs, and reformers •, with all who have toiled and suffered to raise men to intelligence and moral greatness ; and let the consciousness of this spiritual brotherhood fortify you 19 290 CHARGE AT THE ORDINATION OF REV. J. S. D WIGHT. for like suffering and toil. Glory in your office. You delight in poetry and the fine arts ; but remember that the divinest art is that which studies and creates the beauty, not of outward form, but of immortal virtue ; which creates not statues and pictures, but holy and disinterested men ; which awakens the godlike in the breast of our brother. No poem is so glorious as a Christian life ; and he who incites a fellow-creat- ure to this produces a work which will outlast all other works of the mind. Glory in your office, especially, as in- stituted to carry forward the human soul to wider and higher action than it has yet attained. Other men are labor- ing with instruments, the power of which can be measured ; but who can measure the energy which resides in Christian truth, or the spiritual life and elevation which this truth, rightly ad- ministered, may communicate ? Regard your office as meant not to perpetuate what exists, but to introduce a higher condition of the church and the world. Christ was eminently the Reformer ; and reform is the spirit of the ministry. Without this spirit, our churches are painted sepulchres, and the preaching in them but sounding brass, or a tink- ling cymbal. Comprehend the great- ness of your spiritual function. You are intrusted with a truth that is to create a new heaven and a new earth, to prostrate the abuses and corruptions of ages, to unite men by new ties to God and to one another, to revive the Divine Image in the human soul. Keep your mind in harmony with this great end. Let not pleasures, cares, honors, common example, or opinion, or any worldly interest, sever you from it. Cherish a living faith in a higher opera- tion of Christianity than is yet seen in any community or any church. This faith is far from being universal, and for want of it the ministry is weak. But is there no ground for it ? Is it an illusion ? I know not a weightier ques- tion for a minister to answer. Other points of controversy will solicit your attention. But the greatest question which you have to determine is. Whether Christianity has done its work and spent its force, or whether a more regenerat- ing manifestation of truth is not to be hoped ? whether a new application of the Christian law to private and public life is not to be longed for and prayed for, and confidently expected ? whether Christendom is not to wear another aspect ? whether the idea of perfection, of disinterested virtue, which shone forth in the character of Jesus, is not to possess more livingly the human soul, and to be more and more realized in human life ? Your answer to this question will decide very much whether your ministry shall be a mechanical round, a name, a sleep, or be fraught with life and power. In answering it, do not consult with flesh and blood ; but listen to the prophetic words of Jesus Christ ; listen to the aspirations of your own soul ; listen to that deep discontent with the present forms of Christianity which is spreading in the community,- which breaks out in mur- murs, now of scorn, now of grief, and which hungers and thirsts for a new coming of the kingdom of God. My brother, much might be added, but I hasten to the close of this unusu- ally protracted service. We wish j'ou prosperity. May you establish your- self in the hearts of this people ! May you jind a lasting home in this beauti- ful part of our land ! Here may you live in peace, here grow old in honor, here close your eyes amid the tears of a grateful people ! This we hope ; and we h&ve ground of hope in the spirit of the congregation to which you are to minister. But we cannot speak of your prospects as sure. You live in a trying day. The spirit of change which char- acterizes our times has penetrated the church, and shaken the old stability of the ministry. In no profession are men exposed to greater changes than in ours. Prepare yourself for the worst, while you hope for the best. Cherish, as among the first virtues of 3'our office, a firm, manly, self-denying spirit. Let not the comforts of life grow into your soul. Be simple in your habits, in food, raiment, pleasures. Be frugal, that you may be just, may "have to five to him that needeth," and may be tted to sustain privations with dignity. Build up in yourself an energjy of pur- pose, an iron strength of principle, a loftiness of sentiment, which will dis- arm outward changes, and give power to your ministry, whether in a prosper- ous or adverse lot. " Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." " Be thou faithful unto death, and he shall give thee a crown of life." LIKENESS TO COD. 391 LIKENESS TO GOD: Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. F. A. Farley, Provideme, R. I., 1828. Kphesiahs v. I : " Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children." To promote true religion is the pur- pose of the Christian ministry. For this it was ordained. On the present occasion, therefore, when a new teacher is to be given to the church, a discourse on the character of true religion will not be inappropriate. I do not mean that I shall attempt, in the limits to which I am now confined, to set before you all, its properties, signs, and operations ; for in so doing I should burden your memories with divisions and vague gen- eralities as uninteresting as they would be unprofitable. My purpose is to select one view of the subject which seems to me of primary dignity and im- portance ; and I select this because it is greatly neglected, and because I at- tribute to this neglect much of the inefii- cacy and many of the corruptions of religion. The text calls us to fnllpw or imitate God, to seeE'accordance with or like- ness to him ; and to do this not fear- fully and faintly, but with the spirit and hope of beloved children. The doctrine which I propose to illustrate is derived immediately from these words, and is incorporated with the whole New Tes- 'tament. I affirm, and would maintain, that true religion consists in proposing, as our great end, a growing likeness to I the Supreme Being. Its noblest influ- ence consists in making usjnQre_aJid more partak ers of the Divinity. For -thrs it is to be preached. Religious instruction should aim chiefly to turn men's aspirations and efforts to that perfection of the soul which constitutes it a bright image of God. Such is the topic now to be discussed ; and I im- plore Him whose glory I seek to aid me in unfolding and enforcing it with sim- plicity and clearness, with a calm and pure zeal, and with unfeigned charity. /\ begin with observing, what all in- deed will understand, that the likeness to God, of which I propose to speak, belongs to pan's higher or spiritual nat- ure. It has its foundation in the orig-( inal and essential capacities of the mind, /.i In proportion as these are unfolded b/ right and vigorous exertion, it is ex- tended and brightened. In proportion as these lie dormant, it is obscured. In proportion as they are perverted and overpowered by the appetites and pas- sions, it is blotted out. In truth, moral evil, if unresisted and habitual, may so blight and lay waste these capacities, that the image of God in man may seem to be wholly destroyed. The importance of this assimilation to our Creator is a topic which needs no labored discussion. All men, of what- ever name, or sect, or opinion, will meet me on this ground. All, I presume, will allow that no good in the compass of the universe, or within the gift of om-, nipotence, can be compared to a resem- 1 blance of God, or to a participation of, his attributes. I fear no contradic- tion here. Likeness to God is the su- preme gift. He can communicate noth- ing so precious, glorious, blessed as himself. To hold intellectual and moral affinity with the Supreme Being, to par- take his spirit, to be his children by derivations of kindred excellence, to bear a growing conformity to the perfection which we adore, ■ — this is a felicity which obscures and annihilates all other good. It is only in proportion to this like-"" ness that we can enjoy either God or the universe. That God can be known and enjoyed only through sympathy or kindred attributes, is a doctrine which even Gentile philosophy discerned. That the pure in heart can alone see and commune with the pure Divinity, was the sublime instruction of ancient sages 292 LIKENESS TO GOD. as well as of inspired prophets. It is indeed the lesson of daily experience. To understand a great and good ijeing, we must have the seeds of thp'^same excellence. How quickly, by what an i_nstin.ct, do accordant minds recognize one another ! No attraction is so power- ful as that which subsists between the truly wise and good; whilst the brightest excellence is lost on those who have ^nothing congenial in their own breasts. God becomes a real being to us in pro- portion as his own nature is unfolded within us. To a man who is growing in the likeness of God, faith begins even here to change into vision. He_carries within himself a proof of a Deity, which can only be understood by experience. He more than believes, he feels the ) pivinejDresence ; and gradually rises to an intercourse with his Maker, to which it is not irreverent to apply the name of friendship and intimacy. The Apostle John intended to express this truth, when he tells us that he in whom a principle of divine charity or benevolence has be- come 3 habit and life "dwells in God and God in him." It is plain, too, that likeness to God is the true and only preparation for the enjoyment of the universe. In propor- tion as we approach and resemble the mind of God, we are brought into har- mony with the creation ; for in that pro- portion">we possess the principles from which the universe sprung ; we carry within ourselves the perfections of which its beauty, magnificence, order, benev- olent adaptations, and boundless pur- poses are the results and manifestations. God unfolds himself in his works to a kindred mind. It is possible that the brevity of these hints may expose to the charge of mysticism what seems to me the calmest and clearest truth. I think, however, that every reflecting man will feel that likeness to God must be a prin- ciple of sympathy or accordance with his creation ; for the creation is a birth and shining forth of the Divine Mind, a work through which his spirit breathes! In 'proportion as we receive this spirit we (possess within ourselves the explanation of what we see. We discern more and more of God in every thing, from the frail flower to the everlasting stars. Even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs over the creation, we discern rays of light and hope, and gradually come to see, in suffering and temptation, proofs and instruments of the sublimest pur- poses of wisdom and love. r have offered these very imperfect views that 1 may show the great im- portance of the doctrine which I am solicitous to enforce. I would teach that likeness to God is a good so unut- terably surpassing all other good, that whoever admits it as attainable must ac- knowledge it to be the chief aim of life. I would show that the highest and hap- piest office of religion is to bring the mind into growing accordance with God ; and that by the tendency of religious systems to this end their truth and worth are to be chiefly tried. I am aware that it may be said that the Scriptures, in speaking of man as made in the image of God, and in call- ing us to imitate him, use bold and fig- urative language. It may be said that" . there is danger from too literal an inter- pretation ; that God is an unapproach- able being ; that I am not warranted in . ascribing to man a like nature to the divine ; that we and all things illustrate . the Creator by contrast, hot by resem- '■ blahce; "that religion manifests itself chiefly in convictions and acknowledg- ments of utter worthlessness; and that y to talk of the greatness and divinity ^ the human soul is to inflate that pride through which Satan fell, and through which man involves himself in that fallen spirit's jruin. I answer that, to me,"SLnpture and reason hold a different language. /In Christianity, particularly, I meet peipet-' ual testimonies toiithe divinity of human nature. / This whole religion expresses an infinite concern of God for the hu- man soul, and teaches that He deems no methods too expensive for its recov- ery and exaltation. Christianity, with one voice, calls me to turn my regards and care to the spirit within me, as of more worth than the whole outward world. It calls us to " be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect ; " and every- where, in the sublimity of its precepts, it implies and recognizes the sublime capacities of the being to whom they are addressed. It assures us that hu- man virtue is "in the sight of God of great price," and speaks of the return of a human being to virtue as an even± which increases the joy of heaven. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ, the LIKENESS TO GOD. 293 Son of God, the brightness of his glory, the express and unsullied image of the Divinity, is seen mingling with men as a friend and brother, offering himself as their example, and promising to his true followers a share in all his splen- dors and joys. In the New Testament God is said to communicate his own spirit and all his fulness to the human soul. In the New Testament man is exhorted to aspire after " honor, glory, and immortality ; " and heaven, a word expressing the nearest approach to God and a divine happiness, is everywhere proposed as the end of his being. In truth, the very essence of Christian faith r is that we trust in God's mercy as re- vealed in Jesus Christ, for a state of celestial purity in which we shall grow for' ever in the likeness and knowledge ?md enjoyment of the Infinite Father. Lofty views of the nature of man are , bound up and interwoven with the whole Christian system. Say not that these are at war with humility ; for who was ever humbler than Jesus, and yet who ever possessed such a consciousness of great- ness and divinity ? Say not that man's ' business is to tfiink of his sin and not of his dignity ; for great sin implies a great capacity ; it is the abuse of a noble nature ; and no man can be deeply and rationally contrite but he who feels that , in wrong-doing he has resisted a divine voice, and warred against a divine prin- _ciple in his own soul. I need not, I trust, pursue the argument from revela- tion. There is an argument from nature and reason which seems to me so con- vincing, and is at the same time so fitted to expUin what I mean by man's pos- session of a like nature to God, that I shall pass at once to its exposition. That man has a kindred nature with God, and may bear most important and ennobling relations to him, seems to me to be established by a striking proof. This proof you will understand by con- sidering, for a raoment/tow we obtain^, our ideas of God. Whence come the ^conceptions which we include under that august name ? Whence do we de- rive our knowledge of the attributes and perfections which constitute the Supreme Being? I answer, we derive them f|2m our own souls.. ^ The divine attributes are' firsF developed in our- selves, and thence transferred to our , Creator. The idea of God, sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spiritual nature, purified and enlarged to infinity. In ourselves are the elements, of the Divinity. God, then, does not sustain a figurative resemblance to man. It is the resemblance of a parent to a child, the likeness of a kindred nature./ : We call God a Mind. He has re- ' vealed himself as a Spirit. But what do we know of mind but through the unfolding of this principle in our own ' breasts .'' That unbounded spiritual energy which we call God is conceived by us only through consciousness, ' through the knowledge of ourselves. /We ascribe thought or intelligence to the Deity, as one of his most glorious attributes. And what means this lan- guage ? These terms we have framed to express operations or faculties of our own souls. The Infinite Light would be for ever hidden from us did not kindred rays dawn and brighten within us. God j is another name for human intelligence ( raised above all error and imperfection, V and extended to all possible truth/ ' The same is true of God's goodn ess. How do we understand this but by" the' principle of love, implanted in the hu- man breast ? Whence is it that this ' divine attribute is so faintly compre- hended, but from the feeble development of it in the multitude of men ? Who can understand the strength, purity, ful- ness, and extent of divine philanthropy, but he in whom selfishness has been swallowed up in love ? The same is true of all the moral per- fec_ti2ns of the Deity. These are com- prehended by us only through our own moral nature. It is conscience within ; us which, by its approving and condemn- ing voice, interprets to us God's love of virtue and hatred of sin ; and without conscience, these glorious conceptions would never have opened on the mind. It is the law-giver in our own breasts which gives us the idea of divine author- ity, and binds us to obey it. The soul, by its sense of right, or its perception of moral distinctions, is clothed with sovereignty over itself, and through this alone it understands and recognizes the Sovereign of the universe. Men, as by a natural inspiration, have agreed to speak of conscience as the voice of God, as the Divinity within us. This princi- ple, reverently obeyed, makes us more and more partakers of the moral perfec- 294 LIKENESS TO GOD. tion of the Supreme Being, of that very excellence which constitutes the right- fulness of his sceptre, and enthrones him over the universe. Without this inward law we should be as incapable of receiving a law from heaven as the brute. Without this, the thunders of Sinai might startle the outward ear, but would have no meaning, no authority to the mind. I have expressed here a great truth. Nothing teaches so en- couragingly our relation and resem- blance to God ; for the glory of the Supreme Being is eminently moral. We blind ourselves to his chief splen- dor if we think only or mainly of his power, and overlook those attributes of rectitude and goodness to which He subjects his omnipotence, and which are the foundations and very substance of his universal and immutable law. And are these attributes revealed to us through the principles and convictions of our own souls ? Do we understand through sympathy God's perception of the right, the good, the holy, the just ? Then with what propriety is it said that in his own image He made man ! I am aware that it may be objected to these views, that we receive our idea of God from the universe, from his works, and not so exclusively from our own souls. The universe, I know, is full of God. The heavens and earth de- clare his glory. In other words, the effects and signs of power, wisdom, and goodness, are apparent through the whole creation. But apparent to what ? Not to the outward eye ; not to the acutest organs of sense ; but to a kin- dred mind, which interprets the universe by itself. It is only through that energy of thought by which we adapt various and complicated means to distant ends, and give harmony and a common bear- ing to multiplied exertions, that we un- derstand the creative intelligence which has established the order, dependencies, and harmony of nature. We see God around us because He dwells within iis. It is by a kindred wisdom that we dis- cern his wisdom in his works. The brute, with an eye as piercing as ours, looks on the universe ; and the page, which to us is radiant with characters of greatness and goodness, is to him a blank. In truth, the beauty and glory of God's works are revealed to the mind by a light beaming from itself. We dis- cern the impress of God's' attributes in the universe by accordance of nature, and enjoy them through sympathy. I hardly need observe that these remarks in relation to the universe apply with equal if not greater force to revelation. I shall now be met by another objec- tion, which to many may seem strong. It will be said that these various attri- butes of which I have spoken exist in God in infinite perfection, and that this destroys all affinity between the human and the divine mind. To this I have two rephes. In the first place, an attri- bute by becoming perfect does not part with its essence. Love, wisdom, power, and purity do not change their nature by enlargement. If they did, we should lose the Supreme Being through his very infinity. Our ideas of him would fade away into mere sounds. For ex- ample, if wisdom in God, because un- bounded, have no affinity with that at- tribute in man, why apply to him that term .'' It must signify nothing. Let me ask what we mean when we say that we discern the marks of intelligence in the universe ? We mean that we meet there the proofs of a mind like our own. We certainly discern proofs of no other ; so that to deny this doctrine would be to deny the evidences of a God, and utterly to subvert the foundations of religious belief. What man can examine the structure of a plant or an animal, and see the adaptation of its parts to each other and to common ends, and not feel' that it is the work of an intelligence akin to his own, and that he traces these marks of design by the same spiritual energy in which they had their origin ? But I would offer another answer to this objection, that God's infinity places him beyond the resemblance and ap- proach of man. I affirm, and trust that I do not speak too strongly, that there are traces of infinity in the human mind ; and that, in this very respect, it bears a likeness to God. The very conception of infinity is the mark of a nature to which no Hmit can be prescribed. This/ thought, indeed, comes to us not so much from abroad as from our own souls. We ascribe this attribute to God, because we possess capacities and wants which only an unbounded being can fiU, and because we are conscious of a ten- dency in spiritual faculties to unlimited expansion. We believe in the divine LIKENESS TO GOD. 295 infinity through something congenial with it in our own breasts. I hope I speak clearly, and if not, I would ask those to whom I am obscure to pause before they condemn. To me it seems that the soul, in all its higher actions, in original thought, in the creations of genius, in the soarings of imagination, in its love of beauty and grandeur, in its aspirations after a pure and unknown joy, and especially in disinterestedness, in the spirit of self-sacrifice, and in en- lightened devotion, has a character of infinity. There is often a depth in hu- man love which may be strictly called unfathomable. There is sometimes a lofty strength in moral principle which all the power of the outward universe cannot overcome. There seems a might within which can more than balance all might without. There is, too, a piety which swells into a transport too vast for utterance, and into an immeasurable joy. I am speaking, indeed, of what is uncommon, but still of realities. We see, however, the tendency of the soul to the infinite in more familiar and or- dinary forms. Take, for example, the delight which we find in the vast scenes of nature, in prospects which spread around us without limits, in the immen- sity of the heavens and the ocean, and especially in the rush and roar of 7;nighty winds waves, and torrents, when, amidst our deep awe, a power within seems to respond to the omnipotence around us. The same principle is seen in the delight ministered to us by works of fiction or of imaginative art, in which our own nature is set before us in more than human beauty and power. In truth, the soul is always bursting its limits. It thirsts continually for wider knowledge. It rushes forward to untried happiness. It has deep wants, which nothing limited can appease. Its true element and end is an unbounded good. Thus, God's infinity has its image in the soul ; and through the soul, much more than through I the universe, we arrive at this concep- I tion. of the Deity. In these remarks I have spoken strong- ly. But I have no fear of expressing too jBtrongly the connection between the di- *nne and the human mind. My only fear i.'s that I shall dishonor the great subject, l.'he danger to which we are most ex- posed is that of severing the Creator friiOm his creatures. The propensity of human sovereigns to cut off communica- tion between themselves and their sub- jects, and to disclaim a common nature with their inferiors, has led the multi- tude of men, who think of God chiefly under the character of a king, to con- ceive of him as a being vvho places his glory in multiplying distinctions be- tween himself and all other beings. The truth is, that the union between the Creator and the creature surpasses all other bonds in strength and intimacy. He penetrates all things, and delights to irradiate all with his glory. Nature, in all its lowest and inanimate forms, is pervaded by his power ; and when quick- ened by the mysterious property of life, how wonderfully does it show forth the perfections of its Author ! How much of God may be seen in the structure of a single leaf, which, though so frail as to tremble in every wind, yet holds con- nections and living communications with the earth, the air, the clouds, and the dis- tant sun, and, through these sympathies with the universe, is itself a revelation of an omnipotent mind ! God delights to diffuse himself everywhere. Through his energy unconscious matter clothes itself with proportions, powers, and beauties, which reflect his wisdom and love. How tnuch more must He delight to frame conscious and happy recipients of his perfections, in whom his wisdom and love may substantially dwell, with whom He may form spiritual ties, and to whom He may be an everlasting spring of moral energy and happiness ! How far the Supreme Being may com- municate his attributes to his intelligent offspring, I stop not to inquire. But that his almighty goodness will impart to them powers and glories of which the material universe is but a faint emblem, I cannot doubt. That the soul, if true to itself and its Maker, will be filled with God, and will manifest him more than the sun, I cannot doubt. Who can doubt it, that believes and understands the doctrine of human immortality ? The views which I have given in this discourse respecting man's participation of the Divine nature, seem to me to re- ceive strong confirmation from the title or relation most frequently applied to God in the New Testament ; and I have reserved this as the last corrobo- ration of this doctrine, because, to my own mind, it is singularly affecting. 295 LIKENESS TO GOD. In the New Testament God is tiiade known to us as a Father ; and a brighter feature of that' book cannot be named. " Our worship is to be directed to him' as our Father. Our whole religion is to take its character from this view of the Divinity. In this He is to rise always to our minds. And what is it to be a father.'' It is to communicate one's own nature, to give life to kindred be^ ings ; and the highest function of a father is to educate the mind of the child, and to impart to it what is noblest and happiest in his own mind. God is ^ur Father, not merely because He created us, or because He gives us en- joyment, for He created the flower and the insect, yet we call him not their Father. This bond is a spiritual one. This name belongs to God, because He frames spirits like himself, and dehghts to give them what is most glorious and blessed in his own nature. Accord- ingly, Christianity is said with special propriety to reveal God as the Fatlier, .because it reveals him as sending his Son to cleanse the mind from every stain, and to replenish it for ever with the spirit and moral attributes of its Author. Separate from God this idea of his creating; and training up beings after his ownJikenessj-aijd you rob him of the paternal character. This rela- tion vanishes, and with it vanishes the glory of the gospel, and the dearest hopes of the human soul. The greatest use which I would make of the principles laid down in this dis- course, is to derive from them just and ^ clear views of the nature of religion. What, then, is religion ? I answer, it is not the adoration of a God with whom we have no common properties ; of a distinct, foreign, separate being ; bulof an all-communicating^J^rent^ It recog- nizes and ad6res~God as a being whom we know through our own souls ; who has tnade man in his own image ; who is the perfection of our own spiritual nature ; who has Sympathies with us as kindred beings ; who is near us not in place only like this all-surrounding at- .mosphere, but by spiritual influence and love ; who looks on us with parental V interest, and whose great design it is to communicate to us 'for ever, and in freer and fuller streams, his own power, , goodness, and joy. The conviction of " this near and ennobling relation of God to the soul, and of his great purposes towards it, belongs to the very essence of true religion ; and true religion mani fests itself chiefly and most conspicu- ously in desires, hopes, and efforts, corresponding to this truth. It desires and seeks supremely the assimilation ol the mind to God, or the perpetual un- folding and enlargement of those powers and virtues by which it is constituted his glorious image. The mind, in pro portion as it is enlightened and pene trated by true religion, thirsts anc labors for a godUke elevation. Whal else, indeed, can it seek if this good be placed within its reach ? If I am capa ble of receiving and reflecting the intel lectual and moral glory of my Creator what else in comparison shall I desire i Shall I deem a property in the outwarc universe as the highest good, when ] may become partaker of the very mine from which it springs, of the prompting love, the disposing wisdom, the quick ening power, through which its order beauty, and beneficent influences sub sist ? True religion is known by thasi high aspirations, hopes, and effoJts And this is the religion which mos truly honors God. To honor him \i: not to tremble before him as an unap proachable sovereign, not to utter bai ren praise which leaves us as it founi us. It is to become what we praisf It is to approach God as an inexhausti ble fountain of light, power, and purit) It is to feel the quickening and trans forming energy of his perfections. I is to thirst for the growth and invigora tion of the divine principle within us It is to seek the very spirit of God. 1 is to trust in, to bless, to thank him fo that rich grace, mercy, love which wa revealed and proffered by Jesus Chris and which proposes as its great end th perfection of the human soul. I regard this view of religion as ir finitely important. It does more tha all things to make our connection wit our Creator ennobling and happy ; anc in proportion as we want it, there i danger that the thought of God ma itself become the instrument of ou degradation. That religion has bee so dispensed as to depress the huma mind, 1 need not tell you ; and it is truth which ought to be known, ths the greatness of the Deity, when sepj rated in our thoughts from his parent! Q-S^ LIKENESS TO GOD. 297 .character; especially tends to crush hu- it man energy and hope. To a frail, de- ^ pendent creature, an omnipotent Creator easily becomes a terror, and his wor- ship easily degenerates into servility, flattery, self-contempt, and selfish cal- culation. Religion only ennobles us, in as faY as it reveals to us the tender and intimate connection of God with his creatures, and teaches us to see in the very greatness which might give alarm the source of great and glorious com- ' munications to the human soul. You cannot, my hearers, think too highly of the majesty^of God. But let not this Imajesty ^ever him from you. , Remem- ber that TiTs greatness is the infinity of attributes which yourselves possess. Adore his infinite wisdom ; but remem- ber that this wisdom rejoices to diffuse itself, and let an exhilarating hope spring up at the thought of the immeasurable intelligence which such a Father must communicate to his children. In like manner adore his power. Let the bound- less creation fill you with awe and ad- miration of the energy which sustains it. But remember that God has a no- bler work than the outward creation, even the spirit within yourselves ; and that it is his purpose to replenish this with his own energy, and to crown it with growing power and triumphs over the material universe. Above all, adore his unutterable goodness. But remem- ber that this attribute is particularly proposed to you as your model ; that God calls you, both by nature and reve- lation, to a fellowship in his philanthro- py; that he has placed you in social relations for the very end of rendering you ministers and representatives of his benevolence ; that he even summons you to espouse and to advance the sub- limest purpose of his goodness, the redemption of the human race, by ex- tending the knowledge and power of Christian truth. It is through such views that religion raises up the soul, and binds man by ennobling bonds to his Maker. To complete my views of this topic, I beg to add an important caution. I ' have said that the great work of relig- , ion is to conform ourselves to God, or to unfold the divine likeness within us. Let none infer from this language that I place religion in unnaturaLeSojt, in straining after excitements which do not belong to the present state, or in any thing separate from the clear and simple duties of life. I exhort you to,, no extravagance. I reverence human , nature too much to do it violence. I K see too much divfliity in its ordinary operations to urge on it a forced and vehement virtue. To grow in the like- ness of God we need not cease to be ' men. This likeness does not consist in extraordinary or miraculous gifts, in supernatural additions to the soul, or in any thing foreign to our original con- stitution ; but in our essential faculties, ' unfolded by vigorous and conscientious . exertion in the ordinary circumstances assigned by God. To resemble our Creator we need not fly from society, and entrance ourselves in lonely con- templation and prayer. Such processes might give a feverish strength to one class of emotions, but would result in disproportion, distortion, and sickliness of mind. Our proper work is to ap- proach God by the free and natural unfolding of our highest powers, — of understanding, conscience, love, and the moral will. Shall I be told that, by such lan- guage, I ascribe to nature the effects which can only be wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit .'' I anticipate this objection, and wish to meet it by a sim- ple exposition of my views. I would on no account disparage the gracious aids and influences which God imparts to the human soul. The promise of the Holy Spirit is among the most precious in the Sacred Volume. Worlds could • not tempt me to part with the doctrine of God's intimate connection with the mind, and of his free and full com- munications to it. But these views are in no respect at variance with what I have taught, of the method by which we are to grow in the likeness of God. ., •Scripture and experience concur in teaching that, by the Holy Spirit, we are to understand a -divine assistance adapted to our moral freedom, and ac- cordant with the -fundarnental truth that virtue is the mind's own work. By the Holy Spirit, I understand an aid which must be gained and made effectual by our own activity ; an aid which no more interferes with our faculties than the assistance which we receive from our fellow-beings ; an aid which ; silently mingles and conspires with all" 298 LIKENESS TO GOD. other helps and means of goodness ; /an aid by which we unfold our natiu-al powers in a natural order, and by which we are strengthened to understand and apply the resources derived from our munificent Creator. • This aid we can- not prize too much, or pray for too ear- nestly. But wherein, let me ask, does it war with the doctrine that God is to be approached by the exercise and un- folding of our highest powers and affec- tions, in the ordinary circumstances of human life ? I repeat it, to resemble our Maker we need not quarrel with our nature or our lot. Our present state, made up as it is of aids and trials, is worthy of God, and maybe used throughout to as- similate us to him. For example, our domestic ties, the relations of neighbor- hood and country, the daily interchanges of thoughts and feelings, the daily oc- casions of kindness, the daily claims of want and suffering, — these and the other circumstances of our social state form the best sphere and school for that benevolence which is God's bright- est attribute ; and we should make a sad exchange, by substituting for these natural aids any self-invented artificial means of sanctity. Christianity, our great guide to God, never leads us away from the path of nature, and never wars with the unsophisticated dictates of conscience. We approach our Cre- ator by every right exertion of the powers He gives us. Whenever we in- vigorate the understanding by honestly and resolutely seeking truth, and by withstanding whatever might warp the , judgment ; whenever we invigorate the conscience by following it in opposition to the passions ; whenever we receive a blessing gratefully, bear a trial pa- tiently, or encounter peril or scorn with moral courage ; whenever we perform •a disinterested deed ; whenever we lift* up the heart in true adoration to God ; whenever we war against a habit or desire which is strengthening itself against our higher principles ; when- ever we think, speak, or act, with moral energy and resolute devotion to duty, be the occasion ever so humble, ob- scure, familiar ; — then the divinity is growing within us, and we are ascend- ing towards our Author. True religion thus blends itself with common life. We are thus to draw nigh to God with- out forsaking men. We are thus, with- i out parting with our human nature, to clothe ourselves with the divine. My views on the great subject of this discourse have now been given. I shall close with a brief consideration of a few objections, in the course of which I shall offer some views of the Christian ministry, which this occasion and the state of the world seem to me to demand. I anticipate from some an objection to this discourse, drawn as they will say from experience. I may be told that I have talked of the god- like capacities of human nature, and have spoken of man as a divinity ; and where, it will be asked, are the warrants of this high estimate of our race ? I may be told that I dream, and that I have peopled the world with the creat- ures of my lonely imagination. What ! Is it only in dreams that beauty and loveHness have beamed on me from the human countenance, that I have heard tones of kindness which have thrilled through my heart, that I have found sympathy in suffering, and a sacred joy in friendship ? Are all the great and good men of past ages only dreams .■' Are such names as Moses, Socrates, Paul, Alfred, Milton, only the fictions of my disturbed slumbers ? Are the great deeds of history, the discoveries of philosophy, the creations of genius, only visions ? Oh, no. I do not dream when I speak of the divine capacities of human nature. It is a real page in which I read of patriots and martyrs, of Pension and Howard, of Hampden and Washington. And tell me not that these were prodigies, miracles, im- measurably separated from their race ; for the very reverence which has treas- ured up and hallowed their memories, the very sentiments of admiration and love with which their names are now heard, show that the principles of their greatness are diffused through all your breasts. The germs of sublime virtue are scattered liberally on our earth. How often have I seen in the obscurity of domestic life a strength of love, of endurance, of pious trust, of virtuous resolution, which in a public sphere would have attracted public homage ! I cannot but pity the man who recog- nizes nothing godlike in his own nature. I see the marks of God in the heavens and the earth, but how much more in a LIKENESS TO GOD. 299 jiberal intellect, in magnanimity, in un- conquerable rectitude, in a philanthropy which forgives every wrong, and which never despairs of the cause of Christ ''and human virtue ! < I do and I must reverence human nature. Neither the sneers of a worldly scepticism nor the groans of a gloomy theology disturb my faith in its godlike powers and ten- dencies.' I know how it is despised, "how it has been oppressed, how civil and religious establishments have for ages conspired to crush it. I know its history. I shut my eyes on none of its weaknesses and crimes. I understand the proofs by which despotism demon- strates that man is a wild beast, in want of a master, and only safe in chains. But injured, trampled on, and scorned as our nature is, I still turn to it with intense sympathy and strong hope. The signatures ' of its origin and its end are impressed too deeply to be ever wholly effaced. I bless it for its kind affec- '"tions, for its strong and tender love. I honor it for its struggles against op- pression, for its growth and progress under the weight of so many chains and prejudices, for its achievements in science and art, and still more for its examples of heroic and saintly virtue. These are marks of a divine origin and the pledges of a celestial inheritance ; and I thank God that my own lot is , bound up with that of the human race. - But another objection starts up. It may be said, " Allow these views to be true ; are they fitted for the pulpit ? fitted to act on common minds ? They may be prized by men of cultivated in- tellect and taste ; but can the multitude understand them ? Will the multitude feel them ? On whom has a minister to act ? On men immersed in business, and buried in the flesh ; on men whose whole power of thought has been spent on pleasure or gain ; on men chained by habit and wedded to sin. Sooner may adamant be riven by a child's touch than the human heart be pierced by re- fined and elevated sentiment. Gross instruments will alone act on gross minds. Men sleep, and nothing but thunder, nothing but flashes from the everlasting fire of hell, will thoroughly wake them." I have all along felt that such objec- tions would be made to the views I have urged. But they do not move me. I answer, that I think these views singu- larly adapted to the pulpit, and I think them full of power. The objection is that they are refined. But I see God accomplishing his noblest purposes by what may be called refined means. AU the great agents of nature — attraction, heat, and the principle of life — are re- fined, spiritual, invisible, acting gently, silently, imperceptibly ; and yet brute matter feels their power, and is trans- formed by them into surpassing beauty. The electric fiuid, unseen, unfelt, and everywhere diffused, is infinitely more efficient, and ministers to infinitely no- bler productions, than when it breaks forth in thunder. Much less can I be- lieve that in the moral world noise, menace, and violent appeals to gross passions, to fear and selfishness, are God's chosen means of calling forth spiritual life, beauty, and greatness. It is seldom that human nature throws off all susceptibility of grateful and gen- erous impressions, all sympathy with superior virtue ; and here are springs and principles to which a generous teaching, if simple, sincere, and fresh from the soul, may confidently appeal. It is said men cannot understand the views which seem to me so precious. This objection I am anxious to repel, for the common intellect has been griev- ously kept down and wronged through the belief of its incapacity. The pulpit would do more good were not the mass of men looked upon and treated as chil- dren. Happily for the race, tlie time is passing away in which intellect was thought the monopoly of a few, and the ' majority were given over to hopeless ignorance. Science is leaving her sol-i itudes to enhghten the multitude. How' much more may religious teachers take courage to speak to men on subjects which are nearer to them than the prop- erties and laws of matter, — I mean their own souls. The multitude, you say, want capacity to receive great truths relating to their spiritual nature. But what, let me ask you, is the Christian religion ? A spiritual system, intended to turn men's minds upon themselves, to frame them to watchfulness over thought, imagination, and passion, to establish them in an intimacy with their own souls. What are all the Christian virt- ues which men are exhorted to love and seek ? I answer, pure and high motions 300 LIKENESS TO GOD. or determinations of the mind. That refinement of thought which, I am told, transcends the common intellect, belongs to the very essence of Christianity. In confirmation of these views, the human mind seefnsTome to be turning itself more and more inward, and to be grow- ing more alive to its own worth and its capacities of progress. The spirit of education shows this," and: so does the 1 spirit of freedom. There is a spreading conviction that man was made for a higher purpose than to be a beast of burden, or a creature of sense. The divinity is stirring within the human ; breast, and demanding a culture and a liberty worthy of the child of God. Let religious teaching cori-espond to this advancement of the mind. Let it rise above the technical, obscure, and frigid theology which has come down to us from times of ignorance, superstition, and slavery. Let it penetrate the human soul, and reveal it to itself. No preach- ing, I believe, is so intelligible as that which is true to human nature, and helps men to read their own spirits. But the objection which I have stated not only represents men as incapable of understanding, but stiU more of being moved, quickened, sanctified, and saved, by such views as I have given. If by this objection nothing more is meant than that these views are not alone or of themselves sufficient, I shall not dispute it ; for, true and glorious as they are, they do not constitute the whole truth, and I do not expect great moral effects from narrow and partial views of our nature. I have spoken of the godlike capacities of the soul. But other and ^very different elements enter into the human being. Man has animal propen- / , sities as well as intellectual and moral powers. He has a body as well as mind. He has passions to war with reason, and self-love with conscience. He is a free being, and a tempted being, and thus constituted he may and does sin, and I often sins grievously. To such a being ^religion, or virtue, is a conflict, requiring great spiritual effort, put forth in ha- bitual watchfulness and prayer ; and all the motives are needed by which force and constancy may be communicated to the will. I exhort not the preacher to talk perpetually of man as " made but a little lower than the angels." I would not narrow him to any class of topics. Let him adapt hi mself to our ffihoie^and various nature. Let him summon to^is aid'allliie-pewers of this world and the world to come. Let him bring to bear on the conscience and the heart God's milder and more awful attributes, the promises and threatenings of the divine word, the lessons of history, the warn- ings of experience. Let the wages of sin here and hereafter be taught clearly and earnestly. But amidst the various motives to spiritual effort which belong to the minister, none are more quick- ening than those drawn from the soul itself, and from God's desire and pur- pose to exalt it by every aid consistent with its freedom. These views I con- ceive are to mix with all others, and without them all others fail to promote a generous virtue. Is it said that the minister's proper work is to preach Christ, and not the dignity of human nature .' I answer, that Christ's great-^: ness is manifested in the" greatness of the nature which he was sent f6~redeem ; and that his chief glory cohsTsts ln"this, that he came to restore God's image where it was obscured or effaced, and to give an everlasting impulse and life to what is divine within us. Is it said that the malignity of sin is to be the minister's great theme ? I answer, that this malignity can only be understood and felt when sin is viewed as the ruin . of God's noblest work, as darkening a light brighter than the sun, as carrying discord, bondage, disease, and death into a mind framed for perpetual progress towards its Author. Is it said that ter- ror is the chief instrument of saving the soul ? I answer, that if by terror be meant a rational and moral fear, a con- viction and dread of the unutterable evil incurred by a mind which wrongs, be- trays, and destroys itself, then I am the last to deny its importance. But a fear like this, which regards the debase- ment of the soul as the greatest of evils, is plainly founded upon and proportioned to our conceptions of the greatness of our nature. The more common terror excited by vivid images of torture and bodily pain is a very questionable means of virtue. When strongly awakened, it generally injures the character, breaks men into cowards and slaves, brings the intellect to cringe before human author- ity, makes man abject before his Maker, and, by a natural reaction of the mind, LIKENESS TO GOD. 301 often terminates in a presumptuous con- fidence altogether distinct from virtuous self-respect, and singularly hostile to the unassuming, charitable spirit of Chris- tianity. The preacher should rather strive to fortify the soul against phys- ical pains than to bovir it to their mas- tery, teaching it to dread nothing in comparison with sin, and to dread sin as the ruin of a noble nature. Men, I repeat it, are to be quickened and raised by appeals to their highest principles. Even the convicts of a prison may be touched by kindness, generosity, and especially by a tone, look, and address, expressing hope and respect for their nature. I know that the doctrine_ of ages has been"fhaT"ter- ror, restraint, arid bondage are the chief safeguards of human virtue and peace. But we have begun to learn that affec- tion, confidence, respect, and freedom are mightier as well as nobler agents. Men can be wrought upon by generous influences. I would that this truth were better understood by religious teachers. From the pulpit generous influences too seldom proceed. In the church men too seldom hear a voice to quicken and exalt them. Religion, speaking through her public organs, seems often to for- get her natural tone of elevation. The character of God, the principles of his government, his relations to the human family, the purposes for which He brought us into being, the nature which He has given us, and the condition in which He has placed us, — these and the like topics, though the subhmest which can enter the mind, are not unfrequently so set forth as to narrow and degrade the hearers, disheartening and oppress- ing with gloom the timid and sensitive, and infecting coarser minds with the unhallowed spirit of intolerance, pre- sumption, and exclusive pretension to the favor of God. I know, and rejoice to know, that preaching in its worst forms does good ; for so bright and piercing is the light of Christianity that it penetrates in a measure the thickest clouds in which men contrive to involve it. But that evil mixes with the good, I also know ; and I should be unfaithful to my deep convictions did I not say that human nature requires for its ele- vation more generous treatment from the teachers of religion. I conclude with saying, let the min- ister cherish a reverence for his own nature. Let him never despise it even in its most forbidding forms. Let him delight in its beautiful and lofty mani- festations. Let him hold fast, as one of the great qualifications for his office, a faith in the greatness of the human soul, — that faith which looks beneath the perishing body, beneath the sweat of the laborer, beneath the rags and igno- rance of the poor, beneath the vices of the sensual and selfish, and discerns in the depths of the soul a divine principle, a ray of the Infinite Light, which may yet break forth and " shine as the sun " in the kingdom of God. Let him strive to awaken in men a consciousness of the heavenly treasure within them, a consciousness of possessing what is of more worth than the outward universe. Let hope give life to all his labors. Let him speak to men as to beings liberally gifted and made for God. Let him al- ways look round on a congregation with the encouraging trust that he has hear- ers prepared to respond to the simple, unaffected utterance of great truths, and to the noblest workings of his own mind.^ Let him feel deeply for those in whom the divine nature is overwhelmed by the passions. Let him sympathize tenderly with those in whom it begins to struggle, to mourn for sin, to thirst for a new life. Let him guide and animate to higher and diviner virtue those in whom it has gained strength. Let him strive to infuse cour-. age, entei;prise, devout trust, and an in- flexible -tvill into men's labors for their own perfection. In one word, let him cherish an unfaltering and growing faith in God as the Father and quickener of the human mind, and in Christ as its triumphant and immortal friend. That ■ by such preaching he is to work mir-~ acles, I do not say. That he will rival in sudden and outward effects what is wrought by the preachers of a low and terrifying theology, I do not expect or desire. That all will be made better, I am far from believing. His office is to act on free beings, who, after all, must determine themselves ; who have power to withstand all foreign agency ; who are to be saved, not by mere preaching, but by their own prayers and toil. Still I beheve that such a minister will be a benefactor beyond all praise to the hu- man soul. I believe, and know, that on those who will admit his influence he 302 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. will work deeply, powerfully, gloriously. His function is the sublimest under heaven ; and his reward will be a grow- ing power of spreading truth, virtue, moral strength, love, and happiness, without limit and without end. CHARACTER OF CHRIST. MATTHEWxvii. 5: "Thisismybeloved Son, inwhom I am well pleased." The character of Christ may be stud- ied for various purposes. It is singularly fitted to call forth the heart, to awaken love, admiration, and moral delight. As an example, it has no rival. As an evi- dence of his religion, perhaps it yields to no other proof ; perhaps no other has so often conquered unbelief. It is chiefly to this last view of it that I now ask your attention. The character of Christ is a strong confirmation of the truth of his religion. As such, I would now place it before you. I shall not, however, think only of confirming your faith ; the very illustrations which I shall adduce for this purpose will show the claims of Jesus to our reverence, obedience, im- itation, and fervent love. The more we contemplate Christ's character, as exhibited in the gospel, the more we shall be impressed with its y genuineness and reality. It was plainly drawn from the life. The narratives of the Evangelists bear the marks of truth perhaps beyond all other histories. They set before us the most extraordinary being who ever appeared on earth, and yet they are as artless as the stories of childhood. The authors do not think of themselves. They have plainly but one aim, to show us their Master ; and they manifest the deep veneration which he inspired by leaving him to reveal him- self, by giving us his actions and say- ings without comment, explanation, or ilo 'P,- You see in these narratives no eu varnishing, no high coloring, no attempts to make his actions striking, or to bring out the beauties of his character. We are never pointed to any circumstance as illustrative of his greatness. The Evangelists write with a calm trust in his character, with a feeling that it needed no aid from their hands, and with a deep veneration, as if comment or praise of their own were not worthy to mingle with the recital of such a life. It is the effect of our familiarity with the history of Jesus that we are not struck by it as we ought to be. We read it before we are capable of under- standing its excellence. His stupendous works become as familiar to us as the events of ordinary life, and his high offices seem as much matters of course as the common relations which men bear to each other. On this account, it is fit for the ministers of religion to do what the Evangelists did not attempt, to offer comments on Christ's character, to bring out its features, to point men to its higher beauties, to awaken their awe by unfolding its wonderful majesty. In- deed, one of our most important func- tions, as teachers, is to give freshness and vividness to truths which have be- come worn, I had almost said tarnished, by long and familiar handling. We have to fight with the power of habit. Through habit men look on this glorious creation with insensibility, and are less moved by the all-enlightening sun than by a show of fire-works. It is the duty of a moral and religious teacher almost to create a new sense in men, that they may learn in what a world of beauty and magnificence they hve. And so in re- gard to Christ's character ; men become used to it, until they imagine that there is something more admirable in a great man of their own day — a statesman or a conqueror — than in him the latchet of whose shoes statesmen and con- querors are not worthy to unloose. In this discourse I wish to show that the character of Christ, taken as a whole, is one which could not have entered the thoughts of man, could not have been imagmed or feigned ; that it bears every mark of genuineness and truth ; that it ought, therefore, to be acknowledged as real and of divine original. It is all-important, my friends, if we CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 303 would feel the force of this argument, to transport ourselves to the tunes when Jesus lived., We are very apt to think that he was moving about in such a city as this, or among a people agreeing with ourselves in modes of thinking and hab- its of life. But the truth is, he lived in a state of society singularly remote from our own. Of all nations, the Jewish was the most strongly marked. The Jew hardly felt himself to belong to the human family. He was accustomed to speak of himself as chosen by God, holy, clean ; whilst the Gentiles were sinners, dogs, polluted, unclean. His common dress, the phylactery on his brow or arm, the hem of his garment, his food, the ordinary circumstances of his life, as well as his temple, his sacrifices, his ab- lutions, all held him up to himself as a peculiar favorite of God, and all sepa- rated him from the rest of the world. With other nations he could not eat or marry. They were unworthy of his communion. Still, with all these no- tions of superiority, he saw himself con- quered by those whom he despised. He was obliged to wear the shackles of Rome, to see Roman legions in his ter- ritory, a Roman guard near his temple, and a Roman tax-gatherer extorting, for the support of an idolatrous government and an idolatrous worship, what he re- garded as due only to God. The hatred which burned in the breast of the Jew towards his foreign oppressor perhaps never glowed with equal intenseness in any other conquered state. He had, however, his secret consolation. The time was near, the prophetic age was at hand, when Judea was to break her chains and rise from the dust. Her long-promised king and deliverer was near, and was coming to wear the crown of universal empire. From Jerusalem was to go forth his law, and all nations were to serve the chosen people of God. To this conqueror the Jews indeed as- cribed the office of promoting religion ; but the religion of Moses, corrupted into an outward service, was to them the perfection of human nature. They clung to its forms with the whole en- ergy of their souls, To the Mosaic in- stitution they ascribed their distinction from all other nations. It lay at the foundation of their hopes of dominion. 'I believe no strength of prejudice ever equalled the intense attachment of the Jew to his peculiar national religion. You may judge of its power by the fact of its having been transmitted through so many ages, amidst persecution and sufferings which would have subdued any spirit but that of a Jew. You must bring these things to your mind. You must place yourselves in the midst of this singular people. Among this singular people, burning with impatient expectation, appeared Jesus of Nazareth. His first words were, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." These words we hear with little emotion ; but to the Jews, who had been watching for this king- dom for ages, and who were looking for its immediate manifestation, they must have been awakening as an earthquake.. Accordingly, we find Jesus thronged by multitudes which no building could contain. He repairs to a mountain, as affording him advantages for addressing the crowd, I see them surrounding him with eager looks, and ready to drink in every word from his lips. And what do I hear ? Not one word of Judea, of Rome, of freedom, of con- quest, of the glories of God's chosen people, and of the thronging of all na- tions to the temple on Mount Zion. Al- most every word was a death-blow to the hopes and feelings which glowed through the whole people, and were consecrated under the name of religion. He speaks of the long-expected kingdom of heaven ; but speaks of it as a fehcity promised to, and only to be partaken by, the humble and pure in heart. The righteousness of the Pharisees, that which was deemed the perfection of re- ligion, and which the new deliverer was expected to spread far and wide, he pro- nounces worthless, and declares the kingdom of heaven, or of the Messiah, to be shut against all who do not culti- vate a new, spiritual, and disinterested virtue. Instead of war and victory, he commands his impatient hearers to love, to forgive, to bless their enemies ; and holds forth this spirit of benignity, mercy, peace, as the special badge of the people of the true Messiah. In- stead of national interests and glories, he commands them to seek first a spirit of impartial charity and love, unconfined by the bounds of tribe or nation, and proclaims this to be the happiness and honor of the reign for which they hoped. 304 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. Instead of this world's riches, which they expected to flow from all lands into their own, he commands them to lay up treasures in heaven, and directs them to an incorruptible, immortal life, as the true end of their being. Nor is this all. He does not merely offer himself as. a spiritual deliverer, as the founder of a new empire of inward piety and univer- sal charity ; he closes with language announcing a more mysterious office. " Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ? And then will I pro- fess unto them, I never knew you, de- part from me, ye that work iniquity." Here I meet the annunciation of a char- .acter as august as it must have been startling. I hear him foretelling a do- minion to be exercised in the future world. He begins to announce, what entered largely into his future teaching, that his power was not bounded to this earth. These words I better under- stand when I hear him subsequently declaring that, after a painful death, he was to rise again and ascend to heaven, and there, in a state of pre-eminent power and glory, was to be the advo- cate and judge of the human race. Such are some of the views given by Jesus of his character and reign in the Sermon on the Mount. Immediately afterwards I hear another lesson from him, bringing out some of these truths still more strongly. A Roman centurion makes application to him for the cure of a servant whom he particularly valued ; and on expressing, in a strong manner, his conviction of the power of Jesus to heal at a distance, Jesus, according to the historian, "marvelled, and said to those that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith in Israel ; and I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ; but the children of the kingdom " (that is, the Jews) " shall be cast out." Here all the hopes which the Jews had cher- ished of an exclusive or peculiar posses- sion of the Messiah's kingdom were crushed ; and the reception of the de- spised Gentile world to all his blessings, or, in other words, the extension of his pure religion to the ends of the earth, began to oe proclaimed. Here I pause for the present, and I ask you whether the character of Jesus be not the most extraordinary m history, and wholly inexplicable on human prin- ciples. Review the ground over which we have gone. Recollect that he was born and grew up a Jew, in the midst of Jews, a people burning with one passion, and throwing their whole souls into the expectation of a national and earthly deliverer. He grew up among them in poverty, seclusion, and labors fitted to contract his thoughts, purposes, and hopes ; and yet we find him escaping every influence of education and society. We find him as untouched by the feel- ings which prevailed universally around him, which religion and patriotism con- curred to consecrate, which the mother breathed into the ear of the child, and which the teacher of the synagogue strengthened in the adult, as if he had been brought up in another world. We find him conceiving a sublime purpose, such as had never dawned on sage or hero, and see him possessed with a con- sciousness of sustaining a relation to God and mankind, and of being invested with powers in this world and the world to come such as had never entered the human mind. Whence now, I ask, came the conception of this character ? Will any say it had its origin in im- posture, — that it was a fabrication of a deceiver ? I answer, the character claimed by Christ excludes this suppo- sition by its very nature. It was so remote from all the ideas and anticipa- tions of the times, so unfit to awaken sympathy, so unattractive to the heathen, so exasperating to the Jew, that it was the last to enter the mind of an impostor. A deceiver of the dullest vision must have foreseen that it would expose him to bitter scorn, abhorrence, and persecu- tion, and that he would be left to carry on his work alone, just as Jesus always Stood alone, and could find not an indi- vidual to enter into his spirit and design. What allurements an unprincipled, self- seeking man could find to such an enterprise, no common ingenuity can discover. I affirm next, that the sublimity of the character claimed by Christ forbids us to trace it to imposture. That a selfish, designing, depraved mind could have formed the ideaand purpose of a work unparalleled in beneficence, in vastness, CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 30s and in moral grandeur, would certainly be a strange departure from the laws of the human mind. I add, that if an im- postor could have lighted on the cori- ception of so sublime and wonderful a work as that claimed by Jesus, he could not — I say, he could not — have thrown into his personation of it the air of truth and reality. The part would have been too high for him.. He would have over- acted it or fallen short of it perpetually. His true character would have rebelled against his assumed one. We should have seen something strained, forced, artificial, awkward, showing that he was not in his true sphere. To act up to a character so singular and grand, and one for which no precedent could be found, seems to me utterly impossible for a man who had not the true spirit of it, or who was only wearing it as a mask. Now, how stands the case with Jesus ? Bred a Jewish peasant or carpenter, he issues from obscurity and claims for himself a divine office, a superhuman dignity, such as had not been imagined ; and in no instance does he fall below the character. The peasant, and still more the Jew, wholly disappears. We feel that a new being, of a new order of mind, is taking a part in human affairs. There is a native tone of grandeur and authority in his teaching. He speaks as a being related to the whole human race. His mind never shrinks within the ordi- nary limits of human agency. A nar- rower sphere than the world never enters his thoughts. He speaks in a natural, spontaneous style of accomplishing the most arduous and important change in human affairs. This unlabored manner of expressing great thoughts is particu- larly worthy of attention. You never hear from Jesus that swelling, pom- pous, ostentatious language which almost necessarily springs from an attempt to sustain a character above our powers. He talks of his glories as one to whom they were familiar, and of his intimacy and oneness with God, as' simply a:s a child speaks of his^ connection with his parents. He speaks' of- saving afid judging' the world, of drawing all men to himself, and of giving everlasting life, as we speak of the ordinary powers which we .exert. He makes no set harangues about the grandeur of his office and. character. His conscious^ ness of it gives a hue to his whole language, breaks out in indirect, unde- signed expressions, showing that it was the deepest and most familiar of his convictions. This argument is only to be understood by reading the Gospels with a wakeful mind and heart. It does not lie on their surface, and it is the 'stronger for lying beneath it. When I read these books with care, when I trace the unaffected majesty which runs through the life of Jesus, and see him never falling below his sublime claims amidst poverty and scorn, and in his last agony, I have a feeling of the reality of his character which I cannot express. I feel that the Jewish carpen- ter could no more have conceived and sustained this character under motives of imposture than an infant's arm could repeat the deeds of Hercules, or his unawakened intellect comprehend and rival the matchless works of genius. Am 1 told that the claims of Jesus had their origin not in imposture but in enthusiasm ; that the imagination, kin- dled by strong feeling, overpowered the judgment so far as to give him the notion of being destined to some strange and unparalleled work ? I know that enthusiasm, or a kindled imagi- nation, has great power ; and we are never to lose sight of it, in judging of the claims of religious teachers. But I say first, that, except in cases- where it amounts to insanity, enthu- siasm works, in a greater or less degree, according to a man's previous concep- tions and modes of thought. In Judea, where the minds of men were burning with feverish expectation of a Messiah, I can easily conceive of a Jew imag- ining that in himself this ardent con- ception, this ideal of glory, was to be realized. I can conceive of his seating himself in fancy on the throne of David, and secretly pondering the means of his appointed triumphs. But that a Jew should fancy himself the Messiah, and at the same time should strip that character of all the attributes which had fired his youthful imagination and heart, — that he should start aside from all the feelings and hopes of his age, and should acquire a consciousness of being destined to a wholly new career, and one as unbounded as it was new, — ■ this is exceedingly improbable ; and one thing is certa.in, tliat an imagination so erratic, so ungoverned, and able to 20 3o6 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. generate the conviction of being des- tined to a work so immeasurably dis- proportioned to tlie power of the indi- vidual, must have partaken of insanity. Now, is it conceivable that an individ- ual, mastered by so wild and fervid an imagination, should have sustained the dignity claimed by Christ, should have' acted worthily the highest part ever assumed on earth ? Would not his enthusiasm have broken out amidst the peculiar excitements of the life of Jesus, and have left a touch of madness on his teaching and conduct ? Is it to such a man that we should look for the in- culcation of a new and perfect form of virtue, and for the exemplification of humanity in its fairest form ? The charge of an extravagant, self- deluding enthusiasm is the last to be fastened on Jesus. Where can we find the traces of it in his history ? Do we detect them in the calm authority of his precepts ; in the mild, practical, and beneficent spirit of his religion ; in the unlabored simplicity of the language with which he unfolds his high powers, and the sublime truths of religion ; or in the good sense, the knowledge of human nature, which he always discovers in his estimate and treatment of the differ- ent classes of men with whom he acted ? Do we discover this enthusiasm in the singular fact that, whilst he claimed power in the future world, and always turned men's minds to heaven, he never indulged his own imagination, or stimu- lated that' of his disciples, by giving vivid pictures or any minute description of that unseen state ? The truth is that, remarkable as was the character of Jesus, it was distinguished by nothing piore than by calmness and self-possession. This trait pervades his other excellen- cies. How calm was his piety ! Point me, if you can, to one vehement, passion- ate expression of his religious feelings. Does the Lord's Prayer breathe a fever- ish enthusiasm ? The habitual style of Jesus on the subject of religion, if intro- duced into many churches of his follow- ers at the present day, would be charged with coldness. The calm and the rational character of his piety is particularly seen in the doctrine which he so ear- nestly inculcates, that disinterested love and self-denying service to our fellow- creatures are the most acceptable wor- ship we can offer to our Creator. His benevolence, too, though singularly earnest and deep, was composed and serene. He never lost the possession of himself in his sympathy with others ; was never hurried into the impatient and rash enterprises of an enthusiastic philanthropy ; but did good with the tranquillity and constancy which mark- the providence of God. The depth of his calmness may best be understood by considering the opposition made to his claims. His labors were everywhere insidiously watched and industriously thwarted by vindictive foes, who had even conspired to compass through his death the ruin of his cause. Now, a feverish enthusiasm, which fancies itself to be intrusted with a great work of God, is singularly liable to impatient indigna- tion under furious and malignant opposi- tion. Obstacles increase its vehemence ; it becomes more eager and hurried in the accomplishment of its purposes in proportion as they are withstood. Be it therefore remembered that the malig- nity of Christ's foes, though never sur- passed, and for the time triumphant, never robbed him of self-possession, roused no passion, and threw no vehe- mence or precipitation into his exertions. He did not disguise from himself or his followers the impression made on the mul- titude by his adversaries. He distinctly foresaw the violent death towards which he was fast approaching. Yet, confiding in God, and in the silent progress of his truth, he possessed his soul in peace. Not only was he calm, but his calm- ness rises into sublimity when we con- sider the storms which raged around him, and the vastness of the prospects in which his spirit found repose. I say, then, that serenity and self-possession were peculiarly the attributes of Jesus. I affirm that the singular and sublime character claimed by Jesus can be traced neither to imposture nor to an ungov- erned, insane imagination. It can only be accounted for by its truth, its reality. I began with observing how our long familiarity with Jesus blunts our minds to his singular excellence. We probably have often read of the character which he claimed, without a thought of its ex- traordinary nature. But I know nothing so sublime. The plans and labors or statesmen sink into the sports of. chil- dren when compared with the work which Jesus announced, and to which he de- CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 307 voted himself in life and death, with a thorough consciousness of its reality. The idea of changing the moral aspect of the whole earth, of recovering all na- tions to the pure and inward worship of one God, and to a spirit of divine and fraternal love, was one of which we meet not a trace in philosopher or legislator before him. The human mind had givec no promise of this extent of view. The conception of this enterprise, and the calm, unshaken expectation of success, in one who had no station and no wealth, who cast from him the sword with ab- horrence, and who forbade his dis- ciples to use any weapons but those of love, discover a wonderful trust in the power of God and the power of love ; and when to this we add that Jesus looked not only to the triumph of his pure faith in the present world, but to a mighty and beneficent power in heaven, we witness a vastness of pur- pose, a grandeur of thought and feeling, so original, so superior to the workings of all other minds, that nothing but our familiarity can prevent our contempla- tion of it with wonder and profound awe. I confess, when I can escape the dead- ening power of habit, and can receive the full import of such passages as the following, — " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," — "I am come to seek and to save that which was lost," — " He that confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father in heaven," — " Whosoever shall be ashamed of me before men, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy angels," — " In my Father's house are many man- sions ; I go to prepare a place for you ;" — I say, when I can succeed in realiz- ing the import of such passages, I feel myself listening to a being such as never before and never since spoke in human language. I am awed by the conscious- ness of greatness which these simple words express ; and when I connect this greatness with the proofs of Christ's miracles which I gave you in a former discourse, I am compelled to exclaim with the centurion, " Truly, this was the Son of God." I have thus, my friends, set before you one view of Jesus Christ which shows him to have been the most extraordinary being who ever lived. I invite your at- tention to another ; and I am not sure but that it is still more striking. You have seen the consciousness of greatness that Jesus possessed ; I now ask you to consider how, with this consciousness, he lived among men. To convey my meaning more distinctly, let me avail myself of an imaginary case. Suppose you had never heard the particulars of Christ's history, but were told in general that, ages ago, an extraordinary man ap- peared in the world, whose mind was wholly possessed with the idea of hav- ing come from God, who regarded him- self as clothed with divine power and charged with the sublimest work in the universe, who had the consciousness of sustaining a relation of unexampled authority and beneficence, not to one nation or age but to all nations and all times, — and who anticipated a spiritual kingdom and everlasting power beyond the grave. Suppose you should be told that, on entering the world, he found not one mind able to comprehend his views, and felt himself immeasurably exalted in thought and purpose above all around him ; and suppose you should then be asked what appearance, what mode of life, what tone, what air, what deportment, what intercourse with the multitude seemed to you to suit such a character, and were probably adopted by him ; how would you represent him to your minds .' Would you not suppose that, with this peculiar character, he adopted some peculiar mode of life, ex- pressive of his superiority to and sep- aration from all other men ? Would you not expect something distinctive in his appearance ? Would you not ex- pect him to assume some badge, and to exact some homage ? Would you not expect that, with a mind revolving such vast thoughts, and raised above the earth, he would look coldly on the ordi- nary gratifications of men ? that, with a mind spreading itself over the world, and meditating its subjection to his truth, he would take little interest in ordinary individuals ? and that possess- ing, in his own doctrine and character, a standard of sublime virtue, he would attach little importance to the low attain- ments of the ignorant and superstitious around him ? Would you not make him a public character, and expect to see him laboring to establish his ascendancy among public men ? Would you not 3o8 CHARACTER OF CHRIST. expect to see his natural affections ab- sorbed in his universal philanthropy ; and would not private attachments seem to you quite inconsistent with his vast su- periority, and the immensity of his pur- poses ? Would you not expect him' to avail himself of the best accommoda- tions the world could afford ? Would you not expect the great Teacher to se- lect the most sacred spots for his teach- ing, and the Lord of all to erect some conspicuous seat from which should go forth the laws which were .to reach the ends of the earth ? Would you not, in a word, expect this extraordinary person- age to surround himself with extraor- dinary circumstances, and to maintain a separation from the degraded multitude around him ? Such, I believe, would be the expec- tation of us all ; and what was the case with Jesus ? Read his history. He comes with the consciousness of more than human greatness to accomphsh an infinite work ; and where do you find him ? What is his look ? what his man- ner ? How does he converse, how live with men ? His appearance, mode of life, and intercourse are directly the re- verse of what we should have supposed. He comes in the ordinary dress of the class of society in which he had grown up. He retreats to no solitude, hke John, to strike awe, nor seeks any spot which had been consecrated in Jewish history. Would you find him ? Go to the house of Peter, the fisherman. Go to the well of Samaria, where he rests after the fatigues of his journey. Would you hear him teach ? You may find him, indeed, sometimes in the temple, for : that was a place of general resort ; but commonly you may find him instructing in the open air, now from a boat on the Galilean lake, now on a mount, and now in the streets of the crowded city. He has no place wherein to lay his head, nor will he have one. A rich ruler comes and falls at his feet. He says, " Go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and then come and follow me." Nor was this all. Something more striking remains to be told. He did not merely live in the streets, and in the houses of fishermen. In these places, had he pleased, he might have cleared a space around him, and raised a barrier between himself and ' others. But in these places, 3nd everywhere, he lived with men as^_a^man, a ^brother, a friend, sometirhes"a servant ", and entered, with a de^p," unexampled sympathy, into the feelings, interests, wants, sorrows of in- dividuals, of ordinary men, and even of the most depressed, despised, and for- saken of the race. Here is the most striking view of Jesus. This combina- tion of the spirit of humanity in its lowliest, tenderest form, with the con- sciousness of unrivalled and divine glor ries, is the most wonderful distinction of this wonderful character. Here we learn the chief reason why he chose poverty, and refused every peculiarity of manner and appearance. He did this because he desired to come near to the multitude of men, to make himself ac- cessible to all, to pour out the fulness of his sympathy upon all, to know and weep over their sorrows and sins, and to manifest his interest in their affections and joys. I can offer but a few instances of this sympathy of Christ with human nature in all its varieties of character and con- dition. But how beautiful are they ! At the very opening of his ministry we find him present at a marriage to which he and his disciples had been called. Among the Jews this was an occasion of peculiar exhilaration and festivity ; but Jesus did not therefore decline it. He knew what affections, joys, sorrows, and moral influences are bound up in this institution, and he went to the celebra- tion, not as an ascetic, to frown on its bright hopes and warm congratulation?, but to sanction it by his presence and to heighten its enjoyments. How little does this comport with the sohtary dig- nity which we should have pronounced most accordant with his character, and what a spirit of humanity does it breathe ! But this event stands almost alone in his history. His chief s)Tnpathy was not with them that rejoice, but with the ignorant, sinful, sorrowful ; and with these we find him cultivating an habit- ual intimacy. Though so exalted in thought and purpose, he chose unedu- cated men to be his chief disciples ; and he lived with them, not as a superior giving occasional and formal instruction, but became their companion, travelled with them on foot, slept in their dwell- ings, sat at their tables, partook their plain fare, communicated to them his truth in the simplest form ; and though CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 309 they constantly misunderstood him, and never received his full meaning, he was never wearied with teaching them. So familiar was his intercourse, that we find Peter reproving him with an affec- tionate zeal for announcing his approach- ing death, and we find John leaning on his bosom. Of his last discourse to these disciples I need not speak. It stands alone among all writings for the union of tenderness and majesty. His own sorrows are forgotten in his solici- tude to speak peace and comfort to his humble followers. The depth of his human sympathies was beautifully manifested when chil- dren were brought to him. His dis- ciples, judging as all men would judge, thought that he who was sent to wear the crown of universal empire had too great a work before him to give his time and attention to children, and reproved the parents who brought them ; but Jesus, rebuking his disciples, called to him the children. Never, I believe, did childhood awaken such deep love as at that moment. He took them in his arms and blessed them, and not only said that " of such was the kingdom of heaven," but added, '' He that receiveth a little child in my name receiveth me ; " so entirely did he identify himself with this primitive, innocent, beautiful form of human nature. There was no class of human beings so low as to be beneath his sympathy. He not merely taught the publican and sinner, but, with all his consciousness of purity, sat down and dined with them, and, when reproved by the malignant Pharisee for such companionship, an- swered by the touching parables of the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son, and said, " I am come to seek and to save that which was lost." No personal suffering dried up this fountain of love in his breast. On his way to the cross he heard some woinen of Jerusalem bewailing him, and at the Boundj forgetting his own grief, he turned to them and said, "Women of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children." On the cross, whilst his inind was divided between intense suffering and the con- templation of the infinite blessings in which his sufferings were to issue, his eye lighted on his mother and John, and the sensibilities of a son and a friend mingled with the sublime consciousness of the universal Lord and Saviour. Never before did natural affection find so tender and beautiful an utterance. To his mother he said, directing her to John, "Behold thy son; I leave my be- loved disciple to take my place, to per- form my filial ofl5ces, and to enjoy a share of that affection with which you have followed me through life ; " and to John he said, " Behold thy viotherj I bequeath to you the happiness of min- istering to my dearest earthly friend." Nor is this all. The spirit of humanity had one higher triumph. Whilst his ene- mies surrounded him with a malignity unsoftened by his last agonies, and, to give the keenest edge to insult, reminded him scoffingly of the high character and office which he had claimed, his only notice of them was the prayer, " Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." Thus Jesus lived with men ; with the consciousness of unutterable majesty he joined a lowliness, gentleness, humanity, and sympathy, which have no example in human history. I ask you to con- template this wonderful union. In pro- portion to the superiority of Jesus to all around him was the intimacy, the brotherly^ love, with which he bound himself to them. I maintain that fhfs is "3 character wholly remote from hu- man conception. To imagine it to be the production of imposture or enthu- siasm shows a strange unsoundness of mind. I contemplate it with a venera- tion second only to the profound awe with which I look up to God. It bears no mark of human invention. It was real. It belonged to and it manifested the beloved Son of God. But I have not done. May I ask your attention a few moments more .' We have not yet reached the depth of Christ's character. We have not touched the great principle on which his won- derful sympathy was founded, and which endeared to him his office of universal Saviour. Do you ask what this deep principle was ? I answer, it was his conviction of the greatness of the hu- man soul. J He saw in man the impress and image of the Divinity, and therefore thirsted for his redemption, and took the tenderest interest in him, whatever might be the rank, character, or condition in which he was found. This spiritual view 3IO IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. of man pervades and distinguishes the teaching of Christ. Jesus looked on men with an eye which pierced beneath the material frame. The body vanished before him. The trappings of the rich, the rags of the poor, were nothing to him. He looked through them, as though they did not exist, to the soul ; and there, amidst clouds of ignorance and plague-spots of sin, he recognized a spiritual and im.mortal nature, and the germs of power and perfection which might be unfolded for ever. In the most fallen and depraved man he saw a being who might become an angel of light. Still more, he felt that there was nothing in himself to which men might not ascend. His own lofty conscious- ness did not sever him from the multi- tude; for he saw in his own greatness the model of what men might become. So deeply was he thus impressed, that again and again, in speaking of his fut- ure glories, he announced that in these his true followers were to share. They were to sit on his throne and partake of his beneficent power. Here I pause, and indeed I know not what can be added to heighten the wonder, reverence, and love, which are due to Jesus. When I consider him, not only as possessed with the conscious- ness of an unexampled and unbounded majesty, but as recognizing a kindred nature in human beings, and living and d)dng to raise them to a participation of his divine glories ; and when I see him under these views allying himself to men by the tenderest ties, embracing them with a spirit of humanity which no insult, injury, or pain could for a moment repel or overpower, I am filled with wonder as well as reverence and love. I feel that this character is not of hu- man invention, that it was not assumed through fraud or struck out by enthu- siasm ; for it is infinitely above their reach. When I add this character of Jesus to the other evidences of hjs re- ligion, it gives to what before seemed so strong a new and a vast accession of strength ; I feel as if I could not be de- ceived. The Gospels must be true ; they were drawn from a living original ; they were founded on reality. The character of Jesus is not a fiction ; he was what he claimed to be, and what his followers attested. Nor is this all. Jesus not only was, he is still the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. He exists now ; he has entered that heaven to which he always looked forward on earth. There he lives and reigns. With a clear, calm faith, I see him in that state of glory ; and I confidently expect, at no distant period, to see him face to face. We have indeed no absent friend whom we shall so surely meet. Let us then, my hearers, by imitation of his virtues and obedience to his word, pre- pare ourselves to join him in those pure mansions where he is surrounding him- self with the good and pure of our race, and wiU communicate to them for ever his own spirit, power, and joy. THE IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHAR- ACTER. I Peter ii. 21 : " Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps." The example of Jesus is our topic. To incite you to follow it is the aim of this discourse. Christ came to give us a religion, — but this is not all. By a wise and beautiful ordination of Provi- dence he was sent to show' forth his re- ligion in himself. He did not come to sit in a hall of legislation, and from some commanding eminence to pronounce laws and promises. He is not a mere channel through which certain communications are made from God ; not a mere mes- senger appointed to utter the words which he had heard, and then to dis- appear, and to sustain no further con- nection with his message. He came not only to teach with his lips but to be a living manifestation of his religion, — to IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 311 be, in. an important sense, the religion itself. Tliis is a peculiarity worthy of atten- tion. Christianity is not a mere code of laws, not ah" abstract system such as theologians frame. It is a living, em- bodied religion. It comes to us in a human form ; it offers itself to our eyes as well as ears ; it breathes, it moves in our sight. It is more than precept ; it is example and action. The importance of example, who does not understand ? How much do most of us suffer from the presence, conversation, spirit of men of low minds by whom we are surrounded ! The temptation is strong to take as our standard the average character of the society in which we live, and to satisfy ourselves with decencies and attain- ments which secure to us among the multitude the name of respectable men. On the other hand, there is a power (have you not felt it ?) in the presence, conversation, and example of a man of strong principle and magnanimity, to lift us, at least for the moment, from our vulgar and tame habits of thought, and to kindle some generous aspirations after the excellence which we were made to attain. I hardly need say to you that it is impossible to place our- selves under any influence of this nat- ure so quickening as the example of Jesus. This introduces us to the high- est order of virtues. This is fitted to awaken the whole mind. Nothing has equal power to neutralize the coarse, selfish, and sensual influences amidst which we are plunged, to refine our con- ception of duty, and to reveal to us the perfection on which our hopes and most strenuous desires should habitually fasten. There is one cause which has done much to defeat this good influence of Christ's character and example, and which ought to be exposed. It is this. IMultitudes — I am afraid great multi- tudes — think of Jesus as a being to be admired rather than approached. They have some vague conceptions of a glory i:i his nature and character which makes it presumption to think of proposing him as their standard. He is thrown so far from them that he does them little good. Many feel that a close re- semblance of Jesus Christ is not to be expected ; that this, like many other topics, may serve for declamation in the pulpit, but is utterly incapable of being reduced to practice. 1 think I am touching here an error which exerts a blighting influence on not a few minds. Until men think of the religion and character of Christ as truly applicable to them, as intended to be brought into continual operation, as what they must incorporate with their whole spiritual nature, they will derive little good from Christ. Men think, indeed, to honor Jesus when they place him so high as to discourage all effort to approach him. They really degrade him. They do not understand his character ; they throw a glare over it which hides its true features. This vague admiration is the poorest tribute which they can pay him. The manner in which Jesus Christ is conceived and spoken of by many re- minds me of what is often seen in Catholic countries, where a supersti- tious priesthood and people imagine that they honor the Virgin Mary by loading her image with sparkling jewels and the gaudiest attire. A Protestant of an un- corrupted taste is at first shocked, as if there was something like profanation in thus decking out, as for a theatre, the meek, modest, gentle, pure, and tender mother of Jesus. It seems to me that something of the same super- stition is seen in the indefinite epithets of admiration heaped upon Jesus ; and the effect is that the mild and simple beauty of his character is not seen. Its sublimity, which had nothing gaudy or dazzling, which was plain and un- affected, is not felt ; and its suitable- ness as an example to mankind is dis- credited or denied. I wish, in this discourse, to prevent the discouraging influence of the great- ness of Jesus Christ ; to show that, however exalted, he is not placed be- yond the reach of our sympathy and imitation. I begin with the general observation that real greatness of character, great- ness of the highest order, far from being repulsive and discouraging, is singularly accessible and imitable, and, instead of severing a being from others, fits him to be their friend and model. A man who stands apart from his race, who has few points of contact with other men, who has a style and manner 312 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. which strike awe and keep others far from him, whatever rank he may hold in his own and others' eyes, wants, after all, true grandeur of mind ; and the spirit of this remark I think may be extended beyond men to higher orders of beings, to angels and to Jesus Christ. A great soul is known by its enlarged, strong, and tender sympathies. True elevation of mind does not take a being out of the circle of those who are below him, but binds him faster to them, and gives them advantages for a closer attachment and conformity to him. Greatness of character is a com- municable attribute, — I should say, singularly communicable. It has noth- ing exclusive in its nature. It cannot be the monopoly of an individual, for it is the enlarged and generous action of faculties and affections which enter into and constitute all minds, — I mean reason, conscience, and love, — so that its elements exist in all. It is not a peculiar or exclusive knowledge, which can be shut up in one or a few under- standings, but the comprehension of great and universal truths, which are the proper objects of every rational being. It is not a devotion to pecuhar, exclusive objects, but the adoption of public interests, the consecration of the mind to the cause of virtue and happi- ness in the creation, that is, to the very cause which all intelligent beings are bound to espouse. Greatness is not a secret, soUtary principle, working by itself and refusing participation, but frank and open-hearted, — so large in its views, so liberal in its feelings, so expansive in its purposes, so beneficent in its labors, as naturally and neces- sarily to attract sympathy and co-oper- ation. It is selfishness that repels men ; and true greatness has not a stronger characteristic than its freedom from, every selfish taint. So far from being imprisoned in private interests, it covets nothing which it may not impart. So far from being absorbed in its own dis- tinctions, it discerns nothing so quickly and joyfully as the capacities and pledges of ■ greatness in others, and counts no labor so noble as to call forth noble sen- timents, and the consciousness of a di- vine power, in less improved minds. I know that those who call themselves great on earth are apt to estrange them- selves from their inferiors ; and the mul- titude, cast down by their high bearing, never think of proposing them as ex- amples. But this springs wholly from the low conceptions of those whom we call the great, and shows a mixture of vulgarity of mind with their superior en- dowments. Genuine greatness is marked by simplicity, unostentatiousness, self- forgetfulness, a hearty interest in others, a feeling of brotherhood with the human fam%, and a respect for every inlellec- tual and immortal being as capable of progress towards its own elevation. A superior mind, enlightened and kindled by just views of God and of the creation, regards its gifts and powers as so many bonds of union with other beings, as given it not to nourish self-elation, but to be employed for others, and still more to be communicated to others. Such greatness has no reserve, and especially no affected dignity of deportment. It is too conscious of its own power to need, and too benevolent to desire, to entrench itself behind forms and ceremonies ; and when circumstances permit such a char- acter to manifest itself to inferior beings, it is beyond all others the most winning, and most fitted to impart itself, or to call forth a kindred elevation of feeling. I know not in history an individual so easily comprehended as Jesus Christ, for nothing is so intelligible as sincere, disinterested love. I know not any be- ing who is so fitted to take hold on all orders of minds ; and accordingly he drew after him the unenlightened, the publican, and the sinner. It is a sad mistake, then, that Jesus Christ is too great to allow us to think of intimacy with him, and to think of making him our standard. Let me confirm this truth by another order of reflections. You tell me, my hearers, that Jesus Christ is so high that he cannot be your model; I grant the exaltation of his character. I Jjelieve him to be a more than human being. In truth, all Christians so believe him. Those who suppose him not to have ex- isted before his birth do not regard him as a mere man, though so reproached. They always separate him by broad dis- tinctions from other men. They con- sider him as enjoying a communion with God, and as having received gifts, en- dowments, aid, lights from him, granted to no other, and as having exhibited a IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 313 spotless purity, which is the highest dis- tinction of heaven. All admit, and joy- fully admit, that Jesus Christ, by his greatness and goodness, throws all other human attainments into obscurity. But on this account he is not less a standard, nor is he to discourage us, but, on the contrary, to breathe into us a more ex- hilarating hope ; for though so far above us he is still one of us, and is only an illustration of the capacities which we all possess. This is a great truth. Let me strive to unfold it. Perhaps I can- not better express my views than by saying that 1 regard all minds as of one family. When we speak of higher or- ders of beings, of angels and archangels, we are apt to conceive of distinct kinds or races of beings, separated from us and from each other by impassable bar- riers. But it is not so. All minds are of one family. There is" no such par- fitiSh in tFe spiritual world as you see in tEe material. In material nature you see wholly distinct classes of beings. A mineral is not a vegetable, and makes no approach to it ; these two great king- doms of nature are divided by immeas- urable spaces. So, when we look at different races of animals, though all partake of that mysterious property, life, yet what an immense and impassable dis- tance is there between the insect and the lion. They have no bond of union, no possibiUty of communication. Dur- ing the lapse of ages, the animalcules which sport in the sunbeams a summer's day and then perish have made no ap- proximation to the king of the forests. But in the intellectual world there are no such barriers. All minds are essen- tially of' one origin, one nature, kindled from one divine fiame, and are all tend- ing to one centre, one happiness. This great truth, to us the greatest of truths, which lies at the foundation of all relig- ion and all hope, seems to me not only sustained by proofs which satisfy the reason, but to be one of the deep in- stincts of our nature. It mingles, un- perceived, with all our worship of God, whi^h uniformly takes for granted that He is a Mind having thought, affection, and vohtion like ourselves. It runs through false religions ; and whilst, by its perversion, it has made them false it has also given to them whatever purify- ing power they possess. But passing over this instinct, which is felt more and more to be unerring as the intellect is improved, this great truth of the unity or likeness of all minds seems to me demonstrable from this consideration, that truth, the object and nutriment of mind, is one and immutable, so that the whole family of intelligent beings must have the same views, the same motives, and the same general ends. For ex- ample, a truth of mathematics is not a truth only in this world, a truth to our minds, but a truth everywhere, — a truth in heaven, a truth to God, who .has in- deed framed his creation according to the laws of this universal science. So, happiness and misery, which lie at the foundation of morals, must be to all in- telligent beings what they are to us, the objects, one of desire and hope and the other of aversion ; and who can doubt that virtue and vice are the same every- where as on earth, that in every com- munity of beings the mind which de- votes itself to the general weal must be more reverenced than a mind which would subordinate the general interest to its own ? Thus all souls are one in nature, approach one another, and have grounds and bonds of communion with one another. I am not only one of the human race ; I am one of the great in- tellectual family of God. There is no spirit so exalted with which I have not common thoughts and feelings. That conception which I have gained of One Universal Father, whose love is the fountain and centre of all things, is the dawn of the highest and most magnifi- cent views in the universe ; and if 1 look up to this Being with filial love, I have the spring and beginning'of the noblest sentiments and joys which are known in the universe. No greatness, there- fore, of a being separates me from him or makes him unapproachable by me. The mind of Jesus Christ, my hearer, and yotir mind are of one family ; nor was there any thing in his of which you have not the principle, the ca- pacity, the promise in yourself. This is the very impression which he in- tends to give. He never held himself up as an inimitable and unapproachable being ; but directly the reverse. He al- ways spoke of himself as having come to communicate himself to others. He always invited men to believe on and adhere to him, that they might receive that very spirit, that pure, celestial spirit, 314 IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. by which he was himself actuated. " Fol- low me," is his lesson. The relation which he came to establish between himself and mankind was not that of master and slave, but that of friends. He compares himself, in a spirit of di- vine benevolence, to a vine, which, you know, sends its own sap, that by which it is itself nourished, into all its branches. We read, too, these remarkable words in his prayer for his disciples, " I have given to them the glory thou gavest me ; " and I am persuaded that there is not a glory, a virtue, a power, a joy, possessed by Jesus Christ, to which his disciples will not successively rise. In the spirit of these remarks, the Apostles say, '■ Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ." I have said that all minds being of one family, the greatness of the mind of Christ is no discouragement to our adop- tion of him as our model. I now ob- serve that there is one attribute of mind to which I have alluded, that should particularly animate us to propose to ourselves a sublime standard, as sublime as Jesus Christ, yl refer to the principle of growth in human nature. We were made to grow. Our faculties are germs, and given for an expansion to which nothing authorizes us to set bounds^ The soul bears the impress of illimit- ableness in the thirst, the unquench- able thirst, which it brings with it into being, for a power, knowledge, happi- ness, which it never gains, and which always carry it forward into futurity. The body soon reaches its limit. But intellect, affection, moral energy, in pro- portion to their growth, tend to further enlargement, and every acquisition is an impulse to something higher. When I consider this principle or capacity of the human soul, I cannot restrain the hope which it awakens. The partition- walls which imagination has reared be- tween men and higher orders of beings vanish. / 1 no longer see aught to pre- vent our becoming whatever was good and great in Jesus on earth.y In truth, I feel my utter inability to conceive what a mind is to attain which is to advance for ever. Add but that element, eter- nity, to man's progress, and the results of his existence surpass not only human but angelic thought. Give me this,^ and the future glory of the human mind be- comes to me as.incomprehensible as God himself. /To encourage these thoughts and hopefs, our Creator has set before us delightful exemplifications, even now, of this principle of growth both in outward nature and in the human mind. We meet them in nature. Suppose you were to carry a man, wholly unacquainted with vegetation, to the most majestic tree in our forests, and, whilst he was admiring its extent and proportions, suppose you should take from the earth at its root a little downy substance, which a breath might blow away, and say to him, That tree was once such a seed as this ; it was wrapped up here ; it once lived only within these delicate fibres, this narrow compass. With what incredulous wonder would he regard you ! And if by an effort of imagination somewhat oriental, we should suppose this httle seed to be suddenly endued with thought, and to be told that it was one day to become this mighty tree, and to cast out branches which would spread an equal shade, and wave with equal grace, and withstand the win- ter winds ; with what amazement may we suppose it to anticipate its future lot ! Such growth we witness in nature. A nobler hope we Christians are to cher- ish ; and still more striking examples of the growth of mind are set before us in human history. /We wonder, indeed, when we are told that one day we shall be as the angels of God. I apprehend that as great a wonder has been realized al- ready on the earth. I apprehend that the distance between the mind of Newton and of a Hottentot may have been as great as between Newton and an angel. There is another view still more striking. This Newton, who lifted his calm, sub- lime eye to the heavens, and read among the planets and the stars the great law of the material universe, was, forty or fifty years before, an infant, without one clear perception, and unable to distin- guish his nurse's arm from the pillow on which he slept. Howard, too, who, under the strength of an all-sacrificing benevolence, explored the depths of hu- man suffering, was, forty or fifty years before, an infant wholly absorbed in himself, grasping at all he saw, and almost breaking his little heart with fits of passion when the idlest toy was with- held. Has not man already traversed as wide a space "as separates him from angels ? And why must he stop ? There is no extravagance in the boldest antici- IMITABLENESS OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER. 315 pation. We may truly become one with Christ, a partaker of that celestial mind. He is truly our brother, one of our fam- ily. Let us make him our constant model. I know not that the doctrine now laid down is liable but to one abuse. It may unduly excite susceptible minds, and impel to a vehemence of hope and exer- tion unfavorable in the end to the very progress which is proposed. To such 1 would say, Hasten to conform yourselves to Christ, but hasten according to the laws of your nature. As the body can- not, by the concentration of its whole strength into one bound, scale the height of a mountain, neither can the mind free every obstacle and achieve perfection by an agony of the will. Great effort is indeed necessary ; but such as can be sustained, such as fits us for greater, such as will accumulate, not exhaust, our spiritual force. The soul may be overstrained as truly as the body, and it often is so in seasons of extraordinary rehgious excitement ; and the conse- quence is an injury to the constitution of the intellect and the heart which a life may not be able to repair. 1 rest the hopes for human nature which 1 have now expressed on its principle of growth ; and growth, as you well know, is a gradual process, not a convulsive start, accomplishing the work of years in a moment. All great attainments are gradual. As easily might a science be mastered by one struggle of thought as sin be conquered by a spasm of remorse. Continuous, patient effort, guided by wise deliberation, is the true means of spiritual progress. In religion, as in common hfe, mere force of vehemence will prove a fallacious substitute for the sobriety of wisdom. The doctrine which I have chiefly labored to maintain in this discourse, that minds are all of one family, are all brejhrea, and may be more and more nearly united to God, seems to me to have been felt peculiarly by Jesus Christ ; and if I were to point out the distinction of his greatness, I should say it lay in this. He felt his superiority, but he never felt as if it separated him from mankind. He did not come among us as some great men would visit a col- liery, or any other resort of the ignorant and corrupt, with an air of greatness, feeling himself above us, and giving ben- efits as if it were an infinite condescen- sion. He came and mingled with us as a, friend and a brother. He saw in every human being a mind which might wear his own brightest glory. He was severe only towards one class of men, and they were those who looked down on the multitude with contempt. Jesus re- spected human nature ; he felt it to be his own. This was the greatness of Jesus Christ. He felt, as no other felt, a union of mind with the human race, felt that all had a spark of that same intellectual and immortal flame which dwelt in himself. I insist on this view of his character, not only to encourage us to aspire after a likeness to Jesus ; I consider it as pe- culiarly fitted to call forth love towards him. If I regard Jesus as an august stranger, belonging to an entirely differ- ent class of existence from myself, hav- ing no common thoughts or feelings with me, and looking down upon rai with only such a sympathy as I have wiih an inferior animal, I should regard him with a vague awe ; but the immeasurable space between us would place him be- yond friendship and affection. But when I feel that all minds form one family, that I have the same nature with Jesus, and that he came to com- municate to me, by his teaching, ex- araplCj and intercession, his own mind, to bring me into communion with what was subUmest, purest, happiest in him- self, then I can love him as I love no other being, excepting only him who is the Father alike of Christ and of the Christian. With these views, I feel that, though ascended to heaven, he is not gone beyond the reach of our hearts ; that he has now the same interest in mankind as when he entered their dwelh ings, sat at their tables, washed theii feet ; and that there is no being so ap^ proachable, none with whom such unre- served intercourse is to be enjoyed in the future world. BeUeving, as I do, that I have now used no inflated language, but have spoken the words of truth and sober- ness, I exhort you with calmness, but earnestness, to choose and adopt Jesus Christ as your example with the whole energy of your wills. 1 exhort you to resolve on following him, not, as per- haps you have done, with a faint and yielding purpose, but with the full con- 3i6 LOVE TO CHRIST. viction that ycur whole happiness is concentrated in tlie force and constancy of your adherence to this celestial guide. My friends, there is no other happiness. Let not the false views of Christianity which prevail in the world seduce you into the belief that Christ can bless you in any other way than by assimilating you to his own virtue, than by breathing into you his own mind. Do not imagine that any faith or love towards Jesus can avail you but that which quickens you to conform yourselves to his spotless purity and unconquerable rectitude. Settle it as an immovable truth, that neither in this world nor in the next can you be happy but in proportion to the sanctity and elevation of your characters. Let no man imagine that through the patron- age or protection of Jesus Christ, or any other being, he can find peace or any sincere good but in the growth of an enlightened, firm, disinterested, holy mind. Expect no good from Jesus any farther than you clothe yourselves with excellence. He can impart to you noth- ing so precious as himself, as his own mind ; and believe me, my hearers, this mind may dwell in you. His sublimest virtues may be yours. Admit, welcome this great truth. Look up to the illus- trious Son of God with the conviction that you may become one with him in thought, in feeling, in power, in holiness. His character will become a blessing just as far as it shall awaken in you this consciousness, this hope. The most lamentable scepticism on earth, and in- comparably the most common, 's a seep ticism as to the greatness, powers, and high destinies of human nature. In this greatness I desire to cherish an unwav- ering faith. Tell me not of the universal corruption of the race. Humanity has already, in not a few instances, borne conspicuously the likeness of Christ and God. The sun grows dim, the grandeur of outward nature shrinks, when com- pared with the spiritual energy of men who, in the cause of truth, of God, of charity, have spurned all bribes of ease, pleasure, renown, and have withstood shame, want, persecution, torture, and the most dreaded forms of death. In such men I learn that the soul was made in God's image, and made to conform itself to the loveliness and greatness of his Son. My friends, we may all approach Jesus Christ. For all of us he died, to leave us an example that we should follow his steps. By earnest purpose, by self- conflict, by watching and prayer, by faith in the Christian promises, by those heavenly aids and illuminations which he that seeketh shall find, we may all unite ourselves in living bonds to Christ, — rhay love as he loved, may act from his principles, may suffer with his con- stancy, may enter into his purposes, may sympathize with his self-devotion to the cause of God and mankind, and, by likeness of spirit, may prepare our- selves to meet him as our everlasting friend". LOVE TO CHRIST. FIRST DISCOURSE. Ephbsians vi. 24 : " Grape be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." I PROPOSE in this discourse to speak of Love to Christ, and especially of the foundations on which it rests. I will not detain you by remarks on the impor- tance of the subject. I trust that you feel it, and that no urgency is needed to secure your serious attention. Love to Christ is said, and said with proprietyj to be a duty, not of natural, buj of revealed religion. Other pre- cepts of Christianity are dictates of nat- ure as well as of revelation. They result from the original and permanent relations which we bear to our Creator and our fellow-^creatures ; and are writ- ten by God on the mind as well as in the Bible. For example, gratitude towards the Author of our being, and justice and benevolence towards men, are inculcated with more or less distinctness by our LOVE TO CHRIST. 317 moral faculties ; they are parts of the inward law which belongs to a rational mind ; and accordingly, wherever men are found, you find some conviction of these duties, some sense of their obU- gation to a higher power and to one another.. But the same is not true of the duty of love to Jesus Christ ; for as the knowledge of him is not communi- cated by nature, -^ as his name is not written, like that of God, on the heavens and earth, but is confined to countries where his gospel is preached, ^ it is plain that no sense of obligation to him can be felt beyond these bounds. No regard is due or can be paid to him be- yond these. It is commonly said, there- fore, that love to Christ is a duty of revealed, not natural religion, and this language is correct ; but let it not mis- lead us. Let us not imagine that attach- ment to Jesus is an arbitrary duty, that it is unlike our other duties, that it is separate from common virtue, or that it is not founded, like all virtues, in our constitution, or not recognized and en- forced by natural conscience. We say that nature does not enjoin this regard to the Saviour, simply because, it does not make him known ; but, as soon as he is made known, nature enjoins love and veneration towards him as truly as towards God or towards excellent men. Reason and conscience teach us to regard him with a strong and tender interest. Love to him is not an arbitrary precept. It is not unlike our other affections ; it requires for its culture no peculiar influ- ences from heaven ; it stands on the samQ ground with all our duties ; it is to be strengthened by the same means. It is essentially the same sentiment, feel- ing, or principle, which we put forth towards other excellent beings, whether in heaven or on earth. I make these remarks, because I ap- prehend that the duty of loving Jesus Christ has been so urged as to seem to many particularly mysterious and ob- scure ; and the consequence has been that by some it has been neglected as unnatural, unreasonable, and uncon- nected with common, life ; whilst others, in seeking to cherish it, have rushed into wild, extravagant, and feverish emo- tions. I would rescue, if I can, this duty from neglect on the one hand, and from abuse on the other ; and to do this, nothing is necessary but to show the true ground and nature of love to Christ. You will then see not only that it is an exalted and generous sentiment, but that it blends with, and gives support to, all the virtuous principles of the mind, and to all the duties, even the most common, of active life. There is another great good which may result from a just explanation of the love due to Christ. You will see that this sentiment has no dependence, at least no necessary dependence, on the opinions we may form about his place, or rank, in the universe. This topic has convulsed the church for ages. Chris- tians have cast away the spirit, in settling the precise dignity, of their Master. That this question is unimportant, I do not say. That some views are more favorable to love towards him than others, I believe ; but I maintain that all opinions, adopted by different sects, include the foundation on which venera- tion and attachment are due to our com- mon Lord. This truth — for I hold it to be a plain truths is so fitted to heal the wounds and allay the uncharitable fer- vors of Christ's divided church, that I shall rejoice if I can set it forth to others as clearly as it rises to my own mind. To accomplish the ends now ex- pressed, I am led to propose to you one great but simple question. What is it that constitutes Christ's claim to love and respect ? What is it that is to be loved in Christ ? Why are we to hold him dear? I answer. There is but one ground for virtuous affection in the uni- verse, but one object worthy of cherished and enduring love in heaven or on earth, and that is moral goodness. I make no exceptions. My principle applies to all beings, to the Creator as well as to his creatures. The claim of God to the love of his rational offspring rests on the rectitude and benevolence of his will. It is the moral beauty and gran- deur of his character to which alone we are bound to pay homage. The only power which can and ought to be loved is a beneficent and righteous power. The creation is glorious, and binds us to supreme and everlasting love to God, ' only because it sprung from and shows forth this energy of goodness ; nor has any beitig a claim on love any farther than this same energy dwells in him, and is manifested in him. I know no exception to this principle. I can con- 318 LOVE TO CHRIST. ceive of no being who can have any claim to affection but what rests on his character, meaning by this the spirit and principles which constitute his mind, and from which he acts ; nor do I know but one character which entitles a being to our hearts, and it is that which the Scriptures express by the word right- eousness ; which in man is often called virtue, — in God, holiness; which con- sists essentially in supreme reverence for and adoption of what is right ; and of which benevolence, or universal char- ity, is the brightest manifestation. After these remarks, you will easily understand what I esteem the ground of love to Christ. It is his spotless purity, his moral perfection, his unrivalled good- ness. It is the spirit of his religion, which is the spirit of God, dwelHng in him without measure. Of consequence, to love Christ is to love the perfection of virtue, of righteousness, of benevo- lence ; and the great excellence of this love is that, by cherishing it, we imbibe, we strengthen in our own souls, the most illustrious virtue, and through Jesus become like to God. From the view now given, you see that love to Jesus Christ is a perfectly natural sentiment, — I mean, one which our natural sense of right enjoins and approves, and which our minds are con- stituted to feel and to cherish, as truly as any affection to the good whom we know on earth. It js not a theological, mysterious feeling, which some super- natural and inexplicable agency must generate within us. It has its founda- tion or root in the very frame of our minds, in that sense of right by which we are enabled to discern, and bound to love, perfection. I observe next that, according to this view, it is, as I have said, an exalted and generous affec- tion ; for it brings us into communion and contact with the sublimest character ever revealed among men. It includes and nourishes great thoughts and high aspirations, and gives us here on earth the benefit of intercourse with celestial beings. Do you not also see that the love of Christ, according to the view now given of it,- has no dependence on any par- ticular views which are formed of his nature by different sects ? According , to all sects, is he not perfect, spotless in virtue, the representative and re- splendent image of the moral goodness and rectitude of God ? However con- tending sects may be divided as to other points, they all agree in the moral per- fection of his character. All recognize his most glorious peculiarity, his sub- lime and unsullied goodness. All there- fore see in him that which alone deserves love and veneration. I am aware that other views are not uncommon. It is said that a true love to Christ requires just opinions concern- ing him, and that they who form different opinions of him, however they may use the same name, do not love the same being. We must know him, it is said, in order to esteem him as we ought. Be it so. To love Christ we must know him. But what must we know respect- ing him ? Must we know his counte- nance and form, must we know the man- ner in which he existed before his birth, or the manner in which he now exists ? Must we know his precise rank in the uni- verse, his precise power and influence ? On ail these point.s, indeed, just views would be gratifying and auxiliary to vir- tue. But love to Christ may exist and grow strong without them. What we need to this end is the knowledge of his mind, his virtues, his principles of action. No matter how profoundly we speculate about Christ, or how profusely we heap upon him epithets of praise and admira- tion ; if we do not understand the dis- tinguishing virtues of his character, and see and feel their grandeur, we are as ignorant of him as if we had never heard his name, nor can we offer him an ac- ceptable love. I desire indeed to know Christ's rank in the universe ; but rank is nothing except as it proves and mani- fests superior virtue. High station only degrades a being who fills it unworthily. It is the mind which gives dignity to the office, not the office to the mind. All glory is of the soul. Accordingly we know little or nothing of another until we look into his soul. I cannot be said to know a being of a singularly great character because I have learned from what region he came, to what family he belongs, or what rank he sus- tains. I can only know him as far as I discern the greatness of his spirit, the unconquerable strength of his benevo- lence, his loyalty to God and duty, his power to act and suffer in a good and righteous cause, and his intimate com- LOVE TO CHRIST. 319 inunion with God. Who knows Christ best ? I answer, It is he who, in read- ing his history, sees and feels most dis- tinctly and deeply the perfection by which he was distinguished. Who knows Jesus best ? It is he who, not resting in feneral and almost unmeaning praises, ecomes acquainted with what was pe- culiar, characteristic, and individual in his mind, and who has thus framed to himself, not a dim image called Jesus, •but a living being, with distinct and glorious features, and with all the reality of a well-known friend. Who best knows Jesus ? I answer. It is he who deliber- ately feels and knows that his character is of a higher order than all other char- acters which have appeared on earth, and who thirsts to commune with and resemble it. I hope I am plain. When I hear, as I do, men disputing about Jesus, and imagining that they know him by settling some theory as to his generation in time or eternity, or as to his rank in the scale of being, I feel that their knowledge of him is about as great as I should have of some saint or hero by studying his genealogy. These controversies have built up a technical theology, but give no insight into the mind and heart of Jesus ; and without this the true knowledge of him cannot be enjoyed. And here I would observe, not in the spirit of reproach, but from a desire to do good, that I know not a more effectual method of hiding Jesus from us, of keeping us strangers to him, than the inculcation of the doctrine which makes him the same being with his Father, — makes him God himself. This doctrine throws over him a misti- ness. For myself, when I attempt to bring it home, I have not a real being before me, not a soul which I can under- stand and sympathize with, but a vague, shifting image, which gives nothing of the stability of knowledge. A being, consisting of two natures, two souls, one divine and another human, one finite and another infinite, is made up of quali- ties which destroy one another, and leave nothing for distinct apprehension. This compound of different minds and of con- tradictory attributes, I cannot, if I would, regard as one conscious person, one in- telligent agent. It strikes me almost irresistibly as a fiction. On the other hand, Jesus, contemplated as he is set before us in the gospel, as one mind, one heart, answering to my own in all its essential powers and affections, but purified, enlarged, exalted, so as to con- stitute him the unsullied image of God and a perfect model, is a being who bears the marks of reality, whom I can understand, whom I can receive into my heart as the best of friends, with whom I can become intimate, and whose so- ciety I can and do anticipate among the chief blessings of my future being. My friends, I have now stated, in general, what knowledge of Christ is most important, and is alone required in order to a true attachment to him. Let me still farther illustrate my views by descending to one or two particulars. Among the various excellences of Jesus, he was distinguished by a benevolence so deep, so invincible, that injury and outrage had no power over it. His kindness towards men was in no degree diminished by their wrong-doing. The only intercession which he offered in his sufferings was for those who at that very moment were wreaking on him their vengeance ; and what is more remark- able, he not only prayed for them, but, with an unexampled generosity and can- dor, urged in their behalf the only ex- tenuation which their conduct would admit. Now, to know Jesus Christ is to understand this attribute of his mind, to understand the strength and triumph of the benevolent principle in this se- verest trial, to understand the energy with which he then held fast the virtue which he had enjoined. It is to see in the mind of Jesus at that moment a moral grandeur which raised him above all around him. This is to know him. I will suppose now a man to have studied all the controversies about Christ's nat- ure, and to have arrived at the truest notions of his rank in the universe. But this incident in Christ's history, this discovery of his character, has never impressed him ; the glory of a philan- thropy which embraces one's enemies has never dawned upon him. With all his right opinions about the Unity or the Trinity, he lives and acts towards others very much as if Jesus had never lived or died. Now I say that such a man does not know Christ. I say that he is a stranger to him. I say that the great_ truth is hidden from him ; that his skill in religious controversy is of little more use to him than would be the 320 LOVE TO CHRIST. learning by rote of a language which he does not understand. He knows the name of Christ, but the excellence which that name imports, and which gives it its chief worth, is to him as an unknown tongue. I have referred to one view of Christ's character. I might go through his whole life. I will only observe that, in the New Testament, the crucifixion of Jesus is always set forth as the most illustrious portion of his history. The spirit of self-sacrifice, of deliberate self- immolation, of calm, patient endurance of the death of the cross, in the cause of truth, piety, virtue, human happiness, — this particular manifestation of love is always urged upon us in the New Tes- tament as the crowning glory of Jesus Christ. To' understand this part of his character ; to understand him when he gave himself up to the shame and anguish of crucifixion ; to understand that sym- pathy with human misery, that love of human nature, that thirst for the recov- ery of the human soul, that zeal for human virtue, that energy of moral principle, that devotion to God's pur- poses, through which the severest suf- fering was chosen and borne, and into which no suffering, or scorn, or deser- tion, or ingratitude, could infuse the least degree of selfishness, unkindness, doubt, or infirmity, — to understand this, is to understand Jesus ; and he who wants sensibility to this, be his spec- ulations what they may, has every thing to learn respecting the Saviour. You will see, from the views now given, that I consider love to Christ as requiring nothing so much as that we fix our thoughts on the excellence_ of his. character, study it, penetrate our minds with what was peculiar in it, and cherish profound veneration for it ; and consequently I fear that attachment to him has been diminished by the habit of regarding other things in Christ as more important than his lovely and sub- lime virtues. Christians have been prone to fix on something mysterious in his nature, or else on the dignity of his offices, as his chief claim ; and in this way his supreme glory has been obscured. His nature and offices I, of course, would not dis- parage ; but let them not be exalted above his moral worth. I maintain that this gives to his nature and offices all their claims to love and veneration, and that we understand them only as far as we see this to pervade them. This principle I would uphold against Chris- tians of very different modes of faith. First, there are Christians who main^ tain that Jesus Christ is to be loved as the Son of God, understanding by this title some mysterious connection and identity with the Father. Far be it from me to deny that the Divine Sonship of Jesus constitutes his true claim on our affection ; but I do deny that the mysterious properties of this relation form any part of this claim ; for it is very clear that love to a being must rest on what we know of him, and not on un- known and unintelligible attributes. In saying that the Divine Sonship of Jesus is the great foundation of attachment to him, 1 say nothing inconsistent with the doctrine of this discourse, that the moral excellence of Jesus is the great object and ground of the love which is due to him. Indeed, 1 only repeat the prin- ciple that he is to be loved exclusively for the virtues of his character ; for what, I ask, is the great idea involved in his filial relation to God ? To be the Son of God, in the chief and highest sense of that term, is to bear the hke- ness, to possess the spirit, to be partaker of the moral perfections of God. This is the essential idea. To be God's Son is to be united with him by consent and accordance of mind. Jesus was the only begotten Son, because he was the per- fect image and representative of God, especially of divine philanthropy ; be- cause he espoused as his own the be- nevolent purposes of God towards the human race, and yielded himseU to their accomplishment with an entire self-sac- rifice. To know Jesus as the Son of God is not to understand what theo- logians have written about his eternal generation, or about a mystical, incom- prehensible union between Christ and his Father. It is something far higher and more instructive. It_is to see in Christ, if I may say so, the lineaments of the Universal Father. It is to discern in him a godlike purity and goodness. It is to understand his harmony with the Divine Mind, and the entireness and singleness of love witli which he devoted himself to the purposes of God, and the interests of the human race. Of con- ' sequence, to love Jesus as the Son of God LOVE TO CHRIST. 321 is to love the spotless purity and godlike charity of his soul. There are other Christians who differ widely from those of whom I have now spoken, but who conceive that Christ's offices, inspiration, miracles, are his chief claims to veneration, and who, I fear, in extolling these, have overlooked what is incomparably more glorious, — the moral dignity of his mind, the purity and inexhaustibleness of his benev- olence, It is possible that to many who hear me, Christ seems to have been more exalted when he received from his Father supernatural light and truth, or when with superhuman energy he quelled the storm and raised the dead, than when he wept over the city which was in a few days to doom him to the most shameful and agonizing death ; and yet his chief glory consisted in the spirit through which these tears were shed. Christians have yet to learn that inspi- ration, and miracles, and outward dig- nities are nothing compared with the soul. We all need to understand better than we have done that noble passage of Paul, " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and under- stand all mysteries, and have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity [disinterestedness, love], I am nothing ; " and this is as true of Christ as of Paul. Indeed it is true of all beings, and yet, I fear, it is not felt as it should be by the multitude of Christians. You tell me, my friends, that Christ's unparalleled inspiration, his perpetual re- ception of light from God, that this was his supreme distinction ; and a great distinction undoubtedly it was : but I affirni that Christ's inspiration, though conferred on him without measure, gives him no claim to veneration or love, any farther than it found within him a virtue which accorded with, welconied, "and adopted it, any farther than his own heart responded to the truths he re- ceived; any farther than be sympathized with, and espoused as his own, the be- nevolent purposes of God, which he was sent to announce ; any farther than the spirit of the religion which he preached was his own spirit, and was breathed from his life as well as from his lips. In other words, his inspiration was made glorious through his virtues. Mere in- spiration seems to me a very secondary thing. Suppose the greatest truths in the universe to be revealed supernatu- rally to a being who should take no inter- est in them, who should not see and feel their greatness, but should repeat them mechanically, as they were put into his mouth by the Deity. Such a man would be inspired, and would teach the great- est verities, and yet he would be nothing, and would have no claim to reverence. The excellence of Jesus did not con- ' sist in his mere inspiration, but in the virtue and love which prepared him to receive it, and by which it was made effectual to the world. He did not pas- sively hear, and mechanically repeat, certain doctrines from God, but his whole soul accorded with what he heard. Every truth which he uttered came warm and living from his own mind ; and it was this pouring of his own soul into his instructions which gave them much of their power. Whence came the authority and energy, the con- scious dignity, the tenderness and sym- pathy, with which Jesus taught ? They came not from inspiration, but from the mind of him who was inspired. His personal virtues gave power to his teachings ; and without these no inspi- ration could have made him the source of such light and strength as he now communicates to mankind. My friends, I have aimed to show in this discourse that virtue, purity, recti- tude of Jesus Christ is his most honora- ble distinction, and constitutes his great claim to veneration and love. I can, direct you to nothing in Christ more important than his tried, and victorious, and perfect goodness. Others may love Christ for mysterious attributes ; I love him for the rectitude of his soul and his life. I love him for that benevolence which went through Judea, instructing the ignorant, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind. I love him for that universal charity which comprehended the despised publican, the hated Samar- itan, the benighted heathen, and sought to bring a world to God and to happi- ness. I love him for that gentle, mild, forbearing spirit, which no insult, out- rage, injury, could overpower ; and which desired as earnestly the repent- ance and happiness of its foes as the happiness of its friends. I love him for the spirit of magnanimity, constancy, and fearless rectitude with which, amidst 322 LOVE TO CHRIST. peril and opposition, he devoted himself to the work which God gave him to do. I love him for the wise and enlightened zeal with which he espoused the true, the spiritual interests of mankind, and through which he lived and died to re- deem them from every sin, to frame them after his own godlike virtue. I love him, I have said, for his moral ex- cellence ; I know nothing else to love. I know nothing so glorious in the Crea- tor or his creatures. This is the great- est gift which God bestows, the greatest to be derived from his Son. You see why I call you to cherish the love of Christ. This love I do not rec- ommend as a luxury of feeling, as an ecstasy bringing immediate and over- flowing joy. I view it in a nobler light. I call you to love Jesus, that you may bring yourselves into contact and com- munion with perfect virtue, and may become what you love. I know no sin- cere, enduring good but the moral ex- cellence which shines forth in Jesus Christ. Your wealth, your outward com- forts and distinctions, are poor, mean, contemptible, compared with this ; and to prefer them to this is self-debase- ment, self-destruction. May this great truth penetrate our souls ; and may we bear witness in our common lives, and especially in trial, in sore temptation, that nothing is so dear to us as the virtue of Christ ! SECOND DISCOURSE. EpHESiANS vi. 24 : " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ." In the preceding discourse, I consid- ered the nature and ground of love to Christ. The subject is far from being exhausted. I propose now, after a few remarks on the importance and happi- ness of this attachment, to call your at- tention to some errors in relation to it which prevail in the Christian world. A virtuous attachment purifies the heart. In loving the excellent, we re- ceive strength to follow them. It is happy for us when a pure affection springs up within us, when friendship knits us with holy and generous minds. It is happy for us when a being of noble sentiments and beneficent life enters our circle, becomes an object of interest to us, and by affectionate intercourse takes a strong hold on our hearts. Not a few can trace the purity and elevation of their minds to connection with an indi- vidual who has won them by the beauty of his character, to the love and practice of righteousness. These views show us the service which Jesus Christ has done to mankind, simply in offering himself before them as an object of attachment and affection. In inspiring love, he is a benefactor. A man brought to see and feel the godlike virtues of Jesus Christ, who understands his character and is attracted and won by it, has gained, in this sentiment, immense aid in his con- flict with evil and in his pursuit of per- fection. And he has not only gained aid, but happiness ; for a true love is in itself a noble enjoyment. It is the proper delight of a rational and moral being, leaving no bitterness or shame behind, not enervating like the world's pleasures, but giving energy and a lofty consciousness to the mind. Our nature was framed for virtuous attachments. How strong and interest- ing are the affections of domestic life, the conjugal, parental, filial ties ! But the heart is not confined to our homes, or even to this world. There are more sacred attachments than these, in which instinct has no part, which have their origin in our highest faculties, which are less tumultuous and impassioned than the affections of nature, but more enduring, more capable of growth, more peaceful, far happier, and far nobler. Such is love to Jesus Christ, the most purifying, and the happiest attachment, next to the love of our Creator, which we can form. I wish to aid you in cher- ishing this sentiment, and for this end I have thought that in the present dis- course it would be well to point out some wrong views which I think have obstructed it, and obscured its glory. I apprehend that among those Chris- tians who bear the name of rational, from the importance which they give to the exercise of reason in religion, love to Christ has lost something of its honor, in consequence of its perversion. It has too often been substituted for practical religion. Not a few have professed a very fervent attachment to Jesus, and have placed great confidence in this feeling, who, at the same time, have seemed to think little of his precepts, and have even spoken of them as unim- LOVE TO CHRIST. 323 portant, compared with certain doctrines about his person or nature. Gross errors of this kind have led, as it seems to me, to the opposite extreme. They have particularly encouraged among calm and sober people the idea that the great object of Christ was to give a religion, to teach great and everlasting truth, and that our concern is with his religion rather than with himself. The great question, as such people say, is not what Jesus nuas, but what he revealed. In this way a distinction has been made between Jesus and his reUgion ; and, whilst some sects have done little but talk of Christ and his person, others have dwelt on the principles he taught, to the neglect, in a measure, of the Divine Teacher. I consider this as an error to which some of us may be ex- posed, and which, therefore, deserves consideration. Now I grant that Jesus Christ came to give a religion, to reveal truth. This is his great office ; but I maintain that this is no reason for overlooking Jesus ; for his religion has an intimate and pecul- iar connection with himself. It derives authority and illustration from his char- acter. Jesus is his rehgion embodied and made visible. The connection be- tween him and his system is peculiar. It differs altogether from that which ancient philosophers bore to their teach- ings. An ancient sage wrote a book, and the book is of equal value to us .\,j,jj whether we know its author or not. r But .there is no such thing as Christi- anity without Christ. We cannot know it separately from him. It is notabook which Jesus wrote. It is his conversa- ■'•' tion, his character, his history, his life, • r.ll his death, his resurrection. He per- vades it throughout. In loving him, we love his religion ; and a just interest in ,_ this cannot be awakened, but by con- templating it as it shone forth in him- self. Christ's religion, I have said, is very imperfect without himself ; and there- fore they who would make an abstract of his precepts, and say that it is enough to follow these without thinking of their author, grievously mistake, and rob the system of much of its energy. I mean not to disparage the precepts of Christ, considered in themselves. But their full power is only to be understood and felt by those who place themselves near the Divine Teacher, who see the celes- tial fervor of his affection whilst he utters them, who follow his steps from Bethlehem to Calvary, and witness the expression of his precepts in his ovm life. These come to me almost as new precepts when I associate them with Jesus. His command to love my ene- mies becomes intelligible and bright when I stand by his cross and hear his prayer for his murderers. I understand what he meant by the self-denial which he taught when I see him foregoing the comforts of life, and laying down life itself for the good of others. I learn the true character of that benevolence by which human nature is perfected, how it unites calmness and earnestness, tender- ness and courage, condescension and dignity, feeling and action ; this I learn in the life of Jesus as no words could teach me. So I am instructed in the nature of piety by the same model. The command to love God with all my heart, if only written, might have led me into extravagance, enthusiasm, and neg- lect of common duties, — for religious excitement has a peculiar tendency to excess, — but in Jesus 1 see a devo- tion to God, entire, perfect, never re- mitted, yet without the least appearance of passion, as calm and self-possessed as the love which a good mind bears to a parent ; and in him I am taught, as words could not teach, how to join su- preme regard to my Creator with active charity and common duties towards my fellow-beings. And not only the precepts but the great doctrines of Christianity are bound up with Jesus, and cannot be truly un- derstood without him. For example, one of the great doctrines of Christian- ity, perhaps its chief, is the kind interest of God in all his creatures, not only in the good but in the evil ; his placable, clement, merciful character ; his desire to recover and purify and make for ever happy even those who have stained themselves with the blackest guilt. The true character of God in this respect I see indeed in his providence, I read it in his word, and for every manifestation of it I am grateful. But when I see his spotless and beloved Son, to whom his power was peculiarly delegated, and in whom He peculiarly dwelt, giving singular attention to the most fallen and despised men, casting 324 LOVE TO CHRIST. away all outward pomp that he might mingle familiarly with the poor and neg- lected ; when I see him sitting at table with the publican and the sinner, invit- ing them to approach him as a friend, suffering the woman whose touch was deemed pollution to bedew his feet with tears ; and when I hear him in the midst of such a concourse saying, " I am come to seek and to save that which was lost," — I have a conviction of the lenity, be- nignity, grace, of that God whose repre- sentative and chosen minister he was, such as no abstract teaching could have given me. Let me add one more doc- trine, — that of immortality. I prize every evidence of this great truth ; I look within and without me for some pledge that I am not to perish in the grave ; that this mind, with its thoughts and affec- tions, is to live, and improve, and be perfectec^, and to find that joy for which it thirsts, and which it cannot find on earth. Christ's teaching on this subject is invaluable ; but what power does this teaching gain, when I stand by his sep- ulchre, and see the stone rolled away, and behold the great Revealer of immor- tality rising in power and triumph, and ascending to the life and happiness he had promised ! Thus Christianity, from beginning to end, is intimately connected with its Divine Teacher. It is not an abstract system. The rational Christian who would think of it as such, who, in dwell- ing on the religion, overlooks its Re- vealer, is unjust to it. Would he see and feel its power, let him see it warm, living, breathing, acting in the mind, heart, and life of its Founder. Let him love it there. In other words, let him love the character of Jesus, justly viewed, and he will love the religion in the way most fitted to make it the power of God unto salvation. I have said that love to Christ, when he is justly viewed, — that is, when it is an enlightened and rational affection, — incliides the love of his whole religion ; but I beg you to remember that I give this praise only to an enlightened affec- tion ; and such is not the most common, nor is it easily acquired. I apprehend that there is no sentiment which needs greater care in its culture than this. Perhaps, in the present state of the world, no virtue is of more difficult ac- quisition than a pure and intelligent love towards Jesus. There is undoubtedly much of fervent feeling towards him in the Christian world. But let me speak plainly. I do it from no uncharitable- ness. I do it only to warn my fellow- Christians. The^ greater part of this affection to Jesus seems to me of very doubtful worth. In many cases, it is an irregular fervor, which impairs the^force and soundness of the mind, and which is substituted for obedience to his pre- cepts, for the virtues which ennoble the soul. Much of what is called love to Christ I certainly do not desire you or myself to possess. I know of no senti- ment which needs more to be cleared from error and abuse, and I therefore feel myself bound to show you some of its corruptions. In the first place, I am persuaded that a love to Christ of quite a low character is often awakened by an injudicious use of his sufferings. I apprehend that if the affection which many bear to Jesus were analyzed, the chief ingredient in it would be found to be a tenderness awaken- ed by his cross. In certain classes of Christians, it is common for the rehgious teacher to delineate the bleeding, dying Saviour, and to detail his agonies, until men's natural sympathy is awakened ; and when assured that this deep woe was borne for themselves, they almost necessarily yield to the softer feelings of their nature. I mean not to find fault with this sensibility. It is happy for us that we are made to be touched by others' pains. Woe to him who has no tears for mortal agony ! But in this emotion there is no virtue, no moral worth ; and we dishonor Jesus when this is the chief tribute we offer him. I say there is no moral goodness in this feeling. To be affected, overpowered by a crucifixion, is the most natural thing in the world. Who of us, let me ask, whether religious or not, ever went into a Catholic church, and there saw the picture of Jesus hanging from his cross, his head bending under the weight of exhausting suffering, his hands and feet pierced with nails, and his body stained with his Open wounds, and has not been touched by the sight ? Sup- pose that, at this moment, there were lifted up among us a human form, trans- fixed with a spear, and from which the warm life-blood was dropping in the midst of us. Who would not be deeply LOVE TO CHRIST. 32s moved ? and when a preacher, gifted with something of an actor's power, places the cross, as it were, in the midst of a people, is it wonderful that they are softened and subdued ? I mean not to censure all appeals of this kind to the human heart. There is something in- teresting and encouraging in the tear of compassion. There was wisdom in the conduct of the Moravian missionaries in Greenland who, finding that the rugged and barbarous natives were utterly in- sensible to general truth, depicted, with all possible vividness, the streaming blood and dying agonies of Jesus, and thus caught the attention of the sav- age through his sympathies, whom they could not interest through his reason or his fears. But sensibility thus awakened is quite a different thing from true, vir- tuous love to Jesus Christ ; and, when viewed and cherished as such, it takes the place of higher affections. I have often been struck by the contrast be- tween the use made of the cross in the pulpit, and the calm, unimpassioned manner in which the sufferings of Jesus are detailed by the Evangelists. These witnesses of Christ's last moments give you in simple language the particulars of that scene, without one remark, one word of emotion ; and if you read the Acts and E|)istles, you will not find a single instance in which the Apostles strove to make a moving picture of his crucifixion. No ; they honored Jesus too much, they felt too deeply the great- ness of his character, to be moved as many are by the circumstances of his death. Reverence, admiration, sympa- thy with his subhme spirit, these swal- lowed up, in a great measure, sympathy with his sufferings. The cross was to them the last crowning manifestation of a celestial mind ; they felt that it was endured to communicate the same mind to them and the worlds and their emo- tion was a holy joy in this consummate and unconquerable goodness. To be touched by suffering is a light thing. It is not the greatness of Christ's sufferings on the cross which is to move our whole souls, but the greatness of the spirit with which he suffered. There, in death, he proved his entire consecration of himself to the cause of God and man- kind. There his love flowed forth to- wards his friends, his enemies, and the human race. It is moral greatness, it is victorious love, it is the energy of prin- ciple, which gives such interest to the cross of Christ, We are to look through the darkness which hung over him, through his wounds and pains, to his unbroken, disinterested, confiding spirit. To approach the cross for the purpose of weeping over a bleeding, dying friend, is to lose the chief influence of the cruci- fixion. We are to visit the cross, not to indulge a natural softness, but to ac- quire firmness of spirit, to fortify our minds for hardship and suffering in the cause of duty and of human happiness. To live as Christ lived, to die as Christ died, to give up ourselves as sacrifices to God, to conscience, to whatever good interest we can advance, — these are the lessons written with the blood of Jesus. His cross is to inspire us with a calm courage, resolution, and superiority to all temptation. I fear (is my fear ground- less ?) that a sympathy which enervates rather than fortifies, is the impression too often received from the crucifixion. The depression with which the Lord's table is too often approached, and too often left, shows, I apprehend, that the chief use of his sufferings is little under- stood, and that he is loved, not as a glorious sufferer who died to spread his own sublime spirit, but as a man of sor- rows, a friend bowed down with the weight of grief. In the second place, love to Christ of a very defective kind is cherished in many by the views which they are ac- customed to take of themselves. They form irrational ideas of their own guilt, supposing it to have its origin in their very creation, and then represent to their imaginations an abyss of fire and torment over which they hang, into which the anger of God is about to precipitate them, and from which nothing but Jesus can rescue them. Not a few, I appre- hend, ascribe to Jesus Christ a greater compassion towards 'them than God is supposed to feel. His heart is tenderer than that of the Universal Parent, and this tenderness is seen in his plucking them by a mighty power from tremen- dous and infinite pain, from everlasting burnings. Now, that Jesus under such circumstances should excite the mind strongly, should become the object of a very intense attachment, is almost neces- sary ; but the affection so excited is of very little worth. Let the universe seem 326 LOVE TO CHRIST. to me wrapped in darkness, let God's throne send forth no light but blast- ing flashes, let Jesus be the only bright and cheering object to my affrighted and desolate soul, and a tumultuous grati- tude will carry me towards him just as irresistibly as natural instinct carries the parent animal to its young. I do and must grieve at the modes commonly used to make Jesus Christ an interesting being. Even the Infinite Father is stripped of his glory for the sake of throwing a lustre round the Son. The condition of man is painted in frightful colors, which cast unspeakable dishonor on his Creator, for the sake of magnify- ing the greatness of Christ's salvation. Man is stripped of all the powers which make him a responsible being, his soul harrowed with terrors, and the future illumined only by the flames which are to consume him, that his deliverer may seem more necessary ; and when the mind, in this state of agitation, in this absence of self-control, is wrought up into a fervor of gratitude to Jesus, it is thought to be sanctified. This selfish, irrational gratitude, is called a virtue. Much of the love given to Jesus, having the origin of which I now speak, seems to me of no moral worth. It is not the soul's free gift, not a sentiment nour- ished by our own care from a convic- tion of its purity and nobleness, but an instinctive, ungoverned, selfish feeling. Suppose, my friends, that in a tempest- uous night you should find yourselves floating towards a cataract, the roar of which should announce the destruction awaiting you, and that a fellow-being of great energy should rush through the darkness and bring you to the shore ; could you help embracing him with grat- itude ? And would this emotiofi imply any change of character ? Would you not feel it towards your deliverer, even should he have acted from mere impulse, and should his general character be grossly defective ? Is not this a neces- sary working of nature, a fruit of terror changed into joy ? 1 mean not to con- demn it ; I only say it is not virtue. It is a poor tribute to Jesus ; he deserves something far purer and nobler. The habit of exaggerating the wretch- edness of man's condition for the pur- pose of rendering Jesus more necessary, operates very seriously to degrade men's love to Jesus, by accustoming them to ascribe to him a low and commonplace character. I wish this to be weighed. They who represent to themselves the whole human race as sinking by an hereditary corruption into an abyss of flame and perpetual woe, very naturally think of Jesus as a being of overflowing compassion, as impelled by a resistless pity to fly to the relief of these hopeless victims ; for this is the emotion that such a sight is fitted to produce. Now this overpowering compassion, called forth by the view of exquisite misery, is a very ordinary virtue ; and yet, I apprehend, it is the character ascribed above all others to Jesus. It certainly argues no extraordinary goodness, for it is an almost necessary impulse of nature. Were you, my friends, to see millions and millions of the human race on the edge of a fiery gulf, where ages after ages of torture awaited them, and were the shrieks of millions who had already been plunged into the abyss to pierce your ear, could you refrain from an overpowering compassion, and would you not willingly endure hours and days of exquisite pain to give these wretched millions release .' Is there any man who has not virtue enough for this ? I have known men of ordinary charac- ter hazard their lives under the impulse of compassion, for the rescue of fellow- beings from infinitely lighter evils than are here supposed. To me it seems that to paint the misery of human be- ings in these colors of fire and blood, and to ascribe to Christ the compassion which such misery must awaken, and to make this the chief attribute of his mind, is the very method to take from his character its greatness, and to weaken his claim on our love. I see nothing in Jesus of the overpowering compas- sion which is often ascribed to him. His character rarely exhibited strong emotion. It was-distinguished by calm- ness, firmness, and conscious dignity. Jesus had a mind too elevated to be absorbed and borne away by pity, or any other passion. He felt, indeed, deeply for human suffering and /grief; but his chief sympathy was with the mind, with its sins and moral diseases, and especially with its capacity of im- provement and everlasting greatness and glory. He felt himself commis- sioned to quicken and exalt immortal beings. The thought which kindled and LOVE TO CHRIST. 327 sustained him was that of an immeasu- rable virtue to be conferred on the mind, even of the most depraved, — a good, the very conception of which implies a lofty character ; a good, which as yet has only dawned on his most improved disciples. It is his consecration to this sublime end which constitutes his glory; and no farther than we understand this, can we yield him the love which his character claims and deserves. I have endeavored to show the cir- cumstances which have contributed to depress and decade men's affections towards Jesus Christ. To me the in- fluence of these causes seems to be great. I know of no feeling more sus- picious than the common love to Christ. A true affection to him, indeed, is far from being of easy acquisition. As it is the purest and noblest we can cher- ish, with the single exception of love to God, so it requires the exercise of our best powers. You all must feel that an indispensable requisite or preparation for this love is to understand the char- acter of Jesus. But this is no easy thing. It not only demands that we carefully read and study his history ; there is another process more impor- tant. We must begin in earnest to con- vert into practice our present imperfect knowledge of Christ, and to form our- selves upon him as far as he is now dis- cerned. Nothing so much brightens and strengthens the eye of the mind to understand an excellent being, as like- ness to him. We never know a great character until something congenial to it has grown up within ourselves. No strength of intellect and no study can enable a man of a selfish and sensual mind to comprehend Jesus. Such a mind is covered with a mist ; and just in proportion as it subdues evil within itself, the mist will be scattered ; Jesus will rise upon it with a sunlike bright- ness, and will call forth its most fer- vent and most enlightened affection. I close with two remarks. You see, by this discourse, how important to the love of Christ it is, to understand with some clearness the purpose for which he came into the world. The low views prevalent on this subject seem to me to exert a disastrous influence on the whole character, and particularly on our feel- ings towards Christ. Christ is sup- posed to have come to rescue us from an outward hell, to bear the penalties of an outward law. Such benevolence would indeed be worthy of praise ; but it is an inferior form of benevolence. The glory of Christ's character, its pe- culiar brightness, seems to me to con- sist in his having given himself to accomplish an inward, moral, spiritual deliverance of mankind. He was alive to the worth and greatness of the hu- man soul. He looked through what men were, looked through the thick shades of their idolatry, superstition, and vice, and saw in every human be- ing a spirit of divine origin and godlike faculties, which might be recovered from all its evil, which might become an image and a temple of God. The greatness of Jesus consisted in his de- voting himself to call forth a mighty power in the human breast, to kindle in us a celestial flame, to breathe into us an inexhaustible hope, and to lay with- in us the foundation of an immovable peace. His greatness consists in the greatness and sublimity of the action which he communicates to the human soul. This is his chief glory. To avert pain and punishment is a subor- dinate work. Through neglect of these truths, I apprehend that the brightness of Christ's character is even now much obscured, and perhaps least discerned by some who think they understand him best. My second remark is that, if the lead- ing views of this discourse be just, then love to Jesus Christ depends very little on our conception of his rank in the scale of being. On no other topic have Christians contended so earnestly, and yet it is of secondary importance. To know Jesus Christ is not to know the precise place he occupies in the uni- verse. It is something more ; it is to look into his mind ; to approach his soul ; to comprehend his spirit ; to see how he thought, and felt, and purposed, and loved, — to understand the work- ings of that pure and celestial principle within him, through which he came among us as our friend, and lived and died for us. I am persuaded that con- troversies about Christ's person have in one way done great injury. They have turned attention from his character. Suppose that, as Americans, we should employ ourselves in debating the ques- tions, where Washington was born, and 328 PREACHING CHRIST. froltl what spot he came when he ap- peared at the head of our armies ; and that, in the fervor of these contentions, we should overlook the character of his mind, the spirit that moved within him, the virtues which distinguished him, the beamings of a noble, magnanimous Soul, — how unprofitably should we be employed ! Who is it that understands Washington ? Is it he that can settle his rank in the creation, his early his- tory, his present condition ? or he to whom the soul of that great man is laid open, who comprehends and sympa- thizes with his generous purposes, who understands the energy with which he espoused the cause of freedom and his country, and who receives through ad- miration a portion of the same divine energy ? So in regard to Jesus, the questions which have been agitated about his rank and nature are of in- ferior moment. His greatness belonged not to his condition, but to his mind, his spirit, his aim, his disinterested- ness, his calm, sublime consecration of himself to the high purpose of God. My hearers, it is the most interesting event in human history, that such a be- ing as Jesus has entered our world, to accomplish the deliverance of our minds from all evil, to bring them to God, to open heaven within them, and thus to fit them for heaven. It is our greatest privilege that he is brought within our view, offered to our imitation, to our trust, to our love, A sincere and en- lightened attachment to him is at once our honor and our happiness, a spring of virtuous action, of firmness in suffer- ing, of immortal hope. But remember, it will not grow up of itself. You must resolve upon it, and cherish it. You must bring Jesus near, as he lives and moves in the gospel. You should meet him in the institution which he espe- cially appointed for the commemoration of himself. You should seek, by pray- er, God's aid in strengthening your love to the Saviour. You should learn his greatness and beneficence by learning the greatness and destination of the souls which he came to rescue and bless. In the last place, you should obey his precepts, and through this obe- dience should purify and invigorate your minds to know and love him more. " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." PREACHING CHRIST: Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. John Emery Abbot, Salem, 1815. CoLossiANS i- 28: "Whom we pfeach, warning every man. and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Clirist Jesus." In the verses immediately preceding the text we find the Apostle enlarging with his usual zeal and earnestness on a subject peculiarly dear to him, ^ on the glorious mystery of God, or, in other words, on the great purpose of God, which had been kept secret from ages, to make the Gentile world par- takers through faith of the blessings of the long-promised Messiah. " Christ, the hope of glory to the Gentiles," was the theme on which Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, delighted to expatiate. Having spoken of Jesus in this charac- ter, he immediately adds, " Whom we preach, warning every man, and teach- ing every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." On the present occasion, which in- vites us to consider the design and duties of the Christian ministry, I have thought that these words would guide us to many appropriate and useful re- flections. They teach us what the Apos- tle preached : " We preach Christ." They teach us the end or object for which he thus preached : " That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Following this natural order, PREACHING CHRIST. 329 I shall first consider what is intended by "preaching Christ." I shall then endeavor to illustrate and recommend the end or object for which Christ is to be preached ; and I shall conclude with some remarks on the methods by which this end is to be accomplished. In dis- cussing these topics, on which a variety of sentiment is known to exist, 1 shall necessarily dissent from some of the views which are cherished by particular classes of Christians. But the frank expression of opinion ought not to be construed into any want of affection or est,eem for those from whom I differ. A. What are we to understand by " preaching Christ " ? This subject is the more interesting and important, be- cause I fear it has often been misun- derstood. Many persons imagine that Christ is never preached, unless his name is continually repeated and his character continually kept in view. This is an error, and should be exposed. Preaching Christ, then, does not con- sist in making Christ perpetually the subject of discourse, but in inculcating, on his authority, the religion which he taught. Jesus came to be the light and teacher of the world ; and in this sub- lime and benevolent character he un- folded many truths relating to the Universal Father, to his own character, to the condition, duties, and prospects of mankind, to the perfection and true happiness of the human soul, to a fut- ure state of retribution, to the terms of forgiveness, to the nneans of virtue, and of everlasting life. 'Now, whenever we teach, on the authority of Jesus, any doctrine or precept included in this extensive system, we " preach Christ." When, for instance, we inculcate on his authority the duties of forgiving enemies, of denying ourselves, of hun- gering after righteousness, we " preach Christ " as truly as when we describe his passion on the cross, or the purpose and the importance of his sufferings. By the word "Christ" in the text and in many other places, we are to understand his religion rather than his person. Among the Jews nothing was more common than to give the name of a religious teacher to the system of truth which he taught. We see this continually exemplified in the New Tes- tament. Thus, it is said, of the Jews, " They have Moses and the prophets." What is meant by this ? that they had Moses residing in person among them ? Certainly not ; but that they had his law, his religion. Jesus says, " I came not to destroy the prophets." What did he mean? that he had not come to slay or destroy the prophets who had died ages before his birth .' Certainly not ; he only intended that his doc- trines were suited to confirm, not to invalidate, the writings of these holy men. According to the same form of speech, Stephen was accused of blas- phemy against Moses, because some of his remarks were construed into a re- proach on the law of Moses. These passages are sufficient to show us that a religion was often called by the name of its teacher ; and conformably to this usage, when Paul says, " We preach Christ," we ought to understand him as affirming that he preached the whole system of doctrines and duties which Chrift taught, whether they related to Jesus himself, or to any other subject. But there is one passage more de- cisive on this point than any which I have adduced. In the Acts of the Apostles,* James says, "Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogue every Sabbath-day." Here we find the Apos- tle declaring that in every city there were men who preached Moses ; and we are told in what this preaching con- sisted : " Moses is read in the syna- gogue every Sabbath-day." No one acquainted with the ancient services of the synagogue can suppose, for a mo- ment, that the character and offices of Moses were the themes of the Jewish teachers every Sabbath, and that they preached nothing else. It was their custom to read the books of the law in course, and to offer comments upon obscure or important passages. In many parts of these books the name of Moses is not mentioned. We have whole chapters about the tabernacle, and about the rites of cleansing from the leprosy. But, according to James, when these portions were read and explained, Moses was preached ; not because his character was the subject, but because the instructions contained in these chapters were a part of the religion which he was appointed to * Acts XV. 21. 330 PREACHING CHRIST. communicate to the children of Israel. The name of the teacher was given to his doctrine. This form of speech was not pecuUar to the Jews ; all nations have probably adopted it. At the pres- ent day, nothing is more common than to hear that Locke, or Newton, or some other distinguished philosopher, is pub- lished, or taught ; not that his personal character and history are made public, but his system of doctrines. In the same way Christ is preached, published, proclaimed when his instructions are delivered, although these instructions may relate to other topics beside his own offices and character. I hope I shall not be misunderstood in the remarks which I have now made. Do not imagine that I would exclude from the pulpit discourses on the excel- lence of Jesus Christ. The truths which relate to Jesus himself are among the most important which the gospel re- veals. The relations which Jesus Qflrist sustains to the world are so important and so tender ; the concern which he has expressed in human salvation so strong and disinterested ; the blessings of pardon and immortal life which he brings so undeserved and unbounded ; his character is such a union of moral beauty and grandeur ; his example is at once so pure and so persuasive ; the events of his life, his miracles, his suffer- ings, his resurrection and ascension, and his offices of intercessor and judge, are so strengthening to faith, hope, and charity, that his ministers should dwell on his name with affectionate veneration, and should delight to exhibit him to the gratitude, love, imitation, and confidence of mankind. But whilst the Christian minister is often to insist on the life, the character, the offices, and the benefits of Jesus Christ, let him not imagine that he is preaching Christ only when these are his themes. If he confine himself to these he will not, in the full sense of the word, preach Christ : for this is to preach the whole religion of Jesus, and this re- ligion is of vast extent. It regards man in his diversified and ever-multiplying relations to his Creator and to his fellow- creatures, to the present state and to all future ages. Its aim is to instruct and quicken us to cultivate an enlarged virtue, — to cultivate our whole intel- lectual and moral nature. It collects and offers motives to piety from the past and from the future, from heaven and hell, from nature and experience, from human example, and from the im- itable excellences of God, from the world without and the world within us. The gospel of Christ is indeed an'inexhaust- ible treasury of moral and religious truth. Jesus, the first and best of evan- gelical teachers, did not confine him- self to a few topics, but manifested him- self to be the wisdom of God by the richness and variety of his instructions. To preach Christ is to unfold, as far as our feeble and narrow powers permit, all the doctrines, duties, and motives, which are recorded in the Gospels and in the writings of his inspired Apostles. It is not intended by these remarks that all the instructions of Christ are of equal importance, and that all are to be urged with equal frequency and zeal. Some undoubtedly are of greater mo- ment and of more universal application than others. But a minister of a sound and candid mind will be very cautious lest he assign so high a rank to a few doctrines that the rest wiU sink into comparative insignificance, and almost fade from the minds of his hearers. He will labor to give enlarged and harmoni- ous views of all the principles of Chris- tianity, recollecting that each receives support from the rest, and that no doc- trine or precept will exert its proper in- fluence if swelled into disproportioned importance, or detached from the truths which ought to modify and restrain it. It has been the object of these re- marks to show that preaching Christ does not imply that the offices and char- acter of Christ are to be made perpet- ually the subjects of discourse. Where this idea prevails, it too often happens that the religion of Jesus is very par- tially preached. A few topics are re- peated without end. Many delightful and ennobling views of Christianity are seldom or never exhibited. The duties of the gospel receive but a cursory at- tention. Religion is thought to consist in a fervid state of mind, produced by the constant contemplation of a few affecting ideas ; whilst the only accept- able rehgion, which consists in living " soberly, righteously, and godly in the world," seems to be undervalued as quite an inferior attainment. Where this mistake prevails, we too often dis- PREACHING CHRIST. 331 cover a censorious spirit among hearers, who pronounce with confidence on this and another minister, that they do not preach Christ, because their discourses do not turn on a few topics in relation to the Saviour whicli are tliought to contain the whole of Christianity. Very often the labors of a pious and upright minister are defeated by this prejudice ; nor must he wonder if he find himself decried as an enemy to the faith, by those whose want of education or ca- pacity confines them to the narrowest views of the Christian system. May I be permitted, with deference and re- spect, to beseech Christian ministers not to encourage by example this spirit of censure among private Christians. There is no lesson which we can teach our hearers more easily than to think contemptuously and to speak bitterly of other classes of Christians, and espe- cially of their teachers. Let us never forget that we none of us preach Christ in the full import of that phrase. None of us can hope that we give a complete representation of the religion of our Master, — that we exhibit every doc- trine without defect or without excess in its due proportions and in its just connections. We of necessity com- municate a portion of our own weakness and darkness to the religion which we dispense. The degree of imperfection indeed differs in different teachers ; but none are free from the universal frailty, and none are authorized to take the seat of judgment, and on the ground of im- agined errors to deny to others, whose lives are as spotless as their own, a con- scientious purpose to learn and to teach the whole counsel of God. II. Having thus considered what is intended by preaching Christ, 1 proceed to consider, secondly, for what end Christ is to be preached. We preach Christ, says the Apostle, " warning every man, and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus ;" that is, perfect in the religion of Christ, or a perfect Christian. From the passage we derive a most important sentiment, confirmed by the whole New Testament, that the great design of all tire doctrines and precepts of the gospel is to exalt the character, to promote eminent purity of heart and life, to make men perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect. For what end, then, is Chris- tianity to be preached ? The answer is plain. We must preach, not to make fiery partisans, and to swell the number of a sect ; not to overwhelm the mind with fear, or to heat it with feverish rapt- ure ; not to form men to the decencies of life, to a superficial goodness, which will secure the admiration of mankind. All these effects fall infinitely short of the great end of the Christian ministry. We should preach that we may make men perfect Christians ; perfect, not accord- ing to the standard of the world, but ac- cording to the law of Christ ; perfect in heart and in Kfe, in soUtude and in so- ciety, in the great and in the common concerns of life. Here is the puriDose of' Christian preaching. In this, as in a common centre, all the truths of the gospel meet ; to this they all conspire ; and no doctrine has an influence on salvation any farther than it is an aid and excitement to the perfecting of our nature. The Christian minister needs often to be reminded of this great end of his office, — the perfection of the human character. He is too apt to rest in low attainments himself, and to be satisfied with low attainments in others. He ought never to forget the great distinction and glory of the gospel, — that it is designed to perfect human nature. All the pre- cepts of this divine system are marked by a sublime character. It demands that our piety be fervent, our benevolence unbounded, and our thirst for righteous- ness strong and insatiable. It enjoins a virtue which does not stop at what is positively prescribed, but which is prod- igal of service to God and to mankind. The gospel enjoins inflexible integrity, fearless sincerity, fortitude which de- spises pain and tramples pleasure under foot in the pursuit of duty, and an inde- pendence of spirit which no scorn can deter and no example seduce from as- serting truth and adhering to the cause which conscience approves. With this spirit of martyrs, this hardness and intrepidity of soldiers of the cross, the gospel calls us to unite the mildest and meekest virtues ; a symisathy which melts over others' woes ; a disinterest- edness which finds pleasure in toils, and labors for others' good ; a humility which loves to bless unseen, and forgets itself in the performance of the noblest deeds. To this perfection of social duty the 332 PREACHING CHRIST. gospel commands us to join a piety whicli refers every event to the providence of God, and every action to his will ; a love which counts no service hard, and a penitence which esteems no judgment severe ; a gratitude which offers praise even in adversity ; a holy trust unbro- ken by protracted suffering, and a hope triumphant over death. In one word, it enjoins that, loving and confiding in Jesus Christ, we make his spotless char- acter, his heavenly life, the model of our own. Such is the sublimity of char- acter which the gospel demands, and such the end to which our preaching should ever be directed. I have dwelt on this end of preaching because it is too often forgotten, and because a stronger conviction of it will give new force and elevation to our in- structions. We need to feel more deeply that we are intrusted with a religion which is designed to ennoble human nature ; which recognizes in man the capacities of all that is good, great, and excellent ; and which offers every en- couragement and aid to the pursuit of perfection. The Christian minister should often recollect that man, though propense to evil, has yet powers and faculties which may be exalted and refined to angelic glory ; that he is called by the gospel to prepare for the community of angels ; that he is formed for unlimited progress in intellectual and moral excellence and felicity. He should often recollect that in Jesus Christ our nature has been intimately united with the divine, and that in Jesus it is already enthroned in heaven. Famil- iarized to these generous conceptions, the Christian preacher, whilst he faith- fully unfolds to men their guilt and danger, should also unfold their capac- ities of greatness ; should reveal the splendor of that destiny to which they are called by Christ ; should labor to awaken within them aspirations after a nobler character and a higher existence, and to inflame them with the love of all the graces and virtues with which Jesus came to enrich and adorn the human soul. In this way he will prove that he understands the true and great design of the gospel and the ministry, which is nothing less than the perfection of the human character. May I be permitted to say, that per- haps one of the greatest defects in our preaching is, that it is not sufficiently directed to ennoble and elevate the minds of men. It does not breathe a suffi- ciently generous spirit. It appeals too constantly to the lowest principle of human nature, — I mean the principle of fear, which, under judicious excite- ment, is indeed of great and undoubted use, but which, as every parent knows, when habitually awakened, is always found to debase the mind, to break the spirit, to give tameness to the charac- ter, and to chill the best affections. Perhaps one cause of the Hmited influ- ence of Christianity is that, as it is too often exhibited, it seems adapted to form an abject, servile character, rather than to raise its disciples to true great- ness and dignity. Perhaps, were Chris- tianity more habitually i-egarded as a system, whose great design it is to in- fuse honorable sentiments, magnanimity, energy, an ingenuous love of God, a su- periority to the senses, a spirit of self- sacrifice, a virtue akin to that of heaven, its reception would be more cordial, and its influence more extensive, more happy, more accordant with its great end, the perfection of human nature. III. Having thus considered the end of Christian preaching, I now come to offer, in the third place, a few remarks on the best method of accomplishing it ; and here I find myself obliged to omit a great variety of topics, and can only offer one or two of principal importance. That the gospel may attain its end, may exert the most powerful and ennobling influ- ence on the human character, it must be addressed at once to the understanding and to the heart. It must be so preached as to be firmly believed and deeply felt. To secure to Christianity this firm be- lief, I have only time to observe that it should be preached in a rational man- ner. By this I mean that a Christian minister should beware of offering inter- pretations of Scripture which are repug- nant to any clear discoveries of reason or dictates of conscience. This admo- nition is founded upon the very obvious principle, that a revelation from God must be adapted to the rational and moral nature which He has conferred on man ; that God can never contradict in his word what He has himself writ- ten on the human heart, or teaches in his works and providence. Every man who reads the Bible knows that, like PREACHING CHRIST. 333 other books, it has many passages which admit a variety of interpretations. Hu- man language does not admit entire pre- cision. It has often been observed by philosophers, that the most familiar sen- tences owe their perspicuity, not so much to the definiteness of the language as to an almost incredible activity of the mind, which selects from a variety of mean- ings that whith each word demands, and assigns such limits to every phrase as the intention of the speaker, his char- acter and situation, require. In addition to this source of obscurity, to which all writings are exposed, we must remem- ber that the Scriptures were written in a distant age, in a foreign language, by men who were unaccustomed to the sys- tematic arrangements of modern times, and who, although inspired, were left to communicate their thoughts in the style most natural or habitual. Can we won- der, then, that they admit a variety of interpretations ? Now, we owe it to a book, which records, as we believe, rev- elations from heaven, and which is plain- ly designed for the moral improvement of the race, to favor those explications of obscure passages which are seen to harmonize with the moral attributes of God, and with the acknowledged teach- ings of nature and conscience. All those interpretations of the gospel which strike the mind at once as inconsistent with a righteous government of the universe, which require 'of man what is dispropor- tioned to his nature, or which shock any clear conviction which our experience has furnished, cannot be viewed with too jealous an eye by him who, revering Christianity, desires to secure to it an intelligent belief. It is in vain to say that the first and most obvious meaning of Scripture is always to be followed, no matter where it leads. I answer, that the first and most obvious meaning of a passage, written jn a foreign language and in re- mote antiquity, is very often false, and such as farther inquiry compels us to abandon. I answer, too, that all sects of Christians agree, and are forced to agree, in frequently forsaking the Hteral sense, on account of its incongruity with acknowledged truth. There is, in fact, no book in the world which requires us more frequently to restrain unlimited expressions, to qualify the letter by the spirit, and to seek the meaning in the state and customs of the writer and of his age, than the New Testament. No , book is written in a more popular, fig- urative, and animated style, — the very style which requires the most constant exercise of judgment in the reader. The Scriptures are not a frigid digest of Christianity, as if this religion were a mere code of civil laws. They give us the gospel warm from the hearts of its preachers. The language is not that of logicians, not the language of retired and inanimate speculation, but of affec- tion, of zeal, of men who burned to convey deep and vivid impressions of the truth. In understanding such writ- ers, moral feeling is often a better guide than a servile adherence to the literal and most obvious meaning of every word and phrase. It may be said of the New as well as the Old Testament, that sometimes the letter killeth whilst the spirit giveth life. Almost any system may be built on the New Testament by a commentator who, forgetting the general scope of Christianity and the lessons of nature and experience, shall impose on every passage the literal sig- hification which is first offered to the mind. The Christian minister should avail himself, in his exposition of the Divine Word, of the aids of learning and criticism, and also of the aids of reason and conscience. Those inter- pretations of difiicult passages which approve themselves to his clear and es- tablished conceptions of rectitude, and to his devout and benevolent affections, he should regard with a favorable eye ; whilst those of an opposite character should be regarded with great distrust. I have said that this rational method of preaching Christianity is important, if we would secure a firm belief to Christianity. Some men may indeed be reconciled to an unreasonable religion ; and terror, that passion which more than any other unsettles the intellect, may silence every objection to the most con- tradictory and degrading principles. But in general the understanding and con- science cannot be entirely subdued. They resist the violence which is done them. A lurking incredulity mingles with the attempt to believe what contradicts the highest principles of our nature. Par- ticularly the most intelligent purt of the community, who will ultimately govern public sentiment, will doubt and dis? 334 PREACHING CHRIST. believe the unreasonable system which, perhaps, they find it prudent to acknowl- edge ; and will either convert it into an instrument of policy, or seize a favor- able moment for casting off its restraints and levelling its institutions with the dust. Thus important is it that Christi- anity should be recommended to the un- derstandings of men. But this is not enough. It is also most important that the gospel should be recommended to the heart. Christi- anity should be so preached as to inter- est the affections, to awaken contrition and fear, veneration and love, gratitude and hope. Some preachers, from ob- serving the pernicious effects of violent and exclusive appeals to the passions, have fallen into an opposite error, which has rendered the labors of their lives almost wholly unfruitful. They have addressed men as mere creatures of intellect ; they have forgotten that affec- tion is as essential to our nature as thought, that action requires motive, that the union of reason and sensibility is the health of the soul, and that with- out moral feeling there can be no strength of moral purpose. They have preached ingeniously, and the hearer has pronounced the preaching true. But the truth, coldly imparted and coldly received, has been forgotten as fast as heard ; no energy of will has been awakened ; no resistance to habit and passion been called forth ; perhaps not a momentary purpose of self-im- provement has glanced through the mind. Preaching, to be effectual, must be as various as our nature. The sun warms at the same moment that it en- lightens ; and unless religious truth be addressed at once to the reason and the affections, unless it kindles whilst it guides, it is a useless splendor ; it leaves the heart barren : it produces no fruits of godliness. Let the Christian minister, then, preach the gospel with earnestness, with affection, with a heart warmed by his subject, not thinking of himself, not seeking applause, but so- licitous for the happiness of mankind, tenderly concerned for his people, awake to the solemnities of eternity, and deeply impressed with the worth of the human soul, with the glory and happiness to which it may be exalted, and with the misery and ruin into which it will be plunged by irreligion and vice. Let him preach, not to amuse but to convince and awaken ; not to excite a momentary interest but a deep and lasting serious- ness ; not to make his hearers think of the preacher but of themselves, of their own characters and future condition. Let him labor, by delineating with un- affected ardor the happiness of virtue, by setting forth religion in its most attractive forms, by displaying the pa- ternal character of God, and the love of Christ which was stronger than death, by unfolding the purity and blessedness of the heavenly world, by revealing to the soul its own greatness, and by per- suasion, by entreaty, by appeals to the best sentiments of human nature, by speaking from a heart convinced of im- mortality, — let him labor, by these methods, to touch and to soften his hearers, to draw them to God and duty, to awaken gratitude and love, a sublime hope and a generous desire of exalted goodness. And let him also labor, by solemn warning, by teaching men their responsibility, by setting before sinners the aggravations of their guilt, by show- ing them the ruin and immediate wretch- edness wrought by moral evil in the soul, and by pointing them to approaching death, and the retributions of the future world, — let him labor, by these means, to reach the consciences of those whom higher motives will not quicken, to break the slumbers of the worldly, to cut off every false hope, and to persuade the sinner, by a salutary terror, to return to God, and to seek, with a new earnest- ness, virtue, glory, and eternal life. Note on the First Head of the Preceding Discourse. — The error which I have opposed on the subject of " preaching Christ," may be traced in a great measure to what appears to me a wrong interpretation of the two first chapters of the First Epistle to the Co- rinthians. In these chapters Paul says that he "determined to know nothing among the Corinthians, save Jesus Christ and him crucified," and speaks once and again of "preaching Christ crucified," &c. It has been supposed that the Apostle here intended to select the par- ticular point on which preaching should chiefly turn, and that we have his au- thority for censuring a discourse which does not relate immediately to the char- acter of Christ, and especially to his PREACHING CHRIST. 335 sufferings on the cross. But I think that a little attention to the circum- stances of the Apostle and of the Corin- thians will show us that Paul referred to the religion of Jesus generally as the subject of his preaching, and not to a very limited part of it. Corinth, being the most commercial city of Greece, was inhabited by Jews as well as Greeks. These Jews, as Paul tells us, "wanted a sign," just as the Pharisees in the time of Christ de- manded " a sign from heaven." That is, they wanted a Messiah who should be marked out to them by a visible descent from heaven, or by some glorious appear- ance from heaven, or by some outward majesty which should be a pledge of his breaking the Roman yoke, and raising Judea to the empire of the world. They wanted a splendid and temporal Mes- siah. The Greeks, on the other hand, who were a speculative people, wanted wisdom, or a system of philosophy, and could hear nothing patiently but the subtile disputations and studied ha- rangues with which they were amused by those who pretended to wisdom. Such was the state of Corinth when Paul en- tered it. Had he brought with him an account of a triumphant Messiah, or an acute philosopher, he would have been received with eagerness. But none were desirous to hear the simple religion of Jesus of Nazareth, who proved his mis- sion, not by subtilties of eloquence, but by miracles evincing the power of God, and who died at last on the ignominious cross. Paul, however, in opposition to Jew and Greek, determined to know nothing of a worldly Messiah, nothing of any old or new scheme of philosophy ; but to know and to preach Jesus Christ, and to exhibit him in a light which Juda- ism and philosophy would alike abhor, as crucified for the recovery of men from error, sin, and condemnation. In other words, he resolved to preach the relig- ion of Jesus in its greatest simplicity, without softening its most offensive feat- ure, the cross of its author, or without borrowing any thing from Moses or from any Gentile philosopher to give currency to his doctrines. This is the amount of what Paul teaches in these chapters. We must not imagine, when we read these chapters, that Corinth was a city of professing Christians ; that among these Christians a difference of opinion had arisen as to the proper subjects of Christian preaching, and that Paul in- tended to specify the topic on which ministers should chiefly or exclusively insist. This, I fear, is the common im- pression under which this portion of Scripture is read ; but this is altogether erroneous. No controversy of this kind existed ; and Paul, in these chapters, had not.the most distant idea of recom- mending one part of the gospel in pref- erence to others, but intended to recom- mend the whole gospel , the whole religion of Jesus Christ, in distinction from Juda- ism and Gentile philosophy. The dan- gers of the Corinthian Christians required that he should employ every effort to secure their fidelity to the simple gospel of Jesus. Having been educated in the Jewish or Heathen religions ; living in the midst of Jews and Heathens ; hear- ing perpetually, from one class, that the Messiah was to be a triumphant prince, apd that without submission to the law of Moses no one could partake his bless- ings ; and hearing, from the other, perpetual praises of this and another philosopher, and perpetual derision of the gospel, because in its docrines and style it bore no resemblance to the re- finements and rhetoric of their most celebrated sages ; the Corinthian Chris- tians, in these trying circumstances, were strongly tempted to assimilate the gospel to the prevalent religions, to blend with it foreign doctrines, to keep the humil- iation of its author out of sight, and to teach it as a system of philosophy rest- ing on subtile reasoning rather than on miracles and the authority of God. To save them from this danger, — a danger which at present we can hardly estimate, — ^the Apostle reminded them that when he came to them he came not with "ex- cellency of speech and with enticing words of man's wisdom," but in demon- stration of the Spirit and of miraculous powers ; that he did not comply with the demands of Greek or Jew ; that he preached a crucified Messiah, and no other teacher or deliverer ; and that he always insisted that the religion of Jesus, unaided by Judaism or philosophy, was able to make men wise to salvation. He also reminded them that this preaching, however branded as foolishness, had proved divinely powerful, and had saved them from that ignorance of God from which human wisdom had been unable 336 SELF-DENIAL. to deliver them. These remarks, I hope, will assist common readers in under- standing the chapters under considera- tion. We are too apt, in reading the New Testament, and particularly the Epistles, to forget that the gospel was a new re- ligion, and that the Apostles were called to preach Jesus to those who, perhaps, had never before heard his name, and whose prejudices and passions prepared them to contemn and reject his claims. In these circumstances they had to be- gin at the very foundation, to prove to the unbelieving world that Jesus was the Messiah, or sent from God to in- struct and save mankind. This is often called " preaching Christ," especially in the Acts. When converts were made, the work of the Apostles was not ended. These converts wished to bring with them a part of their old religion into the church ; and some of the Jews even in- sisted that obedience to Moses was es- sential to salvation. These errors the Apostles resolutely opposed, and, having previously established the Messiahship of Jesus, they next proceeded to estab- lish the sufficiency and perfection of his religion, to show that faith in him, or reception of his gospel, was all that was required to salvation. This is some- times called "preaching Christ." These difficulties, which called the Apostles to so much anxiety and toil, are now in a great measure removed. Christian minr isters, at the present day, are not often called to preach Christ in opposition to the infidel, and never in opposition to the weak convert who would incor- porate Judaism or Gentile philosophy with Christianity. The great foundation on which the Apostles spent so much strength is now firmly laid. Our hear- ers generally acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah, sent by God to be the light of the world, and " able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him." We are therefore seldom called to preach Christ in the senses which have just been considered, and our preaching must of course differ in a measure from that of the Apostles. But there is another sense of preaching Christ, involved in both the preceding, in which our work precisely accords with theirs. Like them, we are to unfold to those who ac- knowledge Jesus as their Lord all the truths, motives, and precepts which he has left to guide and quicken men to excellence, and to prepare them for a happy immortality. SELF-DENIAL. FIRST DISCOURSE. Matthew xvi. 24 : " Then said Jesus unto his dis- ciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." This passage is an example of our Saviour's mode of teaching. He has given us his truth in the costume of the age ; and this style is so common in the New Testament that an acquaintance with the usages of those times is neces- sary to the understanding of a large part of his instructions. The cross was then a mode of punishment reserved for the greatest criminals, and was intended to inflict the deepest disgrace as well as sorest pain. " To take up the cross" had therefore become a proverbial ex- pression of the most dreaded suffering and shame. By this phrase in the text Jesus intended to teach that no man could become his disciple without such a deep conviction of the truth and excel- lence of his religion as would fortify the mind against persecution, reproach, and death. The command " to deny our- selves" is more hteral, but is an instance of what is very common in our Saviour's teaching, — I mean, of the use of un- limited expressions, which require to be restrained by the good sense of the hearer, and which, if taken without con- siderable modification, may lead into pernicious error. We know that this precept, for want of a wise caution, has driven men to self-inflicted penance and to the austerities of the cloister and wilderness ; and it is one among many SELF-DENIAL. ■hl7 proofs of the necessity of a calm and sober judgment to a beneficial use of Christianity. In this discourse I shall offer remarks on the limits or just extent of Christian self-denial, and on the design of Provi- dence in so constituting us as to make self-denial necessary ; and in discussing these topics I shall set before you its obligation, necessity, and excellence. We are to deny ourselves ; but how far ? to what extent ? This is our first inquiry. Are we to deny ourselves wholly ? To deny ourselves in every power, faculty, and affection of our nat- ure ? Has the duty no bounds ? For example, are we to deny the highest part of our nature, — I mean con- science, or the moral faculty ? Are we to oppose our sense of right or desire of virtue ? Every Christian says. No. Conscience is sacred ; and revelation is intended to quicken, not resist it. Again, are we to deny reason, the in- tellectual faculty by which we weigh evidence, trace out causes and effects, ascend to universal truths, and seek to establish harmony among all our views .'' The answer to this question seems as plain as to the former. Yet many good men have seemed to dread reason, have imagined an inconsistency between faith and a free use of our intellectual powers, and have insisted that it is a religious duty " to prostrate our understandings." To some this may even seem a principal branch of Christian self-denial. The error, I think, is a great one ; and be- lieving that the honor, progress, and beneficial infiuence of Christianity are involved in its removal, I wish to give it a brief consideration. I am told that I must deny reason, I ask, Must I deny it when it teaches me that there is a God.? If so, the very foundation of religion is destroyed, and I am abandoned to utter unbelief. Again, must I deny reason when it for- bids the literal interpretation of the text, which commands us to hate father and mother and our own lives ? If so, I must rupture the most sacred ties of domestic life, and must add to social vices the crime of self-murder. Surely reason, in its teachings on these great subjects, is not to be denied, but re- vered and obeyed ; and if revered here, where ought it to be contemned and renounced? /'\ am told that we have a better guide than reason, even God's word, and that this is to be followed and the other denied. But I ask. How do I know that Christianity is God's word ? Are not the evidences of this religion sub- mitted to reason ? and if this faculty be unworthy of trust, is not revelation necessarily involved in the same con- demnation ? The truth is, and it ought not to be disguised, that our ultimate reliance is, and must be, on our own reason. Faith in this power lies at the foundation of all other faith. No trust can be placed in God, if we discredit the faculty by which God is discerned. I have another objection to the doctrine that we must deny reason in order to follow revelation. Reason is the very faculty to which revelation is addressed, and by which alone it can be explained. Without it we should be incapable of divine teaching, just as without the eye we should lose the happiest influences of the sun ; and they who would dis- courage the use of reason, that we may better receive revelation, are much like those who should bind up or pluck out the eye that we might enjoy to the full the splendor of day. ,' Perhaps I shall Idc pointed to the- many and gross errors into which reason- has fallen on almost every subject, and- shall be told that here are motives for distrusting and denying it. I reply, first, by asking how we detect these- errors ? By what power do we learn that reason so often misguides us ? Is it not by reason itself .'' and shall we renounce it on account of its capacity of rectifying its own wrong judgments ? Consider next, that on no subject has reason gone more astray than in the interpretation of the Scriptures ; so that if it is to be denied on account of its errors, we must especially debar it from the study of revelation ; in other words, we must shut the word of God in despair, — a consequence which, to a Protestant, is a sufficient refutation of the doctrine from which it flows. A common method of enforcing the denial of reason is to contrast it with the infinite intelligence of God, and then to ask whether it can be pros- trated too submissively, or renounced too humbly, before him. I acknowledge reverently the immeasurable superiority of God to human reason ; but I do not 22 338 SELF-DENIAL. therefore contemn or renounce it ; for, in the first place, it is as true oJE the " rapt seraph " as of man, that his in- telligence is most narrow, compared with the divine. Is no honor therefore due to angelic wisdom ? In the next place, I observe that human reason, imperfect though it be, is still the off- spring of God, allied to him intimately, and worthy of its divine Parent. There is no extravagance in calling it, as is sometimes done, '' a beam of the infinite light ; " for it involves in its very es- sence those immutable and everlasting principles of truth and rectitude which constitute the glory of the Divine Mind. It ascends to the subhme idea of God by possessing kindred attributes, and knows hi-m only through its affinity with him. It carries within itself the germ of that spiritual perfection which is the great end of the creation. Is it not, then, truly a " partaker of a divine nature " ? Can we think or speak of it too gratefully or with too much respect ? The infinity of God, so far from calling on me to prostrate and annihilate reason, exalts my conception of it. It is my faith in this perfection of the Divine Mind that inspires me with reverence for the human, for they are intimately connected, the latter being a derivation from the former, and endued with the power of approaching its original more and more through eternity. Severed from God, reason would lose its gran- deur. In his infinity it has at once a source and a pledge of endless and unbounded improvement. God delights to communicate himself ; and therefore his greatness, far from inspiring con- tempt for human reason, gives it a sacredness, and opens before it the most elevating hopes. The error of men is not that they exaggerate, but that they do not know or suspect the worth and dignity of their rational nature. Perhaps I shall be told that reason is not to be denied universally, but only in cases where its teachings are con- tradicted by revelation. To this I reply that a contradiction between reason and a genuine revelation cannot exist. A doctrine claiming a divine origin would refute itself, by opposing any of the truths which reason intuitively discerns, or which it gathers from nature. God is the " Father of lights " and the " Au- thor of concord," and He cannot darken and distract the human mind by jarring and irreconcilable instructions. He can- not subvert the authority of the very faculty through which we arrive at the knowledge of himself. A revelation from the Author of our rational nature will certainly be adapted to its funda- mental laws. I am aware that it is very possible to give the name of reason to rash prejudices and corrupt opinions, and that on this ground we may falsely pronounce a genuine revelation to be inconsistent with reason ; and our lia- bleness to this delusion binds us to judge calmly, cautiously, and in the fear of God. /But if, after a deliberate and impartial use of our best faculties, a professed revelation seems to us plainly / to disagree with itself or to clash with , great principles which we cannot ques- tion, we ought not to hesitate to with- hold from it our belief. I am surer that my rational nature is from God than that any book is an expression of his wiIl..,()fThis light in my own breast is his primary revelation, and all subsequent ones must accord with it, and are, in fact, intended to blend with and brighten it. My hearers, as you value Christianity, never speak of it as in any thing op- posed to man's rational nature./ Join not its foes in casting on it this reproach. It was given, not to supersede our rational faculties, but to quicken and invigorate them, to open a wider field to thought, to bring peace into the in- tellect as well as into the heart, to give harmony to all our views. We griev- ously wrong Christianity by supposing it to raise a standard against reason or to demand the sacrifice of our noblest faculties. These are her allies, friends, kindred. With these she holds unalter- able concord. Whenever doctrines are taught you from the Christian records opposing any clear conviction of reason and conscience, be assured that it is not the teaching of Christ which you hear. Some rash human expounder is substituting his own weak, discordant tones for the voice of God, which they no more resemble than the rattling chariot-wheel does heaven's awful thun- der. Never, never do violence to your rational nature. He who in any case admits doctrines which contradict rea- son, has broken down the great barrier between truth and falsehood, and lays SELF-DENIAL. 339 open his mind to every delusion. Tiie great mark of error, which is incon- sistency, ceases to shoclc him. He has violated the first law of the intellect, and must pay the fearful penalty. Happy will it be for him if, by the renuncia- tion of reason, he be not prepared for the opposite extreme, and do not, through a natural reaction, rush into the excess of incredulity. In the rec- ords of individuals and of the race, it is not uncommon for an era of intel- lectual prostration to be followed by an era of proud and licentious philosophy ; nor will this alternation cease to form this history of the human mind till the just rights of reason be revered. I will notice one more, and a very common one, in which the duty of de- nying reason is urged. We are told that there is one case in which we ought to prostrate our understandings, and that is the case of mysteries, whenever they are taught in the word of God. The answer to this popular language is short. Myst&x\t5, contimiing stick, can- not, from their very nature, be believed, and of consequence reason incurs no blame in refusing them assent. This will appear by considering what a mys- tery is. In the language of Scripture, and in its true sense, it is a secret, — something unknown. I say, then, that from its nature it cannot be an object of belief ; for to know and to believe are expressions of the same act of the mind, differing chiefly in this, that the former is more applicable to what admits of dem- onstration, the latter to probable truth. I have no disposition to deny the exist- ence of mysteries. Every truth involves them. Every object which falls under our notice, the most common and simple, contains much that we do not know and cannot now penetrate. We know not, for example, what it is which holds to- gether the particles of the meanest stone beneath our feet, nor the manner in which the humblest plant grows. That there are mysteries, secrets, things un- known without number, I should be the last to deny. I only maintain — and in so doing I utter an identical proposition — that what is mysterious, secret, un- known, cannot at the same time be known or an object of faith. It is a great and common error to confound facts which we understand with the mysteries which lurk under them, and -to suppose that in believing the first we believe the last. But no two things are more dis- tinct, nor does the most thorough knowl- edge of the one imply the least percep- tion of the other. For example, my hand is moved by the act of my will. This is a plain fact. The words which convey it are among the most intelligible. 1 beUeve it without doubt. But under this fact, which I so well know, lies a great mystery. The manner in which the will acts on the hand, or the process which connects them, is altogether un- known. The fact and the mystery, as you see, have nothing in common. The former is so manifest that 1 cannot, if I would, withhold from it my faith. Of the latter not even a glimpse is afforded me ; not an idea of it has dawned on the mind ; and without ideas, there can, of course, be no knowledge or belief. These remarks apply to revelation as well as to nature. The subjects of which revelation treats — God, Christ, human nature, holiness, heaven, — contain infi- nite mysteries. What is revealed in regard to them is indeed as nothing compared with what remains secret. But "secret things belong to God," and the pride of reason is manifested not in declining, but in professing to make them objects of faith. It is the influence of time and of intellectual improvement to bring mys- teries to light, both in nature and re- ligion ; and just as far as this process goes on, the belief of them becomes possible and right. Thus, the cause of eclipses, which was once a mystery, is now disclosed ; and who of us does not believe it ? In like manner Christ re- vealed "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," or the purposes and methods of God which had been kept secret for ages, in relation to the redemption of the world from sin, death, and woe. Being now revealed, or having ceased to be mysteries, these have become objects of faith, and reason ranks them among its most glorious truths. From what has been said, we see that to deny reason is no part of religion. Never imagine yourselves called to pros- trate and contemn this noble nature. Reverence conscience. Foster, extend, enlighten intellect. Never imagine that you are forsaking God in reposing a trust in the faculties He has given you. Only exercise them with impartiahty, disinterestedness, and a supreme love 340 SELF-DENIAL. Df truth, and their instructions will con- spire with revelation, and a beautiful aarmony will more and more manifest itself in the lessons which God's book md God's works, which Christ and con- science teach. But if reason and conscience are not to be denied, what is ? I answer, that [here are other principles in our nature. Man is not wholly reason and con- science. He has various appetites, pas- sions, desires, resting on present gratifi- ;ation and on outward objects ; some of which we possess in common with in- ferior animals, such as sensual appetites md anger ; and others belong more to the mind, such as love of power, love of honor, love of property, love of society, love of amusement, or a taste for litera- ture and elegant arts ; but all referring to our present being, and terminating :;hiefly on ourselves, or on a few beings who are identified with ourselves. These ire to be denied or renounced, — by which I mean not exterminated, but renounced as masters, guides, lords, and brought in- to strict and entire subordination to our moral and intellectual powers. It is a false idea that religion requires the ex- termination of any principle, desire, ap- petite, or passion which our Creator has implanted. Our nature is a whole, a beautiful whole, and no part can be spared. You might as properly and in- nocently lop off a limb from the body as eradicate any natural desire from the mind. All our appetites are in them- selves innocent and useful, ministering to the general weal of the soul. They are like the elements of the natural world, parts of a wise and beneficent system, but, like those elements, are beneficent only when restrained. There are two remarks relating to our appetites and desires which will show their need of frequent denial and con- stant control. In the first place, it is true of them all that they do not carry within themselves their own rule. They are blind impulses. Present their ob- jects, and they are excited as easily when gratification would be injurious as when it would be useful. We are not so constituted, for example, that we hun- ger and thirst for those things only which will be nutritive and wholesome, and lose all hunger and thirst at the moment when we have eaten or drunk enough. We are not so made that the desire of property springs up only when property can be gained by honest means, and that it declines and dies as soon as we have acquired a sufficiency for ourselves and for usefulness. Our de- sires are undiscerning instincts, gener- ally directed to what is useful, but often clamoring for gratification, which would injure health, debilitate the mind, or op- pose the general good ; and this bhnd- ness of desire makes the demand for self-denial urgent and continual. I pass to a second remark. Our ap- petites and desires carry with them a principle of growth or tendency to en- largement. They expand by indulgence, and, if not restrained, tHey fill and exhaust the soul, and hence are to be strictly watched over and denied. Nat- ure has set bounds to the desires of the brute, but not to human desire, which partakes of the illimitableness of the soul to which it belongs. In brutes, for example, the animal appetites impel to a certain round of simple gratifications, beyond which they never pass. But man, having imagination and invention, is able by these noble faculties to whet his sensual desires indefinitely. He is able to form new combinations of ani- mal pleasures, and to provoke appetite by stimulants. The East gives up its spices, and the South holds not back its vintage. Sea and land are rifled for lux- uries. Whilst the animal finds its nour- ishment in a few plants, perhaps in a single blade, man|s table groans under the spoils of all regions ; and the conse- quence is that in not a few cases the whole strength of the soul runs into ap- petite, just as some rich soil shoots up into poisonous weeds, and man, the ra- tional creature of God, degenerates into the most thorough sensualist. As an- other illustration of the tendency of our desires to grow and usurp the whole mind, take the love of property. We ' see this every day gaining dangerous strength, if left to itself, if not denied or curbed. It is a thirst which is in- flamed by the very copiousness of its draughts. Anxiety grows with posses- sion. Riches become dearer by time. The love of money, far from withering in life's winter, strikes deeper and deeper root in the heart of age. He who has more than he can use or man- age, grows more and more eager and restless for new gains, muses by day SELF-DENIAL. 341 and dreams by night of wealth ; and in this way the whole vigor of his soul, of intellect and affection, shoots up into an intense, unconquerable, and almost infi- nite passion for accumulation. It is an interesting and solemn reflec- tion, that the very nobleness of human nature may become the means and in- strument of degradation. The powers which ally us to God, when pressed into the service of desire and appetite, en- large desire into monstrous excess, and irritate appetite into fury. The rapidity of thought, the richness of imagination, the resources of invention, when en- slaved to any passion, give it an extent and energy unknown to inferior nat- ures ; and just in proportion as this usurper establishes its empire over us, all the nobler attainments and products of the soul perish. Truth, virtue, honor, religion, hope, faith, charity, die. Here we see the need of self-denial. The lower principles of our nature not only act blindly, but, if neglected, grow in- definitely, and overshadow and blight and destroy every better growth. With- out self-restraint and self-denial, the pro- portion, order, beauty, and harmony of the spiritual nature are subverted, and the soul becomes as monstrous and de- formed as the body would become were all the nutriment to flow into a few or- gans, and these the least valuable, and to break out into loathsome excres- cences, whilst the eye, the ear, and the active limbs should pine, and be palsied, and leave us without guidance or power. Do any of you now ask, how it comes to pass that we are so constituted ; why we are formed with desires so blind and strong, and tending so constantly to en- largement and dominion ; and how we can reconcile this constitution with God's goodness ? This is our second question. y'Some will answer it by say- ing that this constitution is a sinful nat- ure derived from our first parents ; that it comes not from God, but from Adam ; that it is a sad inheritance from the first fallen pair ; and that God is not to be blamed for it, but our original progeni- tor. But I confess this explanation does not satisfy me. Scripture says it was God who made me, not Adam. What I was at birth, I was by the ordi- nance of God. Make the connection between Adam and his posterity as close as you will, God must have intended it, and God has carried it into effect. My soul, at the moment of its creation, was as fresh from the hands of the Deity as if no human parent had preceded me ; and I see not how to shift off on any other being the reproach of my nature, if it deserve reproach. But does it merit blame ? Is the tendency to ex- cess and growth, which we are conscious of in our passions and appetites, any derogation from the goodness or wis- dom of our Maker 'i Can we find only evil in such a constitution ? Perhaps it may minister to the highest purpose of God. It is true that, as we are now made, our appetites and desires often war against reason, conscience, and relig- ion. But why is this warfare appointed ? Not to extinguish these high principles, but to awaken and invigorate them. It is meant to give them a field for ac- tion, occasion for effort, and means of victory. True, virtue is thus opposed and endangered ; but virtue owes its vigor and hardihood to obstacles, and wins its crown by conflict./ I do not say that God can find no school for character but temptation, and trial, and strong desire ; but I do say that the present state is a fit and noble school. You, my hearers, would have the path of virtue from the very beginning smooth and strewed with flowers ; and would this train the soul to energy ? You would have pleasure always coincide with duty ; and how, then, would you attest your loyalty to duty ? You would have conscience and desire always speak the same language and prescribe the same path ; and how, then, would con- science assert its supremacy ? God has implanted blind desires, which often rise up against reason and con- science, that He may give to these high faculties the dignity of dominion and the joy of victory. He has surrounded us with rivals to himself, that we may love him freely, and by our own unfet- tered choice erect his throne in our souls. He has given us strong desires of inferior things, that the desire of ex- cellence may grow stronger than all. Make such a world as you wish, let no appetite or passion ever resist God's will, no object of desire ever come in competition with duty ; and where would be the resolution, and energy, and constancy, and effort, and purity. 342 SELF-DENIAL. the trampling under foot of low inter- ests, the generous self-surrender, the heroic devotion, all the sublimities of virtue, vjfhich now throw lustre over man's nature and speak of his immor- tality ? You would blot the precept of self-denial from the Scriptures, and the need of it from human life, and in so doing you would blot out almost every interesting passage in man's history. Let me ask you, when you read that history, what is it which most interests and absorbs you, which seizes on the imagination and memory, which agitates the soul to its centre ? Who is the man whom you select from the records of time as the object of your special admi- ration ? Is it he who lived to indulge himself? whose current of life flowed most equably and pleasurably ? whose desires were crowned most liberally with means of gratification ? whose ta- ble was most luxuriantly spread ? and whom Fortune made the envy of his neighborhood by the fulness of her gifts ? Were such the men to whom monuments have been reared, and whose memories, freshened with tears of joy and reverence, grow and flourish and spread through every age ? Oh, no ! He whom we love, whose honor we most covet, is he who has most denied and subdued himself ; who has made the most entire sacrifice of appetites and passions and private interest to God, and virtue, and mankind ; who has walked in a rugged path, and clung to good and great ends in persecution and pain ; who, amidst the solicitations of ambition, ease, and private friendship, and the menaces of tyranny and malice, has listened to the voice of conscience, and found a recompense for blighted hopes and protracted suffering in con- scious uprightness and the favor of God. Who is it that is most lovely in domestic life ? It is the martyr to do- mestic affection, the mother forgetting herself, and ready to toil, suffer, die for the happiness and virtue of her chil- dren. Who is it that we honor in pub- lic life ? It is the martyr to his country, he who serves her not when she has honors for his brow and wealth for his coffers, but who clings to her in her danger and fallen glories, and thinks life a cheap sacrifice to her safety and freedom. Whom does the church re- tain in most grateful remembrance, and pronounce holy and blessed ? The self- denying, self-immolating apostle, the fearless confessor, the devoted martyr, men who have held fast the truth even in death, and bequeathed it to future ages amidst blood. Above all, to what moment of the life of Jesus does the Christian turn as the most affecting and sublime illustration of his divine char- acter ? It is that moment when, in the spirit of self-sacrifice, denying every human passion, and casting away every earthly interest, he bore the agony and shame of the cross. Thus all great virtues bear the impress of self-denial ; and were God's present constitution of our nature and life so reversed as to demand no renunciation of desire, the chief interest and glory of our present being would pass away. There would be nothing in history to thriU us with admiration. We should have no con- sciousness of the power and greatness of the soul. We should love feebly and coldly, for we should find nothing in one another to love earnestly. Let us not, then, complain of Providence because it has made self-denial neces- sary ; or complain of religion because it summons us to this work. Religion and nature here hold one language. Our own souls bear witness to the teaching of Christ, that it is the " narrow way " of self-denial "which leadeth unto life." My friends, at death, if reason is spared to us and memory retains its hold on the past, will it gratify us to see that we have lived not to deny but to indulge ourselves, that we have bowed our souls to any passion, that we gave the reins to lust, that we were palsied by sloth, that through love of gain we hardened ourselves against the claims of humanity, or through love of man's favor parted with truth and moral inde- pendence, or that in any thing reason and conscience were sacrificed to the impulse of desire, and God forgotten for present good ? Shall we then find comfort in remembering our tables of luxury, our pillows of down, our wealth amassed and employed for private ends, or our honors won by base compliance with the world ? Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with him- self, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasures, or his suffer- ings for righteousness' sake ? Did any man ever mourn that he had impover- SELF-DENIAL. 343 ished himself by integrity, or worn out his frame in the service of mankind ? Are these the recollections which har- row the soul, and darken and appal the last hour? To whom is the last hour most serene and full of hope? Is it not to him who, amidst perils and allure- ments, has denied himself, and taken up the cross with the holy resolution of Jesus Christ ? SECOND DISCOURSE. Matthew xvi. 24 : " Then said Jesus unto his dis- ciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." In the preceding discourse I spoke of the just limits and moral dignity of self- denial. I resume the subject because it throws much light on the nature of true virtue, and helps us to distinguish moral goodness from qualities which resemble it. Clear conceptions on this point are inestimable. To love and seek excel- lence we must know what it is, and sep- arate it from counterfeits. From want of just views of virtue and piety, men's admiration and efforts are often wasted, and sometimes carry them wide of the great object of human life. Perhaps truth on this subject cannot be brought out more clearly than by considering the nature of self-denial. Such will be the aim of this discourse. To deny ourselves is to deny, to with- stand, to renounce whatever, within or without, interferes with our conviction of right or with the will of God. It is to suffer, to make sacrifices for duty or our principles. The question now offers itself, What constitutes the sin- gular merit of this suffering ? Mere suffering, we all know, is not virtue. Evil men often endure pain as well as the good, and are evil still. This and this alone constitutes the worth and im- portance of the sacrifice, suffering, which enters into self-denial, that it springs from and manifests moral strength, power over ourselves, force of purpose, or the mind's resolute determination of itself to duty. It is the proof and result of inward energy. Difficulty, hardship, suffering, sacrifices, are tests and meas- ures of moral force, and the great means of its enlargement. To withstand these is the same thing as to put forth power. Self-denial, then, is the will acting with power in the choice and prosecution of duty. Here we have the distinguishing glory of self-denial, and here we have the essence and distinction of a good and virtuous man. The truth to which these views lead us, and which I am now solicitous to enforce, is this, that the great char- acteristic of a virtuous or religious mind is strength of moral jjurpose. This force is the measure of excellence. The very idea of duty implies that we are bound to adopt and pursue it with a stronger and more settled determination than any other object, and virtue consists in fidel- ity to this primary dictate of conscience. We have virtue only as far as we exert inward energy, or as far as we put forth a strong and overcoming will in obeying the law of God and of our own minds. Let this truth be deeply felt. Let us not confide in good emotions, in kind feelings, in tears for the suffering, or in admiration of noble deeds. These are not goodness in the moral and Chris- tian sense of that word. It is force of upright and holy purpose, attested and approved by withstanding trial, temp- tation, allurement, and suffering ; it is this in which virtue consists. I know nothing else which an enlightened con- science approves, nothing else which God will accept. I am aware that if I were called upon to state my ideas of a perfect character, I should give an answer that would seem at first to contradict the doctrine just expressed, or to be inconsistent with the stress which I have laid on strength of moral purpose. I should say, that perfection of mind, like that of the body, consists of two elements, — ■ of strength and beauty ; that it consists of firmness and mildness, of force and tenderness, of vigor and grace. It would ill become a teacher of Chris- tianity to overlook the importance of sympathy, gentleness, humility, and charity, in his definition of moral excel- lence. The amiable, attractive, mild attributes of the mind are recommended as of great price in the sight of God, by him who was emphatically meek and lowly in heart. Still I must say that all virtue lies in strength of character or of moral purpose ; for these gentle, sweet, winning qualities rise into virtue only when pervaded and sustained by moral energy. On this they must rest, by this 344 SELF-DENIAL. they must be controlled and exalted, or they have no moral worth. I acknowl- edge love, kindness, to be a great virtue ; but what do I mean by love when I thus speak ? Do I mean a constitutional tenderness ? an instinctive sympathy ? the natural and almost necessary at- tachment to friends and benefactors ? the kindness which is inseparable from our social state, and which is never wholly extinguished in the human breast ? In all these emotions of our nature I see the kind design of God ; I see a beauty ; I see the germ and capacity of an ever-growing charity. But they are not virtues, they are not proper objects of moral approbation, nor do they give any sure pledge of improvement. This natural amiableness I too often see in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the contemptible vanity and dis- sipation of fashionable life. It is no ground of trust, no promise of fidelity in any of the great exigencies of life. The love, the benevolence which I honor as virtue, is not the gift of nature or con- dition, but the growth and manifestation of the soul's moral power. It is a spirit chosen as excellent, cherished as divine, protected with a jealous care, and espe- cially fortified by the resistance and subjection of opposite propensities. It is the soul determining itself to break every chain of selfishness, to enlarge and to invigorate the kind affections, to identify itself with other beings, to sym- pathize not with a few, but with all the living and rational children of God, to honor others' Worth, to increase and en- joy their happiness, to partake in the universal goodness of the Creator, and to put down within itself every motion of pride, anger, or sensual desire incon- sistent with this pure charity. In other words, it is strength of holy purpose infused into the kind affections, which raises them into virtues, or gives them a moral worth not found in constitutional amiableness. I read in the Scriptures the praises of ftieekness. But when 1 see a man meek or patient of injury through tameness, or insensibility, or want of self-respect, passively gentle, meek through consti- tution or fear, I look on him with feel- ings very different from veneration. It is the meekness of principle ; it is mild- ness replete with energy ; it is the for- bearance of a man who feels a wrong, but who curbs angei, who though in- jured resolves to be just, who volun- tarily remembers that his foe is a man and a brother, who dreads to surrender himself to his passions, who in the mo- ment of provocation subjects himself to reason and religion, and who holds fast the great truth, that the noblest victory over a foe is to disarm and subdue him by equity and kindness, — it is this meekness which I venerate, and which seems to me one of the divinest virt- ues. It is moral power, the strength of virtuous purpose, pervading meekness, which gives it all its title to resject. It is worthy of special remark, that without this moral energy, resisting passion and impulse, our tenderest at- tachments degenerate more or less into weaknesses and immorahties ; some- times prompting us to sympathize with those whom we love in their errors, prejudices, and evil passions ; some- times inciting us to heap upon them in- jurious praises and indulgences ; some- times urging us to wrong or neglect others, that we may the more enjoy or serve our favorites ; and sometimes poi- soning our breasts with jealousy or envy, because our affection is not returned with equal warmth. The principle of love, whether exercised towards our relatives or our country, whether mani- fested in courtesy or compassion, can only become virtue, can only acquire purity, consistency, serenity, dignity, when imbued, swayed, cherished, en- larged by the power of a virtuous will, by a self-denying energy. It is inward force, power over ourselves, which is the beginning and the end of virtue. What I have now said of the kind affections is equally true of the relig- ious ones. These have virtue in them only as far as they are imbued with self-denying strength. I know that mul- titudes place religion in feeUng. Ar- dent sensibility is the measure of piety. He who is wrought up by preaching or sympathy into extraordinary fervor, is a saint ; and the less he governs himself in his piety, the more he is looked upon as inspired. But I know of no religion which has moral worth, or is acceptable to God, but that which grows from and is nourished by our own spiritual, self- denying energy. Emotion towards God, springing up without our own thought or care, grateful feelings at the recep- SELF-DENIAL. 345 tion of signal benefits, thd swelling of the soul at the sight of nature, tender- ness awakened by descriptions of the love and cross of Christ, — these, though showing high capacities, though means and materials of piety, are not of themselves acceptable religion. The rehgious character which has truevirtue, and which is built upon a rock, is that which has iDeen deliberately and reso- lutely adopted and cherished as our highest duty, and as the friend and strengthener of all other duties ; and which we have watched over and con- firmed by suppressing inconsistent de- sires and passions, by warring against selfishness and the love of the world. There is one fact very decisive on this subject. It is not uncommon to see people with strong religious feeling who are not made better by it ; who at church or in other meetings are moved perhaps to tears, but who make no prog- ress in self-government or charity, and who gain nothing of elevation of mind in their common feelings and transactions. They take pleasure in religious excite- ment, just as others delight to be in- terested by a fiction or a play. They invite these emotions because they sup- pose them to aid or insure salvation, and soon relapse into their ordinary sordidness or other besetting infirmi- »ties. Now, to give the name of religion to this mockery is the surest way to dis- honor it. True rehgion is not mere emotion, is not something communi- cated to us without our own moral effort. It involves much self-denial. Its great characteristic is not feeling, but the subjection of our wills, desires, habits, lives, to the will of God, from a convic- tion that what He wills is the perfection of virtue, and the true happiness of our nature. In genuine piety the mind chooses as its supreme good the moral excellence enjoined by its Author, and resolutely renounces whatever would sully this divine image, and so disturb its communion with God. This relig- ion, though its essence be not emotion, will gradually gather and issue in a sen- sibility deeper, intenser, more glowing than the blind enthusiast ever felt ; and then only does it manifest itself in its perfect form, when, through a self-de- nying and self-purifying power, it rises to an overflowing love, gratitude, and joy towards the Universal Father. In insisting on the great principle that religion, or virtue, consists in strength of moral purpose, in the soul's resolute determination of itself to duty, I am satisfied that I express a truth which has a witness and confirmation in the breast of every reflecting man. We all of us feel that virtue is not something adopted from necessity, something to which feeling impels us, something which comes to us from constitution, or accident, or outward condition ; but that it has its origin in our moral free- dom, that it consists in moral energy ; and accordingly we all measure virtue by the trials and difficulties which it overcomes, for these are the tests and measures of the force with which the soul adopts it. Every one of us who has adhered to duty, when duty brought no recompense but the conviction of well-doing, who has faced the perils of a good but persecuted cause with un- shrinking courage, who has been con- scious of an inward triumph over temp- tation, conscious of having put down bad motives and exalted good ones in his own breast, must remember the clear, strong, authentic voice, the ac- cents of peculiar encouragement and joy, with which the inward judge has at such seasons pronounced its approving sentence. This experience is universal, and it is the voice of nature and of God in confirmation of the great truth of this discourse. I fear that the importance of strength in the Christian character has been in some degree obscured by the habit of calHng certain Christian graces of sin- gular worth by the name of passive virtues. This name has been given to humility, patience, resignation ; and I fear that the phrase has led some to regard these noble qualities as allied to inaction, as wanting energy and de- termination. Now the truth is that the mind never puts forth greater power over itself than when, in great trials, it yields up calmly its desires, affections, interests to God. There are seasons when to be still demands immeasurably higher strength than to act. Compos- ure is often the highest result of power. Think you it demands no power to calm the stormy elements of passion, to mod- erate the vehemence of desire, to throw off the load of dejection, to suppress every repining thought, when the dear- 346 SELF-DENIAL. est hopes are withered, and to turn the wounded spirit from dangerous reveries and wasting grief to the quiet discharge of ordinary duties ? Is there no power put forth when a man, stripped of his property, of the fruits of a life's labor, quells discontent and gloomy forebod- ings, and serenely and patiently returns to the tasks which Providence assigns ? I doubt not that the all-seeing eye of God sometimes discerns the sublimest human energy under a form and coun- tenance which by their composure and tranquillity indicate to the human spec- tator only passive virtues. The doctrine of this discourse is in every view interesting. To me it goes further than aU others to explain the present state. If moral strength, if in- ward power in the choice and practice of duty, constitute excellence and happi- ness, then I see why we are placed in a world of obstructions, perils, hardships, why duty is so often a " narrow way," why the warfare of the passions with conscience is so subtile and unceasing ; why within and without us are so many foes to rectitude ; for this is the very state to call forth and to build up moral force. In a world where duty and in- clination should perfectly agree, we should indeed never err, but the living power of virtue could not be developed. Do not complain, then, of life's trials. Through these you may gain incom- parably higher good than indulgence and ease. This view reveals to us the impartial goodness of God in the variety of human conditions. We sometimes see individuals whose peculiar trials are thought to make their existence to them an evil. But among such may be found the most favored children of God. If there be a man on earth to be envied it is he who, amidst the sharpest assaults from his own passions, from fortune, from society, never falters in his alle- giance to God and the inward monitor. So peculiar is the excellence of this moral strength, that I believe the Crea- tor regards one being who puts it forth with greater complacency than He would look on a world of beings innocent and harmless through the necessity of con- stitution. I know not that human wis- dom has arrived at a juster or higher view of the present state than that it is intended to call forth power by ob- struction, the power of intellect by the difficulties of knowledge, the power of conscience and virtue by temptation, allurement, pleasure, pain, and the alter- nations of prosperous and adverse life. When I see a man holding faster his up- rightness in proportion as it is assailed ; fortifying his religious trust in proportion as Providence is obscure ; hoping in the ultimate triumphs of virtue more surely in proportion to its present afflictions ; cherishing philanthropy amidst the dis- couraging experience of men's unkind- ness and unthankfulness ; extending to others a sympathy which his own suffer- ings need but cannot obtain ; growing milder and gentler amidst what tends to exasperate and harden ; and through inward principle converting the very in- citements to evil into the occasions of a victorious virtue, — I see an explanation, and a noble explanation, of the present state. I see a good produced so tran- scendent in its nature as to justify all the evil and suffering under which it grows up. I sliould think the formation of a few such minds worth all the appa- ratus of the present world. I should say that this earth, with its continents and oceans, its seasons and harvests, and its successive generations, was a work worthy of God, even were it to accomplish no other end than the train- ing and manifestation of the illustrious characters which are scattered through « history. And when I consider how small a portion of human virtue is recorded by history, how superior in dignity as well as in number are the unnoticed, unhon- ored saints and heroes of domestic and humble life, I see a light thrown over the present state which more than rec- onciles me to all its evils. The views given in this discourse of the importance of moral power mani- fested in great trials, may be employed to shed a glorious and perhaps a new light on the character and cross of Christ. But this topic can now be only suggested to your private meditation. There is, however, one practical application of our subject which may be made in a few words, and which I cannot omit. I wish to ask the young who hear me, and especially of my own sex, to use the views now offered in judging and form- ing their characters. Young man, re- member that the only test of goodness, virtue, is moral strength, self-denying energy. You have generous and honor- THE EVIL OF SIN. 347 able feelings, you scorn mean actions, your heart beats quick at the sight or hearing of courageous, disinterested deeds, and all these are interesting qualities ; but remember they are the gifts of nature, the endowments of your susceptible age. They are not virtue. God and the inward monitor ask for more. The question is, Do you strive to confirm into permanent principles the generous sensibilities of the heart ? Are you watchful to suppress the impetuous emotions, the resentments, the selfish passionateness which are warring against your honorable feelings ? Especially do you subject to your moral and religious convictions the love of pleasure, the appetites, the passions which form the great trials of youthful virtue ? Here is the field of conflict to which youth is summoned. Trust not to occasional impulses of benevolence, to constitu- tional courage, frankness, kindness, if you surrender yourselves basely to the temptations of your age. No man who has made any observation of life but will tell you how often he has seen the promise of youth blasted ; intellect, genius, honorable feeling, kind affec- tion, overpowered and almost extin- guished through the want of moral strength, through a tame yielding to pleasure and the passions. Place no trust in your good propensities, unless these are fortified, and upheld, and im- proved by moral energy and self-control. To all of us, in truth, the same lesson comes. If any man will be Christ's disciple, sincerely good, and worthy to be named among the friends of virtue, if he will have inward peace and the con- sciousness of progress towards heaven, he must deny himself, he must take the cross, and follow Christ in the renuncia- tion of every gain and pleasure incon- sistent with the will of God. THE EVIL OF SIN. Proverbs xiv. g: "Fools make a mock at sin." My aim in this discourse is simple, and may be expressed in a few words. I wish to guard you against thinking lightly of sin. No folly is so monstrous, and yet our exposure to it is great. Breathing an atmosphere tainted with moral evil, seeing and hearing sin in our daily walks, we are in no small danger of overlooking its malignity. This ma- lignity I would set before you with all plainness, believing that the effort which Is needed to resist this enemy of our peace is to be called forth by fixing on it our frequent and serious attention. I feel as if a difficulty lay at the very threshold of this discussion, which it is worth our while to remove. The word sin, I apprehend, is to many obscure, or not sufficiently plain. It is a word sel- dom used in common life. It belongs to theology and the pulpit. By not a few people sin is supposed to be a prop- erty of our nature, born with us ; and we sometimes hear of the child as being sinful before it can have performed any action. From these and other causes the word gives to many confused no- tions. Sin, in its true sense, is the vio- lation of duty, and cannot, consequently, exist before conscience has begun to act, and before power to obey it is un- folded. To sin is to resist our sense of right, to oppose known obligation, to cherish feelings or commit deeds which we know to be wrong. It is to withhold from God the reverence, gratitude, and obedience which our own consciences pronounce to be due to that great and good Being. It is to transgress those laws of equity, justice, candor, humanity, disinterestedness, which we all feel to belong and to answer to our various so- cial relations. It is to yield ourselves to those appetites which we know to be the inferior principles of our nature, to give the body a mastery over the mind, to sacrifice the intellect and heart to the senses to surrender ourselves to ease and indulgence, or to prefer loutward ac- cumulation and power to strength and peace of conscience, to progress towards 348 perfection./ Such is sin. It is voluntary wrong-doing. Any gratification injurious to ourselves is sin. Any act injurious to our neighbors is sin. Indifference to our Creator is sin. The transgression of any command which this excellent Being and rightful Sovereign has given us, whether by conscience or revelation, is sin. So broad is this term. It is as extensive as duty. It is not some mys- terious thing wrought into our souls at birth. It is not a theological subtilty. It is choosing and acting in opposition to our sense of right, to known obliga- tion./ Now, according to the Scriptures, there is nothing so evil, so deformed, so ruinous as sin. All pain, poverty, con- tempt, afHiction, ill success, are light and not to be named with it. To do wrong is more pernicious than to incur all the calamities which nature or human malice can heap upon us. According to the Scriptures, I am not to fear those who would kill this body, and have nothing more that they can do. Such enemies are impotent compared with that sin which draws down the displeasure of God, and draws after it misery and death to the soul. According to the Scriptures, I am to pluck out even a right eye, or cut off even a right arm, which would ensnare or seduce me into crime. The loss of the most important limbs and organs is nothing compared to the loss of innocence. Such you know is the whole strain of Scripture, 'fein, violated duty, the evil of the heart, this is the only evil of which Scripture takes account. It was from this that Christ came to redeem us, It is to pu- rify us from this stain, to set us free from this yoke, that a new and supernat- ural agency was added to God's other means of promoting human happiness^/ It is the design of these represen- tations of Scripture to lead us to con- nect with sin or wrong-doing the ideas of evil, wretchedness, and debasement more strongly than with any thing else ; and this deep, deliberate conviction of the wrong and evil done to ourselves by sin is not simply a command of Christi- anity. It is not an arbitrary, positive precept, which rests solely on the word of the lawgiver, and of which no account can be given but that he wills it. It is alike the dictate of natural and revealed religion, an injunction of conscience and THE EVIL OF SIN. reason, founded in our very souls, and confirmed by constant experience. To regard sin, wrong-doing, as the greatest of evils is God's command, proclaimed from within and without, from heaven and earth ; and he who does not hear it has not learned the truth on which his whole happiness rests. This I propose to illustrate. I. If we look within, we find in our very nature a testimony to the doctrine that sin is the chief of evils, — a testi- mony which, however slighted or smoth- ered, will be recognized, I think, by every one who hears me. To understand this truth better, it may be useful to inquire into and compare the different kinds of evil. Evil has various forms, but these may all be reduced to two great di- visions, called by philosophers natural and moral. By the first is meant the pain or suffering which springs from outward condition and events, or from causes independent of the will. The latter, that is, moral evil, belongs to character and conduct, and is commonly expressed by the words sin, vice, trans- gression of the rule of right. Now I say that there is no man, unless he be singularly hardened and an exception to his race, who, if these two classes or di- visions of evil should be clearly and fully presented him in moments of calm and de- liberate thinking, would not feel, through the very constitution of his mind, that sin or vice is worse and more to be dreaded than pain. I am willing to take from among you the individual who has studied least the great questions of mo- rality and religion, whose mind has grown up with least discipline. If I place before such a hearer two examples in strong contrast, one of a man gaining great property by an atrocious crime, and an^ other exposing himself to great suffering through a resolute purpose of duty, will he not tell nie at once, from a deep moral sentiment which leaves not a doubt on his mind, that the last has chosen the better part, that he is more to be envied than the first ? On these great questions, What is the chief good ? and What the chief evil ? we are instructed by our own nature. An inward voice has told men, even in heathen countries, that excellence of character is the supreme good, and that baseness of soul and of action involves something worse than suffering. We have all of us, at some THE EVIL OF SIN. 349 period of life, had the same conviction ; and these have been the periods when the mind has been healthiest, clearest, least perturbed by passion. Is there any one here who does not feel that what the divine faculty of conscience enjoins as right has stronger claims upon him than what is recommended as merely agreeable or advantageous ; that duty is something more sacred than in- terest or pleasure ; that virtue is a good of a higher order than gratification ; that crime is something worse than outward loss ? What means the admiration with which we follow the conscientious and disinterested man, and which grows strong in proportion to his sacrifices to duty? Is it not the testimony of our whole souls to the truth and greatness of the good he has chosen ? What means the feeling of abhorrence, which we cannot repress if we would, towards him who, by abusing confidence, tram- pling on weakness, or hardening himself against the appeals of mercy, has grown rich or great ? Do we think that such a man has made a good bargain in barter- ing principle for wealth ? Is prosperous fortune a balance for vice ? In our de- liberate moments, is thfere not a voice which pronounces his craft folly, and his success misery ? And, to come nearer home, what con- viction is it which springs up most spontaneously in our more reflecting moments, when we look back without passion on our own lives ? Can vice stand that calm look ? Is there a sin- gle wrong act which we would not then rejoice to expunge from the unalterable records of our deeds ? Do we ever congratulate ourselves on having de- spised the inward monitor, or revolted against God ? To what portions of our history do we return most joyfully ? Are they those in which we gained the world and lost the soul, in which temp- tation mastered our principles, which levity and sloth made a blank, or which a selfish and unprincipled activity made worse than a blank, in our existence ? or are they those in which we suffered but were true to conscience, in which we denied ourselves for duty, and sacri- ficed success through unwavering rec- titude ? In these moments of calm recollection, do not the very transgres- sions at which perhaps we once mocked, and which promised unmixed joy, recur to awaken shame and remorse ? And do not shame and remorse involve a con- sciousness that we have sunk beneath our proper good ? that our highest nat- ure, what constitutes our true self, has been sacrificed to low interests and pursuits ? I make these appeals con- fidently. I think my questions can receive but one answer. Now, these convictions and emotions with which we witness moral evil in others, or recollect it in ourselves ; these feelings towards guilt, which mere pain and suffering never excite, and which manifest them- selves with more or less distinctness in all nations and all stages of society ; these inward attestations that sin, wrong-doing, is a peculiar evil, for which no outward good can give ade- quate compensation, — surely these de- serve to be regarded as the voice of nature, the voice of God. They are accompanied with a peculiar conscious- ness of truth. They are felt to be our ornament and defence. Thus-, our nat- ure teaches the doctrine of Christianity, that sin, or moral evil, ought of all evils to inspire most abhorrence and fear. Our first argument has been drawn from sentiment, from deep and almost instinctive feeling, from the hand-writ- ing of the Creator on the soul. Our next may be drawn from experience. We have said that even when sin or wrong;doing is prosperous, and duty brings suffering, we feel that the suffer- ing is a less evil than sin. I now add, in the second place, that sin, though it sometimes prospers, and never meets its full retribution on earth, yet, on the whole, produces more present suffering than all things else ; so that experience warns us against sin or wrong-doing as the chief evil we can incur. Whence come the sorest diseases and acutest bodily pains ? Come they not from the lusts warring in our members, from criminal excess ? What chiefly gen- erates poverty and its worst suffer- ings ? Is it not to evils of character, to the want of self-denying virtue, that we must ascribe chiefly the evils of our outward condition ? The. pages of his- tory, how is it that they are so dark and sad? Is it not that they are stained with crime ? If we penetrate into pri- vate life, what spreads most misery through our homes ? Is it sickness, or selfishness ? Is it want of outward com- 3SO THE EVIL OF SIN. forts, or want of inward discipline, of the spirit of love ? What more do we need to bring back Eden's happiness than Eden's sinlessness ? How light a burden would be life's necessary ills were they not aided by the crushing weight of our own and others' faults and crimes ? How fast would human woe vanish were human selfishness, sensuality, injustice, pride, impiety, to yield to the pure and benign influences of Christian truth ? How many of us know that the sharpest pains we have ever suffered have been the wounds of pride, the paroxysms of passion, the stings of remorse ; and where this is not the case, who of us, if he were to know his own soul, would not see that the daily restlessness of life, the wear- ing uneasiness of the mind, which, as a whole, brings more suffering than acute pains, is altogether the result of undis- ciplined passions, of neglect or dis- obedience of God ? Our discontents and anxieties have their origin in moral evil. The lines of suffering on almost every human countenance have been deepened, if not traced there, by un- faithfulness to conscience, by depart- ures from duty. To do wrong is the surest way to bring suffering ; no wrong deed ever failed to bring it. Those sins which are followed by no palpable pain are yet terribly avenged even in this life. They abridge our capacity jDf hap- piness, impair our relish for innocent pleasure, and increase our sensibility to suffering. They spoil us of the armor of a pure conscience and of trust in God, without which we are naked amidst hosts of foes, and are vulnerable by all the changes of life. Thus, to do wrong is to inflict the surest injury on our own peace. No enemy can do us equal harm with what we do ourselves when- ever or however we violate any moral or religious obligation. I have time but for one more view of moral evil or sin, showing that it is truly the greatest evil. It is this. The mis- eries of disobedience to conscience and God are not exhausted in this life. Sin deserves, calls for, and will bring down future, greater misery. This Christian- ity teaches, and this nature teaches. Retribution is not a new doctrine brought by Christ into the world. Though dark- ened and corrupted, it was spread every- where before he came. It carried alarm to rude nations, which nothing on earth could terrify. It mixed with all the false religions of antiquity, and it finds a response now in every mind not per- verted by sophistry. That we shall carry with us into the future world our present minds, and that a character formed in opposition to our highest fac- ulties and to the will of God will pro- duce suffering in our future being, — these are truths, in which revelation, reason, and conscience remarkably con- spire. I know, indeed, that this doctrine is sometimes questioned. It is maintained by some among us that punishment is confined to the present state ; that in changing worlds we shall change our characters ; that moral evil is to be buried with the body in the grave. As this opinion spreads industriously, and as it tends to diminish the dread of sin, it deserves some notice. To my mind, a more irrational doctrine was never broached. In the first place, it con- tradicts all our experience of the nature and laws of the mind. There is nothing more striking in the mind than the con- nection of its successive states. Our present knowledge, thoughts, feelings, , characters, are the results of former im- pressions, passions, and pursuits. We are this moment what the past has made us ; and to suppose that at death the influences of our whole past course are to cease on our minds, and that a char- acter is to spring up altogether at war with what has preceded it, is to suppose the most important law or principle of the mind to be violated, is to destroy all analogy between the present and fut- ure, and to substitute for experience the wildest dreams of fancy. In truth, such a sudden revolution in the character as is here supposed seems to destroy a man's identity. The individual thus transformed can hardly seem to himself or to others the same being. It is equivalent to the creation of a new soul. Let me next ask, what fact can be adduced in proof or illustration of the power ascribed' to death of changing' and purifying the mind ? What is death: It is the dissolution of certain limbs anc organs by which the soul now acts. Bui these, however closely connected with the mind, are entirely distinct from its powers, from thought and will, from THE EVIL OF SIN. 35t conscience and affection. Why should the last grow pure from the dissolution of the first ? Why shall the mind put on a new character by laying aside the gross instruments through which it now operates ? At death, the hands, the feet, the eye, and the ear perish. But they often perish during life ; and does character change with them ? It is true that our animal appetites are weakened and sometimes destroyed by the decay of the bodily organs on which they de- pend. But our deeper principles of ac- tion, and the moral complexion of the mind, are not therefore reversed. It often happens that the sensualist, bro- ken down by disease which excess has induced, comes to loathe the luxuries to which he was once enslaved ; but do his selfishness, his low habits of thought, his insensibility to God, decline and perish with his animal desires ? Lop off the criminal's hands ; does the dis- position to do mischief vanish with them ? When the feet mortify, do we see a cor- responding mortification of the will to go astray ? The loss of sight or hearing is a partial death ; but is a single vice plucked from the mind, or one of its strong passions palsied, by this destruc- tion of its chief corporeal instruments .'' Again ; the idea that by dying or changing worlds a man may be made better or virtuous, shows an ignorance of the nature of moral goodness or virtue. This belongs to free beings ; it supposes moral liberty. A man cannot be made virtuous as an instrument may be put in tune, by a foreign hand, by an outward force. Virtue is'that to which the man himself contributes. It is the fruit of exertion. It supposes conquest of temp- tation. It cannot be given from abroad to one who has wasted life or steeped himself in crime. To suppose moral goodness breathed from abroad into the guilty mind, just as health may be im- parted to a sick body, is to overlook the distinction between corporeal and intel- lectual natures, and to degrade a free being into a machine. I will only add, that to suppose no connection to exist between the present and the future character, is to take away the use of the present state. Why are we placed in a state of discipline, ex- posed to temptation, encompassed with suffering, if, without discipline, and by a sovereign act of omnipotence, we are all of us, be our present characters what they may, soon and suddenly to be made perfect in virtue and perfect in happi- ness ? Let us not listen for a moment to a doctrine so irrational as that our present characters do not follow us into a future world. If we are to live again, let us settle it as a sure fact, that we shall carry with us our present minds, such as we now make them ; that we shall reap good or ill according to their im- provement or corruption ; and, of con- sequence, that every act which affects character will reach in its influence be- yond the grave, and have a bearing on our future weal or woe. We are now framing our future lot. He who does a bad deed says, more strongly than words can utter, " I cast away a portion of future good, I resolve on future pain." I proceed now to an important and 4 solemn remark in illustration of the evil of sin. It is plainly implied in Scripture that we shall suffer much more from sin, evil tempers, irreligion, in the future world than we suffer here. This is one main distinction between the two states. In the present world sin does indeed bring with it many pains, but not full or exact retribution, and sometimes it seems crowned with prosperity ; and the cause of this is obvious. The present world is a state for the formation of character. It is meant to be a state of trial, where we are to act freely, to have opportuni- ties of wrong as well as right action, and to become virtuous amidst temptation. Now such a purpose requires that sin, or wrong-doing, should not regularly and infallibly produce its full and immediate punishment. For suppose, my hearers, that at the very instant of a bad purpose or a bad deed a_sore and awful penalty were unfailingly to light upon you ; would this be consistent with trial ? would you have moral freedom ? would you not live under compulsion ? Who would do wrong if judgment were to come like lightning after every evil deed ? In such a world fear would suspend our liberty and supersede conscience. Ac- cordingly sin, though, as we have seen, it produces great misery, is still left to compass many of its objects, often to prosper, often to be gain. Vice, bad as it is, has often many pleasures in its train. . The worst men partake, equally with the good, the light of the sun, the 352 THE EVIL OF SIN. rain, the harvest, the accommodations and improvements of civilized life, and sometimes accumulate more largely out- ward goods. And thus sin has its pleas- ures, and escapes many of its natural and proper fruits. We live in a world where, if we please, we may forget our- selves, may delude ourselves, may in- toxicate our minds with false hopes, and may find for a time a deceitful joy in an evil course. In this respect the future will differ from the present world. After death, character will produce its full effect. According to the Scriptures, the color of our future existence will be wholly determined by the habits and principles which we carry into it. The circumstances which in this life prevent vice, sin, wrong-doing, from inflicting pain, will not operate hereafter. There the evil mind will be exposed to its own terrible agency, and nothing, nothing will interfere between the transgressor and his own awakened conscience. I ask you to pause and weigh this dis- tinction between the present and future. In the present life we have, as I have said, the means of escaping, amusing, and forgetting ourselves. Once in the course of every daily revolution of the sun we all of us find refuge, and many a long refuge, in sleep ; and he who has lived without God, and in violation of his duty, hears not for hours a whisper of the monitor within. But sleep is a function of our present animal frame, and let not the transgressor anticipate this boon in the world of retribution before him. It may be, and he has reason to fear; that in that state repose will not weigh down his eyelids, that conscience will not slumber there, that night and day the same reproaching voice is to cry within, that unrepented sin will fasten with unrelaxing grasp on the ever-waking soul. What an im- mense change in condition would the removal of this single alleviation of suf- fering produce ! Again ; in the present state, how many pleasant sights, scenes, voices, motions, draw us from ourselves ; and he who has done wrong, how easily may he forget it, perhaps mock at it, under the bright light of this sun, on this fair earth, at the table of luxury, and amidst cheer- ful associates. In the state of retribu- tion he who has abused the present state will find no such means of escap- ing the wages of sin. The precise mode in which such a man is to exist here- after I know not. But 1 know that it wiU offer nothing to amuse him, to dis- sipate thought, to turn him away from himself; nothing to which he can fly for refuge from the inward penalties of transgression. In the present life, I have said, the outward creation, by its interesting ob- jects, draws the evil man from himself. It seems to me probable that, in the future, the whole creation will through sin be turned into a source of suffering, and will perpetually throw back the evil mind on its own transgressions. I can briefly state the reflections which lead to this anticipation. The Scriptures strong- ly imply, if not positively teach, that in the future life we shall exist in connec- tion with some material frame ; and the doctrine is sustained by reason ; for it can hardly be thought that in a creation which is marked by gradual change and progress, we should make at once the mighty transition from our present state into a purely spiritual or unembodied existence. Now, in the present state, we find that the mind has an immense power over the body, and when dis- eased, often communicates disease to its sympathizing companion. I believe that, in the future state, the mind will have this power of conforming its out- ward frame to itself incomparably more than here. We must never forget that in that world mind or character is to exert an all-powerful sway ; and, accord- ingly, it is rational to believe that the corrupt and deformed rfiind, which wants moral goodness, or a spirit of concord with God and with the universe, will create for itself, as its fit dwelling, a deformed body, which will also want concord or harmony with all things around it. Suppose this to exist, and the whole creation which now amuses may become an instrument of suffering, fixing the soul with a more harrowing consciousness on itself. You know that even now, in consequence of certain derangements of the nervous system, the beautiful light gives acute pain, and sounds which once delighted us be- come shrill and distressing. How often this excessive irritableness of the body has its origin in moral disorders, per- haps few of us suspect. I apprehend, indeed, that we should be all amazed THE EVIL OF SIN. 353 • were we to learn to what extent the body- is continually incapacitated for enjoy- ment, and made susceptible of suffer- ing, by sins of the heart and life. That delicate part of our organization on which sensibility, pain, and pleasure depend, is, I believe, peculiarly alive to the touch of moral evil. How easily, then, may the mind hereafter frame the future body according to itself, so that, in proportion to its vice, it will receive, through its organs and senses, impressions of gloom which it will feel to be the natural pro- ductions of its own depravity, and which will in this way give a terrible energy to conscience ! For myself, I see no need of a local hell for the sinner after death. When I reflect how, in the present world, a guilty mind has power to deform the countenance, to undermine health, to poison pleasure, to darken the fairest scenes of nature, to turn prosperity into a curse, I can easily understand how, in the world to come, sin, working without obstruction according to its own nature, should spread the gloom of a dungeon over the whole creation, and wherever it goes should turn the universe into a hell. In these remarks I presume not to be the prophet jaf the future world. I only wish you to feel how terribly sin is here- after to work its own misery, and how false and dangerous it is to argue from your present power of escaping its eon- sequences, that you may escape them in the life to come. Let each of us be assured that by abusing this world we shall not earn a better. The Scriptures announce a state of more exact and rig- orous retributioa than the present. Let "this truth sink into our hearts. It shows us, what I have aimed to establish, that to do wrong is to incur the greatest of calamities, that sin is the chief of e-^dls. May I not say that nothing else deserves the name ? No other evil will follow us '/eyond the grave. Poverty, disease, the world's scorn, the pain of bereaved affection, these cease at the grave. The purified spirit lays down there every burden. One and only one evil can be carried from this world to the next, and that is the evil within us, moral evil, gujit, crime, ungoverned passion, the depraved mind, the memory of a wasted or ill-spent life, the character which has grown up under neglect of God's voice in the soul and in his word. This, this will go with us, to stamp itself on our future frames, to darken our future being, to separate us like an impassable gulf from our Creator and from pure and happy beings, to be as a consuming fire and an undying worm. I have spoken of the pains and pen- alties of moral evil, or of wrong-doing, in the world to come. How long they will endure, I know not. Whether they will issue in the reformation and hap- piness of the sufferer, or will terminate in the extinction of his conscious being, is a question on which Scripture throws no clear light. Plausible arguments may be adduced in support of both these doctrines. On this and on other points revelation aims not to give precise infor- mation, but to fix in us a deep impres- sion that great suffering awaits a dis- obedient, wasted, immoral, irreligious life. To fasten this impression, to make it a deliberate and practical conviction, is more needful than to ascertain the mode or duration of future suffering. May the views this day given lead us all to self-communion and to new energy, watchfulness, and prayer against our sins ! May they teach us that to do wrong, to neglect or violate any known duty, is of all evils the most fearful ! Let every act, or feeling, or motive, which bears the brand of guilt, seem to us more terrible than the worst calam- ities of life. Let us dread it more than the agonies of the most painful death. 23 354 IMMORTALITY. IMMORTALITY. 2 Timothy i. lo : " Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and im- mortality to light through the Gospel. Immortality is the glorious discov- ery of Christianity. I say discovery, not because a future life was wholly un- known before Christ, but because it was so revealed by him as to become to a considerable extent a new doctrine. Be- fore Christ, immortality was a conject- ure or a vague hope. Jesus, by his teaching and resurrection, has made it a certainty. Again, before Christ, a future life lent little aid to virtue. It was seized upon by the imagination and passions, and so perverted by them as often to minister to vice. In Chris- tianity this doctrine is wholly turned to a moral use ; and the future is revealed only to give motives, resolution, force, to self-conflict and to a holy life. My aim in this discourse is to strength- en, if I may, your conviction of immor- tality ; and I have thought that I may do this by showing that this great truth is also a dictate of nature ; that reason, though unable to establish it, yet ac- cords with and adopts it ; that it is written alike in God's word and in the soul. It is plainly rational to expect that, if man was made for immortality, the marlis of this destination wiU be found in his very constitution, and that these marks will grow stronger in pro- portion to the unfolding of his faculties. I would show that this expectation proves just, that the teaching of revelation in regard to a future life finds a strong response in our own nature. This topic is the more important be- cause to some men there seem to be appearances in nature unfavorable to immortality. To many, the constant operation of decay in all the works of creation, the dissolution of all the forms of animal and vegetable nature, gives a feeling as if destruction were the law to which we and all beings are subjected. It has often been said by the sceptic, that the races or classes of being are alone perpetual, that all the individuals which compose them are doomed to perish. Now I affirm that the more we know of the mind, the more we see rea- son to distinguish it from the animal and vegetable races which grow and decay around us ; and that in its very nature we see reason for exempting it from the universal law of destruction. To this point I now ask your attention. When we look round us on the earth, we do indeed see every thing changing, decaying, passing away ; and so inclined are we to reason from analogy or resem- blance, that it is not wonderful that the dissolution of all the organized forms of matter should seem to us to announce our own destruction. But we overlook the distinctions between matter and mind ; and these are so immense as to justify the directly opposite conclusion. Let me point out some of these distinc- tions. I. When we look at the organized productions of nature, we see that they require only a limited time, and most of them a very short time, to reach their perfection and accomplish their end. Take, for example, that noble production, a tree. Having reached a certain height and borne leaves, ilowers, and fruit, it has nothing more to do. Its powers are fully developed ; it has no hidden capacities, of which its buds' and fruit are only the beginnings and pledges. Its design is fulfilled; the principle of life within it can effect no more. Not so the mind. We can never say of this, as of the full-grown tree in autumn. It has answered its end, it has done its work, its capacity is exhausted. On the contrary, the nature, powers, desires, and purposes of the mind are all undefined. We never feel, when a great intellect has risen to an original thought or a vast discovery, that it has now accomplished its whole purpose, reached its bound, and can yield no other or higher fruits. On the contrary, our conviction of its resources is en- larged ; we discern more of its affinity to the inexhaustible intelligence of its IMMORTALITY. 3SS Author. In every step of its progress we see a new impulse gained, and tlie pledge of nobler acquirements. So, when a pure and resolute mind has made some great sacrifice to truth and duty, has manifested its attachment to God and man in singular trials, we do not feel as if the whole energy of virtu- ous principle were now put forth, as if the measure of excellence were filled, as if the maturest fruits were now borne, and henceforth the soul could only repeat itself. We feel, on the con- trary, that virtue by illustrious efforts replenishes instead of wasting its life ; that the mind, by perseverance in well- doing, instead of sinking into a mechan- ical lameness, is able to conceive of higher duties, is armed for a nobler daring, and grows more efficient in charity. The mind, by going forward, does not reach insurmountable prison- walls, but learns more and more the boundlessness of its powers, and of the range for which it was created. Let me place this topic in another light, which may show even more strongly the contrast of the mind with the noblest productions of matter. My meaning may best be conveyed by re- verting to the tree. We consider the tree as having answered its highest purpose when it yields a particular fruit. We- judge of its perfection by a fixed, positive, definite product. The mind, however, in proportion to its im- provement, becomes conscious that its perfection consists not in fixed, pre- scribed effects, not in exact and defined attainments, but in an original, creative, unconfinable energy, which yields new products, which carries it into new fields of thought and new efforts for religion and humanity. This truth, in- deed, is so obvious, that even the least improved may discern it. You all feel that the most perfect mind is not that which works in a prescribed way, which thinks and acts according to prescribed rules, but that which has a spring of action in itself, which combines anew the knowledge received from other minds, which explores its hidden and multiplied relations, and gives it forth in fresh and higher forms. The perfec- tion of the tree, then, lies in a precise or definite product. That of the mind lies in an indefinite and boundless energy. The first implies limits. To set limits to the mind would destroy that original power in which its perfec- tion consists. Here, then, we observe a distinction between material forms and the mind ; and from the destruc- tion of the first, which, as we see, at- tain perfection and fulfil their purpose in a limited duration, we cannot argue to the destruction of the last, which plainly possesses the capacity of a progress without end. 2. We have pointed out one contrast between the mind and material forms. The latter, we have seen, by their nature have bounds. The tree, in a short time, and by rising and spreading a short distance, accomplishes its end. I now add that the system of nature to which the tree belongs requires that it should stop where it does. Were it to grow for ever, it would be an infinite mis- chief. A single plant, endued with the principle of unhmited expansion, would in the progress of centuries overshadow nations and exclude every other growth, would exhaust the earth's whole fertility. Material forms, then, must have narrow bounds, and their usefulness requires that their life and growth should often be arrested even before reaching the limits prescribed by nature. But the indefinite expansion of the mind, in- stead of warring with and counteract- ing the system of creation, harmonizes with and perfects it. One tree, should it grow for ever, would exclude other forms of vegetable life. One mind, in proportion to its expansion, awakens and in a sense creates other minds. It multiplies, instead of exhausting, the nutriment which other understandings need. A mind, the more it has of in- tellectual and moral life, the more it spreads life and power around it. It is an ever-enlarging source of thought and love. Let me here add that the mind, by unlimited growth, not only yields a greater amount of good to other beings, but it produces continually new forms of good. This is an important distinc- tion. Were the tree to spread indefi- nitely, it would abound more in fruit, but in fruit of the same kind ; and, by excluding every other growth, it would destroy the variety of products which now contribute to health and enjoyment. But the mind in its progress is perpetu- ally yielding new fruits, new forms of thought and virtue and sanctity. It 3S6 IMMOR TALITY. always contains within itself the germs of higher influences than it has ever put forth, the buds of fruits which it has never borne. Thus the very reason which requires the limitation of ma- terial forms — I mean the good of the whole system — seems to require the unlimited growth of mind. 3. Another distinction between ma- terial forms and the mind is, that to the former destruction is no loss. They exist for others wholly, in no degree for themselves ; and others only can sorrow for their fall. The mind, on the con- trary, has a deep interest in its own ex- istence. In this respect, indeed, it is distinguished from the animal as well as the vegetable. To the animal, the past is a blank, and so is the future. The present is every thing. But to the mind the present is comparatively noth- ing. Its great sources of happiness are memory and hope. It has power over the past, not only the power of recalling it, but of turning to good all its experience, its errors and s^ifferings as well as its successes. It has power over the future, not only the power of anticipating it, but of bringing the pres- ent to bear upon it, and of sowing for it the seeds of a golden harvest. To a mind capable of thus connecting it- self with all duration, of spreading itself through times past and to come, existence becomes infinitely dear, and, what is most worthy of observation, its interest in its own being increases with its progress in power and virtue. An improved mind understands the great- ness of its own nature, and the worth of existence, as these cannot be under- stood by the unimproved. The thought of its own destruction suggests to it an extent of ruin which the latter cannot comprehend. The thought of such fac- ulties as reason, conscience, and moral will being extinguished ; of powers akin to the divme energy being annihilated by their Author ; of truth and virtue, those images of God, being blotted out ; of progress towards perfection being bro- ken off almost at its beginning, — this is a thought fitted to overwhelm a mind in which the consciousness of its own spiritual nature is in a good degree un- folded. In other words, the more the mind is true to itself and to God, the more it clings to existence, the more it shrinks from extinction as an infinite loss. Would not its destruction, then, be a very different thing from the de- struction of material beings, and does the latter furnish an analogy or pre- sumption in support of the former ? To me, the undoubted fact that the mind thirsts for continued being just in pro- portion as it obeys the will of its Maker, is a proof, next to irresistible, of its being destined by him for im- mortality. 4. Let me add one more distinction between the mind and material forms. I return to the tree. We speak of the tree as destroyed. We say that de- struction is the order of nature, and some say that man must not hope to escape the universal law. Now we deceive our- selves in this use of words. There is in reality no destruction in the material world. True, the tree is resolved into its elements.' But its elements survive, and, still more, they survive to fulfil the same end which they before accom- plished. Not a power of nature is lost. The particles of the decayed tree are only left at liberty to form new, perhaps more beautiful and useful combinations. They may shoot up into more luxuriant foliage, or enter into the structure of the highest animals. But were mind to perish, there would be absolute, irre- trievable destruction ; for mind, from its nature, is something individual, an un- compounded essence, which cannot be broken into parts, and enter into union with other minds. I am myself, and can become no other being. My experi- ence, my history, cannot become my neighbor's. My consciousness, my mem- ory, my interest in my past life, my affecr tions, cannot be transferred. If in any instance I have withstood temptation, and through such Tesistance have ac- quired power over myself and a claim to the approbation of my fellow-beingsj tliis resistance, this power, this claim, are my own ; I cannot make them an- other's. I can give away my property, my limbs ; but that which makes mysefi, — in other words , my consciousness, my recollections, my feelings, my hopes, — these can never become parts of another mind. In the extinction of ai thinking, moral being, who has gained truth and virtue, there would be an absolute de- struction. This event would not be as the setting of the sun, which is a transfer of hght to new regions ; but a quenching IMMORTALITY. 357 of the light. It would be a ruin such as nature nowhere exhibits, — a ruin of what is infinitely more precious than the outward universe, — and is not, there- fore, to be inferred from any of the changes of the material world. I am aware that views of this nature, intended to show us that immortality is impressed on the soul itself, fail to pro- duce conviction from various causes. There are not a few who are so accus- tomed to look on the errors and crimes of society, that human nature seems to them little raised above the brutal ; and they hear, with a secret incredulity, of those distinctions and capacities of the mind which point to its perpetual exist- ence. To such men I might say that it is a vicious propensity which leads them to fasten continually and exclusively on the sins of human nature ; just as it is criminal to fix the thoughts perpetually on the miseries of human life, and to see nothing but evil in the order of creation and the providence of God. But, pass- ing over this, I allow that human nature abounds in crime. But this does not de- stroy my conviction of its greatness and immortality. I say that I see in crime itself the proofs of human greatness and of an immortal nature. The position may seem extravagant, but it may be fully sustained. I ask you first to consider what is implied in crime. Consider in what it originates. It has its origin in the no- blest principle that can belong to any being, — I mean, in moral freedom. There can be no crime without liberty of action, without moral power. Were man a machine, were he a mere creat- ure of sensation and impulse, like the brute, he could do no wrong. It is only because he has the faculties of reason and conscience, and a power over him- self, that he is capable of contracting guilt. Thus great guilt is itself a testi- mony to the high endowments of the soul. In the next place, let me ask you to consider whence it is that man sins. He sins by being exposed to temptation. Now the great design of temptation plainly is, that the soul, by withstanding it, should gain strength, should make progress, should become a proper object of divine reward. That is, man sins through an exposure which is designed to carry him forward to perfection ; so that the cause of his guilt points to a continued and improved existence. In the next place, I say that guilt has a pecuUar consciousness belonging to it which speaks strongly of a future life. It carries with it intimations of retri- bution. Its natural associate is fear. The connection of misery with crime is anticipated by a kind of moral instinct ; and the very circumstance that the un- principled man sometimes escapes pres- ent suffering, suggests more strongly a future state, where this apparent injus- tice will be redressed, and where present prosperity will become an aggravation of woe. Guilt sometimes speaks of a fut- ure state even in louder and more solemn tones than virtue. It has been known to overwhelm the spirit with terrible forebodings, and has found through its presentiments the hell which it feared. Thus guilt does not destroy, but corrob- orates, the proofs contained in the soul itself of its own future being. Let me add one more thought. The sins which abound in the world, and which are so often adduced to chill our belief in the capacities and vast pros- pects of human nature, serve to place in stronger relief, and in brighter light, the examples of piety and virtue which all must acknowledge are to be found among the guilty multitude. A mind which, in such a world, amidst so many corrupting influences, holds fast to truth, duty, and God, is a nobler mind than any which could be formed in the absence of such temptation. Thus the great sinfulness of tlie world makes the virtue which ex- ists in it more glorious ; and the very struggles which the good man has to maintain with its allurements and perse- cutions, prepare him for a brighter re- ward. To me, such views are singularly interesting and encouraging. I delight to behold the testimony which sin itself furnishes to man's greatness and im- mortality. I indeed see great guilt on earth ; but I see it giving occasion to great moral strength, and to singular de- votion and virtue in the good, and thus throwing on human nature a lustre which more than compensates for its own de- formity. I do not shut my eyes on the guilt of my race. I see, in history, hu- man malignity so aggravated, so unre- lenting, as even to pursue with torture, and to doom to the most agonizing death, the best of human beings. But when I 358 IMMORTALITY. see these beings unmoved by torture ; meek and calm, and forgiving in their agonies ; superior to death, and never 50 glorious as in the last hour, — I for- get the guilt which persecutes them, in my admiration of their virtue. In their sublime constancy, I see a testimony to the worth and immortality of human nat- ure that outweighs the wickedness of which they seem to be the victims ; and I feel an assurance, which nothing can wrest from me, that the godlike virtue which has thus been driven from earth will find a home, an everlasting liome, in its native heaven. Thus sin itself be- comes a witness to the future life of man. I have thus, my hearers, endeavored to show that our nature, the more it is inquired into, discovers more clearly the impress of immortality. I do not mean that this evidence supersedes all other. From its very nature, it can only be un- derstood thoroughly by improved and purified minds. The proof of immor- tality, which is suited to all understand- ings, is found in the gospel, sealed by the blood and confirmed by the resur- rection of Christ. But this, I think, is made piore impressive by a demonstra- tion of its harmony with the teachings of nature. To me, nature and revela- tion speak with one voice on the great theme of man's future being. Let not their joint witness be unheard. How full, how bright, are the e\-i- dences of this grand truth ! How weak are the common arguments which scep- ticism arrays against it ! To me there is but one objection against immortality, if objection it may be called, and this arises from the very greatness of the truth. My mind sometimes sinks under its weight, is lost in its immensity ; I scarcely dare believe that such a good is placed within my reach. When I think of myself as existing through all future ages, as surviving this earth and that sky, as exempted from every imper- fectioij and error of my present being, as clothed with an angel's glory, as com- prehending with my intellect and em- bracing in my affections an extent of creation compared with which the earth is a point ; when I think of myself as looking on the outward universe with an organ of vision that will reveal to me a beauty and harmony and order not now imagined, and as having an access to the minds of the 'wise and good which will make them in a sense my own ; when I think of myself as forming friendships with innumerable beings of rich and various intellect and of the noblest virtue, as introduced to the so- ciety of heaven, as meeting there the great and excellent of whom I have read in history, as joined with " the just made perfect " in an ever-enlarging ministry of benevolence, as conversing with Jesus Christ with the familiarity of friendship, and especially as having an immediate intercourse with God, such as the closest intimacies of earth dimly shadow forth ; when this thought of my future being comes to me, whilst I hope, I also fear ; the blessedness seems too great ; the consciousness of present weakness and unworthiness is almost too strong for hope. But when in this frame of mind I look round on the crea- tion, and see there the marks of an Om- nipotent goodness, to which nothing is impossible, and from which every thing may be hoped ; when I see around me the proofs of an Infinite Father who must desire the perpetual progress of his intellectual offspring ; when I look next at the human mind, and see what powers a few years have unfolded, and discern in it the capacity of everlasting improvement ; and especially when I look at Jesus, the conqueror of death, the heir of immortality, who has gone as the forerunner of mankind into the mansions of light and purity, I can and do admit the almost overpowering thought of the everlasting life, growth, felicity of the human soul. To each of us, my friends, is this fe- licity offered, — a good which turns to darkness and worthlessness the splen- dor and excellence of the most favored lot on earth. I say it is offered. It cannot be forced on us ; from its nature, it must be won. Immortal happiness is nothing more than the unfolding of our own minds, the full, bright exercise of our best powers : and these powers are never to be unfolded here or here- after, but through our own free exer- tion. To anticipate a higher existence whilst we neglect our own souls, is a delusion on which reason frowns no less than revelation. Dream not of a heaven into which you may enter, live here as you may. To such as waste the present state, the future will not, cannot bring THE FUTURE LIFE. 359 happiness. There is no concord be- tween them and that world of purity. A human being who has lived without God, and without self-improvement, can no more enjoy heaven than a moulder- ing body, lifted from the tomb and placed amidst beautiful prospects, can enjoy the light through its decayed eyes, or feel the balmy air which blows away its dust. My hearers, immortality is a glorious doctrine ; but not given us for speculation or amusement. Its hap- piness is to be realized only through our own struggles with ourselves, only through our own reaching forward to new virtue and piety. To be joined with Christ in heaven, we must be joined with him now in spirit, in the conquest of temptation, in charity and well-doing. Immortality should begin here. The seed is now to be sown which is to expand for ever. " Be not weary then in well-doing ; for in due time we shall reap, if we faint not." THE FUTURE LIFE: Discourse preached on Easter Sunday, 1 834, after the Death of an Excellent and very Dear Friend. Ephesians, i. 20: '* He raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." This day is set apart by the Chris- tian world to the commemoration of Christ's resurrection. Many uses may be made of this event, but it is par- ticularly fitted to confirm the doctrine of another life, and to turn our thoughts, desires, hopes towards another world. I shall employ it to give this direction to our minds. There is one method in which Christ's resurrection gives aid to our faith in another life which is not often dwelt on, and which seems to me worthy of atten- tion. Our chief doubts and difficulties in regard to that state spring chiefly from the senses and the imagination, and not from the reason. The eye, fixed on the lifeless body, on the wan features and the motionless limbs, — and the imagination, following the frame into the dark tomb, and representing to itself the stages of decay and ruin, are apt to fill and oppress the mind with discouraging and appalling thoughts. The senses can detect in the pale corpse not a trace of the activity of that spirit which lately moved it. Death seems to have achieved an entire victory ; and when reason and revelation speak of continued and a higher life, the senses and imagination, pointing to the disfig- ured and mouldering body, obscure by their sad forebodings the light which reason and revelation strive to kindle in the bereaved soul. Now the resurrection of Christ meets, if I may so say, the senses and imag- ination on their own ground, contends with them with their own weapons. It shows us the very frame on which death, in its most humiliating form, had set its seal, and which had been com- mitted in utter hopelessness to the tomb, rising, breathing, moving with new life, and rising not to return again to the earth, but, after a short sojourn, to ascend from the earth to a purer re- gion, and thus to attest man's destina- tion to a higher life. These facts, sub- mitted to the very senses, and almost necessarily kindling the imagination to explore the unseen world, seem to me particularly suited to overcome the main difficulties in the way of Christian faith. Reason is not left to struggle alone with the horrors of the tomb. The as- surance thst Jesus Christ, who lived on the earth, who died on the cross, and was committed a mutilated, bleeding frame to the receptacle of the dead, rose uninjured, and then exchanged an earthly for a heavenly life, puts to flight the sad auguries which rise like spectres from the grave, and helps us to con- ceive, as in our present weakness we could not otherwise conceive, of man's appointed triumph over death. 36o THE FUTURE LIFE. Such is one of the aids giveH by the resurrection to faith in immortality. Still this faith is lamentably weak in the multitude of men. To multitudes, heaven is almost a world of fancy. It wants substance. The idea of a world in which beings exist without these gross bodies, exist as pure spirits, or clothed with refined and spiritual frames, strikes them as a fiction. What can- not be seen or touched appears unreal. This is mournful, but not wonderful ; for how can men, who immerse them- selves in the body and its interests, and cultivate no acquaintance with their own souls and spiritual powers, comprehend a higher, spiritual life ? There are multitudes who pronounce a man a vis- ionary who speaks distinctly and joy- fully of his future being, and of the triumph of the mind over bodily decay. This scepticism as to things spiritual and celestial is as irrational and un- philosophical as it is degrading. We have more evidence that we have souls or spirits than that we have bodies. We are surer that we think, and feel, and will, than that we have solid and extended limbs and organs. Philoso- phers have said much to disprove the existence of matter and motion, but they have not tried to disprove the existence of thought ; for it is by thought they attempt to set aside the reality of material nature. Farther, how irrational is it to im- agine that there are no worlds but this, and no higher modes of existence than our own ! Who that sends his eye through this immense creation can doubt that there are orders of beings superior to ourselves, or can see any- thing unreasonable in the doctrine that there are states in which mind exists less circumscribed and clogged by mat- ter than on earth ; in other words, that there is a spiritual world ? It is child- ish to make this infant life of ours the model of existence in all other worlds. The philosopher, especially, who sees a vast chain of beings and an infinite variety of life on this single globe, which is but a point in creation, should be ashamed of that narrowness of mind which can anticipate nothing nobler in the universe of God than his present mode of being. How, now, shall the doctrine of a future, higher life, the doctrine both of reason and revelation, be brought to bear more powerfully on the mind, to become more real and effectual 1 Vari- ous methods might be given. I shall confine myself to one. This method is, to seek some clearer, more definite con- ception of the future state. That world seems less real, for want of some dis- tinctness in its features. We should all believe it more firmly if we conceived of it more vividly. It seems unsub- stantial, from its vagueness and dim- ness. I think it right, then, to use the aids of Scripture and reason in forming to ourselves something like a sketch of the life to come. The Scriptures, in- deed, give not many materials for such a delineation, but the few they furnish are invaluable, especially when we add to these the lights thrown over futurity by the knowledge of our own spiritual nature. Every new law of the mind which we discover helps us to compre- hend its destiny ; for its future life must correspond to its great laws and essen- tial powers. These aids we should employ to give distinctness to the spiritual state ; and it is particularly useful so to do when excellent beings, whom we have known and loved, pass from earth into that world. Nature prompts us to follow them to their new abode, to inquire into their new life, to represent to ourselves their new happiness ; and perhaps the spiritual world never becomes so near and real to us as when we follow into it dear friends, and sympathize with them in the improvements and enjoyments of that blessed life. Do not say that there is danger here of substituting imagina- tion for truth. There is no danger if we confine ourselves to the spiritual views of heaven given us in the New Testament, and interpret these by the principles and powers of our own souls. To me the subject is too dear and sacred to allow me to indulge myself in dreams. I want reaUty ; I want truth ; and this I find in God's word and in the human soul. When our virtuous friends leave the world, we know not the place where they go. We can turn our eyes to no spot in the universe and say they are there. Nor is our ignorance here of any moment. It is unimportant what region of space contains them. Whilst we know not to what place they go, we know what is THE FUTURE LIFE. 361 infinitely more interesting, to what be- ino-s they go. We know not where heaven is, but we know whom it con- tains, and this knowledge opens to us an infinite field for contemplation and delight. I. Our virtuous friends, at death, go to Jesus Christ. This is taught in the text. " God raised him from the dead, and exalted him to heaven." The New Testament always speaks of Jesus as existing now in the spiritual world ; and Paul tells us that it is the happiness of the holy, when absent from the body, to be present with the Lord. Here is one great fact in regard to futurity. The good, on leaving us here, meet their Saviour ; and this view alone assures us of their unutterable happiness. In this world they had cherished acquaint- ance with Jesus through the records of the Evangelists. They had followed him through his eventful life with ven- eration and love, had treasured in their memories his words, works, and life- giving promises, and, by receiving his spirit, had learned something of the virtues and happiness of a higher world. Now they meet him, they see him. He is no longer a faint object to their mind, obscured by distance and by the mists of sense and the world. He is present to them, and more intimately present than we are to each other. Of this we are sure ; for whilst the precise mode of our future existence is unknown, we do know that spiritual beings in that higher state must approach and com- mune with each other more and more intimately in proportion to their prog- ress. Those who are newly born into heaven meet Jesus, and meet from hira the kindest welcome. The happiness of the Saviour, in receiving to a higher ^ life a human being who has been re- deemed, purified, inspired with immortal goodness -by his influence, we can but imperfectly comprehend. You can con- ceive what would be your feelings on welcoming to shore your best friend who had been tossed on a perilous sea ; but the raptures of earthly reunion are faint compared with the happiness of Jesus in receiving the spirit for which he died, and which, under his guidance, has passed with an improving virtue through a world of sore temptation. We on earth meet, after our long separations, to suffer as well as enjoy, and soon to part again. Jesus meets those who ascend from earth to heaven with the consciousness that their trial is past, their race is run, that death is con- quered. With his far-reaching, pro- phetic eye he sees them entering a career of joy and glory never to end. And his benevolent welcome is ex- pressed with a power which belongs only to the utterance of heaven, and which communicates to them an im- mediate, confiding, overflowing joy. You know that on earth we sometimes meet human beings whose countenances, at the flrst view, scatter all distrust, and win from us something like the reliance of a long-tried friendship. One smile is enough to let us into their hearts, to reveal to us a goodness on which we may repose. That smile with which Jesus will meet the new-born inhabitant of heaven, that joyful greeting, that beaming of love from him who bled for us, that tone of welcome, — all these I can faintly conceive, but no language can utter them. The joys of centuries will be crowded into that meeting. This is not fiction. It is truth founded on the essential laws of the mind. Our friends, when they enter heaven, meet Jesus Christ, and their intercourse with him will be of the most affectionate and ennobling character. There will be nothing of distance in it. Jesus is, in- deed, sometimes spoken of as reigning in the future world, and sometimes imagination places him on a real and elevated throne. Strange that such con- ceptions can enter the minds of Chris- tians. Jesus will indeed reign in heaven, and so he reigned on earth. He reigned in the fishing-boat, from which he taught ; in the humble dwelhng, where he gathered round him listening and confiding disciples. His reign is not the vulgar dominion of this world. It is the empire of a great, godlike, dis- interested being over minds capable of comprehending and loving him. In heaven, nothing like what we call government on earth can exist, for government here is founded in human weakness and guilt. The voice of com- mand is never heard among the spirits of the just. Even on earth, the most perfect government is that of a family, where parents employ no tone but that of affectionate counsel, where filial af- fecfon reads its duty in the mild look, 362 THE FUTURE LIFE. and finds its law and motive in its own pure impulse. Christ will not be raised on a throne above his followers. On earth he sat at the same table with the publican and "sinner. Will he recede from the excellent whom he has fitted for celestial mansions ? How minds will communicate with one another in that world, we know not ; but we know that our closest embraces are but types of the spiritual nearness which will then be enjoyed ; and to this intimacy with Jesus the new-born inhabitant of heaven is admitted. But we have not yet exhausted this source of future happiness. The excel- lent go from earth not only to receive a joyful welcome and assurances of eter- nal love from the Lord. There is a still higher view. They are brought by this new intercourse to a new comprehension of his mind, and to a new reception of his spirit. It is, indeed, a happiness to know that we are objects of interest and love to an illustrious being ; but it is a greater happiness to know deeply the sublime and beautiful character of this being, to sympathize with him, to enter into his vast thoughts and pure designs, and to become associated with him in the great ends for which he lives. Even here, in our infant and dim state of being, we learn enough of Jesus, of his divine philanthropy triumphant over injuries and agonies, to thrill us with affectionate admiration. But those in heaven look into that vast, godlike soul as we have never done. They approach it as we cannot approach the soul of the most confiding friend ; and this nearness to the mind of Jesus awakens in them- selves a power of love and virtue which they little suspected during their earthly being. I trust I speak to those who, if they have ever been brought into con- nection with a noble human being, have felt, as it were, a new spirit, and almost new capacities of thought and life, ex- panded within them. We all know how a man of mighty genius and of heroic feeling can impart himself to other minds, and raise them for a time to something like his own energy ; and in this we have a faint deUneation of the power to be exerted on the minds of those who approach Jesus after death. As nature at this season springs to a new life under the beams of the sun, so will the human soul be warmed and ex- panded under the influence of Jesus Christ. It will then become truly con- scious of the immortal power treasured up in itself. His greatness will not overwhelm it, but will awaken a corre- sponding grandeur. Nor is this topic yet exhausted. The good, on approaching Jesus, will not only sympathize with his spirit, but will become joint workers, active, efficient ministers in accomplishing his great work of spreading virtue and happi- ness. We must never think of heaven as a state of inactive contemplation, or of unproductive feeling. Even here on earth the influence of Christ's character is seen in awakening an active, selE- sacrificing goodness. It sends the true disciples to the abodes of the suffering. It binds them by new ties to their race. It gives them a new consciousness of being created for a ministry of be- neficence ; and can they, when they approach more nearly this divine Phi- lanthropist, and learn, by a new alliance with him, the fulness of his love, can they fail to consecrate themselves to his work and to kindred labors with an energy of will unknown on earth ? In truth, our sympathy with Christ could not be perfect did we not act with him. Nothing so unites beings as co-opera- tion in the same glorious cause, and to this union with Christ the excellent above are received. There is another very interesting view of the future state, which seems to me to be a necessary consequence of the connection to be formed there with Jesus Christ. Those who go there from among us must retain the deepest interest in this world. Their ties to those they have left are not dissolved, but only refined. On this point, indeed, I want not the evidence of revelation ; I want no other evidence than the essen- tial principles and laws of the soul. If the future state is to be an improve- ment on the present, if intellect is to be invigorated and love expanded there, then memory, the fundamental power of the intellect, must act with new energy on the past, and all the benevolent affections which have been cherished here must be quickened into a higher life. To suppose the present state blotted out hereafter from the mind would be to destroy its use, would cut off aU connection between the two THE FUTURE LIFE. 363 worlds, and would subvert responsibil- ity ; for how can retribution be awarded for a forgotten existence ? No ; we must carry the present with us, whether we enter the world of happiness or woe. The good will indeed form new, holier, stronger ties above ; but, under the ex- panding influence of that better world, the human heart will be capacious enough to retain the old whilst it re- ceives the new, to remember its birth- place with tenderness whilst enjoying a maturer and happier being. Did I think of those who are gone as dying to those they left, I should honor and love them less. The man who forgets his home .when he quits it, seems to want the best sensibilities of our nature ; and if the good were to forget their brethren on earth in their new abode, were to cease to intercede for them in their nearer approach to their common Fa- ther, could we think of them as im- proved by the change ? All this I am compelled to infer from the nature of the human mind. But when 1 add to this that the new-born heirs of heaven go to Jesus Christ, the great lover of the human family, who dwelt here, suffered here, who moist- ened our earth with his tears and blood, who has gone not to break off but to continue and perfect his beneficent la- bors for mankind, whose mind never for a moment turns from our race, whose interest in the progress of his truth and the salvation of the tempted soul has been growing more and more intense ever since he left our world, and who has thus bound up our race with his very being, — when I think of all this, I am sure that they cannot forget our world. Could we hear them, I believe they would tell us that they never truly loved the race before ; never before knew what it is to sympathize with hu- man sorrow, to rejoice in human virtue, to mourn for human guilt. A new foun- tain of love to man is opened within them. They now see what before dimly gleamed on them, the capacities, the inysteries of a human soul. The sig- nificance of that word immortality is now apprehended, and every being des- tined to it rises into unutterable impor- tance. They love human nature as never before, and human friends are prized as above all price. Perhaps it may be asked whether those born into heaven not only remem- ber with interest, but have a present im- mediate knowledge of those whom they left on earth ? On this point neither Scripture nor the principles of human nature give us light, and we are of course left to uncertainty. I will only say that I know nothing to prevent such knowledge. We are indeed accustomed to think of heaven as distant ; but of this we have no proof. Heaven is the union, the society of spiritual, higher beings. May not these fill the universe, so as to make heaven everywhere ? are such beings probably circumscribed, as we are, by material limits ? Milton has said, — " Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth Both when we wake and when we sleep." It is possible that the distance of heaven lies wholly in the veil of flesh, which we now want power to penetrate. A new sense, a new eye, might show the spiritual world compassing us on every side. But suppose heaven to be remote. Still we on earth may be visible to its inhabitants ; still in an important sense they may be present ; for what do we mean by presence ? Am I not present to those of you who are beyond the reach of my arm, but whom I distinctly see ? And is it at all inconsistent with our knowledge of nature to suppose that those in heaven, whatever be their abode, may have spiritual senses, or- gans, by which they may discern the remote as clearly as we do the near ? This little ball of sight can see the planets at the distance of millions of miles, and by the aids of science can distinguish the inequalities of their sur- faces. And it is easy for us to conceive of an organ of vision so sensitive and piercing, that from our earth the inhabi- tants of those far-rolling worlds might be discerned. Why, then, may not they who have entered a higher state, and are clothed with spiritual frames, sur- vey our earth as distinctly as when it was their abode ? This may be the truth ; but if we re- ceive it as such, let us not abuse it. It is liable to abuse. Let us not think of the departed as looking on us with earthly, partial affections. They love us more than ever, but with a refined and spiritual love. They have now but 364 THE FUTURE LIFE. one wish for us, which is, that we may fit ourselves to join them in their man- sions of benevolence and piety. Their spiritual vision penetrates to our souls. Could we hear their voice, it would not be an utterance of personal attachment so much as a quickening call to greater effort, to more resolute self-denial, to a wider charity, to a meeker endurance, a more fiUal obedience of the will of God. Nor must we think of them as appropriated to ourselves. They are breathing now an atmosphere of divine benevolence. They are charged with a higher mission than when they trod the earth. And this thought of the enlarge- ment of their love should enlarge ours, and carry us beyond selfish regards to a benevolence akin to that with which they are inspired. It is objected, I know, to the view I have given of the connection of the in- habitants of heaven with this world, that it is inconsistent with their happiness. It is said that, if they retain their knowl- edge of this state, they must suffer from the recollection or sight of our sins and woes ; that to enjoy heaven they must wean themselves from the earth. This objection is worse than superficial. It is a reproach to heaven and the good. It supposes that the happiness of that world is founded in ignorance, that it is the happiness of the blind man, who, were he to open his eye on what exists around him, would be filled with horror. It makes heaven an Elysium, whose in- habitants perpetuate their joy by shut- ting themselves up in narrow bounds, and hiding themselves from the pains of flieir fellow-creatures. But the good, from their very nature, cannot thus be confined. Heaven would be a prison did it cut them off from sympathy with the suffering. Their benevolence is too pure, too divine, to shrink from the sight of evil. Let me add that the objection before us casts reproach on God. It supposes that there are regions of his universe which must be kept out of sight, which, if seen, would blight the happiness of the virt- uous. But this cannot be true. There are no such regions, no secret places of woe which these pure spirits must not penetrate. There is impiety in the tliought. In such a universe there could be no heaven. Do you tell me that according to these views suffering must exist in that blessed state ? I reply, I do and must regard heaven as a world of sympathy. Nothing, I believe, has greater power to attract the regards of its benevolent inhabitants than the misery into which any of their fellow-creatures may have fallen. The suffering which belongs to a virtuous sympathy I cannot, then, separate from heaven. But that sympathy, though it has sorrow, is far from being misery. Even in this world, a disinterested com- passion, when joined with power to minister to suffering, and with wisdom to comprehend its gracious purposes, is a spirit of peace, and often issues in the purest delight. Unalloyed as it will be in another world by our present infirmi- ties, and enlightened by comprehensive views of God's perfect government, it will give a charm and loveliness to the sublimer virtues of the blessed, and, like aU other forms of excellence, will at length enhance their felicity. II. You see how much of heaven is taught us in the single truth, that they who enter it meet and are united to Jesus Christ. There are other interest- ing views at which I can only glance. The departed go not to Jesus only. They go to the great and blessed so- ciety which is gathered round him, to the redeemed from all regions of earth, "to the city of the living God, to an innumerable company of angels, to the church of the first-born, to the spirits of the just made perfect." Into what a glorious community do they enter ! And how they are received you can easily understand. We are told there is joy in heaven over the sinner who repenteth ; and will not his ascension to the abode of perfect virtue communicate more fervent happiness ? Our friends who leave us for that world do not find themselves cast among strangers. No desolate feeling springs up of having exchanged their home for a foreign country. The tenderest accents of hu- man friendship never approached in affectionateness the voice of congratu- lation which bids them welcome to their new and everlasting abode. In that world, where minds have surer means of revealing themselves than here, the newly arrived immediately see and feel themselves encompassed with virtue and goodness ; and through this insight into the congenial spirits which surround them, intimacies stronger than years THE FUTURE LIFE. 365 can cement on earth may be created in a moment. It seems to me accordant with all the principles of human nature, to suppose that the departed meet peculiar con- fratulation from friends who had gone efore them to that better world ; and especially from all who had in any way given aids to their virtue ; from parents who had instilled into them the first lessons of love to God and man ; from associates, whose examples had won them to goodness, whose faithful coun- sels deterred them from sin. The ties created by such benefits must be eter- nal. The grateful soul must bind itself with peculiar affection to such as guided it to immortality. In regard to the happiness of the in- tercourse of the future state, all of you, I trust, can form some apprehensions of it. If we have ever known the enjoy- ments of friendship, of entire confi- dence, of co-operation in honorable and successful labors with those we love, we can comprehend something of the felicity of a world where souls, refined from selfishness, open as the day, thirst- ing for new truth and virtue, endued with new power of enjoying the beauty and grandeur of the universe, allied in the noblest works of benevolence, and continually discovering new mysteries of the Creator's power and goodness, communicate themselves to one another with the freedom of perfect love. The closest attachments of this life are cold, distant, stranger-like, compared with theirs. How they communicate them- selves, by what language or organs, we know not. But this we know, that in the progress of the mind its power of imparting itself must improve. The eloquence, the thrilling, inspiring tones, in which the good and noble sometimes speak to us on earth, may help us to conceive the expressiveness, harmony, energy of the language in which supe- rior beings reveal themselves above. Of what they converse we can better judge. They who enter that world meet beings whose recollections extend through ages, who have met together perhaps from various worlds, who have been educated amidst infinite varieties of condition, each of whom has passed through his own discipline and reached his own peculiar form of perfection, and each of whom is a peculiar testi- mony to the providence of the Univer- sal Father. What treasures of memory, observation, experience, imagery, illus- tration, must enrich the intercourse of heaven ! One angel's history may be a volume of more various truth than all the records of our race. After all, how little can our present experience help us to understand the intercourse of heaven, — a communion marred by no passion, chilled by no reserve, depressed by no consciousness of sin, trustful as child- hood, and overflowing with innocent joy, — a communion in which the noblest feelings flow fresh from the heart, in which pure beings give famihar utter- ance to their divinest inspirations, to the wonder which perpetually springs up amidst this ever-unfolding and ever- mysterious universe, to the raptures of adoration and pious gratitude, and to the swellings of a sympathy which can- not be confined. But it would be wrong to imagine that the inhabitants of heaven only converse. They who reach that world enter on a state of action, life, effort. We are apt to think of the future world as so happy that none need the aid of others, that effort ceases, that the good have nothing to do but to enjoy. The truth is that all action on earth, even the intensest, is but the sport of childhood compared with the energy and activity of that higher life. It must be so. For what principles are so active as intellect, be- nevolence, the love of truth, the thirst for perfection, sympathy with the suffer- ing, and devotion to God's purposes ? and these are the ever-expanding prin- ciples of the future Hfe. It is true, the labors which are now laid on us for food, raiment, outward interests, cease at the grave. But far deeper wants than those of the body are developed in heaven. There it is that the spirit first becomes truly conscious of its capacities ; that truth opens before us in its infinity ; that the universe is seen to be a bound- less sphere for discovery, for science, for the sense of beauty, for beneficence, and for adoration. There new objects to live for, which reduce to nothingness present interests, are constantly unfold- ed. We must not think of heaven as a stationary community. I think of it as a world of stupendous plans and efforts for its own improvement. I think of it as a society passing through successive 366 THE FUTURE LIFE. stages of development, virtue, knowl- edge, power, by the energy of its own members. Celestial genius is always active to explore the great laws of the creation and the everlasting principles of the mind, to disclose the beautiful in the universe, and to discover the means by which every soul may be carried for- ward. In that world, as in this, there are diversities of intellect, and the high- est minds find their happiness and prog- ress in elevating the less improved. There the work of education, which be- gan here, goes on without end ; and a diviner philosophy than is taught on earth reveals the spirit to itself, and awakens it to earnest, joyful effort for its own perfection. And not only will they who are born into heaven enter a society full of life and action for its own development. Heaven has connection with other worlds. Its inhabitants are God's mes- sengers through the creation. They have great trusts. In the progress of their endless being, they may have the care of other worlds. But I pause, lest to those unused to such speculations I seem to exceed the bounds of calm an- ticipation. What I have spoken seems to me to rest on God's word and the laws of the mind, and these laws are everlasting. On one more topic I meant to enlarge, but I must forbear. They who are born into heaven go not only to Jesus and an innumerable company of pure beings. They go to God. They see him with a new light in all his works. Still more, they see him, as the Scriptures teach, face to face, that is, by immediate com- munion. These new relations of the as- cended spirit to the Universal Father, how near ! how tender ! how strong 1 how exalting ! But this is too great a subject for the time which remains. And yet it is the chief element of the felicity of heaven. The views now given of the future state should make it an object of deep interest, earnest hope, constant pursuit. Heaven is, in truth, a glorious reality. Its attraction should be felt perpetually. It should overcome the force with which this world draws us to itself. Were there a country on earth uniting all that is beautiful in nature, all that is great in virtue, genius, and the liberal arts, and numbering among its citizens the most illustrious patriots, poets, philosophers, philanthropists of our age, how eagerly should we cross the ocean to visit it ! And how immeasurably greater is the attraction of heaven ! There live the elder brethren of the creation, the sons of the morning, who sang for joy at the creation of our race ; there the great and good of all ages and climes ; the friends, benefactors, deliverers, orna- ments of their race ; the patriarch, prophet, apostle, and martyr ; the true heroes of public, and still more of pri- vate, life ; the father, mother, wife, hus- band, child, who, unrecorded by man, have walked before God in the beauty of Jove and self-sacrificing virtue. There are all who have built up in our hearts the power of goodness and truth, the writers from whose pages we have re- ceived the inspiration of pure and lofty sentiments, the friends whose counte- nances have shed light through ourdwel- hngs, and peace and strength through our hearts. There they are gathered to- gether, safe from every storm, triumph- ant over evil ; and they say to us, Come and join us in our everlasting blessedness ; come and bear part in our song of praise ; share our adoration, friendship, prog- ress, and works of love. They say to us, Cherish now in your earthly life that spirit and virtue of Christ which is the beginning and dawn of heaven, and we shall soon welcome you, with more than human friendship, to our own immor^ tality. Shall that voice speak to us in vain ? Shall our worldliness and unfor- saken sins separate us, by a gulf which cannot be passed, from the society of heaven ? UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY, 367 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY: Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. Jared Sparks. Baltimore, 18 19. I Thes v. 21 : " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good " The peculiar circumstances of this occasion not only justify but seem to demand a departure from the course generally followed by preachers at the introduction of a brother into the sacred office. It is usual to speak of the nat- ure, design, duties, and advantages of the Christian ministry ; and on these topics I should now be happy to insist, did I not remember that a minister is to be given this day to a religious soci- ety whose peculiarities of opinion have drawn upon them much remark, and, may I not add, much reproach. Many good minds, many sincere Christians, I am awa.re, are apprehensive that the solemnities of this day are to give a degree of influence to principles which they deem false and injurious. The fears and anxieties of such men I re- spect ; and, believing that they are grounded in part on mistake, I have thought it my duty to lay before you, as clearly as I can, some of the distinguish- ing opinions of that class of Christians in our country who are known to sympa- thize with this religious society. I must ask your patience, for such a subject is not to be despatched in a narrow com- pass. I must also ask you to remember that it is impossible to exhibit, in a sin- gle discourse, our views of every doc- trine of revelation, much less the differ- ences of opinion which are known to subsist among ourselves. I shall con- fine myself to topics on which our sen- timents have been misrepresented, or which distinguish us most widely from others. May I not hope to be heard with candor ? God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue ! There are two natural divisions under which my thoughts will be arranged. I shall endeavor to unfold, ist, The prin- ciples which we adopt in interpreting the Scriptures ; and zdly, Some of the doctrines which the Scriptures, so inter- preted, seem to us clearly to express. I. We regard the Scriptures as the"^\ records of God's successive revelations j to mankind, and particularly of the last | and most perfect revelation of his will by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures, we receive without reserve or exception. We do not, however, at- tach equal importance to all the books in this collection. Our religion, we be- i lieve, lies chiefly in the New Testament.^, ' The dispensation of Moses, compared with that of Jesus, we consider as adapted to the childhood of the human race, a preparation for a nobler system, and chiefly useful now as serving to confirm and illustrate the Christian Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the only master of Christians, and whatever he taught, either during his personal minis- try or by his inspired Apostles, we re- gard as of divine authority, and profess to make the rule of our lives. This authority which we give to the Scriptures is a reason, we conceive, for studying them with peculiar care, and for inquiring anxiously into the princi- ples of interpretation by which their true meaning may be ascertained. The principles adopted by the class of Chris- tians in whose name I speak need to be explained, because they are often mis- understood. We are particularly ac- cused of making an unwarrantable use of reason in the interpretation of Script- ure. We are said to exalt reason above revelation, to prefer our own wisdom to God's. Loose and undefined charges of this kind are circulated so freely, that we think. it due to ourselves, and to the cause of truth, to express our views with some particularity. yOur leading principle in interpreting 368 UNITARIAN CHRrSTIANITY. / Scripture is this, that the Bible is a I book written for men, in the language "of men, and that its meaning is to be ' sought in the same manner as that of _flther books. We believe that God, when He speaks to the human race, conforms, if we may so say, to the es- tablished rules of speaking and writing. How else would the Scriptures avail us more than if communicated in an un- known tongue ?/ Now all books and all conversation require in the reader or hearer the con- stant exercise of reason ; or their true import is only to be obtained by con- tinual comparison and inference. Hu- man language, you well know, admits various interpretations ; and every word and every sentence must be modified and explained according to the subject which is discussed, according to the purposes, feelings, circumstances, and principles of the writer, and according to the genius and idioms of the language which he uses. These are acknowl- edged principles in the interpretation of human writings ; and a man whose words we should explain without reference to these principles would reproach us justly with a criminal want of candor, and an intention of obscuring or distorting his meaning. Were the Bible written in a language and style of its own, did it consist of words which admit but a single sense, and of sentences wholly detached from each other, there would be no place for the principles now laid down. We could not reason about it as about other writings. But such a book would be of little worth ; and perhaps, of all books, the Scriptures correspond least to this description. The word "of God bears the stamp of the same hand, which we see in his works. It has infinite con- nections and dependences. Every prop- osition is linked with others, and is to be compared with others, that its full and precise import may be understood. Nothing stands alone. The New Tes- tament is bnilt on the Old. The Chris- tian dispensation is a continuation of the Jewish, the completion of a vast scheme of providence, requiring great extent of view in the reader. Still more, the Bible treats of subjects on which we receive ideas from other sources besides itself,. — such subjects as the nature, passions, relations, and duties of man ; and it expects us to restrain and modify its language by the known truths which observation and experience fur- nish on these topics. - We profess not to know a book which demands a more frequent exercise of reason than the Bible. In addition to the remarks now made on its infinite connections, we may observe, that its style nowhere affects the precision of science or the accuracy of definition. Its language is singularly glowing, bold, and figurative, demanding more frequent departures from the literal sense than that of our own age and country, and consequently demanding more continual exercise of judgment. We find, too, that the different portions of this book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer perpetually to the times when they were written, to states of society, to modes of thinking, to con- troversies in the church, to feehngs and usages which have passed away, and vrithout the knowledge of which we are constantly in danger of extending to all times and places what was of temporary and local application. We find, too, that some of these books are strongly marked by the genius and character of tljeir respective writers, that the Holy] VSpirit did not so guide the Apostles as \ to suspend the peculiarities of their ' Jtninds, and that a knowledge of their : feelings, .and of the influences under i which they were placed, is one of the preparations for understanding their , .writings. With these views of the Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually, to compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature of the subject and the aim of the writer his true meaning ; and, in general, to make use of what is known for explain- ing what is difiicult, and for discovering new truths. Need I descend to particulars to prove that the Scriptures demand the exer- cise of reason ? Take, for example, the style in which they generally speak of God, and observe how habitually they apply to him human passions and or- gans. Recollect the declarations of Christ, that he came not to send peace but a sword ; that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have no life in us ; that we must hate father and mother, and pluck out the right eye ; \' luuj ji^-^^- 'I (T^ r-l UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 369 and a vast number of passages equally bold and unlimited. Recollect the un- qualified manner in which it is said of Christians that they possess all things, know all things, and can do all things. Recollect the verbal contradiction be- tween Paul and James, and the appar- ent clashing of some parts of Paul's writings with the general doctrines and end of Christianity, I might extend the enumeration indefinitely ; and who does not see that we must limit all these pas- sages by the known attributes of God, of Jesus Christ, and of human nature, and by the circumstances under which they were written, so as to give the language a quite different import from what it would require had it been ap- plied to different beings, or used in dif- ferent connections. Enough has been said to show in what sense we make use of reason in interpreting Scripture. From a variety fofpossible interpretations we select that ■, I which accords with the nature of the 'subject and the state of the writer, with the connection of the passage, with the /general strain of Scripture, with the /known character and will of God, and / with the obvious and acknowledged laws ¥?)f nature. In other words, we believe I that God never contradicts in one part I of Scripture what He teaches in an- other ; and never contradicts in revelation j what He teaches in his works and prov- idence. And we therefore distrust every interpretation which, after deliberate , attention, seems repugnant to any es- Itabhshed truth. We reason about the TBible precisely as civilians do about the _constitution under which we live ; who, you know, are accustomed to limit one provision of that venerable instrument by others, and to fix the precise import of its parts by inquiring into its general spirit, into the intentions of its authors, and into the prevalent feelings, impres- sions, and circumstances of the time when it was framed. Without these principles of interpretation, we frankly acknowledge that we cannot defend the divine authority of the Scriptures. Deny us this latitude, and we must abandon this book to its enemies. ) We do not announce fliese principles as original, or peculiar to ourselves. All Christians occasionally adopt them, not excepting those who most vehemently decry them when they happen to men- ace some favorite article of their creed. All Christians are compelled to use them in their controversies with infidels. All sects employ them in their warfare__ with one another. All willingly avail j themselves of reason when it can be j pressed into the service of their own party, and only complain of it when its.j weapons wound themselves. None rea- son more frequently than those from whom we differ. It is astonishing what a fabric they rear from a few slight hints about the fall of our first parents ; and how ingeniously they extract from detached passages mysterious doctrines about the divine nature. We do not blame them for reasoning so abundantly, but for violating the fundamental rules of reasoning, for sacrificing the plain tO' the obscure, and the general strain of Scripture to a scanty number of insu- lated texts. / We object strongly to the contempt- uous manner in which human reason is- often spoken of by our adversaries, be- cause it leads, we believe, to universal scepticism. If reason be so dreadfully' darkened by the fall that its most deci- sive judgments on religion are unwor- thy of trust, then Christianity, and even natural theology, must be abandoned ; for the existence and veracity of God,, and the divine original of Christianity, ; are conclusions of reason, and must,, stand or fall with it. If revelation be atT war with this faculty, it subverts itself, for the great question of its truth is left by God to be decided at the bar of rea- son./ It is worthy of remark, how nearly the bigot and the sceptic approach. Both would annihilate our confidence' in our faculties, and both throw doubt and confusion over every truth. We honor revelation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to renounce our highest powers. We indeed grant that the use of rea- son in religion is accompanied with danger. But we ask any honest man to look back on the history of the church, and say whether the renunciation of it be not still more dangerous. Besides, it is a plain fact that men reason as erro- neously on all subjects as on religion. Who does not know the wild and ground- less theories which have been framed in physical and political science ? But who ever supposed that we must cease 370 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. to exercise reason on nature and society because men have erred for ages in explaining them ? We grant that the passions continually, and sometimes fatally, disturb the rational faculty in its inquiries into revelation. The ambi- tious contrive to find doctrines in the Bible which favor their love of dominion. The timid and dejected discover there a gloomy system, and the mystical and fanatical a visionary theology. The vicious can find examples or assertions on which to build the hope of a late repentance, or of acceptance on easy terms. The falsely refined contrive to light on doctrines which have not been soiled by vulgar handling. But the passions do not distract the reason in religious any more than in other in- quiries which excite strong and general interest ; and this faculty, of conse- quence, is not to be renounced in re- ligion, unless we are prepared to discard it universally. The true inference from the almost endless errors which have darkened theology is, not that we are to neglect and disparage our powers, but to exert them more patiently, circum- spectly, uprightly ; the worst errors, ['after all, having sprung up in that church I which proscribes reason, and demands ^_frgm its members implicit faith. The most pernicious doctrines have been the growth of the darkest times, when the general credulity encouraged bad men and enthusiasts to broach their dreams and inventions, and to stifle the faint remonstrances of reason by the menaces of everlasting perdition. Say what we may, God has given us a rational nature, and will call us to account for it. We may let it sleep, but we do so at our , peril. Revelation is addressed to us as ' rational beings. We may wish, in our sloth, that God had given us a sys- tem demanding no labor of comparing, limiting, and inferring. But such a sys- tem would be at variance with the whole character of our present existence ; and it is the part of wisdom to take revela- tion as it is given to us, and to inter- pret it by the help of the faculties which it everywhere supposes, and on which it is founded. To the views now given an objection is commonly urged from the character of God. We are told that God being infinitely wiser than men, his discoveries will surpass human reason. In a rev- elation from such a teacher we ought to expect propositions which we cannot rec- oncile with one another, and which may seem to contradict established truths ; and it becomes us not to question or explain them away, but to believe and adore, and to submit our weak and carnal reason to the divine word. To this objection we have two short an- swers. We say, first, that it is impos-"^ sible that a teacher of infinite wisdom / should expose those whom he would_[ teach to infinite error. But if once we admit that propositions which in their literal sense appear plainly repugnant to one another, or to any known truth, are still to be literally understood and re- ceived, what possible limit can we set to the belief of contradictions ? What shelter have we from the wildest fanati- cism, which can always quote passages that, in their literal and obvious sense, give support to its extravagances ? How can the Protestant escape from tran- substantiation, a doctrine most clearly taught us, if the submission of reason, now contended for, be a duty ? How can we even hold fast the truth of rev- elation ; for if one apparent contradic- tion may be true, so may another, and the proposition, that Christianity is false, though involving inconsistency, may still be a verity ? We answer again, that if God be in- finitely wise. He cannot sport with the! understandings of his creatures. A wise, teacher discovers his wisdom in adapt- ing himself to the capacities of his pupils,; not in perplexing them with what is un- intelligible, not in distressing them withi apparent contradictions, not in fillingl them with a sceptical distrust of their! own powers. An infinitely wise teacher, who knows the precise extent of our minds and the best method of enlighten- ing them, will surpass all other instruc^ tors in bringing down truth to our appre- \ hension, and m showing its loveUness-^ and harmony. We ought, indeed, to expect occasional obscurity in such a^ book as the Bible, which was written I for past and future ages as well as for " the present. But God's wisdom is a pledge that whatever is necessary for us, and necessary for salvation, is re- vealed too plainly to be mistaken, and too consistently to be questioned, by a sound and upright mind. It is not the mark of wisdom to use an unintelligi- UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 17^ ble phraseology, to communicate what is above our capacities, to confuse and unsettle the intellect by appearances of contradiction. We honor our Heavenly Teacher too much to ascribe to him such a revelation. A revelation is a gift of light. It cannot thicken our darkness and multiply our perplexities. II. Having thus stated the principles according to which we interpret Script- ure, I now proceed to the second great head of this discourse, which is, to state some of the views which we derive from that sacred book, particularly those which distinguish us from other Chris- tians. — ir'tn the first place, we believe in the ' doctrine of God's unity, or that there Ms one God, and one only. To this truth we give infinite importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed lest any man spoil us of it by vain philosophy. The proposition that there is one God seems to us exceedingly plain. We un- derstand by it that there is one being, one mind, one person, one intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite perfection and dominion be- long. We conceive that these words could have conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated people who were set apart to be the depositaries of this great truth, and who were utterly incapable of understanding those hair- breadth distinctions between being and person which the sagacity of later ages has discovered. We find no intima- tion that this language was to be taken in an unusual sense, or that God's unity was a quite different thing from the one- ness of other intelligent beings. We object to the doctrine of the Trin- ity, that, whilst acknowledging in words, it subverts in effect, the unity of God. According to this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal persons, pos- sessing supreme divinity, called the Fa- ther, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of these persons, as described by theolo- gians, has his own particular conscious- ness, will, and perceptions. They love each other, converse with each other, and delight in each other's society. They perform different parts in man's redemption, each having his appropriate office, and neither doing the work of the other. The Son is mediator, and not the Father. The Father sends the Son, and is not himself sent j nor is He con- scious, like the Son, of taking flesh. Here, then, we have three intelligent agents, possessed of different conscious- nesses, different wills, and different per- ceptions, performing different acts, and sustaining different relations ; and if these things do not imply and constitute three minds or beings, we are utterly at a loss to know how three minds or be- ings are to be formed. It is difference of properties, and acts, and concious- ness, which leads us to the belief of dif- ferent intelligent beings, and, if this mark fails us, our whole knowledge falls ; we have no proof that all the agents and persons in the universe are not one and the same mind. When we attempt to conceive of three Gods, we can do nothing more than represent to ourselves three agents, distinguished from each other by similar marks and peculiarities to those which separate the persons of the Trinity ; and when common Christians hear these persons spoken of as conversing with each other, loving each other, and performing differ- ent acts, how can they help regarding them as different beings, different minds ? We do, then, with all earnestness, though without reproaching our brethren, protest against the irrational and un- scriptural doctrine of the Trinity. " To us," as to the Apostle and the primitive Christians, " there is one God, even the Father." With Jesus, we worship the Father, as the only living and true God. We are astonished that any man can read the New Testament and avoid the conviction that the Father alone is God. -We hear our Saviour continually appro- priating this character to the Father. We find the Father continually distin- guished from Jesus by this title. " God sent his Son," " God anointed Jesus." Now, how singular and inexplicable is this phraseology, which fills the New Testament, if this title belong equally to Jesus, and if a principal object of this book is to reveal him as God, as par- taking equally with the Father in su- preme divinity ! We challenge our opponents to adduce one passage in the New Testament where the word God means three persons, where it is not limited to one person, and where, unless turned from its usual sense by the con- nection, it does not mean the Father. Can stronger proof be given that the doctrine of three persons in the God- 372 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. head is not a fundamental doctrine of Christianity ? This doctrine, were it true, must, from its difficulty, singularity, and importance, have been laid down with great clear- ness, guarded with great care, and stated with all possible precision. But where does this statement appear ? From the many passages which treat of God, we ask for one, one only, in which we are told that He is a threefold being, or that He is three persons, or that He is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. On the contrary, in the New Testament, where, at least, we might expect many express asser- tions of this nature, God is declared to be one, without the least attempt to pre- vent the acceptation of the words in their common sense ; and He is always spoken of and addressed in the singular number, that is, in language which was universally understood to intend a single person, and to which no other idea could have been attached without an express admonition. So entirely do the Script- ures abstain from stating the Trinity, that when our opponents would insert it into their creeds and doxologies, they are compelled to leave the Bible, and to invent forms of words altogether un- sanctioned by Scriptural phraseology. That a doctrine so strange, so liable to misapprehension, so fundamental as this is said to be, and requiring such careful exposition, should be left so undefined and unprotected, to be made out by in- ference, and to be hunted through dis- tant and detached parts of Scripture, — this is a difficulty which, we think, no ingenuity can explain. We have another difficulty. Chris- tianity, it must be remembered, was planted and grew up amidst sharp-sight- ed enemies, who overlooked no objec- tionable part of the system, and who must have fastened with great earnest- ness on a doctrine involving such ap- ! parent contradictions as the Trinity. ; We cannot conceive an opinion against i which the Jews, who prided themselves ■ on an adherence to God's unity, would ; have raised an equal clamor. Now, ' how happens it that in the apostolic ■ writings, which relate so much to objec- j tions against Christianity, and to the i controversies which grew out of this re- ' ligion, not one word is said implying that objections were brought against the gospel from the doctrine of the Trinity, not one word is uttered in its defence and explanation, not a word to rescue it from reproach and mistake ? This argu- ment has almost the force of demonstra- tion. We are persuaded that, had three divine persons been announced by the first preachers of Christianity, all equal and all infinite, one of whom was the very Jesus who had lately died on the cross, this peculiarity of Christianity would have almost absorbed every other, and the great labor of the Apostles would have been to repel the continual assaults which it would have awakened. But the fact is, that not a whisper of ob- jection to Christianity on that account reaches our ears from the apostolic age. In the Epistles we see not a trace of controversy called forth by the Trinity. We have further objections to this doctrine, drawn from its practical influ- ence. We regard it as unfavorable to^ devotion, by dividing and distracting the mind in its communion with God. It is a great excellence of the doctrine of, God's unity, that it offers to us onej OBJECT of supreme homage, adoration,] and love. One Infinite Father, one Being I of beings, one original and fountain, to whom we may refer all good, in whom all our powers and affections may be^ concentrated, and whose lovely and ven- erable nature may pervade all our thoughts. True piety, when directed to an undivided Deity, has a chasteness, a singleness, most favorable to religious awe and love. Now, the Trinity set~s| before us three distinct objects of su-j preme adoration ; three infinite persons, ^ having equal claims on our hearts ; three divine agents, performing different of- fices, and to be acknowledged and wor- shipped in different relations. And is it possible, we ask, that the weak and lim- ited mind of man can attach itself to these with the same power and joy as to One Infinite Father, the only First Cause, in whom all the blessings of nat- ure and redemption meet as their centre and source ? Must not devotion be dis- tracted by the equal and rival claims of three equal persons, and must not the worship of the conscientious, consistent Christian be disturbed by an apprehen- sion lest he withhold from one or an- other of these his due proportion of homage ! We also think that the doctrine of the Trinity injures devotion, not only by UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 373 joining to the Father other objects of worship, but by taking from the Father the supreme affection which is his due, and transferring it to the Son. This is a most important view. That Jesus Christ, if exalted into the infinite Di- vinity, should be more interesting than the Father, is precisely what might be expected from history, and from the principles of human nature. Men want an object of worship like themselves, and the great secret of idolatry lies in this propensity. A God, clothed in our form, and feeling our wants and sorrows, speaks to our weak nature more strongly than a Father in heaven, a pure spirit, in- visible and unapproachable, save by the reflecting and purified mind. We think, too, that the peculiar oiSces ascribed to Jesus by the popular theology, make him the most attractive person in the God- head. The Father is the depositary of the justice, the vindicator of the rights, the avenger of the laws of the Divinity. On the other hand, the Son, the bright- ness of the divine mercy, stands between the incensed Deity and guilty humanity, exposes his meek head to the storms, and his compassionate breast to the sword of the divine justice, bears our whole load of punishment, and purchases with his blood every blessing which de- scends from heaven. Need we state the effect of these representations, especial- ly on common minds, for whom Chris- tianity was chiefly designed, and whom it seeks to bring to the Father as the loveliest being? We do believe that the worship of a bleeding, suffering God tends strongly to absorb the mind, and to draw it from other objects, just as the human tenderness of the Virgin Mary has given her so conspicuous a place in the devotions of the Church of Rome. We beUeve, too, thatthis worship, though attractive, is not most fitted to spiritual- ize the mind, that it awakens human transport rather than that deep venera- tion of the moral perfections of God which is the essence of piety. 2. Having thus given our views of the unity of God, I proceed, in the second place, to observe that we believe in the unity of Jesus Christ. We beUeve that Jesus is one mind, one soul, one being, as truly one as we are, and equally dis- tinct from the one God. We complain of the doctrine of the Trinity, that, not satisfied with making God three beings, it. makes Jesus Christ two beings, and thus introduces infinite confusion into our conceptions of his character. This corruption of Christianity, alike repug- nant to common sense and to the gen- eral strain of Scripture, is a remarkable proof of the power of a false philosophy in disfiguring the simple truth of Jesus. According to this doctrine, Jesus Christ, instead of being one mind, one conscious, intelligent principle, whom we can understand, consists of two souls, two minds ; the one divine, the other human ; the one weak, the other almighty ; the one ignorant, the other omniscient. Now we maintain that this is to make Christ two beings. To de- nominate him one person, one being, and yet to suppose him made up of two minds, infinitely different from each other, is to abuse and confound lan- guage, and to throw darkness over all our conceptions of intelligent natures. According to the common -doctrine, each of these two minds in Christ has its own consciousness, its own will, its own perceptions. They have, in fact, no common properties. The divine mind feels none of the wants and sor- rows of the human, and the human is inflnitely removed from the perfection and happiness of the divine. Can you conceive of two beings in the universe more distinct ? We have always thought that one person was constituted and distinguished by one consciousness. The doctrine that one and the same person should have two conscious- nesses, two wills, two souls, infinitely different from each other, this we think an enormous tax on human credulity. We .say that if a doctrine so strange, so difficult, so remote from all the pre- vious conceptions of men, be indeed a part, and an essential part, of revela- tion, it must be taught with great dis- tinctness, and we ask our brethren to point to some plain, direct passage, where Christ is said to be composed of two minds infinitely different, yet con- stituting one person. We find none. Other Christians, indeed, tell us that this doctrine is necessary to the har^ mony of the Scriptures, that some texts ascribe to Jesus Christ human, and others divine properties, and that to reconcile these we must suppose two minds, to Which these properties may be referred. In other words, for the 374 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. purpose of reconciling certain difficult passages, which a just criticism can in a great degree, if not wholly, explain, we must invent an hypothesis vastly more difficult, and involving gross absurdity. We are to find our way out of a laby- I'inth by a clue which conducts us into mazes infinitely more inextricable. Surely, if Jesus Christ felt that he consisted of two minds, and that this was a leading feature of his religion, his phraseology respecting himself would have been colored by this peculiarity. The universal language of men is framed upon the idea that one person is one person, is one mind, and one soul ; and when the multitude heard this language from the lips of Jesus, they must have taken it in its usual sense, and must have referred to a sin- gle soul all which he spoke, unless expressly instructed to interpret it dif- ferently. But where do we find this instruction ? Where do you meet, in the New Testament, the phraseology which abounds in Trinitarian books, and which necessarily grows' from the doctrine of two natures in Jesus 1 Where does this divine teacher say, " This I speak as God, and this as man ; this is true only of my human mind, this only of my divine ? " Where do we find in the Epistles a trace of this strange phraseology ? Nowhere. It was not needed in that day. It was demanded by the errors of a later age. We believe, then, that Christ is one mind, one being, and, I add, a being distinct from the one God. That Christ is not the one God, not the same being with the Father, is a necessary inference from our former head, in which we saw that the doctrine of three persons in God is a fiction. But on so important a subject I would add a few remarks. We wish that those from whom we differ would weigh one strik- ing fact. Jesus, in his preaching, con- tinually spoke of God. The word was always in his mouth. We ask, does he by this word ever mean himself ? We say, never. On the contrary, he most plainly distinguishes between God and himself, and so do his disciples. How this is to be reconciled with the idea that the manifestation of Christ, as God, was a primary object of Christianity, our adversaries must determine. If we examine the passages in which Jesus is distinguished from God, we shall see that they not only speak of him as another being, but seem to labor to express his inferiority. He is con- tinually spoken of as the Son of God, sent of God, receiving all his powers from God, working miracles because God was with him, judging justly be^ cause God taught him, having claims on our belief because he was anointed and sealed by God, and as able of him- self to do nothing. The New Testa- ment is filled with this language. Now we ask what impression this language was fitted and intended to make ? Could any who heard it have imagined that Jesus was the very God to whom he was so industriously declared to be inferior ; the very Being by whom he was sent, and from whom he professed to have received his message and power ? Let it here be remembered that the human birth, and bodily form, and humble circumstances, and mortal sufferings of Jesus, must all have pre- pared men to interpret, in the most un- qualified manner, the language in which his inferiority to God was declared. Why, then, was this language used so continually, and without limitation, if Jesus were the Supreme Deity, and if this truth were an essential part of his religion ? I repeat it, the human condi- tion and sufferings of Christ tended strongly to exclude from men's minds the idea of his proper Godhead; and, of course, we should expect to find in the New Testament perpetual care and effort to counteract this tendency, to hold him forth as the same being with his Father, if this doctrine Were, as is pretended, the soul and centre of his religion. We should expect to find the phraseology of Scripture cast into the mould of this doctrine, to hear familiarly of God the Son, of our Lord God Jesus, and to be told that to us there is one God, even Jesus. But, instead of this, the inferiority of Christ pervades the New Testament. It is not only implied in the general phraseology, but repeat- edly and decidedly expressed, and un- accompanied with any admonition to prevent its application to his whole nat- ure. Could it, then, have been the great design of the sacred writers to exhibit Jesus as the Supreme God ? I am aware that these remarks will be met by two or three texts in which Christ UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 375 is called God, and by a class of passages, not very numerous, in which divine prop- erties are said to be ascribed to liim. To these we offer one plain answer. We say that it is one of the most established and obvious principles o'f criticism, that language is to be explained according to the known properties of the subject to which it is applied. Every man knows that the same words convey very differ- ent ideas when used in relation to dif- ferent beings. Thus, Solomon built the temple in a different manner from the architect whom he employed ; and God repents differently from man. Now we maintain that the known properties and circumstances of Christ, his birth, suf- ferings, and death, his constant habit of speaking of God as a distinct being from himself, his praying to God, his ascribing to God all his power and offices, — these acknowledged properties of Christ, we say, oblige us to interpret the comparatively few passages which are thought to make him the Supreme God, in a manner consistent with his distinct and inferior nature. It is our duty to explain such texts by the rule which we apply to other texts, in which human beings are called gods, and are said to be partakers of the divine nature, to know and possess all things, and to be filled with all God's fulness. These latter passages we do not hesitate to modify, and restrain, and turn from the most obvious sense, because this sense is opposed to the known properties of the beings to whom they relate ; and we maintain that we adhere to the same principle, and use no greater latitude, in explaining, as we do, the passages which are thought to support the Godhead of Christ, Trinitarians profess to derive some important advantages from their mode of viewing Christ. It furnishes them, they tell us, with an infinite atonement, for it shows them an infinite being suf- fering for their sins. The confidence with which this fallacy is repeated as- tonishes us. When pressed with the question whether they really believe that the infinite and unchangeable God suf- fered and died on the cross, they acknowl- edge that this is not true, but that Christ's human mind alone sustained the pains of death. How have we, then, an infi- nite sufferer ? This language seems to us an imposition on common minds, and very derogatory to God's justice, as if this attribute could be satisfied by a sophism and a fiction. We are also told that Christ is a more interesting object, that his love and mercy are more felt, when he is viewed as the Supreme God, who left his glory to take humanity and to suffer for men.' That Trinitarians are strongly moved by this representation, we do not mean to deny ; but we think their emotions altogether founded on a misapprehen- sion of their own doctrines. They talk of the second person of the Trinity's leaving his glory and his Father's bosom to visit and save the world. But this second person, being the unchangeable and infinite God, was evidently incapable of parting with the least degree of his perfection and felicity. At the moment of his taking flesh, he was as intimately present with his Father as before, and equally with his Father filled heaven, and earth, and immensity. This Trin- itarians acknowledge ; and still they profess to be touched and overwhelmed by the amazing humiliation of this im- mutable being ! But not only does their doctrine, when fully explained, reduce Christ's humihation to a fiction, it almost wholly destroys the impressions with which his cross ought to be viewed. According to their doctrine, Christ was comparatively no sufferer at all. It is true, his human mind suffered ; but this, they tell us, was an infinitely small part of Jesus, bearing no more proportion to his whole nature than a single hair of our heads to the whole body, or than a drop to the ocean. The divine mind of Christ, that which was most properly himself, was infinitely happy at the very moment of the suffering of his humanity. Whilst hanging on the cross, he was the hap- piest being in the universe, as happy as the infinite Father ; so that his pains, compared with his felicity, were noth- I ing. This Trinitarians do, and must, acknowledge. It follows necessarily from the immutableness of the divine nature which they ascribe to Christ ; so that their system, justly viewed, robs his death of interest, weakens our sym- pathy with his sufferings, and is, of all others, most unfavorable to a love of Christ, founded on a sense of his sacri- fices for mankind. We esteem our own views to be vastly more affecting. It is our belief that Christ's humiliation was 376 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. real and entire, that the whole Saviour, and not a part of him, suffered, that his crucifixion was a scene of deep and un- mixed agony. As we stand round his cross, our minds are not distracted, nor our sensibility weakened, by contem- plating him as composed of incongruous and infinitely differing minds, and as having a balance of infinite felicity. We recognize in the dying Jesus but one mind. This, we think, renders his suf- ferings, and his patience and love in bearing them, incomparably more im- pressive and affecting than the system we oppose. 3. Having thus given our belief on two great points, namely, that there is one God, and that Jesus Christ is a being distinct from and inferior to God, I now proceed to another point on which we lay still greater stress. We believe in the moral perfection of God. We consider no part of theology so impor- tant as that which treats of God's moral character ; and we value our views of Christianity chiefly as they assert his amiable and venerable attributes. It may be said that in regard to this subject all Christians agree, that all ascribe to the Supreme Being infinite justice, goodness, and holiness. We reply, that it is very possible to speak of God magnificently, and to think of him meanly ; to apply to his person high-sounding epithets, and to his gov- ernment principles which make him odious. The Heathens called Jupiter the greatest and the best ; but his his- tory was black with cruelty and lust. We cannot judge of men's real ideas of God by their general language^ for in all ages they have hoped to soothe the Deity by adulation. We must inquire into their particular views of his pur- poses, of the principles of his adminis- tration, and of his disposition towards his creatures. We conceive that Christians have generally leaned towards a very injuri- ous view of the Supreme Being. The\ have too often felt as if He were raised, by his greatness and sovereignty, above the principles of morality, above those eternal laws of equity and rectitude to which all other beings are subjected. We believe that in no being is the sense of right so strong, so omnipotent, as in God. We believe that his almighty power is entirely submitted to his per- ceptions of rectitude ; and this is x'.ie ground of our piety. It is not because He is our Creator merely, but because He created us for good and holy pur- poses ; it is not because his will is irresistible, but because his will is the perfection of virtue, that we pay him allegiance. We cannot bow before a being, however great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. We respect noth^ ing but excellence, whether on earth or ! in heaven. We venerate not the lofti---' ness of God's throne, but the equity and goodness in which it is estabhshed. We believe that God is infinitely good, kind, benevolent, in the proper sense of these words, — good in disposi- tion as well as in act ; good not to a few, but to all ; good to every individ- ual, as we'll as to the general system. We believe, too, that God is just ; but we never forget that his justice is the justice of a good being, dwelling in the same mind and acting in harmony, with perfect benevolence. By this at- tribute we understand God's infinite regard to virtue or moral worth ex- pressed in a moral government ; that is, in giving excellent and equitable laws, and in conferring such rewards, and in- flicting such punishments, as are best fitted to secure their observance. God's justice has for its end the highest virtue of the creation, and it punishes for this end alone ; and thus it coincides with benevolence ; for virtue and happiness, though not the same, are inseparably conjoined. God's justice, thus viewed, appears to us to be in perfect harmony with his mercy. According to the prevalent systems of theology, these attributes are so discordant and jarring that to reconcile them is the hardest task and the most wonderful achievement of in- finite wisdom. To us they seem to be intimate friends, alwiys at peace, breath- ing the same spirit, and seeking the same end. By God's mercy, we under- stand not a blind instinctive compas- sion, which forgives without reflection, and without regard to the interests of virtue. This, we acknowledge, would be incompatible with justice, and also with enlightened benevolence. God's^ mercy, as we understand it, desires strongly the happiness of the guilty;_ but only through their penitence. It has a regard to character as truly as UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. Z77 his justice. It defers punishment, and suffers long, that the sinner may return to his duty, but leaves the impenitent and unyielding to the fearful retribu- tion threatened in God's word. ^^To give our views of God in one! fL , word, we believe in his pa rent al charac- i ter. We ascribe to him not only the "iiame, but the dispositions and princi- ples of a father. We believe that He has a father's concern for his creatures, a father's desire for their improvement, a father's equity in proportioning his commands to their powers, a father's joy in their progress, a father's readi- ness to receive the penitent, and a fa- ther^justice for the incorrigible. We (look upon this world as a place of edu- cation, in which He is training men by /prosperity and adversity, by aids and / obstructions, by conflicts of reason and J passion, by motives to duty and terap- --^\^ tations to sin, by a various discipHne , suited to free and moral beings, for : union with himself, ard for a sublime ■--and ever-growing virtue in heaven. Now, we object to the systems of re- ligion whicE prevail among us, that they are adverse, in a greater or less degree, to these purifying, comforting, and hon- orable views of God ; that they take from us our Father in heaven, and sub- stitute for him a being whom we can- not love if we would, and whom we ought not to love if we could. We object, particularly on this ground, to that system which arrogates to itself the name of Orthodoxy, and which is now industriously propagated through our country. This system indeed takes various shapes, but in all it casts dis- honor on the Cre^tor. According to its old and genuine forn, it teaches that God brings us into life wholly depraved, so that under the innocent fea,tures of (Our childhood is hidden a nature averse to all good and propense to all evil, a nature which exposes us to God's dis- pleasure and wrath, even before we have acquired power to understand our duties or to reflect upon our actions. According to a more modern exposition, it teaches that we came from the hands of our Jdaker with such a constitution, and are placed under such influences and circumstances, as to render certain and infalHble the total depravity of every hunan being from the first mo- ment of his moral agency ; and it also teaches that the offence of the child, who brings into life this ceaseless ten- dency to unmingled crime, exposes him to the sentence of everlasting damna- tion. Now, according to the plainest principles of morality, we maintain that a natural constitution of the mind, un- failingly disposing it to evil, and to evil alone, would absolve it from guilt ; that to give existence under this con- dition would argue unspeakable cruelty ; and hat to punish the sin of this un- happily constituted child with endless ruin would be a wrong unparalleled by the most merciless despotism. This system also teaches that God selects from this corrupt mass a num- ber to be saved, and plucks them, by a special influence, from the common ruin ; that the rest of mankind, though left without that special grace which their conversion requires, are com- manded to repent, under penalty of aggravated woe ; and that forgiveness is promised them on terms which their very constitution infallibly disposes them to reject, and in rejecting which they awfully enhance the punishments of hell. These proffers of forgiveness and exhortations of amendment, to beings born under a blighting curse, fill our minds with a horror which we want words to express. That this religious system does not \ produce all the effects on character which might be anticipated, we most ' joyfully admit. It is often, very often, J counteracted by nature, conscience, com-'' mon sense, by the general strain of| Scripture, by the mild example and pre-, cepts of Christ, and by the many posi- 1 tiye declarations of God's universal \ kindness and perfect equity. But still.-- we think that we see its unhappy influ- ence. It_tends to discourage the timi3A to give excuses to the bad, to feed the\ vanity of the fanatical, and to offer | shelter to the bad feelings of the malig- nant. By shocking, as it does, the fun- damental principles of morality, and by exhibiting a severe and partial Deity, ; it tends strongly to pervert the moral faculty, to form a gloomy, forbidding, \ and servile religion, and to lead men I to substitute censoriousness, bitterness, i and persecution, for a tender and im- J gartial charity. We think, too, that this system, which begins with degrad- ing human nature, may be expected to 378 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. end in pride ; for pride grows out of a consciousness of high distinctions, how- ever obtained, and no distinction is so great as that which is made between the elected and abandoned of God. The false and dishonorable views of God which have now been stated, we feel ourselves bound to resist unceas- ingly. Other errors we can pass over with comparative indifference. But we ask our opponents to leave to us a God worthy of our love and trust, in whom our moral sentiments may delight, in whom our weaknesses and sorrows may find refuge. We cling to the divine per- fections. We meet them everywhere in creation, we read them in the Scriptures, we see a lovely image of them in Jesus Christ ; and gratitude, love, and venera- tion call on us to assert them. Re- proached, as we often are, by men, it is our consolation and happiness that one of our chief offences is the zeal with which we vindicate the dishonored good- ness and rectitude of God. 4. Having thus spoken of the unity of God ; of the unity of Jesus, and his in- feriority to God ; and of the perfections of the divine character ; 1 now proceed to give our views of the mediation of Christ, and of the purposes of his mis- sion. With regard to the great object which Jesus came to accomplish, there ^5fi£ms to be no possibility of mistake. We believe that he was sent by the Father to effect a moral or spiritual deliverance of mankind ; that is, to res- cue men from sin and its consequences, and to bring them to a state of everlast- ing purity and happiness. We believe, too, that he accomplishes this sublime purpose by a variety of methods, — by his instructions respecting God's unity, parental character, and moral govern- ment, which are admirably fitted to reclaim the world from idolatry and impiety, to the knowledge, love, and obedience of the Creator ; by his prom- ises of .pardon to the penitent, and of divine assistance to those who labor for progress in moral excellence ; by the light which he has thrown on the path of duty ; by his own spotless example, in which the loveliness and sublimity of virtue shine forth to warm and quicken as well as guide us to perfec- tion ; by his threatenings against incor- rigible guilt ; by his glorious discoveries of immortality ; by his sufferings and death ; by that signal event, the resur- rection, which powerfully bore witness to his divine mission, and brought down to men's senses a future life ; by his continual intercession, which obtains for us spiritual aid and blessings ; and by the power with which he is invested of raising the dead, judging the world, and conferring the everlasting rewards prom- ised to the faithful. We have no desire to conceal the fact that a difference of opinion exists among us in regard to an interesting part of Christ's mediation, — I mean, in regard to the precise influence of his death on our forgiveness. Many suppose that this event contributes to our pardon, as it was a principal means of confirming his religion, and of giving it a power over the mind ; in other words, that it procures forgiveness by leading to that repentance and virtue which is the great and only condition on which forgiveness is bestowed. iVIany of us are dissatisfied with this explanation, and think that the Scriptures ascribe the remission of sins to Christ's death with an emphasis so peculiar that we ought to consider this event as having a special influence in removing punishment, though the Script- . ures may not reveal the way in which it contributes to this end. Whilst, however, we differ in explain- ing the connection between Christ's death and human forgiveness, — a con- nection which we all gratefully acknowl- edge, — we agree in rejecting many sentiments which prevail in regard to his-jnediation. The idea which is conJ veyed to common minds by the popularl system, that Christ's death has an influ-i jence in making God placable or merciful, \ in awakening his kindness towards men, "we reject with strong disapprobationU We are happy to find that this very dis- honorable notion is disowned by intelli- ^ gent Christians of that class from which we differ. We recollect, however, that, not long ago, it was common to hear of Christ as having died to appease God's wrath, and to pay the debt of sinners to his inflexible justice ; and we have a strong persuasion that the language of popular religious books, and the common mode of stating the doctrine of Christ's mediation, still communicate very de- grading views of God's character. They give to multitudes the impression that the death of Jesus produces a change in UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY 379 the mind of God towards man* and that in this its efficacy chiefly consists. No error seems to us anore pernicious. W9 can endure no shade over the pure goodj ness of God. We earnestly maintain that Jesus, instead of calling forth, in any way or degree, the mercy of the Father, was sent by that mercy to be our Saviour ; that he is nothing to the human race but what he is by God's appointment ; that he communicates nothing but what God empowers him to bestow ; that our Father in heaven is originally, essentially, and eternally placable, and disposed to forgive ; and that his unborrowed, underived, and un- changeable love is the only fountain of what flows to us through his Son. We conceive that Jesus is dishonored, not glorified, by ascribing to him an influ- ence which clouds the splendor of divine benevolence. We farther agree in rejecting, as un- scriptural and absurd, the explanation given by the popular system of the man- ner in whi'ch Christ's death procures forgiveness for men. This system used to teach, as its fundamental principle, that man, having sinned against an in- finite Being, has contracted infinite guilt, and is consequently exposed to an infinite penalty. We believe, however, that this reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, which overlooks the obvious maxim that |the guilt of a being must be proportioned to his nature and powers, has fallen into jdisuse. Still the system teaches that sin, of whatever degree, exposes to end- less punishment, and that the whole human race, being infalliblyinvolved by their nature in sin, owe this awful pen- alty to the justice of their Creator. It teaches that this penalty cannot be re- mitted, in consistency with the honor of the divine law, unless a substitute be found to endure it or to suffer an equiv- alent. It also teaches that, from the nature of the case, no substitute is ade- quate to this work save the infinite God himself; and accordingly, God, in his {second person, took on him human nat- ure, that He might pay to his own justice the debt of punishment incurred by men, land might thus reconcile forgiveness with the claims and threatenings of his law. Such is the prevalent system. Now, to us, this doctrine seems to c^fry on its front strong marks of absurdity ; and we maintain that Christianity ought not to be encumbered with it, unless it be laid down in the New Testament fully and expressly. We ask our adver- saries, then, to point to some plain pas- sages where it is taught. We ask for one text in which we are told that God took human nature that He might make an infinite satisfaction to his own justice ; for one text which tells us that human guilt requires an infinite substitute ; that Christ's sufferings owe their efficacy to their being borne by an infinite being ; or that his divine nature gives infinite value to the sufferings of the human. Not one -word of this description can we find in the Scriptures ; not a text which even hints at these strange Qoctrines. They are altogether, we believe, the fic- tions of theologians. Christianity is in no degree responsible for them. We are astonished at their prevalence. What can be plainer than that God cannot, in any sense, be a sufferer, or bear a pen- alty in the room of his creatures ? How dishonorable to him is the supposition, that his justice is now so severe as to exact infinite punishment for the sins of frail and feeble men, and now so easy and yielding as to accept the limited pains of Clirist's human soul as a full equivalent for the endless woes due from the world .'' How plain is it also, accord- ing to this doctrine, that God, instead of being plenteous in forgiveness, never forgives ; for it seems absurd to speak of men as forgiven, when their whole punishment, or an equivalent to it, is borne by a substitute ? A scheme more fitted to obscure the brightness of Chris- tianity and the mercy of God, or less suited to give comfort to a guilty and troubled mind, could not, we think, be easily framed. We beUeve, too, that this system ]s unfavorable to the character. It nat- urally leads men to think that Christ j came to change God's mind rather than \ their own;- that the highest object of | his mission was to avert punishment ' rather than to communicate holiness ; I and that a large part of religion consisfs' in disparaging good works and human virtue, for the purpose of magnifying the value of Christ's vicarious sufferings. In this way a sense of the infinite im- portance and indispensable necessity of personal improvement is weakened, and high-sounding praises of Christ's cross seem often to be substituted for obe-. 380 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. dience to his precepts. For ourselves, we have not so learned Jesus. Whilst we gratefully acknowledge that he came to rescue us from punishment,) we be- lieve that he was sent on a still nobler errand, namely, to deliver us from( sinj i^elf, and to form us to a sublime and heavenly virtue. We regard him as a \ Saviour, chiefly as he is the light, phy- / sician, and guide of the dark, diseased, I jand wandering mind. No influence in ^ — the universe seems to us so glorious as that over the character ; and no redemp- tion so worthy of thankfulness as the . restoration of the soul to purity. With- out'this, pardon, were it possible, would be of little value. Why pluck the sinner from hell, if a hell be left to burn in his .,_own breast ? Why raise him to heaven, if Tie remain a stranger to its sanctity and love ? With these impressions, we are accustomed to value the gospel chiefly as it abounds in effectual aids, motives, excitements to a generous and divine virtue. In this virtue, as in a common centre, we see all its doctrines, precepts, promises meet ; and we believe that faith in this religion is of no worth, and contributes^nothing to salvation, any farther than as it uses these doctrines, precepts, promises, and the whole life, character, sufferings, and triumphs of Jesus, as the means of purifying the mind, of changing it into the likeness of his celestial excellence. 5. Having thus stated our views of the highest object of Christ's mission, that it is the recovery of men to virtue, or holiness, I shall now, in the last place, give our views of the nature of Christian virtue, or true hoHness. We believe that all virtue has its foundation in the moral nature of man, that is, in con- science, or his sense of duty, and in the power of forming his temper and life ac- cording to conscience. We believe that these moral faculties are the grounds of responsibility, and the highest distinc- tions of human nature, and that no act is praiseworthy any farther than it springs from their exertion. We be- lieve that no dispositions infused into us without our own moral activity are of the nature of virtue, and therefore we reject the doctrine of irresistible divine influence on the human mind, moulding it into goodness as marble is hewn into a statue. Such goodness, if this word may be used, would not be the object of moral approbation, any more than the instinctive affections of inferior animals, or the constitutional amiableness of hu- man beings. By these remarks, we do not mean to deny the importance of God's aid or Spirit ; but by his Spirit we mean a moral, illuminating, and persuasive in- fluence, not physical, not compulsory, not involving a necessity of virtue. We object, strongly, to the idea of many Christians respecting man's impotence and God's irresistible agency on the heart, believing that they subvert our responsibility and the laws of our moral nature, that they make men machines, that they cast on God the blame of all evil deeds, that they discourage good minds, and inflate the fanatical with wild conceits of immediate and sensible inspiration. // Among the virtues, we give the first place to the love of God. We believe that this principle is the true end and happiness of our being, that we were made for union with our Creator, that^^ his infinite perfection is the only sufii- cient object and true resting-place fori the insatiable desires and unlimited ca-| parities of the human mind, and that,; without him, our noblest sentiments; admiration, veneration, hope, and lo*§' would wither and decay. We believe, too, that the love of God is not only es' sential to happiness, but to the strength and perfection of aU the virtues ; tha' conscience, without the sanction of God'.<; authority and retributive justice, would be a weak director ; that benevolence', unless nourished by communion with his goodness, and encouraged by his smile, could not thrive amidst the sel- fishness and thanklessness of the world ; and that self-government, without a sense of the divine inspection, would hardly extend beyond an outward and partial purity. God, as he is essentially good- ness, holiness, justice, and virtue, so he is the life, motive, and sustainer of virtue in the human soul. But whilst we earnestly inculcate the love of God, we believe that great care is necessary to distinguish it from counterfeits. We think that much which is called piety is worthless. Many have fallen into the error that there can be no excess in feelings which have God for their object ; and, distrusting as cold- ness that self-possession without which UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 381 virtue and devotion lose all their dignity, they have abandoned themselves to ex- travagances which have brought con- tempt on piety. Most certainly, if the love of God be that which often bears its name, the less we have of it the better. If religion be the shipwreck of understanding, we cannot keep too far ,from it. On this subject we always ,y Speak plainly. We cannot sacrifice our i reason to the reputation of zeal. We owe it to truth and religion to maintain :, that fanaticism, partial insanity, sudden impressions, and ungovernable trans- i ports, are any thing rather than piety. I I •' We conceive that the true love of God \ \ is a moral sentiment, founded on a clear perception, and consisting in a high es- teem and veneration of his moral per- fections. Thus, it perfectly coincides, and is, in fact, the same thing, with the love of virtue, rectitude, and goodness. You will easily judge, then, what we esteem the surest and only decisive signs of piety. We lay no stress on strong excitements. We esteem him, and him only, a pious man, who practically con- ' ^fenna. to God's moral perfections and / government ; who shows his delight in j God's benevolence by loving and serv- ' ing his neighbor ; his delight in God's j justice by being resolutely upright ; his ! sense of God's purity by regulating his ; thoughts, imagination, and desires ; and i whose conversation, business, and do- ■ mestic life are swayed by a regard to ' God's presence and authority. In all Lthings else men may deceive themselves. Disordered nerves may give them strange sights, and sounds, and impressions. Texts of Scripture may come to them as from heaven. Their whole souls may be moved, and their confidence in God's favor be undoubting. But in all this there is no religion. The question is, Do they love God's commands, in which his character is fully expressed, and give up to these their habits and pas- sions ? Without this, ecstacy is a mock- ery. One surrender of desire to God's will is worth a thousand transports. We do not judge of the bent of men's minds by their raptures, any more than we judge of the natural direction of a tree during a storm. We rather suspect loud profession, for we have observed that deep feeling is generally noiseless, and least seeks display. We would not, by these remarks, be understood as wishing to exclude from religion warmth, and even transport. We honor and highly value true religious sensibility. We believe that Chris- tianity is intended to act powerfully on our whole nature, on the heart as well as the understanding and the conscience. We conceive of heaven as a state where the love of God will be exalted into an unbounded fervor and joy ; and we de- sire, in our pilgrimage here, to drink , into the spirit of that better world. But ; we think that religious warmth is only to , be valued when it springs naturally from ' an improved character, when it comes unforced, when it is the recompense of obedience, when it is the warmth of a mind which understands God by being like him, and when, instead of disorder- ing, it exalts the understanding, invig' orates conscience, gives a pleasure to common duties, and is seen to exist in connection with cheerfulness, judicious- ness, and a reasonable frame of mind. When we observe a fervor called relig- ious in men whose general character ex- presses Httle refinement and elevation, and whose piety seems at war with rea- son, we pay it Uttle respect. We honor religion too much to give its sacred name to a feverish, forced, fluctuating zeal, which has little power over the life. Another important branch of virtue we believe to te love to Christ. The greatness of the work of Jesus, the spirit with which he executed it, and the suf- ferings which he bore for our salvation, we feel to be strong claims on our grat- itude and veneration. We see in nature no beauty to be compared with the love- liness of his character, nor do we find on earth a benefactor to whom we owe an equal debt. We read his history with de- light, and learn from it the perfection of our nature. We are particularly touched by his death, which was endured for our redemption, and by that strength of charity which triumphed over his pains. His resurrection is the foundation of our hope of immortality. His interces- sion gives us boldness to draw nigh to the throne of grace, and we look up to heaven with new desire when we think that, if we follow him here, we shall there see his benignant countenance, and enjoy his friendship for ever. I need not express to you our views on the subject of the benevolent virtues. 382 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. We attach such importance to these, that we are sometimes reproached with exalting them above piety. We regard ithe spirit of love, charity, meekness, forgiveness, hberahty, and beneficence, /'as the badge and distinction of Chris- ■ tians, as the brightest image we can Tjear of God, as the best proof of piety. On this subject I need not and cannot enlarge ; but there is one branch of ben- evolence which I ought not to pass over in silence, because we think that we con- ceive of it more highly and justly than many of our brethren. I refer to the duty of candor, charitable judgment, especially towards those who differ in re- ligious opinion. We think that in noth- ing have Christians so widely departed from their religion as in this particular. We read with astonishment and horror the history of the church ; and some- times, when we look back on the fires of persecution, and on the zeal of Chris- tians in building up walls of separation, and in giving up one another to per- dition, we feel as if we were reading the records of an infernal rather than a heavenly kingdom. An enemy to every religion, if asked to describe a Christian, would, with some show of reason, de- pict liim as an idolater of his own distin- guishing opinions, covered with badges of party, shutting his eyes on the virtues and his ears on the arguments of his opponents, arrogating ajl excellence to his own sect and all saving power to his own creed, sheltering under the name of pious zeal the love of domination, the conceit of infallibility, and the spirit of intolerance, and trampling on men's rights under the pretence of saving their souls. We can hardly conceive of a plainer obligation on beings of our frail and fallible nature, who are instructed in the duty of candid judgment, than to abstain from condemning men of apparent con- scientiousness and sincerity, who are chargeable with no crime but that of dif- fering from us in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and differing, too, on topics of great and acknowledged ob- scurity. We are astonished at the hard- ihood of those who, with Christ's warn- ings sounding in their ears, take on them the responsibihty of making creeds for his church, and cast out professors of virtuous lives for imagined errors, for the guilt ot tninking for themselves. We know that zeal for truth is the cover for this usurpation of Christ's prerog- ative ; but we think that zeal for truth, as it is called, is very suspicious, except in men whose capacities and advan- tages, whose patient deliberation, and whose improvements in humility, mild- ness, and candor, give them a right to hope that their views are more just than those of their neighbors. Much of what passes for a zeal for truth we look upon with little respect, for it often appears to thrive most luxuriantly where other virtues shoot up thinly and feebly ; and we have no gratitude for those reformers who would force upon us a doctrine which has not sweetened their own tempers, or made them better men than their neighbors. We are accustomed to think much of the difficulties attending religious in- quiries, — difficulties springing from the slow development of our minds, from the power of early impressions, from the state of society, from human au- thority, from the general neglect of the reasoning powers, from the want of just principles of criticism and of important helps in interpreting Scripture, and from various other causes. We find that on no subject have men, and even good men, ingrafted so many strange conceits, wild theories, and fictions of fancy, as on religion ; and remembering, as we do, that we ourselves are sharers of the common frailty, we dare not as- sume infallibility in the treatment of our fellow-Christians, or encourage in com- mon Christians, who have little time for investigation, the habit of denouncing and contemning other denominations, perhaps more enlightened and virtuous than their own. Charity, forbearance, a delight in the virtues of different sects, a backwardness to censure and condemn, these are virtues which, however poorly practised by us, we admire and recom- mend ; and we would rather join ourselves to the church in which they abound than to any other communion, however elated with the belief of its own orthodoxy, however strict in guarding its creed, however burning with zeal against im- agined error. I have thus given the distinguishing views of those Oiristians in whose names I have spoken. We have embraced this system not hastily or lightly, but after much deliberation ; and we hold it fast, UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY. 3S3 not merely because we believe it to be true, but because we regard it as purifying truth, as a doctrine according to godliness, as able to "work mightily " and to "bring forth fruit" in them who believe. That we wish to spread it, we have no desire to conceal ; but we think that we wish its diffusion because we regard it as more friendly to practical piety and pure morals than the opposite doctrines, because it gives clearer and nobler views of duty, and stronger mo- tives to its performance, because it recommends religion at once to the un- derstanding and the heart, because it asserts the lovely and venerable attri- butes of God, because it tends to restore the benevolent spirit of Jesus to his di- vided and afflicted church, and because it cuts off every hope of God's favor except that which springs from practi- cal conformity to the life and precepts of Christ. We see nothing in our views to give offence save their purity, and it is their purity which makes us seek and hope their extension through the world. My friend and brother, — You are this day to take upon you important duties ; to be clothed with an office which the Son of God did not disdain ; to devote yourself to that religion which the most hallowed lips have preached, and the most precious blood sealed. We trust that you will bring to this work a wiUing mind, a firm purpose, a mart3T's spirit, a readiness to toil and suffer for the truth, a devotion of your best powers to the interests of piety and virtue. 1 have spoken of the doctrines which you will probably preach ; but I do not mean that you are to give your- self to controversy. You will remem- ber that good practice is the end of preaching, and will labor to make your people holy livers rather than skilful disputants. Be careful lest the desire of defending what you deem truth, and of repelling reproach and misrepresen- tation, turn you aside from your great business, which is to fix in men's minds a living conviction of the obligation, sublimity, and happiness of Christian virtue. The best way to vindicate your sentiments is to show, in your preach- ing and life, their intimate connection with Christian morals, with a high and delicate sense of duty, with candor to- wards your opposers, with inflexible integrity, and with an habitual rever- ence for God. If any light can pierce and scatter the clouds of prejudice, it is that of a pure example. My brother, '-may your life preach more loudly than _yO-ur lips ! Be to this people a pattern of all good works, and may your instruc- tions derive authority from a well- grounded belief in your hearers that you speak from the heart, that you preach from experience, that the truth which you dispense has wrought pow- erfully in your own heart, that God, and Jesus, and heaven, are not merely words on your lips, but most affecting realities to your mind, and springs of hope, and consolation, and strength, in all your trials ! Thus laboring, may you reap abundantly, and have a testimony of your faithfulness, not only in your own conscience, but in the esteem, love, virt- ues, and improvements of your people ! To all who hear me I would say, with the Apostle, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Do not, brethren, shrink from the duty of searching God's word for yourselves, through fear of hu- man censure and denunciation. Do not think that you may innocently follow the opinions which prevail around you, without investigation, on the ground that Christianity is now so purified from er- rors as to need no laborious research. There is much reason to believe that Christianity is at this moment dishon- ored by gross and cherished corruptions. If you remember the darkness which hung over the gospel for ages ; if you consider the impure union which still subsists in almost every Christian coun- try between the church and state, and which enlists men's selfishness and am- bition on the side of established error ; if you recollect in what degree the spirit of intolerance has checked free inquiry, not only before but since the Reforma- tion ; you will see that Christianity can- not have freed itself from all the human inventions which disfigured it under the Papal tyranny. No, Much stubble is yet to be burned ; much rubbish to be removed ; many gaudy decorations which a false taste has hung around Christian- ity must be swept away ; and the earth- born fogs which have long shrouded it must be scattered, before this divine fabric will rise before us in its native and awful majesty, in its harmonious proportions, in its mild and celestial splendors. This glorious reformation 384 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY in the church, we hope, under God's blessing, from the progress of the hu- man intellect, from the moral progress of society, from the consequent decline of prejudice and bigotry, and, though last not least, from the subversion of human authority in matters of religion, from the fall of those hierarchies, and other human institutions, by which the minds of individuals are oppressed un- der the weight of numbers, and a Papal dominion is perpetuated in the Protes- tant church. Our earnest prayer to God is, that He will overturn, and over- turn, and overturn the strongholds of spiritual usurpation, until He shall come whose right it is to rule the minds of men ; that the conspiracy of ages against the liberty of Christians may be brought to an end ; that the servile assent so long yielded to human creeds may give place to honest and devout inquiry into the Scriptures ; and that Christianity, thus purified from error, may put forth its almighty energy, and prove itself, by its ennobling influence on the mind, to be indeed " the power of God unto sal- vation." UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY MOST ABLE TO PIETY: FAVOR- Discourse at the. Dedication of the i'„^^t; Church, New Second Congregational Unitarian York, 1826. l^ARK xii. 29, 30; "And Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel ', The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment." We have assembled to dedicate this building to the worship of the only liv- ing and true God, and to the teaching of the religion of his son, Jesus Christ. By this act we do not expect to confer on this spot of ground and these walls any peculiar sanctity or any mysterious properties. We do not suppose that, in consequence of rites now performed, thp worship offered here will be more acceptable than prayer uttered in the closet, or breathed from the soul in the midst of business ; or that the instruc- tions delivered from this pulpit will be more effectual than if they were uttered in a private dwelling or the open air. By dedication we understand only a solemn expression of the purpose for which this building is reared, joined with prayer to him who alone can crown our enterprise with success, that our design may be accepted and fulfilled. For this religious act we find, indeed, no precept in the New Testament, and on this account some have scrupled as to its propriety. But we are not among those who consider the written word as a statute-book, by the letter of which every step in life must be governed. We believe, on the other hand, that one of the great excellences of Chris- tianity is that it does not deal in mi- nute regulation, but that, having given broad views of duty, and enjoined a pure and disinterested spirit, it leaves us to apply these rules and express this spirit according to the promptings of thedivine monitor within us, and ac- cording to the claims and exigencies of the ever-varying conditions in which we are placed. We believe, too, that rev- elation is not intended to supersede GodV other modes of instruction ; that it is not intended to drown, but to make more audible, the voice of nature. Now, nature dictates the propriety of such an act as we are this day assembled to perform. Nature has always taught men, on the completion of an important structure, designed for public and last- ing good, to solemnize its first appro- priation to the purpose for which it was reared by some special service. To us there is a sacredness in this moral in- stinct, in this law written on the heart ; MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 385 and in listening reverently to God's dictates, however conveyed, we doubt not that we shall enjoy his acceptance and blessing. I have said we dedicate this building to the teaching of the gospel of Christ. But in the present state of the Christian church, these words are not as definite as they one day will be. This gospel is variously interpreted. It is preached in various forms. Christendom is par- celled out into various sects. When, therefore, we see a new house of wor- ship reared, the question immediately arises, To what mode of teaching Chris- tianity is it to be devoted 'i I need not tell you, my hearers, that this house has been built by that class of Christians who are called Unitarians, and that the gospel will here be taught as interpreted by that body of beUevers. This you all know ; but perhaps all present have not attached a very precise meaning to the word by which our particular views of Christianity are designated. Unitari- anisra has been made a term of so much reproach, and has been uttered in so many tones of alarm, horror, in- dignation, and scorn, that to many it gives only a vague impression of some- thing monstrous, impious, unutterably perilous. To such I would say, that this doctrine, which is considered by some as the last and most perfect in- vention of Satan, the consummation of his blasphemies, the most cunning weapon ever forged in the fires of hell, amounts to this, — That there is one God, even the Father ; and that Jesus Christ is not this one God, butjiis son and_jTiessenger, who derived all his powers and glories from the Universal Parent, and who came into the world not to claim supreme homage for him- self, but to carry^up the soul to his Father as_the only Divine Person, the only Ultimate Object of religious wor- ship. To us, this doctrine seems not to have sprung from hell, but to h,ave descended from the throne of God, and to invite and attract us thither. To us, it_ seems to come from the Scriptures, with a voice loud as the sound of many waters,_ and as articulate and clear as if' Jesus, in a bodily form, were pronounc- ing it distinctly in our ears. To this doctrine, and to Christianity interpreted in consistency with it, we dedicate this building. That we desire to propagate this doc- trine, we do not conceal. It is a treas- ure which we wish not to confine to ourselves, which we dare not lock up in our own breasts. We regard it as given to us for others, as well as for ourselves. We should rejoice to spread it through this great city, to carry it into every dwelling, and to send it far and wide to the remotest settlements of our country. Am I asked why we wish this diffu- sion ? We dare not say that we are in no degree influenced by sectarian feel- ing ; for we see it raging around us, and we should be more than men were we whoUy to escape an epidemic passion. We do hope, however, that our main purpose and aim is not sectarian, but to promote a purer and nobler piety than now prevails. We are not induced to spread our .opinions by the mere con- viction that they are true ; for there are many truths, historical, metaphysical, scientific, literary, which we have no anxiety to propagate. We regard them as the highest, most important, most efficient truths, and therefore demand- ing a firm testimony and earnest efforts to make them known. In thus speak- ing, we do not mean that we regard our peculiar views as essential to salvation. Far from us be this spirit of exclusion, the very spirit of antichrist, the worst of all the delusions of Popery and Protes- tantism. We hold nothing to be essen- tial but the simple and supreme dedica- tion of the mind, heart, and life to God and to his will. This inward and prac- tical devotedness to the Supreme Be- ing, we are assured, is attained and accepted under all the forms of Chris- tianity. We believe, however, that it is favored by that truth which we main- tain, as by no other system of faith. We regard Unitarianism as peculiarly the friend of inward, living, practical religion. For this~ we value it, — for this we would spread it ; and we desire none to embrace it but such as shall seek and derive from it this celestial influence. This character and property of Uni- tarian Christianity, its fitness to promote true, deep, and living piety, being our chief ground of attachment to it, and our chief motive for dedicating this house to its inculcation, I have thought proper to make this the topic of my present discourse. I do not propose to 25 386 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY prove the truth of Unitarianism by Script- ural authorities, for this argument would exceed the limits of a sermon, but to show its superior tendency to form an elevated religious character. If, how- ever, this position can be sustained, I shall have contributed no weak argument in support of the truth of our views ; for the chief purpose of Christianity un- douBteSIyTsTo" promote pfety, to bring _ us to God, to fill our souls with that Great Being, to make us alive to him ; and a religious system can carry no more authentic mark of a divine origi- nal than its obvious, direct, and pecul- iar adaptation to quicken and raise the mind to its Creator. In speaking thus of Unitarian Christianity as promoting piety, I ought to observe that I use this word in its proper and highest sense. I mean not every thing which bears the name ot piety, for under this title super- stition, fanaticism, and formality are walking abroad and claiming respect. I mean not an anxious frame of mind, not abject and slavish fear, not a dread of hell, not a repetition of forms, not church-going, not loud profession, not severe censure of others' irreligion ; but filiaLJove and reverence towards G^d, habituar gratitude, cheerful trust, ready obedience, and, though last not least, an imitation of the ever-active and un- boun3ed benevolence of the Creator. The object of this discourse requires me to speak with great freedom of dif- erent systems of religion. But let me not be misunderstood. Let not the uncharitableness which I condemn be lightly laid to my charge. Let it be re- membered that I speak only of systems, not of those who embrace them. In setting forth with all simplicity what seem to me the good or bad tendencies of doctrines, I have not a thought of giving standards or measures by which to estimate the virtue or vice of their professors. Nothing would be more un- just than to decide on men's characters from their pecuHarities of faith ; and the reason is plain. Such peculiarities are not the only causes which impress and determine the mind. Our nature is ex- posed to innumerable other influences. If, indeed, a man were to know nothing but his creed, were to meet with no hu- man beings but those who adopt it, were to see no example and to hear no conver- sation but such as were formed by it : if his creed were to meet him everywhere, and to exclude every other object of thought, — then his character might be expected to answer to it with great pre- cision. But our Creator has not shut us up in so narrow a school. The mind is exposed to an infinite variety of influ- ences, and these are multiplying with the progress of society. Education, friendship, neighborhood, public opin- ion, the state of society, " the genius of the place " where we hve, books, events, the pleasures and business of life, the outward creation, our physical tempera- ment, and innumerable othier causes, are perpetually pouring in upon the soul thoughts, views, and emotions ; and these influences are so complicated, so pecul- iarly combined in the case of every in- dividual, and so modified by the original susceptibilities and constitution of every mind, that on no subject is there greater uncertainty than on the formation of character. To determine the precise operation of a religious opinion amidst this ho st of influences, surpasses human power. A great truth may be complete- ly neutralized by the countless impres- sions and excitements which the mind receives from other sources ; and so a great error may be disarmed of much of its power by the superior energy of other and better views, of early habits, and of virtuous examples. Nothing is more common than to see a doctrine believed without swaying the will. Its efficacy depends, not on the assent of the intel- lect, but on the place which it occupies in the thoughts, on the distinctness and vividness with which it is conceived, on its association with our common ideas, on its frequency of recurrence, and on its command of the attention, with- out which it has no life. According- ly, pernicious opinions are not seldom held by men of the most illustrious virtue. I mean not, then, in commend- ing or condemning systems, to pass sentence on their professors. I know the power of the mind to select from a multifarious system, for its habitual use, those features or principles which are generous, pure, and ennobling, and by these to sustain its spiritual life amidst the nominal profession of many errors. /I know that a creed is one thing as writ- ten in a book, and another as it exists in the minds of its advocates. In the book, all the doctrines appear in equally MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. - • . 387 strong and legible lines. In the mind, many are faintly traced and seldom re- curred to, whilst others are inscribed as with sunbeams, and are the chosen, con- stant lights of the soul. Hence, in good men of opposing denominations, a real agreement may subsist as to their vital principles of faith ; and amidst the di- vision of tongues there may be unity of soul," and the same internal worship of God. "By these remarks^! do not mean that error is not evil, or that it bears no pernicious fruit. Its tendencies are al- ways bad. But I mean that these ten- dencies exert themselves amidst so many counteracting influences ; and that inju- rious opinions so often lie dead through the want of mixture with the comnron thoughts, through the mind's not absorb- ing them, and changing them into its own substance, that the highest respect may and ought to be cherished for men in whose creed we find much to disap- prove. In this discourse I shall speak freely, and some may say severely, of Trinitarianism ; but I love and honor not a few of its advocates ; and in op- posing what I deem their error, I would on no account detract from their worth. After these remarks, I hope that the language of earnest discussion and strong conviction will not be construed into the want of that charity which I ac- knowledge as the first grace of our re- hgion. I now proceed to illustrate and prove the superiority of Unitarian Christianity, as a means of promoting a deep and no- ble'piety; I."TJnitarianism is a system most fa- vorable to piety, because it presents to the mind one, and only one, Infinite Person, to whom supreme homage is to be paid. It does not weaken the energy of relig- ious sentiment by dividing it among various objects. It collects and con- centrates the soul on one Father of un- bounded, undivided, unrivalled glory. To him it teaches the mind to rise through all beings. Around him it gathers all the splendors of the uni- verse. To him it teaches us to ascribe whatever good we receive or behold, the beauty and magnificence of nature, the liberal gifts of Providence, the capac- ities of the soul, the_bonds of soci- ety, and especially the riches of grace and redemption, the mission, and pow- ers, and beneficent influences of Jesus Christ. All happiness it traces up to the Father, as the sole source ; and the mind, which these views have pene- trated, through this intimate association of every thing exciting and exalting in the universe with one Infinite Parent, can anddoes^ offer itself up to him with the intensest and profoundest love of which human nature is susceptible. The Trinitarian, indeed, professes to believe in one God, and means to hold fast this truth. But three persons, having dis- tinctive qualities and relations, of whom one is sent and another the sender, one is given and another the giver, of whom one intercedes and another hears the intercession, of whom one takes flesh and another never becomes incarnate, — three persons, thus discriminated, are as truly three objects of the mind as if they were acknowledged to be separate divin- ities ; and, from the principles of our nature, they cannot act on the mind as deeply and powerfully as one Infinite Person, to whose sole goodness all hap- , piness is ascribed. To multiply infinite objects for the heart is to distract it. To scatter the attention among three equal persons is to impair the power of each. The more strict and absolute the unity of God, the more easily and inti- mately all the impressions and emotions of piety flow together, and are condensed into one glowing thought, one thrilling love. No_language can express the ab- sorbing energy of the thought of one Infinite Father. When vitally implanted in the soul, it grows and gains strength for ever. It enriches itself by every new view of God's word and works ; gathers tribute from all regions and all ages ; and attracts into itself, all the rays of beauty, glory, and joy, in the material and spiritual creation. My hearers, as you would feel the full influence of God upon your souls, guard sacredly, keep unobscured and unsul- lied, that fundamental and glorious truth, that there is one, and only one. Almighty Agent in the universe, — one Infinite Father. Let this truth dwell in me in its uncorrupted simplicity, and I have the spring and nutriment of an ever- growing piety. I have an object for my mind towards which all things bear me. I know whither to go in all trial, whom to bless in all joy, whom to adore in all I behold. But let three persons claim from me supreme homage, and claim it \:. I \, 388 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY on different gfounds, one for sending and another for corning to my relief, and I am divided, distracted, perplexed. My frail intellect is overborne. Instead of one Father, on whose arm I can rest, my mind is torn from object to object, and I tremble lest, among so many claimants of supreme love, I should withhold from one or another his due. II. Unitarianism is the system most favorable to piety, because it holds forth and preserves inviolate the spirituality of God. " God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." It is of great importance to the progress and elevation of the religious principle that we should re- fine more and more our conceptions of God ; that we should separate from him all material properties, and what- ever is limited or imperfect in our own nature ; that we should regard him as a pure infeUigence, an unmixed and infinite Mind. When it pleased God to select the Jewish people and place them under miraculous interpositions, one of the first precepts given them was, that they should not represent God under any bodily form, any graven image, or the hkeness of any creature. Next came Christianity, which had this as one of its great objects, to render relig- ion still more spiritual, by abolishing the ceremonial and outward worship of former times, and by discarding those grosser modes of describing God through which the ancient prophets had sought to impress an unrefined people. Now, Unitarianism concurs with this sublime moral purpose of God. It as- serts" his spirituality. It approaches him under no bodily form, but as a pure spirit, as the infinite and the uni- versal Mind. On the other hand, it is the direct influence of Trinitarianisrh to materialize men's conceptions of God ; and, in truth, this system is a relapse into the error of the rudest and earliest ages, into the worship of a corporeal God. Its leading feature is the doc- trine of a God clothed with a body, and acting and speaking through a material frame, — of the Infinite Divinity dying on a cross ; a doctrine which, in earthli- ness reminds us of the mythology of the rudest pagans, and which a pious Jew, in the twilight of the Mosaic religion, would have shrunk from with horror. It seems to me no small objection to the Trinity, that it supposes God to take a body in the later and more improved ages of the world, when it is plain that such a manifestation, if needed at all, was peculiarly required in the infancy of the race. The effect of such a sys- tem in debasing the idea of God, in as- sociating with the Divinity human pas- sions and infirmities, is too obvious to need much elucidation. On the suppo- sition that the second person of the Trinity became incarnate, God may be said to be a material being, on the same general ground on which this is affirmed of man ; for man is material only by the union of the mind with the body ; and the very meaning of incarnation is that God took a body, through which he acted and spoke, as the human soul operates through its corporeal organs. Every bodily affection may thus be as- cribed to God. Accordingly the Trini- tarian, in his most solemn act of adora- tion, is heard to pray in these appalling words : " Good Lord, deliver us ; by the mystery of thy holy incarnation, by thy holy nativity and circumcision, by thy baptism, fasting, and temptation, by thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, good Lord, deliver us." Now I ask you to judge, from the principles of human nature, whether to worshippers, who adore their God for his wounds and tears, his agony, and blood, and sweat, the ideas of corporeal existence and human suffering will not predominate over the conceptions of a purely spiritual essence ; whether the mind, in cfinging to the man, will not lose the God ; whether a surer method for depressing and adulterating the pure thought of the Divinity could have been deviled. That the Trinitarian is un- conscious of this influence of his faith, I know, nor do I charge it on him as a crime. Still it exists, and cannot be too much deplored. The Roman Catholics, true to human nature and their creed, have sought by painting and statuary to bring their imagined God before their eyes; and have thus obtained almost as vivid im- pressions of him as if they had lived with him on the earth. The Protestant condemns them for using these simili- tudes and representations in their wor- ship ; but, if a Trinitarian, he does so to his own condemnation. For if, as he beUeves, it was once a duty to bow in MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 389 adoration before the living body of his incarnate God, what possible guilt can there be in worshipping before the pict- ured or sculptured memorial of the same being ? Christ's body may as truly be represented by the artist as any other human form ; and its image may be used as effectually and jiroperly as that of an ancient sage or hero, to recall him with vividness to the jiiind. Is it said that God has expressly forbidden the use of images in our worship ? But why was that prohibition laid on the Jews ? For this express reason, that God had not presented himself to them in any form which admitted of representation. Hear the language of Moses : " Take good heed lest ye make you a graven image, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire." * If, since that period, God has taken a body, then the reason of the prohibition has ceased ; and, if he took a body, among other purposes, that He migiit assist the weakness of the intellect, which needs a material form, then a statue, which lends so great an aid to the conception of an absent friend, is not only justified, but seems to be required. This materializing and embodying of the Supreme Being, which is the essence of Trinitarianisra, cannot but be adverse to a growing and exalted piety. Hu- man and divine properties, being con- founded in one being, lose their distinct- ness. The splendors of the Godhead are dimmed. The worshippers of an incar- nate Deity, through the frailty of their nature, are strongly tempted to fasten chiefly on his human attributes ; and their devotion, instead of rising to the Infinite God, and taking the peciJliar character which infinity inspires, be- comes rather a human affection, bor- rowing much of its fervor from the ideas of suffering, blood, and death. It is indeed possible that this God-man (to use_ the strange phraseology of Trin- itarians) may excite the mind more easily than a purely spiritual divinity ; just as a tragedy, addressed to the eye and ear, will interest the multitude more than the contemplation of the most exalted character. But the emotions which are the most easily roused, are _ * Deut. iv. 15, 16 The arrangement of the text IS a little changed, to put the reader immediately in possession of the meaning. not the profoundest or most enduring. This human love, inspired by a human God, though at first more fervid, cannot grow and spread through the soul, like the reverential attachment which an infinite, spiritual Father awakens. Re- fined conceptions of God, though more slowly attained7have a more quickening and all-pervading energy, and admit of perpetual accessions m brightness, life, and strength. True, we shall be told that Trinita- rianisra has converted only one of its three persons into a human deity, and that the other two remain purely spir- itual beings. But who does not know that man will attach himself most strong- ly to the God who has become a man ? Is not this even a duty, if the Divinity has taken a body to place himself within the reach of human comprehension and sympathy ? That the Trinitarian's views of the Divinity will be colored more by his visible, tangible, corporeal God, than by those persons of the Trinity who remain comparatively hidden in their invisible and spiritual essence, is so accordant with the principles of our nat- ure as to need no labored proof. My friends, hold fast the doctrine of a purely spiritual Divinity. It is one of the great supports and instruments of a vital piety. It brings God near as no other doctrine can. One of the leading purposes of Christianity is to give us an ever-growing sense of God's immediate presence, — a conciousness of him in our souls. Now, just as far as corporeal or limited attributes enter into our con- ception of him, we remove him from us. He becomes an outward, distant being, instead of being viewed and felt as dwell- ing in the soul itself. It is an unspeak- able benefit of the doctrine of a purely spiritual God, that He can be regarded as inhabiting, fiUing our spiritual nature ; and, through this union with our minds, He can and does become the object of an intimacy and friendship such as no em- bodied being can call forth. III. Unitarianism is the system most favorable to piety, because it presents a distinct and intelligible object of wor- ship, — a Being whose nature, whilst inexpressibly subhme, is yet simple and suited to human apprehension. An Infi- nite Father is the most exalted "of all conceptions, and yet the least perplex- ing. It involves no incongruous ideas. 39° UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY It is illustrated by analogies from our own nature. It coincides with that fundamental law of TEe intellect through which we demand a cause proportioned to ejffects. It is also as interesting as it is rational ; so that it is peculiarly con- genial with the improved mind. The sublime simplicity of God, as He is taughfin Unitarianism, by relieving the understanding from perplexity, and by placing him within the reach of thought and affection, gives him peculiar power over the soul. Trinitarianism, on the other hand, is a riddle. Men call it a mystery ; but it is mysterious, not like the great truths of religion, by its vast- ness and grandeur, but by the irrecon- cilable ideas which it involves. One God, consisting of three persons or agents, is so strange a being, so unlike our own minds, and all others with which we hold intercourse, — is so misty, so incongruous, so contradictory, that He cannot be apprehended with that distinctness and that feeling of reality which belong to the opposite system. Such a heterogeneous being, who is at the same moment one and many ; who includes in his own nature the relations of Father and Son, or, in other words, is Father and Son to himself ; who, in one of his persons, is at the same moment the Supreme God and a mortal man, omniscient and ignorant, almighty and impotent ; such a being is certainly the most puzzling and distracting object ever presented to human thought. Trin- itarianism, instead of teaching an intel- ligible God, offers to the mind a strange compound of hostile attributes, bearing plain marks of those ages of darkness when Christianity shed but a faint ray, and the diseased fancy teemed with prodigies and unnatural creations. In contemplating a being who presents such different and inconsistent aspects, the mind finds nothing to rest upon ; and, instead of receiving distinct and har- monious impressions, is disturbed by shifting, unsettled images. To commune with such a being must be as hard as to converse with a man of three different countenances, speaking with three differ- ent tongues. The believer in this sys- tem must forget it when he prays, or he could find no repose in devotion. _Who can conipare it, in distinctness, re'ality, and power, with the simple doctrine of one Infinite Father ? IV. Unitarianism promotes a fervent and enlightened piety by asserting the absolute and unbounded perfection of God's .character. This is the highest service which can be rendered to man- kind. Just and generous conceptions of the Divinity are the soul's true wealth. To spread these is to contribute more effectually than by any other agency to the progress and hapi^iness of the intel- ligent creation. To obscure God's glory is to do greater wrong than to blot out the sun. The character and influence of a religion must answer to the views which it gives of the Divinity ; and there is a plain tendency in that system which manifests the divine perfections most resplendently to awaken the sublimest and most blessed piety. Now, Trinitarianism has a fatal ten- dency to degrade the character of the Supreme Being, though its advocates, I am sure, intend no such wrong. By multiplying divine persons, it takes from each the glory of independent, all-sufiicient, absolute perfection. This may be shown in various particulars. And, in the first place, the very idea that three persons in the Divinity are in any degree important, implies and in- volves the imperfection of each ; for it is plain that if one divine person pos- sesses all possible power, wisdom, love, and happiness, nothing will be gained to himself or to the creation by join- ing with him two, or two hundred other persons. To say that he needs others for any purpose or in any degree, is to strip him of independent and all-suffi- cient majesty. If our Father in heaven, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not of himself sufficient to all the* wants of his creation ; if, by his union with other persons, he can ac- complish any good to which he is not of himself equal ; or if he thus acquires a claim to the least degree of trust or hope, to which he is not of himself en- titled by his own independent attributes ; then it is plain he is not a being of in- finite and absolute perfection, Now, Trinitarianism teaches that the highest good accrues to the human race from the existence of three divine persons, sustaining different offices and relations to the world ; and it regards the Unita- rian as subverting the foundation of human hope, by asserting that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is alone MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 391 and singly God. Thus it derogates from his infinite glory. In the next place, Trinitarianism de- grades the character of the Supreme Being, by laying its disciples under the necessity of making such a distribution of offices and relations among the three persons as will serve to designate and distinguish them ; for in this way it in- terferes with the sublime conceptions of one Infinite Person, in whom all glories are concentred. If we are required to worship three persons, we imust view them in different lights, or they will be mere repetitions of each other, mere names and sounds, presenting no ob- jects, conveying no meaning to the mind. Some appropriate character, some peculiar acts, feelings, and rela- tions, must be ascribed to each. In other words, the glory of all must be shorn, that some special distinguishing lustre may be thrown on each. Accord- ingly, creation is associated peculiarly with the conception of the Father ; sat- isfaction for human guilt with that of the Son ; whilst sanctification, the no- blest work of all, is given to the Holy Spirit as his more particular work. By a still more fatal distribution, the work of justice, the office of vindicating the rights of the Divinity, falls peculiarly to the Father, whilst the loveliness of in- terposing mercy clothes peculiarly the person of the Son. By this unhappy influence of Trinitarianism, from which common minds at least cannot escape, the splendors of the Godhead, being scattered among three objects, instead of being united in one Infinite Father, are dimmed ; and he whose mind is thoroughly and practically possessed by this system, can hardly conceive the ef- fulgence of glory in which the one God offers himself to a pious believer in his strict unity. But the worst has not been told. I observe, then, in the third place, that if three divine persons are believed in, such an administration or government of the world must be ascribed to them as will furnish them with a sphere of oper- ation. No man will admit three persons into his creed, without finding a use for them. Now, it is an obvious remark, that a system of the universe which in- volves and demands more than one Infi- nite Agent, must be wild, extravagant, and unworthy the perfect God ; because there is no possible or conceivable good to which such an Agent is not adequate. Accordingly^ we find Trinitarianism con- necting itself with a scheme of admin- istration exceedingly derogatory to the divine character. It teaches that the Infinite Father saw fit to put into the hands of our first parents the character and condition of their whole progeny ; and that, through one act of disobedience, the whole race bring with them into being a corrupt nature, or are born depraved. It teaches that the of- fences of a short life, though begun and spent under this disastrous influ- ence, merit endless punishment, and that God's law threatens this infinite pen- alty ; and that man is thus burdened with a guilt which no sufferings of the created universe can expiate, which nothing but the sufferings of an Infi- nite Being can purge away. In this con- dition of human nature, Trinitarianism finds a sphere of action for its different persons. I am aware that some Trini- tarians, on hearing this statement of their system, may reproach me with as- cribing to them the errors of Calvinism, — a system which they abhor as much as ourselves. But none of the peculiar- ities of Calvinism enter into this expo- sition. I have given what I understand to be the leading features of Trinitarian- ism all the world over ; and the benevo- lent professors of that faith who recoil from this statement must blame not the preacher, but the creeds and establish- ments by which these doctrines are diffused. For ourselves, we look with horror and grief on the views of God's government which are naturally and intimately united with Trinitarianism. They take from us our Father in heaven, and substitute a stern and unjust lord. Our filial love and reverence rise up against them. We say to the Trinita- rian, touch any thing but the perfections of God. Cast no stain on that spotless purity and loveliness. We can endure any errors but those which subvert or unsettle the conviction of God's pater- nal goodness. Urge not upon us a sys- tem which makes existence a curse, and wraps the universe in gloom. Leave us the cheerful light, the free and healthful atmosphere of a liberal and rational faith ; the ennobling and consoling in- fluences of the doctrine, which nature and revelation in blessed concord teach 392 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY us, of one Father of unbounded and inexhaustible love. V. Unitarianism is peculiarly favor- able to piety, because it accords with nature, with the world around and the world within us ; and through this ac- cordance it gives aid to nature, and re- ceives aid from it, in impressing the mind with God. We live in the midst of a glorious universe, which was meant to be a witness and a preacher of the Di- vinity ; and a revelation from God may be expected to be in harmony with this system, and to carry on a common min- . istry with it in lifting the soul to God. Now, ^Unitarianism is in accordance with natuFe. It teaches one Father, and so does creation, the more it is ex- plored. Philosophy, in proportion as it extends its views of the universe, sees in it, more and more, a sublime and beautiful unity, and multiplies proofs that all things have sprung from one in- telligence, ' one power, one love. "The wKofe~outward creation proclaims to the Unitarian the truth in which he delights. So does his own soul. But neither nat- ure nor the soul bears one trace of three divine persons. Nature is no Trinita- rian. It gives not a hint, not a glimpse of a tri-personal author. Trinitarianism is a confined system, shut up in a few texts, a few written lines, where many of the wisest minds have failed to dis- cover it. It is not inscribed on the heavens and the earth, not borne on every wind, not resounding and re-echo- ing through the universe. The sun and stars say nothing of a God of three persons. They all speak of the one Father whom we adore. To our ears, one and the same voice comes from God's word and works, — a full and swelling strain, growing clearer, louder, more thrilling as we listen, and with one blfessed influence lifting up our souls to the Almighty Father. This accordance between nature and revelation increases the power of both over the mind. Concurring as they do in one impression, they make that im- pression deeper. To men of reflection, the conviction of the reality of religion is exceedingly heightened by a percep- tion of harmony in the views of it which they derive from various sources. Rev- elation is never received with so intimate a persuasion of its truth as when it is seen to conspire to the same ends and impressions for which all other things are made. It is no small objection to Trinitarianism that it is an insulated doctrine, that it reveals a God whom we meet nowhere in the universe. Three divine persons, I repeat it, are found only in a few texts, and those so dark that the gifted minds of Milton, Newton, and Locke could not find them there. Nature gives them not a whisper of evi- dence. And can they be as real and powerful to the mind as that one Father whom the general strain and common voice of Scripture, and the universal voice of nature, call us to adore .■' VI. Unitarianism favors piety by opening the mind to nesv^ and ever-en- larging views of God. Teaching, as it does, the same God with nature , it leads us to seek him in nature. It does not shut us up in the written word, precious as that manifestation of the Divinity is. It considers revelation, not as independent of his other means of instruction ; not as a separate agent ; but as a part of the great system of God for enlightening and elevating the human soul ; as inti- mately joined with creation and prov- idence, and intended to concur with them ; and as given to assist us in read- ing the volume of the universe. Thus Unitarianism, where its genuine influ- ence is experienced, tends to enrich and fertihze the mind ; opens it to new lights, wherever they spring up ; and, by com- bining, makes more efficient the means of religious knowledge. Trinitarianism, on the other hand, is a system which tends to confine the mind ; to shut it up in what is written ; to diminish its inter- est in the universe ; and to disincline it to bright and enlarged views of God's works. This effect will be explained, in the first place, if we consider that the peculiarities of Trinitarianism differ so much from the teachings of the universe, that he who attaches himself to the one will be in danger of losing his interest in the other. The ideas of three divine persons, of God clothing himself in flesh, of the infinite Creator saving the guilty by transferring their punishment to an innocent being, — these ideas can- not easily be made to coalesce in the mind with that which nature gives, of one Almighty Father and Unbounded Spirit, whom no worlds can contain, and whose vicegerent ia the human breast MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 393 pronounces it a crime to lay the penal- ties of vice on the pure and unoffend- ing. But Trinitarianism has a still more positive influence in shutting the mind against improving views from the uni- verse. It tends to throw gloom over God's works. Imagming that Christ is to be exalted by giving "him an exclusive agency in enlightening and recovering mankind, it is tempted to disparage other lights and influences ; and, for the pur- pose of magnifying his salvation, it in- clines to exaggerate the darkness and desperateness of man's present condi- tion. The mind, thus impressed, nat- urally leans to those views of nature and of society which will strengthen the ideas of desolation and guilt. It is tempted to aggravate the miseries of life, and to see in them only the marks of divine displeasure and punishing jus- tice ; and overlooks their obvious fitness and design to awaken our powers, exer- cise our virtues, and strengthen our so- cial ties. In like manner it exatrgerates the sins of men, that the need of an in- finite atonement may be maintained. Some of the most affecting tokens of God's love within and around us are ob- scured by this gloomy theology. The glorious faculties of the soul, its high aspirations, its sensibility to the great and good in character, its sympathy with disinterested and suffering virtue, its be- nevolent and religious instincts, its thirst for a happiness not found on earth ; these are overlooked or thrown into the shade, that they may not disturb the persua- sion of man's natural corruption. In- genuity is employed to disparage what is interesting in the human character. Whilst the bursts of passion in the new- born child are gravely urged as indica- tions of a native, rooted corruption ; its bursts of affection, its sweet smile, its innocent and irrepressible joy, its love- liness and beauty, are not listened to, though they plead more eloquently its alliance with higher natures. The sacred and tender affections of home ; the unwearied watchings and cheerful sacrifices of parents ; the reverential, grateful assiduity of children, smoothing an aged ^father's or mother's descent to the grave ; woman's love, stronger than death ; the friendship of brothers and sisters ; the anxious affection, which tends around the bed of sickness, the subdued vojce, which breathes comfort into the mourner's heart ; all the endear- ing offices which shed a serene Hght through our dwellings ; — these are ex- plained away by the thorough advocates of this system, so as to include no real virtue, so as to consist with a natural aversion to goodness. Even the higher efforts of disinterested benevo- lence, and the most unaffected expres- sions of piety, if not connected with what is called " the true faith," are, by the most rigid disciples of the doctrine which I oppose, resolved into the pas- sion for distinction, or some other work- ing of " unsanctified nature." Thus, Trinitarianism and its kindred doctrines have a tendency to veil God's goodness, to sully his fairest works, to dim the lustre of those innocent and pure affec- tions which a divine breath kindles in the soul, to blight the beauty and fresh- ness of creation, and in this way to con- sume the very nutriment of piety. We know, and rejoice to know, that in mul- titudes this tendency is counteracted by a cheerful temperament, a benevolent nature, and a strength of gratitude which bursts the shackles of a melancholy sys- tem. But from the nature of the doc- trine, the tendency exists and is strong ; and an impartial observer wiU often dis- cern it resulting in gloomy, depressing views of life and the universe. Trinitarianism, by thus tending to exclude bright and enlarged views of the creation, seems to me ■ not only to chill the heart, but to injure the under- standing, as far as moral and religious truth is concerned. It doesnot send the mind far and wide for new and ele- vating objects ; and we have here one explanation of the barrenness and fee- bleness by which theological writings are so generally marked. It is not wonderful that the prevalent theology should want vitality and enlargement of thought for it does not accord with the perfections of God and the spirit of the universe. It has not its root in eternal truth ; but is a narrow, techni- cal, artificial system, the fabrication of unrefined ages, and consequently in- capable of being blended with the new lights which are spreading over the most interesting subjects, and of being incor- porated with the results and anticipa- tions of original and progressive minds. It stands apart in the mind, instead of 394 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY ^ l, seizing upon new truths, and converting tliem into its own nutriment. With few exceptions, the Trinitarian theology of the present day is greatly deficient in freshness of thought, and in power to awaken the interest and to meet the intellectual and spiritual wants of think- ing men. I see, indeed, superior minds and great minds among the adherents of the prevalent system ; but they seem to me to move in chains, and to fulfil poorly their high function of adding to the wealth of the human intellect. In theological discussion, they remind me more of Samson grinding in the narrow mill of the Philistines, than of that undaunted champit)n achieving victories for God's people, and enlarging the bounds of their inheritance. NoWj_a system which has a tendency to confine the mind, and to impair its sensibility to the manifestations of God in the universe, is so far unfriendly to piety, to a bright, joyous, hopeful, ever-grow- ing love of the Creator. It tends to generate and nourish a religion of a melancholy tone, such, I apprehend, as now predominates in the Christian world. VII. Unitarianism promotes piety, by the high place which it assigns to pi- ety in the character and work of Jesus Christ. What isJiLwhich the Unitarian regards as the" chief glory of the char- acter of Christ ? I answer, his filial devotion, the entireness with which he surrendered himself to the will and benevolent purposes of God. The piety of Jesus, which, on the supposition of his Supreme Divinity, is a subordinate and incongruous, is, to us, his promi- nent and crowning attribute. We place his "oneness with God," not in an unin- telligible unity of essence, but in unity of mind and heart, in the- strength of his love, through which he renounced every separate interest, and identified himself with his Father's designs. In other words, fihal piety, the consecra- tion of his whole being to the benevo- lent will of his Father, this is the mild glory in which he always offers himself to our minds ; and, of consequence, all our sympathies with him, all our love and veneration towards him, are so many forms of delight in a pious char- acter, and our whole knowledge of him incites us to a like surrender of our whole nature and existence to God. In the next place, Unitarianism teaches that the highest work or office of Christ is to call forth and strengthen piety in the human breast ; and thus it sets before us this character as the chief acquisition and end of our being. To us, the great glory of Christ's mission consists in the power with which he " reveals the Fa- ther," and establishes the " kingdom or reign of God within " the soul. By the crown whjch he wears, we understand the eminence which he enjoys in the most beneficent work in the universe, that of bringin g ba ck the lost mind to the knowledge, love, and likeness of its Creator. With these views of Christ's office, nothing can seem to us so impor- tant as an enlightened and profound piety, and we are quickened to seek it as the perfection and happiness to which nature and redemption jointly summon us. Now, we maintain that Trinitarianism obscures and weakens these views of Christ's character and work ; and this it does by insisting perpetually on others of an incongruous, discordant nature. It diminishes the power of his piety. iVIaking him, as it does, the Supreme Being, and placing him as an equal on his Father's throne, it turns the mind from him as the meekest worshipper of God ; throws into the shade, as of very inferior worih, his self-denying obedi- ence ; and gives us gther^rounds for revering him than his entire homage, his fervent love, his cheerful self-sacri- fice to the Universal Parent. There is a plain incongruity in the belief of his Supreme Godhead with the ideas of filial piety and exemplary devotion. The mind, which has been taught to regard him as of equal majesty and authority with tlie Father, cannot easily feel the power of his character as the affection- ate son, whose meat it was to do his Father's will. The mind, accustomed to make him the ultimate object of worship, cannot easily recognize in him the pattern of that worship, the guide to the Most High. The characters are incongruous, and their union perplexing, so that neither exerts its full energy on the mind. Trinitarianism also exhibits the work as well as character of Christ in lights less favorable to piety. It does not make the promotion of piety his chief end. It teaebes that the highest pur- MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 39S pose of his mission was to reconcile God to man, not man to God. It teaches that the most formidable ob- stacle to human happiness lies in the claims and threatenings of divine jus- tice. Hence it leads men to prize Christ more for answering these claims, and averting these threatenings, than for awakening in the human soul senti- ments of love towards its Father in heaven. Accordingly, multitudes seem to prize pardon more than piety, and think it a greater boon to escape, through Christ's sufferings, the fire of hell, than to receive, through his influ- ence, the spirit of heaven, the spirit of devotion. Is such a system propitious to a generous and ever-growing piety ? If I may be allowed a short digres- sion, I would conclude this head with the general observation, that we deem our views of Jesus Christ more inter- esting than those of Trinitarianism. We feel that we should lose much by exchanging the distinct character and mild radiance with which he offers him- self to our minds for the confused and irreconcilable glories with which that system labors to invest him. Accord- ing to Unitariariism, he is a being who may be understood, for he is one mind, one conscious nature. According to the opposite faith, he is an inconceiv- able compound of two most dissimilar minds, joining in one person a finite and infinite nature, a soul weak and igno- rant, and a soul almighty and omni- . sclent. And is such a being a proper object for human thought and affection ? I add, as another important considera- tion, that to us Jesus, instead of being the second of three obscure, unintelligi- ble persons, is first and pre-eminent in the sphere in which he acts, and is thus the object of a distinct attachment, which he shares with no equals or ri- vals. To us, he is first of the sons of God, the Son by peculiar nearness and likeness to the Father. He is first of all the ministers of God's mercy and be- neficence, and through him the largest stream of bounty flows to the crea- tion. He is first in God's favor and love, the mQsl_accepted of worshippers, the most prevalent of intercessors. In this mighty universe, framed to be a mirror of its Author, we turn to Jesus as the brightest image of God, and gratefully yield him a place in our souls. second only to the Infinite Father, to whom he himself directs our supreme affection. VIII. I now proceed to a great topic. Unitarianism promotes piety by meeting the wants oi man as a sinner. The wants of the sinner may be expressed almost in one word. He wants assur- ances of mercy in his Creator. He wants pledges that God is love in its purest form, that is, tliat He has a goodness so disinterested, free, full, strong, and immutable, that the ingratitude and dis- obedience of his creatures cannot over- come it. This unconquerable love, which in Scripture is denominated grace, and which waits not for merit to call it forth, but flows out to the most guilty, is the sinner's only hope, and it is fitted to call forth the most devoted gratitude. Now, this grace or mercy of God, which seeks the lost, and receives and blesses the returning child, is proclaimed by that faith which we advocate with a clearness and energy which cannot be surpassed. Unitarianism will not listen for a moment to the common errors by which this bright attribute is obscured. It will not hear of a vindictive wrath in God which must be quenched by blood ; or of a justice which binds his mercy with an iron chain until its demands are satisfied to the full. It will not hear that God needs any foreign influence to awaken his mercy, but teaches that the yearn- ings of the tenderest human parent towards a lost child are but a faint image of God's deep and overflowing compas- sion towards erring man. This essential and unchangeable propensity of the Di- vine Mind to forgiveness, the Unitarian beholds shining forth through the whole word of God, and especially in the mission and revelation of Jesus Christ, who lived and died to make manifest the inex- haustible plenitude of divine grace ; and, aided by revelation, he sees this attribute of God everywhere, both around him and within him. He sees it in the sun which shines, and the rain which de- scends on the evil and unthankful ; in the peace which returns to the mind in proportion to its return to God and duty ; in the sentiment of compassion which springs up spontaneously in the human breast towards the fallen and lost ; and in the moral instinct which teaches us to cherish this compassion as a sacred- principle, as an emanation of God's in- 396 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY finite love. In truth, Unitarianism as- serts so strongly the mercy of God, that the reproach thrown upon it is that it takes from the sinner the dread of pun- ishment, — a reproach wholly without foundation ; forour system teaches that God's mercy is inot an instinctive tender- nesSj which cannot inflict pain, but an alPwise love, which desires the true and lasting good of its object, and conse- quently desires first for the sinner that restoration to purity without which shame, and suffering, and exile from God and heaven are of necessity and unalterably his doom. Thus Unitari- anism holds forth God's grace and for- giving goodness most resplendently ; and, by this manifestation of him, it tends to awaken a tender and confiding piety ; an ingenuous love, which mourns that it has offended ; an ingenuous aver- sion to sin, not because sin brings pun- ishment, but because it separates the mind from this merciful Father. Now we object to Trinitarianism, that it obscures the mercy of God. It does so in various ways. We have already seen that it gives such views of God's government, that we can hardly conceive of this attribute as entering into his character. Mercy to the sinner is the principle of love or benevolence in its highest form ; and surely this cannot be expected from a being who brings us into existence burdened with hereditary guilt, and who threatens with endless punishment and woe the heirs of so frail and feeble a nature. With such a Cre- ator the idea of mercy cannot coalesce ; and I wiU say more, that under such a government man would need no mercy ; for he would owe no allegiance to such a Maker, and could not, of course, con- tract the guilt of violating it ; and, with- out guilt, no grace or pardon would be wanted. The severity of this system would place him on the ground of an injured being. The wrong would lie on the side of the Creator. In the next place, Trinitarianism ob- scures God's mercy by the manner in which it supposes pardon to be com- municated. It teaches that God remits the punishment of the offender in con- sequence of receiving an equivalent from an innocent person ; that the sufferings of the sinner are removed by a full satis- . faction made to divine justice in the sufferings of a, substitute. And is this " the quality of mercy " ? What means forgiveness, but the reception of the returning child through the strength of parental love ? This doctrine invests the Saviour with a claim of merit, with a right to the remission of the sins of his followers ; and represents God's re- ception of the penitent as a recompense due to the worth of his Son. And^ is mercy, wh ich^means free and undeserved love, made more manifest, more resplen- dent, by the introduction of merit and right as the ground of our salvation ? Could a surer expedient be invented for obscuring its freeness, and for turning the sinner's gratitude from the sovereign who demands, to the sufferer who offers, full satisfaction for his guilt ? I know it is said that Trinitarian- ism magnifies God's mercy, because it teaches that He himself provided the substitute for the guilty. But I reply, that the work here ascribed to mercy is not the most appropriate, nor most fitted to manifest it and impress it on the heart. This may be made apparent by familiar illustrations. Suppose that a creditor, through compassion to certain debtors, should persuade a benevolent and opulent man to pay him in their stead. Would not the debtors see a greater mercy, and feel a weightier obligation, if they were to receive a free, gratuitous release ? And wiU not their chief gratitude stray beyond the creditor to the benevolent substitute ? Or, suppose that a parent, unwilling to inflict a penalty on a dis- obedient but feeble child, should per- suade a stronger child to bear it. Would not the offender see a more touching mercy in a free forgiveness, springing immediately from a parent's heart, than in this circuitous remission ? And will he not be tempted to turn with his strongest love to the generous sufferer .■' In this process of substitution, of which Trinitarianism boasts so loudly, the mercy of God becomes complicated with the rights and merits of the sub- stitute, and is a more distant cause of our salvation. These rights and merits are nearer, more visible, and more than divide the glory with grace and mercy in our rescue. They turn the mind from Divine Goodness, as the only spring of its happiness and only rock of its hope. Now this is to deprive piety of one of its chief means of growth and joy. Nothing should stand between the souj MOST FA VORABLE TO PIETY. 397 and God's mercy. Nothing should share with mercy the work of our salvation, Christ's intercession should ever be re- garded as an appHcation to love and mercy, not as a demand of justice, not as a claim of merit. I grieve to say that Christ, as now viewed by multitudes, hides the lustre of that very attribute which it is his great purpose to display. I fear that, to many, Jesus wears the glory of a more winning, tender mercy than his Father, and that he is regarded as the sinner's chief resource. Is this the way to invigorate piety .'' Trinitarians imagine that there is one view of their system peculiarly fitted to give peace and hope to the sinner, and consequently to promote gratitude and love. It is this. They say, it provides an ■ infinite substitute for the sinner, than which nothing can give greater re- lief to the burdened conscience. Jesus, being the second person of the Trinity, was able to make infinite satisfaction for sin ; and what, they ask, in Unitarian- ism, can compare with this ? I have time only for two brief replies. And first, this doctrine of an infinite satisfac- tion, or, as it is improperly called, of an infinite atonement, subverts, instead of building up, hope ; because it argues infinite severity in the government which requires it. Did I believe, what Trin- itarianism teaches, that not the least transgression, not even the first sin of the dawning mind of the child, could be remitted without an infinite expiation, I should feel myself living under a legisla- tion unspeakably dreadful, under laws written, like Draco's, in blood ; and, in- stead of thanking the Sovereign for pro- viding an infinite substitute, I should shudder at^ the _attributes which render this expedient necessary. It is com- monly said that an infinite atonement is needed to make due and deep impres- sions of the evil of sin. But He who framed all souls, and gave them their susceptibilities, ought not to be thought so wanting in goodness and wisdom as to have constituted a universe which demands so dreadful and degrading a method of enforcing obedience as the penal sufferings of a God. This doc- trine, of an infinite substitute suffering the penalty of sin, to manifest God's wrath against sin, and thus to support his government, is, I fear, so familiar to us all, that its severe character is over- looked. Let me, then, set it before you in new terms, and by a new illustration ; and if, in so doing, I may wound the feeUngs of some who hear me, I beg them to believe t'nat I do it with pain, and from no impulse but a desire to serve the cause of truth. Suppose, then, that a teacher should come among you, and should tell you that the Cre- ator, in order to pardon his own chil- dren, had erected a gallows in the centre of the universe, and had publicly ex- ecuted upon it, in room of the offenders, an Infinite Being, the partaker of his own Supreme Divinity ; suppose him to declare that this execution was appoint- ed as a most conspicuous and terrible manifestation of God's justice, and of the infinite woe denounced by his law; and suppose him to add that all beings in heaven and earth are required to fix their eyes on this fearful sight, as the most powerful enforcement of obedience and virtue. Would you not tell him that he calumniated his Maker ? Would you not say to him, that this central gallows threw gloom over the universe ; that the spirit of a government whose very acts of pardon were written in such blood was terror, not paternal love ; and that the obedience which needed to be upheld by this horrid spectacle was nothing worth ? Would you not say to him, that even you, in this infancy and imperfection of your being, were capa- ble of being wrought upon by nobler motives, and of hating sin through more generous views ; and that, much more, the angels, those pure flames of love, need not the gallows and an executed God to confirm their loyalty ? You would all so feel at such teaching as I have supposed ; and yet how does this differ from the popular doctrine of atone- ment ? According to this doctrine, we have an Infinite Being sentenced to suffer, as a substitute, the death of the cross, a punishment more ignominious and agonizing than the gallows, a pun- ishment reserved for slaves and the vilest malefactors ; and he suffers this punishment that he may show forth the terrors of God's law, and strike a dread of sin through the universe. I am in- deed aware that multitudes who profess this doctrine are not accustomed to bring it to their minds distinctly in this light ; that they do not ordinarily regard the death of Christ as a criminal execu- 398 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY -\^ tion, as an infinitely dreadful infliction of justice, as intended to show that, with- out an infinite satisfaction, they must hope nothing from God. Their minds turn, by a generous instinct, from these appalling views, to the love, the disin- terestedness, the moral grandeur and beauty of the sufferer; and through such thoughts they make the cross a source of peace, gratitude, love, and hope ; thus affording a delightful ex- emplification of the power of the human mind to attach itself to what is good and purifying in the most irrational sys- tem. Not a few may shudder at the illustration which I have here given ; but in what respects it is unjust to the popular doctrine of atonement, I can- not discern. I grieve to shock sincere Christians, of whatever name ; but I grieve more for the corruption of our common faith, which I have now felt myself bound to expose. I have a second objection to this doctrine of infinite atonement. When examined minutely, and freed from am- biguous language, it vanishes into air. It is wholly delusion. The Trinitarian tells me that, according to his system, we have an infinite substitute ; that the Infinite God was pleased to bear our punishment, and consequently that par- don is made sure. But I ask him, Do I understand you ? Do you mean, that the Great God, who never changes, whose happiness is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, that this Eternal Being really bore the penalty of my sins, — really suffered and died 1 Every pious man, when pressed by this ques- tion, answers, No. What, then, does the doctrine of infinite atonement mean ? Why, this ; that God took into union with himself our nature, that is, a hu- man body and soul ; and these bore the suffering for our sins ; and, through his union with these, God may be said to have borne it himself. Thus, this vaunted system goes out — in words. The infinite victim proves to be frail man, and God's share in the sacrifice is a mere fiction. I ask with solemnity. Can this doctrine give one moment's ease to the conscience of an unbiassed, thinking man .' Does it not unsettle all hope, by making the whole religion sus- picious and unsure ? I am compelled to say that I see in it no impression of majesty, or wisdom, or love, nothing worthy of a God ; and when I compare it with that nobler faith which directs our eyes and hearts to God's essential mercy, as our only hope, I am amazed that any should ascribe to it superior efficacy, as a religion for sinners, as a means of filling the soul with pious trust and love. I know, indeed, that some will say that, in giving up an infinite atonement, I deprive myself of all hope of divine favor. To such I would say, You do wrong to God's mercy. On that mercy I cast myself without a fear. I indeed^desire Christ to intercede for me. I regard his relation to me as God's kindest appointment. Through him, " grace and truth come " to me from heaven, and I look forward to his friend- ship as among the highest blessings of my whole future being. But I cannot and dare not ask him to offer an infinite satisfaction for my sins ; to appease the wrath of God ; to reconcile the Univer- sal Father to his own offspring ; to open to me those arms of divine mercy which have encircled and borne me from the first moment of my being. The essen- tial and unbounded mercy of riiy Creator is the foundation of my hope, and a broader and surer the universe cannot give me. IX. I now proceed to the last consid- eration which the limits of this discourse will permit me to_ urge. It has been more than once suggested, but deserves to be distinctly stated. I observe, then, that Unitarianism promotes piety be- cause it is a rational religion. By this I do not mean that its truths can be fully comprehended ; for there is not an object in nature or religion which has not innumerable connections and rela- tions beyond our grasp of thought. I mean that its doctrines are consistenT with one another, and with all estab- lished truth. Unitarianism is in har- mony with the great and clear principles of revelation ; with the laws and powers of human nature ; with the dictates of the moral sense ; with the noblest in- stincts and highest aspirations of the soul ; and with the lights which the universe throws on the character of its Author. We can hold this doctrine with- out self-contradiction, without rebelling against our rational and moral powers, without putting to silence the divine monitor in the breast. And this is an unspeakable benefit ; for a religion thus MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. 399 coincident with reason, conscience, and our whole spiritual being, has the foun- dations of universal empire in the breast ; and- the heart, finding no resistance in the intellect, yields itself wholly, cheer- fully, without doubts or misgivings, to the love of its Creator. To Trinitarianism we object, what has always been objected to it, that it con- tradicts and degrades reason, and thus exposes the mind to the worst delusions. Some of its advocates, more courageous than prudent, have even recommended " the prostration of the understanding," as preparatory to its reception. Its chief doctrine is an outrage on our rational nature. Its three persons who constitute its God must either be frittered away into three unmeaning distinctions, into sounds signifying nothing ; or they are three conscious agents, who cannot, by any human art or metaphysical device, be made to coalesce into one being ; who cannot be really viewed as one mind, having one consciousness and one will. Now a religious system, the car- dinal principle of which offends the understanding, very naturally conforms itself throughout to this prominent feat- ure, and becomes prevalently irrational. He who is compelled to defend his faith, in any particular, by the plea that hu- man reason is so depraved through the fall as to be an inadequate judge of religion, and that God is honored by our reception of what shocks the intel- lect, seems to have no defence left against accumulated absurdities. Ac- cording to these principles, the fanatic who exclaimed, " I beUeve, because it is impossible," had a fair title to canon- ization. Reason is too godlike a faculty to be insulted wttfi Impunity. Accord- 'jlglyr T rinitar ianism , as we have seen, links itself with several degrading errors ; and its most natural alliance is with Calvinism, that cruel faith, which, strip- ping God of mercy and man of power, has made Christianity an instrument of torture to the timid, and an object of doubt or scorn to hardier spirits. I repeat it, a doctrine which violates rea- son like the Trinity, prepares its advo- cates, in proportion as it is incorporated into the mind, for worse and worse de- lusions. It breaks down the distinc- tions and barriers between truth and falsehood. It creates a diseased taste for prodigies, fictions, and exaggerations. for starthng mysteries, and wild dreams of enthusiasm. It destroys the relish for the simple, chaste, serene beauties of truth. Especially when the prostra- tion of understanding is taught as an act of piety, we cannot wonder that the grossest superstitions should be de- voured, and that the credulity of the multitude should keep pace with the forgeries of imposture and fanaticism. The history of the church is the best comment on the effects of divorcing reason from religion ; and if the pres- ent age is disburdened of many of the superstitions under which Christianity and human nature groaned for ages, it owes its relief in no small degree to the reinstating of reason in her long-violated rights. The injury to religion from irrational doctrines, when thoroughly believed, is immense. The human soul has a unity. Its various faculties are adapted to one another. One Ufe pervades it ; and its beauty, strength, and growth depend on nothing so much as on the harmony and joint action of all its principles. To wound and degrade it in any of its pow- ers, and especially in the noble and dis- tinguishing power of reason, iS to inflict on it universal injury. No notion is more false than that the heart is to thrive by dwarfing the intellect ; that perplexing doctrines are the best food of piety ; that religion flourishes most lux- uriantly in mist and darkness. Reason- was dven for God as its great object ; and for him it should be kept sacred, invigorated, clarified, protected from hu- man usurpation, and inspired with a meek self-reverence. The soul never acts so effectually or joyfully as when all its powers and af- fections conspire ; as when thought and feeling, reason and sensibility, are called forth together by one great and kindling object. It will never devote itself to God with its whole energy whilst its guiding faculty sees in him a being to shock and confound it. We want a harmony in our inward na,ture. We want a piety which will join light and fervor, and on which the intellectual power will look benignantly. We want religion to be so exhibited that, in the clearest moments of the intellect, its signatures of truth will grow brighter ; that, instead of tottering, it will gather strength and stability from the progress 400 UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY MOST FAVORABLE TO PIETY. of the human mind. These wants we believe to be met by Unitarian Christi- anity, and therefore we prize it as the best friend of piety. I have thus stated the chief grounds on which I rest the claim of Unitarian- ism to the honor of promoting an en- lightened, profound, and happy piety. Am I now asked, why we prize our system, and why we build churches for its inculcation ? If I may be allowed to express myself in the name of conscien- tious Unitarians, who apply their doc- trine to their own hearts and hves, I would reply thus : We prize and would spread our views, because we believe that they reveal God to us in greater glory, and bring us nearer to him, than any other. We are conscious of a deep want, which the creation cannot supply, — the want of a perfect Being, on whom the strength of our love may be cen- tred, and of an Almighty Father, in whom our weaknesses, imperfections, and sorrows may find resource ; and such a Being and Father Unitarian Christianity sets before us. For this we prize it above all price. We can part with every other good. We can endure the darkening of life's fairest prospects. But this bright, consoling doctrine of one God, even the Father, is dearer than life, and we cannot let it go. Through this faith, every thing grows brighter to our view. Born of such a Parent, we esteem our exist- ence an inestimable gift. We meet everywhere our Father, and his presence is as a sun shining on our path. We see him in his works, and hear his praise rising from every spot which we tread. We feel him near in our solitudes, and sometimes enjoy communion with him more tender than human friendship. We see him in our duties, and perform them more gladly, because they are the' best tribute we can offer our Heavenly Benefactor. Even the consciousness of sin, mournful as it is, does riot subvert our peace ; for, in the mercy of God, as made manifest in Jesus Christ, we see an inexhaustible fountain of strength, purity, and pardon, for all who, in fil- ial rSTiance, seek these heavenly gifts. Through this faith, we are conscious of a new benevolence springing up to our fellow-creatures, purer and more en- larged than natural affection. Towards all mankind we see a rich and free love flowing from the common Parent, and, touched by this love, we are the friends of all. We compassionate the most guilty, and would win them back to God. Through this faith, we receive the happiness of an ever- enlarging hope. There is no good too vast for us to an- ticipate for the universe or for ourselves, from such a Father as we believe in. We hope from him, what we deem his greatest gift, even the gift of his own Spirit, and the happiness of advancing for ever in truth and virtue, in power and love, in union of mind with the Fa- ther and the Son. We are told, indeed, that our faith will not prove an anchor in the last hour. But we have known those whose departure it has bright- ened ; and our experience of its power, in trial and peril, has proved it to be equal to all the wants of human nature. We doubt not that, to its sincere follow- ers, death will be a transition to the calm, pure, joyful mansions prepared by Christ for his disciples. There we ex- pect to meet that great and good Deliv- erer. With the eye of faith, we already see him looking round him with celestial love on all of every name who have im- bibed his spirit. His spirit ; his loyal and entire devotion to tEe'wiir of his Heav- enly Father ; his universal, unconquer- able benevolence,, through which he freely gave from his pierced side his blood, his life for the salvation of the world ; this divine love, and not creeds, and names, and forms, will then be found to attract his supreme regard. This spirit we trust to see in multitudes of every sect and name ; and we trust, too, that they who now reproach us will at that day recognize, in the dreaded Unitarian, this only badge of Christ, and will bid him welcome to the joy of our common Lord. I have thus stated the views with which we have reared this building. We desire to glorify God, to promote a purer, nobler, hap- pier piety. Even if we err in doctrine, we think that these motives should shield us from reproach ; should disarm that intolerance which would exclude us from the church on earth, and from our Father's house in heaven. We end, as we began, by offering up this building to the Only Living and True God. We have erected it amidst our private habitations, as a remem- brancer of our Creator. We have OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 401 reared it in tiiis busy city, as a retreat for pious meditation and prayer. We dedicate it to the King and Fattier Eter- nal, the King of kings and Lord of lords. We dedicate it to his Unity, -to his unrivalled and undivided Majesty. We dedicate it to the praise of his free, unbought, unmerited grace. We dedi- cate it to Jesus Christ, to the memory of his love, to the celebration of his di- vine virtue, to the preaching of that truth which he sealed with blood. We dedicate it to the Holy Spirit, to the sanctifying influence of God, to those celestial emanations of light and strength which visit and refresh the devout mind. We dedicate it to prayers and praises which, we trust, will be continued and perfected in heaven. We dedicate it to social worship, to Christian inter- course, to the communion of saints. We dedicate it to the cause of pure morals, of public order, of temperance, uprightness, and general good-will. We dedicate it to Christian admonition, to those warnings, remonstrances, and ear- nest and tender persuasions, by which the sinner may be arrested and brought back to God. We dedicate it to Chris- tian consolation, to those truths which assuage sorrow, animate penitence, and lighten the load of human anxiety and fear. We dedicate it to the doctrine of immortality, to sublime and joyful hopes which reach beyond the grave. In a word, we dedicate it to the great work of perfecting the human soul, and fit^ ting it for nearer approach to its Au- thor. Here may heart meet heart ! Here may man meet God ! From this place may the song of praise, the as- cription of gratitude, the sigh of peni- tence, the prayer for grace, and the holy resolve, ascend as fragrant incense tO' heaven ; and, through many genera- tions, may parents bequeath to their children this house, as a sacred spot, where God had "lifted upon them his countenance," and given them pledges- of his everlasting love ! OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 1819. It is due to truth, and a just deference to our fellow-Christians, to take notice of objections which are currently made to our particular views of religion ; nor ought we to dismiss such objections as unworthy of attention on account of their supposed lightness ; because what is light to us may weigh much with our neighbor, and truth may suffer from obstructions which a few explanations might remove. It is to be feared that those Christians who are called Uni- tarian have been wanting in this duty. Whilst they have met the labored argu- ments of their opponents fully and fairly, they have overlooked the loose, vague, indefinite objections which float through the community, and operate more on common minds than formal reasoning. On some of these objections remarks will now be offered ; and it is hoped 26 that our plainness of speech will not be construed into severity, nor our strict- ures on different systems be ascribed to a desire of retaliation. It cannot be ex- pected that we shall repel with indiffer- ence what seem to us reproaclies on some of the most important and consol- ing views of Christianity. Believing that the truths which through God's good providence we are called to main- tain are necessary to the vindication of the divine character, and to the preva- lence of a more enlightened and exalted piety, we are bound to assert them ear- nestly, and to speak freely of the op- posite errors which now disfigure Chris- tianity. What, then, are the principal objections to Unitarian Christianity ? I. It is objected to us, that we deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Now what does this objection mean ? What are 402 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN we to understand by the divinity of Christ ? In the sense in which many Christians, and perhaps a majority, in- terpret it, we do not deny it, but believe it as firmly as themselves. We believe firmly in the divinity of Christ's mission and oflSce, that he spoke with divine au- thority, and was a bright image of the di- vine perfections. We believe that God dwelt in him, manifested himself through him, taught men by him, and communi- cated to him his spirit without measure. We believe that Jesus Christ was the most glorious display, expression, and re- presentative of God to mankind, so that in seeing and knowing him, we see and know the invisible Father ; so that when Christ came, God visited the world and dwelt with men more conspicuously than at any former period. In Christ's words we hear God speaking ; in his miracles we behold God acting ; in his character and life we see an unsullied image of God's purity and love. We believe, then, in the divinity of Christ, as this term is often and properly used. How, then, it may be asked, do we differ from other Christians ? We differ in this important respect. Whilst we honor Christ as the Son, representative, and image of the Supreme God, we do not believe him to be the Supreme God him- self. We maintain that Christ and God are distinct beings, two beings, not one and the same being. On this point a little repetition may be pardoned, for many good Christians, after the contro- versies of ages, misunderstand the pre- cise difference between us and them- selves. Trinitarianism teaches that Jesus Christ is the supreme and infinite God, and that he and his Father are not only one in affection, counsel, and will, but are strictly and literally one and the same being. Now to us this doctrine is most unscriptural and irrational. We say that the Son cannot be the same being with his own Father; that he, who was sent into the world to save it, can- not be the living God who sent him. The language of Jesus is explicit and un- qualified. " I came not to do mine own will." — "I came not from myself." — " I came from God." Now we affirm^ and this is our chief heresy, that Jesus was not and could not be the God from whom he came, but was another being ; and it amazes us that any can resist this simple truth. The doctrine that Jesus, who was bom at Bethlehem ; who ate and drank and slept ; who suffered and was crucified : who came from God ; who prayed to God ; who did God's will ; and who said, on leaving the world, '' I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God ; " the doctrine that this Jesus was the supreme God himself, and the same being with his Father, this seems to us a contradiction to reason and Scripture so flagrant, that the simple statement of it is a sufficient refutation. We are often charged with degrading Christ ; but if this reproach belong to any Christians, it falls, we fear, on those who accuse him of teaching a doctrine so contradictory, and so sub- versive of the supremacy of our Heav- enly Father. Certainly our humble and devout Master has given no ground for this accusation. He always expressed towards God the reverence of a son. He habitually distinguished himself from God. He referred to God all his powers. He said, without limitation or reserve, " The Father is greater than I." — " Of myself I can do nothing." If to repre- sent Christ as a being distinct from God, and as inferior to him, be to degrade him, then let our opponents lay the guilt where it belongs, not on us, but on our Master, whose language we borrow, in whose very words we express our sentiments , whose word s we dare not trifle with and force from their plain sense. Our limits will not allow us to say more ; but we ask common Christians, who have taken their opinions from the Bible rather than from human systems, to look honestly into their own minds, and to answer frankly, whether they have not understood and believed Christ's divin- ity in the sense maintained by us, rather than in that for which the Trinitarians contend. 2. We proceed to another objection, and one which probably weighs more with multitudes than any other. It is this, that our doctrine respecting Christ takes from the sinner the only ground of hope. It is said by our opponents, "We and all men are sinners by our very nature, and infinitely guilty before God. The sword of divine justice hangs over us, and hell opens beneath us ; and where shall we find a refuge but in an infinite Saviour ? We want an infinite atonement ; and in depriving us of this you rob us of our hope, you tear from CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 403 the Scriptures the only doctrine which meets our wants. We may burn our Bibles if your interpretation be true, for our case is desperate ; we are lost for ever." In such warm and wild lan- guage, altogether unwarranted by Script- ure, yet exceedingly fitted to work on common and terror-stricken minds, our doctrine is constantly assailed. Now to this declamation, for such we esteem it, we oppose one plain request, ^how us, we say, a single passage in the Bible, in which we are told that the sin of man is infinite, and needs an in- finite atonement. We find not one. Not even a whisper of this doctrine comes to us from the sacred writers. Let us stop a moment and weigh this doctrine. It teaches us that man, al- though created by God a frail, erring, and imperfect being, and even created with an irresistible propensity to sin, is yet regarded by the Creator as an infi- nite offender, meriting infinite punish- ment for his earliest transgressions ; and that he is doomed to endless tor- ment, unless an infinite Saviour appear for his rescue ! How can any one, we ask, charge on our benevolent and right- eous Parent such a government of his creatures ? We maintain that man is not created in a condition which makes an infinite atonement necessary ; nor do we believe that any creature can fall into a condition from which God may not deliver him without this rigid expe- dient. Surely, if an infinite satisfaction to justice were indispensable to our salvation, if God took on him human nature for the very purpose of offering it, and if this fact constitute the pecuhar glory, the life and essence, and the sav- ing efficacy of the gospel, we must find it expressed clearly, definitely, in at least one passage in the Bible. But not one, we repeat it, can be found there. We maintain, further, that this doctrine of God becoming a victim and sacrifice for his own rebellious subjects, is as ir ratio nal as it is un scriptu ral. We have always supposed that atone- ment, if necessary, was to be made to, not by, the sovereign who has been offended ; and we cannot conceive a mo re unhkely n jethod of vindicating his auth"ority, than that he himself should bear the punishment which is due to transgressors of his laws. We have another objection. If an infinite atone- ment be necessary, and if, consequently, none but God can make it, we see not but that God must become a sufferer, must take upon himself our pain and woe, — a thought from which a pious mind shrinks with horror. / To escape this difficulty, we are told that Christ suffered as man, not as God ; but if man only suffered, if only a human and finite mind suffered, if Christ, as God, was perfectly happy on the cross, and bore only a short and hmited pain in his human nature, where, we ask, was the infinite atonement ? Where is the boasted hope which this doctrine is said to give to the sinner ? /The objection that there is no hope for the sinner unless Christ be the in- fipite God, amazes us. Surely, if we have a Father in heaven, of infinite goodness and power, we need no other infinite person to save us. fc-The com- mon doctrine disparages ana dishonors the only true God, our Father, as if, without the help of a second and a third divinity, equal to himself. He could not restore his frail creature, many We have not the courage of our breth- ren. With the Scriptures in our hands, with the solemn attestations which they contain to the divine Unity, and to Christ's dependence, we dare not give to the God and Father of Jesus an equal or rival in the glory of originating our redemption, or of accomplishing it by underived and infinite power. Are we asked, as we sometimes are, what is our hope if Christ be not the supreme God ? We answer, it is the boundless and al- mighty goodness of his Father and our Father, — a goodness which cannot re- quire an infinite atonement for the sins of a frail and limited creature. God's essential and unchangeable mercy, not Christ's infinity, is the Scriptural foun- dation of a sinner's hope. In the Script- ures, our Heavenly Father is always represented as the sola original, spring, and first cause of our salvation ; and let no one presume to divide his glory with another. That Jesus came to save us, we owe entirely to the Father's be- nevolent appointment. That Jesus is perfectly adequate to the work of our salvation is to be believed, not because he is himself the supreme God, but because the supreme and unerring God selected, commissioned, and empowered him for this office. That his death is 404 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN an important means of our salvation, we gratefully acknowledge ; but ascribe its efficacy to the merciful disposition of God towards the human race. To build the hope of pardon on the inde- pendent and infinite sufficiency of Jesus Christ, is to build on an unscriptural and false foundation ; for Jesus teaches us that of himself he can do nothing ; that all power is given to him by his Father ; and that he is a proper object of trust, because he came not of him- self, or to do his own will, but because the Father sent him. We indeed lean on Christ, but it is because he is "a corner-stone, chosen by God and laid by God in Zion." God's forgiving love, declared to mankind by Jesus Christ, and exercised through him, is the foun- dation of hope to the penitent on which we primarily rest, and a firmer the uni- verse cannot furnish us. 3. We now proceed to another objec- tion. We are charged with expecting to be saved by works, and not by grace. This charge may be easily despatched, and a more groundless one cannot easily be imagined. We indeed attach great importance to Christian works, or Chris- tian obedience, believing that a practice or life conformed to the precepts and example of Jesus is the great end for which faith in him is required, and is the great condition on which everlasting life is bestowed. We are accustomed to speak highly of the virtues and im- provements of a true Christian, reject- ing with abhorrence the idea that they are no better than the outward Jewish righteousness, which the Prophet called "filthy rags ;" and maintaining with the Apostle that they are, " in the sight of God, of great price." We believe that holiness or virtue is the very image of God in the human soul, — a ray of his brightness, the best gift which He com- municates to his creatures, the highest benefit which Christ came to confer, the only important and lasting distinc- tion between man and man. Still, we always and earnestly maintain that no human virtue, no human obedience, can give a legal claim, a right by merit, to the life and immortality brought to light by Christ. We see and mourn over the deficiencies, broken resolutions, and mixed motives of the best men. We always affirm that God's grace, benig- nity, free kindness, is needed by the most advanced Christians, and that to this alone we owe the promise in the gospel, of full remission and everlasting happiness to the penitent. None speak of mercy more constantly than we. One of our distinctions is, that we magnify this lovely attribute of the Deity. So accustomed are we to insist on the infinity of God's grace and mercy, that our adversaries often charge us with forgetting his justice ; and yet it is ob- jected to us that, renouncing grace, we appeal to justice, and build our hope on the abundance of our merit ! 4. We now proceed to another objec- tion often urged against our views, or rather against those who preach them ; and it is this, that we preach morality. To meet this objection, we beg to know what is intended by morality. Are we to understand by it, what it properly signifies, our whole duty, however made known to us, whether by nature or rev- elation ? Does it mean the whole ex- tent of those obligations which belong to us as moral beings ? Does it mean that " sober, righteous, godly life," which our moral Governor has pre- scribed to us by his Son, as the great preparation for heaven ? If this be morality, we cheerfully plead guilty to the charge of preaching it, and of labor- ing chiefly and constantly to enforce it ; and believing, as we do, that all the doctrines, precepts, threatenings, and promises of the gospel are revealed for no other end than to make men moral, in this true and generous sense, we hope to continue to merit this reproach. We fear, however, that this is not the meaning of the morality which is said to be the burden of our preaching. Some, at least, who thus reproach us, mean that we are accustomed to enjoin only a worldly and social morality, con- sisting in common honesty, common kindness, and freedom from gross vices ; neglecting to inculcate inward purity, devotion, heavenly-mindedness, and love to Jesus Christ. We hope that the persons who thus accuse us speak from rumor, and have nevsi' heard our instructions for themselves ; for the charge is false ; and no one who ever sat under our ministry can urge it without branding himself a slanderer. The first and great commandment, which is to love God supremely, is recognized and enforced habitually la CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 40s our preaching ; and our obligations to Jesus Christ, the friend who died for us, are urged, we hope, not wholly with- out tenderness and effect. It is but justice, however, to observe of many, that when they reproach us with moral preaching, they do not mean that we teach only outward decencies, but that we do not inculcate certain favorite doctrines, which are to them the very marrow and richness of the gospel. When such persons hear a sermon, be the subject what it may, which is not seasoned with recogni- tions of the Trinity, total depravity, and similar articles of faith, they call it moral. According to this strange and unwarrantable use of the term, we re- joice to say that we are " moral preach- ers ; " and it comforts us that we have for our pattern " him who spake as man never spake," and who, in his long- est discourse, has dropped not a word about a Trinity, or inborn corruption, or special and electing grace ; and, still more, we seriously doubt whether our preaching could with propriety be called moral, did we urge these doctrines, especially the two last; for, however warmly they may be defended by honest men, they seem to us to border on im- morality ; that is, to dishonor God, to weaken the sense of responsibility, to break the spirit, and to loosen the re- straints on guilty passion. 5. Another objection urged against us is, that our system does not produce as much zeal, seriousness, and piety as other views of religion. The objection it is difficult to repel, except by language which will seem to be a boasting of ourselves. When expressed in plain language, it amounts to this : " We Trinitarians and Calvinists are better and more pious than you Unitarians, and consequently our system is more Scriptural than yours." Now, asser- tions of this kind do not strike us as very modest and humble, and we be- lieve that truth does not require us to defend it by setting up our piety above that of our neighbors. This, however, we would say, that if our zeal and de- votion are faint, the fault is our own, not that of our doctrine. We are sure that our views of the Supreme Being are incomparably more affecting and attractive than those which we oppose. It is the great excellence of our system, that it exalts God, vindicates his paren- tal attributes, and appeals powerfully to the ingenuous principles of love, grati- tude, and veneration ; and when we compare it with the doctrines which are spread around us we feel that of all men we are most inexcusable, if a filial piety do not spring up and grow strong in our hearts. Perhaps it may not be difficult to suggest some causes for the charge that our views do not favor seriousness and zeal. One reason probably is, that we interpret with much rigor those precepts of Christ which forbid ostentation, and enjoin modesty and retirement in devo- tion. We dread a showy reUgion. We are disgusted with pretensions to supe- rior sanctity, — that stale and vulgar way of building up a sect. We believe that true religion speaks in actions more than in words, and manifests itself chiefly in the common temper and life ; in giving up the passions to God's au- thority, in inflexible uprightness and truth, in active and modest charity, in candid judgment, and in patience under trials and injuries. We think it no part of piety to publish its fervors, but pre- fer a delicacy in regard to these secrets of the soul ; and hence, to those per- sons who think religion is to be worn conspicuously and spoken of passion- ately, we may seem cold and dead, when perhaps, were the heart uncovered, it might be seen to be "alive to God" as truly as their own. Again, it is one of our principles, flowing necessarily from our views of God, that religion is cheerful -, that where its natural tendency is not ob- structed by false theology, or a melan- choly temperament, it opens the heart to every pure and innocent pleasure. We do not think that piety disfigures its face, or wraps itself in a funeral pall as its appropriate garb. Now, too many conceive of religion as something gloomy, and never to be named but with an altered tone and countenance ; and where they miss these imagined signs of piety, they can hardly believe that a sense of God dwells in the heart. Another cause of the error in ques- tion we beUeve to be this. Our relig- ious system excludes, or at least does not favor, those overwhelming terrors and transports which many think essen- tial to piety. We do not believe in 406 OBJECTIONS TO UNITARIAN shaking and disordering men's under- standings, by excessive fear, as a prep- aration for supernatural grace and im- mediate conversion. Tliis we regard as a dreadful corruption and degradation of religion. Religion, we believe, is a gradual and rational work, beginning sometimes in sudden impressions, but confirmed by reflection, growing by the regular use of Christian means, and ad- vancing silently to perfection. Now, because we specify no time when we were overpowered and created anew by irre- sistible impulse ; because we relate no agonies of despair succeeded by mirac- ulous light and joy, we are thought by some to be strangers to piety ; — how reasonably, let the judicious determine Once more ; we are thought to want zeal, because our principles forbid us to use many methods for spreading them, which are common with other Chris- tians. Whilst we value highly our pe- culiar views, and look to them for the best fruits of piety, we still consider ourselves as bound to think charitably of those who doubt or deny them ; and with this conviction, we cannot enforce them with that vehemence, positiveness, and style of menace, which constitute much of the zeal of certain denomina- tions ; — and we freely confess that we would on no account exchange our charity for their zeal ; and we trust that the time is near when he who holds what he deems truth with lenity and forbearance, will be accounted more pious than he who compasseth sea and land to make proselytes to his sect, and " shuts the gates of mercy " on all who will not bow their understandings to his creed. We fear that in these re- marks we may have been unconsciously betrayed into a self-exalting spirit. Nothing could have drawn them from us but the fact that a very common method of opposing our sentiments is to decry the piety of those who adopt them. After all, we mean not to deny our great deficiencies. We have noth- ing to boast before God, although the cause of truth forbids us to submit to the censoriousness of our brethren. 6. Another objection to our views is, that they lead to a rejection of revela- tion. Unitarianism has been called "a half-way house to infidelity." Now, to this objection we need not oppose gen- eral reasonings. We will state a plain fact. It is this. A large proportion o: the most able and illustrious defenders of the truth of Christianity have beei Unitarians ; and our religion has re- ceived from them, to say the least, as important service in its conflicts wit! infidelity as from any class of Christians whatever. From the long catalogue o: advocates of Christianity among Unita rians, we can select now but a few ; bu these few are a host. The name of Johi Locke is famihar to every scholar. "Hf reiiHered distinguished service to the philosophy of the human mind ; nor is this his highest praise. His writings or government and toleration contributec more than those of any other individua to the diffusion of free and generous sen timents through Europe and America and perhaps Bishop Watson was no guilty of great exaggeration when hi said, " This great man has done mon for the establishment of pure Christian ity than any author I am acquaintei with." He was a laborious and sue cessful student of the Scriptures. Hii works on the " Epistles of Paul," and oi the " Reasonableness of Christianity,' formed an era in sacred literature ; am he has the honor of having shed a ne\ and bright light on the darkest parts o the New Testament, and in general oi the Christian system. Now Locke, b it remembered, was a Unitarian. W pass to another intellectual prodigy, - to Newton, a name which every man c learning pronounces with reverence ; fo it reminds him of faculties so exalte( above those of ordinary men, that the seem designed to help our conception of superior orders of being. This grea man, who gained by intuition what other reap from laborious research, after ex ploring the laws of the universe, turnei for light and hope to the Bible ; an although his theological works canno be compared with Locke's, yet in hi illustrations of the prophecies, and c Scripture chronology, and in his criti cisms on two doubtful passages,* whic! are among the chief supports of th doctrine of the Trinity, he is considere as having rendered valuable services t the Christian cause. Newton, too, wa a Unitarian. We are not accustome to boast of men, or to prop our faith b great names ; for Christ, and he only, i our Master ; but it is with pleasure th; * I John V. 7 ; I Tim. iii. i6. CHRISTIANITY CONSIDERED. 407 we find in our ranks the most gifted, sagacious, and exalted minds ; and we cannot but smile when we sometimes hear from men and women of very lim- ited culture, and with no advantages for enlarged inquiry, reproachful and con- temptuous remarks on a doctrine which the vast intelligence of Locke and New- ton, after much study of the Scriptures, and in opposition to a prejudiced and intolerant age, received as the truth of God. It is proper to state that doubts have lately been raised as to the relig- ious opinions of Locke and Newton, and for a very obvious reason. In these times of growing light, their names have been found too useful to the Unitarian cause. But the long and general belief of the Unitarianism of these illustrious men can hardly be accounted for, but by admitting the fact ; and we know of no serious attempts to set aside the proofs on which this belief is founded. We pass to another writer, who was one of the brightest ornaments of the Church of England and of the age in which he lived, Dr. Samuel Clarke. In classical literature, and in metaphysical speculation. Dr. Clarke has a reputation which needs no tribute at our hands. His sermons are an invaluable repository of Scriptural criticism ; and his work on the evidences of natural and revealed religion has ever been considered as one of the ablest vindications of our common faith. This great man was a Unitarian. He believed firmly that Je- sus was a distinct being from his Father, and a derived and dependent being ; and he desired to bring the liturgy of his church into a correspondence with these doctrines. To those who are acquainted with the memorable infidel controversy in the early part of the last century, excited by the writings of Bolingbroke, Tindal, Morgan, Collins, and Chubb, it will be unnecessary to speak of the zeal and power with which the Christian cause was maintained by learned Unitarians. But we must pass over these, to recall a man whose memory is precious to enlightened believers ; we mean Lard- ner, that most patient and successful advocate of Christianity ; who has writ- ten, we believe, more largely than any other author on the evidences of the gospel ; from whose works later authors have drawn as from a treasure-house; and whose purity and mildness have dis- armed the severity and conciliated the respect of men of very different views from his own. Lardner was a Unitarian. Next to Lardner, the most laborious advocate of Christianity against the at- tacks of infidels, in our own day, was Priestley ; and whatever we may think oFsoihe of his opinions, we believe that none of his opposers ever questioned the importance of his vindications of our common faith. We certainly do not say too much, when we affirm that Unitarians have not been surpassed by any denom- ination in zealous, substantial service to the Christian cause. Yet we are told that Unitarianism leads to infidelity ! We are reproached with defection from that religion, round which we have gath- ered in the day of its danger, and from which, we trust, persecution and death cannot divorce us. It is, indeed, said that instances have occurred of persons who, having given up the Trinitarian doctrine, have not stopped there, but have resigned one part of Christianity after another, until they have become thorough infidels. To this we answer, that such instances we have never known ; but that such should occur is not improbable, and is what we should even expect ; for it is natural that when the mind has detected one error in its creed, it should distrust every other article, and should exchange its blind and hereditary assent for a sweeping scepticism. We have exam- ples of this truth at the present moment, both in France and Spain, where multi- tudes have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute Atheism. Now, who of us will argue that the Catholic faith is true, because multitudes who relin- quished it have also cast away every religious principle and restraint ; and if the argument be not sound on the side of Popery, how can it be pressed into the service of Trinitarianism ? The fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to be- get scepticism in those who received them without reflection. None are so likely to beUeve too little as those who have begun with believing too much ; and hence we charge upon Trinitarian- ism whatever tendency may exist in those who forsake it, to sink gradually into infidelity. Unitarianism does not lead to iiifi- 4o8 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. delity. On the contrary, its excellence is that it fortifies faith. Unitarianism is Christianity stripped of those corrupt additions which shock reason and our moral feelings. It is a rational and amiable system, against which no man's understanding, or conscience, or charity, or piety revolts. Can the same be said of that system which teaches the doc- trines of three equal persons in one God, of natural and total depravity, of infinite atonement, of special and electing grace, and of the everlasting misery of the non- elected part of mankind.? We believe that unless Christianity be purified from these corruptions, it will not be able to bear the unsparing scrutiny to which the progress of society is exposing it. We believe that it must be reformed, or intelligent men will abandon it. As the friends of Christianity, and the foes of infidelity, we are therefore solicitous to diffuse what seem to us nobler and juster views of this divine system. 7. It was our purpose to consider one more objection to our views ; namely, that they give no consolation in sickness and death. But we have only time to express amazement at such a charge. What ! a system which insists with a peculiar energy on the pardoning mercy of God, on his universal and parental love, and on the doctrine of a resurrec- tion and immortality, • — such a system tmable to give comfort ! It unlocks in- finite springs of consolation and joy, and gives to him who practically receives it a living, overflowing, and unspeakable hope. Its power to sustain the soul in death has been often tried; and did we believe dying men to be inspired, or that peace and hope in the last hours were God's seal to the truth of doctrines, we should be able to settle at once the con- troversy about Unitarianism. A striking example of the power of this system in disarming death was lately given by a young minister in a neighboring town,* known to many of our readers, and singularly endeared to his friends by eminent Christian virtue. He was smit- ten by sickness in the midst of a useful and happy hfe, and sunk slowly to the grave. His religion — and it was that which has now been defended — gave habitual peace to his mind, and spread a sweet smile over his pale countenance. He retained his faculties to his last hour ; and when death came, having left pious counsel to the younger members of his family, and expressions of gratitude to his parents, he breathed out Hfe in the language of Jesus, — " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Such was the end of one who held, with an un- wavering faith, the great principles which we have here advanced ; and yet our doctrine has no consolation, we are told, for sickness and death ! We have thus endeavored to meet ob- jections commonly urged against our views of religion ; and we have done this, not to build up a party, but to promote views of Christianity which seem to us particularly suited to strengthen mens faith in it, and to make it fruitful of good works and holy lives. Christian virtue. Christian holiness, love to God and man, these are all which we think worth con- tending for ; and these we believe to be intimately connected with the system now maintained. If in this we err, may God discover our error, and disappoint our efforts ! We ask no success but what He may approve, — no proselytes but such as will be made better, purer, happier by the adoption of our views. * Rev. John E. Abbot, of Salem. This tract was first published in 1819 in the " Christian Disciple." CHRISTIAN WORSHIP: Discourse at the Dedication of the Unitarian Congregational Church., Newport, Rhode Island, July 27, 1836. John iv. 23, 24 : " The hour cometh, and now is, worship of God is a proper SubjeCt of when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in jn-ai-itiiflp and inv Fvpn if tJip rnnsp- spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh such to gratituoe ana joy. .c-ven u tne conse- worship him God is a Spirit ; and they that worship cration be made by Christians from him must worship him in spirit and in truth." whom we differ in opinion, we should The dedication of an edifice to the still find satisfaction in the service. We CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 409 should desire that our neighbors, whose convictions of truth and duty require them to separate from us in religious services, should enjoy the same accom- modations with ourselves ; and it should comfort us to think that Christianity is so eminently "the power of God unto salvation," its great truths so plain and so quickening, that among all sects ac- knowledging Christ and consulting his word, its purifying influences, however counteracted by erroneous views, will more or less be felt. We should rejoice to think that God can lie monopolized by no party ; that his spirit is a universal presence ; that religion, having its root in the soUl of man, can live and flour- ish amidst many errors ; that truth and goodness can no more be confined to a single church than the light of the sun can be shut up in a private dwelling ; that amidst all the diversities of forms, names, and creeds, acceptable worship may be offered to God, and the soul ascend to heaven. It is the custom of our times to erect beautiful structures for the purposes of the present life, for legislation, for litera- ture, for the arts. But important as these interests are, they are not the no- blest. Man's highest relations are not political, earthly, human. His whole nature is not exhausted in studying and subduing outward nature, in establish- ing outward order, in storing the mind with knowledge which may adorn and comfort his outward life. He has wants too deep, and powers and affections too large, for the outward world. He comes from God. His closest connection is with God ; and he can find life and peace only in the knowledge of his Cre- ator. Man's glory or true end is not revealed to us in the most magnificent structure which the architect ever reared for earthly uses. An humble spire point- ing heavenward from an obscure church speaks of man's nature, man's dignity, man's destiny, more eloquently than all the columns and arches of Greece and Rome, the mausoleums of Asia, or the pyramids of Egypt. Is it not meet, then, to be grateful and joyful when a house is set apart to the worship of God 1 This edifice where we now meet is not indeed wholly new. Its frame is older than the oldest of us. But so great are the changes which it has un- dergone, that, were they who laid its foundation to revisit the earth, they would trace hardly a feature of their work ; and as it is now entered by a new religious congregation, there is a fitness in the present solemnity by which we dedicate it to the worship of God. My purpose in this discourse is to show that we should enter this edifice with gratitude and joy; first, because it is dedicated to worship in the most general sense of that term ; and, in the second place, on account of the particular wor- ship to which it is set apart. I shall close with some remarks of a personal and local character, which may be al- lowed to one who was born and brought up on this island, whose heart swells with local attachment, and whose mem- ory is crowded with past years, as he stands, after a long absence, within these walls where he sat in his child- hood, and where some of his earliest impressions were received. I. We ought to enter this house with gratitude and joy, for it is dedicated to worship. Its end is, that men should meet within its walls to pay reUgious homage ; to express and strengthen pious veneration, love, thankfulness, and confidence ; to seek and receive pure influences from above ; to learn the will of God ; and to consecrate themselves to the virtue in which He delights. This edifice is reared to the glory of God, reared like the universe to echo with his praise, to be a monu- ment to his being, perfection, and do- minion. Worship is man's highest end, for it is the employment of his highest faculties and affections on the subliraest object. We have much for which to thank God, but for nothing so much as for the power of knowing and adoring himself. _This creation is a glorious spectacle ; but there is a more glorious existence for our minds and hearts, and that is the Creator. There is something divine in the faculties by which we study the visible world, and subject it to our wills, comfort, enjoyment. But it is a diviner faculty by which we penetrate beyond the visible, free ourselves of the finite and the mutable, and ascend to the Infinite and the Eternal. It is good to make earth and ocean, winds and flames, sun and stars, tributary to out present well-being. How much better to make them ministers to our spiritual 4IO CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. wants, teachers of heavenly truth, guides to a more glorious Being than them- selves, bonds of union between man and his Maker ! There have been those who have sought to disparage worship, by repre- senting it as an arbitrary, unnatural ser- vice, a human contrivance, an invention for selfish ends. Had I time, I should be glad to disprove this sophistry by laying open to you human nature, and showing the deep foundation laid in all its principles and wants for religion ; but I can meet the objection only by a few remarks drawn from history. There have been, indeed, periods of history in which the influence of the religious prin- ciple seems to have been overwhelmed ; but in this it agrees with other great principles of our nature, which in cer- tain stages of the race disappear. There are certain conditions of society in which the desire of knowledge seems almost extinct among men, and they abandon themselves for centuries to brutish ig- norance. There are communities in which the natural desire of reaching a better lot gives not a sign of its exist- ence, and society remains stationary for ages. There are some in which even the parental affection is so far dead, that the new-born child is cast into the stream or exposed to the storm. -So the relig- ious principle is in some periods hardly to be discerned ; but it is never lost. No principle is more universally mani- fested. In the darkest ages there are some recognitions of a superior power. Man feels that there is a being above himself, and he clothes that being in what to his rude conception is great and venerable. In countries where ar- chitecture was unknown, men chose the solemn wood or the mountain top for worship ; and when this art appeared its monuments were temples to God. Be- fore the invention of letters, liymns were composed to the Divinity ; and music, we have reason to think, was the off- spring of religion. Music in its infancy was the breathing of man's fears, wants, hopes, thanks, praises, to an unseen power. You tell me, my sceptical friend, that religion is the contrivance of the priest. How came the priest into be- ing ? What gave him his power ? Why was it that the ancient legislator pro- fessed to receive his laws from the gods ? The fact is a striking one, that the earliest guides and leaders of the human race looked to the heavens for security and strength to earthly institu- tions, that they were compelled to speak to men in a higher name than man's. Religion was an earlier bond and a deeper foundation of society than gov- ernment. It was the root of civilization. It has founded the mightiest empires ; and yet men question whether religion be an element, a principle of human nature ! In the earliest ages, before the dawn of science, man recognized an immediate interference of the iJivinity in whatever powerfully struck his senses. To the savage, the thunder was literally God's voice, the lightning his arrow, the whirl- wind his breath. Every unusual event was a miracle, a prodigy, a promise of good, or a menace of evil from heaven. These rude notions have faded before the light of science, which reveals fixed laws, a stated order of nature. But in these laws, this order, the rehgious prin- ciple now finds confirmations of God, infinitely more numerous and powerful than the savage found in his prodigies. In this age of the world there is a voice louder than thunder and whirlwinds, at- testing the Divinity ; the voice of the wisely interpreted works of God, every- where proclaiming wisdom unsearchable, harmony unbroken, and a benevolent purpose in what to ages of ignorance seemed ministers of wrath. In the present, above all times, worship may be said to have its foundation in our nature ; for by the improvements of this nature, we have placed ourselves nearer to God as revealed in his universe. The clouds which once hung over the crea- tion are scattered. The heavens, the earth, the plant, the human frame, now that they are explored by science, speak of God as they never did before. His handwriting is brought out where former ages saw but a blank. Nor is it only by the progress of science that the founda- tion of religion is made broader and deeper. The progress of the arts, in teaching us the beneficent uses to which God's works may be applied, in extract- ing from them ncAv comforts, and in diminishing or alleviating human suffer- ing, has furnished new testimonies to the goodness of the Creator. Still more, the progress of society has given new power and delicacy to the sense of CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 411 beauty in human nature, and in conse- quence of tliis the creation of God has become a far more attractive, lovely, and magnificent work than men looked on in earlier times. Above all, the moral susceptibilities and wants, the deeper and more refined feelings, which unfold themselves in the course of human im- provement, are so many new capacities and demands for rehgion. Our nature is perpetually developing new senses for the perception and enjoyment of God. The human race, as it advances, does not leave religion behind it, as it leaves the shelter of caves and forests ; does not outgrow faith, does not see it fading like the mist before its rising in- telligence. On the contrary, religion opens before the improved mind in new grandeur. God, whom uncivilized man had narrowed into a local and tutelar deity, rises with every advance of knowl- edge to a loftier throne, and is seen to sway a mightier sceptre. The soul, in proportion as it enlarges its faculties and refines its affections, possesses and discerns within itself a more and more glorious type of the Divinity, learns his spirituality in its own spiritual powers, and offers him a prof ounder and more in- ward worship. Thus deep is the founda- tion of worship in human nature. Men may assail it, may reason against it ; but sooner can the laws of the outward universe be repealed by human will, sooner can the sun be plucked from his sphere, than the idea of God can be erased from the human spirit, and his worship banished from the earth. All other wants of man are superficial. His animal wants are but for a day, and are to cease with the body. The profound- est of all human wants is the want of God. Mind, spirit, must tend to its source. It cannot find happiness but in the perfect Mind, the Infinite Spirit. Worship has survived all revolutions. Corrupted, dishonored, opposed, it yet lives. It is immortal as its Object, im- mortal as the soul from which it ascends. Let us rejoice, then, in this house. It is dedicated to worship ; it can have no higheruse. The heaven of heavens has no higher service or joy. The universe has no higher work. Its chief office is to speak of God. The sun, in awaken- ing innumerable forms of animal and vegetable hfe. exerts no influence to be compared with what it puts forth in kindling the human soul into piety, in being a type, representative, preacher of the glory of God. II. I have now spoken of worship in the most general sense. I have said that this house, considered as separated to the adoration of God, should be en- tered joyfully and gratefully, without stopping to inquire under what partic- ular views or forms God is here to be adored. I now proceed to observe, that when we consider the particular wor- ship which is here to be offered, this occasion ought to awaken pious joy. I need not tell you, that whilst the relig- ious principle is a part of man's nature, it is not always developed and manifested under the same forms. Men, agreeing in the recognition of a Divinity, have not agreed as to the service He may ac cept. Indeed it seems inevitable that men, who differ in judgment on all sub- jects of thought, should form different apprehensions of the invisible, infinite, and mysterious God, and of the methods of adoring him. Uniformity of opinion is to be found nowhere, and ought to be expected least of all in religion. Who, that considers the vast, the indescrib- able diversity in men's capacities and means of improvement, in the discipline to which they are subjected, in the schools in which they are trained, in the outward vicissitudes and inward con- flicts through which they pass, can expect them to arrive at the same con- clusions in regard to their origin and destiny, in regard to the Being from whom they sprang, and the world toward which they tend. Accordingly, religion has taken innumerable forms, and some, it must be acknowledged, most unwor- thy of its objects. The great idea of God has been seized upon by men's selfish desires, hopes, and fears, and often so obscured that little of its puri- fying power has remained. Man, full of wants, conscious of guilt, exposed to suffering, and peculiarly struck by the more awful phenomena of nature, has been terror-smitten before the unseen, irresistible power with which he has felt himself encompassed. Hence, to ap- pease his wrath and to secure his par- tial regards has been the great object of worship. Hence, worship has been so often a pompous machinery, a tribute of obsequious adulation, an accumulation of gifts and victims. Hence, worship 412 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. has been the effort of nations and indi- viduals to bend the Almighty to their particular interests and purposes, and not the reverential, grateful, joyful, filial lifting up of the soul to Infinite Great- ness, Goodness, Rectitude, and Purity. Even under Christianity human infirm- ity has disfigured the thought of God. Worship has been debased, by fear and selfishness, into a means of propitiating wrath, calming fear, and securing future enjoyment. AH sects have carried their imperfection into their religion. None of us can boast of exemption from the common frailty. That this house is to be set apart to a perfect, spotless, un- erring worship, none of us are so pre- sumptuous as to hope. But I believe that in the progress of society and Chris- tianity, higher and purer conceptions of the Divinity have been unfolded ; and I cannot but believe that the views of God and of his worship to which this house is now consecrated, are so far enlightened, enlarged, purified, as to justify us in entering its walls with great thankfulness and joy. This house is not reared to perpetuate the superstitions of past ages nor of the present age. It is not reared to doom the worshipper to continual repetition of his own or other delusions. It is reared for the progress of truth, reared in the faith that the church is destined to new light and new purity, reared in the anticipation of a happier, holier age. As I look round, I am met by none of the representations of the Divinity which degraded the ancient temples. My eyes light on no image of wood or stone, on no efforts of art to embody to the eye the invisible Spirit. As I look round, I am met by none of the forms which Providence, in accommodation to a rude stage of society, allowed to the Jewish people. No altar sends up here the smoke of incense or victims. No priest- hood, gorgeously arrayed, presents to God the material offerings of man. Nor are my eyes pained by cumbersome cer- emonies, by which in later ages Chris- tianity was overlaid, and almost over- whelmed. No childish pomps, borrowed from Judaism and Heathenism, obscure here the simple majesty, the sublime spiritual purpose of Christianity. Nor is this house reared for the promulgation of doctrines which tend to perpetuate the old servility with which God was approached, to make man abject in the sight of his Maker, to palsy him with terror, to prostrate his reason. This house is reared to assist the worshipper in conceiving and offering more and more perfectly the worship described in the text, the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth. On this topic, on the nature of the worship to be offered in this house, I have many reflections to offer. My illustrations may be re- duced to the following heads : — This house is reared, first, for the worship of one Infinite Person, and one only ; of him whom Jesus always distinguished and addressed as the Father. In the next place, it is erected for the worship of God under the special character of Father, that is, of a Parental Divinity. In the last place, it is set apart to the worship of him in spirit and in truth. First, you have prepared this edifice that here you may worship one Infinite Person, even him and him only whom Jesus continually calls the Father. One would think that on this point there could be no difference among Chris- • tians. One would think that Jesus had placed the Object of Christian worship beyond all dispute. It is hard to con- ceive more solemn, more definite lan- guage than he has used. " The hour coraeth and now is, when the true wor- shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seek- eth such to worship him." Yet it is well known that very many Christians deny that one person, the Father, is the only proper object of supreme worship. They maintain that two other persons, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are to be joined with him in our adoration, and that the most important distinction of the Christian rehgion is the worship of God in three persons. Against this hu- man exposition of Christianity we ear- nestly protest. Whilst we recognize with joy the sincerity and piety of those who adopt it we maintain that this gross departure from the simplicity and purity of our faith is fraught with evil to the individual and the church. This house is reared to be a monument to the proper unity of God. We worship the Father. All the grounds of this peculiarity of our worship cannot of course be ex- pounded in the limits of a discourse, nor indeed do we deem any labored ex- position necessary. We start from a CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 413 plain principle. We affirm that if any point in a religious system must be brought out explicitly, must not be left to inference, but set forth in simple, di- rect, authoritative language, it is the object of worship. On this point we should expect peculiar explicitness, if a revelation should be communicated for the purpose of giving a new direction to men's minds in this particular. Now, among Jews and Gentiles, the worship of three infinite persons, one of whom was clothed with a human form, was un- known ; and, of consequence, if this strange, mighty innovation had been in- tended by Jesus, and had constituted the most striking peculiarity of his sys- tem, it must have been announced with all possible clearness and strength. Be it then remembered that Jesus, in a sol- emn description of the true worship which he was to introduce, made not an allusion to this peculiarity, but declared, as the characteristic to the true wor- shippers, that they should worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Be it also remembered that Jesus never enjoined the worship of three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not one injunc- tion to this effect can be found in the Gospel or in the writings of the Apos- tles. This strange worship rests on inference alone. " The true worship- pers," says the text, "shall worship the Father." When his disciples came to him to be instructed in prayer, he taught them to say. Our Father. In his last affectionate discourse, he again and again taught his disciples to pray to the Father in his name. This dying injunc- tion, so often and so tenderly repeated, should not for slight reasons be ex- plained away. Still more, just before his death, Jesus himself, in presence of his disciples, prayed to the Father, and prayed in this language : Father, This is life eternal, that they (z. e., men) should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. To these remarks it is common to re- ply that we read in the New Testament that Jesus was again and again wor- shipped, and that in admitting this he manifested himself to be the object of reUgious adoration. It is wonderful that this fallacy, so often exposed, should be still repeated. Jesus indeed received worship or homage, but this was not offered as adoration to the In- finite God ; it was the homage which, according to the custom of the age and of the eastern world, was paid to men invested with great authority, whether in civil or religious concerns. Whoever has studied the Scriptures with the least discernment must know that the word worship is used in two different senses, to express, first, the adoration due to the Infinite Creator, and secondly, the rev- erence which was due to sovereigns and prophets, and which of course belonged peculiarly to the most illustrious repre- sentative of God, to his beloved Son. Whoever understands the import of the English language in the time when our translation was made, must know that the word was then used to express the homage paid to human superiors, as well as the supreme reverence belonging to God alone. Let not an ambiguous word darken the truth. We are sure that the worship paid to Christ during his public ministry was rendered to him as a divine messenger, and not as God ; for, in the first place, it was offered before his teachings had been sufficiently full and distinct to reveal the mystery of his nature, supposing it to have been di- vine. We pronounce it not merely improbable, but impossible, that Jesus, a poor man, a mechanic from Galilee, at the beginning of his mission, when his chosen disciples were waiting for his manifestation as an earthly prince, should have been adored as the ever- lasting, invisible God. Again, the titles given him by those who worshipped him, such as Good Teacher, Son of David, Son of God, show us that the thought of adoring him as the self- existent, infinite Divinity, had no place in their minds. But there is one con- sideration which sets this point at rest. The worship paid to Jesus during his ministry was offered him in public, in sight of the Jewish people. Now, to the Jews no crime was so flagrant as the paying of divine homage to a human being, such as they esteemed Jesus to be. Of consequence, had they seen in the marks of honor yielded to Jesus even an approach to this adoration, their exasperation would have burst forth in immediate overwhelming violence on the supposed impiety. The fact that they witnessed the frequent prostration of men before Jesus, or what is called the worship of him, witliout once charg- 414 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. ing it as a crime, is a demonstration that the act was in no respect a recognition of him as the Supreme God. It is worthy of remark that the pas- sages which are announced as the strongest proofs of the divine worship of Christ directly disprove the doctrine, if the connection be regarded. One of these texts is the declaration of Jesus that we must "honor the Son even as we honor the Father." Hear the whole passage : " The Father hath given all judgment to the Son, that all men should honor the Son, as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father who sent him." * You observe, that it is not the supreme un- derived divinity of Christ, but the power given him by his Father, which is here expressly declared to be the foundation of the honor challenged for him, and that we are called to honor him, as sent by God. Another passage much relied on is the declaration of Paul, that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue acknowledge him Lord." Read the whole text: "God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." f Could language express more clearly the distinct, derived, and dependent nature of Jesus Christ, or teach that the worship due him is sub- ordinate, having for its foundation the dignity conferred on him by God, and terminating on the Father as its supreme object ?:( This house, then, is erected to the supreme worship of the Father, to the recognition of the Father only as the self-existent, Infinite God. Homage will here be paid to Jesus Christ, and, I trust, a far more profound and affec- tionate homage than he received on earth, when his spiritual character and the true purposes of his mission were almost unknown. But we shall honor him as the Son, the brightest image, the sent of God, not as God himself. We shall honor him as exalted above every name or dignity in heaven or earth, but as exalted by God for his obedience unto * John V. 22, 23- t Philippians ii. g. X Sefl author's note (A) at end of this discourse- death. We shall honor him as clothed with power to give life, and judge, but shall remember that the Father hath given all judgment and quickening en- ergy to the Son. We look up with de- light and reverence to his divine virtues, his celestial love, his truth, his spirit ; and we are sure that in as far as we im- bibe these from the affectionate remem- brance of his hfe, death, and triumphs, we shall render the worship most ac- ceptable to this disinterested friend of the human race. I have said that this house is set apart to the worship of the Father. But this term expresses not only the Per- son, the Being to whom it is to be paid. It expresses a peculiar character. It ascribes peculiar attributes to God. It ascribes to him the parental relation and the disposition of a parent. I therefore observe, in the second place, that this house is reared to the adoration of God in his paternal character. It is reared to a Parental Divinity. To my own mind this view is more affecting than the last. Nothing so touches me, when I look round these walls, as the thought that God is to be worshipped here as the Father. That God has not always been worshipped as a Father, even among Christians, you well know. Men have always inclined to think that they honor God by placing him on a distant throne, much more than by investing him with the mild lustre of parental goodness. They have made him a stern sovereign, giving hfe on hard terms, preferring his own honor to the welfare of his creatures, demanding an obedience which He gives no strength to perform, preparing endless torments for creatures whom He brings into being wholly evil, and refusing to pardon the least sin, the sin of the child, without an infinite satis- faction. Men have too often been de- graded, broken in spirit, stripped of manly feeUng, rather than lifted up to true dignity, by their religion. How seldom has worship breathed the noblest sentiments of human nature ! Thanks to Jesus Christ, that he came to bring us to a purifying, ennobling, rejoicing adoration. He has revealed the Father. His own character was a bright revela- tion of the most lovely and attractive attributes of the Divinity, so that he was able to say, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." By his mani- CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 415 festation of the parental character of God, he created reUgion anew. He breathed a new and heavenly spirit into worship. He has made adoration a filial communion, assimilating us to our Cre- ator. Ought we not, then, to rejoice in this house as set apart to the worship of the Father, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ? The Father ! In this one word what consoling, strengthening, ennobling truth is wrapped up ! In this single view of God, how much is there to bind us to him with strong, indissoluble, ever- growing love, and to make worship not only our chief duty, but our highest privilege and joy ! The Father ! can it be that "the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity," " the Lord of heaven and earth," the Majesty of the universe, bears to us this relation, re- veals himself under this name, and that we, so weak and erring, may approach him with the hope of children ! Who cannot comprehead the dignity and blessedness of such worship ? Who does not feel that the man to whom God's parental character Is a deep-felt reality, has in this conviction a fountain of strength, hofie, and purity, springing up into everlasting life ? But to offer t;iis true worship, we must understand distinctly what we mean when we call God the Father. The word has a deep and a glorious im- port, and in as far as this is unknown, religion will want life and power. Is it understood? I am bound to say that there seem? to ma a want of purity, of spirituality, in the conception of God's parental relation, even among those Christians who profess to make it the great foundation and object of their wor- ship. Too many rest in vague concep- tions of God as their Creator, who sup- plies their wants, and who desires their happiness, and they think that, thus re- garding him, they know the Father. Such imperfect views inchne me to state at some length what I deem the truth on this point. No truth is so essential to Christian worship, No fruth. sheds such a flood of light on the whole sub- ject of religion. My friends, you are to come here to worship the Father. What does this term import ? It does not mean merely that God is your Creator. He is, in- deed, the Creator, and, as such, let him be adored. This is his sole prerogative. His, and his only, is the mysterious pow^ which filled the void space with a universe ; his the Almighty voice which called the things which were not, and they came forth. The universe is a perpetual answer to this creating word. For this, worship God. In every thing hear an exhortation to adore. In the grandeur, beauty, order of nature, see a higher glory than its own, a mysterious force deeper than all its motions ; and from its countless voices, from its mild and awful tones, gather the one great lesson which they conspire to teach, — ■ the majesty of their Author. But, my friends, God is more than Creator. To create is not to be a Fa- ther in the highest sense of that term. He created the mountain, the plant, the insect, but we do not call him their father. We do not call the artist the father of the statue which he models, nor the mechanician the father of the ma- chine he contrives. It is the distinction of a father that he communicates an ex- istence like his own. The father gives being to the child, and the very idea of the child is, that he bears the image as well as receives existence from the power of the parent. God is the Father, because He brings into life minds, spir- its, partaking of energies kindred to his own attributes. Accordingly the Script- ure teaches us that God made man in his own nnage, after his own likeness. Here is the ground of his paternal rela- tion to the human race, and hence He is called in an especial sense the Father of those who make it the labor of life to conform themselves more and more to their divine original. God is " the Fa- ther of spirits." My friends, we are not wholly matter, we are not wholly flesh. Were we so, we could not call God our Father. God is a spirit, says the text, and we are spirits also. This our consciousness teaches. We are conscious of a princi- ple superior to the body which compre- hends and controls it. We are conscious of faculties higher than the senses. We do something more than receive impres- sions passively, unresistingly, like the brute, from the outward world. We analyze, compare, and combine anew the things which we see, subject the outward world to the inquisition of rea- son, create sciences, rise to general laws. 4l6 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. and through these establish an empire over earth and sea. We penetrate be- neath the surface which the senses re- port ; search for the hidden causes, inquire for the ends or purposes, trace out the connections, dependencies, and harmonies of nature ; discover a sublime unity amidst its boundless variety, and order amidst its seeming confusion ; rise to the idea of one all-comprehending and all-ordaining Mind ; and thus by thought make as it were a new universe radiant with wisdom, beneficence, and beauty. We are not mere creatures of matter and sense. We conceive a higher good than comes from the senses. We possess, as a portion of our being, a law higher than appetite, nobler and more enduring than all the laws of matter, — the law of duty. We discern, we ap- prove, the right, the good, the just, the holy, and by this sense of rectitude are laid under obligations which no power of the outward universe can dissolve. We have within us a higher force than aU the forces of material nature, — a power of will which can adhere to duty and to God in opposition to all the might of the elements and all the malignity of earth or hell. We have thoughts, ideas, which do not come from matter, — the ideas of the Infinite, the Everlasting, the Immutable, the Perfect. Living amidst the frail, the limited, the chang- ing, we rise to the thought of Unbounded, Eternal, Almighty Goodness. Nor is this all. While matter obeys mechanical and irresistible laws, and is bound by an unrelaxing necessity to the same fixed, unvarying movements, we feel ourselves to be free. We have power over our- selves, over thought and desire, power to conform ourselves to a law written on our hearts, and povter to resist this law. Man must never be confounded with the material, mechanical world around him. He is a spirit. He has capacities, thoughts, impulses, which assimilate him to God. His reason is a ray of the Infinite Reason ; his con- science, an oracle of the Divinity, pub- lishing the everlasting law of rectitude. Therefore God is his Father. There- fore he is bound to his Maker by a spir- itual bond. This we must feel, or we know nothing of the parental relation of God to the human race. God is the Father, and as such let him be worshipped. He is the Father. By this I understand that He has given being not only to worlds of matter, but to a rational, moral, spiritual universe ; and, still more, I understand not only that He has created a spiritual family in heaven and on earth, but that He mani- fests towards them the attributes and exerts on them the influences of a father. Some of these attributes and influences I will suggest, that the parental char- acter in which God is to be worshipped may be more distinctly apprehended and more deeply felt. First, then, in calhng God the Father, I understand that He loves his rational and moral offspring with unbounded affection. Love is the fundamental at- tribute of a father. How deep, strong, tender, enduring, the attachment of a human parent! But this shadows forth feebly the Divine Parent. He loves us with an energy like that with which He upholds the universe. The human par- ent does not comprehend his child, can- not penetrate the mystery of the spiritual nature which lies hid beneath tlie infant form. It is the prerogative of God alone to understand the immortal mind to which He gives hfe. The narrowest human spirit can be comprehended in its depths and destiny by none but its Maker, and is more precious in his sight than material worlds. Is He not pecul- iarly its Father ? Again, in calling God the Father, I understand that it is his chief purpose in creating and governing the universe to educate, train, form, and ennoble the rational and moral being to whom He has given birth. Education is the great work of a parent, and he who neglects it is unworthy the name. God gives birth to the mind, that it may grow and rise for ever, and its progress is the end of all his works. This outward universe, with its sun and stars, and mighty revo- lutions, is but a school in which the Father is training his children. God is ever present to the human mind to carry on its education, pouring in upon it in- struction and Incitement from the out- ward yorld, stirring up everlasting truth within itself, rousing it to activity by pleasure and pain, calling forth its affec- tions by surrounding fellow-creatures, calling it to duty by placing it amidst various relations, awakening its sym- pathy by sights of sorrow awakening its imagination by a world of beauty, CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 417 and especially exposing it to sufEering, hardship, and temptation, that by resist- ance it may grow strong, and by seeking help from above it may bind itself closely to its Maker. Thus he is the Father. There are those who think that God, if a parent, must make our enjoyment his supreme end. He has a higher end, our intellectual and moral education. Even the good human parent desires the progress, the virtue of his child more than its enjoyment. God never mani- fests himself more as our Father than in appointing to us pains, conflicts, trials, by which we may rise to the heroism of virtue, may become strong to do, to dare, to suffer, to sacrifice all things at the call of truth and duty. Again, in calling God a Father, I un- derstand that he exercises authority over his rational offspring. Authority is the essential attribute of a father. A parent, worthy of that name, embodies and ex- presses, both in commands and actions, the everlasting law of duty. His highest function is to bring out in the minds of his children the idea of right, and to open to them the perfection of their nature. It is too common a notion, that God, as Father, must be more disposed to bless than to command. His com- mands are among his chief blessings. He never speaks with more parental kindness than by that inward voice which teaches duty, and excites and cheers to its performance. Nothing is so strict, so inflexible in enjoining the right and the good, as perfect love. This can endure no moral stain in its object. The whole experience of life, rightly construed, is a revelation of God's parental authority and righteous retribution. Again. When I call God the Father, I understand that He communicates him- self, his own spirit, what is most glorious in his own nature, to his rational off- spring, — a doctrine almost overwhelm- ing by its grandeur, but yet true, and the very truth which shines most clearly from the Christian Scriptures. It be- longs to a parent to breathe into the child whatever is best and loftiest in his own soul, and for this end a good father seeks every approach to the mind of the child. Such a father is God. He has created us not only to partake of his works, but to be " partakers of a divine nature ;" not only to receive his gifts, but to receive himself. As He is a pure spirit. He has an access to the minds of his children not enjoyed by human parents. He pervades, penetrates our souls. All other beings, our nearest friends, are far from us, foreign to us, strangers compared with God. Others hold intercourse with us through the body. He is in immediate contact with our souls. We do not discern him be- cause He is too near, too inward, too deep to be recognized by our present imperfect consciousness. And He is thus near, not only to discern, but to act, to influence, to give his spirit, to communicate to us divinity. This is the great paternal gift of God. He has greater gifts than the world. He con- fers more than the property of the earth and heavens. The very attributes from which the earth and heavens sprung, these he imparts to his rational offspring. Even his disinterested, impartial, uni- versal goodness, which diffuses beauty, life, and happiness, — even this excel- lence it is his purjDOse to breathe into and cherish in the human soul. In regard to the spiritual influence by which God brings the created spirit into conformity to his own, I would that I could speak worthily. It is gentle, that it may not interfere with our freedom. It sustains, mingles with, and moves all our facul- ties. It acts through nature, providence, revelation, society, and experience ; and the Scriptures, confirmed lay reason and the testimonies of the wisest and best men, teach us that it acts still more directly. God, being immediately pres- ent to the soul, holds immediate com- munion with it, in proportion as it prepares itself to receive and to use aright the heavenly inspiration. He opens the inward eye to himself, com- municates secret monitions of duty, re- vives and freshens our convictions of truth, builds up our faith in human im- mortality, unseals the deep, unfathomed fountains of love within us, instils strength, peace, and comfort, and gives victory over pain, sin, and death. This influence of God, exerted on the soul to conform it to himself, to make it worthy of its divine parentage, this it is which most clearly manifests what is meant by his being our Father. We understand his parental relation to us only as far as we comprehend this great purpose and exercise of his love. We 27 4i8 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. must have faith in the human soul as receptive of the Divinity, as made for greatness, for spiritual elevation, for likeness to God, or God's character as a Father will be to us as an unre- vealed mystery. If we think, as so many seem to think, that God has made us only for low pleasures and attain- ments, that our nature is incapable of godlike virtues, that our prayers for the Divine Spirit are unheard, that celestial influences do not descend into the hu- man soul, that God never breathes on it to lift it above its present weakness, to guide it to a more perfect existence, to unite it more intimately with himself, then we know but faintly the meaning of a Father in heaven. The great rev- elation in Christianity of a Paternal Divinity is still to be made to us. I might here pause in the attempt to give distinct conceptions of the Father whom we are to worship ; but there are two views so suited to us, as sinful and mortal beings, that I cannot pass them over without brief notice. Let me add, then, that in speaking of God as the Father, I understand that He looks with overflowing compassion on such of his rational offspring as forsake him, as for- sake the law of duty. It is the property of the human parent to follow with yearnings of tenderness an erring child ; and in this he is a faint type of God, who sees his lost sons "a great way off," who, to recover his human family, spared not his beloved Son, who sends his re- generating spirit into the fallen soul, sends rebuke, and shame, and fear, and sorrow, and awakens the dead in tres- passes and sins to a higher life than that which the first birth conferred. I also understand, in calling God the Father, that He destines his rational, moral creature to immortality. How ardently does the human parent desire to prolong the life of his child ! And how much more must He who gave being to the spirit, with its unbounded faculties, desire its endless being ! God is our Father, for He has made us to bear the image of his own eternity as well as of his other attributes. Other things pass away, for they fulfil their end ; but the soul, which never reaches its goal, whose development is never complete, is never to disappear from the universe. God created it to receive fof ever of his fulness. His fatherly love is not exhausted in what he now be- stows. There is a higher life. Human perfection is not a dream. The bright- est visions of genius fade before the realities of excellence and happiness to which good men are ordained. In that higher hfe, the parental character of God will break forth from the clouds which now obscure it. His bright im- age in his children will proclaim the Infinite Father. I have thus my friends, set before you the true object of Christian worship. You are here to worship God as your spiritual parent, as the Father of your spirits, whose great purpose is your spiritual perfection, your participation of a divine nature, I hold this view of God to be the true, deep foundation of Christian worship. On your reception of it depends the worth of the homage to be offered here. It is not enough to think of God as operating around and without you, as creating material worlds, as the former of your bodies, as ordain- ing the revolution of seasons for your animal wants. There is even danger in regarding God exclusively as the author of the outward universe. There is dan- ger, lest you feel as if you were over- looked in this immensity, lest you shrink before these mighty masses of matter, lest you see in the unchangeable laws of nature a stern order to which the human being is a victim, and which heeds not the puny individual in maintaining the general good. It is only by regarding God as more than Creator, as your spirit- ual Father, as having made you to par- take of his spiritual attributes, as having given you a spiritual power worth more than the universe, it is only by regarding his intimacy with the soul, his paternal concern for it, his perpetual influence on it, it is only by these views that worship rises into filial confidence, hope, joy, and rapture, and puts forth a truly ennobling power. Worship has too often been ab- ject, — the offering of fear or selfishness. God's greatness, though a pledge of greatness to his children, and his om- nipotence, though an assurance to us of mighty power in our conflict with evil, have generated self-contempt and discouraged access to him. IMy friends, come hither to worship God as your spiritual Father. No other view can so touch and penetrate the soul, can place it so near its Maker, can open CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 419 before it such vast prospects, can awaken such transports of praise and gratitude, can bow the soul in such ingenuous sorrow for sin, can so fortify you for the conflict against evil. Ought we not to rejoice that this house is reared for the worship of the spiritual Father ? The exposition which I have given under this head of the parental relation of God to the human race, is one in which 1 take the deepest interest. I have felt, however, as I proceeded, that very possibly objections would spring up in the minds of some who hear me. There are not a few who are sceptical as to whatever supposes a higher con- dition of human nature than they now observe. Perhaps some here, could they speak, would say, " We do not see the marks of this fatherly interest of God in man of which you have spoken. We do not see in man the signs of a being so beloved, so educated, as you have supposed. His weakness, suffer- ings, and sins are surely no proofs of his having been created to receive God's spirit, to partake of the divinity." On this point I have much to say, but my answer must be limited to a few words. I reply, that the love of an Infinite Fa- ther may be expected often to work in methods beyond the comprehension of our limited minds. An immortal being in his infancy cannot of course compre- hend all the processes of his education, many of which look forward to ages too distant for the imagination to ex- plore. I would add, that notwithstand- ing the darkness which hangs over human life on account of the greatness of our nature, we can yet see bright signatures of the parental concern of God, and see them in the very circum- stances which at first create doubt. Because we suffer, it ought not to be inferred that God is not a father. Suf- fering, trial, exposure, seem to be neces- sary elements in the education of a moral being. It is fit that a being whose happiness and dignity are to be found in vigorous action and in forming himself, should be born with undevel- oped capacities, and be born into a world of mingled difficulties and aids. We do see that energy of thought, will, affection, virtue, the energy which is our true life and joy, often springs from trial. We can see, too, that it is well that society, like the individual, should begin in imperfection, because men in this way become to each other means of discipUne, because joint sufferings and the necessity of joint efforts awaken both the affections and the faculties, because occasion and incitement are thus given to generous sacrifices, to heroic struggles, to the most beautiful and stirring manifestations of philan- thropy, patriotism, and devotion. Were I called on to prove God's spiritual parental interest in us, I would point to the trials, temptations, evils of life ; for to these we owe the character of Christ, we owe the apostle and martyr, we owe the moral force and deep sym- pathy of private and domestic life, we owe the development of what is divine in human nature. Truly God is our Fa- ther, and as such to be worshipped. Having thus set fortii very imper- fectly, but from a full heart, the excel- lence of the homage which is here to be rendered to God in his parental character, I ought now to proceed, ac- cording to the plan of this discourse, to show that we should enter this house with joy, because it is set apart to the worship of God in spirit and in truth, to an inward not outward worship. In discussing this topic, I might enlarge on the vast and beneficent revolution which Jesus Christ wrought in religion by teaching that God is a spirit, and to be spiritually adored. I might show how much he wrought for human ele- vation and happiness when, in pronounc- ing the text, he shook the ancient temples to their foundations, quenched the fire on the heathen and Jewish al- tars, wrested the instruments of sacrifice from the hand of the priest, abolished sanctity of place, and consecrated the human soul as the true house of God. But the nature, grandeur, benefits of this spiritual worship are subjects too extensive for our present consideration. Instead of discussion, I can only use the words of exhortation. I can only say that you who are to assemble in this place are peculiarly bound to inward worship, for to you especially Christi- anity is an inward system. Most other denominations expect salvation more or less from what Jesus does abroad, es- pecially from his agency on the mind of God. You expect it from what he does within your own minds. His great glory, according to your views, lies in 420 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. his influence on the human soul, in the communication of his spirit to his fol- lowers. To you salvation, heaven, and hell have their seat in the soul. To you Christianity is wholly a spiritual sys- tem. Come, then, to this place to worship with the soul, to elevate the spirit to God. Let not this house be desecrated by a religion of show. Let it not degenerate into a place of forms. Let not your pews be occupied by life- less machines. Do not come here to take part in lethargic repetitions of sacred words. Do not come from a cold sense of duty, to quiet conscience with the thought of having paid a debt to God. Do not come to perform a present task to insure a future heaven. Come to find heaven now, to anticipate the happiness of that better world by breathing its spirit, to bind your souls indissolubly to your Maker. Come to worship in spirit and in truth ; that is, intelligently, rationally, with clear judg- ment, with just and honorable con- ceptions of the Infinite Father, not prostrating your understandings, not re- nouncing the divine gift of reason, but offering an enlightened homage, such as is due to the Fountain of intelli- gence and truth. Come to worship with the heart as well as intellect, with life, fervor, zeal. Sleep over your business if you will, but not over your rehgion. Come to worship with strong convic- tion, with living faith in a higher pres- ence than meets the eye, with a feehng of God's presence not only around you, but in the depths of your souls. Come to worship with a filial spirit, not with fear, dread, and gloom ; not with sepul- chral tones and desponding looks, but with humble, cheerful, boundless trust, with overflowing gratitude, with a love willing and earnest to do and to suffer whatever may approve your devotion to God. Come to worship him with what He most delights in, with aspiration for spiritual light and life ; come to cherish and express desires for virtue, for pu- rity, for power over temptation, stronger and more insatiable than spring up in your most eager pursuits of business or pleasure ; and welcome joyfully every holy impulse, every accession of strength to virtuous purpose, to the love of God and man. In a word, come to offer a refined, generous worship, to offer a tribute worthy of him who is the per- fection of truth, goodness, beauty, and blessedness. Adore him with the calm- est reason and the profoundest love, and strive to conform yourselves to what you adore. I have now, my friends, set before you the worship to which this building is set apart, and which, from its rational, filial, pure, and ennobling character, ren- ders this solemnity a season for thank- fulness and joy. I should not, however, be just to this occasion, qr to the great purpose of this house, if I were to stop here. My remarks have hitherto been confined to the worship which is to be offered within these walls, to the influ- ence to be exerted on you when assem- bled here. But has this house no higher end than to give an impulse to your minds for the very few hours which you are to spend beneath its roof ? Then we have little reason to enter it with joy. The great end for which you are to worship here is, that you may wor- ship everywhere. You are to feel God's presence here, that it may be felt where- ever you go, and whatever you do. The very idea of spiritual homage is, that it takes possession of the soul, and be- comes a part of our very being. The great design of this act of dedication is, that your houses, your places of busi- ness, may be consecrated to God. This topic of omnipresent worship 1 cannot expand. One view of it, however, I must not omit. From the peculiar char- acter of the worship to which this house is consecrated, you learn the kind of worship which you should carry from it into your common lives. It is not un- common for the Christian teacher to say to his congregation, that, when they leave the church, they go forth into a nobler temple than one made with hands, into the temple of the creation, and that they must go forth to worship God in his works. The views given of the true worship in this discourse will lead me to a somewhat different style of exposition. 1 will, indeed, say to you, go from this house to adore God as He is revealed in the boundless universe. This is one end of your worship here. But I would add, that a higher end is, that you should go forth to worship him as He is re- vealed in his rational and moral off- spring, and to worship him by fulfilling, as you have power, his purposes in regard to these. My great aim in this CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 421 discourse has been to show that God is to be adored here as the Father of rational and moral beings, of yourselves and all mankind ; and such a worship tends directly and is designed to lead us, when we go hence, to recognize God in our own nature, to see in men his children, to respect and serve them for their relationship to the Divinity, to see in them signatures of greatness amidst all their imperfection, and to love them with more than earthly love. We must not look round on the universe with awe and on man with scorn ; for man, who can comprehend the universe and its laws, "is greater than the universe, which cannot comprehend itself." God dwells in every human being more inti- mately than in the outward creation. The voice of God comes to us in the ocean, the thunder, the whirlwind ; but how much more of God is there in his inward voice, in the intuitions of reason, in the rebukes of conscience, in the whispers of the Holy Spirit ! I would have you see God in the awful moun- tain and the tranquil valley ; but more, much more, in the clear judgment, the moral energy, the disinterested purpose, the pious gratitude, the immortal hope of a good man. Go from this house to worship God by reverencing the human soul as his chosen sanctuary. Revere it in yourselves, revere it in others, and labor to carry it forward to perfection. Worship God within these walls, as universally, impartially good to his hu- man offspring ; and go forth to breathe the same spirit. Go forth to respect the rights, and seek the true, enduring wel- fare of all within your influence. Carry with you the conviction that to trample on a human being, of whatever color, clime, rank, condition, is to trample on God's child ; that to degrade or corrupt a man, is to deface a holier temple than any material sanctuary. Mercy, love, is more acceptable worship to God than all sacrifices or outward offerings. The most celestial worship ever paid on earth was rendered by Christ, when he ap- proached man, and the most sinful man, as a child of God, when he toiled and bled to awaken what was divine in the human soul, to regenerate a fallen world. Be such the worship which you shall carry from this place. Go forth to do good with every power which God be- stows, to make every place you enter happier by your presence, to espouse all human interests, to throw your whole weight into the scale of human freedom and improvement, to withstand all wrong, to uphold all right, and especially to give light, life, strength to the immortal soul. He who rears up one child in Christian virtue, or recovers one fellow-creature to God, builds a temple more j^recious than Solomon's or St. Peter's, more enduring than earth or heaven. I have now finished the general dis- cussion which this occasion seemed to me to require, and I trust that a few remarks of a personal and local char- acter will be received with indulgence. It is with no common emotion that 1 take part in the present solemnity. 1 stand now to teach where, in my childhood and youth, I was a learner. The generation which I then knew has almost wholly disappeared. The venerable man, whose trembling voice 1 then heard in this place, has long since gone to his reward. My earliest friends, who watched over my childhood and led me by the hand to this spot, have been taken. Still my emotions are not sad. 1 rejoice ; for whilst 1 see melancholy changes around me, and, still more, feel that time, which has bowed other frames, has touched my own, I see that the work of human improvement has gone on. 1 see that clearer and brighter truths than were opened on my own youthful mind are to be imparted to succeeding generations. Herein I do and will rejoice. On looking back to my early years, I can distinctly recollect unhappy influ- ences exerted on my mind by the gen- eral tone of religion in this town. I can recollect, too, a corruption of morals among those of my own age, which made boyhood a critical, perilous season. Still I must bless God for the place of my nativity ; for, as my mind unfolded, I became more and more alive to the beau- tiful scenery which now attracts stran- gers to our island. My first liberty was used in roaming over the neighboring fields and shores ; and, amid this glo- rious nature, that love of liberty sprang up which has gained strength within me "to this hour. I early received im- pressions of the great and the beautiful, which 1 beheve have had no small influ- ence in determiningmy modes of thought and habits of life. In this town I pur- sued for a time my studies of theology* 422 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. I had no professor or teacher to guide me ; but I had two noble places of study. One was yonder beautiful edi- fice, now so frequented and so useful as a public library, then so deserted that I spent day after day, and some- times week after week, amidst its dusty volumes, without interruption from a single visitor. The other place was yonder beach, the roar of which has so often mingled with the worship of this place, my daily resort, dear to me in the sunshine, still more attractive in the storm. Seldom do I visit it now with- out thinking of the work which there, in the sight of that beauty, in the sound of those waves, was carried on in my soul. No spot on earth has helped to form me so much as that beach. There I lifted up my voice in praise amidst the tempest. There, softened by beauty, I poured out my thanksgiving and con- trite confessions. There, in reverential sjrmpathy with the mighty power around me, I became conscious of power within. There struggling thoughts and emotions broke forth, as if moved to utterance by nature's eloquence of the winds and waves. There began a happiness sur- passing all worldly pleasures, all gifts of fortune, — the happiness of communing with the works of God. Pardon me this reference to myself. I believe that the worship of which I have this day spoken was aided in my own soul by the scenes in which my early life was passed. Amidst these scenes, and in speaking of this worship, allow me to thank God that this beautiful island was the place of my birth. Leaving what is merely personal, I would express my joy, and it is most sincere, in the dedication of this house, regarded as a proof and a means of the diffusion of Christian truth. Some, per- haps, may think that this joy is not a little heightened by seeing a church set apart to the particular sect to which I am said to belong. But I trust that what you have this day heard will satisfy most, if not all who hear, that it is not a sectarian exultation to which I am giv- ing utterance. I indeed take pleasure in thinking that the particular v'ews which I have adopted of the disputed doctrines of religion will here be made known ; but I rejoice much more in thinking that this house is pledged to no peculiar doctrines, that it is not erected to bind my own or any man's opinions on this or on future times, that it is consecrated to free investigation of religious truth, to religious progress, to the right of private judgment, to Prot- estant and Christian liberty. Most earnestly do I pray that a purer the- ology, that diviner illuminations, that a truer worship than can now be found in our own or in any sect, may be the glory of this house. We who now consecrate it to God believe in human progress. We do not say to the spirit of truth, " Thus far, and no farther." We repro- bate the exclusive, tyrannical spirit of the churches of this age, which de- nounce as an enemy to Christianity whoever in the use of his intellectual liberty, and in the interpretation of God's word for himself, may differ from the traditions and creeds which have been received from fallible forefathers. We rear these walls not to a sect, but to religious, moral, intellectual, Protest- ant, Christian liberty. I rejoice that this temple of liberty is opened on this spot. I feel that this town has a right to an establishment in which conscientious Christians may in- quire and speak without dreading the thunders of excommunication, in which Protestantism will not be dishonored by the usurpations of the Romish Church. This island, like the State to which it belongs, was originally settled by men who came hither for liberty of con- science, and in assertion of the right to interpret for themselves the word of God. Religious freedom was the very principle on which this town was founded, and I rejoice to know that the spirit of religious freedom has never wanted champions here. I have recently read a very valuable discourse, which was delivered in this town about a century ago, and just a century after the cession of this island to our fathers by the In- dians, and which breathes a liberahty of thought and feeling, a reverence for the rights of the understanding and the con- science, very rare at that time in other parts of the country, and very far from being universal now. Its author, the Rev. Mr. Callender, was pastor of the first Baptist church in this place, the oldest of our churches, and it was dedi- cated to a descendant of the venerable Coddington, our first Governor. The spirit of religious liberty which pervades CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 423 this discourse has astonished as well as rejoiced me, and it should thrill the hearts of this people. Let me read a few sentences : — " It must be a mean, contracted way of thinking, to confine the favor of God, and the power of godliness, to one set of specu- lative opinions, or any particular external forms of worship. How hard must it be to imagine that all other Christians but our- selves must be formal, and hypocritical, and destitute of the grace of God, because their education or capacity differs from ours, or that God has given them more or less light than to us ; though we cannot deny they give the proper evidence of their fear- ing God by their working righteousness, and show their love to him by keeping what they understand He has commanded ; and though their faith in Christ Jesus purifies their hearts and works by love and over- comes the world. It would be hard to show why liberty of conscience, mutual forbear- ance and good-will, why brotherly kindness and charity is not as good a centre of unity as a constrained uniformity in external ceremo- nies, or a forced subscription to ambiguous articles. Experience has dearly convinced the world that unanimity in judgment and affection cannot be secured by penal law. Who can tell why. the unity of spirit in the bonds of peace is not enough for Christians to aim at .' And who can assign a reason why they may not love one another though abounding in their own several senses.' And why, if they live in peace, the God of love and peace may not be with them.' There is no other bottom but this to rest upon, to leave others the liberty we should desire ourselves, the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free." Such was the liberal spirit expressed in this town a hundred years ago. I would it were more common in our own day. Another noble friend of religious lib- erty threw a lustre on this island imme- diately before the revolution. I mean the Rev. Dr. Stiles, pastor of the Second Congregational Church, and afterwards President of Yale College. This coun- try has not, perhaps, produced a more learned man. To enlarged acquaintance with physical science he added exten- sive researches into philology, history, and antiquities. Nor did his indefatiga- ble mind suffer any opportunity to es- cape him of adding to his rich treasures of knowledge. His virtues were pro- portioned to his intellectual acquisition. I can well remember how his name was cherished among his parishioners after years of separation. His visit to this place was to many a festival. When little more than a child, I was present at some of his private meetings with the more religious part of his former con- gregation ; and I recollect how I was moved by the tears and expressive looks with which his affectionate exhortations were received. In his faith he was what was called a moderate Calvinist ; but his heart was of no sect. He car- ried into his religion the spirit of liberty which then stirred the whole country. Intolerance, church tyranny in all its forms, he abhorred. He respected the right of private judgment where others would have thought themselves author- ized to restrain it. A young man, to whom he had been as a father, one day communicated to him doubts concerning the Trinity. He expressed his sorrow ; but mildly, and with undiminished affec- tion, told him to go to the Scriptures, and to seek his faith there, and only there. His friendships were confined to no parties. He desired to heal the wounds of the divided church of Christ, not by a common creed, but by the spirit of love. He wished to break every yoke, civil and ecclesiastical, from men's necks. To the influence of this distinguished man in the circle in which I was brought up, I may owe in part the indignation which I feel towards every invasion of human rights. In my earliest years, I regarded no human being with equal reverence. I have his form before me at this moment almost as distinctly as if I had seen him yesterday, so strong is the impression made on the child through the moral affections. Let me add one more example of the spirit of religious freedom on this island. You may be surprised, perhaps, when you hear me name in this connection the venerable man who once ministered in this place, the Rev. Dr. Hopkins. His name is, indeed, associated with a stern and appalling theology, and it is true that he wanted toleration towards those who rejected his views. Still, in forming his religious opinions, he was superior to human authority ; he broke away from human creeds ; he interpret- ed God's word for himself ; he revered reason, the oracle of God within him. His system, however fearful, was yet built on a generous foundation. He 424 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. maintained that all holiness, all moral excellence, consists in benevolence, or disinterested devotion to the greatest good ; that this is the character of God ; that love is the only principle of the divine administration. He taught that sin was introduced into the creation, and is to be everlastingly punished, be- cause evil is necessary to the highest good. To this government, in which the individual is surrendered to the well-being of the whole, he required entire and cheerful submission. Other Calvinists were willing that their neigh- bors should be predestined to everlast- ing misery for the glory of God. This noble-minded man demanded a more generous and impartial virtue, and main- tained that we should consent to our own perdition, should be willing ourselves to be condemned, if the greatest good of the universe and the manifestation of the divine perfections should so re- quire. True virtue, as he taught, was an entire surrender of personal interest to the benevolent purposes of God. Self-love he spared in none of its move- ments. He called us to seek our own happiness as well as that of others in a spirit of impartial benevolence ; to do good to ourselves, not from self-prefer- ence, not from the impulse of personal desires, but in obedience to that sub- lime law which requires us to promote the welfare of each and all within our influence. I need not be ashamed to confess the deep impression which this system made on my youthful mind. I am grateful to this stern teacher for turning my thoughts and heart to the claims and majesty of impartial, univer- sal benevolence. From such a man, a tame acquiescence in the established theology was not to be expected. He indeed accepted the doctrine of predes- tination in its severest form ; but in so doing, he imagined himself a disciple of reason as well as of revelation. He be- lieved this doctrine to be sustained by profound metaphysical argumentation, and to rest on the only sound philoso- phy of the human mind, so that in re- ceiving it he did not abandon the ground of reason. In accordance with his free spirit of inquiry, we find him making not a few important modifications of Calvinism. The doctrine that we are liable to punishment for the sin of our first parent he wholly rejected ; and, not satisfied with denying the imputation of Adam's guilt to his posterity, he sub- verted what the old theology had set forth as the only foundation of divine acceptance, namely, the imputation of Christ's righteousness or merits to the believer. The doctrine that Christ died for the elect only, found no mercy at his hands. He taught that Christ suf- ■ fered equally for all mankind The system of Dr. Hopkins was indeed an effort of reason to reconcile Calvinism with its essential truths. Accordingly his disciples were sometimes called, and wiUingly called. Rational Calvinists. - The impression which he made was much greater than is now supposed. The churches of New England received a decided impression from his views ; and though his name, once given to his followers, is no longer borne, his influ- ence is still felt. The conflict now go- ing on in our country, for the purpose of mitigating the harsh features of Cal- vinism, is a stage of the revolutionary movement to which he more than any man gave impulse. / can certainly bear witness to the spirit of progress and free inquiry which possessed him. In my youth, I preached in this house at the request of the venerable old man. As soon as the services were closed, he turned to me with an animated, benignant smile, and, using a quaint- ness of expression which I need not re- peat, said to me that theology was still imperfect, and that he hoped 1 should live to carry it towards perfection. Rare and most honorable liberahty in the leader of a sect ! He wanted not to secure a follower, but to impel a young mind to higher truth. I feel that abil- ity has not been given me to accomplish this generous hope ; but such quicken- ing language from such lips, though it could not give strength, might kindle desire, and elevate exertion.* Thus the spirit of religious freedom has not been wanting to this island. May this spirit, unawed by human re- proach, unfettered by human creeds, availing itself gratefully of human aids, and, above all, looking reverently to God for Hght, dwell in the hearts of those who are to minister, and of those who shall worship, within these walls ! May this spirit spread far and wide, and ♦ See author's note (B) at end of this discourse CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 42 s redeem the Christian world from the usurpations of Catholic and Protestant infallibility, from uncharitableness, in- tolerance, persecution, and every yoke which has crushed the human soul ! I have done with the personal and the local. In conclusion, let me re- vert for one moment to the great topic of this discourse. My friends, the spir- itual worship of which I have this day spoken is something real. There is a worship in the spirit, — a worship very different from standing in the church, or kneeling in the closet, — a worship which cannot be confined to set phrases, and asks not the clothing of outward forms, a thirst of the soul for its Crea- tor, an inward voice, which our nearest neighbor cannot hear, but which pierces the skies. To the culture of this spirit- ual worship we dedicate this house. My friends, rest not in offering breath, in moving the lips, in bending the knee to your Creator. There is another, a nearer, a happier intercourse with heaven, a worship of love, sometimes too full and deep for utterance, a union of mind with him closer than earthly friendships. This is the worship to which Christ calls. Christ came not to build churches, not to rear cathedrals with Gothic arches or swelling domes, but to dedicate the human soul to God. When God "bows the heavens and comes down," it is not that He may take up his abode beneath the vault of a metropolitan temple ; it is not that He is drawn by majestic spires or by clouds of fragrance, but that He may visit and dwell in the Iiumble, obedient, disinterested soul. This house is to moulder away. Temples hewn from the rock will crumble to dust, or melt in the last fire. But the inward temple will survive all outward change. When winds and oceans and suns shall have ceased to praise God, the human soul will praise him. It will receive more and more divine inspirations of truth and love ; will fill with its benevolent ministry wider and wider spheres ; and will accomplish its destiny by a progress towards God as unlimited, as mysteri- ous, as enduring as eternity. Note A. — I have not quoted the verses preceding those whicli I have extracted from the Epistle to the Philip- pians, which are often adduced in proof of Christ's supreme divinity, because it is acknowledged by learned men of all denominations that our translation of the most important clause is mcorrect, and a critical discussion of the subject would have been out of place. I think, however, that no man, unacquainted with the common theories, can read any translation and escape the impression that Jesus Christ is a derived, depen- dent, subordinate being, and a distinct being from the Father. How plain is it that in this passage Paul intends by the terms "God" and "the Father," not Jesus Christ but another being ! How plain is it that, in the passage chosen as the text for this discourse, our Saviour intended by these terms not himself but another being ! What other idea could his hearers receive ? What decisive proofs are furnished by his constant habit of speaking of " the Father " and of " God " as another being, and of dis- tinguishing himself from Him ! Note B. — I understand that the inter- est expressed by me in the character of Dr. Hopkins has surprised some of my townsmen of Newport, who knew him only by report, or who saw him in their youth. I do not wonder at this. He lived almost wholly in his study, and, like very retired men, was the object of little sympathy. His appearance was that of a man who had nothing to do with the world. I can well recollect the impression which he made on me when a boy, as he rode on horseback in a plaid gown fastened by a girdle round his waist, and with a study cap on his head instead of his wig. His delivery in the pulpit was the worst I ever met with. Such tones never came from any human voice within my hearing. He was the very ideal of bad delivery. Then I must say the matter was often as uninviting as the manner. Dr. Hop- kins was distinguished by nothing more than by faithfulness to his principles. He carried them out to their full extent. Believing, as he did, in total depravity, believing that there was nothing good or generous in human nature to which he could make an appeal, believing that he could benefit men only by setting before them their utterly lost and help- less condition, he came to the point without any circumlocution, and dealt out terrors with an unsparing liberality. Add to all this, that his manners had a 426 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. bluntness, partly natural, partly the re- sult of long seclusion in the country. We cannot wonder that such a man should be set down as hard and severe. But he had a true benevolence, and, what is more worthy of being noted, he was given to a facetious style of conver- sation. Two instances immediately oc- cur to me, which happened in my own circle. One day he dined at my father's with a young minister who was willing to comply with the costume of the day, but whose modesty only allowed the ruffles to peep from his breast. The Doctor said, with good humor, " I don't care for ruffles ; but if I wore them, I'd wear them like a man." I recollect that on visiting him one day when he was about eighty years of age, I found his eyes much inflamed by reading and writing. I took the liberty to recom- mend abstinence from these occupa- tions. He replied, smilingly, with an amusing story, and then added, " If my eyes won't study, no eyes for me." /This facetiousness may seem to some, who are unacquainted with the world, not consistent with the great severity of his theology ; but nothing is more common than this apparent self-contradiction. The ministers who deal most in terrors, who preach doctrines which ought to make their flesh creep, and to turn their eyes into fountains of tears, are not generally distinguished by their spare forms or haggard countenances. They take the world as easily as people of a milder creed ; and this does not show that they want sincerity or benevolence. It only shows how superficially men may believe in doctrines, which yet they would shudder to relinquish. It shows how little the import of language, which is thundered from the lips, is com- prehended and felt. I should not set down as hard-hearted a man whose ap- petite should be improved by preaching a sermon full of images and threaten- ings of "a bottomless hell." The best meals are sometimes made after such effusions. This is only an example of the numberless contradictions in human life. Men are every day saying and doing, from the power of education, habit, and imitation, what has no root whatever in their serious convictions. Dr. Hopkins, though his style of preach- ing and conversation did not always. agree, was a sincere, benevolent man/ I remember hearing of his givihg on a journey all he had to a poor woman. On another occasion he contributed to some religious object a hundred dollars, which he had received for the copyright of a book ; and this he gave from his penury, for he received no fixed salary, and depended, in a measure, on the do-, nations of friends for common comforts. ') When he first established himself in Newport, he was brought into contact ~ with two great evils, the slave-trade and slavery, in both of which a large part of the inhabitants were or had .been en- gaged. " His spirit was stirred in him," and without " conferring with flesh or blood," without heeding the strong prej- udices and passions enlisted on the side of these abuses, he bore his faithful testimony against them from the pulpit and the press. Still more, he labored for the education of the colored people, and had the happiness of seeing the fruits of his labors in the intelhgence and exemplary piety of those who came under his influence. Much as he disap- proved of the moderate theology of Dr. Stiles, he cheerfully co-operated with him in this work. Their names were joined to a circular for obtaining funds to educate Africans as missionaries to their own country. These two eminent men, who, as I think, held no ministe- rial intercourse, forgot their differences in their zeal for freedom and humanity. Dr. Hopkins, in conversing with me on his past history, reverted more fre- ' quently to his religious controversies than to any other event of his life, and always spoke as a man conscious of having gained the victory ; and in this, I doubt not, that he judged justly. He was true, as I have said, to his princi- ples, and carried them out fearlessly to their consequences ; whilst his oppo- nents wished to stop half-way. Of course it was easy for a practised dis- putant to drive them from their posi- tion. They had, indeed, the advantage of common-sense on their side, but this availed little at a time when it was understood that common-sense was to ^ yield to the estabhshed creed. These controversies are most of them forgot- ten, but they were agitated with no small warmth. One of the most important, and which was confined to the Calvin- ists, turned on what were called the " Means of Grace." The question was, -■ CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 427 whether the unregenerate could do any thing for themselves, whether an uncon- verted man could, by prayer, by reading the Scriptures, and by public worship, promote his own conversion ; whether, in a word, any means used by an unre- generate man would avail to that change of heart on which his future happiness depended. Dr. Hopkins, true to the ^fundamental principles of Calvinism, took the negative side of the ques- tion, /tie maintained that man, being wholly depraved by nature, wholly averse to God and goodness, could do nothing but sin, before the mighty power of God had implanted a new principle of holiness within his heart ; that, of course, his prayers and efforts before conversion were sins, and de- served the divine wrath ; that his very struggles for pardon and salvation, "wanting, as they did, a holy motive, springing from the deep selfishness of an unrenewed soul, only increased his guilt and condemnation. The doctrine was, indeed, horrible, but a plain, nec- essary result of man's total corruption and impotence. I state this contro- versy, that the reader may know the kind of topics in which the zeal and abilities of our fathers were employed. It also shows us how extremes meet. Dr. Hopkins contended that no means of religion or virtue could avail, unless used with a sincere love of religion and virtue. In this doctrine all liberal Christians concur. In their hands, how- ever, the doctrine wears an entirely dif- ferent aspect in consequence of their denial of total, original depravity, that terrible error which drove Dr. Hopkins to conclusions equally shocking to the reason, to common-sense, and to the best feelings of the heart./ The characteristic disposition of Dr. Hopkins to follow out his principles was remarkably illustrated in a manu- script of his which was never published, and which perhaps was suppressed by those who had the charge of his papers, in consequence of its leaning towards some of the speculations of the infidel philosophy of the day, in regard to utility or the general good. It fell into my hands after his death, and struck me so much that I think I can trust my recollections of it. It gave the author's ideas of moral good. He maintained that the object of "moral good," the object on which virtue is fixed, and the choice of which constitutes virtue, is " natural good," or the greatest possible amount of enjoyment, not our own en- joyment only, but that of the whole system of being. He virtually, if not expressly, set forth this " natural good," that is, happiness in the simple sense of enjoyment, as the ultimate good, and made moral good the means. I well recollect how, in starting from this prin- ciple, he justified eternal punishment. He affirmed that sin or selfishness (synonymous words in his vocabulary) tended to counteract God's system, which is framed for infinite happiness, or tended to produce infinite misery. He tlien insisted that by subjecting the sinner to endless, that is, infinite misery, this tendency was made manifest ; a correspondence was established between the sin and the punishment, and a bar- rier was erected against sin, which was demanded by the greatness of the good menaced by the wrong-doer. I have thrown together these recol- lections of a man who has been crowded out of men's minds by the thronging events and interests of our time, but who must always fill an important place in our ecclesiastical history.y He was a singularly blameless man, with the ex- ception of intolerance towards those who differed from him. This he some- times expressed in a manner which, to those unacquainted with him, seemed a sign of any thing but benignity. In one point of view, I take pleasure in think- ing of him. He was an illustration of \ the power of our spiritual nature. In ■ narrow circumstances, with few outward indulgences, in great seclusion, he yet found much to enjoy. He lived in a world of thought, above all earthly pas- sions. He represented to himself, as the result of the divine government, a boundless diffusion of felicity through ■ the universe, and contrived to merge in this the horrors of his theological sys- tem. His doctrines, indeed, threw dark colors over the world around him ; but he took refuge from the present state of things in the millennium. The millen- nium was his chosen ground. If any subject of thought possessed him above all others, I suppose it to have been this. The millennium was more than a belief to him. It had the freshness of visible things. He was at home in it. 428 THE CHURCH. His book on the subject has an air of reahty, as if written from observation. He describes tlie habits and customs of the millennium as one familiar with them. He enjoyed this future glory of the church not a whit the less because it was so much his own creation. The fundamental idea, the germ, he found in the Scriptures, but it expanded in and from his own mind. Whilst to the mul- titude he seemed a hard, dry theologian, feeding on the thorns of controversy, he was living in a region of imagination, feeding on visions of a holiness and a happiness which are to make earth all but heaven. /it has been my privilege to meet with other examples of the same character, with men who, amidst priva- tion, under bodily infirmity, and with none of those materials of enjoyment which the multitude are striving for, live in a world of thought, and enjoy what affluence never dreamed of, — men having nothing, yet possessing all things ; and the sight of such has done me more good, has spoken more to my head and heart, than many sermons and volumes. I have learned the sufficiency of the mind to itself, its independence on out- ward things. I regret that I did not use my acquaint- ance with Dr. Hopkins to get the par- ticulars of the habits and conversation of Edwards and Whitefield, whom he knew intimately. I value the hints which I get about distinguished men from their friends much more than writ- ten accounts of them. Most biographies are of little worth. The true object of a biography, which is to give us an in- sight into men's characters, such as an intimate acquaintance with them would have furnished, is little comprehended. The sayings and actions of a man, which breathe most of what was individual in him, should be sought above all things by his historian ; and yet most lives contain none, or next to none, of these. They are panegyrics, not lives. No department of literature is so false as biography. The object is, not to let down the hero ; and consequently what is most human, most genuine, most char- acteristic in his history, is excluded. Sometimes one anecdote will let us into the secret of a man's soul more than all the prominent events of his life. It is not impossible that some readers may object to some of my notices of the stem theologian, to whom this note refers, as too familiar. This seems to me their merit. They show that he was not a mere theologian, that he had the sympa- thies of a man. THE CHURCH: A Discourse delivered in the First Congregational Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, Sunday, May 30, 1841. Matthew vii. 21-27: "Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king- dom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of iJiy Fa- ther which is in heaven. .Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not projDhesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then wll I pro- fess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. "Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doetli them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock ; atid the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not ; for it was founded upon a rock. "And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand ; andthe rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds tilew, and beat upon that house, and it fell ; and great was the fall of it." These words, which form the conclu- sion of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, teach a great truth ; namely, that there is but one thing essential in religion, and this is the doing of God's will, the doing of those sayings or precepts of Christ which constitute the substance of that memorable discourse. We learn that it will avail us nothing to call Christ Lord, Lord, to profess ourselves his disciples, to hear his words, to teach in his name, to take our place in his church, or even to do wonderful works or miracles in attestation of his truth, if we neglect to cherish the spirit and virtues of his religion. God heeds not what we say, but what we are, and what we do. The subjection of our wills to THE CHURCH. 429 the divine, the mortification of sensual and selfish propensities, the cultivation of supreme love to God, and of universal justice and charity towards our neigh- bor, — this, this is the very essence of religion ; this alone places us on a rock ; this is the end, the supreme and ulti- mate good, and is to be prized and sought above all other things. This is a truth as simple as it is grand. The child can understand it ; and yet men, in all ages, have contrived to over- look it ; have contrived to find substi- tutes for purity of heart and life ; have hoped by some other means to commend themselves to God, to enter the kingdom of heaven. Forms, creeds, churches, the priesthood, the sacraments, these and other things have been exalted into supremacy. The grand and only quali- fication for heaven, that which in itself is heaven, the virtue and the spirit of Jesus Christ, has been obscured, de- preciated ; whilst assent to certain mys- teries, or union with certain churches, has been thought the narrow way that leads to life. I have not time in asingle discourse to expose all the delusions which have spread on this subject. I shall confine myself to one, which is not limited to the past, but too rife in our own times. There has always existed, and still exists, a disposition to attach undue im- portance to " the church " which a man belongs to. To be a member of " the true church " has been insisted on as essential to human salvation. Multi- tudes have sought comfort, and not sel- dom found their ruin, in the notion that they were embraced in the motherly arms of " the true church ; " for with this they have been satisfied. Pro- fessed Christians have fought about " the church" as if it were a matter of life and death. The Roman Catholic shuts the gate of heaven on you be- cause you will not enter his " church." Among the Protestants are those who tell you that tlie promises of Christian- ity do not belong to you, be your char- acter what- it may, unless you receive the Christian ordinances from the min- isters of their " church." Salvation is made to flow through a certain priest- hood, through an hereditary order, through particular rites administered by consecrated functionaries. Even among denominations in which such exclusive claims are not set up, you will still meet the idea that a man is safer in their par- ticular " church " than elsewhere ; so that something distinct from Christian purity of heart and life is made the way of salvation. This error I wish to expose. I wish to show that Christ's spirit, Christ's virtue, or "the doing of the Sermon on the Mount," is the great end of our re- ligion, the only essential thing, and that all other things are important only as ministering to this. I know, indeed, that very many acknowledge the doc- trine now expressed. But too often their conviction is not deep and living, and it is impaired by superstitious no- tions of some mysterious saving influ- ence in " the church," or in some other foreign agency. To meet these erro- neous tendencies, I shall not undertake to prove in a formal way, by logical pro- cess, the supreme importance, blessed- ness, and glory of righteousness, of sanctity, of love towards God and man, or to prove that nothing else is indis- pensable. This truth shines by its own light. It runs through the whole New Testament, and is a gospel written in the ^oul by a divine hand. To vindicate it against the claims set up for " the church," nothing is needed but to offer a few plain remarks in the order in which they rise up of themselves to my mind. I begin with the remark that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said noth- ing about the " church ; " nor do we find him, or his disciples, laying down anywhere a definite plan for its organi- zation, or a ritual for its worship. Nor ought this to surprise us. It was the very thing to be expected in such a re- ligion as Christianity. Judaism was in- tended to educate a particular nation, half-civilized and surrounded with the grossest idolatry, and accordingly it hedged them in by multiplied and rigid forms. But Christianity proposes, as its grand aim, to spread the inward, spirit- ual worship of God through all nations, in all stages of society, under all varie- ties of climate, government, and condi- tion ; and such a rehgion cannot be expected to confine itself to any par- ticular outward shape. Especially when we consider that it is destined to endure through all ages, to act on all, to blend itself with new forms of society, and 430 THE CHURCH. with the highest improvements of the race, it cannot be expected to ordain an immutable mode of administration, but must leave its modes of worship and communion to conform themselves si- lently and gradually to the wants and progress of humanity. The rites and arrangements which suit one period lose their significance or efficiency in another. The forms which minister to the mind now may fetter it hereafter, and must give place to its free unfolding. A sys- tem wanting this freedom and flexible- ness would carry strong proof in itself of not having been intended for univer- sality. It is one proof of Christ's hav- ing come to "inherit all nations," that he did not institute for all nations and all times a precise machinery of forms and outward rules, that he entered into no minute legislation as to the worship and government of his church, but left these outward concerns to be swayed by the spirit and progress of successive ages. Of consequence, no particular order of the church can be essential to salvation. No church can pretend that its consti- tution is defined and ordained in the Scriptures so plainly and undeniably that whoever forsakes it gives palpable proof of a spirit of disobedience to God. All churches are embraced by their members with equal religious reverence, and this assures us that in all God's favor may be equally obtained. It is worthy of remark that, from the necessity of the case, the church as- sumed at first a form which it could not long retain. It was governed by the Apostles who had founded it, men who bad known Christ personally, and re- ceived his truth from his lips, and witnessed his resurrection, and were enriched above all men by the miracu- lous illuminations and aids of his Spirit. These presided over the church with an authority peculiar to themselves, and to which none after them could with any reason pretend. They understood " the mind of Christ" as none could do but those who had enjoyed so long and close an intimacy with him ; and not only were they sent forth with miracu- lous powers, but, by imposition of their hands, similar gifts of the Spirit were conferred on others. This presence of inspired apostles and supernatural pow- ers gave to the primitive church obvious <^nd important distinctions, separating it widely from the form which it was afterwards to assume. Of this we have a remarkable proof in a passage of Paul, in which he sets before us the offices or functions exercised in the original church. " God hath set in the church apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of heahngs, helps, govern- ments, diversities of tongues." * Now, of all these endowments or offices, one only, that of teacher, remains in our day. The Apostles, the founders and heroes of the primitive church, with their pe- culiar powers, have vanished, leaving as their representatives their writings, to be studied alike by all. Teachers remain, not because they existed in the first age, but because their office, from its nature, and from the condition of human nature, is needed still. The office, however, has undergone an im- portant change. At first the Christian teacher enjoyed immediate communica- tion with the Apostles, and received miraculous aids, and thus enjoyed means of knowledge possessed by none of his successors. The Christian minister now can only approach the Apostles as other men do, that is, through the Gospels and Epistles which they have left us ; and he has no other aid from above in interpreting them than every true Chris- tian enjoys. The promise of the Holy Spirit, that greatest of promises, is made without distinction to every man, of every office or rank, who persever- ingly implores the Divine help ; and this establishes an essential equality among all. Whether teachers are to continue in the brighter ages which prophecy announces is rendered doubt- ful by a very striking prediction of the times of the Messiah. "After those days," saith the Lord, "I will put mjr law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they ^all be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saymg, ' Know the Lord ; ' for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them." \ Is it pos- sible that any man, with a clear com- prehension of the peculiarity of the primitive church, can look back to this as an immutable form and rule, can re- gard any church form as essential to * I Cor. xit, 2S. t leremiah xxxi. 33, 34. THE CHURCH. 431 salvation, can ascribe to outward or- dinances, so necessarily fluctuating, an importance to be compared witli that which belongs to the immutable, ever- lasting distinctions of holiness and virtue ? The church as at first constituted pre- sents interesting and beautiful aspects. It was not a forced and arbitrary, but free, spontaneous union. It grew out of the principles and feelings of human nature. Our nature is social. We can- not live alone. We cannot shut up any great feeling in our hearts. We seek for others to partake it with us. The full soul finds at once relief and strength in sympathy. This is especially true in religion, the most social of all our sen- timents, the only universal bond on earth. In this law of our nature the Christian church had its origin. Christ did not establish it in a formal way. If you consult the New Testament, you do not find Jesus or his Apostles setting about the task of forming an artificial organization of the first disciples. Read in the book of Acts the simple, touch- ing narratives of the union of the first converts. They "were of one heart and of one soul." They could not be kept asunder. The new truth melted them into one mass, knit them into one body. In their mutual love they could not withhold from one another their possessions, but had all things in com- mon. Blessed unity ! a type of that oneness and harmony which a purer Christianity is to spread through all nations. Among those early converts the most gifted and enhghtened were chosen to be teachers in public assem- blies. To these assemblies the brother- hood repaired with eagerness, to hear expositions of the new faith, to strength- en one another's loyalty to Christ, and to be open witnesses of him in the world. In their meetings they were left very much to follow the usages of the synagogue, in which they had been brought up; so little did Christianity trouble itself about forms. How sim- ple, how natural this association ! It is no mystery. It grew out of the plain- est wants of the human heart. The religious sentiment, the spirit of love towards God and man, awakened afresh by Christ, craved for a new union through which to find utterance and strength. And shall this church union, the growth of the Christian spirit, and so plainly subordinate to it, usurp its place, or in any way detract from its sole sufiiciency, from its supreme, un- rivalled glory .' The church, according to its true idea and purpose, is an association of sin- cere, genuine followers of Christ ; and at first this idea was in a good degree realized. The primitive disciples were drawn to Christ by conviction. They met together and confessed him, not from usage, fashion, or education, but in opposition to all these. In that age, profession and practice, the form and the spirit, the reality and the outward signs of reUgion, went together. But with the 'growth of the church its life declined ; its exeat idea was obscured ; the name remamed, and sometimes little more than the name. It is a remarka- ble fact, that the very spirit to which Christianity is most hostile, the passion for power, dominion, pomp, and pre- eminence, struck its deepest roots in the church. The church became tlie very stronghold of the lusts and vices which Christianity most abhors. Ac- cordingly its history is one of the most melancholy records of past times. It is sad enough to read the blood-stained annals of worldly empires ; but when we see the spiritual kingdom of Clirist a prey for ages to usurping popes, prel- ates, or sectarian chiefs, inflamed with bigotry and theological hate and the lust of rule, and driven by these fires of hell to grasp the temporal sword, to persecute, torture, imprison, butcher their brethren, to mix with and embitter national wars, and to convulse the whole Christian world, we experience a deeper gloom, and are more tempted to despair of our race. History has not a darker pa^e than that which records the perse- cutions of the Albigenses, or the horrors of the Inquisition. And when we come to later times, the church wears any thing rather than " Holiness" inscribed on her front. How melancholy to a Christian the history lately given us by Ranke of the reaction of Catholicism against Protestantism ! Throughout we see the ecclesiastical powers resorting to force as the grand instrument of con- version ; thus proving their alliance, not with heaven, but with earth and hen. If we take broad views of the church in any age or land, how seldom 432 THE CHURCH. do we see the prevalence of true sanc- tity ! How many of its ministers preach for lucre or display, preach what they do not believe, or deny their doctrines in their lives ! How many congrega- tions are there, made up in a great de- gree of worldly men and women, who repair to the house of God from usage, or for propriety's sake, or from a vague notion of being saved ; not from thirst for the Divine Spirit, not from a fulness of heart which longs to pour itself forth in prayer and praise ! Such is the church. We are apt, indeed, to make it an abstraction, or to separate it in our thoughts from the individuals who compose it ; and thus it becomes to us a holy thing, and we ascribe to it strange powers. Theologians speak of it as a unity, a mighty whole, one and the same in all ages ; and in this way the imagination is cheated into the idea of its marvellous sanctity and grandeur. But we must separate between the theory or the purpose of the church and its actual state. When we come down to facts, we see it to be, not a mysterious, immutable unity, but a col- lection of fluctuating, divided, warring individuals, who bring into it too often hearts and hands any thing but pure. Painful as it is, we must see things as they are ; and so doing, we cannot but be struck with the infinite absurdity of ascribing to such a church mysterious powers, of supposing that it can confer holiness on its members, or that the circumstance of being joined to it is of the least moment in comparison with purity of heart and life. Purity of heart and hfe, Christ's spirit of love towards God and man ; this is all in all. This is the only essential thing. The church is important only as it min- isters to this ; and every church which so ministers is a good one, no matter how, when, or where it grew up, no matter whether it worship on its knees or on its feet, or whether its ministers are ordained by pope, bishop, presbyter, or people ; these are secondary things, and of no comparative moment. The thurch which opens on heaven is that, and that only, in which the spirit of heaven dwells. The church whose wor- ship rises to God's ear is that, and that only, where the soul ascends. No mat- ter whether it be gathered in cathedral or barn ; whether it sit in silence, or send up a hymn ; whether the minister speak from carefully prepared notes, or from immediate, fervent, irrepressible suggestion. If God be loved, and Jesus Christ Tie welcomed to the soul, and his instructions be meekly and wisely heard, and the solemn purpose grow up to do all duty amidst all conflict, sacrifice, and temptation, then the true end of the church is answered. " This is no other than the house of God, the gate of heaven." In these remarks I do not mean thai* all churches are of equal worth. Some undoubtedly correspond more than others to the spirit and purpose of Christianity, to the simple usages of the primitive disciples, and to the principles of human nature. AU have their superstitions and corruptions, but some are more pure than the rest ; and we are bound to seek that which is purest, which corresponds most to the Divine will. As far as we have power to select, we should go to the church where we shall be most helped to become devout, disinterested, and mor- ally strong. Our salvation, however, does not depend on our finding the best church on earth, for this may be distant or un- known. Amidst diversities of administra- tions there is the same spirit. In all religious societies professing Christ as their Lord, the plainest, grandest truths of religion wiU almost certainly be taught, and some souls may be found touched and enlightened from above. This is a plain, undeniable fact. In all sects, various as they are, good and holy men may be found; nor can we tell in which the holiest have grown up. The church, then, answers its end in all ; for its only end is, to minister to human virtue. It is delight- ful to read in the records of all denom- inations the lives of eminent Christians who have given up every thing for tlieir religion, who have been faithful unto death, who have shed around them the sweet light and fragrance of Christian hope and love. We. cannot, then, well choose amiss, if we choose the church which, as it seems to us, best represents the grand ideas of Christ, and speaks most powerfully to our consciences and hearts. This church, however, we must not choose for our brother. He differs from us, probably, in temperament, in his range of intellect, or in the impres- sions which education and habit have given him. Perhaps the worship which THE CHURCH. 433 most quickens you and me may hardly keep our neighbor awake. He must be approached through the heart and imag- ination ; we through the reason. What to him is fervor passes with us for noise. What to him is an imposing form is to us vain show. Condemn him not. If, in his warmer atmosphere, he builds up a stronger faith in God and a more stead- fast choice of perfect goodness than ourselves, his church is better to him than ours to us. One great error in regard to churches contributes to the false estimate of them as essential to salvation. We imagine that the church, the minister, the wor- ship can do something for us mechan- ically ; that there are certain mysterious influences in what we call a holy place which may act on us without our own agency. It is not so. The church and the minister can do little for us in com- parison with what we must do for our- selves, and nothing for us without ourselves. They become to us bless- ings through our own activity. Every man must be his own priest. It is his own action, not the minister's, it is the prayer issuing from his own heart, not from another's lips, which aids him in the church. The church does him good only as by its rites, prayers, hymns, and sermons it wakes up his spirit to think, feel, pray, praise, and resolve. The church is a help, not a force. It acts on us by rational and moral means, and not by mystical operations. Its influence resembles precisely that which is ex- erted out of church. Its efficiency de- pends chiefly on the 'clearness, sim- plicity, sincerity, love, and zeal with which the minister speaks to our under- standings, consciences, and hearts ; just as in common life we are benefited by the clearness and energy with which our friends set before us what is good and pure. The church is adapted to our free, moral nature. It acts on us as rational and responsible beings, and serves us through our own efficiency. From these views we learn that the glory of the church does not lie in any particular government or form, but in the wisdom with which it combines such influences as are fitted to awaken and purify the soul. Am I asked to state more particularly what these influences are to which the church owes its efficacy ? I reply, that they are such as may be found in all churches, in all denominations. The first is the character of the minister. This has an obvious, immediate, and powerful bearing on the great spiritual purpose of the church. I say his char- acter, not his ordination. Ordination has no end but to introduce into the sacred office men qualified for its duties, and to give an impression of its impor- tance. It is by his personal endow- ments, by his intellectual, moral, and religious worth, by his faithfulness and zeal, and not through any mysterious ceremony or power, that the minister enlightens and edifies the church. What matters it how he is ordained or set apart, if he give himself to his work in the fear of God ? What mat- ters it who has laid hands on him, or whether he stand up in surplice or drab coat ? I go to church to be benefited, not by hands or coats, but by the action of an enlightened and holy teacher on my mind and heart ; not an overpow- ering, irresistible action, but such as becomes effectual through my own free thought and will. I go to be convinced of what is true, and to be warmed with love of what is good ; and he who thus helps me is a true minister, no matter from what school, consistory, or ecclesi- astical body he comes. He carries his commission in his soul. Do not say that his ministry has no "validity," be- cause Rome, or Geneva, or Lambeth, or Andover, or Princeton has not laid hands on him. What ! Has he not opened my eyes to see, and roused my conscience to reprove ? As I have heard him, has not my heart burned within me, and have I not silently given myself to God with new humility and love ? Have I not been pierced by his warnings, and' softened by his looks and tones of love ? Has he not taught and helped me to deny myself, to con- quer the world, to do good to a foe ? Has he done this ; and yet has his ministry no " validity " ? What other validity can there be than this ? If a generous friend gives me water to drink when I am parched with thirst, and I drink and am refreshed, will it do to tell me that because he did not buy the cup at a certain licensed shop, or draw the water at a certain antiquated cistern, therefore his act of kindness is " in- valid," and I am as thirsty and weak as 28 434 THE CHURCH. I was before ? What more can a min- ister with mitre or tiara do than help me, by wise and touching manifestations of God's truth to become a holier, no- bler man? If my soul be made alive, no matter who ministers to me ; and if not, the ordinances of the church, whether high or low, orthodox or he- retical, are of no validity so far as I am concerned. The diseased man who is restored to health cares little whether his physician wear wig or cowl, or re- ceive his diploma from Paris or Lon- don ; and so to the regenerate man it is of little moment where or by what processes he became a temple of the Holy Spirit. According to these views, a minister deriving power from his intellectual, moral, and religious worth is one of the chief elements of a true and quickening church. Such a man will gather a true church round him ; and we here learn that a Christian community is bound to do what may aid, and to abstain from what may impair, the virtue, nobleness, spiritual energy of its minister. It should especially leave him free, should wish him to wear no restraints but those of a sense of duty. His office is, to utter God's truth according to his ap- prehension of it, and he should be en- couraged to utter it honestly, simply. He must follow his own conscience, and no other. How can he rebuke prevalent error without an unawed spirit ? Better that he should hold his peace than not speak from his own soul. Better that the pulpit be pros- trated than its freedom be taken away. The doctrine of " instructions " in pol- itics is of very doubtful expediency ; but that instructions should issue from the congregation to the minister we all with one voice pronounce wrong. The religious teacher compelled to stifle his convictions grows useless to his people, is shorn of his strength, loses self- respect, shrinks before his own con- science, and owes it to himself to refrain from teaching. If he be honest, upright, and pure, worthy of trust, worthy of being a minister, he has a right to free- dom ; and when he uses it conscien- tiously, though he may err in judgment, and may give pain to judicious hearers, he has still a right to respect. There are, indeed, few religious societies which would knowingly make the minister a slave. Many err on the side of sub- mission, and receive his doctrines with blind, unquestioning laith. Still, the members of a congregation, conscious of holding the support of their teacher in their hands, are apt to expect a cau- tious tenderness towards their known prejudices or judgments, which, though not regarded as servihty, is very hostile to that firm, bold utterance of truth on which the success of his ministry chiefly depends. I have mentioned the first condition of the most useful church ; it is the high character of its minister. The second is to be found in the spiritual character of its members. This, like the former, is, from the very principles of human nature, fitted to purify and save. It was the intention of Christ that a quickening power should be ex- erted in a church, not by the minister alone, but also by the members on one another. Accordingly we read of the "working of every part, every joint," in his spiritual body. We come to- gether in our places of worship that heart may act on heart ; that in the midst of the devout a more fervent flame of piety may be kindled in our own breasts ; that we may hear God's word more eagerly by knowing that it is drunk in by thirsty spirits around us ; that our own purpose of obedience may be confirmed by the consciousness that a holy energy of will is unfolding itself in our neighbors. To this symimthy the church is dedicated ; and in this its highest influence is sometimes found. To myself, the most effectual church is that in which I see the signs of Chris- tian affection in those around me, in which warm hearts are beating on every side, in which a deep stillness speaks of the absorbed soul, in which I recog- nize fellow-beings who in common life have impressed ms with their piety. One look from a beaming countenance, one tone in singing from a deeply moved heart, perhaps aids me more than the sermon. When nothing is said, I feel it good to be among the devout ; and I wonder not that the Quakers in some of their still meetings profess to hold the most intimate union, not only with God, but with each other. It is not with the voice only that man communicates with man. Nothing is so eloquent as the deep silence of a crowd. A sigh, a low THE CHURCH. -435 breathing, sometimes pours into us our neighbor's soul more than a volume of words. There is a communication more subtile than freemasonry between those who feel alike. How contagious is holy feeling ! On the other hand, how freez- ing, how palsying, is the gathering of a multitude who feel nothing, who come to God's house without reverence, with- out love, who gaze around on each other as if they were assembled at a show, whose restlessness keeps up a slightly disturbing sound, whose countenances reveal no collectedness, no earnestness, but a frivolous or absent mind ! The very sanctity of the place makes this indifference more chilling. One of the coldest spots on earth is a church with- out devotion. What is it to me, that a costly temple is set apart, by ever so many rites, for God's service, that priests who trace their lineage to apostles have consecrated it, if 1 find it thronged by the worldly and undevout .'' This is no church to me. I go to meet, not human bodies, but souls ; and if I find them in an upper room like that where the first disciples met, or in a shed, or in a street, there I find a church. There is the true altar, the sweet incense, the accepted priest. These all I find in sanctified souls. True Christians give a sanctifying power, a glory, to the place of worship where they come together. In them Christ is present and manifested in a far higher sense than if he were revealed to the bodily eye. We are apt, indeed, to think differently. Were there a place of worship in which a glory like that which clothed Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration were to shine forth, how should we throng to it as the chosen spot on earth ! how should we honor this as eminently his church 1 But there is a more glorious presence of Christ than this. It is Christ formed in the souls of his disciples. Christ's bodily presence does not make a church. He was thus pres*nt in the thronged streets of Jerusalem, present in the syn- agogues and temples ; but these were not churches. It is the presence of his spirit, truth, likeness, divine love in the souls of men, which attracts and unites them into one living body. Suppose that we meet together in a place conse- crated by all manner of forms, but that nothing of Christ's spirit dwells in us. With all its forms, it is a synagogue of Satan, not a church of Jesus. Christ in the hearts of men. I repeat it, is the only church bond. The Catholics, to give them a feeling of the present Sav- iour, adorn their temples with paintings representing him in the most affecting scenes of his life and death ; and had worship never been directed to these, I should not object to them. But there is a far higher likeness to Christ than the artist ever drew or chiselled. It exists in the heart of his true disciple. The true disciple surpasses Raphael and Michael Angelo. The latter have given us Christ's countenance from fancy, and, at best, having little likeness to the mild beauty and majestic form which moved through Judea. But the disciple who sincerely conforms himself to the disinterestedness, and purity, and filial worship, and all-sacrificing love of Christ gives us no fancied representation, but the true, divine lineaments of his soul, the very spirit which beamed in his face, which spoke in his voice, which attested his glory as the Son of God. The truest church is that which has in the highest degree this spiritual presence of our Lord, this revelation of Jesus in his fol- lowers. This is the church in which we shall find the greatest aid to our virtue which outward institution can afford us. I have thus spoken of the two chief elements of a living and effectual church, — a pure, noble-minded minister, and faithful followers of Christ. In the pre- ceding remarks I have had chiefly in view particular churches, organized ac- cording to some particular forms ; and I have maintained that these are impor- tant only as ministering to Christian holiness or virtue. There is, however, a grander church, to which I now ask your attention ; and the consideration of this will peculiarly confirm the lesson on which I am insisting, namely, that there is but one essential thing, true holiness, or disinterested love to God and man. There is a grander church than all particular ones, however exten- sive, — the church catholic or universal, spread over all lands, and one with the church in heaven. That all Christ's followers form one body, one fold, is taught in various passages in the New Testament. You remember the ear- nestness of his last prayer, "that they might all be one, as he and his Father 436 THE CHURCH. are one." Into this cnurch all who par- take the spirit of Christ are admitted. It asks not who has baptized us ; whose passport we carry ; what badge we wear. If "baptized by the Holy Ghost," its wide gates are opened to us. Within this church are joined those whom dif- ferent names have severed or still sever. We hear nothing of Greek, Roman, English churches, but of Christ's church only. My friends, this is not an im- aginary union. The Scriptures, in speak- ing of it, do not talk rhetorically, but utter the soberest truth. All sincere partakers of Christian virtue are essen- tially one. In the spirit which pervades them dwells a uniting power found in no other tie. Though separated by oceans, they have sympathies strong and indis- soluble. Accordingly, the clear, strong utterance of one gifted, inspired Chris- tian flies through the earth. It touches kindred chords in another hemisphere. The word of such a man as Fdn^lon, for instance, finds its way into the souls of scattered millions. Are not he and they of one church ? I thrill with joy ■it the name of holy men who lived ages ago. Ages do not divide us. I venerate them more for their antiquity. Are we not one body ? Is not this union some- thing real ? It is not men's coming together into one building which makes a church. Suppose that in a place of worship I sit so near a fellow-creature as to touch him, but that there is no common feeling between us, that the truth which moves me he inwardly smiles at as a dream of fancy, that the disinterestedness which I honor he calls weakness or wild enthusiasm. How far apart are we, though visibly so near ! We belong to different worlds. How much nearer am I to some pure, gener- ous spirit in another continent whose word has penetrated my heart, whose virtues have kindled me to emulation, whose pure thoughts are passing through my mind whilst I sit in the house of prayer ! With which of these two have I church union ? Do not tell me that 1 surrender myself to a fiction of imagination, when I say that distant Christians, that all Christians and myself, form one body, one church, just as far as a common love and piety possess our hearts. Nothing is more real than this spiritual union. There is one grand, all-comprehending church ; and if I am a Christian I belong to it, and no man can shut me out of it. You may exclude me from your Roman church, your Episcopal church, and your Calvinistic church, on account of sup- posed defects in my creed or my sect, and I am content to be excluded. But I will not be severed from the great body of Christ. Who shall sunder me from such men as F^n^lon, and Pascal, and Borromeo, from Archbishop Leigh- ton, Jeremy Taylor, and John Howard ? Who can rupture the spiritual bond between these men and myself ? Do I not hold them dear ? Does not their spirit, flowing out through their writings and lives, penetrate my soul ? Are they not a portion of my being ? Am I not a different man from what I should have been, had not these and other like spirits acted on mine ? And is it in the power of synod, or conclave, or of all the eccle- siastical combinations on earth, to part me from them ? I am bound to them by thought and affection ; and can these be suppressed by the bull of a pope or the excommunication of a council .? The soul breaks scornfully these barriers, these webs of spiders, and joins itself to the great and good ; and if it possess their spirit, will the great and good, living or dead, cast it off because it has not enrolled itself in this or another sect ? A pure mind is free of the uni- verse. It belongs to the church, the family of the pure, in all worlds. Virtue is no local thing. It is not honorable because born in this community or that, but for its own independent, everlasting beauty. This is the bond of the uni- versal church. No man can be excom- municated from it but by himself, by the death of goodness in his own breast. All sentences of exclusion are vain, if he do not dissolve the tie of purity which binds him to all holy souls. I honor the Roman Catholic church on one account : it cHngs to the idea of a universal church, though it has muti- lated and degraded it. The word cath- olic means universal. Would to God that the church which has usurped the name had understood the reality ! Still, Romanism has done something to give to its members the idea of their connec- tion with that vast spiritual conimunity, or church, which has existed in all times and spread over all lands. It guards the memory of great and holy men who THE CHURCH. 437 m all ages have tailed and suffered for religion, asserts the honors of the heroes of the faith, enshrines them in heaven as beatified saints, converts their legends into popular literature, appoints days for the celebration of their virtues, and re- veals them almost as living to the eye by the pictures in which genius has im- mortalized their deeds. In doing this Rome has fallen, indeed, into error. She has fabricated exploits for these spiritual persons, and exalted them into objects of worship. But she has also done good. She has given to her members the feel- ing of intimate relation to the holiest and noblest men in all preceding ages. An interesting and often a sanctifying tie connects the present Roman Cathohc with martyrs, and confessors, and a host of men whose eminent piety and genius and learning have won for them an im- mortality of fame. It is no mean ser- vice thus to enlarge men's ideas and affections, to awaken their veneration for departed greatness, to teach them their connection with the grandest spirits of all times. It was this feature of Ca- tholicism which most interested me in visiting Catholic countries. The ser- vices at the altar did not move, but rather pained me. But when I cast my eyes on the pictures on the walls, which placed before me the holy men of de- parted ages, now absorbed in devotion and lost in rapture, now enduring with meek courage and celestial hope the agonies of a painful death in defence of the truth, I was touched, and I hope made better. The voice of the officiat- ing priest I did not hear ; but these sainted dead spoke to my heart, and I was sometimes led to feel as if an hour oh Sunday spent in this communion were as useful to me as if it had been spent in a Protestant church. These saints never rose to my thoughts as Roman Catholics. I never connected them with any particular church. They were to me living, venerable witnesses to Christ, to the power of religion, to the grandeur of the human soul. I saw what men might suffer for the truth, how they could rise above themselves, how real might become the ideas of God and a higher life. This inward reverence for the departed good helped me to feel myself a member of the church universal. I wanted no pope or priest to establish my unity with them. My own heart was witness enough to a spiritual fellowship. Is it not to be de- sired that all our churches should have services to teach us our union with Christ's whole body ? Would not this break our sectarian chains, and awaken reverence for Christ's spirit, for true goodness, under every name and form ? It is not enough to feel that we are members of this or that narrow com- munion. Christianity is universal sym- pathy and love. I do not recommend that our churches should be lined with pictures of saints. This usage must come in, if it come at all, not by recom- mendation, but by gradual change of tastes and feelings. But why may not the pulpit be used occasionally to give us the lives and virtues of eminent dis- ciples in former ages .' It is customary to deliver sermons on the history of Peter, John, Paul, and of Abraham, and Elijah, and other worthies of the Old Testa- ment ; and this we do because their names are written in the Bible. But goodness owes nothing to the circum- stance of its being recorded in a sacred book, nor loses its claim to grateful, rev- erent commemoration because not bla- zoned there. Moral gi-eatness did not die out with the Apostles. Their lives were reported for this, among other ends, that their virtues might be prop- agated to future times, and that men might spring up as worthy a place among the canonized as themselves. What I wish is, that we should learn to regard ourselves as members of a vast spiritual community, as joint-heirs and fellow- worshippers with the goodly company of Christian heroes who have gone be- fore us, instead of immuring ourselves in particular churches. Our nature de- lights in this consciousness of vast con- nection. This tendency manifests itself in the patriotic sentiment, and in the passionate clinging of men to a great religious denomination. Its true and noblest gratification is found in the deep feeling of a vital, everlasting connection with the universal church, with the in- numerable multitude of the holy on earth and in heaven. This church we shall never make a substitute for virtue. I have spoken of the Roman Catholic church. My great objection to this comrnunion is, that it has fallen pecul- iarly into the error which I am laboring to expose in this discourse, that it has 438 THE CHURCH. attached idolatrous importance to the institution of the church, that it virt- ually exalts this above Christ's spirit, above inward sanctity. Its other errors are of inferior importance. It does not offend me that the Romanist maintains that a piece of bread, a wafer, over which a priest has pronounced some magical words, is the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. I learn, indeed, in this error, an humbling lesson of human credulity, of the weakness of human reason ; but I see nothing in it which strikes at the essential principles of re- ligion. When, however, the Roman CathoHc goes farther, and tells me that God looks with abhorrence on all who will not see in the consecrated wafer Christ's flesh and blood ; and when he makes the reception of this from the hands of a consecrated priest the door into Christ's fold, then I am shocked by the dishonor he casts on God and virtue, by his debasing conceptions of our moral nature and of the Divine, and by his cruel disruption of the ties of human and Christian brotherhood. How sad and strange that a man educated under Christianity should place religion in a church connection, in church rites, should shut from God's family the wisest and the best because they con- scientiously .abstain from certain out- ward ordinances ! Is not holiness of heart and life dear to God for its own sake, dear to him without the manipula- tions of a priest, without the agency of a consecrated wafer ? The grand error of Roman Catholicism is its narrow church spirit, its Wind sectarianism, its exclusion of virtuous, pious men from God's favor because they cannot eat, drink, or pray according to certain pre- scribed rites. Romanism has to learn that nothing but the inward life is great and good in the sight of the Omniscient, and that all who cherish this are mem- bers of Christ's body. Romanism is any thing but what it boasts to be, the universal church. I am too much a CathoHc to enlist under its banner. I belong to the universal church ; nothing shall separate me from it. In saying this, however, I am no enemy to particular churches. In the present age of the world, it is perhaps best that those who agree in theological opinions should worship together ; and I do not object to the union of several such churches in one denomination, provided that all sectarian and narrow feeling be conscientiously and scrupulously re- sisted. I look on the various churches of Christendom with no feelings of en- mity. I have expressed my abhorrence of the sectarian spirit of Rome ; but in that, as in all other churches, individ- uals are better than their creed ; and, amidst gross error and the inculcation of a narrow spirit, noble virtues spring up, and eminent Christians are formed. It is one sign of the tendency of human nature to goodness, that it grows good under a thousand bad influences. The Romish church is illustrated by great names. Her gloomy convents have often been brightened by fervent love to God and man. Her St. Louis, and Fdn^lon, and Massillon, and Cheverus ; her missionaries, who have carried Christianity to the ends of the earth ; her sisters of charity, who have carried relief and solace to the most hopeless want and pain, — do not these teach us that in the Romish church the Spirit of God has found a home ? How much, too, have other churches to boast ! In the English church we meet the names of Latimer, Hooker, Barrow, Leighton, Berkeley and Heber ; in the Dissenting Calvinistic church, Baxter, Howe, Watts, Doddridge, and Robert Hall ; among the Quakers, George Fox, William Penn, Robert Barclay, and our own Anthony Benezet, and John Woolman ; in the Anti-trinitarian church, John Milton, John Locke, Samuel Clarke, Price, and Priestley. To repeat these names does the heart good. They breathe a fra- grance through the common air. They lift up the whole race to which they be- longed. With the churches of which they were pillars or chief ornaments I have many sympathies ; nor do I con- demn the union of ourselves to these or any other churches whose doctrines we approve, provided that we do it without severing ourselves in the least from the universal church. On this point we cannot be too earnest. We must shun the spirit of sectarianism as from heU. We must shudder at the thought of shutting up God in any denomination. We must think no man the better for belonging to our communion ; no man the worse for belonging to another. We must look with undiminished joy on goodness, though it shine forth from THE CHURCH. 439 the most adverse sect. Christ's spirit must be equally dear and honored, no 'matter where manifested. To confine God's love or his good Spirit to any party, sect, or name, is to sin against the fundamental law of the kingdom of God, to break that hving bond with Christ's universal church which is one of our chief helps to perfection. I have now given what seems to me the most important views in relation to the church ; and in doing this I have not quoted much from Scripture, be- cause quotations cannot be given fully on this or on any controverted point in the compass of a discourse. I have re- lied on what is vastly more important, — on the general strain and tone of Script- ure, on the spirit of the Christian relig- ion, on the sum and substance of Christ's teachings, which is plainly this, that in- ward holiness, or goodness, or disinter- ested love, is all in all. I also want time to consider at large the arguments or modes of reasoning by which this or that church sets itself forth as the only true church, and by which the necessity of entering it is thought to be proved. I cannot, however, abstain from offering a few remarks on these. The principal arguments on which exclusive churches rest their claims are drawn from Christian history and litera- ture ; in other words, from the records of the primitive ages of our faith, and from the writings of the early Fathers. These arguments, I think, may be dis- posed of by a single remark, that they ■cannot be comprehended or weighed by the mass of Christians. How very, very few in our congregations can enter into the critical study of ecclesiastical his- tory, or wade through the folios of the Greek and Latin Fathers ! Now, if it were necessary to join a particular church in order to receive the bless- ings of Christianity, is it to be conceived that the discovery of this church should require a learning plainly denied to the mass of human beings ? Would not this church shine out with the brightness of the sun ? Would it be hidden in the imperfect records of distant ages, or in the voluminous writings of a body of ancient authors more remarkable for rhetoric than for soundness of judg- ment ? The learned cannot agree about these authorities. How can the great multitudes of believers interpret them .? Would not the Scriptures guide us by simple, sure rules to the only true church, if to miss it were death ? To my own mind this argument has a force akin to demonstration, I pass to another method of defending the claims which one or another church sets up to exclusive acceptance with God. It is an unwarrantable straining of the figurative language of Scripture. Because the church is spoken of as one body, vine, or temple, theologians have argued that it is one outward organiza- tion, to which all men must be joined. But a doctrine built on metaphor is worth little. Every kind of absurdity may find a sanction in figures of speech, explained by tame, prosaic, cold-hearted commentators. The beautiful forms of speech to which I have referred were intended to express the peculiarly close and tender unions which necessarily subsist among all the enUghtened and sincere disciples of such a religion as Christ's, — a religion whose soul, es- sence, and breath of life is love, which reveals to us in Jesus the perfection of philanthropy, and which calls to us to drink spiritually of that blood of self- sacrifice which was shed for the whole human race. How infinitely exalted is the union of minds and hearts formed by such a religion above any outward connection established by rites and forms ! Yet the latter has been seized on by the earthly understanding as the chief meaning of Scripture, and magni- fied into supreme importance. Has not Paul taught us that there is but one per- fect bond, — love ? * Has not Christ taught us that the seal set on his disci- ples, by which all men are to know them* is love ? t Is not this the badge of the true church, the life of the true body of Christ ? And is not every disciple, of every name and form, who is inspired with this, embraced indissolubly in the Christian union ? It is sometimes urged by those who maintain the necessity of connection with what they call "the true church," that God has a right to dispense his bless- ings through what channels or on what terms He pleases ; that, if He sees fit to communicate his Holy Spirit through a certain priesthood or certain ordinances, we are bound to seek the gift in his ap- * Colossians, iii. 14. t John xiii. 35. 440 THE CHURCH. pointed way ; and that, having actually chosen this method of imparting it, He iftay justly withhold it from those who refuse to comply With his appointment. I reply, that the right of the Infinite Father to bestow his blessings in such ways as to his infinite wisdom and love may seem best, no man can be so irrev- erent as to deny. But is it not reason- able to expect that He will adopt such methods or conditions as will seem to accord with his perfection ? And ought we not to distrust such as seem to dis- honor him ? Suppose, for example, that I were told that the Infinite Father had decreed to give his Holy Spirit to such as should bathe freely in the sea. Ought I not to require the most plain, undeni- able proofs of a purpose apparently so ilnworthy of his majesty and goodness, before yielding obedience to it ? The presumption against it is exceedingly strong. That the Infinite Father, who is ever present to the human soul, to whom it is unspeakably dear, who has created it for communion with himself, who desires and delights to impart to it his grace, that He should ordain sea- bathing as a condition or means of spir- itual communication is so improbable thai I must insist on the strongest testi- mony to its truth. Now I meet pre- cisely this difficulty in the doctrine, that God bestows his Holy Spirit on those who receive bread and wine, or flesh and blood, or a form of benediction or baptism, or any other outward minis- tration, from the hands or lips of cer- tain privileged ministers or priests. It is the most glorious act and manifestation of God's power and love to impart en- lightening, quickening, purifying influ- ences to the immortal soul. To imagine that these descend in connection with certain words, signs, or outward rites, administered by a frail fellow-creature, and are withheld or abridged in the ab- sence of such rites, seems, at first, an insult to his wisdom and goodness ; seems to bring down his pure, infinite throne to set arbitrary limits to his highest agency, and to assimilate his worship to that of false gods. The Scriptures teach us that " God giveth grace to the humble ; " that " he giveth his Holy Spirit to them that ask him." This is the great law of divine commu- nications ; and we can see its wisdom, because the mind which hungers for di- vine assistances is most prepared to use them aright. And can we really believe that the prayers and aspirations of a penitent, thirsting soul need to be sec- onded by the outward offices of a min- ister or priest ? or that for want of these they find less easy entrance into the ear of the ever-present, all-loving Father ? My mind recoils from this doctrine as dishonorable to God, and I ought not to receive it without clear proofs. I want something more than metaphors, or an- alogies, or logical inferences. I want some express divine testimony. And where is it given ? Do we not know that thousands and millions of Chris- tians, whose lives and deaths have borne witness to their faith, have been unable to find it in the Scriptures or anywhere else ? And can we believe that the spiritual communication of such men with the Divinity has been forfeited or impaired, because they have abstained from rites which in their consciences they could not recognize as of divine appointment ? That so irrational and extravagant a doctrine should enter the mind of a man who has the capacity of reading the New Testament would seem an impossibility, did not history show us that it has been not only believed, but made the foundation of the bitterest intolerance and the bloodiest persecu- tions. The notion that, by a decree of God's sovereign will, his grace or Spirit flows through certain rites to those who are in union with a certain church, and that it is promised to none besides, has no foundation in Scripture or reason. The church, as I have previously suggested, is not an arbitrary appointment ; it does not rest on will, but is ordained on ac- count of its obvious fitness to accom- plish the spiritual improvement which is the end of Christianity. It corresponds to our nature. It is a union of means, and influences, and offices which rational and moral creatures need. It has no affinity with the magical operations so common in false religions ; its agency is intelligible and level to the common mind. Its two great rites, baptism and the Lord's supper, are not meant to act as charms. When freed from the errors and superstitions which have clung to them for ages, and when administered, as they should be, with tenderness and solemnity, they are powerful means of THE CHURCH. 441 bringing great truths to the mind and of touching the heart, and for these ends they are ordained. The adaptation of the church to the promotion of holiness among men is its grand excellence ; and where it accomplishes this end its work is done, and no greater can be conceived on eai'th or in heaveja. The moment we shut our eyes on this truth, and conceive of the church as serving us by forms and ordinances which are effectual only in the hands of privileged officials or priests, we plunge into the region of shadows and superstitions ; we have no ground to tread on, no light to guide us. This mysterious power, lodged in the hands of a few fellow-creatures, tends to give a servile sjjirit to the mass of Christians, to impair manliness and self- respect, to subdue the intellect to the reception of the absurdest dogmas, Religion loses its simple grandeur, and degenerates into mechanism and form. The conscience is quieted by something short of true repentance ; something besides purity of heart and life is made the qualification for heaven. The surest device for making the mind a coward and a slave is a wide-spread and closely cemented church, the powers of which are concentrated in the hands of a " sa- cred order," and which has succeeded in arrogating to its rites or ministers a sway over the future world, over the soul's everlasting weal or woe. The inevitably degrading influence of such a church is demonstrative proof against its divine original. There is no end to the volumes writ- ten in defence 6i this or that church which sets itself forth as the only true church, and claims exclusive acceptance with God. But the unlettered Christian has an answer to them all. He cannot and need not seek it in libraries. He finds it, almost without seeking, in plain passages of the New Testament, and in his own heart. He reads and he feels that religion is an inward life. This he knows, not by report, but by conscious- ness, by the prostration of his soul in penitence, by the surrender of his will to the divine, by overflowing gratitude, by calm trust, and by a new love to his fellow-creatures. Will it do to tell such a man that the promises of Christianity do not belong to him, that access to God is denied him, because he is not joined with this or that exclusive church ? Has not this access been granted to him already.' Has he not prayed in hisgriefs, and been consoled ? in his temptations, and been strengthened ? Has he not found God near in his solitudes and in the great congregation ? Does he thirst for any thing so fervently as for perfect assimilation to the divine purity ? And can he question God's readiness to help him, because he is unable to find in Scripture a command to bind himself to this or another self -magnifying church .'' How easily does the experience of the true Christian brush away the cobwebs of theologians ! He loves and reveres God, and in this spirit has a foretaste of heaven ; and can heaven be barred against him by ecclesiastical censures ? He lias felt the power of the cross and resurrection and promises of Jesus Christ ; and is there any " height or depth " of human exclusiveness and bigotry which can separate him from his Lord ? He can die for truth and humanity ; and is there any man so swelled by the conceit of his union with the true church as to stand apart and say, " I am holier than thou ", ? When, by means of the writings or conversa- tions of Christians of various denomi- nations, you look into their hearts, and discern the deep workings, and conflicts, and aspirations of piety, can you help seeing in them tokens of the presence and operations of God's Spirit more authentic and touching than in all the harmonies and beneficent influences of the outward universe .? Who can shut up this spirit in any place or any sect ? Who will not rejoice to witness it in its fruits of justice, goodness, purity, and piety, wherever they meet the eye ? Who will not hail it as the infallible sign of the accepted worshipper of God? One word more respecting the argu- ments adduced in support of one or another exclusive church. They are continually, and of necessity, losing their force. Arguments owe their in- fluence very much to the mental condi- tion of those to whom they are addressed. 'What is proof to one man is no proof to another. The evidence which is trium- phant in one age is sometimes thought below notice in the next. Men's rea- sonings on practical subjects are not cold, logical processes, standing sepa- rate in the mind, but are carried on in 442 THE CHURCH. intimate connection with tVieir prevalent feelings and modes of thought. Gener- ally speaking, that, and that only, is truth to a man which accords with the com- mon tone of his mind, with the mass of his impressions, with the result? of his experience, with his measure of in- tellectual development, and especially with those deep convictions and biases which constitute what we call character. Now, it is the tendency of increasing civilization, refinement, and expansion of mind, to produce a tone of thought and feeling unfriendly to the church spirit, to reliance on church forms as essential to salvation. As the world advances it leaves matters of form be- hind. In proportion as men get into the heart of things they are less anxious about exteriors. In proportion as re- ligion becomes a clear reality we grow tired of shows. In the progress of ages there spring up in greater numbers men of mature thought and spiritual freedom, who unite self-reverence with reverence of God, and who cannot, without a feel- ing approaching shame and conscious degradation, submit to a church which accumulates outward, rigid, mechanical observances towards the Infinite Fa- ther. A voice within them, which they cannot silence, protests against the per- petual .repetition of the same signs, motions, words, as unworthy of their own spiritual powers, and of him who deserves the highest homage of the reason and the heart. Their filial spirit protests against it. In common life, a refined, lofty mind expresses itself in simple, natural, unconstrained manners ; and the same tendency, though often obstructed, is manifested in rehgion. The progress of Christianity, which must go on, is but another name for the growing knowledge and experience of that spiritual worship of the Father which Christ proclaimed as the end of his mission ; and before this the old idol- atrous reliance on ecclesiastical forms and organizations cannot stand. There is thus a perpetually swelling current which exclusive churches have to stem, and which must sooner or later sweep away their proud pretensions. What avails it that this or another church summons to its aid fathers, traditions, venerated usages ? The spirit, the genius of Christianity is stronger than all tliese. The great ideas of the religion must prevail over narrow, perverse interpre- tations of it. On this ground I have no alarm at reports of the triumphs of the Catholic church. The spirit of Christianity is stronger than popes and councils. Its venerableness and divine beauty put to shame the dignities and pomps of a hierarchy ; and men must more and more recognize it as alone essential to salvation. From the whole discussion through which I have now led you, you will easily gather how I regard the church, and what importance I attach to it. In its true idea, or regarded as the union of those who partake in the spirit of Jesus Christ, I revere it as the noblest of all associations. Our common social unions are poor by its side. In the world we form ties of interest, pleasure, and ambition. We come together as creatures of time and sense for transient amusement or display. In the church we meet as God's children ; we recog- nize in ourselves something higher than this animal and worldly life. We come that holy feelings may spread from heart to heart. The church, in its true idea, is a retreat from the world. We meet in it, that, by union with the holy, we may get strength to withstand our common intercourse with the impure. We meet to adore God, to open our souls to his Spirit, and, by recognition of the common Father, to forget all dis- tinction among ourselves, to embrace all men as brothers. This spiritual union with the holy who are departed and who yet hve, is the beginning of that perfect fellowship which consti- tutes heaven It is to survive all ties. The bonds of husband and wife, parent and child, are severed at death ; the union of the virtuous friends of God and man is as eternal as virtue, and this union is the essence of the true church. To the church relation in this broad, spiritual view of it, I ascribe the highest dignity and importance. But as to union with a particular denomination or with a society of Christians for public worship •and instruction, this, however important, is not to be regarded as the highest means of grace. We ought, indeed, to seek help for ourselves, and to give help to others, by upholding religious institu- tions, by meeting together in the name of Christ. The influence of Christianity THE CHURCH. 443 is perpetuated and extended, in no small degree, by the public offices of piety, by the visible " communion of saints." But it is still true that the public means of religion are not its chief means. Private helps to piety are the most efficacious. The great work of religion is to be done, not in society, but in secret, in the re- tired soul, in the silent closet. Com- munion with God is eminently the means of religion, the nutriment and life of the soul, and we can commune with God in solitude as nowhere else. Here his presence may be most felt. It is by the breathing of the unrestrained soul, by the opening of the whole heart to " Him who seeth in secret ; " it is by reviewing our own spiritual history, by searching deeply into ourselves, by soli- tary thought, and solitary, solemn con- secration of ourselves to a new virtue ; it is by these acts, and not by public gatherings, that we chiefly make progress in the religious life. It is common to speak of the house of public worship as a holy place ; but it has no exclusive sanctity. The holiest spot on earth is that where the soul breathes its purest vows, and forms or executes its noblest purposes ; and on this ground, were I to seek the holiest spot in your city, I should not go to your splendid sanctu- aries, but to closets of private prayer. Perhaps the " Holy of Holies " among you is some dark, narrow room from which most of us would shrink as unfit for human habitation ; but God dwells there. He hears there music more grateful than the swell of all your or- gans, sees there a beauty such as nature, in these her robes of spring, does not unfold ; for there He meets, and sees, and hears the humblest, most thankful, most trustful worshipper ; sees the sorest trials serenely borne, the deepest injuries forgiven ; sees toils and sacrifices cheer- fully sustained, and death approached through poverty and lonely illness with a triumphant faith. The consecration which such virtues shed over the ob- scurest spot is not and cannot be com- municated by any of those outward rites by which our splendid structures are dedicated to God. You see the rank which belongs to the church, whether gathered in one place or spread over the whole earth. It is a sacred and blessed union, but must not be magnified above other means and helps of religion. The great aids of piety are secret, not pub- lic. The Christian cannot live without private prayer ; he may live and make progress without a particular church. Providence may place us far from the resorts of our fellow-disciples, beyond the sound of the Sabbath-bell, beyond all ordinances ; and we may find Sab- baths and ordinances in our own spirits. Illness may separate us from the out- ward church as well as from the living world, and the soul may yet be in health and prosper. There have been men of eminent piety who, from conscience, have separated themselves from all de- nominations of Christians and all out- ward worship. Milton, that great soul, in the latter years of his life, forsook all temples made with hands, and wor- shipped wholly in the inward sanctuary. So did William Law, the author of that remarkable book, " The Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life." His excess of devotion (for in him devotion ran into excess) led him to disparage all occasional acts of piety. He lived in solitude, that he might make life a per- petual prayer. These men are not named as models in this particular. They mis- took the wants of the soul, and misin- terpreted the Scriptures. Even they, with all their spirituality, would have found moral strength and holy impulse in religious association. But, with such examples before us, we learn not to ex- clude men from God's favor because severed from the outward church. The doctrine of this discourse is plain. Inward sanctity, pure love, disinterested attachment to God and man, obedience of heart and life, sincere excellence of character, this is the one thing needful, this the essential thing in religion ; and all things else, ministers, churches, or- dinances, places of worship, all are but means, helps, secondary influences, and utterly worthless when separated from this. To imagine that God regards any thing but this, that He looks at any thing but the heart, is to dishonor him, to ex- press a mournful insensibility to his pure character. Goodness, purity, virtue, this is the only distinction in God's sight. This is intrinsically; essentially, ever- lastingly, and by its own nature lovely beautiful, glorious, divine. It owes noth- ing to time, to circumstance, to outward connections. It shines by its own light. 444 THE CHURCH. It is the sun of the spiritual universe. It is God himself dwelling in the human soul. Can any man think lightly of it because it has not grown up in a certain church, or exalt any church above it ? My friends, one of the grandest truths of religion is the supreme importance of character, of virtue, of that divine spirit which shone out in Christ. The grand heresy is to substitute any thing for this, whether creed, or forrti, or church. One of the greatest wrongs to Christ is to despise his character, his virtue, in a disciple who happens to wear a different name from our own. When I represent to myself true virtue or goodness, — not that which is made up of outward proprieties and prudent calculations, but that which chooses duty for its own sake and as the first concern ; which respects impartially the rights of every human being ; which labors and suffers with patient resolution for truth and others' welfare ; which blends energy and sweetness, deep humility and self- reverence ; which places joyful faith in the perfection of God, communes with him intimately, and strives to subject to his pure will all thought, imagination, and desire ; which lays hold on the promise of everlasting Hfe, and in the strength of this hope endures calmly and firmly the sorest evils of the present state, — when I set before me this virtue, all the distinctions on which men value themselves fade away. Wealth is poor ; worldly honor is mean ; outward forms are beggarly elements. Condition, coun- try, church, all sink into unimportance. Before this simple greatness 1 bow, I revere. The robed priest, the gorgeous altar, the great assembly, the pealing organ, all the exteriors of religion, van- ish from my sight as I look at the good and great man, the holy, disinter- ested soul. Even I, with vision so dim, with heart so cold, can see and feel the divinity, the grandeur of true goodness. How, then, must God regard it ? To his pure eye how lovely must it be ! And can any of us turn from it because some water has not been dropped on its forehead, or some bread put into its lips by a minister or priest ; or because it has not learned to repeat some myste- rious creed which a church or human council has ordained ? My friends, reverence virtue, holi- ness, the upright will which inflexibly cleaves to duty and the pure law of God. Reverence nothing in compari- son with it. Regard this as the end, and all outward services as the means. Judge of men by this. Think no man the better, no man the worse, for the church he belongs to. Try him by his fruits. Expel from your breasts the demon of sectarianism, narrowness, big- otry, intolerance. This is not. as we are apt to think, a slight sin. It is a de- nial of the supremacy of goodness. It sets up something, whether a form or dogma, above the virtue of the heart and the hfe. Sectarianism immures it- self in its particular church as in a dun- geon, and is there cut off from the free air, the cheerful light, the goodly pros- pects, the celestial beauty of the church universal. My friends, I know that I am address- ing those who hold various opinions as to the controverted points of theology. We have grown up under different in- fluences. We bear different names. But if we purpose solemnly to do God's will, and are following the precepts and example of Christ, we are one church, and let nothing divide us. Diversities of opinion may incline us to worship under different roofs ; or diversities of tastes or habit, to worship with differ- ent forms. But these varieties are not schisms ; they do not break the unity of Christ's churcla. We may still honor and love and rejoice in one another's spiritual life and progress as truly as if we were cast into one and the same unyielding form. God loves variety in nature and in the human soul, nor does He reject it in Christian worship. In many great truths, in those which are most quickening, purifying, and consol- ing, we all, I hope, agree. There is, too, a common ground of practice, aloof from all controversy, on which we may all meet. We may all unite hearts and hands in doing good, in fulfiUing God's purposes of love towards our race, in toiling and suffering for the cause of humanity, in spreading inteUigence, freedom, and virtue, in making God known for the reverence, love, and imi- tation of his creatures, in resisting the abuses' and corruptions of past ages, in exploring and drying up the sourcesof poverty, in rescuing the fallen from in- temperance, in succoring the orphan and widow, in enlightening and elevating the THE CHURCH. AA'i depressed portions of the community, in breaking the yolte of the oppressed and enslaved, in exposing and withstanding the spirit and horrors of war, in sending God's word to the ends of the earth, in redeeming the world from sin and woe. The angels and pure spirits who visit our earth come not to join a sect, but to do good to all. May this universal charity descend on us, and possess our hearts ! may our narrowness, exclusive- ness, and bigotry melt away under this mild, celestial fire ! Thus we shall not only join ourselves to Christ's universal church on earth, but to the invisible church, to the innumerable company of the just made perfect, in the mansions of everlasting purity and peace. Notes. I have spoken in this discourse of the Romish church as excluding from salva- tion those who do not submit to it. I know, and rejoice to know, that many Catholics are too wise and good to hold this doctrine ; but the church, inter- preted by its past words and acts, is not so liberal. I have also expressed my reverence for the illustrious names which have adorned the English church. This church sets up higher claims than any other in the Protestant world ; but by a man acquainted with its early history it will be seen to be clothed with no peculiar authority. If any Protestant church deserves to be called a creature of the state, it is this. It was shaped by the sovereign very much after his own will. It is a problem in history how the English people, so sturdy and stout-hearted in the main, could be so tame and flexible in matters of religion under Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, Mary, and Elizabeth. They seem to have received, almost as unresistingly as the coin, the image and superscription of the king. The causes of this yield- ingness are to be found in the averseness to civil broils to which the nation had been brought by the recent bloody and exhausting wars of the Roses ; in the formidable power of the Tudor sover- eigns ; in the insular position of Eng- land, and her distance from Rome, which checked the domination of the papacy ; in the ignorance of the people ; in the rav- enousness of the nobles for the property of the church in the first instance, and afterwards in their greediness for court favor. This strange pliancy is a stain on the annals of the country. It was in the Puritans that the old national sturdiness revived, that England became herself again. These men were rude in aspect, and forbidding in manners ; but, with all their sternness, narrowness, frowning theology, and high religious pretensions, they were the master-spirits of their times. To their descendants it is de- lightful to think of the service they ren- dered to the civil and religious liberties of England and the world, and to recall their deep, vital piety, a gem most rudely set, but too precious to be overvalued. Since the preceding discourse has been printed, the following extract from an article in the " Edinburgh Review " for July, 1S41, entitled " The Port- Royalists," has been deemed so strik- ingly coincident that it is herewith appended : — " But for every labor under the sun, says the Wise Man, there is a time. There is a time for bearing testimony against the errors of Rome ; why not also a time for testifying to the sublime virtues with which those errors have been so often associated .' Are we for ever to admit and never to prac- tise the duties of kindness and mutual for- bearance ? Does Christianity consist in a vivid perception of the faults, and an obtuse blindness to the merits, of those who differ from us ? Is charity a virtue only when we ourselves are the objects of it ? Is there not a church as pure and more catholic than that of Oxford or Rome, — a church comprehending within its limits every human being who, according to the measure of the knowledge placed within his reach, strives habitually to be conformed to the will of the common Father of us all ? To indulge hope beyond the pale of some narrow communion has, by each Christian society in its turn, been denounced as a daring presumption. Yet hope has come to all ; and with her, faith and charity, her inseparable companions. Amidst the shock of contending creeds and the uproar of anathemas, they who have ears to hear and hearts to understand have listened to gen- tler and more kindly sounds. Good men may debate as polemics, but they will feel as Christians. On the universal mind of Christendom is indelibly engraven one im- age, towards which the eyes of all are more or less earnestly directed. Whoever has himself caught any resemblance, however faint and imperfect, to that divine and be- nignant Original, has, in his nieasurei 446 THE CHURCH. learned to recognize a brother wherever he can discern the same resemblance. " There is an essential unity in that king- dom which is not of this world. But within the provinces of that mighty state there is room for endless varieties of ad- ministration, and for local laws and cus- toms widely differing from each other. The unity consists in the one object of worship, the one object of affiance, the one source of virtue, the one cementing principle of mutual love which pervades and animates the whole. The diversities are, and must be, as numerous and intrac- table as are the essential distinctions which nature, habit, and circumstances have cre- ated amongst men. Uniformity of creeds, of discipline, of ritual, and of ceremonies, in such a world as ours ! a world where no two men are not as distinguishable in their mental as in their physical aspect ; where every petty community has its separate system of civil government \. where all that meets the eye, and all that arrests the ear, has the stamp of boundless and infinite variety ! What are the harmonies of tone, of color, and of form, but the result of contrasts, — of contrasts held in subordina- tion to one pervading principle, which rec- onciles without confounding the component elements of the music, the painting, or the structure .' In the physical works of God, beauty could have no existence without endless diversities. Why assume that in religious society — a work not less surely to be ascribed to the supreme Author of all things — this law is absolutely reversed? Were it possible to subdue that innate tendency of the human mind which com- pels men to differ in religious opinions and observances, at least as widely as on all other subjects, what would be the results of such a triumph ? Where would then be the free comparison and the continual enlarge- ment of thought ; where the self-distrusts which are the springs of humility, or the mutual dependencies which are the bonds of love ? He who made us with this infi- nite variety in our intellectual and physical constitution must have foreseen, and, fore- seeing, must have intended, a correspond- ing dissimilarity in the opinions of his creatures on all questions submitted to their judgment and proposed for their accept- ance. For truth is his law ; and if all will profess to think alike, all must live in the habitual violation of it. "Zeal for uniformity attests the latent distrusts, not the firm convictions of the zealot. In proportion to the strength of our self-reliance is our indifference to the multiplication of suffrages in favor of our own judgment. Our minds are steeped in imagery ; and where the visible form is not, the impalpable spirit escapes the notice of the unreflecting multitude. In common hands analysis stops at the species or the genus, and cannot rise to the order or the class. To distinguish birds frorii fishes, beasts from insects, limits the efforts of the vulgar observer of the face of nature. But Cuvier could trace the sublime unity, the universal type, the fontal idea existing in the creative intelligence, which connects as one the mammoth and the snail. So, common observers can distinguish from each other the different varieties of religious society, and can rise no higher. Where one assembly worships with harmonies of music, fumes of incense, ancient liturgies, and a gorgeous ceremonial, and another listens to the unaided voice of a single pastor, they can perceive and record the differences ; but the hidden ties which unite them both escape such observation. All appears as contrast, and all ministers to antipathy and discord. It is our belief that these things may be rightly viewed in a different aspect, and yet with the most severe conformity to the divine will, whether as intimated by natural religion, or as re- vealed in Holy Scripture. We believe that, in the judgment of an enlightened charity, many Christian societies who are accustomed to denounce each other's errors will at length come to be regarded as mem- bers in common of the one great and com- prehensive church, in which diversities of forms are harmonized by an all-pervading unity of spirit. For ourselves, at least, we should deeply regret to conclude that we are aliens from that great Christian com- monwealth of which the nuns and recluses of the valley of Port-Royal were members, and members assuredly of no common excellence." THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 447 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL: Discourse pronounced before the Sunday-School Society. Matthew xix. 13, 14 ; " Then were there brought untc him little children, that Jie should put his hands on them, and pray : and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said. Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The subject of this discourse is in- dicated by the name of the society at whose request I appear in this place. The Sunday-school, this is now to en- gage our attention. I believe I can best aid it by expounding the principles on which it should rest, and by which it should be guided. I am not anxious to pronounce an eulogy on this and sim- ilar institutions. They do much good, but they are destined to do greater. They are in their infancy, and only giv- ing promise of the benefits they are to confer. They already enjoy patronage, and this will increase certainly, neces- sarily, in proportion as they shall grow in efficiency and usefulness. I wish to say something of the great principles which should preside over them, and of the modes of operation by which they can best accomphsh their end. This discourse, though especially designed for Sunday-schools, is, in truth, equally applicable to domestic instruction. Par- ents who are anxious to train up their children in the paths of Christian virtue will find in every principle and rule, now to be laid down, a guide for their own steps. How to reach, influence, en- lighten, elevate the youthful mind, this is the grand topic ; and who ought not to be interested in it ? for who has not an interest in the young ? I propose to set before you my views under the following heads. I shall con- sider, first, the principle on which such schools should be founded ; next, their end or great object ; in the third place, what they should teach ; and, lastly, how they should teach. These divisions, if there were time to fill them up, would exhaust the subject. I shall satisfy my- self with offering you what seem to me the most important views under each. I. I am, first, to consider the principle on which the Sunday-school should be founded. It must be founded and car- ried on in faith. You must not estab- lish it from imitation, nor set it in motion because other sects have adopt- ed a like machinery. The Sunday- school must be founded on and sustained by a strong faith in its usefulness, its worth, its importance. Faith is the spring of all energetic action. Men throw their souls into objects only be- cause they believe them to be attain- able and worth pursuit. You must have faith in your school ; and for this end you must have faith in God ; in the child whom you teach ; and. in the Scriptures which are to be taught. You must have faith in God ; and by this I do not mean a general belief of his existence and perfection, but a faith in him as the father and friend of the children whom you instruct, as desiring their progress more than all human friends, and as most ready to aid you in your efforts for their good. You must not feel yourselves alone. You must not think when you enter the place of teaching that only you and your pupils are present, and that you have nothing Taut your power and wisdom to rely on for success. You must feel a higher presence. You must feel that the Fa- ther of these children is near you, and that He loves them with a boundless love. Do not think of God as interested only in higher orders of beings, or only in great and distinguished men. The httle child is as dear to him as the hero, as the philosopher, as the angel ; for in that child are the germs of an angel's powers, and God has called him into being that he may become an angel. On this faith every Sunday-school should be built, and on such a foundation it will stand firm and gather strength. Again, you must have faith in the child whom you instruct. Believe in the greatness of its nature and in its ca- pacity of improvement. Do not measure its mind by its frail, slender form. In a 448 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. very few years, in ten years perhaps, that child is to come forward into life, to take on him the duties of an arduous vocation, to assume serious responsi- bilities, and soon after he may be the head of a family and have a voice in the government of his country. All the powers which he is to put forth in life, all the powers which are to be unfolded in his endless being, are now wrapped ! up within him. That mind, not you, nor I I, nor an angel, can comprehend. Feel that your scholar, young as he is, is worthy of your intensest interest./ Have faith in his nature, especially as fitted for religion. Do not, as some do, look on the child as born under the curse of God, as naturally hostile to all goodness and truth. What ! the child totally de- praved ! Can it be that such a thought ever entered the mind of a human being ? especially of a parent ! What ! in the beauty of childhood and youth, in that open brow, that cheerful smile, do you see the .brand of total corruption ? Is it a little fiend who sleeps so sweetly on his mother's breast ? Was it an infant demon which Jesus took in his arms and said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven " ? Js the child, who, as you re- late to him a story of suffering or gen- erosity, listens with a tearful or kindhng eye and a throbbing heart, is he a child of hell ? As soon could I look on the sun, and think it the source of darkness, as on the countenance of childhood or of youth, and see total depravity written there. My friends, we should believe any doctrine sooner than this, for tt tempts us to curse the day of our birth ; to loathe our existence ; and, by making our Creator our worst foe, and our fel- low-creatures hateful, it tends to rupt- ure all the ties which bind us to God and our race. My friends, have faith in the child ; not that it is virtuous and holy at birth ; for virtue or holiness is not, cannot be born with us, but is a free, voluntary effort of a being who knows the distinction of right and wrong, and who, if tempted, adheres to the right ; but have faith in the child as capable of knowing and loving the good and the true, as having a conscience to take the side of duty, as open to ingen- uous motives for well-doing, as created for knowledge, wisdom, piety, and dis- interested love. ( Once more, you must have faith in Christianity, as adapted to the mind of the child, as the very truth fitted to en- lighten, interest, and improve the hu- man being in the first years of his life. It is the property of our religion, that, whilst it stretches beyond the grasp of the mightiest intellect, ' it contracts it- self, so to speak, within the limits of the narrowest ; that, whilst it furnishes mat- ter of inexhaustible speculation to such men as Locke and Newton, it conde- scends to the ignorant and becomes the teacher of babes. Christianity at once speaks with authority in the schools of the learned, and enters the nursery to instil with gentle voice celestial wisdom into the ears of infancy. And this won- derful property of our religion is to be explained by its being founded on, and answering to, the primitive and most universal principles of human nature. It reveals God as a parent ; and the first sentiment which dawns on the child is love to its parents. It enjoins not arbitrary commands, but teaches the everlasting principles of duty ; and the sense of duty begins to unfold itself in the earliest stages of our being. It speaks of a future world and its inhabitants : and childhood welcomes the idea of angels, of spirits, of the vast, the wonderful, the unseen. Above all, Christianity is set forth in the life, the history, the char- acter of Jesus ; and his character, though so subhme, is still so real, so genuine, so remarkable for simplicity, and so naturally unfolded amidst the common scenes of life, that it is seized in its prin- cipal features by the child as no other greatness can be. One of the excel- lencies of Christianity is, that it is not an abstruse theory, not wrapt up in ab- stract phrases ; but taught us in facts, in narratives. It lives, moves, speaks, and acts before our eyes. Christian love is not taught us in cold precepts. It speaks from the cross. So, immor- tality is not a vague promise. It breaks forth like the morning from the tomb near Calvary. It becomes a glorious reality in the person of the rising Sav- iour; and his ascension opens to our view the heaven into which he enters. It is this historical form of our religion which peculiarly adapts it to childhood, to the imagination and heart, which open first in childhood. In this sense, the kingdom of heaven, the religion of Christ, belongs to children. This you THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 449 must feel. Believe in the fitness of our religion for those you teach. Feel that you have the very instrument for acting on the young mind, that you have the life-giving word. II. Having considered the faith in which the Sunday-school should be founded, I proceed now to consider the end, the great object, which should be proposed and kept steadily in view by . its friends. To work eiBciently and use- fully, we must understand what we are to work for. In proportion as an end is seen dimly and unsteadily, our action will be vague, uncertain, and our energy wasted. What, then, is the end of the Sunday-school ? The great end is, to awaken the soul of the pupil, to bring his understanding, conscience, and heart into earnest, vigorous action on religious and moral truth, to excite and cherish in him spiritual life. Inward life, force, activity, this it must be our aim to call forth and build up in all our teachings of the young, especially in religious teaching. You must never forget, ray friends, whether parents or Sunday- school instructors, what kind of a being you are acting upon. Never forget that the child is a rational, moral, free being, and that the great end of education is to awaken rational and moral energy within him, and to lead him to the free choice of the right, to the free determination of himself to truth and duty. The child is not a piece of wax to be moulded at an- other's pleasure, not a stone to be hewn passively into any shape which the ca- price and interest of others may dictate ; but a living, thinking being, made to act from principles in his own heart, to distinguish for himself between good and evil, between truth and falsehood, to form himself, to be in an important sense the author of his own character, the determiner of his own future being. This most important view of the child should never forsake the teacher. He is a free moral agent, and our end should be to develop such a being. He must not be treated as if he were unthinking matter. You can make a house, a ship, a statue, without its own consent. You determine the machines which you form wholly by your own will. The child has a will as well as yourselves. The great design of his being is, that he should act from himself anQo« himself. He can un:lerstand the perfection of his nature, 29 and is created that he may accomplish it from free choice, from a sense of duty, from his own deliberate purpose. The great end in religious instruction, whether in the Sunday-school or family, is, not to stamp oz