A Disco! G LI A DU ATI X(i CLASS ,EGB OP. CHARLESTON .) a >: A' A ]{ L I' OlIARLBSTOJH AM-POWKK PRKSS OP KYA.N THE WILLIAM R. PERKINS LIBRARY OF DUKE UNIVERSITY Rare Books GOD IN HISTORY A DISCOURSE DEMVKRKI) BEFORE THK GRADUATING CLASS COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON Sunday Evening, March 29, 1863, R E V. J A M B S W ARL E Y M I L E S . "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation " — Acts xvii. 26. PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST OF THE CLASS. CHARLESTON: STEAM-POWER PRESS OF EVANS & COGSWELL No. 8 Broad and 103 East Bay streets. 1863. * Charleston, March 30, 1S63. Dear Sir: We are instructed by the Graduating Class to return to you their most hearty and entire thanks for the profound, eloquent, and exceedingly appropriate Discourse which you delivered before them on last Sunday everting, and to request a copy for publication. We feel, sir, that we would be doing injustice to the Class and to ourselves, did we not express, in an especial manner, our high appreciation of its unusual merit. We should be glad to be able to study at our leisure the deep truths which you so forcibly presented to our attention, and we should esteem it indeed a privilege to be instrumental in sending to every member of our young Republic its earnest words of warning and encouragement. With the sincere hope that you will comply with the wish of the Class, We remain, dear sir, with gratitude and esteem, Your obedient servants, JAMES BIRNIE, F. P. HUGHES. To the Rev. James W. Miles. Committee. Messrs. Birnik and Hogbes, Committee of the Senior Clous: (tkxti.kmrn' — I am at a loss how to thank you for the terms in which you have acknowledged tue imperfect effort to discharge the duty which I felt honored in having assigned me by your Class. While T am deeply gratified that my discourse has met with your approbation, at the same time I am fully aware that its manifold deficiencies will be but too evident when it is subjected to the ordeal of publication. The discourse, however, in a manner, belongs to you, and I shall therefore place the manuscript at your disposal. If its publication should answer no other end, it will at least be a memorial of our friendship, and to me a gratifying memento of the manner in which you have been pleased to appreciate a sincere, though very inadequate, attempt to fulfil the trust which you reposed in me. Believe me, with every feeling of friendship and respect, Obediently yours, J. W. MILES. Morvh 30, 18(5.3. DISCOURSE Could one take a purely objective view of the vast panorama of universal history as its varying events crowd- ed across the field of vision, it would probably present a confused and tumultuary scene. Nation crowding upon nation — each working out its own national ends and exist- ence, irrespective of others, or, where coming into conflict, conquering and being conquered — running a varied career, and disappearing from the scene — vast empires blooming and decaying apparently only for themselves, conflicting nationalities, new political combinations, the ever recur- ring round of growth, tumult, bloom, and decay — such would probably appear to be the general spectacle pre- sented by the history of nations. But the contemplation of history as a congeries of events springing from the arbitrary acts of men, where the ambition of a conqueror, or the arts of a demagogue, or the subtlety of a politician, or the policy of a nation, or the combination of various external circumstances are alone assumed as the explana- tion of historical events, cannot satisfy those demands of the intellect which, by its very constitution, it is compelled to make when brought face to face with varied and seem- ingly incongruous phenomena. That law of the reason which seeks after unity, which strives to co-ordinate the boundless, and often apparently confused mass of physical 6 phenomena, and to refer them to harmonizing and in-form- ing law, is impelled to deal in the same manner with the facts of human history, and to seek in them, no less than in the grand marchings of the heavens, the manifestation of a rational and providential plan. All phenomena indicate some underlying law which is manifesting and realizing itself through them. And so perfectly is this now established that every new class of phenomena, even those apparently the most arbitrary and irregular, set the investigator upon his search with the most absolute confidence that they are not fortuitous re- sults of accident, but that they indicate the operation of inevitable law. The great physical phenomena of the universe naturally first pressed this conception upon the mind of man, and although, from the overwhelming va- riety of the aspects of nature, it was long before the con- ception assumed a clear and scientific form, yet the laws of the human mind responded to the suggestions of the external world; and in even the very oldest and crudest systems of philosophy there are traces of a dim conscious- ness of this supreme truth. But the perception of law without him would not fail to direct man's attention to the phenomena of his own intellectual and moral being, and to the investigation of those laws within him which ulti- mately led to scientific psychology and to the criticism of the reason. Man, however, stands not merely face to face with the stupendous phenomena of nature and with the marvellous laws of his own being, but from the very con- stitution of his nature his relations as a political creature to the state most prominently impressed him, and with polit- ical development and the growth of free states it was inevitable that he should be led to investigate the laws of those relations, and thus to lay the foundation of political philosophy. With increasing experience that there is nothing which is not subject to law — with the ever deep- ening conviction that all phenomena — that the universe itself — arc but the manifestation and embodiment of Su- preme Thought, men came at length, necessarily^ to seek in the varied, complicated, often seemingly conflicting phases of human history, for some general and fundamental laws which might harmonize the phenomena and explain the thought of which they were the exponent. And thus, instead of history being regarded as a collection of so many arbitrary and independent national episodes, con- nected only by the accidental bond of external contact, there was laid the foundation of a philosophy of history which seeks a true internal connection of law or thought, giving unity to and expressed by the manifestations of the history of nations. What has been stated may be recapitulated in a single sentence. The constitution of the human mind impels it to investigate the laws of which the phenomena of the universe are the exponents: this is philosophy; and accord- ing to the classes of phenomena toward which the inves- tigation is directed there necessarily arise sundry particular philosophies, as, for example, a philosophy of nature — a philosophy of mind — a philosophy of morals — a philoso- phy of politics — a philosophy of history. Having thus rapidly indicated the manner in which a philosophy of his- tory arose, with which alone we are at present concerned, it would be natural, in the next place, to pass in review the various attempts which have been made by illustrious intellects to solve this interesting problem. This, however, time forbids us to do. All of the great minds, from Vico to Wilhelm von Humboldt, who have studied the problem have perceived and contributed some principles of truth 8 and value, but none has completely solved the problem in its full exteut; and this, perhaps, it is impossible for a human intellect to achieve, for the following reason: in investigating the phenomena of nature there are but two elements with which we have to deal — the formative ele- ment, or the law, and the material or phenomenal element, through which we trace the law realizing itself. But, in the events of human history, the problem becomes vastly more complicated, from the fact that, wmile on the one hand man, as a free agent, bears himself the relation of a formative element, or law, to the events which he produces; on the other hand he is himself the material in relation to the higher providential law or thought, which, through him, is working out a determinate plan in history. In analyzing,. therefore, the history of nations, with a view to tracing that providential plan, there will, probably, owing to the agency of an element with so many passions and motives as man, always remain a certain residuum which we cannot perfectly co-ordinate and explain. Nevertheless, some general principles have been arrived at, which serve as a clew to the great drama of history. To estimate aright the application of these principles, two facts must be borne in mind. The one is that, when we have reached a law of nature we must accept it as an ultimate fact for us, and not vainly speculate as to why the law is so and not otherwise. The other is that, through the variety of a given class of phenomena we can trace the manifestation of a general thought or archetypal idea, specialized in the individual phenomena of the class, and harmonizing them all in the unity of a plan. This has been found true in every domain of nature, and it does not fail in the case of man. From the very nature of the plan, these archetypal ideas cannot be fully realized iu any one individual of a 9 class, but they are the thought or pattern developing itself through the entire class, while each individual of the class may he complete for itself, though exhibiting but one phase of that general plan upon which it is constructed. Although it requires long and laborious induction to arrive at a per- ception of the plan, yet, when it is once conceived, it sheds wonderful light, beauty, and unity upon all the various phenomena which it embraces. Applying these principles to the history of nations, we shall find that, while each individual nation may possess a history of its own, com- plete in itself, it yet exhibits but one phase of that general idea or plan which is realizing itself through the entire drama of universal history. As, for the sake of illustra- tion, the archetypal idea of vertebrate animals involves all the various phases which that idea includes, and as, from these archetypal ideas being laws of God, they must be efficient, and therefore be necessarily realized, so, analo- gously, the archetypal idea of universal history must in- volve the necessary development, through the various phases of the life of nations, of all that is involved in the earthly destiny of man. His destiny in a future life, is a matter which belongs to the relations of each individual to his God; but, as the destiny of man involves the realization of all that is included in the idea of man, our conception of the plan of universal history will depend upon our con- ception of what the idea of man involves in reference to his destiny or mission upon earth. But we cannot reach this idea by mere speculation, nor have we a right to assume it to be some a priori conception of our own. It must be deduced from close observation and reflection upon the facts exhibited in the civil, artistic, religious, and literary history of nations: since thus only can we perceive the goal toward which, by the intrinsic laws of his own na- 10 fare, man has been striving with more or less success. AYe need not suppose that every race or people has directly contributed something toward the higher advancement of civilization. This is certainly not the case. But every race and people have exhibited, unconsciously, some phase, or, even in very low forms, mere hints, of the general plan in which they were embraced. If we consider all races as distinguished by the broad classification of historical, or those who have developed a literature, and non-historical, or those who have had no literature, we find that while the latter, as exhibiting a phase of the idea of humanity, and in their dialects as supplying certain phases of the idea of language, have a place in the divine plan of man, they have, nevertheless, contributed nothing to civilization. Of the historical races, there appear to have been two primitive migrations from their original seats in central Asia — one of the Arians westward, of which we shall presently speak, and one, still earlier, eastward, of races now represented by the Indo-Chinese and Turanian peoples. These latter named branches, in their civilization and dialects, certainly enlarge our conception of the idea of man, and supply im- portant links or stages of the development and formation of language — that marvellous implantation in humanity which unmistakably manifests the unity of an intelligent plan. But their civilization and dialects reached only cer- tain permanent stages, and it was not their mission to unfold those ideas further in universal history. It is, how- ever, in the great races which have successively carried on the progressive stream of civilization that we are naturally to look for the development of that idea of man which is being realized in the plan of human history. The present occasion not permitting an extensive and critical induction from the various histories of nations, it 11 will only be possible to adduce some general illustration in support of the idea which we desire to present. These will be naturally drawn from those races with which we are ethnographically and philologieally connected. From the vast table-lands of central Asia issued those re- markable Arian migrations which have so powerfully influ- enced the course of history. As from that common father- land, under the impulse of causes into which we need not now inquire, the various races in their migrations emerge into history, they bring with them certain indelible types and impresses which never become wholly obliterated, whatever may be the national changes and developments which each race experiences as it proceeds upon its divinely- appointed mission. And thus amid even the furthest wanderers, and amid their greatest vicissitudes, there will he found in their languages, their mythologies, their tradi- tions, some memorials and lingering echoes of that distant, perchance, long forgotten home. These nations pursued two streams of emigration — the main stream always flowing toward the north-west, embracing the ancestors of the Celts, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Sclavonians ; and the southern stream down the river valleys of India. The Hindu, although from the evidence of philology, probably the eldest brother of this great family of the Arian nations, was also probably the last to leave the original home. But as he halted in his career nearer to sunrise than his west- ward-emigrating brethren, we naturally turn first to con- sider the character which he has exhibited in his adopted home. Conquering and driving before him the rude tribes of the Indian peninsula,- the Hindu, bounded by the ocean and the mighty mountains of the north, surrounded by nature in her vastest types of manifestation, abandoned himself to the realm of speculative thought, to the contem- 12 plation of the absolute, and meditation upon the eternal. We must bear in mind the fact that the conditions of physical geography have always an important influence upon national character and development, and, as though at once inspired and oppressed by the mighty phenomena of nature around him, the Hindu felt his earthly existence, his personality, but a transient illusion before that awful powder w 7 hich supported all, which alone was real being, and he expressed his conceptions in literary works of un- rivalled magnitude. Religion and philosophy were the spheres in which his mental activity was absorbed, and he grappled with problems w.hich have often been supposed to be of modern and western origin. Of Hindu origin, also, was Buddhism, the most extraordinary and widely extended religion ever excogitated by man, a movement toward re- ligious freedom and a struggle of the soul for emancipation. It was. a reforming protest against a corrupted Brahminism ; it carried mildness and a degree of civilization to barbarous hordes; and, degenerate as it has become, it is to this day the cheerless hope of the largest portion of the human family. The Hindu, from his contemplative character, was not fitted to perform a great role in the external history of the w r orld; but in his intellectual and religious speculations he presents one of the most remarkable phases of the develop- ment of the human mind; and it can never be forgotten that to the olden treasures and mysteries of his sacred lansrua^e is owing: the foundation of the science of cora- parative philology, which has already accomplished so much in elucidating a part of the plan of Providence in the migrations and affiliations of the human family. In the revolutions of the great western Asiatic empires; in the revolts of their subject nations to autonomy, as 13 under the Assyrian; in the combining of diverse nations into a universal polity without the obliteration of nation- al-ties, as under the Persian ; in the freer character of art, and in the incipient development of commerce, can be 1 raced an obscure, unconscious movement of the human mind toward the ideas of freedom and of the community of humanity beyond what appears in the Hindu, although the idea of the essential freedom of the individual was not yet developed as a barrier to imperial despotism. The movement also of the religious idea in the Arian, as mani- fested in the ancient Persian, is very remarkable ; and, without the profound speculative philosophy of the Hindu, the manner in which the Persian grappled with the problem of the Universe indicates a deeper moral than the Pan- theism of India. " The highest trinity," as he calls it, of Zoroaster, " thought, word, deed," was more pregnant in its moral signification than those Indian dreams which, while stimulating the speculative, paralyzed the active powers of man. If we pause for a moment to contemplate the remarkable civilization of Egypt, we discover beneath all its massive fixedness of type a real free movement of thought, a politi- cal and social advance, a profound sense of the personality of Deity, as distinguished from the all-absorbing Panthe- ism of the Hindu, and a sober and firm barrier against the wild orgiastic Worships of the nations on their east, and the savagism of the uncultured tribes on their west and south. What impulse or elements toward the genera- progress of human civilization Egypt afforded to the peof pie who eame in contact with her can never be fully ascer- tained; but within her own sphere her mission was fulfilled with fidelity, and we reverently recognize the Divine Hand which appointed her to exemplify another phase of that 14 idea of humanity, the plan of which he is unfolding in the history of nations. The part assigned in history to the Hebrew nation is known to all. The spirit of freedom moved in their na- tional life, and, from the very constitution of their tribes, it would have been impossible for any Hebrew monarch to have consolidated the nation into a despotism like Persia or Assyria. In times of corruption, when priest and king were faithless to their mission, the divine fire ever burned in the breasts of their prophets ; and this nation in whom was planted a profound sense of the relation of man to a revealed Creator and Judge, through the medium of Chris- tianity, imparted this sacred deposit to the Gentiles. But it is to the westward migrating branches of the great Arian family that the most conspicuous parts have been assigned. u They have been," says Max Mu'ller (the most competent authority to pronounce upon the subject), a the prominent actors in the great drama of history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the elements. of active life with which our nature is endowed . . . we learn from their literature and works of art the elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy. In continual struggle with each other and with Semitic and Chamitic races these Arian nations have become the rulers of history, and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of civiliza- tion, commerce, and religion." This observation of the learned scholar suggests the remarkable, and often noticed fact,, that the stream of humanity has always manifested its capacity for the development of higher civilization as it flowed westward from its Asiatic home — thus indicating a gradual unfolding of the divine plan or idea of man. Man is not merely one of a collection of individual human 15 beings, he is a member of the organic body of humanity ; and, if history be not a mere illusive Hindu dream, there is ae really a unity of life of humanity as there is of the individuals who compose it. Of the races which emerged from the westward-emigrat- ing Arians, the three most distinguished have been the Greeks, the Romans, aud the Germanic nations; and it would appear that in proportion, not to the mere com- mingling, but to the thorough fusion of cognate stocks, giving birth to new and distinctive nationalities, has been developed the capacity for progress in civilization. Thus the Greek, the Roman, the modern German, and the English, while each presenting a distinct nationality, were each the ultimate product of the thorough fusion of various antecedent elements. The Greek when he appears upon the stage of history exhibits most marked contrasts to the Hindu, who preserved his blood unmixed as he brought it from his Arian fatherland. The one feeling his sense of personality absorbed in the infinite; the other the most, in- dividualized of human beings. The one awe-struck before the overwhelming vastness of the phenomena of nature ; the other subduing nature to every human appliance, and catching from the inspiration of her beauty that matchless art whereby the touch of the Grecian 1 chisel has made stone more precious than gold. The one taxing his im- agination to embody in gigantic, unearthly, enigmatic forms his conceptions of the mysterious powers of his divinity; the other humanizing his gods, incarnating them in the passions as well as the beauty of man, and making them his confidential familiars. The one reposing in the shadow of his god-derived monarchs ; the other pressing his instinct of personal freedom to the extreme bounds of turbulent democracy. In short, to the one the present was 16 the dream, the future the reality; while to the other the future was the land of shadows, the present was the life of real and most intense activity. The spontaneous and indigenous development of Gre- cian freedom, literature, philosophy, and art, and the rela- tive perfection to which they were carried, render Greek civilization the most marvelous phenomenon in the pro- gress of humanity. Purely intellectual and artistic de- velopment could he carried no further; they have heen teachers of all subsequent times, they imparted a regener- ating impulse to the European mind, and their history is an abiding prophecy of modern politics. There was in the Grecian spirit a consciousness that history was provi- dential, that there were eternal laws of justice which governed its events, and it was their philosophy which led to the all-important truth that reason cannot err, how- ever much reasoning may, even by offending against reason itself. When Grecian nature could no longer develop itself in the extreme personal freedom of the individual, \t suc- cumbed to the fate which overwhelmed it, and that fate it found in the mighty Roman. By a wonderful disposition of Providence that very limitation of the individual, which was the downfall of the Greek genius, was the ground from which sprang, in the Roman, a new and energetic phase in the history of the world. The personal freedom, the Very individuality of the Roman was rooted ineradi- cably in the being of the state. Aristocracy and democ- racy in Greece were self- rending factions ; in Rome they were fundamental principles, antagonistic it is true, but organic principles in the life of the state, whose very antagonism wrought out that homogeneous, self-balanced, and lawful liberty which was the glory and strength of the old commonwealth and the foundation of her invin- cible power. Her long and fruitful discipline in settling rights between patrician and plebs trained her for her grand mission of giving law to the world. The sanctity of his relation to the state inspired the Roman with that profound conviction of duty, with those sublime instances of self-sacrifice, and with that undoubting faith in his appointed work, which enabled him calmly to face disaster, to look down upon the pomp of kings, and, amid all of his faults and cruelties, to deserve the gratitude of the world, for h,is very conquests were made in the spirit of civilization. And that civilization, spread by his arms and enlightened by his civil law, was the noble type which Christianity took hold of, and strove to impress with the divine characteristics of peace on earth and good will to men. When we turn to the Germanic nations, the commingling of peoples and the various movements in the-development of their civilization become vastly complex. Uulike the Greek and Roman, those northern nations received from without the impulse toward the path which they pursued in developing their civilization. It was from the ruins of the Roman empire that they appropriated the elements of their culture, their laws, and their religion. But these were received into a noble soil, in which an instinctive feeling of the dignity and worth of the individual as man, and an active spirit of freedom, were already indigenous. These elements were gradually moulded into new forms of Christian nations; and while in the east the degenerate Byzantine representative of the olden civilization, thor- oughly corrupted and effete, w T as sinkiug to its inevitable doom, these nations in the west were preparing for the manifestation of a spirit more comprehensive and universal 2 18 in its conceptions and aims than the world had ever yet witnessed. The Church contributed to this result by that bond whereby out of diverse nations one Christendom was created. But the Church, in subduing the world to her authority, became herself thoroughly worldly; and there was a long period of corruption, struggles, and reactions before western humanity emerged in all its mighty vitality in modern Europe. The reaction against the centralization of the Charlemagnic empire upon its breaking up — the good origin, the subsequent tyranny, and the decay of the feudal system, the incalculably powerful impulse of the reformation, are some of the indications of that movement of mind by which God was developing the plan of history. While these western sons of the Arians were thus receiv- ing their education a remarkable phenomenon appeared among a Semitic people in the rise of Mohammedanism. It rapidly reached its fullest bloom, and became corrupt. Its basis was too narrow to make it the religion of universal civilization; but it did carry a certain civilization and higher religion to pagan peoples, and it furnishes an ever memorable example of what an earnest, energetic, and active faith in one great idea can enable a nation to accom- plish. We now see humanity in western Europe at the highest point of development which it has ever reached. In Ger- many and France the horizon of intellectual freedom in science, learning, criticism, and philosophy has been im- measurably enlarged; and the whole history of England is that of the progress of constitutional liberty. Powerful as has been the influence of Christianity upon national forms, if its effects do not seem to be commensurate with the progress of nations in other respects it is because Christian- ity deals with the spiritual nature of individual men ; its 19 true kingdom is invisible; it has its real confessors who, through fidelity to its spirit, have been morally martyrized by bigotry and fanaticism, even in free Christian lands, where the material fires of persecution are no longer in vogue. But we believe that its divine spirit will yet triumph over evil and ignorance, and lead humanity into that spiritual liberty with which God intends that it shall be free. Regarding humanity as an organic whole, prossessing one intelligence, allotted in different phases and degrees to nations as to individuals, we deduce from a historical analysis made in the spirit which we have endeavored to indicate what is the idea of man which is being 1 realized in human history. It is that of a being gradually develop- ing increasing freedom of thought, politics, art, and reli- gion ; or, in other words, human nature coming, under the guidance of a divine plan, to fuller and fuller consciousness of its inherent free powers. We may trace, then, the following lines of development in the plan of universal history, the deep current of which Providence has been steadily carrying on, notwithstanding the eddies and seeming retrogressions which have appeared upon the surface from time to time; these have been owing to that free will of man which is necessary for the develop- ment of his history, but the great plan has ever steadily flowed on. AVe may trace, as tending to certain specific ends, The evolution, through the various stages and forms of dialects, of the unity of the phenomena of Language ; The evolution of the Religious Idea, from the ground of a feeling of subjection to, and dependence upon, supra- human powers, and the unfolding of the innate ground of 20 moral obligation, as the basis of the possibility of* any appeal from revelation; The evolution of the idea of Political Organization and of the state from the ground of the family and the social instincts ; The evolution of the constructive and imaginative ca- pacities through the expression of Art; The evolution of the fundamental categories of Thought, in its endeavors to comprehend and solve the problem of the Universe, manifested through the history of philosophy. The different nations are found manifesting various de- grees of approximation to these ends, as they have been gradually evolved in the consciousness of humanity; and all of these ends are contributing to, and harmonized and included in, the higher end of a civilization the culmina- tion of which points to the brotherhood of nations, in the bonds of religion, commerce, lawful liberty, and peace. Toward this goal the historical nations have ever been striving, each unconsciously contributing to the idea of progressive civilization. And until those capacities of man which can only be worked out in this sphere have reached their goal we cannot say that his destiny on earth is ac- complished ; but it becomes our solemn duty, as nations and as individuals, to perform with fidelity whatever mis- sion is allotted to us toward the fulfilment of that destiny. How dare we despair of humanity, when its development is the unfolding of the idea of God in history ? We may be faithless and recreant to our trust ; but the divine ideas are efficient laws, which, in their inevitable march toward fulfilment, will bless and save us if we be willing instru- ments and co-operators, or will crush and annihilate us if