vX^x^\XVi ^i Wxt mtotogk^t ^ ^^k PRINCETON, N. J. % o '\\>LrLA A^Xl-Xfr-u r BV 4225 .B41 1866 Beecher , Henry Ward, 1813- 1887. Shelf. 595 pulp it pungencies fTT^c^-^^^ Pulpit iungencies 5 9 5 1 ULPIT 1 UNGENCIES TABLE OF CONTENTS •^ New York : Carleton^ Publisher ^ 413 Broadway, M DCCC LXVI Entered according to A61 of Congress, m the year 1866, by GEO. W. CARLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the Distria Court of the United States, for the Southern Distri<5t of New York. The New York Printing Compamy, 81, 83, and 8s Centre Street, New York. CONTENTS Is he all right ? No. of Pungency Preface A.—" Well," says God, A and B Knew what He was About . About the lightest .... Sit on the edge of my Abundance Up hill every single step from Adam Admonished by God 8 Ado about the sprinklings and drenchings 9 Advice and hail-stones 10 Spiritual vs. stomachic Ailment 1 1 Ain't as good as he is 12 Air-holes 13 Fed on Anxieties 14 Is Anxious a baker ? 1.5 As if he wasn't Anybody 16 Anybody can sing hymns 17 Not a Httle Ape of a man 18 Stewart's and Appleton's 19 We should Approve Him 20 The two Arms of God . 21 Arms-length discourses Page 25 27 28 28 29 29 29 Z^ 30 31 31 32 32 32 33 33 ZZ 34 35 35 35 36 Contents No. of Pungency Page 22 Mobs God's providential Asses . . 36 23 Auger and hammer men .... 36 24 Double fools, like the Austrian eagle . 37 25 God Available 37 26 Wherever a devil, a priest to Back him y] 27 Professors of religion like Backgammon boards 38 28 Shaken up in a Bag 38 29 He is not half Baked ; he is dough ! . 39 30 Ballooning to Heaven .... 40 31 Balloons, gas and faith .... 40 32 Bandage their eyes with their mouths . 41 33 Flour and John the Baptist ... 41 34 The old year a Basin .... 42 35 A Basket with holes .... 43 36 Like Basket-makers do their slips . . 43 37 The Bastard offspring .... 44 38 Ought to take trouble as he would a Bath 44 39 Cold Bathing for the salacious devil . 45 40 Bean-men 46 41 His Beast, his own body ... 46 42 Men like Beasts in menageries ... 47 43 Going to Bed a Christian ... 47 44 You hadn't Better jump .... 48 45 The Bible a mere commentary . . 48 46 Chestnuts and Bible truths ... 48 47 Christ making out Bills of insurance . 49 48 Religious Biographies pernicious and lying 49 49 Bipedal brutes ..... 50 50 Black sounds ...... 50 51 Never Blacked his boots on Sunday . 51 52 In Blessed extravagance .... 51 6 Contents No. of Pungency Page 53 War a Blister plaster .... 52 54 Blown out before you are half burned 52 55 Bogus religion 52 56 Take their old Bones and stand in the way sz 57 Well Born when first born 54 58 Any amount of Botanical sincerity . 54 59 Up and down and out Both ways . 55 60 Top and Bottom 55 61 Lift up the Bottom charitably 56 62 Bow rigged with the passions . 57 (>2i The most Boy in him .... 57 64 Boys of all ages SI 65 Bread and butter 58 d^i Breaking in 58 67 Breaks up into all manner of antics . 58 68 Only room to take Breath 59 69 Broad-leaved experience 60 70 Spirits Broken 60 71 Children are Bulbs .... 61 72 God coming down to Burrow 61 'j-^ Busy do-nothings 62 74 But and if, hell-gates 62 75 But then 62 76 I should Button up my pocket . . . 63 'j'j Big as a stage-driver's Button ^?> 78 Religion to be set Buzzing 64 79 A world of Buzzing .... 64 80 Careful Cannon-ball ^S 81 Catholic Church— Used to bear good apples 65 82 Chaff farmers 66 83 The Chamber floor .... 7 66 Contents No. of Pungency Page 84 Charging up before the throne of God . 66 85 It is as Cheap to trust as to fret . . 67 86 God doesn't promise to sign our Check . 67 87 No harm in Checkers or backgammon 67 88 A trowel better than a Chip ... 68 89 God never said " Chisel" ... 68 90 Getting out stone with a lead Chisel . 69 91 Nearer Christ than you are a great deal ! . 70 92 Chrysalis men 71 93 You can tell what Church he belongs to 72 94 The Church vs. God's kingdom . . 72 95 A Church for hell 72 96 Trusting a Church member ... 72 97 A devil wouldn't be a Circumstance . TS 98 Cleansed by her way of hving . . 'j^ 99 God's providence never weaves Cloth . 74 100 Parental anxiety Clucking all the day long 74 loi What a Coarse book this Bible is . .75 102 No Coaxing grass to grow ... 75 103 Cobwebbing the other— "My dear" . 'jd 104 Infinite Cobwebs '^^ 105 So He would — of Cockles ... 76 106 The devil's Colporteurs ... TJ 107 Eat with Color and sleep with Color . 78 108 That's Coming it 78 109 Every man not a Commentator . . 79 no Compromise — You must give up, for I can't 79 111 Would Compromise on $100,000 . . 80 112 Coney Island water-logs ... 80 113 Too much Conscience . . . . 81 1 14 Snow, Conservative rain .... 81 8 Contents No. of Pungency Page 115 Wares Contraband to heaven . . .81 116 Copyists and dogs .... 82 117 I always Cotton to the rich ... 82 118 New York Courts .... 82 119 One winter to Crack the shell . . . 83 120 Hot- water on a Cracked friendship . 83 1 2 1 Crawl out of hfe 84 122 Crazy in his pocket .... 84 123 With all Creation at his back ! . . 85 124 God's letter of Credit ... 85 125 As though the thing were Cross-ploughed 85 126 Taken later, it makes men Crusty . . 86 127 Reading prayers — walking with Crutches 86 128 What should be the Cutwater? . . 86 129 Cypher both ways .... 87 130 CjT^herings for salvation .... 87 131 Every church wants somebody to Damn ! 88 132 They never would say "Damn it ! " . 88 133 I will tell you all what you will get, and that is Damnation ! . . . . 88 134 Dandhng troubles 88 135 Don't be angry by the Day ... 89 136 Day of Judgment words .... 89 137 Dead a third of the time you are alive. 90 138 As I do the Devil 90 139 Devil-duped and Devil-damned . . 90 140 Perpendicular ideas — Devil-talk . . 91 141 If you want to retire, Die ... 91 142 " I don't want to eat Dirt " ... 92 143 Dirty sin and burnished iniquity . . 92 144 I have my Dividend of God's care . 92 145 When I Do religion, I Do religion . . 93 9 Contents No. of Pungency 146 $1,000 a day 147 Down-hill duties 148 The way to God is Down hill 149 Dozing, dozing, dozing 150 Swears with a strong Draft . 151 Drawing deep . 152 This a Drill world 153 Drizzling indignation 154 A Drug in the market . 155 Leads down to Drunk 156 Dry cards .... 157 Dry — Split up into cord wood 158 Dumb book and Dumb house 159 Roll over on the Dung-hill of vice 160 Rankly as weeds on a Dung-hill 161 Edifying 162 Mean as a religious Editor . 1 63 Childhood is but an Egg . 164 The Egg and the bird . 165 Egg-sanctified .... 166 God not Emasculate 167 Men hate to be Emptied . 168 End for End 169 The other End and this End . 170 Christ not only a royal Engineer 171 How to Enjoy sickness . 172 Christ's arms like an Equator 173 That "Especially" was dead long ago 174 Pitched out of the Establishment 175 Expatriation 176 An Exquisite lie . 177 Fat to the very marrow . 10 Pa-e 94 95 96 96 97 97 98 98 99 99 100 100 100 loi 102 102 102 103 103 103 104 104 105 105 105 105 105 106 106 107 107 107 Contents No. of Pungency Page 178 Father and mother ride with them . 108 179 Mr. Fat-soul the topmost man 180 The old, stupid Fellow . 181 Fellows afraid to say their soul is their own 182 Temporary Ferriage 183 The lobby — Gratitude will Fetch him 184 Infernal sprites to Fiddle for them 185 Stealing Fire-wood .... 186 Fishing, and revival preaching . 187 The Flap of whose tongue 188 Their country's Fleece 189 Well, who were all these Folks ? 190 Solomon on a Fool's errand 191 As a boy would roll a Foot-ball 192 Phrenology and Foot-room . 193 God won't see to the Fore part of the store 194 Your Friends can .... 195 Fringed him with abundant Httleness 196 Smooth down the Fur . 197 Furiously devotional 198 Cuts his first Furrows of grace . 199 The devil's Furrows 200 I have seen a great deal of Gambling . 201 God never shoots unless there is good Game 202 Gate 203 He Gave it to them, didn't he t 204 Here and Georgia 205 God could not Get along without it . 206 Not able to Get up a prayer . . 126 II 108 109 no no III 112 113 113 114 115 115 117 117 117 118 119 119 119 120 121 122 122 122 123 123 124 125 Contents No. of Pungency Page 207 Heads high as a Gibbet . . . .126 208 Gingerbread books . . . . 126 209 You be Glad, too 127 210 I'll Go for justice 127 211 Not to give them the Go-by . . . 128 212 " God damn you ! " .... 128 213 Wonder what God would do . . .129 214 Neither he nor God knows . . . 129 215 God-hood grows 129 216 God-light is healthy . . . . 130 217 Take hold of God's hand . . .130 218 Long Gods and short Gods . . . 131 219 The place where property Goes up . . 131 220 Good nature not to be occasional . 132 221 Has Got to work for it . . . .132 222 Parasites saying Grandiloquent things around the throne . . . . 132 223 Such a Great fool 133 224 Horace Greeley 133 225 The world a Grindstone — God turns . 134 226 I Guess you'll know how to a6t . . 134 227 Wrapped in Gummed hideousness . .135 228 Spoiled in the Gun-range . . . 135 229 Tie you to the Handle . . . .135 230 Don't let your anger Hang on . . 136 231 Hangers-on play mosquito and steal blood for a living 136 232 The Harnessed man . . . . 136 233 Hatcheling the disposition . . .137 234 Hatted and gloved . . . . 137 235 You Have me there 137 236 Health and the devil . . . . 138 Contents No. of Pungency 237 Healthy blood vs. Christianity 238 Down at the Heel .... 239 The curtain falls, and— Hell knows the rest 240 I thank God there is a Hell ! 241 A roistering, swearing HeUian 242 Need not advertise in the Herald 243 Lacks spring Here .... 244 Sing psalms in solo from Here to heaven 245 One likes stimulants there, another Here 246 If you are going to sin, be Heroic 247 Hideous 248 Carried his own head so High 249 It has got to be High times . 250 A Hit in the nick of time . 251 Why, they must Hitch ! . 252 Laws hke Hoes . 253 Is thy servant a Hog ! 254 Holy Ghost not merely No. 3 255 God so busy, like a boy driving a 256 Not yet Hopped out . 257 An insurrection in a Hospital . 258 To every man his own Hull . 259 Church Hyenas 260 I — A sermon-fed child . 261 I — Such doctrines not meant for daily use 262 I — Not do it out of comphment to Christ 263 I— 19 were women, and the other nothing 264 I — The school-ma'am .... 265 I — Orthodox and heterodox sleeping . 266 The clock and I 267 I try to pray that down 13 Hoop Page 138 139 139 139 140 142 143 143 144 146 146 146 146 147 148 149 149 150 150 150 152 152 153 154 156 158 158 159 Contents No. of Pungency Page 268 I — Bullet wouldn't go for me as it would for other people . . . . 159 269 I never get drunk myself . . . .160 270 I have got no collection to make . . 160 271 I — Swearing among women . . . 161 272 Icebergs and churches . . . . 161 273 " I'll watch him" 162 274 Infidelly . . . . . . 162 275 Enough to have the devil Inoculate them 163 276 Sunday the Insurance day . . . 163 277 Investments in the lower way of living 164 278 The doctrine for Investments . . 165 279 The Irish 165 280 Has got It in him . . , . 166 281 Jackal engravers 166 282 Nothing but a Jack-knife . . ^ 168 283 Jacob and not Esau 169 284 In their own Jail 169 285 Push aside the ordinary Janitor . .169 286 The devil invented Journals . . 171 287 Juicy in their intellect . . . .171 288 What a Jumbled up mess ! . . . 171 289 $200,000 — All the angels, and an impar- tial Jury 172 290 Just what God did . . . . 173 291 Kick back, and hurt him . . . .173 292 Kicks you into the bosom of God's Pro- vidence 174 293 Religion runs clear down to the Kitchen . 175 294 If you Knock, you will not get in . 176 295 You'll know it 176 296 Knowledgeable men . . . 177 14 Contents No. of Pungency Page 297 A man who Knows more than God does . 177 298 The testament in Labor . . . 178 299 God has Laid in material . . .179 300 Won't come together and Lap . . 179 301 God's glory and human Laziness . .180 302 You are empty because you Leak all over 180 303 Thou honest Legal thief! . . . 182 304 Legerdemain and logic . . . ,182 305 Takes one, and Lets it fly . . . 183 306 Limber-backed 184 307 A Limited hint of grace . . . 184 308 Empty bags — Men born Limpsy . .185 309 Loathsome lubricity of pious talk . 185 310 Locked himself out 186 311 The devil Longer-headed than you . 186 312 It's his own Look-out . . . .186 313 I Love you 187 314 High growing and Low-hoeing . . 187 315 Lunge toward things outward . . 188 316 He might as well be Maelzel's automaton 189 317 A town Magazine of children . . .189 318 Practices a Manly reserve . . . 190 319 Slip out of him like Marbles out of a tumbler 191 320 As to that Matter, I might . . . 192 321 Measure their whole length . . . 193 322 Husband and wife — Statues of Memnon 193 323 The Menagerie of your soul . . 193 324 Mercies are Merchandise . . .194 325 Nothing so Merchantable . . . 194 326 Better Mind their own business . . 195 327 "O, never Mind" .... 195 15 Contents No. of Pungency Page 328 Miracles are midwives .... 195 329 Hit or Miss, and oftener Miss , . 196 330 Wouldn't Miss much . . . .196 331 Missionary pirates . « . . 197 332 Selling a Mocking-bird . . . .197 333 A Moping Christian .... 197 334 Mother Rice — That would shut him up . 198 335 Mousing, sneaking Pharisees . . 199 336 Wait till the Mud is dry .... 200 2iyj Preaching — children making Mud huts 200 338 Mummies 201 339 Mummy 202 340 The Bible and Murray's Guide-Book . 202 341 Men are harps, not Music-boxes . . 204 342 God the best Music-teacher . . 204 . 204 205 . 205 206 . 206 209 . 210 211 343 Covering Nakedness 344 No devil — Namby-pamby talk 345 Men and Needles 346 Going through a Nettle-hedge 347 Troubled with Neuralgia 348 Perpetual Newnesses . 349 A Nimrod minister . 350 No great rise 351 No special injury 211 352 Men have such Notions now-a-days . 211 353 Novels contain better Gospel than many pulpits 212 354 Hoeing in November .... 213 355 A Nursing God 213 356 Spelt with one O 214 357 God will OiTset 215 358 Keep suppHed with the Oil of grace . 215 16 Contents No. of Pungency Page 359 Made On purpose 216 360 Opium and the Bible . . . . 216 361 Other arrangements 217 362 Overflowing the king's English . . 217 363 Overlays 218 364 " The world Owes us a living" . . 218 365 When God wanted sponges and Oysters 219 366 Carrying God's Packages and letters to eternity 219 367 A new set of Papers .... 220 368 The Parade-ground of revivals . . 220 369 The Partnership law of New York . 220 370 Passions to be san6lified, not crucified . 221 371 On a large Pasture-ground . . . 221 372 Paul might have made a mistake in buy- ing that cloak 222 yj-}^ Chirping " Peace" .... 222 374 Prayer-meetings — Apples with the Peel on 223 375 Perambulate in pantaloons . . . 223 376 Prayers worn smooth — Perfunctory ser- vice 224 377 A Perpendicular Yes or a Perpendicular No 225 378 A Philosopher 225 379 Conscience and Pianos . . . 226 380 Fruits for God to Pick .... 226 381 Not a little Piddling justice's court . 227 382 Roll his Pile 227 383 A Pismire on one of the pyramids . 227 384 Takes you by the shoulders and Pitches you on the bed 228 17 Contents No. of Pungency 385 The Plaster of an office 386 Pleasure and damnation . 387 Plump up to Peter 388 Pocket-full antl Pocket-empty . 389 A villain or a Politician 390 The disciples were such Poor fellows 391 Pulling papers out of God's Portfolio 392 The Portholes of the stomach . 393 Natural laws and Post-offices 394 Good to make the Pot boil 395 Writing sermons instead of Preaching 396 Premium on the road to hell 397 A Prescriptive right to lie 398 Pretty low 399 Have to give me up again Pretty quick 400 Prodigious logical springs . 401 A good Property .... 402 Prophecies like music to an army 403 Proud as the devil .... 404 Providence with clear heads 405 Can put his Prow into life 406 Pulverized children 407 Only the Punctuation of their wealth 408 A want of Push .... 409 Whatever God Put through them . 410 More than all the rest Put together 411 Old Put 412 Rammed into us .... 413 Ran his head against authority 414 God's providence vs. strong Regiments 415 The Remainders of the Church . 416 God's Remittances .... 18 Page 229 229 230 231 231 232 232 233 233 234 234 235 235 235 236 237 237 237 238 239 239 239 239 240 240 240 240 241 241 242 243 243 Contents No. of Pungency Vz.%Q. 417 Suppose it is your Rent . . . 244 418 Rented furniture and opinions. . . 244 419 Sin in Repenting 244 420 A Reservoir-man 245 421 Retired 245 422 Faintly Revealed at that . . . .245 423 Revolving graces 246 424 Right between the joints of the harness . 246 425 A Right up and down sort of a fellow . 246 426 A Rip may destroy him .... 247 427 Hot-house for Ripening Souls . . 248 428 Converting men just like Ripening grapes 248 429 God Rocks it with his foot . . .248 430 Single-bladed men— Rodgers' knives . 249 431 30 Rooms in a man's head . . . 249 432 For a man to Roost on . . . 250 433 Rothschild and Moses . . . .250 434 Half- Rotten apples and Christians . 251 435 A Royal family fight . . . -251 436 A God to Rub up the stars . . . 252 437 Got a Saint 252 438 Prayer vs. Satan 252 439 Satan impossible 253 440 An old Scotch preacher . . . 253 441 Men don't like to be Screwed up . .253 442 Business leaks at every Seam . . 254 443 Selvage of goodness .... 254 /\j\\ It gives a Set 254 445 If manhood Sets too quick . . . 255 446 The responsibility of a Shadow . . 255 447 God Shakes the conceit out of them . 255 448 Shaking hands a means of grace . . 256 19 Contents they No. of Pungency 449 -"^ contented live man is a Sham ! . 450 Sharp-eyed and bat-eyed 451 Shifdess Christians .... 452 Christ putting Shingles on the roof 453 Short off in the middle . 454 Fretted and stewed and Simmered . 455 Sing Sing is asking "When will come ? " 456 To Sit in our minds w-ith the windows open 457 There is a way through the Skin 45 S All Skin and poUsh 459 Bom Sleazy .... 460 A Slippen,- Christian . 461 Remarkably Smart . 462 Near enough to Smell heaven 463 Only one Smouch . 464 Everj-body kicks Sober ones 465 Their old Soddy lives 466 Sold the worid in the bargain 467 Solomoncuh .... 468 Spigots vs. bunghole . 469 We should grow up long and Spindling . 470 Sticks plentier than men — SpHcing men 471 Sprout 472 God's Spy-glass 473 A great thing to Squeak at ever}- joint . 474 We hear the \-iclims Squeal . 475 Stand-up way of fighting 476 It Stands to reason 477 Sta\-ing off judgment now and then ! . 478 God is Steering them ! . . . . 20 Page 257 257 257 258 259 259 260 260 260 261 261 261 262 262 263 264 264 265 265 266 266 266 267 267 268 268 268 269 269 270 Contents No. of Pungency Page 479 ^^7 26 Pulpit Pungencies 28 wherever there is a devil, there is a priest to back him. — Evening Sermon, May 15, 1859. I THINK a great many professors of re- ^.uic^^ux^. ligion are just hke backgammon boards. of religion like They look like stately books ; and on the Backgam- -^ ... . mon boards back of them is inscribed, in large letters, " History of England," or " History of the Crusades;" but when you open them you find nothing but emptiness, with the excep- tion of the dice and counters. And many men bear the name "Christian," who are inside all emptiness and rattling nothing. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. IT would seem as if men had been shaken up in a great bag, and rolled out into a Bag ^]^g various spheres of life, without regard tQ their qualification or fitness. One man, who should have been a scholar, finds him- self shoving the spade. Another man, who was ordained to be a mechanic, finds him- 38 28 Pulpit Ptcngencies 29 self a preacher. Another man finds himself a lawyer ; he is not at all adapted to this profession — he is an upright, and honest, and good man ; and yet it so happens that that is his occupation. — Morning Sermon^ yiine 5, 1859. A half Baked; he is dough I CHILD may be indulged, all through his infancy and youth, to such a He is not degree that he grows up so good natured and so susceptible to the impressions of the time being, that he never lives in a space larger than the round minute in which he is standing. When a child that has grown up thus arrives at manhood, he is not half-baked— he is dough ! One thing pokes him this way, and another thing pokes him that way, and there he is, a miserable creature of circumstances. You never shall find a man that has grown up such a soft not-doing, not-succeeding man, who has not a great deal to say to you about the mystery of Providence. The mystery of Providence ! There is no mystery of Provi- 39 29 Pulpit Pungencies 31 dence about it. There never was a thing that was more dire6lly the efFe6l of a cause than is this. — Evening Sermon, January 29, i860. HE goes on to say, "And lest I should ^.^..^^v...^^ be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the mes- senger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure ; " that is, lest he should go ballooning to heaven, before God summoned him, he was tied down to earth with a rope. — Morning Seiinon, April 3, 1857 BALLOONS are made not only to rise, muoons, but to lift other things and waft them ^faith easily high above hills and mountains with- out jar or obstru(5lion. If the balloon is not filled, it is a helpless thing, and can neither lift itself nor anything else ; but if you fill it with gas it is able to soar away and carry many things along with it. And you will find the burdens and duties of life 40 31 Pulpit Pungencies 33 heavy enough, unless there is in you this heaven-seeking faith and hope that inspire and fill them. — Morning Sermon, September 25, iS59- M ANY a man will steal or embezzle, mouths for years, and never once call it by Bandage their eyes the right name — never ! If he happen to ^'j^J^^lJjfj'^ say to himself, " I am a thief," he will spring back as if God had spoken to him ; it is like poison to him. " Thief ! " I don't believe you could make many men steal in that way ; but financieidng is a very differ- ent thing. Call it "stealing.?" O no ; call it an arraftgemejit. Call it " thieving } " O no ; call it an ttnfortunate affair. Call it " rob- bery } " O no ; it is an unfortunate mistake. We talk about bandaging our eyes, but I think men bandage their eyes with their mouths oftener than in any other way. — Evening Sermon, May 15, 1859. M ANY persons say, " It is very YXom and ohn til Baptist well to send Bibles and teachers to john the the poor ; but I think it would be conferring 41 33 Pulpit Punge7zctes 34 a greater blessing upon them to send them barrels of flour, and coal, and blankets." aiX Very well ; send them flour, and coal, and Baptist blankets ; I have no obje6lion to that. And it may be indispensable that flour should a6t the part of John the Baptist, and prepare the way for Christ ; for a hungry man, whose children are crying for bread, is not going to read much about Christ till he has got himself and his children fed. — Wednesday Evening Leeture, September 28, 1859. AND are there not persons here who are addi61ed to bad habits.^ Some old year a Basin, havc bccu drinking, some have been gam- bling, some have indulged in illicit pleasures, and some have been dishonest in various ways. You know what your trouble has been. Now, young man, or old man, will you not take the old year as a fountain, a basin, and wash your hands of every evil trait .'* — Evening Sennon, December 25, 1859. 42 35 Pulpit Pungencies 36 T HERE are men who seem to take it for granted that all that other men make is just so much clutched from them, ^^kh'^^ 111 ) • • holes and that other men s joys are just so much taken away from their joys. There are men who, after having made ten thousand dollars, will say to themselves, if they hear that their neighbor has made a poor five hundred, " There, I might as well have made that five hundred dollars as he." They lose the satisfadlion of all their thousands, because they feel that the five hundred dol- lars which find their way into their neigh- bor's basket, are taken from them, notwith- standing ten thousand dollars are poured into their own basket. The Lord grant that theirs may be a basket with holes. — Mommg Sennouy May 8, 1859. STRENGTH of feehng in favor of good with such persons is regarded as over- righteousness ; strength of feeling against Basket- evil is regarded as malignant fanaticism ; men must be moderate in goodness and in their hatred toward evil ; men should main- 43 makers do their slips 2fi Pulpit Pungencies 38 tain a convenient morality and weave their pliant condu6l, like basket-makers do their slips, over and under, according to circum- stances. — Evenmg Sermon, May 15, 1859. The T -^ ^ w'Qx^ to see a son whose mother's Bastard I offspring J- memory was, in his presence, treated with foul scorn and slander, that felt no quickening of his pulse, and that felt no up-rising of soul-indignation, I should al- most believe that the mother was all that the slanderer had represented her to be, and that this was the bastard offspring. — Morning Sermon, May 15, 1859. Ought to I ^HERE are thousands of persons who trouble -^ seem to think it is their duty to feel as he would . . _ a Bath bad. i\ a man, when a stroke of trouble comes upon him, rises and shields himself from it, as he betakes himself to a thicket when overtaken by a storm — if a man does not, when troubles beset him, lay himself out, and let them fall full upon him, and 44 38 Pulpit Pungeftcies 39 let them soak in — they suppose he lacks sensibiUty. They think that a man ought to take trouble as he would take a bath. — Mornmg Sermon, yuly 24, 1859. OCCUPATION will go far toward the restraint and cure of all gross and coid ^ . P.athing animal lusts. When the salacious devil for the salacious enters a man, let him put spurs to his in- ^^"^ dustry and work for his life ; make the devil pant to keep up with you, and you will run him off his feet, and he will be glad enough to let you alone. Simple food, hard and tiresome work, absorbing occupation and plenty of cold bathing — that will withstand and control a vast amount of evil inclina- tion. Man is to study for these things, and then when you have used all these means, you may pray. But to set yourself to pray, and then go and gorge yourself with stimu- lating foods and drinks, and not in any way to avail yourself of the proper means, is to mock God and cheat your own soul. Take care of yourself first, and then pray after- ward. There is nothing better than occu- 45 Bean-men 39 Pulpit Pungencies 41 pation, and you will find that you can work the devil down a hundred times when you can wrestle him down once. The devil don't like work ; he is lazy, and that is the reason he likes lazy people. — Evening Sermon^ Jidy 17, 1859. MANY men are like a species of beans which require to be supported by a pole. They will stand up as long as the pole stands ; but if some school-boy, desir- ing it for a bat, takes it away, they fall to the ground, for there is nothing in them to make them stand straight. — Morning Ser- mon, yannary 23, 1859. YOU have no more right to overtax yourself than you have to overtax ''bodr y*-*^^^ horse ; and you would think it cruel indeed to burden a poor animal beyond its strength. A merciful man is merciful to his beast — to his own body. — Morning Ser- mony August 14, 1859. 46 42 Pulpit Ptmgencies 43 EN, when ^uiet, are like beasts in M menageries. When full-fed, they like Blasts lie down and stretch themselves, and sleep, menageries The tiger and the lion, full-fed and sleepy, are as quiet as a lamb ; not so when they are hungry — not so when they are aroused. Men, in days of prosperity, when their feel- ings are placated, are gratified and purr, who roar when they are touched by the sharp point of iron adversity. — Morning Sermon, yanuary 23, 1859. nnHERE are good and perfe6lional Christians whose piety is like a crown, toX^d who, putting it on their heads, say " I am christian a Christian ;" taking it off, say, " I am a Christian ; I have only left my Christianity at home." And then they go out into the world, and do all kinds of dirty and mean work ; going back again, put on the crown, and say, "I am a Christian again ! " If you are a Christian, you go to bed a Chris- tian and get up a Christian ; you are a Christian at home, in your store, and every- where. — Evening Sermon, May 22, 1859. 47 44 Pulpit Pungencies 46 B jump UT it is said that parents may deceive their children when their inquisitive- You hadn't i i i i , -, • , . , Better ness Icads them to ask about thmgs which they should not know. If they ask about things which they should not know, then tell them that they should not know. " But," people say, *' a child puts a parent in such a disagreeable position sometimes." Well, you hadn't better jump out of it into a lie. — ]\Io7'ning Sermon^ June 26, 1859. I WOULD not unden-alue the Bible, but the revelation of outward nature The Bible IS infinitely to outlast the Bible as a revela- commentary tiou of what God lias douc. For the Bible is to the revelation of God a mere com- mentary, and the text is more than the commentarv. — Morning Sermon, July 10, 1859. T HIS is rather a hard gospel when you come to pra6tice it. It is one thing and to knock down chestnuts from the branches Bible truths of the trees ; but when you have knocked them down you have not overcome your 48 46 Pulpit Ptmgencies 48 worst difficulty, if the frost has not opened the burs. It is harder to open the burs and get at the chestnuts than it is to knock them down from the trees. And I think it is just so in regard to getting instru6lion from the divine Word. It is hard enough to get truths from the Bible ; and when you have got them, it is harder to carry them into daily pra6lice than it was to get them. — Morning Ser7non, Jnne 19, 1859. AND when respe6lable men, members of the church in the nineteenth century, look out of the window and see '"mK"' Christ walking up and down prote6ling their interests, making out bills of insur- ance for them, how do they say, " Hail, Master !"- —J'/6';7/z;/^'* Sermon, December 25, 1859. THIS is very much provoked and en- hanced by the very pernicious habit Religious of novel reading — I mean the reading of pe°™ouf and lying religious biographies ; for I think it is one of the worst things that can befall a man, 49 Christ 48 Pulpit Pungencies 50 because in general they are not true, and the nearer they come to the truth the more lying they are. — Evening Sermon, May 29, 1859, TRUE politeness can rest only in a x^ii^cuai kind disposition ; though its signs and names may be counterfeited, yet they are never so good as those that are un- counterfeited. The man who is only selfish and indifferent at heart can not be a gen- tleman. As to those gentlemanly bears that infest society, those bipedal brutes that walk about, flinging their unsavory manners in our midst, they are beneath our notice. — Evenifig Sermon, May i, 1859. brutes sounds W HEN men invoke the name of God Black ^ ^ they do it with their deepest and most solemn tones. I associate sounds •with colors. Certain sounds I associate with red, and certain other sounds I asso- ciate with yellow ; and when I hear these doleful praying sounds I think of black and feel as though the man that utters SO Never 50 Ptilpit Pungencies 52 them stood robed in black velvet !— R/^^- nesday Evening Lecture, December 28, 1859. T_T ERE is a man who goes to the judg- -■- ^ ment, and claims to have been a man of unexceptionable piety. He bears hfSs witness that he never violated the Sabbath Sunday day ; that he never spoke loud or laughed on Sunday ; that he never did any secular work on Sunday; that he never blacked his boots, or shaved or cooked on Sunday ; that he never rode in the cars or on the boats on Sunday. He was always very scrupulous about what he did on Sunday. On any other day he would not hesitate to take advantage of his fellow men ; he would not hesitate to gouge the poor woman that put his carpet down ; he would not hesi- tate to cheat his customers ; but, then, he kept Sunday. — Evening Sermon, December II, 1859. A ND then the cruelties of superstition ; ^ that is to say, the cruelties which men Bies^ed 1 , 111 T . extravagance nave been led by religious superstition to 51 52 Pulpit Pungencies 55 commit upon their fellow-men — of these I might say, as John, in blessed extravagance, said of the sayings and doings of Christ. — Evening Sermon, October 23, 1859. w HAT a shame, that it should be left War Blister earthly things, a thing that is good only as a blister plaster is better than inflammation — to illustrate what ought to have been il- lustrated by the church ! — Morni?ig Sermon, March 4, i860. DO you not live day by day, as if noth- Kiown out ing were more certain, and nothing you ^re half could sTivQ you Icss troublc than the matter burned . ,^ -^ . . of living ; as if it were rolled out for days to come, whereas it is but a hand's breath ; it is but a taper long, and many of you may be blown out before you are half burned. — Evening Sermon, yidy 3, 1859. Bojriis MEN do not take a bank-bill simply because it is a bank-bill. They see whether it is a genuine bill, and whether 52 55 Pulpil Pungencies 56 the bank it is on is able to pay ; and if it is a good bill, and on a good bank, they take it on account of the gold there is behind it. And so with professors of religion. When a man knows there is a great deal of bogus religion, he scrutinizes professors to know whether they are counterfeit. He wants to know whether there is the gold of perform- ance behind them. — Evening Sermon, Feb- ruary 10, i860. w HEN Jonathan Edwards, the bright- est lamp of centuries on these ^^^.^ shores, stood forth, ten thousand bats flew ^ Bones'^ round him, and myriads of moths and mil- in the way lers tried to put out his light, and he was regarded as a great innovator ; but in our time there is no lack of men who worship Jonathan Edwards. And, strange to say, the very men who worship these bright examples of Christian heroism, take their old bones, as Samson took the jaw bone of an ass, and stand in the way of the truths which they sought to establish. — Evening Sermon, December 11, 1859. 53 of Botanical sincerity 57 Ptilpit Pungencies 58 A GOOD Christian needs to be born M^eiiBora '^^ again, but it is very necessary that firl't bSrn he should have been well born when he was first born. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. T T ERE is a man who is sowing what Any amount J- 1 appears to bc black ashes. A friend accosts him, saying, " What have you got in your bag } " He learns that it is the hulls of buckwheat — the chaff of old wheat ; and he says, " What are you sowing chaff for 1 " " Why," the man replies, " I have the impression that if a man is only faithful and sincere, it makes no difference what he sows t " Doesn't it make a differ- ence ? Suppose a man should sow couch- grass, thinking that he was going to get timothy hay ? Would he ? Suppose a man should set out crab-apple trees in his or- chard, and think that he was going to get fall-pippins ? Would he ? Suppose a man should sow that most detestable of all de- testable seeds, the Canada thistle, and say that that was wheat ? Would any amomit 54 58 Pulpit Pungc7icies 60 of botanical sincerity on the part of this fool secure to him a harvest of anything better than the seed sown ? — Evetmig Ser- mon, October 16, 1859. THERE are other men who live in their imagination. They dream all upand their life long. On a special impulse they and out open their eyes, and see things as they are ; but the moment the hard, pra6tical necessity which disturbs them has given way, and they are at liberty to do what they love to do best, back they sink into day dreams, and dream up, and down, and out both ways ! — Morning Sermon, Atignst 7, 1859. I F you send the colored people away, white people, who are useful in higher departments of labor, will have to take their Top and Bottom places. And who will supply the places of those that go down to take the places of the negroes .-* Why the class next above them. When you take away the bottom of society the top must necessarily come 55 6o Pulpit Pungencies 6i down. If a man despises his feet and cuts them off, down goes his head. For every single inch that he cuts off from his feet, he brings his head down an inch. And if the top of society, despising the bottom, takes it away, it must come down in proportion to the amount that it takes away. — Morning Sermon^ ytily 17, 1859. THE nearer a man stands to the 2:ate 01 heaven, the worse is sm m hmi ; Bottom charitably and the nearer a man stands to the gate of perdition — if there are any degrees in sin — the less heinous is sin in him. Therefore Jesus Christ, when He stood before those sacred men, the priests of the sanduary, who stood at the very top of knowledge, pointing to the prostitutes who stood in the very dregs of life, said to the proud priests : "The pubHcans and harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you." If Christ were to walk in the streets of New York now, there would be the same terrible exco- riations ; if things were brought to the level 56 6 1 Pulpit Pungencies 64 of the New Testament in our times, it would bring down the top terribly and lift up the bottom charitably. — Evening Ser- mon, May 15, 1859. MEN have a little boat of piety, which runs up and down the waves of Bow rigged with the their experience ; but their life is a great passions hull of selfishness, the bow of which is rigged with the lower passions. — Morning Sermon, June 12, 1859. I THINK that he is the best man who The most has the most boy in him. — Morning '^^'^ """ Sermon, August 14, 1859. T HOUSANDS of boys are dreaming of growing suddenly rich — and I call Boys a man a boy as long as he is foolish; so ofaiiages that the boyhood of a great many, you see, goes with them clear through life ! There are thousands of boys, of all ages, that are dreaming about going to bed poor, and waking up rich. — Evening Sermon, Febru- ary 5, i860. 57 65 Ptdpit Pungencies 6 J OME men are like beggars that have sometimes come to my door. They s and said, " Will you not give me some bread butter and butter?" I took them at their word, and gave them some bread and butter ; but it was a quarter of a dollar that they wanted ; they did not want the bread and butter at all ; so when they turned to go away, they threw it behind them. — Mo7'n- ing Sermon, June 5, 1859. w E are a part of His husbandry. " Ye are God's husbandry." For you ngm j^^ thinks. For you he tills. He is breaking in your disposition. — Evening Sermon y October 16, 1859. N OW, if a man means to walk, he „ , must have a clear course in order Breaks up all manner of ^o S^"^ anything like a gait or a majesty "^""^ of movement, or a sweep and power of movement. But if a man starts to walk, and says, " Where shall I put my foot } Well well, tJierey I guess. Well, where 58 67 Pulpit Pungencies 68 shall I put the next one? Well, therer and then he takes it back to see if it is , Breaks up rio-ht, and then puts it down again ; then into S3 ' ■•• all manner of he stops and says, '' Perhaps it is the antics other foot." Now this is to walking just exadtly as the course which many per- sons pursue with regard to becoming per- fe6l. They never think, but they stop to see if it is right ; and so their feelings are started, and then pulled back ; they are chafed like a horse that is not per- mitted to go, and is whipped for not going, till he breaks up into all manner of antics, and it is happy for them if they do not break away from the vehicle entirely. — Evening Sermon, May 29, 1859. THE great commandment of the law is, *'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy oniyroom soul, and with all thy strength, and with ^^ke Breath all thy mind " — and then there is not a great gulf between the two parts of it, but only room to take breath — "and thy neighbor as thyself" They come right 59 Broad- leaved experience 6S Pulpit Pungencies 70 together, as twins. — Morning Seiynon, Ait- giist 7, 1859. T T is how much of the invisible we can ^ bring into this Hfe that makes this hfe rich and vakiable. I will tell you a secret of gardening. Turnips and other crops that have long roots, and depend mostly for their nourishment on the soil, exhaust the soil ; while those crops that have broad leaves, and take the greater portion of their nourishment from the air, organizing it, and turning it into the soil, enrich the soil. Now let me tell you that that which makes this life rich is that broad-leaved experience which derives its support from the air of the future world. — Morning Sermon, March 11, i860. T HAVE no doubt that it would be a Spirits sad thing to have a child's spirit broken ; but I do not remember ever to have met with an instance of such misfor- tune, and therefore I cannot speak know- ingly on this point. I do not think our 60 Broken 70 Pulpit Pungencies 72 American children suffer from having their spirits broken too early ! — Evcfiiiig Sermon, February 26, i860. I THINK God makes men, in some respects, as he makes tulips. In the children > 1 1 ^^^ Bulbs autumn of the year the next year s blossom is stored up, all ready to come forth, and there is food enough in it to get it out of the ground. Children are bulbs. There is parent enough in them to last till they can organize chara6ler for themselves. — Everting Sermon, Febi^nary 10, i860. I F your God is made out of conceptions derived from the great and heartless God round of the natural world ; if you have coming down a great crystalline God, such as philosophy to Burrow deduces from the material globe, you can conceive of no such thing as his detra6ling from his dignity by coming down to bur- row, as you call it, in this lower sphere. — Morning Sedition, October 23, 1859. 61 ']'i) Ptilpit Pungencies 75 nnHERE is nothing, I suppose, more busy in sultry summer days than do-nothings flies are, and what a world of trouble they take to report their a6livities, buzzing and flying everywhere ; and what is there on earth ever effe6ls so little ? Many people are like them ; they are exceedingly busy, but they do nothing. — Evening Sermon^ July 17, 1859. ^^ A H!" says he, "I think I will go, But and if "^"^ ^^^' \iViX.'' — bitty you kuow, is the hell-gates ^^^^ ^^^ ^£ ^j^j^.]^ ^ j^gjl comes ; or he says, " I will go if" — and if is the other leaf of that gate, for it is a double-leaved one. — Morning Sermon y December 11 j 1859. ^T EVER, when you see a thing to be ^ right, stand skaking and quaking, and say, "But then." That "But then" is a devil damned. If and but have de- stroyed more souls than any fiend in hell. — Morning Sermon ^ May 22, 1859. 62 But then A 76 Pulpit Ptingencies 77 MAN may be a good citizen, whether he takes one side or the other of , , , . . I should the tariff question ; whether he beheves in Button up '■ my pocket banks, or disbeheves in them ; whether he is in favor of usury laws, or is opposed to them. But what would you think of the good citizenship of a man who really be- lieved that stealing was not a sin ? The more thoroughly a man believes this, the worse he is ; and if I were to hear a man say, "I am perfe6lly sincere when I de- clare that I do not believe stealing is wrong," I should button up my pocket whenever he came near me! — Evening Sermon^ December 18, 1859. HAVE you ever seen a tree growing out of its appropriate latitude ? Here is a careful man who has a peach stage- driver's tree nailed out on the south side of a Button wall. He covers the roots with straw, binds bandages around the trunk, and wraps up all the branches and leaves, so that every part of the tree shall be ex- posed as little as possible. When it gets 63 T*] Pulpit Ptmgencies 79 to be five years old, he calls you to rejoice with him because it has ten peaches on it. You wonder that it is possible for a peach tree to grow, and bear fi-uit, in such a situation as that is in ; and yet there are ten real peaches on it, almost as big as a stage-driver's button. — Morning Sermon, April 10, 1859. RELIGION is to the soul what health is to the body — it is the right order- B?2zbg ^^^S of all the faculties. Many persons think it is confined to certain faculties, which must be set buzzing at particular times. — Morning Sermony September 18, 1859. THERE is not one man that is smart Buzzin- where there are twenty men that think they are ; and many men are smart only as flies are : they make a world of buzzing, but do not make much else. — Evening Sermony February 10, i860. 64 8o Pulpit Pungencies 8i HOW many ten thousand times, in your day and in mine, is " the peace of the Church" urged as an excuse for her not performing certain of her duties. As if the Church were of any account, except as an instrument ; as if it were anything but a cainion-ball which God fires out of the Gospel, whose busi- ness is to bound and rebound through the world, without regard to its own preserva- tion, but in such a way as to do the most execution in the great battle against sin in which it is employed. Think of a cannon-ball whose only care was that it might not get bruised ! — Moniiiig Sejuion, May 22, 1859. Careful Cannon- ball N OW the Roman Catholic Church is like an old tree in my father's Cathoiic ^ Church orchard, which I have recently visited. ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ There were many dead branches upon it, }^^^^ but there still remained two living branches. I remembered the place where the tree 'stood. I knew that it used to bear good ap- ples. — Morning Sermon, yamiary 30, 1859. 82 Pulpit Pu7tgencies 84 OINCERITY is a very good thing, but fa^mefs ^ it caiiiiot make grain out of chaff. And that man who thinks that it makes no difference what he beUeves, so long as he is sincere, is a cJiaff farmer. — Even- iitg Sermon, October 16, 1859. E are Uving on a flight of stairs in W chlmber ^ ^ this world, and we shall not touch the chamber floor till we touch the vesti- bule of heaven. — Morning Sermon, March II, i860. I DO not wonder that, with the thought before "the" which most Christlaus have of God, of God they are slow to go to Him. What man would not be afraid to make prayers to a thunderbolt, if he expe6led that the re- suit of every prayer would be to bring a bolt down upon his head 1 I should not want to charge up before the throne of God, if it were like charging before a battery. — Morning Sermon, Jidy 3, 1859. 85 Pulpit Pungencies 87 G OD says, ''Take no thought what ye ^ shall eat ;" and it seems to me He , , . , It is as needs not to say this more than once to a cheap to trust as Christian. Do the things you can, and do to fret them cheerfully. Sing while you work. It is as cheap to trust as to fret. — Morning Sermon, April 10, 1859. r HE promise of God is not this : "Do you declare what you want, and be pious, and I will see that the plan which promise" to sij^n our you mark out is filled up." He doesn't check promise that if we will draw a check, fill- ing up the blank with the sum which we want, He will sign His name to it. — Even- ing Sermon, February 10, i860. I WILL not go at large into the subje6l of g-ames. I do not think that, under _ , ^ No harm ordinary circumstances, there is harm in '" checkers playing checkers, or backgammon, or chess ^^^kgammon — that noble game — unless it is allowed to consume too much time. — Evening Ser- mon, November 20, 1859. 67 88 Pulpit Pungencies 89 I LOOK upon the Roman Catholic Church as being dead in one branch, beurr^ and another, and as being bark-bound and a ciiip worm-eaten, but as having some real good sap in it yet, and some living boughs, and as bearing some fair fruit ; and I can say, " God be thanked for the good in the Roman Catholic Church." " But," says one, "do you think one religious system as good as another?" By no manner of means. There are systems that seem to me to be wonderfully adapted to avoid the evil and promote the good, and to be as much better than some other systems as a mason's trowel is better than a chip with which to lay brick in a wall. — Morn- ing SermoUy January 30, 1859. G Chisel ' OD made timber grow, but He never ^ made a house. He made timber never said p^row, but Hc ucvcr built a bridsre. He made timber grow, but He never, in all the history of creation, put a tool into a man's hand. He never said "saw," or "chisel," or "mallet," or "hammer," or 6Z 89 Pulpit Pungencies 90 *^ nail." — Morning Sermon, yanitary 15, i860. IT is by a man's theology, and not by his life, that he is usually judged. If I say of a man, " Is he a good man 1 " Getting out stone I receive the answer, "No; hes a Uni- lead tarian." It is understood at once that if a man holds to the Unitarian do6lrine he cannot be good. I ask of another, " Do you consider him a good man t " " No ; he's a Swedenborgian." I say of another, " Is he good 1 " " No ; he cannot be good, for he's a Universalist." But be it far from me to judge a man by what he believes. A person can be as good with one system as another. If you were to ask me whether I think a man can get out the stone for a building with a lead chisel, I should say, " I should not think he could ; at any rate, give me a good steel chisel." But suppose that in some way a man does continue, with a lead chisel, to get out the stone for his building, I am not to look at the build- ing, and when I see it is well built, say it 69 Chisel 90 Pulpit Pungencies 91 isn't a good piece of workmanship, be- cause he cut the stone with a poor chisel. I should rather marvel at his being able to produce so good a stru6lure with such in- ferior means. — Morning Sermon^ January 30, 1859. T 'O watch to see what is awkward in others ; to search out the infirmities chHst^ ^^ ™^^ 5 to go out like a street-sweeper, than >^ou are ^^ a umvcrsal scavcngcr, to collea the ^^^ ^ '_ faults and failings of people ; to carry these things about as if they were cherries or flowers ; to throw them out of your bag or pouch,, and make them an evening re- past, or a noonday meal, or the amusement of a social hour, enlivened by unfeeling criticisms, heartless jests, and cutting sar- casms ; to take a man up as you would a chicken, and gnaw his flesh from his very bones, and then lay him down, saying, with fiendish exultation, " There is his skele- ton" — this is devilish! You may call it by as many pretty names as you please, but it is devilish ! and you will do nothing 70 91 Ptilpit Pungencies 92 warse than this when you go to hell ; for you may expecl to go there if you have such a disposition and do not change it. Talk about cannibalism ! Cannibals never eat a man till he is dead. They are nearer Christ than you are, a great deal ! — Morn- ing Sermon, October 16, 1859. N O man has a right to say, " I will take the regality of power which Chrysalis I have, and carve out a place, and store men it with abundance, and go in there and enjoy myself for the rest of my life." The life of such a man is the insect life. There is a worm to begin with. This worm goes into himself to take his ease, and becomes a dead, juicy chrysalis. A worm, a butter- fly, a sack of juice : these are the three forms of inse6l life. And how many men are there that are worms in their begin- nings, who, when they have gone through their crawling period, wing their way in the summer warmth for a time, and then go back into a substantial chrysalis state ! — Evening Senjion, yanua7'y 15, i860. 71 93 Pulpit Pungencies 96 Y OU will find that the Christians of each particular church are so like what Church cach otlicr, that a discerning mind, on he belongs to seeing a Christian, can tell what church he belongs to. — Wednesday Evening Lec- tu7'e, November 16, 1859. 'T^HE Church has come to be popular ; The Church ^^^ getting iuto the Church is not Good's getting into God's kingdom, by any means. -Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. A/OU will never need for a corrupt -^ minister : there is a church for hell as well as for the san6lities. — Evening Seiinon, May 15, 1859. kingdom A Church for hell I HAVE heard business men say that, so far from trusting a man because he Church was a church member, they were inclined member to be rather more suspicious of him on that account, because they thought he was apt to use his righteousness as a garment under which to pra6lice dishonesties. — Morning Sermon, yime 26, 1859. 72 97 Pulpit Pungencies 98 N EW YORK is a honey-comb, in every cell of which are ena6led scenes of A ND as she [Mary Magdalene] stood there weeping, probably almost un- stance , . A de%al untold wickedness ; and there is nothmg wouldn't be a Circum- related of the devil, in legend or in monk- ish fable, that is not outmastered and over- drawn in the haunts of vice and corruption in the lower parts of that city. And yet men laugh at the credulousness of those who believe that God would permit the existence of a devil. If he would permit the existence of a man, he would permit the existence of a devil ; for a devil would not be a circumstance to such men as I have described! — Evening Sermon^ Octo- ber 23, 1859. Cleansed conscious of what she did, she stooped by her ' ^ way of down and looked into the sepulchre, and ^^^'"'^ saw what those two great men did not see — very hkely, too, because their eyes were so rude and coarse. But the woman's eye, that had been cleansed by her way of 98 Pulpit Punge7icies 100 living, had a discerning power which, it seems, had yet to be given to the others. — Wednesday Evening Lecturey February I, i860. T God's Cloth HERE is a providence of God, a thinking of God for us ; but it is providence no such providcuce or thinking as ever never w^av^s takes the place of, or interferes with, our own personal wisdom. There is a provi- dence of God, but it never weaves cloth. — Evening Sermon, ynly 3, 1859. T)E content with such things as ye ^ have." Well, you are not. God Parental anxiety ^3^3 given you a family of children ; and davionK <^^^ looking upon your household from the outside would say, " How happy that father and that mother must be with such children." But a person who is brought into near relations with you will find that parental anxiety is clucking after those children all the day long. — Morning Ser- mojiy yu7ie 5, 1859. 74 day long lOi Pulpit Pungencies 102 WHAT a coarse book this Bible is. It has never been to school to What a get refined, so we have to take it just as ^^o^^/s^jjjo^ we find it. These are plain words: "If i^ a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen t " Show me a man that is proud and over- reaching, who professes to be pious, and I will tell you that his piety is all flummery. There is not a bit of piety in such a man. — Morning Sermon, yune 19, 1859. DEEDS of kindness must not be occa- sional, and as enforced duties ; they must be the spontaneous a6ts of an abiding ^"^ .x^""^ disposition of Christian love. They must grow out of you as grass grows out of the summer-warmed ground. You don't have to coax grass to grow; you can't coax it not to grow. — Morning Sermofi, October 16, '1859. 75 to grow I03 Pulpit Pungencies w HEN we go into a family, can any- thing be sweeter than to see those throthe"^ pleasant, glowing looks, and hear those "My dear" kind words, which stir the memories of tender associations ? How much of hea- ven there is sometimes in the blush upon the mother's cheek, and how much of the heart's best knowledge shines in the fa- ther's face, drawn out by those incidental allusions which go direct from heart to heart. But suppose we find every day each one of the parents cobwebbing the other from morning until night with well- spun words, winding them round and round in a flimsy net-work and shallow pretence of affection. I think there are some men who never speak kindly until they are on the eve of a broil ; they say, " My dear," and then each word pierces sharper and sharper, till the quarrel be- comes almost intolerable. — Evening Ser- mon, May 15, 1859. 76 I04 Pulpit Pungencies io6 w Cockles E should brush down all the infinite , , . , I- Infinite cobwebs woven ni the corners oi Cobwebs the house of duty. — Morning Sermon, Jnne 26, 1859. '' I ^HEN, next, there are what may be ^ called (f//^y^ farmers in spiritual hus- bandry ; I do not know that there are any ^^^^3^^^^^ such in natural husbandry, but you can conceive what they would be there. Sup- pose you should find a farmer who said that he had been pondering upon the theory and science of farming ; that he was satisfied that farmers had been doing injustice to many kinds of seeds ; and that he felt as- sured that if a man would sow cockle seeds, and do it sincerely, God would give the increase .'* So He would — of cockles ! — Evening Sermon, October 16, 1859. I T is not in the power of all the Boling- brokes, and Voltaires, and Tom Paines, The and Rousseaus, and other great names that devil's write infidel matters — it is not in the power of all the locust host of infidels — to do that 77 Colporteurs io6 Ptilpit Ptmgencies io8 damage to true religion which may be done by an unfaithful church, or by the ungodly testimony, in pradlical life, of professors of religion ; for betraying Christians are the* devil's colporteurs, who peddle tra6ls of in- fidelity ; not printed tradls, but living epistles — their own examples. — Morning Sermoiiy Marc J i 27, 1859. T^OR I hold that the prejudice which ■^ exists against color, is not against color ; and it is not against carelessness, nor indolence, nor impertinence ; because you shall find, in nearly twenty States, that wherever color is subordinated to a man's interests, he can eat with color, and sleep with color, and ride with color, and do everything with color. — Morning Seimon, July 17, 1859. A PAINTER undertakes to paint a por- ,, . . trait of my friend. When he has Coming it -' drawn the outline of the head, I say, " You have the right idea." After he has laid on 78 Eat \vith Color and sleep with Color io8 Pulpit Pungencies no the dead coloring, I say, " I think I see what you are going to do." I step into his studio just after he has marked out the features, and I say, " That's coming it." — Morning Sermon, April 24, 1859. I THINK every man who is not a com- Everyman not a mentator must know what Paul meant. Commenta- tor — Morning Sermo7i, November 6, 1859. w HEN a church was about to be built in a certain town, the people were Compro- divided with reference to where it should ""'^^ stand, and the minister had to preach a \'ive"ipf very strong sermon on the subjedl. This sermon had the desired effe6l. It even brought tears to the eyes of the deacons — and it is a good sign when deacons cry. The next morning one deacon called on another, and said to him, " Our minister is right, and we are imperiling the cause of Christ by our dissension, and I have come to tell you that we must compromise ; and now, you must give up, for I can't" — Morn- ing Sermon^ May 29, 1859. 79 1 1 1 Pulpit Pungencies 112 I N some lands a man is considered very rich if he has twenty-five thousand Compromise dollars. In other lands fifty thousand dol- on ^^100,000 lars makes a man so rich that he scarcely feels any motives for further accumulation. In other countries it requires a hundred thousand dollars to make a man rich. I suppose that the average of this congrega- tion would compromise on a hundred thou- sand dollars — principally, however, because they do not expe6l half or a quarter of that sum ! — Evening Serniony Fcbntary 5, i860. water I THINK I can show ambitious men, who seek political preferments, their Island types on the sea-shore, on Coney Island, for instance. There you will see old, worth- less sticks of drift-wood come rolling in on the crest of some wave : these are now the types of political men coming into power. In the course of a year or so they are sucked out into the sea again by the ebb- ing and flowing of the tide : then they are types of political men going out of power ; and whether coming in or going out, they 80 Too much Conscience 1 1 2 Ptilpit Pungencies 1 1 5 are merely old, decayed water-logs, which are fit for nothing, not even to be burned. — Moiimig Sermon, May 8, 1850. I HAVE seen men that had a great deal too much conscience. Their con- science stood in the way of their useful- ness. One of our noblest poets told me that he would be much more useful if he had not such a supersensitive conscience. — Evening Sermon^ November 6, 1859, SNOW is conservative rain. It is good to keep ; and it is good for little coa""'"'' else until it stops being snow, and comes to be rain. — Morning Sermon, December 4, 1859 sei-vative rain T HE importation and exportation of -vvares wares contraband to heaven is cfoing to"heaven on all the time ! — Morning Sermon, October 16, 1859. 81 and dogs I always Cotton to the rich 1 1 6 Pulpit Pungencies 1 1 8 COPYISTS are not artists, any more ,„H than a dog is an artist because he draws a Httle baby in a wagon behind him ! — Morning Sennony March 1 1 , 1 860. I HAVE known a good many of these rich men ! I always cotton to the rich ! I always make friends with them, that I may find out what sort of men they are, what kind of a life they live, and how they enjoy themselves ! I was very much struck by a fa6l that was related to me of a very rich man — he is well known in New York, but I will not mention his name — by his agent. Said he, " I have often heard him turn in his bed in the night, saying, ' Oh God ! oh God ! oh God ! When will it be morning!'" It did me good ! — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. Y 'OU have taken notice that in New York it makes a great difference be- N"cw Vorlc Courts fore what court you bring a case at law. There are different judges in different courts, and justice varies, pradlically, with 82 ii8 Pulpit P^mgencies 120 the men who decree it. You can obtain an acquittal at one court, while you would get a conviaion at another. When a man has a case to be tried, therefore, he wishes it to come before that court whose verdi6l will suit him. — Morning Sermon, November 27, 1859, PERSONS do a great deal of unre- quited Christian work here, one with . >■ One winter another, which does not seem to produce to cmck the any fruit. I think it will bear fruit in heaven. They will see it there. You know that if you plant peach stones, they do not come up the same year. It always re- quires one winter to crack the shell— Wednesday Eventing Lecture y November 16, 1859. IF you cut off a branch of a tree, and immediately bandage it, so as not to allow the air to get at the wound, it will grow again; but if you crack a crystal friendship vase, no growing process in creation will repair the damage. It is cracked glass 83 Hot water oa a Cracked I20 PtUpit Pungencies 122 forever and forever. Nothing will take out the crack. Now, although a cracked friend- ship, like a cracked tumbler, may be ce- mented, the moment you put it into hot water the bottom will fall out, or it will come to pieces ! — Evenijig Sermon, Janu- ary 29, i860. PERSONS that are fretful in youth and in middle age are usually so out of through old age, and they go croaking to the end of their days, when, reptile-like, they crawl out of life. — AlorniJig Sermon, July 24, 1859. I SAY that the idea of removing the free colored people of the United in his States, when you look at it from the stand- pocket . - ... - . . pomt 01 political economy, is insanity ; it is pocket insanity ; arid it is enough to send a man to the asylum for life, to be crazy in his pocket ! — Morning Sermon, July 1 7, 1859. 84 w Pulpit Pungencies 1 2 5 HAT if a person going on a journey of five years should undertake to carry provisions, and clothes, and gold Creation at his enough to last him during the whole time, ^acki lugging them as he traveled like a veritable Englishman, with all creation at his back ! — Morning Sernioji, December 18, 1859. N OW, God gives every man a circular letter of credit for life, and says. Credit " Whenever you get to a place where you letter of need assistance, take your letter to the Banker, and the needed assistance will be given you." — Morning Sermon, December 18, 1859. A COMMAND also given in the Bible, which seems strange, to children especially, whether ungrown or grown, is this : " Be ye angry and sin not ; let not ^^^^^^ the sun go down upon your wrath." .Now, parents are perpetually telling their child- ren that it is sinful to be angry, and when they come to read in the Bible, " Be ye angry and sin not," it seems to them as 8S As though the thing were 125 Pulpit Pungencies 128 though the thing were cross-ploughed and turned up by the roots. — Morning Sennon, May 15, 1859. OUFFERING is curative when it is later" *^ appUed early, when men are not men Crusty vcry wickcd ; but taken later, it makes men crusty. — Morning Sermoriy yanuary g, 1859. A NY man who has a family round about him, whatever it may cost in Reading prayers thc beginning, will do wisely to take up ^wkh^ family prayer. As to reading of it from Crutches ^ book, cvcry man must have his own liberty. It is better to read than not to pray ; but it is still better to read from your own religious experience than from any other volume. A man who walks with crutches is better than a man who does not walk at all. — Evening Sermon^ May I, 1859. MEN that are bad have, I say, a 2:reat many good thmgs m and about Cutwater? ^ ^ ^ them ; but the question is not whether a S6 128 Pulpit Pungencies 130 man has some good or some bad. The best men have enough that is bad, and the worst men have some good. The question is, What should be the cutwater ? — Morning Sermon, ynne 12, 1859. CYPHER both ways, not only toward heaven, but also toward hell ; and Cv^her ' ' both make up your mind what you will do from "^'^^'^ a comprehensive calculation, and not a par- tial and flattering one. — Evening Sermon, December 18, 1859. THEREFORE although I would not speak contemptuously of any form Cjpherings for of words that may have become endeared salvation to any man's experience, yet I may say, so far as my own experience is concerned, I utterly abhor such terms as " God's plan," and as the " plan of salvation ; " as though there had been endless cypherings, plan- nings, fixings and arrangements, and at last there was something devised, and God's heart uplifted salvation. — Evening Sermon, July 10, 1859. ^7 131 Pulpit Pungencies 134 TIIROUG Jew wa .OUGHOUT medieval Europe the Every ■*' Jcw was the cui'sing block of man : wants for you know everybody wants somebody somebody to Damn! to swear at ; every nation wants somebody to curse ; every church wants somebody to damn. — Morning Sermon, March 4, i860. I KNOW innocent men who do not Tbey X hesitate to take the name of God never would Damn it I will tell you all in vain. They never would say, " Damn it!" but they do not hesitate to say, "Oh, Lord ! " which is no better. — Evening Ser- mon, November 20, 1859. YOU may wink at wickedness, but God w..a. y.,.. won't wink at it. Whatever you will c;ct, and that think you will cret, I will tell you what Damnation ! y^^ ^y^jj gg^ j£ y^^ g^^g ^p ^j-^^ righteOUS- ness of God, and that is, damnation ! — Evening Sermon, June 12, 1859. THERE are a great many persons who troubles aa as if they thought petty troubles were a luxury ; and they seem never to be satisfied without them. They nurse their %Z ■ 134 Pnlpil Pungencies 137 annoyances, and dandle them, as it were, on their knee, seeming determined to bring out of them all they have in them. — Morn- ing Sermon, yiily 24, 1859. D O not be angry by the day. Be angry when there is a just cause for it, but Don't be anr.rv get over it as speedily as possible. A man by the Day could not live and be in a constant blaze of anger. It is only now and then that one can afford to be angry. — Morning Sermon, May 15, 1859. o LD Saxon words are Day of Judg- ment words ; they are like double- Day of Judi^incnt edged swords, and cut where they hit. But words when we come to speak of evil, we must have Latin, or some soft language. I think it will take two or three languages for us to get along with, soon. — Evening Sermon, May 15, 1859. THE active period, even in the case of the longest-lived men, is only about forty-five years. Now, consider what this 89 alive 137 Pulpit Pungencies 139 period of forty-five years is made up of, and ^Dead*^^ how much usable there is in it. There is of the a tax of eight hours out of every twenty- time that . • 1 r 1 you are four, to begin With, for sleep. You are dead one full third of the time that you are alive! — Evening Sennon, December 25, 1859. I CAN find a charity in my heart for all ^:,xuu creatures of guilt except the various the DevH men who sin deliberately against their fel- low-men, to consume them. Such I regard as I do the devil ! — Evening Sermon, Feb- ruary 12, i860. I NEVER saw a man bribe himself to Devil- ^ use a wicked thing, that did not after- and ward falsify and perjure himself When a Devil- . , . r , . , • 1 damned man goes mto a business of this kmd, thinking he will do it for the means of doing good, oh, how devil-duped he is, that he may be devil-damned ! — Evening Ser- mon, Jnne 12, 1859. 90 ideas Devil-talk 140 Pulpit Pungencies 141 I SUPPOSE there is nothing more oflfen- sive to men than steaUng, where the rights of property are involved. Our ideas dSTr' of stealing are perpendicular, and a thou- sand feet high. There is nothing like steal- ing to us. It is enough to doom a man to perdition. But lying is not supposed to be so very bad ; and these men who would not let a person vary a hair from rectitude on the subject of property, when it comes to his word, when it comes to his use of de- ception as a means of getting property, do not think he need be over scrupulous. They say, ** We must be moderate in our ideas of veracity when we are engaged in commercial matters. When we are anions: Romans, we must do as Romans do ; " and all that kind of devil-talk. — Morning Scr- mo7t, yiine 26, 1859. A LL along the shores of life I see men -^~^ in middle life lay themselves up ; \l^ and there they lie shrinking and cracking, ^^Sie"^^' good for nothing on sea or on land. Now, 91 141 Ptdpii Pungencies 144 if anybody wants to retire, die ! — Evening Sermon, Jnly 17, 1859. AVOID falsehood in all its varied forms, "I don't '^'^^ ^ repeat, if you sin at all, sin on eS'irt!" the side of truth. Where men give you permission to do wrong, let it be as though they gave you permission to eat dirt. If you were told that you may eat dirt, you would say, " I don't want to eat dirt, and I won't touch it." — Morning Sermon, J'nne 26, 1859. EVERYBODY sits in judgment on a xjirry dirty sin ; but clean it, dress it, and sin and polish it, and there are ten thousand people bum i shed iniquity who thluk it is not so sinful, after all. It is ragged iniquity that is sinful ; burnished iniquity is not quite so wicked. — Evening Sermon y May 15, 1859. I have ^ 1 ^HERE is no voice in nature that DiSnd -^ teaches me that God cares for me, God°scare cxccpt as hc carcs f^r chestnut burrs, and fungi, and vines, and bees, and insects. 92 144 Pitlpit Ptmgencies 145 God cares for nature, and cares for me as a part of nature. As a part of nature, I have my dividend of God's care and thought. — Morning SennoUy October 2, 1859. F OR instance, on Sunday a man wor- ships God, . sings to God, prays to when i Do God, carries around the contribution box rehvion, ' I Do for God's sake, takes the sacrament for God, ''^'^s'o" keeps a sober face for God, walks slowly to church and home again for God, and ab- stains from reading the newspaper for God ; but when he has done all these things for God, and the sun is down, " Now," he says, " I have got through with my religion for to-day. To-morrow I am going into the world again." And what are you going to do .^ " Why, I have a caucus to attend, and such and such a man to ele6t." But you are a Christian man, the head of a Christian household, and a member of the Christian church. " Oh, don't talk to me about rehgion. Religion is religion, and the world and politics are different affairs altogether. When I do religion, I do reli- 93 145 Pulpit Pungencies 146 gion ; and when I take care of the world, I take care of the world." — Morning Sermofiy September 18, 1859. I F you were to ask our bankers, " Would you associate with a colored man ?' a'dTy they would straighten up with insulted dig- nity, and say, " I, that am respedlably con- nedled ! " But let a colored man deposit in a bank a thousand dollars on Monday, a thousand dollars on Tuesday, and a thou- sand dollars on Wednesday. Up to this time the banker consents to take the money, to be sure ; but he is very unceremonious in his condu6t to his new customer. On Thursday the man deposits a thousand dol- lars more, and a thousand dollars more on Friday. By this time the banker has become a little less reserved in his manner. The man continues to deposit a thousand dollars every day. On Saturday, when he comes, the banker says, " Good morning, sir." On Monday the salutation he receives is, "How do you do this morning, sir.?" On Tuesday it is, " I am glad to see you 94 146 Pulpit Pungencies 147 this morning, sir." On Wednesday, " How are your family, sir?" And, if the deposits amount to twenty, or thirty, or forty thou- sand dollars, "Won't you call upon me, sir ? " Ah, there are a great many ways to get at men's consciences ! — Morning Ser- mon, Jnly 17, 1859. w E not unfrequently hear men say, " It is easy for you, who have a ■, , , Down-hill good constitution and a happy tempera- duties ment, and who are agreeably circum- stanced, to do thus and so ; but if you were as bilious as I am ; if you were as sick as I am ; if you had to contend with such trials at home as I have to ; if you were a business man, and you had such a harassing business about your heels as I have about mine, you would then have as much anxiety as I have, and you would fret as much as I do. It is very easy to preach, much easier than it is to pra6lice." I have found that out, that it is a great deal easier to preach than it is to pra6tice ; but it is nevertheless our duty to pra6lice. 95 147 Pulpit Ptmgencies 149 God does not exempt you from perform- ing all duties except those which you can perform down hill. — Morning Sermon, Au- gust 14, 1859. T)UBLIC sentiment and law may save The ^ a man before he has done wrons:, but ^'aytoGod ° they damn him after he has done wrong. But not so with God. The way to Him is down hill. Up hill is down hill, if it be toward God! — Jllorning Scnnon, October 23, 1859- Down hill Y OU shall hear it said of a man : " Ah ! that is one of the greatest men the dozini,' age has ever produced ; a sound, a deep, a dozing profound man ; one of the most admirable theologians of the nation or the time. Pity he hadn't some little knowledge of human life. He never could do anything in the pulpit. People always went to sleep under his preaching ; but to those that could keep awake, it was so grand and deep. It was massive ! He had such great views of truth, and they were so admu"ably fitted to each 96 149 Pulpit Pungencies 151 other." That is to say, a man who essen- tially and totally misses the great idea of preaching, that of rearing up in men vital sympathy with God, and producing in them a thought of the life to come ; a man who, missing this great idea, so handles his views of truth that while he is dozing, dozing, dozing over his manuscript, his hearers are dozing, dozing, in their pews : such an one is esteemed to be a very sound man ! — Morning Sermony yanuary 30, 1859. '^T 7" HEN EVER profane oaths are em- ^ ^ ployed to enforce earnestness or swears express passion, you may be sure it will strong not linger long in growth in evil disposi- tions. It is not merely irreverence ; a man unconsciously becomes profane in every sense. When he swears with his heart and with a strong draft, it will be always burning hot. — Evening Sermon, May i, 1869. w E go through life, drawing deep, so Drawing that the craft on both sides of the deep avenue through which we pass are made to 97 151 Pulpit Pungencies 153 hop and bound upon the waves we produce, and so that men fostered in prosperity and in chara6ler rock and grind at the pier, and are angry toward us ; and yet we do not know what disturbance we are causing. — Morning SermoUy June 12, 1859. WHEN God built this world, He did .^-j,jgj^ not build a palace complete with Driu world appointments. This is a drill world. Men were not dropped down upon it like manna, fit to be gathered and used as it fell ; but like seeds, to whom the plow is father, the furrow mother, and on which iron and stone, sickle, flail, and mill must a6l before they come to the loaf — Mornijtg Sermojt, September 25, 1859. IF you are roused up by the sight of indi ation injusticc, by the sight of avarice, by the sight of cruelty, do what you can at once ; do as the bolt docs when it lunges at the oak ; but don't be, in respe6l to your 98 153 Pulpit Ptingencies 155 indignation, like a northeast storm, which drizzles, drizzles, drizzles from morning till night. — Morning Sermon, August 14, 1859. I DON'T think that conscience is apt to be a drug in the market. Some men a Dmg ^ . _ in the talk about being over conscientious ; but I market don't think that is a pecuHar faculty of men in the city of New York. — Evening Ser- mon, yime 12, I859. w E drink, not to gratify the palate, but for a business purpose. That to Drunk Leads being the case, we may begin with the down milder beverages, just as we begin our fires with pine shavings, not only because we can light them so easily, but also because we want them to set on fire something solider. And wine is stepstone to brandy. Beer is stepstone the other way. It does not lead up to brandy, but it leads down to drunk, and beastly drunk. — Evening Ser- mon, November 20, 1859, 99 156 Ptdpit Pimgcficies 158 DRY cards are very dry indeed. Drink- jjry cards i^g and playing are so nearly con- ne6led, that they court each other as almost intimate relations and inevitable friends. — Evening Sermon, Mai'ch 4, i860. I Dn- Piit up F there are any men who are too dry to live, they are those who have their truth all fixed and figured out, and who say of a cord'wood n^a-n who has not such systematic views, " He is all afloat." Now I think that a man whose \^ews of truth are not fixed, but who holds himself in readiness to receive what- ever truth is presented to him, is like a liv- ing tree that is all open to the stimulating influences of the air ; and I think that a man who has got all his truths fixed, is like a tree after it has been cut and split up into cord wood ; it is dead and dry.— J/ 1859. NOW, suppose I should fall into a con- troversy with a man, and should adroitly deceive him ; and suppose, after Exquisite having done it, I should come before you, and say, " I told an exquisite lie yesterday. I did not tell it selfishly, however ; I told it for a wise purpose, and it inured to the benefit of the truth." How many of you would admire me for owning that I had told a permissible X\^}— Morning Sermon, Jnne 26, 1859. I LIKE to see a hard-working, honest man, especially if he has had some dirty calling — a butcher, a tallow chandler, or a dealer in fish oil ; I like to see such a man, when by dint of honest industry he gets rich, build him a house in the best neighborhood in the place, and build it 107 Fat to the very marrow 177 Pulpit Pungencies 179 so that everybody says, " O, what a fine house ; it is better taste than we exiDe6led." That does me good ; makes me fat to the very marrow. — Evening Sermon, May 8, 1859. /^^ OD has made this world as a splendid ^^^ chariot, that His children may ride Father ' as princcs. The horses serve them, the and mother ride chariot serves them, and the driver serves them ; and, best of all, father and mother ride with them to take care of them. — Morning Sermon, April 10, 1859. with them W Mr. man HILE men stood out of his path, and turned to look back admiringly Fat-soul after him, and to say to the stranger newly the topmost come to town, ** Knowest thou who that is t That is the great and wealthy Mr. Fat- soul" — amid all these congratulations, and admirations, and human praises, there were others looking at him, and expressing opinions about him not quite so compli- mentary. For God and holy angels looked down upon his gross abundance, upon his 108 179 Pulpit Pungencies i8o fat and dozing ease, and upon his arrogant self-gratulations ; and God calmly said to this man, who stood so large, who was so prospered, and who, very likely, was the topmost man of the whole circle in which he moved, '* Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." — Evening Scr- mon, yamiary 15, i860. IF a man, while out on a pleasure drive, takes a road that leads him through low grounds, which are beautiful, to be sure, but which consist of forests and mo- rasses filled with gadflies and mosquitos, that sting him and vex him almost beyond endurance, you say, " He won't go that road again." No, he won't, bodily. But a man may go down into life, and may drive through a morass of trouble, where gad- flies and mosquitos of vexation come about him, and sting him, and torment him ; and won't he go that way again.? The old, stupid fellow will whip his horse right down that same road the very next day. — Morii- ing Sermon, yidy 29, 1859. 109 The old, stupid Fellow i8i Pulpit Pungencies 182 HE opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are" — oh, Fellows ^ •\ ,1 ^ • • • -I • • 1 afraid who ? — " the poor m spirit : theirs is the to say their^soui kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn : they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek " — what ! those spiritless fel- lows, with white faces, that go about afraid to say their soul is their own ? — Morning Sermon^ February 19, i860. their own I T was not God's plan that the ark should be the refuge of the human race Femage^ lougcr than uutil the deluge had passed away ; but if Noah and his descendants had afterward built arks upon the hills and rocks, and attempted to crowd all the people and animals on the earth into them, their folly would not have been greater than is that of those who are attempting to crowd back the gathering forces of the nations into institutions, which were only designed to give them a temporary ferriage while the deluge of an immoral common sense should last. — Thanksgiving Sermon^ November 2^, 1859. no 183 Pulpit Pungencies 183 H OW many men are there of whom we hear those profoundest philoso- The phers of human nature in these modern lobby times, leofislators of the lobby, say : Gratitude -^ •' will "Can A be had?" Fetch him "Easily, easily. One hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars will do for him." "Can B be had?" " I think he can. He don't want money, but he has got a son, or a son-in-law, who wants office ; and I think that by a little dexterous movement he can be secured." "Can C be had?" " C is a more difficult man to deal with ; but I think that if a man goes to him, and tells him he shan't go the way you wish him tOj his conscience may be pushed through his obstinacy." "Can D be had?" " Yes ; I think there will be no trouble with D. He don't think about these things. All you have to do is to see that you send the right man to him." "Can E be had?" " E is a difficult case ; but I think I III The lobby 183 Pulpit Pungencies 184 know how you can get him. Find a man who is his friend, and let that man go and make the request on the ground of friend- Gratitude ship. Or let Judge Reed, to whom he is will Fetch him under great obligations, go to him, and gratitude will fetch him. He won't con- sent under any other conditions." " Can F be had." " Yes, F can be had ; but he requires to be in a royal mood when he is approached on the subject. He should be taken at the supper, when everything is genial, and he is at the height of his good nature. He cannot refuse then ; and when he says he will go, he will go." Thus, when the devil fishes, he prepares his bait according to what he is going to catch. — Alorning Sermon, January 23, 1859. " I ^HE stomach of a gluttonous man may \"^riSs^ ^^ likened to the old witches' caul- fo/tS '^^on of which we read, which had ingre- dients from the lower regions fermenting in it, and around which the witches danced, 112 Stealing 184 Pulpit Pungencies 186 having infernal sprites to fiddle for them. — Morning Sermon, yuly 24, 1859. THERE was a man, in the town where I was born, who used to steal all his fire-wood. He would get up on cold nights, Fire-wood and go and take it from his neighbors' wood piles. A computation was made, and it was ascertained that he spent more time, and worked harder, to get his fuel, than he would have been obliged to if he had earned it in an honest way, and at ordinary wages. And this thief was a type of thousands of men who work a great deal harder to please the devil than they would have to work to please God. — Momiiig Sermon, December 18, 1859. YOU shall hear it said of an emotive man who preaches to his congrega- tion in the le6lure room, " That man is a ^'and^' revivalist. He is, no doubt, a popular preaching preacher ; but then, he don't understand anything deep or profound. He's got no theology." It is as if a man were to start 113 1 86 Pulpit Pungencies 187 in January, with a four-horse cart, and go lumbering along the road on a fishing ex- ^'Sid^' cursion. The stream is frozen over. He preaching takes his line, and throws it out about once in a mile, with a dead bait, upon the frozen river, and, after waiting a suitable time, draws it back again. When he arrives at the end of the brook, he turns his horses round and goes home. And he is called a great fisher, although he never brought a fish home in all his life. Another man, who has no fishing apparatus, gets an old alder bush for a pole, an old twine siring for a line, a common hook, and a grasshopper for a bait, and goes out ; and there is not a fish that don't know him. He has not been gone half an hour before his basket is full, and he returns well laden with fish. But the peojDle say, " He's got no science. He catches fish, and that's all he does do." — Morning Sermon^ ymiuary 30, 1859. The Flap /^ H, commcud me to that man who of whose O" tongue v_^ carries his dagger in his hand, and not in his mouth ! Commend me to that 114 Their 187 Pulpit Pungencies 189 man who only dips his dagger in poison which the apothecary can make, and who does not dip it in the infernal, rancorous poison which Satan brews ! There are men that we have seen, tTie flap of whose tongue, not in a single instance merely, but in scores of instances, makes the difference between heaven on earth and hell on earth ! — Evening Sermon, January 29, i860. THERE is nothing of which we have so much in these days as we have of patriotism! Men are patriots so long as ''ScT^ there is anything to be made by being pa- triotic ; so long as their country's fleece is within reach of their clipping. — Eventing Sermon, November 2J, 1859. ^^ ^ALUTE Urbane, our helper in Christ, and O Stachys my beloved. Salute Appelles, approved in Christ. Salute them which are of -^g^^ Aristobulus's household. Salute Herodion, my who were kinsman. Greet them that be of the household of ^i!j|?ff Narcissus, which are in the Lord. Salute Tryphe- na, and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord. Salute the beloved Persis, which labored much in the Lord. Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brethren which 115 Folks? 189 Pulpit Pungencies are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia, Ne- reus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints Well, that are with them." who were all these Folks? Well, who were all these folks } That is the beginning of them and the end of them, so far as we know. You may look through the di6lionary, and you will find this simple history of their life, that they are men- tioned in the sixteenth chapter of Romans. Now, the reading of a catalogue of such names as these which I have read to you, is apt to excite a smile ; not when one reads them quietly to himself; but the children always laugh when they hear them read, and especially when the minister gets up and reads them before the congregation. The uncouthness of them to our ears, and so long a list of them, with no more mean- ing attached to them than is attached to a mere bill of items, may excite a smile, an innocent, harmless smile ; and yet, I pre- sume I have read them a thousand times in my life ; and I feel as though I could read this sixteenth chapter of Romans about as heartily as any chapter in the 116 189 Pulpit Pungencies 192 Bible. — Wednesday Evening LecUtre, No- vember 16, 1859. IF Solomon had been half as wise as it is pretended he was, he would have °oST'' Fool's known better than to have started on such errand a fool's errand as that. — Morning Sermon. March 11, 1850. IT matters not if men roll my name about in slanderous reports, as a boy would ^l^^^^}^ roll a foot-ball down a dirty street, so long Foot-baii as the cause of God succeeds. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. NOT until men are made acquainted with the powers of their minds, will they be qualified to examine their motives P^^'-^^jo^'^sy ^ . , , . 1 1 Foot-room With profit. And this can never be, so long as men accept only such systems of mental philosophy as that of Locke, and Reid, and Stewart, and the whole metaphysical school. 117 192 PtUpit Pungencies 193 Phrenology, though I regard it as being in an unformed state, crude, only approxima- ireno^ogy ^.^^ ^^ ^ scieuce, at kast affords a founda- Foot-room tion upon which a man can put his foot, and wait for the waters of ignorance to subside. On this the dove can sit till the dry land of enlightenment appears. But the other systems do not afford foot-room for either man or bird. — Evening Sermon^ November 6, 1859. AT EITHER does this promise say that -*- ^ if a man shuts himself off from the ° 5^6°° world, and prays, and sino^s, and reads sfood tothe ^ ' ' Forepart booKS, and ncglects his worldly business, store God will make up to him all that he loses by such negle(51. When a man opens a store on Broadway, God does not say to him, " Now, you have rented your building, and purchased your goods, and hired your clerks ; and if you will go back into your counting-room, and spend your time in reading, and singing and praying, I will see to the fore part of the store." — Mornhig Sermon, yiine 12, 1859. 118 194 Pulpit Pungencies 196 FIRST find out what God has meant you to be — and if you cannot find it Friends out yourself, your friends can very quick — '^^ and then enter that department of Hfe for which you were intended. — Morning Ser- mon, jFune 5, 1859. THERE is no man built large enough for imitation. The disciples of Ti- tian, of Raphael, of Michael Angelo, of the him with abundant Caracci, very soon ran out into mediocrity, htueness There never has arisen a great man in literature, in the State, in the arts, whose imitators did not very soon fringe him with abundant littleness. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. ALL through the conference meeting, those who speak are talking about how depraved they are in general, but never down^tL in particular. They do not recognize any application of pradlical ethics to commerce, any application of pra6lical ethics to poli- tics, or any application of pra6lical ethics to social life. The man who has come in 119 Fur Fur 196 Pulpit Pungencies 197 to listen looks at one and another, and says, " I know that that man has been bathed in down^he illicit pleasures ; that man did a thing at the late caucus that I would have burned my hand off sooner than I would have done, sinner as I am ; and that man would not have done one bit worse than I saw him do if he had broken open a bank ; and yet they come here, and pretend to confess their sins, and they do not seem to consider that these things are sinful. And such men are looked upon by the Church as Christians. If they are Christians, I would not give much for Christianity. But I will try them once more ; I will go and listen to what they call Christian preaching." So he attends church ; but throughout his dis- course the minister never says anything but "pussy, pussy." He is all the while smoothing down the fur. — Morning Sermon, March 27, 1859. NO man has truly repented, and be- devotionai comc a truc Christian, except he has that within him which makes him a 120 197 Pulpil Pungencies 198 well-wisher to every human being. It is the love of God that is implanted in his soul. If a man gets up and repents, and then goes home furiously devotional, but yet utterly selfish, he has not repented at all. — Evening Sermon, May 22, 1859. H OW hard was it at first to brine: the & soil to such a state that you dared to think " plow ! " And how hard is it for hisfim a man, at first, to bring himself into such of grace a state that he dares to think "prayer!" How, when the plow was first put into the ground, it bounded out, striking stones, and throwing itself hither and thither, and the holder with it ! And how, when a man cuts his first furrows of grace, he is slung about at the tail of the plow, hither and thither, and made to be a great deal more nimble than he wishes to be ! Yet, after ten years have passed, look upon that same operation in the field. Now, as the man plows, he whistles, and sings, and watches the birds, and only now and then takes account of the furrow. The ox scarcely 121 198 Pulpit Pungencies 201 sweats. The turf goes over as if it loved to be turned, and the plow tucks it down as a mother tucks a coverlet round her child. Now it is very easy. Yes, it is very easy ; but it had to learn to be easy ! So it is with spiritual plowing. — Evenuig Sermoiiy October 16, 1859. I DO not like to see wrinkles. I think '^Fur^ows'^ ^ they are the devil's furrows on the brow, unless age has placed them there. — Morning Scinnon, August 14, 1859. I I have seen N respect to the playing of cards, I do not think it is in all cases harmful. I can conceive of persons being in circum- ^GambHng stauccs whcrc it would not harm them. As for myself, I have not learned to tell one card from another, although I have seen a great deal of gambling on the Western rivers. — Evetmig Sermon, November 20, 1859. God T T would seem extravagant to say that never shoots I . , , unless X men love misery : that they are ad- there is J ^ J good Game tii(5^ed to tormcnting themselves ; that they 1 22 20I Ptilpit Pungencies 203 love vexations to such a degree that it is needful that there should be set up the Divine command, " Fret not thyself in any- wise." But there is the command, and it is aimed at something ; for God never shoots unless there is good game. — Morn- ing Sermon, yidy 24, 1859. T T is a solemn thing to enter into wed- -■- lock ; it is a solemn thing to open a ^^*® gate through which shall troop myriads of little ones to the eternal world. — Eveninsr Sermo7i, February 26, i860. I CAN'T bear to hear things that I do hear about my own people. I can't bear to have persons come to me and say, oav^lt to " Is it true that such a man belongs to your didSe? congregation ? " and to hear them say, when I hesitatingly admit that he does, " We have heard such and such thins^s about him." I have heard the same things before, but I have not wanted to believe them ; but when they come to me in this way, I can't help believing them, and I say to myself, " What 123 He Gave it to them, didn't he? Here and Georgia 203 Pulpit Ptmgencies 204 shall I do?" At first I think I will go to the man and talk with him ; but, after a little reflection, I say to myself, " If I do, he will want to know who told me, and then, if I tell him, there will be a quarrel, and I shall be dragged into it as being a med- dler." So I conclude to hold back. Pretty soon I hear the same things from another source. After that I see the man, and I feel as though if he should open his vest I should see a great cancer. I sometimes lie awake and weep, thinking about him ; and I do a more foolish thing than that : I pray that I may preach thunder into his ears, and thus bring him to a realization of his true condition. And I do preach thunder to him ; and when I get through, he goes out and says, " He gave it to them, didn't he.'^" — Morning Scrmoii, March 27, 1859. THE more you make of the colored man, the more does slavery stink. I think a feeling against slavery has been driven into the hearts of this people, old and young, and into the hearts of Southern- 124 204 Ptilpit Pungencies 205 ers even (for there are in this church more or less Southerners every Sunday, and I preach to more of them here than I should if I were in Georgia, and I think I preach to them longer than I should if I were there), by having it brought before their minds in this practical way. — Morning Ser- mon, yuly 17, 1859. THERE is a kind of fungus which be- longs to every vegetable that grows ; there is a kind of insecl which belongs to every vegetable tribe ; and there is a kind of sin which belongs to almost every circumstance. There is a sin which be- longs to public institutions. Men sit down and reason with themselves in this way : " The cause of God requires the existence and prosperity of this institution ; it is called of God to occupy such a field ; the cause of God is identified with it ; it is necessary to the cause of God ; the interests of the Redeemer are bound up with it ; the cause of the Church is bound up with it." They reason in this way till they begin 125 God could not Get along without it 205 Pulpit Pungencies 208 to feel as if God could not possibly get along without this i SennoH, Jllay 15, 1859. along without this institution. — Evening T HE mechanical element of prayer is one that sometimes introduces fri- Not able • , . , . , • a ^ i . • to Get up gidity into It. A man that is very nerv- ous and restless, and that is pressed for time, says, " I am social in my nature ; and for me to withdraw from others, and go away into a chamber, and lock the door, and kneel down, and feel in a hurry, and not be able to get up a prayer, is disagree- able. — Wednesday Evening Lecture, Decem- ber 28, 1859. 1\ j\ EN, you know, hold up their heads Heads high iVl as high as a gibbet, when they are going to be humble. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. I THINK tl:tat of all the trashy things bread books ^^^ ^^^^s world, the most trashy are a religion that don't do anything, and flowery sermons, and gingerbread books, that begin 126 2o8 Piilpit Pungencies 210 in the mouth and end in the ^'^x.— Morning Sermon, January 30, 1859. w HENEVER you see a man laugh, laugh with him; whenever you ^^^^ see a man glad, you be glad, too. The beQad. rocks could tell you that. If one of a joyous company, in some valley, beneath an over- hanging cliff, breaks out into a merry, ring- ing laugh, all the rocks laugh back again.— Morning Sermoji, May 8, 1859. HOW many men that you might sele(5l from among a thousand of the most ^^^^ honest of your presidents, and cashiers, ^^^go.^^ and direftors, and bankers, and brokers, do you suppose, have such an inherent love of good because it is good, of right because it is right, that you would put this million of dollars into their hands, and say, " You can put it all in your pocket, or give it to those who really ought to have it ! " How many men of those that are approximately honest would it be safe to trust in a case like this .? How many men would make a 127 2IO Pulpit Pungencies 212 bargain with their conscience, and say, " I'll go for justice ; Til give them three quarters and pay myself one quarter. — Mornmg Ser- mon^ yanuary 23, 1859. A^ the Go-by ND then, right after that, he says, Bear ye one another's burdens ; " gi^e°thlm 3-s much as to say, you are to take care of all men that have fallen, that have sinned. If they have lied, and are convi6led of it, you are not on that account to give them the go-by ; if they have stolen, and are con- vi6led of it, you are not on that account to give them the go-by. — Evening Sermon, June 26, 1859. IT is not when men say, " God damn you ! " it is not when men use profani- 'God damn you!" ties ; though they are not less wicked than you think they are, and though they are di- rect affronts toward the majesty of Heaven : it is not when men do this that God is most offended. — Morning Sermoji, ynne 19, 1859. 128 213 Ptilpit Pungencies 215 PEOPLE sometimes think that God can not get along without certain men ; 1!\S^%Ia would do and if they should die, they wonder what God would do. — Evening Sennon^ May 15, 1859. B UT let a minister, for nineteen sermons out of twenty, preach of abstra6l Neither he knows do6lrines, that neither he nor God knows "^y^^""^ anything about, because they are not true, and the people would say, " Here is a man who knows how to lay down good, solid doctrines. He is a great preacher." — Morning Sermon , April 2^, 1S59. G OD teaches us to be pitiful, to be ^ gentle, to be condescending, to bow down and bring our greatness toward the growT earth, toward those that need it. That is the way in which God teaches us that man- hood grows ; and Godhood grows in the same dire6lion. — Evening Sermony Septem- ber 18, 1859. 129 God-light is healthy 2i6 Pulpit Ptmgencies 217 WHEN a man fixes up his religion, and says, " I have got it so that man's independence is secured," it is as if a man should build a house, and fit it all up like a fashionable parlor, with windows, having inside blinds and outside blinds, roll-down curtains and roll-up curtains, so that ten suns, trying ten years, could not get in. I think the thought of our de- pendence upon God ought to make our hearts bound with gladness. This is one of the sweetest and most attra6live things set forth in the Bible ; and as every phy- sician will tell you that sun-light is healthy, so I tell you that God-light is healthy, and that the soul is made stronger, every way, by the direct shining of the spirit of the ever-loving, ever-living God upon it. — Morning Sevmony yaniMij 23, 1859. I F when I rise in the morning I enthrone Take^hoid X conscicncc and love, and take hold of God's hand ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ thought, determined not to let it go, through all the hours of the day, and feel a willingness to bear all such 130 217 Pulpit Pungencies 219 things as God's providence may put upon me, I can go forth to the discharge of manly duties with a smile which all the twelve hours shall not wipe from ray face. — Morning Sermon, July 24, 1859. I N the beginnmg of the world men formed gods and godlings by the ten thousand, ""a^nd short Gods Snakes, monkeys, and calves were gods ; vegetables were gods ; old sticks of timber were sawed up into long gods and short gods. — Morning Ser^non, February 27, 1859. A MAN has fifty thousand dollars to in- vest. Where does he invest it ? Does he take up land or stocks in a village phdwhere that never hears the church bell ring } qoIT^ No ; he says, *' If I should go to such a place, my property would never increase ; it would never pay any dividend ; it would be a dead weight on my hands." A man wishes to invest his money where there are the most a6live men, and where there is the most moral influence. The place where there is the most true Christianity, is the 131 219 Pulpit Pimgencies 222 place where property goes up. — Evening Serino7ty Febriuxry 10, i860. r^ OOD nature is not to be an occasional re ■ occasional Good nature » ^r ■, • -i • i not to be v>^ thinsf, which a man summons once in a while, as he does his doctor or his attorney. — Morning Sermon, February 5, i860. WHEN a man has sown Canada thistle- to seed, it is too late for him to pro- work for it ^^g^ against what he has done. They must come up. He may eradicate them, but he has got to work for it if he does. — Eveni^ig Sermon, March 4, i860. I RECOLLECT the time when I used to be told that heaven would be an ^sayb? everlasting Sabbath ; and if I had not been qu«T£gs more afraid of hell than I was of heaven, the'Xone I should havc wished not to go to heaven. It was only second in rank among the places where I did not want to be ; for the idea of being compelled to recite the catechism, upon penalty and forfeiture ; of 132 2 22 Pulpit Pungencies 224 sitting still in a universal singing-school ; of not being allowed to speak or laugh till the sun went down : such ideas as these led me to look with terror, almost, upon anything like an endless Sabbath of praise. The idea that I pi6lured of heaven is no more agreeable now than when I was young. But I have put away childish things. We are not to praise God as if we were so many parasites, so many courtiers, whose interest and duty it was to say grandilo- quent things around the throne. — Morning Sermon, November 6, 1859. TO the man who says, " God is such a great Being that He does not care ^cJaf for us poor mortals," I say, " You are such a great fool that you do not know what God is, even!" — Morning Sermon, Atigust 14, 1859. LET a colored man do the work that Horace Greeley has done ; let a q^^^ colored man become such a physician as Dr. Mott is ; let a colored man preach as 133 2 24 Pulpit Pungencies 226 Whitfield preached, and as Frederick Doug- lass is preaching, and what will be the re- sult ? In the presence of such a man, you will find that your prejudices go as the snows do in March and April. You can- not help it. Superiority in the top of the head will make its way everywhere. — Morn- ing Scrmoji, yidy ly, 1859. THE world is a grindstone, and races are axes which are to get their cutting ^^^ edges by being ground on it! The very God object for which God thinks it worth while turns to turn and roll this round globe, is that by its very attrition and working men may be made men in every sense of the term. — Morning Sermon, March 11, i860. SUPPOSE a boy about six years of age were to come to you and say, " Father, you'll knmv what shall I do when I go to get married? how to act What shall I say .^ How shall I arrange matters.''" You look upon the child as a curiosity, and you say, ** My dear boy, you are only six years old, and I guess you will 134 2 26 Pidpit Pungencies 229 get wisdom enough by the time you are twenty-five, or twenty-one, to know how to a6l in such a case. — Morning Scnnoji, April 24, 1859. D O not make your sins hke an Egyp- tian mummy, with its dried bones and muscles wrapped up in gummed hide- in Gummed _ .,,.,, hideousness ousness. Let your past snis be buried, and if you want to go to the graveyard once in a while to see where you have laid them, go, but don't bring anything home with you. — Morning Sermon, April 3, 1859. HOW many men that have been bored for forty-pound cannons, have been fn'^Sf spoiled ni the gun-range ! — Morning Ser- mon, Jnne 5, 1859. T3 E careful of doing wrong to your em- J-^ ployers, and be just as firm never to do any wrong for them as you are never '^,0 uiT to do any wrong against them. No matter if they wish a whip-lash, and wish to strike it out, never let them tie you to the handle, 135 Ilaudle 2 29 PtUpit Pungencies 232 and strike out with you into iniquitous things. — Evening Serrnon, May 8, 1859. w HEN in our carriage we find men doing things that offend our deep- Don't let - - . . , your anger cst scusc 01 honor, m its verv core and Hang on centre, God says: "Give it the bolt — blast it ; but don't let your anger hang on. Don't let it be dripping, dripping, dripping all day long." — Mornifig Sermon, May 15, 1859. Hangers-on ^ I ^HEY join themsclves to that great mosquito X horde of men who are the hangers- and iteal ^ on of society, men who play musquito, and steal blood for a living. — Evening Ser- mon, Fcbjiiary 5, i860. blood for a living man IT is a glorious thing to the carnal na- naniessea turc to gct out of thc hamcss. But blessed is that man who is harnessed, who has got a load behind him, and who has to pull to move it, at least up hill. — Moaning Sermon, May 8, 1859. 136 2 33 Pulpit Pungencies 235 IT is a cruel kindness to leave a child's disposition unsubdued. One who has never learned how to obey, will be at fault all his Hfe long. It is a vital attainment. Flax is no better than any weed, unless it be broken, hatcheled. Then it may be spun and woven ; then it may be manufa6lured and worn. — Evening Sermon, Febrnary 26, i860. Hatcheling the_ disposition I NEVER like to see a man walk among his inferiors, stiff, and cold, and hard, and gloved hatted and gloved. — Evening Sermon, May I, 1859. w E do not Know precisely what our being will be in the future, though we know in general. I know in general Have me what the Aurora BoreaHs is. If you press the question as to what it is, I say, " It is a bank of tremulous, up-mounting light, at the north." If you ask, *' What is it made of?" you have me there. — Mojiiing SermoUy April 24, 1859. 137 there 236 Pulpit Ptmgencies 237 I LAUGH when I read the old leg t> ends of St. Francis, and various other and saints of various names, who, after they the devil had violated every conceivable canon of health, for the sake of san6lity, were at last, as it was supposed, tempted of the devil in this way, and that way, and the other way. When they had violated bone, and muscle, and nerve, and brain, and body, they thought the fantasies, which were the natural results of such violations of natural laws, to be the devil ; and I don't wonder. — Morning Sermon^ Septem- ber 18, 1859. I HAVE seen a great many happy men — thanks to healthy blood ; blood^ thanks to comfortable situations in life ! Christianity — but I havc sccu a huiidrcd men happy on account of natural conditions of pros- perity, where I have seen one who could bear witness, ** I am happy as a Chris- tian." — Morning Sermony September 18, 1859. 138 238 Ptilpit Ptmgencies 240 THE only way in which we can get per- mission to indulge in equivocations, and evasions, and deceptions, which we re- fuse to baptize lies, as they ought to be baptized, is by running our moral character down at the heel. — Morning Sermon, Jime 26, 1859. DowTi at the Heel A The ND many more go on gathering dark- ness at every step, their feet tread- 1 lie ing more and more slippery and rough curtain jaiis, wrys, till their chara6ler is gone. Their H£knows reputation soon follows ; with trustworthi- ness all trust ceases ; life becomes a system of dodging expedients ; vice becomes crime, and crime becomes destru6lion ; and before half their days are ended, the terrible drama is enaaed and the curtain falls, and— Hell knows the rest. — Evening Sermon, March 4, i860. p OOR thing ! she is dealing with a de- there is a Hell! mon ' Spare her 1 Save her } The thank God J^ there IS a pohshed scoundrel betrayed her to abandon her, and walks the street to boast his hell- 139 240 Pulpit Pungencies 241 ish deed ! It becomes him as a reputation ! Surely, society will crush him. They will thank God smite the wolf, and seek out the bleeding Hell ! lamb. Oh, my soul ! believe it not ! What sight is that } The drooping viclim is worse used than the infernal destroyer ! He is fondled, courted, passed from honor to hon- or ! and she is crushed and mangled under the infuriate tramp of public indignation ! On her mangled corpse they stand to put the laurels on her murderer s brow ! When I see such things as these, I thank God that there is a judgment, and that there is a hell ! — Evoiing Sermon^ Fcbniary 1 2, i860. SUPPOSE my heart swelled with a de- sire to enlist in the cause of human liberty. I say, " Oh ! that the days of ter- ror were come again, that I might conse- crate myself, my energies, my zeal, my life even, to the bringing about of the reign of liberty. How I long to see re-ena61ed, and to participate in the scenes of Lafay- ette ! " At length I hear that there is an 140 A roistenng swearing HeUiaii Hellian 241 Pulpit Pungencies 241 army of emancipation going down to Cen- tral America, to secure liberty to the op- 11 >» A roisterinz, pressed in that region. " Thank heaven, swearing' I say, " that an opportunity is afiforded me at last ; and God shall see how I will fight for the liberty of those poor creatures." So I go to the place where the army is located, for the purpose of enlisting in it. When I get there I say to myself, " Before I put my name down, I will get a little acquainted with my fellow-soldiers." I go into a tent, and the first man I encounter is drunk. I say to myself, " That man has worked him- self in here, in some way, but he don't be- long here, of course." I then inquire for the officer, and am dire6led to a certain tent. I go there, and find several men gambling, and swearing, and quarreling, and I say to myself, " I'm in the wrong tent ; surely, these can't be the officers." Then I inquire for the Commander-in-chief himself, and on going where he is, I find him to be a man who epitomizes all the penitentiaries of the nation, a man on whom vices roost as birds on trees. The 141 Helhan 241 Ptilpii Pungencies 242 next man I meet is a roistering, swearing hellian ; and it seems as though the streams A roistering, , . ^ . swearing Qi tmie had run past and deposited all its mud. One of the miserable wretches cries out, " We'll give 'em liberty." What he means is that they will make slaves of the whole population. " We'll give 'em lib- erty ;" that is, take possession of their farms, steal their money, upset their churches, trample under foot their laws, and bring them all into captivity. Such is the army of emancipation. If I was an honest man, do you suppose I would ever go in and sign my name as a member of it 1 If I did, might paralysis take possession of my arm, and shrink it from finger to shoulder. — Morning Sermon^ March 20, 1859. I T does not take a great while to read a book through if a man keeps at it. advertise Thc history of the institutions of the coun- in tlie Herald try, its laws and polity ; the history of the principal nations of the world ; the history of the globe, its geography and natural productions, and some knowledge of the 142 242 Pulpit Pungencies 244 arts, may be had by any and by every man. There is no excuse if you do not know these things. You need not go to college to know them. The books are pubHshed — somebody has got them. You need not advertise in the Herald asking for the man who will lend you an Encyclopaedia. — Even- ing Sermon, May 8, 1859. EVERY mechanic should make him- self a respedlable mathematician, and if he does not, after five or ten sl^^n: years of labor, become a better workman with the aid of books, it is a sign the man is below par. He may be a clever fellow, but he certainly lacks spring here [tapping the head]. — Evening Sermon, May 8, 1859. N OW suppose in response to the trum- pet of enhstment of a church, I go Lacks Here r . • Sing psalms down to the camp for the purpose 01 10m- insoio ^ . , from Here ing its army, and on making inquiry as to to heaven the chara6ler of the men of which it is composed, I should find that one is a usu- 143 244 Pulpit Pungencies 245 rer, that another is engaged in an ilHcit business, that another is a man of pas- ' m Sro""^ sions, the most violent and wicked, and that from Here i i r i to heaven others are vam, and proud, and selfish, and worldly : suppose I should find that this church was composed of such men as these ; that its members were just as bad as other men ; that the only difference between those in it and those without its pale, was that the wickedness of those in it was defended by a good name, do you suppose I would join it ? I would walk in a wilderness, and sing psalms in solo from here to heaven, before I would join such a church. — Morning Sermon, March 27, 1859. OW there are thousands that derive and another One likes stimulants there, -^ ^ intelleclual pleasure from preaching. Here"" They like to hear the sound of the music, which shows that the parade is coming. By and by, in comes the preacher, and he develops his soldiers' ideas to their great admiration, and parades them through a long sermon. When he is done, the peo- 144 245 Pulpit Pungencies 245 pie, as they go out, say, " Splendid parade, wasn't it ? Fine ideas — fine ideas ! Very well put." To whom were they put ? stimulants ^ "^ there, There wasn't a musket that had a ball or and another Here any powder in it. Not a man dreamed of hitting anybody. It was a sham ; all a sham. There was no fight. The sermon was all a mere exhibition of ideas, a mere marching of ideas. These men that love mere intelle6lual enjoyment, like to have a minister that excites their thoughts. They say, " I don't want to go to church where it is a good deal easier to sleep than to listen. I like a man that has got some life in him, and that stirs one up." To what t To go and pay that debt t " Not exadly ; I like, after having heard a sermon, to know more than I did before. I have no objection to being made better ; but I like the glow and enjoyment of a right good sermon" — as another man likes a stiff glass. He likes stimulants. One likes stimulants there \in the head], and the other here [in the stomach]. — Morning Sermon, January 30, 1859. 145 246 Pulpit Pungencies 249 LET me say, then, to the young of my going 10 charge, you never can have too high beiK'roic an ideal as respe^ls the Christian duty and Christian virtue of truth. If you are going to sin be heroic, and sin on the side of truth. — Morning Sermon, yitne 26, 1859. OF all hideous things mummies are the most hideous ; and of mummies, those are the most hideous that are run- ning about the streets and talking ! — Morn- i7ig Sermon y March 11, i860. ONE man ridicules his next-door neigh- his own head ^^r on accouut of his pride ; but he so High ^Q^j^^ j^q|. have known anything about that neighbor's pride if he had not carried his own head so high that he could look over the fence and see how proud he was. — Morning Sermojt, June 12, 1859. ^^ T^ISTRIBUTING to the necessity It hasgot l_>f Qf saints ; given to hospitality." High times ji^.g j^g^ .g ^ clump of blossoms which signifies, in the first place, what you have 146 249 Ptilpil Pungencies 250 just done in your contribution for the aid of a sister church ; and in the second place, what you are going to do in the entertain- ment of strangers during the coming An- niversaries. It makes you smile, I see. It has got to be high times, when everybody laughs if a text is brought home in such a way that it really does seem to mean some- thing. You have had the Gospel preached as though there were nothing in it so long, that when it is preached so that it appears to have a pra6lical application to every-day life, people smile at the very fatness of it. — Morumg Seiinon, May 8, 1859. THERE is a vague impression in the minds of men who long for property, that it may reward some rare stroke of skill, in the nick that it may turn up at one single more spadeful, just as deluded treasure-seekers, digging at midnight under a glimmering lantern, expe6l that each next spade-thrust will strike upon an iron chest or crash into an earthen pot full of coin. These men think there is such a thing as dexterity of 147 of time 250 Ptilpit Pungencies 251 management, by which wealth may be sud- denly obtained, and they think that a hit in the nick of time will bring down a whole shower-bath of gold. — Evening Sermon, Febrnary 5, i860. T' HERE is no institution evangelical or theological ; there is not even a be- th^must nevolent institution, nay, not even the Tra6l Society, which some men think indispen- sable to Heaven itself, that I think God could not get along better without than with, if you consider the way in which they have been conduced. Yet men begin by reasoning in this way: "This institution has the cause of God at heart ; the cause of the Redeemer is bound up in it ; the- salvation of poor, perishing, immortal souls, is bound up in this institution. So men say. Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! such an institution must not be disturbed ; this institution must be sustained. And when, in the providence of God, it is brought to circum- stances where men can not sustain it ex- cept by a little hitch in their morality, why, 148 251 Pulpit Pungencies 253 they must hitch ! — Eycniiig Sermon, May 15, 1859. FREE colored people exist in every State in our Union, and are greatly Laws like increasing — particularly in those States in Hoes which laws are passed forbidding them to go there ; for laws are like hoes that cut off the tops of weeds, making each root send out forty new shoots ! — Morning Scnnon, July 17, 1859. A ND that which is true of gambling, is true of tam2:)ering with illicit pleas- is ures, with this exception : that gambling thy servant works with slowness, while licentiousness works like a conflagration. The spark rarely smolders long. When a man has caught the infe6lion, it is as if he were set on fire of hell. And do you suppose that in the beginning he proposed that to him- self.'* If it had been hinted to him, he would have said, " Is thy servant a dog — a 149 253 Pulpit Pungencies 256 hog ! — that he would do this ? " And yet he does it. — Evening Sermon ^ 3farch 4, i860. I BELIEVE there are whispers of God not merely to the soul. I do Hot think the Holy Ghost is paraded in the Bible merely to make up the number three in the God- head. — Morning Sennojt, November 6, 1859. No. 3 I God F men have been bitten by this infernal infidelity, if they have come to enter- Tuly, tain this false idea, that God is so busy like a boy driving taking: care of this world, like a boy.drivino: a Hoop ^ 'JO a hoop through the street, who expe6ls everybody to get out of his way : if men have come to suppose that God is thus busy, so that he cannot take care of the human beings he has created, let them get out of it as soon as possible. — Alornmg Sermon, April 10, 1859. Not 'at ■ THINK the lar2:est buildin.jxs in this I Hopped out X ^^^j.j^|^ probably, that hold anything, are the Egyptian pyramids, which hold a 150 256 Pulpit Pungencies 258 little king's dust. Next to them, I suppose, some of the largest houses are those which hold the dust of rich men who have not yet hopped out of them. — Morning Scrmofiy May 8, 1859. A GREAT many people undertake to throw away the Bible because they cannot stand its revelations and truths. It is as if a man on shipboard, with a terrible iiospUai fever breaking out among his men, should throw his medicine chest into the sea, without throwing the fever into the sea with it! What if an insurre6lion should take place in a hospital, and the patients should turn all the physicians and nurses out, and bar the doors against them ? — Evening Sermon, October 2'^y 1859. An insurrection n a I THINK life is like a voyage. Suppose there should start out from your har- bor a yacht, a schooner, a sloop, a hermaph- rodite brig, a fulI-riggcd brig, a barque, ii ship and a man-of-war, all bound on one common voyage ; now then, suppose the 151 To every man his own Hull 258 Pulpit Ptmgencies 260 yacht should look at the man-of-war as she moved down the bay, with all her canvas evej man out, and say, " When can I get such sails Hull upon me like that man-of-war ? " which has three great noble masts on it. Any man would see that the yacht has no place for such sails. No ; everything must make the voyage with its own hull and with its own sails. Now, God has given to every man his own hull, in which to make the voyage of life. — Evening Sermon, May 22, 1859. A^ ND who does not know that around H^eni "^"^ every church there are just such hyenas whose heads are like to become a fountain of tears at the transgressions of reputable Christians } — Evening Sermon, February 12, i860. I REMEMBER a poor colored man who, when I was a boy twelve years old, made a deeper impression on my mind of child sermon-fed tlic gooducss of God, than all the sermons to which I had ever listened ; and if there was ever a sermon-fed child, I was one. 152 26o Pulpit Pungencies 261 Nothing took so firm a hold upon my higher nature as did the influence of that consistent, praying, psahn-singing, rejoic- ing colored man, who taught me to work on the farm, and to know that there was something in religion. — Morning SermoUy August- 14, 1859. I BELIEVE in the do6trine of divine decrees ; but I do not believe it is a doctrines meant for daily use pair of steeds which a child can drive ; and do not if you harness them, and undertake to drive ^ such them, you will find yourself drawn so swiftly through the heavens that you will be glad to alight from your chariot. The do6lrine of divine sovereignty, free agency, the na- ture of temptation, the cause of evil : these, and many others, are founded substantially in truth ; that is, truth belongs to each of them ; but not truth which you can so un- derstand and employ as to make it profit- able in daily life. From the time I was ten years old till after I was thirteen years old, the dodlrine of God's foreknowledge was a perpetual torment to me. I reasoned in 153 26 1 Pulpit Pungencies 262 this way : " If God knew everything from the beginning, he must have known when do not I would be born, what my nature would be, suppose such what circumstances would surround me, doctnnes 'dafiy^u^e ^.nd what things I would do ; and if what I shall do is fixed and settled, it is no use for me to try to do one way or another." This doftrine a6led as a paralysis on my efforts toward right condu6l. So long as I was under its influence, I had a very low experience — and I suppose that what was true of me, in this respe6l, is usually true of others ; for I do not suppose that such do6lrines are meant for daily use. — Even- ing Sermon, November 6, 1859. I WAS a child of teaching and prayer ; I was reared in the household of faith ; I knew the Catechism as it was taught ; I He did not . o i • i o • i doit was mstructed m the Scriptures as they out of r- J ^°to ciS* were expounded from the pulpit, and read by men ; and yet, till after I was twenty- one years old, I groped without the knowl- edge of God in Christ Jesus. I know not what the tablets of eternity have written 154 262 Pulpit Pungencies 262 down, but I think that when I stand in Zion and before God, the brightest thing which I shall look back upon will be that He did not blessed morning of May, when it pleased j^oi*^ God to reveal to my wandering soul the ^^toChris?* idea that it was his nature to love a man in his sins for the sake of helping him out of them ; that he did not do it out of compli- ment to Christ, or to a law, or a plan of salvation, but from the fullness of his great heart ; that he was a Being not made mad by sin, but sorry ; that he was not furious with wrath toward the sinner, but pitied him — in short, that he felt toward me as my mother felt toward me, to whose eyes my wrong doing brought tears, who never pressed me so close to her as when I had done wrong, and who would fain, with her yearning love, lift me out of trouble. And when I found that Jesus Christ had such a disposition, and that when his disciples did wrong, he drew them closer to him than he did before — that when pride, and jealousy, and rivalry, and all vulgar and worldly feel- ings rankled in their bosoms, he opened 155 I He did not do it out of 262 Pulpit Pungencies 263 his heart to them as a medicine to heal these infirmities ; when I found that it was Christ's nature to lift men out of weakness to strength, out of impurity to goodness, ^"to'chris^ ^^^ ^f everything low and debasing to su- periority, I felt that I had found a God. I shall never forget the feelings with which I walked forth that May morning. The golden pavements will never feel to my feet as then the grass felt to them. — Morning Sermon, October 2, 1859. I GO back, now, to my own ministry. I have got to begin to talk about myself as an old man, before long. I have been, 19 of them were women, thus tar, talkmc: as thousfh 1 were youno^ ; and the ' o o y o 7 other was \^^^ J i^^^ ^hat I aui remembcrino: back too nothmg '& far for that, when I go back to the time when I first became the pastor of a church. It was twenty years ago. I remember that the flock which I first gathered in the wilderness consisted of twenty persons. Nineteen of them were women, and the other was nothing. — Wednesday Evening Lecture, November i6, 1859. 156 264 Pulpit Pungencies 264 I VERY well remember going back, after having arrived at years of man- hood, to the school-house where I did not The receive my early education. I measured schooi- -' J ma am the Stones which, in my childhood, it seemed that a giant could not lift, and I could almost turn them over with my foot ! I measured the trees which seemed to loom up to the sky, wondrously large, but they had shrunk, grown shorter, and outspread narrower. I looked into the old school- house, and how small the whittled benches and the dilapidated tables were, compared with my boyhood impression of them ! I looked over the meadows across which my little toddling feet had passed. They had once seemed to me to be broad fields, but now but narrow ribbons, lying between the house and the water. I marveled at the apparent change which had taken place in these things, and thought what a child I must have been when they seemed to me to be things of great importance. The school-ma'am— oh ! what a being I thought she was ! and the school-master — how awe- 157 264 Pulpit Pungencies 266 stricken I was in his presence ! So look- ing and wistfully remembering, I said to myself, "Well, one bubble has broken." school- But when you shall stand above, and look ma am •' back with celestial and clarified vision upon this world — this rickety old school-house earth — it will seem smaller to you than to me that old village school. — Morning Ser- mon, November 6, 1859. The school ma'am T heterodox sleeping O those, therefore, who have no sort of obje6lion to the profound sleep Orthodox of the san6luary, I must stand as an enig- ma. As for me, I have no sympathy with sleeping in the san6luary, whether it be orthodox sleeping or heterodox sleeping. — Eve7ii7ig SermoHy yanuary 8, i860. BUT I must desist. The clock gets ^^^ through before I do every Sunday. I would that it were slower ; for though I often begin sorrowfully and heavily, the time for me to stop never arrives that I do 158 266 Pulpit Pungencies 268 not feel that I would fain continue till the going down of the sun. — Morning Sermon^ September 18, 1859. I F at any time I have seemed to you or to others to run with undue severity upon men, or churches, or orders of men, try to pray or institutions, it has never been from any personal bitterness. I do not think I feel personal bitterness toward any man. Nor do I ever feel angry, except when I see one man injuring another. I confess that some- times, when I see a strong man taking ad- vantage of a weaker one, I do feel an in- dignation which has a little rancor in it ; but I try to pray that down. — Evening Ser- mon, yamiary 8, i860. T HAVE sometimes pra6liced rifle shoot- -^ ing, not at men, but at targets and ^ trees — a very innocent recreation; and I woSdH^tgo have noticed one thing in connexion with asiM^uid ^ for other It, and that was, that the pleasure derived people from it was oftentimes very nearly out- weighed by the vexation caused by poor 159 Bullet 268 Pulpit Ptmgencies 270 shooting. When the mark seemed within easy reach, and others firing at it centred it at almost every shot, I fired out of range wouldn't go in a hundred ways. I fired wide, first on for me -' ^or^Ther"^ this sidc, thcn on that, then under and then people ^^^gj. . ^^^^ practice did not seem to make the matter much better. My eyes were too big, my hand was all tremulous, and the bullet wouldn't go for me as it would for other people. — Evening Sermon, Novem- ber 2, 1859. I NEVER get drunk myself; but when a man who is addicled to drunkenness never ^myse"if^ riugs at my door, and comes in, and says to me, " For God's sake, if there is any feel- ing in your heart for a poor creature, will you not pity me and help to save me .'' " it is not merely pity that fills my soul, but I ask myself, " Why did that man come to me.-*" — Morning Sermon, October 2^, 1859. OW you cannot say that I have have jrot no ' '^ ' N collection -1 ^ prcached this sermon as a leader. to make I have got no collection to make, no money 1 60 women 270 Pulpit Ptingencies 272 to raise. I have preached it because you needed to hear it. — Evening Sermon, jFan- uary 15, i860. I WAS going to speak of among women. The only reason why I will not is that I do not wish the young Swearing people to know that such a thinsf ever took ^mo"s place. I have written something upon this subjedl, which I shall withhold, but I will show it to those who wish to see it, if they will call upon me. — Evening Sermon, May I, 1859. ICEBERGS do not know that they are being melted at the top and at the bottom ; but they are when the summer and* churches takes hold of them, and the Gulf Stream flows beneath them. Churches that think they are not changed, are not as thick of ice at the top or the bottom as they used to be, but there is yet ice at the heart. — Morning Sermon, March 27, 1859. 161 2 73 Pulpit Pu7zgencies 274 S' OME men are, of nature, or of long experience, a second nature, exces- watch him" sively cautious. To act without calcula- tion they never can. Nor can they believe that others do. Therefore, a mistake of mere heedlessness in a neighbor is a de- sign, a deceit ; he meant something ; some- thing more than lies on the face of it. " I'll watch him ; I'll suspe6l him ; I'll find him out ; he shan't circumvent me ! " — Evejiing Sermon, February 12, i860. I SAY that we are bringing our children up vulgarly, and infidelly, when we inndeiiy ^^^^j^ ^^^^ ^^ associate God with the Bible, with churches, and with other things that are counted sacred in the world, and do not teach them to associate Him with the works of nature. I think it is much easier to think of the rugged mountain, the bril- liant stars, and the effulgent sun, as speak- ing of God, than to think of dumb churches as speaking of Him — Morning Sermon, yidy 10, 1859. 162 2 75 Pulpit Ptmgencies 276 A ND so as playing for nothing is a very •^^^ insipid process, men soon get to playing, not for money, but for the drink, to1iave°thl for some little token, for nuts, for the sup- inoculate ^ them per, or something of the sort. They play for small amounts, just enough to keep their hand nerved, just enough to keep an obje6l before their mind, just enough to have the devil inoculate them with a passion for gambling ; and the moment they have once got the virus in them, then it is no longer at their option how far they shall go. Suppose a man should go to his physician, and say to him : " Be kind enough to inoculate me with the small- pox, so that I shall have the small-pox a Httle ! " Suppose a man should ask to be inoculated with the plague, so that he might have just a taste of the plague. — Evening Sermon, March 4, i860. T LOOK at the life and disposition of -■- these men who cry for the lullaby of Sunday love in the family, in the store, in all de- ^""Jay"*"^ partments of their life, and I find that they 163 276 Pulpit Pungencies 277 abhor love except on Sunday when I preach on that doftrine of God's moral govern- ^"'tr ment. But if I were to go to them at their ""day'*"^ places of business, and say, " I understand that you take advantage of the circum- stances of your workmen, and employ them at one-quarter of what they ought to have, so that they can scarcely subsist on what you pay them : and as you wanted me to preach about love, I thought I would come and tell you what the do6lrine of love is as applied to matters of this kind," they would say, " Religion is religion, and busi- ness is business. Go home, and when I want you to come to my shop and preach to me, I will let you know." In other words, they want sermon love, poetic love, theoretic love, love that makes them feel good during the insurance day ; for Sun- day is the insurance day of the week ! — Morning Sermon, February 5, i860. Investments X^T INE huudrcd and ninety-nine men lower way 1 ^ in a tliousaud, and oftentimes one of living more, have such investments in the lower 2 77 Pttlpil Pungencies 279 way of living that they feel not only re- buked but angry, when by a higher view you humble their attainments and stain their conceit of excellence. — Morning Ser- mon, November 17, 1859. MEN may talk as much as they please against the Calvinists, and Puritans, and Presbyterians ; but you will find that when they want to make an investment they have no obje6lion to Calvinism, or Puritan- ism, or Presbyterianism. They know that where these systems prevail, where the doc- trine of man's obligation to God and men is taught and pra6liced, there their capital may be safely invested. — Evening Sermon, Feb- ruary 10, i860. MEN whose hfe is yet hot with indig- nation at the oppression which they suffered in their own land, when they come to America are marked, above all others, for arrogance and cruelty to those that are put under them. There is not another nation in this world that has said so much, 16S The doctrine " for Investments The Irish 2 279 Pulpit Pungencies 281 and said it so eloquently, against dynastic oppressions, as the Irish, and if there is a nation that is meaner than any other in their treatment of their inferiors, it is the Irish. It is their shame. I am sorry that it is so, for the Irish have too many noble traits to be disfigured by this hateful one. — Morning Sermon, July 17, 1859. I F, when you are sent on little mean- nesses, you trot quickly, men will . It mark you, and say, " He is fit for it." But in him J ' J ' if when men attempt to put upon you this miserable business, and find you stifi" in opposition, they will mark you then also, and say, " Is that pretence, or is it real .^ " and then they will try you again in two or three ways ; and by and by they will begin to say, " I don't know but the boy has got it in him ; I have heard about a conscience." — Evening Sermon, May 18, 1859. Sold XT AY, all this is nothing. There are \ under 1 ^ mcn who Carry on a trade in litera- ihe skirts ture and of art which' must make Belial i66 28 1 Pulpit Pungencies 281 blush. Books that poison the imagination jackal engravers and unsettle the moral principles of men are multitudinous, and forever multiplying ; subterranean libraries hawked in secret, sold from under the skirts, clandestinely read ; books that, like vermin, hide from sight by day, in cracks and crevices, and creep out in darkness and at night to suck the very blood of virtue. And this is a business ; to write them, to print them, to bind them, to sell them and to hawk and dispense them. There are whole classes of men, and of women — God have mercy on the world ! — who live by it, who have their ambitions in it, and who stand, by the relative de- grees of corruption, higher or lower than each other. The whole scale of virtue is turned bottom side up, and the things that are down on the scale of God, are up on the scale of wicked men. They glory in their shame ! Nay, pi6lures even worse than these abound. No tongue , could speak their abominations. Human language has not formed any words that can follow the palette of the painters of 167 Jackal engravers Nothing but a Jack-knife 281 Piilpit Pu7igencies 282 the school of BeUal, or the burins of their jackal engravers. And thousands are engaged in this systematic corrup- tion, and take delight in their work. There are exporters, and importers, and wholesale dealers, and retail dealers, and colporteurs, diftusing them everywhere. And God permits all this organized cor- ruption to exist. I will not trace it further, although I have not exhausted, by a great way, this terrible witch-cal- dron of earth and time. — Evening Ser- mon, October 23, 1859. A MAN may be a millionaire, and yet be so miserable as to groan all day and curse all night. A man may have all the outside things which the world affords, and yet not be a happy man. One man may have a chest full of excellent tools, and be a bungling workman ; while another man may have nothing but a jack-knife, and be a skillful workman. — Evening Sermon^ February 10, i860. 168 283 Pulpit Pungencies 285 H AD we iudoced the case without the Jacob, ■* ° ^ and not eiiHghtening influence of God's Esau word, we should have said that Jacob was the wicked man, and not Esau. — Evening Sermon, January 29, i860. In their own BUILD yourselves up first, and then your property. There are many men ^" * jau who build up their fortune first, and build themselves in it, so that when the roof is on they are in their own jail, and cannot get out. — Evening Sermon, February 5, i860. IF a man asks, " Do you suppose that a virp-in can be a mother.?" my reply is this : The New Testament tells us that aside the ordinary the Savior was conceived of the Holy Janitor Ghost and born of a woman. The event was so far removed from the ordinary pro- cesses of natural law, that I have no diffi- culty in beheving that it occurred as it is described, by the power of God. Shall I beheve that He who ordained, from the beginning of the world, that we should 169 285 Pulpit Pungencies 285 spring into life from the life and body of another, could not control that wonderful as'ide arrangement, so that His Son should be Janitor boHi of a woman ? The marvel to me is, that men are ever born of man and woman at all ; that God ordained such a gate from the other life into this. I can never enough wonder at that profound and sacred mys- tery where two lives, quickened into union by the rapture of unspeakable love, flash forth the spark of another being. It seems to me, in view of the perpetuated marvel of the beginnings of human life, a very little thing to suppose that God could make a special use of these powers. And when the myriad wombs that, since the dawn of time, have issued the human race, have re- ceived the power to do it from the living re- membrance and inspiration of God's mind, shall I stagger to believe that in a single instance he could control that organization to his own divine and beneficent purposes } May not He who created the very door of human life push aside the ordinary janitor, and, with his own hands, unlatch its por- 170 285 Pitlpit Pungencies 288 tals, and let his Son come through "i—Evm- inor Sermon, October 2, i^S9' ^g. THERE are many persons who seem to think that when a man becomes a Christian he is bound to quote pious texts continually ; but nothing can be more de- talk testable in the sight of God. Above all things avoid that loathsome lubricity of pious talk. When you hear men mouthing a great deal about religion, and talking a great deal about their motives, you may be sure that those men are wicked, or else appearances are very deceptive. — Evening Sermon, JMay 15, 1859. 185 Loathsome lubricity of pious 3IO Pidpit Ptmgencies 312 THE two views are these : one says mmseit that God built the world as a house, and that he is master of the house ; and the other says that he built the world as a house, and then locked himself out. — Even- ing Sennoji, September 18, 1859. out The de\-il Longer- headed thau you own Look-out I THINK no man ever cheated the devil, and I think no man ever will. I have no doubt that the devil overreaches himself and cheats himself; but in any transaclion between you and him, he is longer-headed than you are. — Evening Ser- mon, Febrnary 10, i860. YOU have no right to be unconcerned whether men acl rightly or wTongly — whether they are good or bad. That spirit which says, '' I will take care of my own self, and let other men take care of themselves," is of the devil. The spirit of God is this : " Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of another." That spirit which says of a man's conduct, " Oh, it's his own look- 186 312 Pulpit Ptmgencies 314 out, not mine," is unchristian. It is his own look-out ; but it is yours, too ! — Morn- ing Sermon, October 16, 1859. I THINK it is one of the hardest things I Love in the world to say, I love you. I don't know why. A man who could look a woman in the face and say, I love you, without shrinking, ought to shrink. Love is like the ringing of bells ; they sound sweetly while they are chiming ; but after all it is hard work to ring them. And I marvel at the deep, manly and tender love which Christ poured out upon his disciples. They found in him united both father and mother. — Moiming Sermon, yanuary 2, 1859. • T you WO things make the one universal High law. Love and serve God, is the growing one part : the other is. Love and serve man ; and the latter is just as important for this world as the former is for the next world. As trees and crops run out upon soils that are deficient in the chemical in- 187 and Low-hoein£ 314 Pulpit Puitgencies 315 gredients required for their growth, so will any national growth be spongy and full of growing blights that does not draw up into itself Low-hoeing the most religious regard for human rights, and the most sacred humanity toward the weak and helpless in human societies. It is taking care of the top that has made nations weak. We must take care of the root, and then the top will take care of itself And it is this that we ought to learn from the New Testament, if any- thing : that the secret of high growing is low-hoeing, and that working at the root is the shortest road to the blossom. — Morning Sermon, Jidy 17, 1859. I T is a bad thing for a man to think too toward J- much about himself, to talk too much things outward about himsclf, or to examine himself too much. The less he indulges in these things the better he is off. Let a man have a sense of duty, and take a right direction in life, and then sweep and lunge toward things outward as much as possible. — Even- ing Sermon y November 6, 1859. 188 3i6 Ptilpit Ptmgencies 317 w HAT would you think of an earthly father who was so perfect that his Maelzel's automaton children could not possibly have anything asweiibe in common with him ; who was so perfe6t that he was above their infantile sports ; who was too wise to talk of their infantile follies ; who felt too deeply to have sym- pathy with their little feelings ; and who had no conne6lion with their incipient life, and rude, imperfe6l ways ? Would such a chara6ter be admirable in a father ? He might as well be carved out of marble ; or he might as well be Maelzel's automaton, and with turned crank, or wound-up spring, work out all the duties he owes to his family! — Evening Sermon, September 18, 1859. G OD says, " Let parents train up their children." Infidel wisdom says. A town " Let the public train them up for them ; Magazine ^ ^ ^ oi children let them be gathered in some common building ; let nurses be hired to impart nourishment to them ; let masters be sought to instruct them. What a thought — to 189 317 Pttlpit Pungencies 318 break up the nests of parental love ; to snatch from the mother her half-weaned Magazine cliilcl ; to bear this weeping wretch to the of children town magazine of children, to be rubbed, and washed, and fed, and whipped, at so much a head by cheap hirelings, to be loved by dollars and cents' worth, to be taught religion and virtue at so much apiece ! Every step of the plan is horribly unnatural. It begins by breaking up mar- riage, and turning men out as beasts roam, without mate. It proposes to colle6t the offspring of this system with even less care than a farmer would gather his lambs or calves. — Evcniiig Sernioji, February 26, i860. WHEN the cradle of the young mother is first pressed by an infant child, and she bends over it not even trying to conceal her gladness, and the father, scarce- ly less pleased, at a few paces, pra6lices, as he thinks, a manly reserve, what thoughts flow through both their minds ! — Evening Sermon J February 26, i860. 190 Practices a Manly reserve 319 Ptilpit Pmtgenctes 319 N OW we laugh — but we ought not to — at the poor Cathohc who says his Ave Maria a certain number of times a 'him*° day, and has his string of beads, and runs out of a •' o ' tumbler them over at each time, repeating a httle prayer at every bead he touches ; but what shall we say of that headless kind of pray- ing which we so often hear in Orthodox prayer-meetings ! A man comes home at night from his store, where he has had twenty-five or thirty men on the jump all day, and says, '' I've done a splendid busi- ness to-day. My sales have amounted to about twenty-five thousand dollars ;" as much as to say, " I'm the man ; I'm a merchant who understands how to carry on business as it should be carried on." He has just time to take his supper before it is time for meeting, and as soon as his meal is over he orders up his team and goes to the le6lure-room. He has but just taken his seat when the minister says to him, " Brother, will you pray ? " He is taken right in the point of unexpe6lation ; but up he rises, and says, "Lord, I am a great 191 319 Pitlpit Pungencies 320 sinner." Yes, he is ; he never would pray- under such circumstances unless he was. shpoutof rpj^^ xadsi has been so perverted by Chris- like -Marbles . , , , . , out of a tian shams; the man has run mto these tumbler serried insincerities to such an extent and his throat is so lubricated by them, that these phrases slip out of him like marbles out of a tumbler. — Morning Sermon, April 3, 1857. As to that Matter, I might READING and writing are relative. The want of these things is dis- graceful ; but in and of themselves they are good for nothing. If they were good for anything in and of themselves, a man that could read and write a strange lan- guage would be as well off as a man that could read and write in his own tongue. If reading were good for anything in and of itself, I might as well read for you in Hebrew — and as to that matter, I might for a great many of you ! — Morning Ser- mon, March 11, i860. 192 32 1 Pulpit Pttngcncles 323 THERE are many men so greedy that they feel what their neighbors make that they might have made is taken away theT^ from them ; and that they have lost all that they do not get of what they meant to get. Their eyes grow large, their imagination becomes fevered, and they mean to rush over the course and scoop up wealth by the armful ; but they lose their judgment and accuracy before they know it, and stumble, and measure their whole length in the dust, on the ground. — Evening Ser- mon, February 5, i860. I THINK love .srrows between husband JD and wife by expression of affe6lion. T 1 I • , ,. . . Husband 1 know there is a stately dignity m vogue, and wife Husband and wife sit over asrainst eaxh statues '-' of jNIemnon other like those great statues of Memnon in Egypt ; then they are vast, stony, and hard. — Evening Sermon, May i, 1859. A RE there no savasre beasts in the , The , ° Menagene menagerie of your soul, which, if they should break away from the restraints 193 of your soul 323 Pttlpit Pwtgencies 325 that bind them, would pounce upon and lacerate whatever came in their way ? Menagerie Havc you ncvcr experienced the feeling soul of hatred ? Have there never been lurid moments in which revenges sprang hke fires of hell from your soul ? Have there never been moments when you thought you knew how sweet murder might be ? — Morning Sermon^ yanuary i, i860. M ANY men treat God very much as we treat men with whom we do are^^ busiucss. Many men seem to think that Merchandise . • n • the mercies we continually enjoy are mer- chandise, and that God sits in heaven to dispense them ; and they go to him day after day and take them, without once feel- ing that they are absolute gifts for which they ought to be thankful. — Wednesday Evening Lecture, December 28, 1859. Nothing TJ^JHEN the qualities which religion Merchant- V V ought to iuspirc are found in a man, that man's fortune is made ; that man is settled in life. Nothing is so mer- 194 Better Mind their own business 325 Pulpit Pungencies 328 charitable or desirable as those qualities. — Evening Sermon, Febnmry 10, i860. AGES are like family groups : they had better mind their own business, and not mind that of others ; therefore it is an impertinence for one age to discuss those great principles which belong to another. — Evening Sermon, June 5, 1859. ^ CANITY is that delusive, that inse6l- * iferous, that multiplied feeling, and ^ ^ ^ . . ..1 "O, never men that fight vanities are like men that Mind" fight midges and butterflies. It is easier to chase them than to hit them. They come back like flies in summer, which, though smitten fifty times, say, " Oh, never mind ; I take no offense." — Morning Ser- mon, February 5, i860. BUT miracles are the midwives of young moral truths. They are necessary ^^""^^^^^ when these truths are children in men's understandings, but not when they have grown up. In the beginnings of the world, 195 are midwives Miracles are Midwives 328 Piclpit Pufigencies 330 before the moral sense became developed, it was useful to act upon the moral sense through the instrumentality of miracles. But as men's moral sense grows, and be- comes capable of appreciating moral evi- dence, miracles cease ; as the nurse in the household is dispensed with when the child is grown so as to be able to take care of itself — Mo7'ning Sermon, December 18, 1859. SO it is among men. Their first efforts and oftener ^^ gooducss arc vcry crooked and ^^'^ shallow, like a man's furrow in a newly plowed piece of ground : hit or miss, and oftener miss. — Evening Sermon, October 16, 1859. THE life of some men is so much in the heart that if you were to cut off their heads they wouldn't miss much ; and the life of others is so much in the head that you could almost take out their heart and they would'nt miss much. — Morning Scrmony yannary 30, 1859. 196 Wmildti't Miss much 331 Pulpil Pungencies 333 THERE are to-day, sailing under the flag of pirates, men whose original ele- _ . . . , . Missionary ments of disposition were as good as mine or pirates yours. There are plowing the deep, to-day, missionary pirates, who bring heathen from Africa that they may be converted, whose original dispositions wxre as good as that of any minister that preaches the Gospel to them! — Mojiiing Sciinon, yaimary i, i860. I SAY that a person may so tell the truth as to tell a lie at the same time ; as when a man, offerinof to sell a mockins^- a " ^ '^ Mocking- bird, and being asked whether it would ^''^'^ sing, replied, " Oh ! it will delight thee to hear it sing," on the strength of which re- ply it was purchased. There is no ques- tion but that the man who purchased it would have been exceedingly delighted to hear it sing, but he never did — Morning Sermon, yune 26, 1S59. THERE is your charter ; and I want to a Moping Christian know what business any man has, under that charter, to be a moping, melan- 197 333 Pulpit Pu7igencics 334 choly, whining, complaining Christian ? — Evening Sermon, October (), 1859. I WOULD give more for one poor woman, whose poverty makes her Rice laugh and sing ; who is contented with T^.at^yould her humblc lot; who bears her burdens shut liim "^'^ with cheerfulness ; who is patient when troubles come upon her ; who loves every one ; and who, with a kind and genial spirit, goes about doing good, than for all the dissertations on the doctrines of Chris- tianity that could be written, as a means of preventing infidelity. I have seen one such woman, who was worth more than the whole church to which she belonged, and the min- ister put together ; and I was the minister, and my church was the church ! She lived over a cooper-shop. The floor of her apart- ment was so rude and open that you could sit there and see what the men were doing below. She had a sort of fiend for a hus- band, a rough, brutal shipmaster. She was universally called "Mother Rice." She literally night and day went about doing 198 334 Pulpit PimgeiiciiS 335 good. I do not suppose all the ministers in the town where she lived carried conso- 1 • 1 1 T 1 T r Mother lation to so many hearts as she did. ii a Rice person was sick or dynig, the people in the '^s^^\ h^m'^ neighborhood did not think of sending for "^ any one else half so soon as for Mother Rice. I tell you, there was not much chance for an infidel to make headway there. If I wanted to convince a man of the reality of Christianity, I said nothing about historic evidence : I said, " Don't you believe Mother Rice is a Christian?" and that would shut him up ! — Moiiiing Sermon^ August 7, 1859. ^"^7 HEN Christ went anywhere, there ^ ^ were the old righteous Pharisees watching him and criticising what he did ; Skkf when Christ went anywhere, there were the mousing, sneaking Pharisees seeing if they couldn't get something to publish in the papers ; when Christ went anywhere, there were the boastful Christians who had to tell how good they were, and what they had done ; when Christ went anywhere, all 199 Pharisees 335 Ptdpit Ptciigejicies 337 the poor fallen creatures in the neighbor- hood remembered all the good they had learned, and, sobbing, said, '' I know I am a sinner, and he knows it ; and if anybody will give me a chance, it is he. I will go to him." — Morning Sermon, yannary 23, 1859. I N the collisions of men pushed on by pleasure, or ambition, or avarice, there till the is a constant play and counter-play of petty is dry provocations, petty tales, mean deceptions, ungrateful supplantings, repaying fairness with foulness, honor with dishonesty. Now a noble mind rids himself of these wrongs as he does his garments of spattered mud. He lets them alone while fresh, since brush- ing would only spread them. He waits till they dry, and then cleanses himself of them all, and lets the dirt fall back to the dirt. — Evening Sermon, Febrnary 12, i860. Preaching x ;n respe6l to a man's preaching the I like making ^ truth, I do uot objccl to his preaching so that his sermon shall roll like a band of 200 337 Ptdpit Ptmgencies 338 music, or so that his serried ranks of ideas shall march like lancers. The thing is that ^^^^^^^^^ his preaching shall, with or without pleas- J;keJ ure, with or without elegance, build up ^^^^"^^^^ manhood, and make men doers of things that are right, and high, and noble. All other preaching is specious and contempt- ible. I can compare two-thirds of the preaching of the present day to nothing but children making sand houses and mud huts, who, after they have worked and scraped the dirt together, and got them formed, sweep them over with their hand, and go away. — Morning Sermon, January 30, 1859. THERE are many men who coin every drop of manly blood in them to get money ; and when they have got it, they are miserable desiccated mummies, only needing the cerements on them to make them complete l—^^^/^^V^^ Sermon, Febru- ary 5, i860. Mummies 20 X Mummy 339 Pulpit PiLugcncics 340 IF a man has come to that state in which he says, '' I do not want to know any more, or do any more, or be any more," he is in a state in which he ought to be changed into a mummy I — Morning Scr- vion, March 11, i860. T The Bible and Murray HE Bible is not, itself, and never w^as, meant to be an object of reverence, as if it were an idol or a god. It is simply Guide-Hcok a guide-book Would you know whether it teUs the truth .^ Follow its direclions and see ! What if a man should take Mur- ray's Guide-Book of Italy, and, on his way thither, should read accounts of all its mag- nificent structures — the temples, the mu- seums, the mausoleums, and of all the re- nowned statues and pictures which are stored in that great repository of ancient and modern art ; and wdiat if, while sitting in his- carriage reading, he should com- mence a criticism and judgment of the things described in the Guide-Book, before he had seen one of them ! He goes to no temple ; he visits no museum ; he beholds 202 340 Pulpit P2i7igencics 340 no gallery ; he stands before none of those ^he EiWe great pi6lures which Raphael, in his gentle muWs . ^ , T T Guide -Book inspiration, depicted ; he looks upon none of those sublime paintings which Michael Angelo left ; none of those which Leonardo da Vinci, or Correggio, or Titian, or Paul Veronese left ; none of all those many left by that band of noble men. And nobler men than these old painters, or men that spoke better truths, in spite of all their lies of superstition, never lived. He has no knowledge of all these things, except that which he gets from Murray's Guide-Eook. He sees not pictures, but descriptions of pi6lures ; not statues, but accounts of sta- tues ; not temples, but a history of temples and porticos, and yet he pronounces sen- tence ; praises, condemns, admires, or re- jects without personal knowledge of any of all these things ! Foolish as this would be, it is wisdom itself, compared with the treatment given to the Bible. The truth of the Word of God is to be found outside of the Bible, not inside of it. — Evaiing Sermon, October 2, 1859. 203 341 Ptclpil Pungencies 343 M EN are not music-boxes, which, when wound up, carry their own players ^laqir inside of them ; but they are harps, which Music-boxes must be touclicd from without. Each man's heart, therefore, must be touched by other men. We are to touch other men's hearts. Other men's hearts are belfries, and there we must ring out all our chimes. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. IT is a great thing to be able to sing the best while you work. God gives songs tSe'r in the night. God is the best music- teacher. — Morning Sermon, September 25, 1859. w E love to trace our ancestry to early houses and families in England. Covering \Ye love to trace it to Huguenot or Hebrew Nakedness blood. Neither is this vain or foolish. It may become so through abuse, but it is not so of necessity. It is right. A man may take something from the loom of the past to cover the nakedness of the present with. Morning Sermon, Mareh 4, 1 860. 204 344 Ptilpit Ptmgencics 345 THE strongest evidence I can think of aa'ainst there being a devil, is that /r 1 1 r No devil there is no need of one. Men do works ol ^^^^^^_ evil in such abundance that there would pj^by seem to be nothing left for a devil to do ! These things have been permitted from the beginning of the world to our day, and by a Being who is said to be too good to let an evil spirit Hve ! But when I look at the facts, this namby-pamby talk about the im- possibility of God's creating a principle of evil, is simply contemptible to me. A man who has not nerve, and brawn, and bone enough to look at things as they are, and admit them, I do not know what business such a man has to live ! — Evening Sermon, October 21, 1859. SHARP men, like sharp needles, break easy if they do pierce quick. There is not a fallacy more universal than that and •' Needles which teaches that wickedness is the way of success in this world. I aver that God puts more temper in a man's soul than man ever put in or the Devil ever put in. I 2.05 Going through a Nettle 345 Pulpit Pungencies 347 should be ashamed to ask a man to be a Christian from motives drawn from the ex- chequer. — Evening Sermon, yiuie 12, 1859. T' O be in perfect health, one must be in such a condition that he does not know that there is anything of him. Now hedgT suppose a man is sound in every organ, but that in the morning he goes through a nettle-hedge, what effect docs it have upon him ? Why, although he is in good health, although his lungs are right, and his heart is right, and his nerves are right, and every other part of his body is right, yet, all day long he is chafed, and fretted, and irritated, just because in the morning he went through that nettle-hedge. Well, care is to the mind what nettles are to the body. — Marning Ser- vian, August 14, 1859. Troubled with Neuraltria A MAN goes to his physician, and he says to him, " I have, sir, very great suffering ; I have very sharp pains that shoot through my loft breast ; I have very acute pains in my spine ; and my head 206 347 Pulpit Pungencies 347 seems to me to have abandoned all its Troubled with uses." The physician then begins to in- Neuralgia terrogate him, and says to him, " What has been your course of life?" The man is ashamed to tell ; so he says, " Well, sir, I have been exposed to dampness in various ways, and my impression is that I am troubled with neuralgia." The physician proceeds to prescribe for him, on the sup- position that his difficulty is neuralgia ; but as he gets no better, but a good deal worse, he says to himself, " I do not believe my physician understands my case. I do not believe the medicine lie is giving me is going to do me any good." The reason why is, that he is suclx a fool as not to tell the truth, and I think there is no greater fool than a liar. At length he goes to another physician, and says, " Can you do me any good } " This physician knows so much that he don't know anything ; and after putting a few pompous questions to the man, concerning his case, he says, *' Yes, I can cure you ;" and accordingly gives him a few remedies. But they afford 207 347 PtUpit Pungencies 347 Troubled him DO relief. After a few weeks, he says witli Neuralgia to himsclf, " I do not beHeve this physician understands my case, either ; and by-and- by, after suffering nights and suffering days, for a long time, and when his strength be- comes much reduced, and there is a pros- pe6l of a speedy termination of all his earthly hopes and expe6lations, he says to himself, " What a fool I am for lying, and hiding the real cause of my difficulty." He now goes to his physician again, and says, " Can you give me an interview 1 " The physician says he can. " Can you," says the man, " give me an interview so private that nobody will know that I have been near you 1 " '' Oh, yes," says the physician, " I can ; I have a place on purpose for such cases." So he goes with the physician, and hangs down his head — he ought to have hung it down before — and says, " This is my history;" and then he takes a walk through hell, and explains the cause of his disease, which he had so long been con- cealing. The physician says, " Why did you not tell me of this before .-* Since you 208 347 Pulpit Pungencies 348 have given this explanation, your difficulty is perfe6lly plain to me. It is very late, but I think I know now just where to put the javelin of remedy. Now I will under- take your case, and I think I can cure you." The man says, as he goes away, " I feel a great deal better now. The physician says he knows what ails me, and I may get well yet." It is a world of relief to him that he has told the physician all he knows about his difficulty. — Moniing Seimon, May i, 1857. T HERE are just such spiritual farmers. One is running after new promises. another after a new faith, and another after Newnesses new solutions of miracles. One man has got a new do6lrine, another man has got some new idea of ecclesiasticism and church organization, and another man has got some new way of putting this or that religious truth. There is nothing so exciting to them as these perpetual newnesses. They see their old farms left untilled, with more burdocks, and thistles, and weeds, growing 209 34^ Pulpit Pungencies 349 on every acre of them, than any wain, thrice loaded, could carry off! Their time and attention are absorbed by religious schemes and speculations. Poor, miserable, thrift- less spiritual husbandry is this. — Evening Scnnon, October 16, 1859. T HERE are in the Church what may be called heresy-hunters. They always Nimrod carry a rifle, a spiritual rifle, under their arm. You will find them forever outlying, watching for heresy, not so much in their own hearts, not so much in their own church, not so much in their own minis- ters, but in other people's hearts, and other people's churches, and other people's min- isters. If any man happens to hold an opinion respecting any do6lrine which docs not accord with their own peculiar views, they all spread abroad to run him down. They are taking care of, and defending, the faith ! They are searching for foxes, and wolves, and bears, that they suppose are laying waste God's husbandry ! They never do anything except fire at other 210 349 P^dpil Pungencies 352 folks and other things. I have no doubt that Nimrod was a very good fellow, in his own poor, miserable way ; but a Nimrod minister is the meanest of all sorts of hunt- ers ! — Evening Sermon^ October 16, 1859. A MAN goes out West and succeeds, and is, perhaps, sent to Washington ^\^f as a representative : lio great rise, but still, something! — Morning Sermon, December II, 1859. IF you worship Christ you employ your powers easily and naturally. If you ^p^^-^ worship the Father there will be no special injury done to the feelings of the confra- ternal Godhead. — Morning Sermon, October 23, 1859. injury Men have such Notions THERE are but seven colors in nature, though there are thirty in the human soul ; and the moral color of a thing de- now-a-days pends very much upon the faculty before which you bring it to judgment. In bring- ing a case into court a man looks anxiously 211 352 Pulpit Pungencies 353 whether this or that judge is sitting this term, and into which court he shall bring Men have , . ,, x r r ^ i • i such nis case. ii J udge so and so is on the Notions _ ^ ' now-a-days bcuch, I will get it," he says ; " but if it is Judge so and so, I think the chances are against me." Of course, all our judges are good men, and all our courts are equitable in every way ; there used to be such things as bribed judges, and packed juries, but this was in historic times, in the classic days of ancient Rome or Greece. But men have such notions now-a-days, for reasons best known to themselves, they think it makes a great deal of difference, if they wish to obtain the title to a piece of prop- erty for instance, what judge is to deter- mine the law, and by whom the charge to the jury is to be made. — Evening Scivion, May 15, 1859. Novels contain better EVEN novels are becoming preachers ; and better preachers than are many Gospel pulpits. For the novels of the last fifteen than many pulpits or twenty years contain a better Gospel than the pulpits, if you include the pulpits 212 Hoeing in November 353 Pttlpii Pungencies 355 of the Greek Church, of the Roman Church, of formal Protestantism, and of the warring seels. A dead Gospel is a hideous heresy. — Thanksgiving Sermon, November 24, 1859. THEY are always saying, "If I had only known." They are like the farmer who, having lost his crop from want of diligence in the Spring, went to harrow- ing and hoeing in November, to regain what he had lost, but who, failing in the attempt, said, " Oh, if I had only done right in the Spring!" It is enough that you made a fool of yourself in the Spring. Because you made a fool of yourself in the Spring, is no reason why you should make a fool of yourself again in the K\\\x\vi\x^— Morning Sermon, Jnly 24, 1859. THAT, from his nature, he should be a nursing God, a sympathizing God, ^ goT°^ so that it may be said literally that he feels what you feel, sorrows with your sorrow, and joys with your joy : that God should be 213 o 355 Pulpit Pungencies 356 such a Being, and do these things, is cal- culated, I think, to fill the heart with joy, and the imagination with astonishment. — Morning Sermon, May i, 1859. I THANK God for the Roman CathoUc rehgion. What ! thank God for the with^one Romau CathoUc religion, with its popes, and cardinals, and councils, and with its do(5lrine of transubstantiation, and all its other do6trines and theories ? I don't thank God for the theology of the Roman Catholic system ; but I thank God that there are such men as Fenelon, such men as Pascal, such men as Bossuet, such men as More (spelt with one o — one Thomas More ; not Tom Moore, of vulgar noto- riety) ; I thank God for a Church which, though it may have been depraved in many respe6ls, did continue, through the grace of God, to bring up men that have made the world rich, and will make it rich to the end of time. — Morning Savjion, yanuajy 30, 1859. 214 God wiU Offeet 357 Pulpit Ptmgmcies 368 THERE are a great many men that in- dulge in wrong doing on week days, who go to church regularly on Sunday, be- cause they have a vague impression that God will offset one against the other. They say, when Sunday morning comes, " I have been bad all the week ; worse than some men, perhaps, but better than others ; no worse than the average, and now it is Sun- day, and I must go to church ;" and when Sunday night comes, they say, "I have been to church all day, and sat on the hard seat, and performed religious service, and it seems to me that all this ought to be rather an atonement for the sins I com- mitted during the week ; at any rate, I have been doing what I am told I ought to do." There is this impression, I say, among men, that they can substitute religious service for duty. — Evening Sermon, December 18, 1859. NOW if a man brings his thoughts and feelings into higher Christian ex- SS , ... Oil of grace perience, when he takes them out his piety 215 Keep supplied 358 Pulpit Ptmgencies 360 is all radiant ; but no sooner is it brought in conta6l with the world than its radiancy siw^ifed is lost Therefore there is no figure in the oTi'of grace Bible that I am aware of which compares the Christian to a coal of fire, or glowing iron. He is always compared to a torch, or to a lamp that will never burn low if you keep it supplied with oil. We are, as Chris- tians, to keep ourselves supplied with the oil of grace. — Morning Sermon, February 5, i860. EVERY tuft of grass that you tread un purpose bcueath your feet, God made on pur- pose, as much as any painter ever made on purpose a line for hair or face on canvas. — Morning Sermon, July 10, 1859. THE idea of expatriating a milhon free ^^^-^^ ^,^^ men is preposterous ! Let a man take opium, and then talk these things, and we will not wonder ; but when a man takes the Bible, and then talks them, we are amazed. — Morning Sermon, ynly 17, 1859. 216 and the Bible 361 Pulpit Pungencies 362 A ND I will add that, whether it be from its superior nervous sensibility or not, a blow on the head, at any period of arrange- ments life, goes quicker to the temper, and irri- tates more, than on any other portion of the body. It is not a right of family gov- ernment, but an outrage and an abomina- tion, to strike a child anywhere on the head. Providence has made other arrange- ments for family government! — Evening Sermon^ Febrnaiy 26, i860. I THINK it would not be difficult to point out many churches, to which be- long good Christians, that would be shocked th?kfi55^ by nothing more than to have a stranger, or any other person, who had the power of God resting on him, who had large imagina- tion, and was touched in his experiences, get up in one of their social meetings, un- asked by minister or deacon or officer, and pour out his emotions, overflowing, per- haps, the king's English with his feelings. — Morning Scnnon, May 29, 1859. 217 English 363 Pulpit Pungencies 364 T' 'HERE is a kind of moderation that is in the mind what perfe6l health is in verays ^^^ organs of the body. And there is a kind of greediness that overlays success. If a bird should seek to hasten forward its young by putting its eggs in an oven, they might be roasted, but they would not be hatched any sooner. — Evening SermoUy Feb- ruary 5, i860. T HERE are some men who seem to be continued in life to serve as beacons OwesV of warning, rather than guiding lights, to a living" those around them. It would be difficult to tell what a great many men who are in communities live for, or what they do ; and among these you will generally find those who say, *' The world owes us a living." The world owes them a living for what "i For being paupers in it ; for being drudges ; for being moths that consume, instead of productive insedls that multiply, as bees do, the stock. — Morning Sermon, May 8, - 1859- 218 When God wanted 365 Pulpit Ptmgencies 366 WHEN God wanted sponges and oys- ters, he made them, and put one on a rock, and the other in the mud. When he made man, he did not make him ^^anT^ to be a sponge or an oyster ; he made him ^"^ ^^ with feet, and hands, and head, and heart, and vital blood, and a place to use them, and said to him, " Go ! work !" — Morning Sermon, j\ larch 11, i860. I SHOULD think, by the way in which some men describe the chara6lQr of God and his works, that he had created a gS's° splendid packasre of laws, and that he was and letters to X o. eternity continually saying to man, " Take care ; do not go there ; you will spoil my machine. Be careful ; do not get in the way of my purposes. I have a decree yonder ; if you go there it will destroy you. I cannot sacrifice my machine for the sake of you men." Some would seem to think that men were good in their place, but that God had better things than they. They would seem to think that God has great purposes, so that he cannot stop to take care of man. 219 366 Pttlpii Pungencies 369 The most abominable infidelity is this. As though God's world was nothing but a grand express train, carrying his packages and letters to eternity, and he said to men, " You can ride, but I cannot look after you. I will carry you along, but you have got to look out for yourselves." — Morning Sermon, April 10, 1859. AFTER a man has once commenced . - life, he cannot go back and start Papers again. He cannot rid himself of his respon- sibilities, and take an entirely new set of papers, and begin anew. — Morning Sermon, October 2, 1859. NOW, there are many who enlist on the parade-sfround of revivals, with the ground of i o> expeclation that when they come out they will be happy, and feel good all their life. — Morning Sermon, yidy 3, 1859. The 'aradc ound revivals The T T makes no difference whether you are Partnership I r. • , , ^ . law of -L actnig by yourself or ni your party, you will be judged by yourself. For all 220 369 Pulpit Pungencies 371 your connivances with others God will bring you to a personal account. You will find that the partnership law of New York does not hold good out of the State of New York. — Evening Sermon, yanuary 22, i860. IF a man is built so that he has cer- tain powerful instincfts, and he at- tempts to kill them, or " crucify" them— the I'f^ff word is Scriptural, but the idea it conveys nrSSk is heathenish ; for that is not the idea of the teacher who used it — if he sets to work, with all his energies, to ferret out those parts of his nature which are necessary to his life, it is not possible that he should be free from doubts and troubles and difficul- ties, with reference to his religious welfare. Our appetites and passions are all of them to be controlled, used, san6lified — not kill- ed. — Morning Sermon, September 18, 1859. WHEN a man ^ets to reasoning about ^ On a large things which happened twenty or Pasture- thirty thousand years past, he is on a large pasture-ground, and can run without danger 221 371 Ptilpit Pungencies 373 of interference. — Morning Sermon, April 24,1859. 'TnO those who shrink from the idea that Paul might ^^^^ Apostles made any mistake, ""m^JtakSn^ I reply, tho Apostles made no mistake in "ciofk '"^ those truths which they were inspired to teach ; but in respe6l to other things out- side of that, they were not guaranteed to make no mistakes. That which God meant them to do, they did without mistake ; but Paul might have made a mistake in buying that cloak which he says he left at some place. — Evening Sermon, ynne 5, 1859. T' 'HEREFORE, in our own land, I hail and rejoice in these very intestine '^PeTce'^ commotions, over which men are crying, " Peace, peace, peace !" As crickets and mice cry " Peace," when the farmer is turn- ing up their nests with his plow, so we have crickets, and mice, and grasshoppers, and all manner of inse6ls chirping " Peace," while God plows his land ! But I say, ** Even so. Lord God Almighty, plow and 222 373 Pulpit Pungencies 375 thunder owT —Thanksgiving Sermon, No- vember 24, 1859. THERE are some persons that love p^^^^_ apples, who cannot bear to eat them '^^^^y , , - apples with with the peel on ; and there are a great the Peei on many Christians that love to engage in religious devotions who cannot bear to go to a prayer meeting. — Morning Sermon, September 18, 1859. IF the child at an early period exhibits signs of dawning intelligence, and pro- , , ^ ^1 . Perambulate ieas itself beyond the present, the parents in J •' - pantaloons recognize that circumstance as a natural* consequence of its normal development. This intelligence comes on more and more as the age of the child advances, and the boy begins to think about, and long for, that state in which he shall be a bigger boy. We smile at this, but it is the unfold- ing of that which ends in immortality and glory. The child does not wish to always • be a child, and wear short clothes ; but it looks forward with eagerness to a time 223 375 Pulpit Pungencies 376 when it expe6ls to be a boy, and perambu- late the streets in pantaloons. — Morning Sermon, October ^o, 1859. T' 'HERE is such a thing as sleepy, lazy prayins^. And I do not refer alone Prayers worn t. j o smooth to the long prayer in church, or to the pre- ^^sel^ic?'^ composed liturgical forms of prayer em- ployed by particular classes of Christians. Oftentimes men's prayers, if I may so say, get worn smooth, and their mind slips off from the words without taking their mean- ing. You will find eminent men in the Episcopal and CathoUc Churches — such men as Fenelon — complaining that there are times when it is impossible for them to use their service books, because their mind will not take hold of the words, and the service becomes perfun6lory. And often- times those whose prayers are extempora- neous have their forms, as really as those who pray from books. There are many persons who oftentimes wake up in the midst of their prayers, and find that they have been saying over sentences without 224 376 Ptdpit Pungencies 378 having any sense of their meaning. — Wednesday Evening Lecture, December 28, i860. ^^ T ET your communication be, Yea, L' yea ; Nay, nay." Let it be sim- ply, Yes, it is ; or. No, it is not. There ^^^a^.^^_, are no gradations between them. It is a ^-^-- f perpendicular Yes, or a perpendicular No '^^^^ —one or the other. The special apphca- tion of the passage, to be sure, was to pro- fanity, but it is just as applicable to truth- ^ speech as to oath-speech. We have no right to grade either way. — Morning Ser- mon, yune 26, 1859. A FRENCH philosopher professed to comprise our whole being in three things. The first was occupation, the second philosopher was occupation, and the third was occupa- tion ! And there was a great deal of wis- dom in that, more than we expect to find in a philosopher, for that word usually means to imply a singular man who don't know anything. — Evening Sermon, July i/, 1859. 225 Pianos 379 PtUpii Pungencies 380 OOME men keep their goodness as *^ people do their pianos. They have Conscience ^i , - , . and them shut up, most of the time, at one side of the parlor ; and when they have looked after the affairs of the kitchen, and taken their meals, and waited upon their compan}^,* and attended to all their other duties, then, for relaxation, they open them, and play a few tunes upon them. Some men keep their conscience shut up a good part of the time, and once in awhile, for a change, they open it, and play upon it. They find it a little out of tune, but they do not mind that. — Morning Sermon, June 12, 1859. w E are all of us merely developing spirit in matter or out of matter. Fruits for God to We are gaining that victory which God means the immortal shall gain over the mortal, the transient, the perishing. We are producing from these roots, these stems — our bodies — blossoms and fruits which God shall be willing to pick, that he may show them again in another life. — Morning Sermo7i, March 4, i860. 226 381 Ptclpit Pungencies 383 THERE is not a little, piddling justice's court in the whole nation that is not subje6l to the authority of our highest Piddibg^ justice's courts. The highest court governs all the court lower courts, clear down to the bottom of our judicial system. And God has made the human soul so that its highest faculty shall govern all the faculties below it, clear down to the bottom. — Morning Sermon^ June 12, 1859. ^T ZHEN a man comes to have this itch V V for gold, this insanity of rolling j^^jj ^^^ over and increasing wealth, there are no ^^^ bounds to his desire to accumulate. Though he were to roll his pile as fast as the globe rolls, he would not be satisfied. — Evening Sei'mon, Januajy 15, i860. I THINK that men in this world are like a pismire running up on one of . a Pismire on the pyramids of Egypt, going to take a °"^^^4ids prospe6l. The little insect creeps, and creeps, and creeps, a whole day, and only gets up a very short distance compared 227 A 383 Pitlpit Ptcngencies 384 with the whole height of the stru6lure, and he is so surrounded by bits of stones, and pismfreon Other obje6ls which adhere to its side, that one of the , i • r- i pyramids he caunot see anything, bo he creeps on and on, and he may, perhaps, in the course of a week, get half way up to the top, if the wind does not happen to blow him off, and no other accident befalls him ; and then he cannot see anything, for he finds himself behind a crevice, or in a crack. Now he creeps and creeps again in another direc- tion ; and how long do you suppose it will take him to get so high that he can look over all the world ; and when he does, what is an ant's judgment about the world good fori^ — Morning Sermon, April 2/[., 1859. H OW many do we now see among us who are dragging themselves along Takes you by the throusfh life, reaping the inevitable conse- sho-lders '^^ ^ jr o pudfes quences of an overtaxed body, because they yoti^onthe ^g^^g^^ busincss and profits above health and comfort. They say, " I would fain stop, but I can see no place to stop." By- and-by, when disease takes you by the 228 384 Pidpit Pungencies 386 shoulders and pitches you on the bed, I think you will find a place to stop ! When the undertaker comes along you will find a place to stop ! — Morning Sermon, July 24, 1859. ■ , GOD will not judge offices, but he will judge men that hold the offices. It makes no difference what permissions are piaster allowed in any office which you may hold, an office you are bound to find out what is right — and that you can do in this age of Bible privileges — and square your conduct by it. No wrong thing is covered up by the plas- ter of an Q^z^.— Evening Sermon, January 22, i860. Pleasure ABOVE all things, do not go near those places that are called Haunts of Pleasure. They are the houses of pleasure damnation on the outside, and the houses of damnation on the inside ! No man can begin to visit them with any sort of presumption that he will do other than end in rottenness and perdition! When a man is sequestered, 229 386 Pulpit Pungencies 387 night after night, away from ordinary in- fluences and restraints, and where there is gUtter, and stimulant, and novelty, and temptation, he cannot but be contaminated. — Evening Sermon, November 20, 1859. T HEN there are the pedigree farmers, not unknown among men in natural Plump up to Peter husbandry. They have got the very poor- est fruit to be found in the whole neighbor- hood, bearing the highest sounding names. They have got the most marvelous pears, the most wonderful apples, the most extraor- dinary strawberries. They give the most astonishing names to the most meagre, miserable fruit. But then, it has such high- sounding titles ! There are these same men whose herds are about the poorest, the scrawniest, and the weakest in the whole country round about them ; but they have a pedigree that takes them back, every one of them, to Noah's Ark ! Their oxen are lean, their cows are milkless, but they are proud of them nevertheless, they have such a noble pedigree ! They are uncurried, 230 387 Pulpit Pungencies 389 unfatted, and unfatable, to be sure ; but ah, what a Hne of blood did they spring from ! Did you never see just such husbandmen in the Church ? — men who had no greater mo- rahty, or piety, or spiritual experience, but who went back through a long pedigree, one going plump' up to Peter, and another plump up to Paul, and others plump up to the prophets themselves ! — Evening Sermon, October 16, 1859. I SAY that that idea of manhood which makes one man high because he is pocket-full, and another man low because "empty he is pocket-empty, is heathenish, and un- worthy of men who have lived any length of time w^ithin sight of a Bible. — Morning Sermon, May 8, 1859. Pocket-full and Pocket- AMAN who would not help a fellow- creature flying for his liberty, must be either a villain or a politician. — Evening Sermon, October "^o, 1859. 231 A \-illain or a Politician 390 Ptilpit Pungencies 391 ^ HERE is not a fact which I am so diSpies glad about, as that the disciples were Poor^feHows such poor fellows as they were. You all know that we need a God who can love a sinner — a real sinner — a man who is such a sinner that the great waves of mercy break upon him as the waves of ocean break against the rocks of the coast ; a man whose veins pulse with the fever of vice, who feels the thunder-clap of hate ; a man who sins morning and night. What ! can God love such a man } The universal heart is saying : can God love a man away down where I am 1 Why don't you go to some good Orthodox church, and listen to some staid man } is said to the disconsolate searcher for truth. How. dare you go to these Theodore Parkers and Chapins ! How dare you Christians have to do with these fishermen 1- — Morning Sermon, Janumy 2, 1859. ASTRONOMY never said to a man, r-x--- " The sun is the centre of the solar of God's Portfolio system, and your earth revolves around it 232 391 Pulpit Pungencies 393 in a certain fixed orbit." Chemistry never said to anybody, " You are walking upon an earth composed of minute atoms of matter." We found them out. We had to find them out, or not know them. They were in God's book, in his portfoUo, which he spread out before us, and from which we pulled out the papers ourselves. — Morning Sermon, April 2^, 1S59. PEOPLE should be hungry with the eye and the ear, as well as the mouth. Ponhoies When all a man's necessaries of life are stomach those which go in at the portholes of the stomach, it is a bad sign. — Evening Ser- mon, May 8, 1859. NATURAL laws are like our post- offices, only they never advertise. ^^aturaUaws If any man has a letter there, he can get it by asking. — Evening Sermon, March 18, i860. 233 Post-offices 394 Pzipit Pungencies 395 w ORK your troubles up ! If a man fills my house with thorns, I will make not go about saying, " What a distressed the Pot ^ J- &' boil state of things is this !" They are good to make the pot boil, if for nothing else. — Morning Sermon, yanuary 18, i860. Writing T HAVE in my mind a former acquaint- slrmols -*- ance — a clergyman — who met with Preaching great success so long as he gave up his life to his pursuit with a large, free, generous feeling ; but he wished to be a father of the Church, and to be eminent for prudence, and for a way of looking at things in the light of judgment and reason. So he went to writing sermons, instead of preaching them ; and the result is, that he has come to be very much like what a wasp's nest is in the last days of Autumn — an empty, patched-up house of mud, on the dry side of a rafter. — Morning Sermon, June 5, 1859. 234 396 Pulpit Pungencies 398 I N poisoning your worldly prosperity, you have been able to maintain your- self ; and do you suppose that when you on^thT conform to the laws of nature and provi- heu dence, and to God's moral law, you will find it harder to maintain yourself? In other words, has God put a premium on the road to hell ? — Morning Sefmon^ December 18, 1859. I T is supposed that physicians have a prescriptive right to lie to their pa- prescriptive tients. Now, do you suppose that it is ti^iie necessary for a physician to damn his own soul in order to save his patient's body ? — Morning Scrmony June 26, 1859. PAUL says, " For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest Apostles, though I ^low^^ am nothing." That was putting the other Apostles down pretty low ; but still, it shows the spirit of the man. — Morning Sermon^ April % 1859. 235 399 Ptilpit Pungehcies 399 WHEN a man is in debt, with but three cents in his pocket, a.nd he sees the constable coming, how the poor have'\o give wrctch sncaks and skulks about to keep out me up again ^ , ~„ , i -r» , Pretty quick 01 thc ofhcer s way ! But suppose a man who is in debt, and who has been dodging between prison and officer for weeks and months, should be told, "An estate has been left you, and now you have only to draw and you are sovereign of half a million of dollars !" He hastens to New York, without even stopping to change his clothes, to ascertain the truth of this unexpected piece of intelligence. The moment he finds that he has not been misinformed, he is a new man. Now he does not dread those whom he has dreaded so long. He w^alks up to the officer and says, " I am not afraid of you any more." He faces his creditors and says, " Get out of my way, I am a dif- ferent man from what I have been. You can take me if you please, but you will have to give me up again pretty quick." — Morning Scnnon, October 2, 1859. 236 400 Pttlpit Pungencies 402 WHAT will you do about these fads ? •' . , . • Prodigious You can jump over them ; but in log^^ai •' -^ springs order to do that you have got to jump over the globe ; and a man must be hard pressed to take such prodigious logical springs !— Evening Sermon, Octobef 23, 1859. GOD says, " I will give you, if you ask, myself and all that I have, and make you my heirs ;" and when a man is a ,ood^ an heir of God, there is a good property coming to him.— Evening Sermon, October 9, 1859. PROPHECIES, as I understand them, are things of the vaguest and most general character possible. They are what music is to an army while marching. ^™y When Napoleon was going over the Alps, and his soldiers had become nearly ex- hausted with dragging the heavy artillery after them, he ordered his band to sound a charge, and the moment the soldiers heard that "charge, they were indued with double 237 Prophecies like music to an Proud as the devil 402 Pulpit Pungencies 403 strength, and they pitched up the heights with comparative ease. — Morning Sermon, Aprili,iZS9' HERE is a man with a family, who is a perfect tyrant at home. He says, ** I am master of this house," and he makes his servants, his children, and, if he can, his wife, run at his bidding. Everybody in that house knows that he has the inflexible will of a man who expe6fs to make all those with whom he has anything to do submit to him. He is a prominent Chris- tian, a deacon, a class-leader, or something of that sort. When he goes out he takes his hat and makes it all smooth, and takes care that his other clothing shall give him as much an appearance of meekness as possible ; and he puts a mild look on his face ; and as he walks along he bows softly to everybody ; and he makes himself obsequious wherever he goes, and that is what he calls being humble ; but he is as proud as the devil in his heart. — Morning Sermo?i, April 2), 1S59. 238 404 Pulpit Pungencies 407 I HAVE noticed that God's providence pj-ovidence is on the side of clear heads. — Evening deadheads Sermon, Febrnary 10, i860. SOME men go through life as steamers do through the sea, beating every Can wave with their paddles and bows, deter- Pp^ow^ mined to domineer over wind and storm. '°^°^^^ But it must be a well-built man that can put his prow into life, and go in a straight line to the point at which he aims, by means of his own sheer sagacity and strength. — Moaning Sermon, Jnne 12, 1859. SOME persons seem to think that a child is like a farm, and cannot be pulverised too much ; and so they plow it, ^cimdlin'^ and harrow it, and cross it, and turn it up and down as it does not Hke to be turned. — Evening Sermon, Febrnary 26, i860. Only the IT IS a pity to see a great dwellmg m 1-11. 1 r ^ Unlythe which everything appears to dwari the Punctuation occupant — in which the occupant is the ^^^^^ 239 407 Ptilpit Pttngencies 411 least circumstance. I have seen men that were only the pun6luation of their wealth. — Eveiiing Sermon, February 5, i860. , , , /"^ONTENTMENT does not consist in A want of I Push V_^ ^ want of push. — Morning Sermony ynne 5, 1859. I SUPPOSE the prophets spoke as (^od speaking trumpets, whatever God put "\hem"^ through them. — Morning Sermon, Jannary 15, i860. REALLY, so far as we have any record iiuincicsi on the subje6l, Paul did more than Put together all thc rcst of thc apostles put together. — Morning Sermon, April 3^ 1859. D O you not know that old Putnam need not have dashed down that rocky Old _ •' ^""^ precipice, on horseback, with swords and carbines after him } He need not have crept into the cave where the wolf was, lighting himself with the wolfs eyes while he snapped his gun at his head. He might 240 4 1 1 Pulpit Pungencies 413 have sat at home, and avoided risking his life in this manner ; but would he then have been Old Put ? Why was it that every man had so much confidence in his valor ? It was because peril was sweeter to him than security, and whenever there was a danger to be met, he was the first to meet it. His daring exploits taught men to regard him as a stalwart old yeoman, fit to lead where men were to be led. But, He that fights and runs away, Shall live to ru7i another day. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. IT is not to be wondered at that we have such imperfe6l views of God, when ^^o^g^ we remember how we come by them ; that we derived them from catechisms and creeds, and confessions of faith, which were rammed into us at the expense of losing our suppers and dinners on Sunday. — Morning Se7ino?i, February 27, 1859. THERE is but one pleasant scene in the whole case, and that is the simple fidelity of this grateful man to the 241 413 Pulpit Pungencies 414 truth, and the unflinching witness borne to his^head Christ, to his own damage, There is no amSy question that .at the time the event under consideration took place, this man cut the worst figure of all who had to do with it. The synagogue stood, all the officers and the parents were in good favor, everybody smiled, and everything was pleasant and brotherly, except so far as this one man was concerned. He, poor, miserable fellow, ran his head against authority recklessly, and was kicked out of the synagogue, and stood all alone ! — Evening Sennoit. Decem- ber II, 1859. IT was a remarkable saying of one of the Revolutionary heroes, when Congress, providence _ ^ g^j'^^ instead of passing a bill for more soldiers. Regiments recommendcd a day for fasting and prayer, that there might be a good deal in fasting and prayer, but he had noticed that God's providence was on the side of strong regiments. — Evening Sermon^ February 10, i860. 242 415 Pulpit Ptmgencies 416 YOU know that in the business of pubUshing there are what are called " the remainders." If an edition of a book Remainders is published, and it is not all sold, the part the Church that remains unsold is called " the remain- der " of that edition. And in manufa6lur- ing establishments and stores there is a great amount of stock which is called " remnants," and which consists of scraps, and shop-worn goods that are left over. Now I think that the church and the com- munity are full of "remnants" and "re- mainders" — men that are left ovox,— Even- ing Sermon, December 18, 1859. N OW God says, " Here is your duty for to-day, and the means with which God's .,, _ . . Remittances to do it. To-morrow you will hnd remit- tances and further dire6lions ; next week you will find other remittances and other dire6lions ; next month you will find others ; and next year still o\h^x^r— Morning Ser- 'mony December 18, 1859. 243 Rent 417 Pulpit Pungencies 419 OUPPOSE it is your rent, which is due it'l'yoS- ^ next week. It is true that trusting will not pay it ; neither will fretting about it pay it. — Morning Sermon, April 10, 1859. ^ I ^HERE are many who have no furni- -■- ture of their own — it is all rented ; and there are as many and more, all of whose opinions are borrowed. A tale is told. Some sinner is brought to Hght, and the evening circle, the fashionable circle, are shocked at some high crime and mis- demeanor, not against the laws of God, but of etiquette. — Evejiing Sermon, February 12, i860. Rented furniture and opinions Sin in Repenting I AM shocked, I am disgusted with the ignominiousness of repentance among men before God, when they are so reluc- tant about it. I think men sometimes commit more sin in repenting, than they do in performing the things of which they repent. — Morning Sermo7t, May i, 1859. 244 man 420 Ptdpit Pungencies 422 HERE and there, God makes a reser- ^ voir-man, and other men draw at him and take their suppUes from him. — Evenins: Sermon, March 18, i860. THERE are some men who gain their Hvehhood as the lazy farmer gets his grist, who ties his bag to the trough of the mill, and sits down and waits till his bag is filled, and then carries it home. Business men who live that lazy sort of life are said to be " retired." We do not count them as among the Hving forces of human life. They have retired from life. When we talk about men, we do not talk about such men. — Morning: Sermon, October ^o, i860. Retired at that CHILDREN at first are mere animals. The most absolute animals on the globe, I think, are these little pulpy chil- ^FamUy^ dren. They are, as they roll about, like sunfish floating through the water— round, plump, and beautiful to look at, but good for nothing — absolutely nothing. I will not say they are at zero — they are below 245 422 Ptdpii Pungencies 425 zero. They seem to be the conne6ling link between nothing and something, and very faintly revealed at that. — Morning Ser- 712011, April 24, 1859. ^ M EN are not to have their Christian graces like revolving light-houses, ^l'?!""'" that flash a white light, then a red light, and then a space of darkness, to be follow- ed by separate flashes. — Morning Sermon, February 5, i860. graces A MAN may call the church whatever names he pleases ; he may call min- Right isters whatever names he pleases ; he may between the joints call mc an enthusiast, a bifrot, or a fanatic of the ^ harness — thosc things do uot toucli near where I live ; but when a man says to me, " You are worldly-minded," that does hit right between the joints of the harness ! — Morn- ing Sermon, August 14, 1859. ALL such virtues as gentleness, neat- ness, order, punctuality, courtesy, attention to etiquette, fidehty in small 246 fellow 425 Pulpit Pungencies 426 matters, the avoidance of meanness, of negligence, of slackness — all these are Right up and r ^ ' ' A down thin2:s of more than mmor importance. A son of a man cannot justify himself for negle6ling these things by saying, " I have a robust nature, and am a right-up-and-down sort of a fellow, and people cannot expe6l me to have any of these little finical graces." — Evening Sermon^ yanuary 22, i860. WHERE a man carries himself in his conscience, and in his religion, he is not at the mercy of any outward circum- ^^^ stances ; but where a man carries himself ^^^^""^^ ^"" in his own pocket, a rip may destroy him. The men who are usually counted to be the first men, can be spilled out of a hole in the bottom of their pocket ; and there is nothing stands between the highest and the lowest, but just the difference in the state of their pockets. — Morning Sermon^ May 8, 1859, 247 427 Pulpit Pungencies 429 DO you believe that there is any such thing as a hot-house, where they can Ripening , ^ Souls ripen human souls as they ripen pine- apples in these northern climes ? — Evening Sermon y May 22, 1859. /CONVERSION is to a man's soul just ^^-^ what ripening is to grapes. They Converting , . - . » .men hang m the right form : every one of them just like ■' Ripening has skin and seeds, but all of .them are grapes ' sour. But just let them hang there long enough in the bright sunshine till it makes them sweet, and they are converted. That is exa6lly what conversion means to man. He hangs there, but sour, until he sees what is the power of God, the love of God and the spirit of God becomes sweetened to him. — Evening Sermon y May 22, 1859. I THINK that the whole round globe is Rocks it J- but a cradle, and that God rocks it with his foot With his foot. — Morning Sermo7iy May i, 1859. 248 430 Pulpit Ptmgencies 431 THERE are many whose whole idea of attainment and chara6ler, is that 1 . , r • Singls- they are simply implements ol success m biaded men secular life. It is getting along that they ^^^^^^^, think of Refinement, culture and religion ^"^^^^ are valuable, because with them a man can better serve himself in this life. They look upon men as they do upon knives. They think single-bladed men are poor creatures. In their view some men are double -biaded, and some have as many blades as Rodgers' famous pattern-knives which are displayed to tempt customers. — Morning Sermon, November 2J, 1859. THERE are many men that will not get away from trouble when they can. If there is trouble in one room they .30 Rooms ■' ma man s will not so much as go into another room ^^^^ to avoid it. A wise man, when he finds himself in a room where there is trouble, goes out of it as soon as possible. Now Cod has put at least thirty rooms in a man's mind, and if there is trouble in one, he can go up to the next one, and if the 249 431 Ptilpit Pungencies 433 trouble comes into that, he can go up to the next, and, if necessary, he can keep go- ing up-stairs till he gets upon the roof; and the higher he goes, the more tired will troubles get of flying up after him. — Morn- ing Sermon, yuly 24, 1859. ' I ^HIS, then, is the secret of life — to For a man ^ scclc all you cau lay your hand on, Roost oil but to seek it only as a round of a ladder which is good for nothing for a man to sit and roost on, but is good to enable him to take another step, that step being only preliminary to the next. — Morning Serniony March 11, i860. M EN who are distinguished from their fellow-men by their sharpness, ^°^^J^^^ their tacl, their management, and who Moses become the world's merchant princes, though they seem very material, have more » faith than almost any other class among us. It may be a pecuniary faith, a com- mercial faith, but it is faith. Baring Brothers are men of faith, though their 250 433 Pulpit Ptiugencies 435 faith may not be of the highest order. Old Rothschild is a man of faith, though his faith is very different from that which Moses had. Moses lived as seeing Him who is invisible ; and Rothschild lives as seeing it which is invisible. The power of foreseeing which Moses had, was the same that Rothschild has. — Morning Ser- ine Ji, October ,iOy 1859. WHEN you get an apple that is half rotten, the other half being as Haif-Rotten good as though the whole were sound, then you can get a Christian that is rotten on one side, who is as good on the other side as if both sides were good. — Morning Scr- vion, September \^, 1S59. OTHER children don't get broken in so eas^y — perhaps from something in themselves, and perhaps from a want of ARo>-ai skill on the part of their parents. In such kght^ cases there comes a time when there is a royal family fight, and the question is who shall come out ahead, the father and 251 apples and Christians 435 Pulpit Pungencies 438 mother, or the child. — Morning Sermon, February 5, i860. I DO not need a God, whose business it is to rub up the stars and keep A God to them bright, to turn the vast wheel of the Rub up the stars universe, and by infinite forces to take care of globes and human beings, but a God who tells me, " The hairs of your head are all numbered," and who says, " Not a sparrow falls to the ground without my notice." — Mornmg Sermon^ ytdy 3, 1859. I SHOULD be sorry to think that there ^^^ — was a man here who had not got a Satnt saint. I have one. — Evenijig Sermon, Oc- tober % 1859. IT is quite in vain for a man to set apart a.a,^. hours to pray, if he gives to Satan vs. Satan all the rest of his time. — Morning Sermon, yanuary 22, i860. 252 439 PtUpit Pungencies 441 ^ I ^HE Satan of sacred literature is im- ^ possible to any rational man, or impossible rational mind. — Evening Scnnon, October 23, 1859. I DO not think there is a thing about which men sin more than they do in this matter of lying. They lie from their ^" °'^ birth. From the womb they go spreading P^^a^^^"^ lies. David said, in his haste, that all men were liars ; and an old Scotch preacher very shrewdly remarked that he never took it back when he got leisure. — Morning Ser- 7non, ynne 26, 1859. TT^ID you ever hear how the string of a -*-^ harp or a violin complains when you Men don't begin to turn the key, and screw it up to screwed up concert pitch } How it wails ! And yet when it is screwed tight, it discourses glorious music — and only then. Men do not like to be screwed up, but they all want good music brought out of them. God knows better than they do what con- ditions are required for such music, and he 253 441 Pulpit Pungencies 444 turns the keys of life, and brings them, at last, into concord ; but it is late before many of them are fit to be played upon. — Evening Sermon, October (^y i859- BUSINESS leaks at every seam be- ..... cause men are not trustworthy. — a,t 6 very Seam Evening Sermon , February 10, i860. T HERE are men that have a selvage of goodness to the garment of their Selvage chara6ler, which makes them appear like of goodness good men ; and yet, if you look at their chara6ler as a whole, you shall find that they are mean, hard, selfish, pinching, stingy men. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. A S men begin in life so they are very apt to continue. As in water Set cement, the form very soon hardens almost to a stone, so any moral habit very soon gives a set to conduct, and then it is almost . like breaking flint to change that condu6l. — Evening Sermon, November 20, 1859. 254 445 Pulpit Pungencies 447 I T would be better for us if we had more childishness about ourselves. Masons know that that work is never good which sets Sets too quick. too quick. If manhood sets too quick, it is apt to be stiff and brittle. — Evening Ser- mon, Febrnary 26, i860, I WOULD rather be a nobody, and have no character and no responsibility, than to be one of those miserable, truckling The men in God's service, who are forever ^^Sy' ot a watching their influence, for fear they shall shadow lose it. Suppose you should see a man going up and down some street, and you should ask him why he did it, and he should say : " God has committed to me the responsibility of a shadow, and I am taking care that I do not lose my shadow ! " — Evening Sermon , May 22, 1859. THERE are those who recognize only, or mainly, their own agency in this world. They see no living forces but them- selves. Their state of mind depends upon how much blood they have, how good their 255 447 Ptilpit Pungencies 448 digestion is, whether or not hope is the largest organ in their head, and the amount of spirituality they possess. They think God Shakes there is but one law, namely, that every the conceit -' ' -' out of them j^g^v^ should carvc out his own course through life. If they are successful, their success must be achieved on a low plane — it must be a creature-good, as divines some- times call it. It can, at best, yield them only temporary comforts. If they are destined to a higher good, they are soon handled in a manner calculated to modify their ideas of their own independence. God shakes the conceit out of them. — Morning Sermon, September 25, 1859. Shaking hands a means of grace O NE of the noblest men I ever saw on earth, and now I believe in Heaven, — a man standing as high as any State could put her sons in places of honor and trust — I have noticed that he never met an acquaintance that he did not stop and shake hands with him. Though I have met him as often as ten or twelve times a day, I never passed him without his shak- 256 A contented live man is a Sham I 448 Pulpit Pungencies 451 ing me by the hand. At first it seemed strange, but I soon came to feel the power which it awakened in me ; the sense of his interest and kindly feeling causes a reciprocation of it, and I came at last to shake hands with him almost as a means of grace. — Evening Sermon, May i, 1859. IF a man has come to that point where he is content, he ought to be put in his coffin ; for a contented live, man is a €ham ! — Morning Sermon, Mareh 11, i860. WE are apt to carry ourselves as men arrange their stores. The newest and most attra6live goods are in the win- ^^^"Ji^^^^ dows ; but those which are old, or shop- ^^'^^^ worn, or rotten, or adulterated, are taken far back in the half-lights, where sharp- eyed clerks sell to bat-eyed customers. — Morning Sermon, November 27, 1859. HOW many men there are, who, after having been in the church ten or (filriSfang twenty years, are just about where they were when they first entered it. They are 257 Christ roof 451 Pulpit Pungencies 452 a little better in this or that field — a little improved in spots — but the annual harvest is not much more at the end of twenty years than it was at the end of five years. Lazy Christians ! shiftless Christians ! un- growing and unfruitful Christians ! — Even- ing Sermon^ October 16, 1859. I N our day there is as much division in the Church as there has been at any pouting previous period. Christ as a do6lrine will Shiogles . , , ^, . 1 on the unite churches ; Christ as the emancipator of those in bondage will divide the whole Church. Christ making men strong and rich outwardly, and Christ as patron and proteftor of men that are strong and rich outwardly, will unite the whole community ; Christ giving rights to the weak and the poor will divide the whole community. Christ putting shingles on the roof of the temple of Christianit}^, as men have fashion- ed it, will be received ; Christ changing the foundations of that temple will be re- jected. — Morning Sermon^ December 25, 1859. 258 453 Pulpit Pungencies 454 I Short off in the middle BELIEVE that men are oftener de- stroyed by the character of the feel- ings which they carry on account of their troubles, than by the force of the troubles themselves. Here is a man, for instance, who, when he fell down, broke his courage short off in the middle. He was only forty- five or fifty years of age, and, if he had only thought so, he could have got up on his hands, and then upon his knees, and then up on his feet ; and in the course of five years he could have put himself to rights again. But he broke his courage in two in the middle, and from that day he has never got up. He is like a man with a broken spine, who never has any feeling down in his iQ,€^.— Morning Sermon, June 12, 1859. I THINK the most humihating thing a person could do— but our vanity will not let us do it — would be to sit down and think how he has fretted and stewed and simmered simmered in advance, about griefs and troubles which never came as he anticipat- 259 Fretted and stewed 454 Pulpit Pungencies 457 ed they would. — Morning Seivion, December 18, 1859. OF thousands upon thousands of young . -,. - men Sino^ Smo: is askino^, "When IS asking o o O' ihey^'ome"?'' wiH they come ?" Wait patiently, old Pri- son, they are on the way ! — Evening Ser- mon, March 4, i860. w E are not obliged to sit in our minds ^^ with all the doors open, nor with ^minds""^ all the windows open. We have a right of windows reserve, of self-inclosure, of refusing to let men know what we are, what we think, and what we do. — Morning Sermon, J^ime 26, 1859. NEVER resort — except where you find that a kind of moral plaster is necessary to promote inward inflammation, "^^'way^^ or to draw it off! — to these snappings, and '^"skin ^^ pinchings, and slappings, and degrading annoyances, which are so detestable. But where there is raised up against you a little tyrannic will that must be subdued, if by 260 457 Pttlpit Pungencies 460 patient reasoning and persuasion you can not subdue it, there is a way by which you can do it through the skin ; and when you do it, do it thoroughly, and be done with it. — Evening Sermon, February 26, i860. I HATE French words — there is no ^ii skiu depth in them — they are all skin and p^ish polish. — Evening Sermon, May i, 1859. THERE are some men that are born so sleazy that it seems as though no sew- Bom ing would make them into garments of any account. — Morning Sermon, March 1 1, i860. Sleazy A TAKE somebody who is rather faulty, who you think is a slippery Chris- tian, and whom you like to disse6l, and slippery -^ Christian remember that the work of grace is begun in him, and lift him up, and imagine what he will be in the future, till you see him enveloped in a flood of God's glory, and then look at him. — Wednesday Evening Lecture, November 16, 1859. 261 461 Pulpit Pungencies 462 THE acquisition by mankind of the knowledge at present in the world, has been the work of now more than three Remarkably . .... Smart thousand years — for it is only within the last three thousand years that man has thought of studying much. The human race, in this respe6t, is like our children. We do not think of putting them to school before they are three or four, and some- times five or six years old, unless they are remarkably smart — and all children are. — Llorning Sermon, April 22, 1859. THERE never was any smell so sweet to me at sea, as the breeze that came Near enough off the land. When I returned from Eu- to heaven i"ope, ^ud first smellcd this continent, I did not know what it was, as I walked, or rather staggered, about the deck, but I felt a wonderful sense of reviving, an odor of something sweet ; and that moment my appetite returned, and from that moment I lost all sea-sickness, and felt like a new man. I think it should be so when we come near heaven ; the moment we are 262 462 Ptipit Pungencies 463 near enough to smell the odor of the land, that moment every man should throw away all earth-sickness, and feel himself growing strong and young 2,^21^.— Evening Sermon, Jtme 5, 1809. MEN build up good, men build up chara6ler in this world, as the r • i. Only artist produces a panitmg ; as, lor mstance, ^^ne^^ Raphael wrought his exquisite piclure of the Madonna, which required days, and weeks, and months of the closest appli- cation, and which progressed little by little, touch by touch, with a brush whose tip was not bigger than the point of a pin ; or, as a beautiful rainbow is produced, which is wrought out, little touches by little touches, day after day, week after week, and month after month being required for its execu- tion. Suppose an artist, after having com- pleted such a piaure, in a moment of intoxication, goes into his studio, takes his brush, dips it into black paint, and applies it thereto. Only one smouch and the work 263 463 Pulpit Pungencies 465 of months is destroyed ! — Morning Sermon, yanuary 23, 1859. I T makes a great difference whether a j.^^ ^^^ sin is amusing or not about its being Sober^ones tolcrated — laughable lies and wickednesses go along smoothly, when everybody kicks sober ones. — Morning Sermon, June 26, 1859. SOME men are like empty ships, which meiroia dancc and toss about like egg-shells hves^ on the water, but which, if you load them, and sink them down to the deck, will ride steadily through the waves. Many men have to experience real trouble before they will carry an even keel ; and then they make good voyages. In the case of not a few, real trouble is the best thing that can happen to them. Many men are like old pastures which are very short and turf- bound, which do not like to be plowed, but the usefulness of which, as is shown by the crops they produce, is materially increased by their being turned over to 264 465 Pulpit Pungencies 467 the depth of fifteen inches or so. Many men do not hke to have their old soddy lives plowed up by trouble, but their lives are improved, as is shown by the clarifying effe6ls produced upon them, by being turn- ed up from the very bottom. — Morning Sermojiy Atigtist 14, 1859. H OW doubly condemned will that man feel who finds that in denyino: Christ Soid ^ ^ the world he has denied himself — that when he sold .mthe himself for the world, he sold the world in the very bargain ! — Morning Sermon^ June 12, 1859. AS means to an end, all things are good. As ends only, they are good for nothing. And this is the reason why I read to you that singular chaj^ter from Ecclesiastes, which made many of you stare so, where Solomon told what he did. He did a great many things that I hope will never be done again. He went through a wide circuit of folly which many Solomon- 265 bargain Solomonculi 467 Pulpit Pungencies 470 culi have undertaken to go through since. — Morning Sermon y March 11, i860. Spigots A RICH man's sons are usually so many spigots in a hogshead. The bunghoie sum of all their bores is larger than the whole bung-hole ; and he cannot pour in as fast as they draw out. — Evening Sermon y Febrnary 5, i860. GOD is, by disappointments, continually heading us back on every side. If grow up long s •^'^n ^^ were not' for this we should grow up long and spindling. — Morning Sermon^ yanuary 15, i860. IT is very hard to find men now ; you can find jrood sticks in the woods for Sticks men pientbj^than ^^^^^^ though that is difficult ; yet you can Splicing find ten sticks easier than you can find one man. We must make men now as they make masts ; they saw down a dozen trees, splice them together, and bind them round with iron hoops, and thus make masts that are supposed to be stronger than if they 266 470 Pulpit Pungencies 472 were one piece of timber. And so with men ; if you want a good man, you have to take a dozen men, spUce them together, wind the hoops of responsibihty round and round them, put watching bands all about them, before you can get a man with whom you dare leave your money ; and then they will run away with it. — Evening Sermon, May 8, 1859. I DO not deny the right of a man to be converted in ju&t the way that is best gp^.^^^ adapted to his nature. Every man has that right. God has a right to make seed sprout as he pleases. — Morning Sermony May 29, 1859. IN the proportion that you become like God in your temper, that temper be- comes a lens through which you see God ; ^p>"s1^^ for " the pure in heart shall see God." A pure heart is God's spy-glass. — Morning Sermony October 16, 1859. 267 God's 473 Pulpit Pungencies 475 I OFTEN see men who seem to think that it is a very great thing to squeak great thing . . ^ • r to at every jonit, and that every revolution 01 ^^^^^'■yj"'^* business should be accompanied with groans. — Moiiiing Senno7t, August 14, 1859. M EN that have wealth and do not know what to do with it, are the We hear the victuns most miserable men out of hell — and they Squejil ought to be ! There is a fable told of a man whose gold was poured molten down his throat. The same thing is done every day in the year among us ; and we hear the victims squeal perpetually in their wretch- edness and misery. — Morning Sermon^ March 11, i860. I WOULD much rather fight pride than vanity ; because pride has a stand-up Stand up way. wav of fiirhting. You know where it is. — of fighting " 00 Morning Sermon, Fcbj'iiary 5, i860. 268 476 Pulpit Pungencies 478 IT stands to reason that a man whose Hfe is regulated by a high moral pur- pose, can make a better use of his time than a man whose life is divided up by self- ish instincts. — Evening Sermon, Febmary 10, i860. I TELL you that the moral reasonings of the store and the counting-room, with reference to what is right and what is wrong in getting money, and the reason- ings of God's judgment-seat, will be very different operations. You can muzzle your fear, and you can silence your conscience, and you can go on making money by ways which God abhors, and which every honest man ought to abhor, and you can, in the meantime, have comparative peace ; but there is a great difference between staving off judgment now, and staving off revelation and judgment then ! — Evening Sermon, yaniMry 15, i860. I LIKE the tyrant's flail. I like to see him plow. I like to see him make himself asinine for breaking up the ground. 269 It Stands to reason Staving off judgment now and then 1 478 Pulpit Pungencies 480 I like to see him do a yeoman's duty in the field. He is sowing the seed for the har- steering vest of liberty. For God, and not man, them ! reigns in the earth. Men think they are dire6ling their own course, but God is steering them into his own harbors. — Morn- ing Serniony Deceinber 4, 1859. M ANY persons say that God made natural laws to do everything in And then the world, and then stepped out and left Stepped out them to themselves. — Evening Sermon^ September 18, 1859. Y Stem OU have seen, in fields of grain, where there was an average low growth, S^'iong t^^^ \iQXQ and there some long stalks shot up and bore a lordly head of wheat nearly twice as high as those round about them. So there are, in communities and churches, single Christians that throw themselves up with a long stem, and bend down with a full head — for the fuller the head, the more humble the man is apt to be. — Evening Sermon^ October ^, 1859. 270 481 Pulpit Pungencies 481 MOST men grow as vines do out West. When vines grow in God's vineyard, the tops are cut oft, and they are with long kept down, so that the fruit grows near stems the ground, where everybody can reach it : but if you go out into the rich valleys of the West, you will find that at first the vines have fruit near the ground, but that they go on climbing, till by and by they get up to the tops of the highest trees ; and now you may climb ten feet, and not find a cluster ; you may climb ten feet more, and still not find a cluster ; you may climb thirty, forty, sixty, eighty feet, and there, in the topmost boughs, you will find grapes. There are hundreds of men who are grow- ing, growing, with long polished stems, reaching up eighty feet in the air, who lift their heads far up in the sunlight of their own prosperity, and who will have nothing to do with those who live down near the ground. Now do not grow like wild vines ; grow like cultivated vines, so that your fellow-men can at least touch the clusters 271 481 Pulpit Pungencies 483 which are being ripened by your sap and blood. — Morning Sermon, May 8, 1859. IF you want to make a man exquisitely Let him '^'aii^ and selfish, let him make a pot- himsdf tage of himself, and stew himself, and stir himself up in a journal. The man who writes a journal always has one eye on the printing-press. — Eventing Sermon, November 6, 1859. c the Sheath HURCHES are but instruments of God. They are swords in his hand Churches for the accomplishment of his great pur- poses ; and if, when he goes forth to wield them, they stick in the sheath, so that he cannot get them out, how much value do you suppose he places upon them } Nine out of ten of the churches in the world are not only swords that stick in the sheath, but they are so rusted that if you could get them out they would be good for nothing. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. 272 484 Pulpit Pungencies 4S6 I AM in a strait, often, betwixt two. I do believe in conversion, and in the ^ ,, Meanness power of new spiritual life ; but alter all, my sticks own observation has gone to show that a naturally mean man is very apt to have his meanness stick to him after he becomes a professor of religion. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. The Devil THERE are a great many temptations that are mere nervous temptations, 1 lie j^cvii and a great many visions that are simply adisorde-d improper manifestations of the mental economy. There are a great many things which men register in their journals as the work of the Devil, that are nothing but the work of a disordered siomd.Qh.—Eve?ting Sermon, May 22, 1859. I TELL you, that although there is great blessing in a prayer-meeting, no prayer-meeting on earth is such a means ^'^^^.|£^^ of grace as a man's own store. — Morning man^sown Sermon, September 18, 1859. 273 487 Pulpit Pungencies 487 CHRIST comes, and walks, and teaches as never man taught. He fills the Not a good , . - , - String whole world, for the space 01 centuries, with the sublimity of his presence, and the majesty of his love. And now, in the midst of these mighty sublimities a man comes and asks, " Do you think the mother of Christ was a virgin ? " Why, a child ought to have thought better. Where is the moral sense ; what has become of the spiritual nature of a man that is untouched when God's hand runs across the chords of deepest feeling ! When the bright heaven above ; when the transporting glory of the beatified state ; when all the glories which poets have dreamed of — when these things are brought before the soul of a man, and God says, " This is yours ; the promise is to you and your children, and to them that are afar off," the man does not feel the promise ; he does not feel the glory of this moral disclosure ; he only feels that there is a blunder in the arithmetic some- where ; he only feels that the string with 274 487 Ptdpit Pzmgencies 490 which the medicine is tied up is not a good string! — Evening Sermon, October 2, 1859. NOW Paul says, " I can do just which you please ; I can work, and work to the full ; or I can stand still, and not do a stroke." — Morning Sermon, November 20, 1859. I THINK the ten plagues of Egypt one after another, frogs, lice and all, would Not do a Stroke not be worse than is that plague, that in- ikF' and all tolerable nuisance of French literature. I Eugene had rather my child (and I speak the words ^"^ of truth and soberness) would take his chance in making a journey through pest hospitals, plague hospitals, yellow fever hospitals, five or six of them in succession, than to walk through those pest volumes of even one writer — Eugene Sue. — Eveniiig Sermon, May 15, 1859. WHEN a child has come to be fifteen years of age, he is about old enough to take care of himself ; but when 275 490 Pulpit Pungencies 492 a child is but fifteen days old, he needs mother, and father, and nurse, and minis- Surcingies teriug care on every side. And our infant for the heart thoughts and yearnings are the ones that need nursing. The adult ones may safely be left alone. And yet we put overcoats, and girts, and surcingles, and harnesses on our heart - feelings after they get to be strong and robust. — Morning Sermony De- cember II, 1859. HOW many men can you find, who juiced make it a part of their daily busi- luiced feelings ness to suppress all malign feelings, and to manifest generous ones .^ How many can you find who say to themselves, " When I go forth among my fellow-men, it is my duty to go with sweet-juiced feelings, and to make them dominant over my lower feel- ings } " — Morning Sermon, yuly 24, 1859. HERE is a man who can lift fifty-six ..>....u^^ pounds, and throw it two hundred of creation feet. " What a great man ! says Tom Hyer ; " splendid fellow ! " And so he 276 492 Pulpit Pungencies 493 would say of a man who could strike an- other hard enough to knock him ten feet throus-h the air. Another man being ask- whipped o Syllabub ed, " Is that your idea of manhood ? " says, of creation " No ; I want a man who has taste, who sees everything on the side of beauty, who can sketch, group, arrange artisti- cally ; who has refinement of taste in things physical, and in things social ; and, in short, whose law and conscience in Hfe is refinement — an aesthetic conscience, rather than an ethical." This would fill the idea of manhood with some. Another man says, "Although your man is better than a pugilist, he is far yet from being my man ; for a man of mere taste is but a whipped syllabub of creation." — Morning Sermon, February 27, 1859. NOT a great while ago, in Cortland- ville, a man went to hear Mr. ^ , T 1 • The old Phillips and Mr. Curtis. I have since synagogue ^ business made inquiries concerning the man, and over again learned that he stood second to no man in that place in respe6l to piety, and man- 277 493 Ptilpit Pungencies 495 hood, and upright condu6l. His church — . whose particular name I will not mention s'^na-c?^ue — ^^^ ^^ judgment upon him, and excom- over'alafn muuicatcd him, for exercising his right to hear other teachers besides those whom they recognized. The case was appealed, and the court above confirmed the decision of the lower court. The case was again appealed, and the decision was again con- firmed ; and the man stands — happily for him — excommunicated. — Evening SermoUy Decern ber ii, 1859. T HERE are different sizes of feathers on an eagle ; there are wing-feathers, Tail-feather and tail-fcathcrs, and down. And there lies are wing-feather lies, and tail-feather lies, and downy lies. You can lie without open- ing your mouth, as well as by opening it. Your little finger can lie as well as your tongue. — Morning Sermon, June 26, 1859. IF a man has nothing better to do than turning a grindstone, it is better to be educated ; or sticking pins on a paper, or 278 495 Pulpit Pungencies 497 sweeping the streets ; it makes no difference what you do, you will do it better if you are an intelligent man. It is said that blood xeir will tell in stock ; and I know that intelli- gence will tell in man. — Evening Sermon^ May 8, 1859. WHEN our Saviour preached, he never took a text out of the Bible, except in one instance — namely, when he ^^^^^*°° preached his opening sermon in the syna- out^ofthe gogue. On all other occasions he took his texts out of life. And what a commentary is this fact upon those who say that we must not bring anything into the pulpit out of ordinary daily life, or anything which is not taken out of the Bible — a notion which is anti-Christian, and against the example of Christ, as well as against common sense ! — Eve7ting Sermon^ Ja^iuary 15, i860. Bible I LOVE to see a strong man, and hear his voice in prayer. I like to hear a Thin, •' lath men healthy man sing songs — a man who is a strong worker, a strong thinker, a man 279 Thin, 497 Pulpit Pungencies 498 inside and out. I love to see the union of the spiritual and the physical. But these laA men thiu, lath men — these long-drawn-out men, who have no industry, no work, no life at home — I never love to hear them sing, nor pray, nor think, nor talk. These spiritual do-nothings, these spiritual busybodies, these religious flies, going about into every house, in at every window — buzz, buzz, buzz — in at every chamber and every apart- ment — these miserable inse6ls of devotion are good for nothing. — Morning Sermon^ July 17, 1859. IF a pirate, or worse, the master of a slave-ship, has made a good thinp^ of THing ^ ^ ^^ his unlawful traffic, I do not see why he should reludtate about going into a lawful traffic on the ocean, because he does not know what the ocean will do to him. I have seen men work ten times as hard to be villains, as they would have been obliged to work to be honest men. The greatest slaves I know anything about, are those whom the devil has got the upper hand of, 280 498 Pulpit Pungencies 500 and whom he is compeUing to dodge between the supreme law of God and their worldly prosperity. — Morning Sermon, De- cember 18, 1859. THE conscience of commerce is both wise and true to itself; but the con- \^^^ science of Christianity is rather a queer thing, as the world goes. — Mornijig Sennon, Jidy 16, 1859. G ENIUS is immortal. Like stars, it is not darkened by use, nor extinguish- ed by time. The stars which shone over ThbJ Eden hang over our dwellings yet ; and the works of genius, as far back as there is any record of them, are just as fresh and just as bright at this time as they were at the beginning. But wealth, though it is in- tenser at the time, is only short-lived. It is hard to get, harder to keep, and hardest to transmit. And although it has a power to develop and to stimulate, it is not a safe thing for a man to rely upon, or to pride 281 500 Pulpit Pungencies 502 himself in. — Morning Sermon, ynly lO, 1859. I have seen persons that I thought were rpj^g — benefited by going into the Cathohc Thing (^huj-ch ; not because they accepted the creed of that Church, but because they required to be led by so many visible things. They needed the support of authority, and they got authority enough there. They leaned upon it, It was the medicine they needed, and it seemed to do them good. They seemed to be made better by it. And that which makes a man good is the thing for him. — Evening Sermon, November 6, 1859. \T THEN you do a scrupulously honor- * * able thing, where you could do the The other other thing without blame of men, and do Thing ^ ° ' it in such a way that men know that you are a6ling from principle, you preach in a language that money-brokers can under- stand better than any other in the world. I might preach the do6lrine of Christ to 282 502 Pulpit Pungencies 504 them week in and week out, and not come so near to their conscience as you could by- one honest a6l done from the force of Christian principle, where you might have done the other thing with impunity. So you had better stay and preach the Gospel where your business is. — Evening Sermon^ January 15, i860. A MAN'S clothes are a part of his earthly life. He is never at liberty to lay them aside. He may change their The day-form for a night-form ; he may change Thing their kind for winter or for summer use ; he may change their fashion, their form, and their decorations ; but the substantial thing clings to him as a part of his inevitable life — that he must be clothed. — Morning Ser- mon, February 5, i860. ^ I ^HERE are a great many hymns that -■- tell us to praise God, and that tell us "^^^y^^ about praising him ; but how few hymns of '^^^^ uninspired writers contain the very thing 283 504 Pulpit Pungencies 506 itself, and burst forth in high jubilation. — Morning Sermon y November 6, 1859. GOD, who loves us so well, will no more permit us to mark out the things Suchlike which we are to have, than a parent will Things say to a child, " What do you want ? " and then promise to give it what it asks for. It would want the razors, the tempting bottles of medicine, the wine and brandy, ( till it had tasted them ! ) and such like things. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. N OW the power of this world to teach us of God, and to bring us into Thinking . . , . . , , -' out of our communion with him, is not to be rendered windows available to us by an occasional meditation upon it, nor by reading a chaper of Her- veys Meditations, or anybody else's medita- tions ; nor by thinking, now and then, out of our windows, on Sundays, at the world. — Morning Sermon, yidy 3, 1859. 284 507 Ptilpit Pungeitcies 509 o RDINARILY speaking, men who drink begin simply to add a little fuel to their energies, to raise a little steam hours ^ nut of the for the purposes of business. They can ^\ only work twenty-four hours out of twenty- four, and they want to work thirty-six ! — Evening Sermon^ March 4, 1 860. THERE are personal friends who will see in you, day by day, things that Thev will will make them doubt whether you are an behind your back, honest man, but who wont speak to you Though about them. They will talk about them behind your back, though. They will say, one to another, after having noticed some inconsistency in your chara6ler, " What do y^ou suppose happened.?" and they will laugh among themselves at your expense. • They will say, " He is a Christian — a mem- ber of the church, you know." — Morning Sermon, March 27, 1859. I SUPPOSE there never was a man equal to Paul — not even Moses. When I discourse about Moses I am sure 285 509 Pulpit Pungencies 510 that he is the greatest man that ever lived ; and when I discourse about Paul, I know in'^e^^en^ that he is the greatest man that ever lived. prophets Let these two men stand side by side. They are fit brothers, the one as a repre- sentative of the old dispensation, the other as a representative of the new dispen- sation ; the one a leader in the reign of muscle ; the other a leader in the reign of the spirit. These two men stand head and shoulders above any other men that ever lived since the time of Christ. Indeed, they are more than all the other men that have lived since that time, throwing in even the prophets. — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. Thump T' HERE are a million natural laws of v/hich we know nothing. We are g gradually learning them, as we find out feehng ^^r^erc beams are in the dark — by feeling a thump, by discovering that there is some- thing in the way. — Morning Sermon, Jan- uary 15, i860. 286 511 Ptipit Pungencies 512 ONE of the most pitiable things, I think, is to see Christians of differ- . Equal ent churches sharp as a sword, and running Thwacks at each other — to see, for instance, the Bap- tists coming down upon the Presbyterians, and the Presbyterians giving back equal thwacks upon the Baptists, and both of these denominations bombarding the Epis- copalians. — Morning Sermon, May 29, 1859. DON'T come to me with the question of moral agency. Is not a man able ^^^^^^^ to perform all that God commands ? Yes, Tidket he is, as regards the abstra6l question. You take a man driving up Broadway with a nimble team when the street is choked and packed with omnibuses and wagons, and ask him, "Are you able to see that omnibus and that wagon, etc. ? Have you confidence enough to steer your buggy through them all .? " Yes, he says, in this particular instance ; but there are fifty men, and behind them are still more which I can- not see, and so a man must go through all 287 512 Pulpit Pttngencies 513 these without grazing or striking anywhere, or what is more, being struck anywhere. his That is but one, but these are all combined. Ticket Take man, full of selfishness and pride as he is, with the pressure of care upon him, and is it so easy to carry himself in the perfe6l justice and equity and love that is required in the Christian life .'' Whether I can or can not, I don't, and you don't and won't. There is no man on the face of the earth who can go safely through the battle of life, fight his way to Heaven's gate, and present his ticket and say, " I have won the fight, and now I want my reward." — Evening Sermon^ May 21, 1859. T HERE is an impression among men that Christ has made an atonement, Tickft and he is in heaven ready to receive all who obey him. Their view of it is, that a certain way has been opened up by the atonement of Christ, and if they can only find it, they can go straight to the gates of heaven and present their ticket, and Christ says, " Here is a man got here the right 288 513 Ptilpit Pungencies 515 way, brought the right ticket, countersigned Faith, and all that, and he must be admit- ted." — Evening Sermon, May 29, 1859. ALWAYS reason up, never down. Under any circumstances, never allow yourselves to say, " But may I not do Tied this?" Never say to yourself: " Has not this been tied too tight ? " I Bay a man who is just as good as the law makes him, is a mean man. — Evening Serinoiiy ytme 12, 1859. THERE never was a fence that would keep moles and vermin out of a praaicai man's farm ; and there never was a fence that would keep hawks off from it. Birds will fly over any fence he can build. The best thing a farmer can do is to take care of his soil, so as to have a harvest so rich that he will be able to spare a little to vermin and birds. No man ever had a con- fession of faith or system of do6lrine that would keep out the moles or the birds of the air. The only safe way is to have such 289 Tilth in the church 515 Pttlpit Ptingencies 517 pra6lical tilth in the church, that it does not make much difference if it is stolen from. — Evening Sermon^ October' 16, 1859. I THINK we must judge of human cha- ra6ler as men do of timber. I do not Charaaer carc what a man's chara6ler may be, the and Timber effccl upon it of his telling a lie is what a worm channel is in a sill of oak. When a stick of timber has one worm channel run- ning through it, it may be a strong stick of timber yet, but it is weakened some. When it comes to have two or three of these channels running through it, it is good for nothing. — Morning Sermon, Jnne 26, 1859. w ITH many men the question is not whether they can be overcome, Timber ^^^ ^^ what pressure they can be overcome, be broken All picccs of timber may be broken. Some will bear a ton, some ten tons, some a hun- dred tons, and some a thousand tons, but there is a point at which the strongest piece of timber will break. And we must not be in a hurry, when a man falls, to say, 290 517 Pulpit Ptinge^tcies 519 " That man was a corrupt old hypocrite." — Evening Sermon, December ^, 1859. PAUL says : " For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should xm\^&\ he eat." What a time there would be in New York if this should be enforced now ! — Evening Sermojiy July 17, 1859. YOU would think to look at that bell up in the belfry, " Oh, such a bell, lifted up so high, it only needs that some one should pull the rope to make it sound "^'^ p^^ ' gloriously through the air ! " Well, pull the rope ; it sounds for all the world like a tin pan ! It is cracked. I see men in the old belfry of prosperity ; and other men are looking up at them and saying, " Oh, how happy they must be ! " Well, ring them, 'and see how they sound. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. 291 For all the world like 520 Pulpit Pungencies 521 'X T /"HERE you hear a young man who '^ * is torpid as a toad in his higher °^l ^^ nature, savins:, " It makes no difference Toad ' ^ &' what you are morally, ' it is easy to predict what kind of a man he will make. — Morn- ing Sermon, May 8, 1859. w HEN men are looking upon the field of life, they say oftentimes, '' Here Toad-stool are persons that have retired from the tur- just ^ as good ! niQii Qf life J they can serve God. Here is this sister of mine, that walks aside from life, and knows nothing of its storms, and on whom God's mercies descend like dews, unasked : she can be a saint. She can serve God a great deal better than I, that am sent down into the midst of the torna- does of tropical temptation 1 " Suppose that a recluse had been discovered living alone on the side of the Alleghany moun- tains, in the times of the Revolution, and one of the soldiers, speaking to General Washington of him, had said, " That man — oh, what a patriot he can be in his cabin, meditating upon his country's glory ! If 292 521 Pulpit Pungencies 522 he was down in the camp, amid the roar of battle, or on the tedious march, he could not be a patriot ! " What do you think about that ? Would you not say of a patriot on the side of a mountain, that a toad - stool or a mushroom was just as good? — Evening Sermon, yaniiary 15, i860. C^ EOLOGISTS sometimes find toads ^ sealed up in rocks. They crept in during the formation periods, and deposits closed the orifice through which they en- tered. There they remain, in long dark- ness and toad stupidity, till some chance blast or stroke sets them free. And there are many rich men sealed up in mountains of gold in the same way. If, in the midst of some convulsion in the community, one of these mountains is overturned, some- thing crawls out into life which is called a man ! — Evening Sermon , yanuary 15, i860. 293 Geological Toads and rich men Too bad 523 Ptilpit Pu7tgencics 524 MY father used to make me believe that the end of the rod that he held in his hand was a great deal more painful to him than the end which I felt was to me. It was a strange mystery to me, but I did believe it ; and it seemed a great deal worse to me to be whipped on that account. I used to think that if he would not talk to me, but would whip me, I could stand it a great deal better. So I could have stood it better, and not been benefited. For a child is not whipped till the sensation goes to the heart, and touches the feeling. But when my father made me cry by talking to me, and then whipped me, and then made me cry by talking to me again, I thought it was too bad. — Evening Sermon, February 26, i860. M OST persons suppose that their pains are keener and more un en- Tooth^ durable than other people's. They think can ache ^ • ^ like theirs that uobody s tooth can ache as their tooth aches ; that nobody can be afifli6led with such rheumatism as they are afflifted with ; 294 524 Pulpit Pungencies 525 that there never was another case of gout Hke theirs ; and that no fever was ever ... Nobody's known which would compare with that Tooth ■^ can ache which they have. They are aaually proud like theirs of their maladies. There are persons who think no one else ever was so extremely sensitive as they are, and that no one else ever suffered as they suffer. You greatly offend them if you tell them that you sup- pose other people have probably suffered as much as they do. — Morning Sermon, July 24, 1859. OW this whole spirit which tends to make men look upon those about The N them, and say, " Stand lower, stand lower. Top of the r^y family Stand lower," is of the. earth earthy. The ^js^jn^^^ elder brother knows that his sister is lower than he in years ; and she knows that in this respecl the one next younger is lower than she. But everybody knows that the top of the family is in the qx2.^\q.— Morning Sermon, May ^, 1859. 295 526 Ptilpit Pungencies 527 I NOTICE that the lowest natures need the most beauty in this world. What would a miser marry a woman for ? Yon Drilled into and never Touched take one of those hard men — granite mto water which you have drilled, and never touched water ; whom you stumble over and break in pieces ; who falls upon you and bruises you. You go from him, and return in ten years, you find him just as hard. But you speak of his family, and he is ready to wor- ship you. What's the change .^ He has been married five years. You instantly desire to see the woman who could awaken love in such a breast. — Morning Sermon, yanuary 2, 1859. YOU that are strong are to help that man who cannot control his temper ; Touth his skin and your skin may be different ; madrtender it may be that you are made tough, while he is made very tender. If he does not know how to hold himself, do you help him to hold himself; if he cannot extinguish the conflagration that tends to break out, do you bring the engine of your sympathy 296 527 Pulpit Ptingencies 530 and help him to put out the fire. — Evening Sermon, Jnne 26, 1859. HE was as tender as a woman — or rather, I should have said, he lack- ^he ed the tougihness of a woman ; for, slender °ofa'' ° 1 Ul woman and shrinking as women are, when troubles come they are almost the only persons who are tough of heart. They are tender of skin, but inside they are as strong as iron. — Morning Sermon, Jnne 12, 1859. I The SUPPOSE there is a great deal in stock. I suppose that some men are born honest men. You would have to begin original and untwist the skein to the original tow before you could weaken their honesty. — Evening Sermon, February 10, i860. A MAN from Rome desires to give me some conception of Raphael's last R^p^^ers and greatest work, the Transfiguration. In Jmtiof order to give me as accurate an idea of it as possible, he says : (I give imagined num- bers) " It is twenty feet high, and fifteen 297 uration 530 Pulpit Pungencies 530 feet wide. It is painted upon canvas. The canvas itself is made of linen. There was Transfig- first laid on a sort of dead ground. This w^as the foundation on which the pi61ure was painted. In the centre is a mountain, which divides the pidlure into upper and lower parts. Below the mountain is a scene representing Christ casting out devils. Above it is the Transfiguration, which, having given a general description of the pi61ure in other respecls, I will now proceed to describe to you in detail." So he takes out from his pack a bundle with a number of little carefully-folded papers in it. He opens them successively. The first contains the blue pigment ; the second, the chrome pigment ; the third, the ochre ; the fourth, the burnt umber. After he has exhibited them all, he says, " There are all the elements of the pi6lure. I scraped them off from it myself Now you have a philosophical view of the Transfiguration of Raphael. Just bear in mind the dimen- sions of the pi6lure, that it is made on can- vas, that there is a mountain in the centre, 298 530 Ptilpit Pungencies 532 and that there is one group above and an- other below ; and then conceive how these elements should be put together to make a most splendid pi6lure, and you have as good an idea of it as though you were to go to Rome to see it." I have no doubt of it. — Morning Sermon, February 27, 1859. D O you suppose that religion is like a bird in a cage, and that you can lock Different it up in the church, and that the keeper will Translations take care of it, and feed it, and have it ready to sing for you whenever you choose to come here and listen to it ? Is that your idea of religion ? Very well, then ; your Bible and mine are different. We read different translations ! — Morning Serino7t, February 8, i860. SOMETIMES government is lax at first, but increases with the necessities of the growing family. But oftener, I think, dousiy •"^ governed parents are in the beginning full of wise resolutions of government, and the first 299 532 Pulpit Pungencies 534 boy or girl is tremendously governed. — Evening Sermon, Febrnary 26, i860. FOR when God brings men into this world in a crude state, as sand and hammer ^clp are brought into the manufa6lory ; or when, like crude iron, they are subje6led to the transforming influences of this trip- hammer life, by which they are thumped, and jammed, and cut, and haggled, and pricked, and bruised, he does it that moral results may be evolved on a large scale. — Morning Sermon, September 2^, 1859. life H UMAN life is much like road life. You stand on a hill, and look down '^be'tt^r^ and across the valley, and another pro- Trotdown ^igious hill lifts itsclf up on the other side. The day is hot, your horse is weary, and you are tired ; and it seems to you that you cannot climb that long hill. But you had better trot down the hill 3'ou are on, and not trouble yourself about the other one. You find the valley pleasant and inspiriting, When you get across it, you meet only a 300 534 Ptdpit Ptingencies 536 slight ascent, and begin to wonder where the steep hill is which you saw. You drive along briskly, and when you reach the highest point, you find that there has not been an inch of the hill over which you have not iroit^d.-— Morning Seunon^ Decem- ber 18, 1859. MANY persons trust God just as many cities light their streets, which, Trust when the moon shines brightly, are very particular to light all their gas-lights ; but which, when the moon is gone, negle6l to light them at all. I have seen men who, when in prosperity, were strong in their trust in God, but who, when surrounded by adverse circumstances, had no trust in God or anything else. — Mojndng Sermon, April 10, 1859. IT will not be long after you return to your own households before some- thing will go wrong, and you will get hold ^"^'^ of the wrong handle. Then will be your time to say, " Let me try on the sermon." 301 and gas Moonshine and prosperity 536 Pzilpit Pungencies 538 Do try it on. Try it a month — that is not long to wear a garment — and see if it is not the truth that I have been teUing you. — Morning Sermon, Angus t 14, 1859. E men VERY executive man should be like those little tug-boats which come Tug-boat down the North River with three or four barges on each side, and with other barges attached to them, till for half a mile almost the river is covered with the barges which they are carrying. Now, when God has given great executive power to a person, he is to be a tow, and to take down the stream hundreds of those blunt-bowed, slow-saihng barges. — Evening Sermon, yune 26, 1859. D ,0 not look at the dark side of things, but at the bright side. Do not Tump scratch the face of your affairs and dis- you outmtothe fiprurc them, but smooth them off by re- street ^ ' ■' cognizing the good that is in them. Even a man in a dungeon finds it pleasant to make pictures and to write on the wall with a coal or a piece of chalk. Instead 302 53B Pulpit Pungencies 539 of making your adverse circumstances more murky by brooding over them, and "1 1 Tump repinino- on account of tliem, iight them you J- ^ . oat into the up with a cheerful, radiant spirit. Be ^ti-^et content, and remember that God says, " I will never leave thee nor forsake thee ; " so that you may boldly say, " The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." Did he say that if you did not pay up your rent before Saturday night, he would tump you out into the street } You need not fear, for God is owner of owners. — Morning Sermon, Jnne 5, 1859. HAVE you ever heard a man bring a harp into tune t He takes his • fork, and gets the concert-pitch in one vanhy'' . -^ must be chord. Then he goes to work to brmg all Tuned up the other chords to the same pitch. And such a groaning and complaining as en- sues cannot be imagined by one who has never heard it. The process of chording a harp and a heart are very much alike. This groaning and complaining continues 303 539 Pulpit Pungencies 540 till every chord is brought to the concert- pitch, and then the harp gives forth but vanify oiic sluglc hamionious impulse, and the Tuned up soul of music is thcrc. And so the chords of a man's soul need to be brought into unison with love, for from that must all powers take their pitch. Pride and vanity, and every other instin6l of the soul, must be tuned up till their vibrations are con- sonant with those of love. — Morning Ser- mony February 5, i860. NOW I see men who began away back at ten and fifteen years of age, in- dulging all the passions and appetites of the physical, at the expense of their souls ; every nerve rebels ; the stomach quarrels with the whole system. At last a child dies ; and just as though the child did not inherit the vile leprosy of the father ! They lay plans with their rickety consciences, and they fall ; success flies from their stag- gering reach, and they turn to and go to cursing Providence. — Morning SermoUy January 9, 1859. 304 Turn to and go to cursing Providence 541 Ptilpit Pungencies 542 w E know what is the dire6lion in which we are to grow, and what struck are the materials out of which our growth i?"n*^^g must come. " Thou shalt love the Lord ^^^"^ thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself." Here is God's highway. We have got on the turnpike road. — Morning Sermon^ April 2 d^, 1859. WHEN a man says to me, " I was in the great revival of 1856, and oh for more than a week, I was like a man thedock hung over perdition ; and one night I pray- ed, and prayed, and prayed, and was in such distress of mind that I could get no sleep ; and just as the clock struck twelve, there suddenly came a divine light to my soul, which deluged it with very joy, and I have been a Christian ever since," — when a man says this to me, and I find, on inquiry, that he is very selfish, and very passionate, and very niggardly, and very worldly, I do not believe that he is a Christian, just be- cause he can put his finger on twelve 305 542 Pulpit Ptmgencies 544 o'clock at night, in the month of June in a certain year, and say, ''That is the time when I was converted." — Morning Sermon, May 29, 1859. T 'HE effe6l of things in this world upon us depends upon the way we look at $20,000 ti^em. Here is a man who says, " Money, be thou my God." And his God grows with him every year, till it grows up to twenty thousand dollars. Then comes a God-destroyer m the shape of a financial revulsion, and knocks his God to pieces ; and in bitterness he exclaims, " They have taken away my God." — Morning Sermoity ynne 12, 1859. B UT I cannot give half the apphcations ^.j^ — I had intended to give. I have Twilight enough noted down to keep me talking till twilight. — Morning Sermon, April 24, 1859. 306 545 Pulpit Pungencies 547 I- SAY when a person becomes a Chris- tian, that he loses nothing that he A should not be afraid to keep. If ever you Twiiight- faced, are iroins: to be a Christian, don't set out to bat-iike & & Christian be a gloomy-eyed, twilight-faced, bat-like Christian. — Evening Sermon, yiuie 12, 1859. D O you not know that wljen Dudley Tyng died like Samson, he slew 1 • 1 • 11 1 • IT Dudley more than he had slam durmg all his me xyng and before } Do you not know that Christ Christ achieved his greatest vi6lory when he died upon the cross } Do you not know that the way for men to build themselves up is to be ground to powder } — Morning Sermon, May 22, 1859. M EN cannot do anything in marble, or on canvas, and not have their Umbrella' name pronounced for two hundred years by .< Han^st," the shadow of what they have done, so that something . . , of that sort the world knows them by associatmg tnem with their works. But God, for six thou- sand years, has carved and painted as 307 547 Ptilpit Pungencies 549 Under- draining no man ever carved and painted, and we continually behold his works, and who says, " God ? " Morning, and noon, and even- ing come and go, and how many of us say, "' God ? " All the day long the sun pours down its life-giving rays, and who thinks of anything but " Umbrella," or " Harvest," or something of that sort ? — Morning Ser- mon, July 10, 1859. SOME of you need an immense amount of under-draining before you can plant anything and have it grow on the top. — Morning Sermon, July 3, 1859. You have :)t to go Infixed got to go Ui- ■ MAN thinks he is going to find peace by introspe6lion, but that will bring him no peace. He seems to have no right to go to Christ until he gets some- thing regulated here. Just as if a poor, sick wretch should say, " I will go to the do6lor's as soon as I get well ; it would be foolish to go before I get well ;" or as if a Ijian should say, " I am going to the horo- logist's as soon as my watch runs well." 308 Unfixed 549 Ptdpit Pungencies 550 The time you need to go to the doctor's is when you are sick, and you want to take your watch to the horologist's before it You have got to go runs well. Man says, " I must wait till I comply with certain conditions and get fix- ed right before I go to Christ, and then he will look upon me, and I shall begin to feel peace." You have got to go to Christ un- fixed, unregulated, and wrong. — Evening Sermon, yidy 10, 1859. Always I DID not dare to say, in 1856, that I thought union prayer-meetings would tend to bring the different churches to- S^^ gether, for fear that if they got the idea know that they were being assimilated, this most desirable result would be defeated. We have always wanted union, you know. I never saw the time when I would not have gone for a union of the churches, if all Christians would have become Congrega- tionalists. — Morning Sermon, May 29, 1859. 309 Unions 551 PtUpit Pungencies 553 WE live in an age in which there is a great noise of fear of the destruc- tion of governments and unions. This kind of music has sounded ever since the ark was built. — Thanksgiving Sermon, No- vember 29, 1859. F love OR myself, I know of but one refuge (though to the pure all things are Up and down purc), and that is the simple morality of the New Testament — that simple-hearted, ro- bust morality, with an up-and-down love of right, and an up-and-down hatred of wrong. — Evening Sermon, May 15, 1859. T story 'HE man who trusts in God, lives in the upper story of his head ; while u?p^er the man who does not trust in God, lives in the lower story of his head. The man who trusts in God, lives in an observa- tory, where he enjoys the sunlight and the pure atmosphere of heaven ; while the man who does not trust in God, lives down in a dank and dungeon cellar. — Morning Sejinon, April 10, 1859. 310 554 Pulpit Pungencies 555 IT is, likewise, to be remembered that no man has a «right to prophesy good as a consequence of deception. It is not ■^ . prophesy generally believed that we have a right to Up-stream indulge in some degree of equivocation, to make use of partially deceiving state- ments, to tell ornamented lies, when we do these things that good may come. It is generally believed that it is benevolent and humane to use deception, where it is done with a behef that good will result therefrom. Now, I remark, no man is a prophet ; and if he wants to prophesy^ he had better not prophesy up-stream — he had better not prophesy against God's nature. If you will prophesy, pro- phesy in the dire6lion that God's nature runs. — Morning Sermon, June 26, 1859. IF any person outside of our party re- viles us Republicans, we say, " No RepubHcans matter what he says ; he belongs to the other party." If a man outside the church reviles Christianity, or those who profess to be Christians, it is common for those 311 555 Pulpit Pungencies 557 in the church to say, " Why, he's an in- fidel ; he's an unbeUever ; we must not mind what he says." — Morning Sermon^ March 27, 1859. T HAT miserable varnish which men Vamish religion Society religion ; that miserable estimate which they make of religion, that chattering of prayers, that face-religion, that Sunday- keeping religion ; all that so-called religion which is but an external covering of pride and selfishness, of worldliness and vanity — the curse and wrath of God abideth upon it. Nowhere else are there such terrific anathemas against such religion as those which fell from the lips of Christ Jesus. It is enough to make a man tremble, to give a man the chills and fever, to walk through those chapters in the Bible where Christ preached to Tract Society men. — Evening Sermon, yiine 12, 1859. God's union with men is not a shadow, is not a figure, is not a dream ; it is 312 557 Ptilpit Pungencies 559 the statement of a facl as literal as any law in nature. The union of sunlight with ^with''^ vegetables is not more real. — Morning Ser- ^^^^^ moUy March 4, i860. YOU shall find that they who are free from hardships, from troubles, from the necessity of endeavor, and who never Men •' good for struggled with adversity of any kind, can- Veneering not be relied upon for sills and posts. They may do for veneering the inside, where you want something pretty, but they are good for nothing else. — Morning Sermon, Sept- ember 25, 1859. LOVE sits as God's vicegerent in the soul, and I will not fight with my bre- thren. There is now and then a man who is not susceptible to love, or anything else that is good, and I deem it necessary to exterminate vermin wherever they may be found ; but I will love all my brethren if they will let me. — Morning Sermon, May 29, 1859. 313 Vermin vs. brethren Passions and Vermin 560 Pulpit Pungencies 561 WHEN ministers, and elders, and members of the church, instead of loving each other, are seen wrangling, and quarrelling, and railing at one another ; when they exhibit natures as full of selfish passions as a sepulchre is of dust and ver- min, it is not to be wondered at that scep- ticism and infidelity are rife among us. — Morning SennoJi, August 7, 1859. SEVENTEEN men terrified two thou- sand brave Virginians into two days' viiguijan submission, — that cannot be got over ! The common sense of common people will not fail to see through all attempts to hide a natural shame by a bungling make-believe that the danger was really greater than it was ! The danger was nothing — and the fear very great, and courage none at all. And nothing can now change the facts ! All the newspapers on earth will not make this case appear any better. Do what you please — muster a crowd of supposed con- federates, call the roll of conspirators, and include the noblest men of these States, and 314 courage and foxes' tails 561 Pulpit Pungencies 561 exhibit this imaginary army before the peo- ple, and, in the end, it will appear that seventeen white men over-awed a town of Virginian courage two thousand brave Virginians, and held foxes"taiis them captives until the sun had gone laugh- ing twice around the globe ! And the at- tempt to hide the fear of these surrounded men by awaking a larger fear, will never do. It is too literal a fulfilment, not exadlly of Prophecy but of Fable ; not of Isaiah, but ^sop. A fox having been caught in a trap, escaped with the loss of his tail. He immediately went to his bro- ther foxes to persuade them that they would all look better if they, too, would cut off their caudal appendages. They declined. And our two thousand friends who lost their courage in the presence of seventeen men, are now making an appeal to this nation to lose its courage too ; that the cowardice of the few may be hidden in the cowardice of the whole community ! It is impossible. We choose to wear our 'courage for some time longer ! 315 562 Pulpit Pungencies 563 D ID you ever see a power-loom ? If you never did, do not go to Lowell, Power-loom ^11 i ^1 • ought to or any other place where there is one in operation, without seeing it. I never saw one but what I thought it ought to vote. — Morning Sermon, April 2 A^, 1859. Vote Y OU have probably noticed that when men walk across a stream on a When men Walk on timber, if they look at their feet to see a timber ' J where they step, their head begins to swim, and very soon they have to swim or drown ; whel*eas, if they fix their eye upon a single objeft on the opposite bank, and never look at their feet at all, they reach the other side in safety. Now, if a man stands looking at this world, he gets dizzy and intoxicated, and falls ; whereas, if he fixes his eye upon the bank of the eternal world, he walks straighter in this world, and is more sure of reaching the other side in safety. — Even- ing SermoJZ, February 10, i860. 316 564 Pulpit Pttngencies 566 THE road to heaven is just as short, and may be just as sure, from Wall street as from Trinity church, that stands waifstreet at the head of it, holding up the cross in heaven ever-living light. — Morning Sermon^ March II, i860. w HEN I speak of being clothed with the righteousness of Christ, I Wardrobe banish all ideas of going to some wardrobe "^nS"^" and taking out a literal garment and throw- ing it upon me, and especially do I run back to its dusty hole of mischief from which it has been dug out, that notion of the imputation of another's righteousness, as though you could put on another man's righteousness as if it was a physical thing. — Evening Sermon, yuly 10, 1859. M you U T^ /r^j^Y Magdalen came and told wa^int the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her." But I'll warrant you she 317 566 Pulpit Pungencies 567 did not tell them how she felt. There were no words by which she could have done that. — Wednesday Evemng Lecturey Febru- ary I, i860. w HEN I find persons with nothing to do in life, persons who are educat- Saints ed, of srreat resources, of great imagination, before they ' o o o Washed ^^ great affeftion, great thinking powers, ^^^^'^ very a6tive, but nothing to do ; too rich to be obliged to work, and placed in a high position in society — (there is nothing worse) — staying at home, reading a great deal, thinking a great deal, rolling and rolling over feelings a great deal — when such persons come to me, my first thought is, God help them ! If the Lord in his good providence would only send some ■ dispensation to take away their property, so they would be forced to work, so they would have to go out to work as the ser- vant girls do, go out and wash for a liv- ing, most of them would be very happy saints before they had washed a year. — ' Evening Sermon, May 29, 1859. 318 alike 568 Ptilpit Pungencies 570 IF a man is your enemy, and is in trou- ble, you are to help him. If he is a ^^^^^^^ stranger, and his trouble is brought within wa^i?js your knowledge, help him. If he is a foreigner, and you are a native, and he is in trouble, help him. Even if he is a black man, and you are a white man, and he is in trouble — trouble washes all skins alike — help him ! — Morning Sermon, October 16, 1859. I TELL you it takes very poor material to make a modern conscience. A Washington man goes to Washington, for instance, respeLbie . , . 1 meannesses simple, pure, honest and right-meanmg : he dwells there a year or two, and comes back home a drinking, corrupted, bribed man, lost to all industry, to all self-respect- given over to himself to get a living by respe6lable meannesses. — Evenhig Sermoii, May 15, 1859. YOU cannot imagine what a waste- basket the future is. How things will accumulate on your table and along 319 570 Pulpit Pungencies 572 your way, if you have no heaven to throw them into ! but the moment a man has the The eternal vast sweeD of the eternal world for his Waste- . ^ basket depository, how will his troubles be alleviat- ed or destroyed by his looking at every part of his life as relative to that ! — Morn- ing Sermon y March 11, i860. A GREAT many men are addi6led to -^-^ much lugubrious soliloquizing and A. Wjitcli to steer Complaining about this unsatisfying world ; by but whether it is satisfying or not depends upon what men try to satisfy themselves with. If a man were to take a watch and try to use it as a compass, to steer a ship by, he would say : How unsatisfying this watch is ! — Morning Sermoiiy March 1 1, i860. I T is a man dying with his harness on Water- "^ ^^^^ augcls love to take. I hope tamts those old water-logged saints that died soaking in damp stone cells were taken to heaven. They had hell enough on earth, and it would be a pity for them to have 320 572 Pulpit Pungencies 574 a continuation of it in the other world ; but I think they were the poorest of all human commodities ever taken in ! — Morning Ser- mon, MarcJi II, i860. DO you ask, "Why is it that while some men seem to be caught up almost into the regions of heavenly bliss, I am unmoved ? " It is because you are ^°|s^f' water-logged, sir ! Drop by drop, your being has become saturated to such a de- gree with the waters of worldliness, that you are but just sustained, while they, buoyant, are carried on so easily ? — Even- ing Sermon, Jannary 22, i860. T HESE smooth, waxy chara6lers, that seem to come up without any posi- You are Water- tiveness of bemo^, who seem to sail through smooth, ^' ^ Waxy life as feathers sail down through the air, characiers soft, smooth, and carefully, there is nothing to get hold of in them ; they slip through our affections, and we don't grasp them with power. There must be some saliency, even if it be rugged and wrong. There is 321 God Went into life Form, 574 Ptilpit Pungencies 576 an element in this love that rouses up the heart to those round about it ; so that I think we love our worst children some- times the most. — Evening Sermon, July 10, 1859. HE was declared to be a gluttonous man and a drunkard. God in Christ was slandered as a glutton and a drunkard ; and for no other reason than that he refused to be an ascetic, and went into life, and participated in the innocent festivities of the social board. — Evening Sermon, November 2, 1859. T' 'HE ways of looking at nature are scientific — that is, we look at it wtnot nierely in the order of cause and effe6l ; or they are commercial — that is, we look at it in its produ6live qualities, and its rela- tions to human wants, and with reference to what we can make out of it, and what it can avail us ; or, they are artistic — that is, we look at it in its relations to the sense of symmetry and beauty in us, in respe6t to 322 576 Pulpit Pungencies 578 form, and color, and what not. — Mornmg Sermon, July 10, 1859. I N old times, when men were persecuted for their religion, they had nothing to prayand do but to read the Bible, and pray, and be %nT^ ' ^ What not burned, and what not. — Morning Sermon, September 18, 1859. What under the sun did he THE preaching of many men is like children creeping in the sand. Their sermons contain pretty things, perhaps, sweet sentences,, but they make no impres- Pff^^^f, sion upon the hearer. There are fifty-two Sabbaths in the year, and the order of the church has been that there shall be two sermons preached each Sabbath — one in the morning, and one in the afternoon — no matter whether a man wants to preach them or not. Many men preach twice each Sunday for this reason, and no other. If asked, "What do you preach for.?" they say, " Because I must." " Why must you t " " Because I am expe6led to." They do not preach because they have anything to say ; 323 57^ Pulpit Pungencies 579 not because there are prevailing errors to be overthrown ; not because there are bud- "W'hat under ,. - , . , i i . i i the sun dmofs 01 dcsirc to be expanded into blos- did he '^ ^ preach soHis ; not bccausc of any sympathy they feel for the erring and the lost ; not because they feel, " Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel ; " but they preach because it is Sunday, and they have got to. When Sun- day comes round, such a preacher says to himself, " What under the sun shall I preach about ? " and the people, after they have heard him, say, " What under the sun did he preach about ? " — Morning Sermoitj yaimary 30, 1859. A FATHER, when he whips his boy, does not like to whip him through his clothes, because the boy may cry, and does not make a great ado, and yet not be hurt at Whip men ^ ' -' thei?cSt ^^' ^^^^ i^ ^^^^ father whips him on his and vest \^^^^ skiu, hc knows that he is punishing him. God does not whip men through their coat and vest. — Morning SermoUy February 29, i860. 324 God Wallc me and Whisk me and 580 Pttlpil Pungencies 581 T T OW many times, as you go up and ^ ^ down Broadway with me, can you stop me when you see a man of whom you can say, " This man, I think, is without sin, 111-1 f set me measured by this law of benevolence ? " ^0^™ You would walk me down to Union Square and Canal street, and I should not stop there ; then down to Fulton street, and I should get no breathing spell ; thence down to Wall street, and you would fairly run by that time from there to the Battery, and then up on the other side, and you would whisk me through street after street and set me down at Union Square again without having given me one single second to stop and say, " There is a man without sin ! " — Evening Sermoii, May 22, 1859. ^ I ^HE private rights of a public man -^ should be guarded as sacredly as the ■ ■' Whether altar of a temple. If the President of the ^ ^¥, ■^ President United States pursues an inhuman course wSey towards the Indian ; if he transgress the canons of liberty which he is sworn to de- fend ; if he wink at evils which he is bound 325 581 Pulpit Ptmgencies 582 to prevent or suppress, he deserves severe public rebuke. But in his own private the home, whether he manages his individual President Whfk^ affairs with economy or stinginess, whether he drinks whiskey at his table, or nothing but cold water, whether he dresses well or ill, talks much or little, spends his income in one way or another — these and all such- like things do not belong to him as Pre- sident, but as a private man, and are sacred from remark. For good morals every man may be held responsible. There ought to be but one key to a man's privacy, and that is in his own hands ; but the devil has given everybody a key to it, and every- body goes in and out and filches whatever he pleases. — Morittjzg Sermon, October 16, 1859. Black and Jj BECAUSE a man happens to be black, „wx.c I do not think he has more rights than a white man. — Alorning SermoUy July 16, 1859. 326 583 Ptdpii Pimgenctes 584 T HERE are men that seem to think they would suffer wilHngly if they were called to suffer as martyrs, illustrious- where it ly. Ah ! that is just the thino^. You would you •^ J WAZ CORN-ER OF LISPENARD STREET. N.B. — The Publisher, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send any of the following Books by mail, postage free, to any part of the United States. This convenient and very safe mode may be adopted when the neighboring Booksellers are not supplied with the desired work. State name and address in fulL Victor Hugo. LES MISER ABLES. — The best edUion, two elegant 8vo. vols., beautifully bound in cloth, $5.50 ; half calf, $10.00 LES MISER ABLES. — The popiilar editiojt, one large octavo vol- ume, paper covers, $2.00; cloth bound, $2.50 LES MisERABLES. — In the Spanish language. 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