I.i 
 
Edward W. Staples. 
 
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<^^^^*^^ ^^7^^^^^ ^^ 
 

 EEY. JOSEPH HARRINGTON, 
 
 OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. 
 
 A MEMOIR, 
 
 By WILLIAM WHITING. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 
 
 111 Washington Street. 
 1854. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 Crosby, Nichols, and Compajot, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 cambridoe: 
 
 MEICALF AND COMPANY, PKINIERS TO THE UNITERSITY. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 MEMOIR, 5 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD, 67 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 GOD WORKS IN YOU, 79 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS, 92 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD, ...... 106 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 VAIN THOUGHTS, 120 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 FORBEARANCE, 131 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, ..... 144 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 SEx'^MON YIll. 
 
 FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH, . . . 156 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 THE PRAYER OF FAITH, 166 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH, ..... 176 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 STEPHEN, 186 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 " NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES," .... 198 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE BLESSING OR THE CURSE OF THE KINGDOM, . .211 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 LIFE A VAPOR, 222 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 
 THE "hour" of TROUBLE NECESSARY, .... 234 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 
 OFFENCES MUST COME, 245 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 
 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY, . . 258 
 
MEMOIR 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following brief Memoir of my friend and 
 classmate has been written, at the request of his 
 relatives, in the chance intervals of time snatched 
 from engrossing professional labors. If it fails to do 
 justice to his sterling worth, it may yet be accepted 
 as a sincere tribute of affection and respect. 
 
 W. W. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Joseph Harrington, Junior, was born in Rox- 
 bury, Massachusetts, on the 21st day of February, 
 A. D. 1813. His father was a lawyer, who practised 
 his profession many years in Norfolk and Suffolk 
 Counties, and occasionally held court as a justice 
 of the peace. His mother still resides at Roxbury, 
 the survivor of her husband and eldest son, whose 
 life is the subject of this brief narrative. 
 
 The years of childhood are not unfrequently 
 passed over as unworthy of notice. It is true that 
 they are usually wanting in striking incidents ; but 
 those are not the only ones to be deemed important 
 which excite the imagination, arouse the feelings, or 
 seem to have been followed by obvious results. 
 
 The genuine history of childhood is purely psycho- 
 logical. Its true object is to reveal the earliest ten- 
 dencies of the mind, — to lay open the head-springs 
 and rivulets from which the stream took origin ; and 
 the successive contributions from verdant meadow, 
 shady grove, or rocky cliff which united to form the 
 mingled tide of life. 
 I* 
 
6 MEMOIR. 
 
 Whence, and under what circumstances, the 
 youth received those successive impressions which 
 have moulded the character, — how the world would 
 have been changed to him had his early tendencies, 
 or the influences acting upon him, been different 
 from what they really were, — what w^ere the laws 
 of his spiritual being established thus early, and how 
 they transmitted, reflected, or distorted the rays cast 
 upon it by the phenomena of life, — these inquiries, 
 and such as these, in relation to any human soul, 
 would not be without interest. 
 
 Yet, however curious or valuable they might 
 prove, as affording the means of ascertaining by 
 early observation the elements of the true orbit of 
 the mind's progress, such elements are rarely noticed, 
 and genuine data are seldom preserved. General 
 recollection and vague impressions alone remain of 
 facts seen though the misty medium of interven- 
 ing years, and these are often colored by the senti- 
 ments of a too friendly observer. 
 
 This is not the only difficulty in the way of ascer- 
 taining the precise truth. When an individual, even 
 of tenacious memory, and prone to retrospection, 
 attempts to regain a clear and definite recollection 
 of what he himself was in early childhood, he will 
 find that he has undertaken no easy task. He will 
 be pained to learn that he cannot feel completely 
 certain as to the phases of his own moral or mental 
 constitution through its various successive changes. 
 Some leading facts may, indeed, have established 
 themselves in his memory; but all else that made up 
 the scenery of early life has sunk irrecoverably into 
 uncertainty and forgetfulness. 
 
MEMOIR. 7 
 
 If the philosophic mind finds such difficulty in 
 tracing the vestiges of its own early experience, it is 
 worse than useless for the stranger to attempt it. 
 
 It is to be regretted that so little is now known of 
 the early life of the subject of this Memoir. He is 
 remembered as a bright, active boy, who engaged 
 ardently in childish sports, feared nobody, and always 
 stood up for the weaker side. Resolute and deter- 
 mined, he was always ready to maintain his own 
 rights whenever he considered them assailed, either 
 by overbearing schoolmates or by the village mis- 
 tress herself; appealing to no one for aid in such 
 emergencies. Upon one occasion, while at school, 
 as early as his sixth year, it was thought proper to 
 inflict some punishment upon him to insure obedi- 
 ence, but when the schoolmistress was about to ap- 
 ply the ferrule, our active and athletic pupil seized 
 the instrument which he thought destined to dis- 
 grace him, and threw it in fragments on the floor. 
 The teacher yielded, and the boy triumphed for 
 the time, but came the next day with a humble 
 apology, insisted on by his parents, who were per- 
 haps roused by this incident to that deep anxiety 
 and watchfulness which became the means of de- 
 veloping in his mind much that afterwards ennobled 
 his life. 
 
 But there were other elements of character which 
 were strongly marked, even at this early period. Of 
 these, one was a genuine and enthusiastic love and 
 reverence for his mother: it was more than affection; 
 it was profounder than respect; it was not mere 
 obedience, which may be enforced by a sense of 
 
8 MEMOIR. 
 
 duty, — it was an elemental law of his nature; it 
 was the native loyalty of the heart to its true sover- 
 eign. Such hold, fortunately, had his mother upon 
 the destiny of her son ; she alone could have con- 
 trolled the wild and stormy elements that were pent 
 up in this boy's breast. 
 
 The first law of manhood is obedience ; it is the 
 foundation of self-control, and is the only element 
 by which allegiance to the sovereignty of conscience 
 is recognized and enforced; obedience first to the 
 earthly parent, then, as the soul becomes cognizant 
 of its relations to God, obedience to his will. 
 Obedience, not from fear, not from compulsion, but 
 from filial love, was one of the beautiful laws that, 
 from his earliest years, was planted in the mental 
 constitution of this brave child ; thus making a 
 strong contrast with the resolute and turbulent will, 
 which it was destined in future years to control and 
 subdue. 
 
 On one occasion only, and this when he was 
 seven years old, his mother thought it necessary to 
 reinforce her influence by inflicting corporal punish- 
 ment. With emotions which her tears plainly re- 
 vealed, she gave herself up to this twofold sacrifice; 
 the noble heart of this her oldest son was melted ; 
 he was overcome by the suffering of his mother, 
 and throwing his arms about her neck, he made a 
 promise, which he always kept, that she should 
 never again have occasion to punish him for dis- 
 obedience. 
 
 An incident of his boyhood is related which illus- 
 trates his determination to be faithful to this prom- 
 
MEMOIR. 9 
 
 ise. When about twelve years of age, he was 
 spending a holiday in various amusements with his 
 schoolmates, and was invited by them to jump into 
 a pleasure-boat which lay moored to the shore. 
 After some time they unfastened the boat, and were 
 pushing off, when Joseph perceived their inten- 
 tion. He at once requested the boys to set him 
 on shore, and when they refused, he replied that 
 he must go on shore ; that he had promised his 
 mother never to go out in a boat without her leave ; 
 that he had on new clothes, and should be sorry to 
 spoil them ; but that, unless they would put back, he 
 would jump overboard and swim ashore. The boys 
 yielded, and he landed alone, having indeed lost the 
 company of his playmates, but having gained self- 
 respect and the satisfaction of doing his duty and 
 keeping his pledge. 
 
 Among the instructors whose influence upon him 
 seems to have been most permanent was Edward 
 Bliss Emerson, a man of great purity and simplicity 
 of character, uniting exquisite delicacy and sensitive- 
 ness with an earnest, religious purpose, sterling 
 common sense, and a wide and generous sympathy 
 for all. 
 
 Elegant and graceful in manners and address, 
 rich in the stores of classic learning as well as of 
 polite literature, graced with every quality that 
 could fascinate youth, or command the love, respect, 
 and admiration of manhood, Mr. Emerson exercised 
 an irresistible influence over every one with whom 
 he was intimately associated. 
 
 Mr. Harrington often, in after years, mentioned 
 
10 MEMOIR. 
 
 with reverence and gratitude the name of this faith- 
 ful instructor, who so early passed away, the first 
 stricken from that brilliant constellation of men of 
 genius bearing his name. 
 
 With good health, constant attendance upon the 
 excellent public schools of his native place, and in 
 the bosom of a home made attractive and joyous 
 by a numerous fanjily of brothers and sisters, who 
 grew up in mutual affection for each other, the 
 young scholar passed the first fourteen years of his 
 life. 
 
 In September, 1827, he entered Phillips Academy 
 at Exeter, New Hampshire, at that time under the 
 charge of "Dr. Benjamin Abbot and Dr. Gideon 
 Soule, whose names strike many a hallowed chord 
 of association in the past, and who are remembered 
 with gratitude by a long line of illustrious pupils." 
 The Rev. A. A. Livermore of Cincinnati, a fellow- 
 student at Exeter and a classmate at Cambridge, 
 thus writes of his first appearance at the Acad- 
 emy : — 
 
 " I well remember his fair, open face, his light hair, and 
 affable manners. He was a specimen of a healthy, genu- 
 ine, fine-spirited New England boy. My impression is 
 clear, that, if one word were used to describe him then, 
 that word would be magnanimity. His mind was a good 
 one, but his strength lay in his heart and character. He 
 would not allow meanness in plays, or tyranny of the strong 
 over the weak. His clear, blue eye would flash rebuke at 
 any unworthy compliances, and his manly voice would ring 
 out an indignant condemnation. He was active and ath- 
 letic, excelled in manly sports, and did with might and 
 
MEMOIR. 11 
 
 main whatever he undertook, whether it was to get a lesson, 
 catch a fish, or win the game. He was a good scholar ; but 
 his nature did not run up in any brilliant eccentricities or 
 specialties which mankind commonly call genius. His 
 genius was rotund, complete, equal to every occasion. 
 Physically, mentally, morally, he was a high-toned, healthy 
 human creature, and he carried this wholesome equipoise 
 through life. He could do all things well, and maintained, 
 both at the academy and in college, high rank as a scholar. 
 His moral conduct and deportment were unexceptionable, 
 and his heart poured out a constant tide of good feeling. 
 As a friend, he was always true, frank, and sincere, and he 
 entered with warmth and heartiness into all the school-boy 
 confidences and ardent sympathies of youth." 
 
 Few incidents are recorded which would give 
 point and distinctness to those delineations of his 
 school days. That he was thoroughly prepared for 
 college is well known, and that preparation could 
 have been obtained only by constant application to 
 his studies. 
 
 He entered Harvard University in the summer of 
 1829. That day on which the name of the young 
 student is recorded upon the rolls of the University 
 should be remembered as one of the most important 
 eras in his life. He has thus abandoned the busy 
 mart, the stirring scenes of commercial enterprise, 
 the excitement of politics, the hope of wealth, and 
 has consecrated himself to the pursuit of learning. 
 He has exchanged the noisy and rattling pave- 
 ment for the shady walk ; the dusty race-course 
 for the " academic grove " ; the rough struggles of 
 actual business for the intellectual contests of Greek 
 
12 MEMOIR. 
 
 philosophers ; the stock-list and price-current for 
 Thucydides and Xenophon and the ponderous tomes 
 of the schoolmen. 
 
 That the young and ambitious scholar, withdrawn 
 from the immediate care of his parents, thrown into 
 fortuitous association with many young men of his 
 own age, beginning, as it were, a new life, breath- 
 ing a new atmosphere, and burdened with new du- 
 ties and trials, surrounded with novel pleasures and 
 temptations, should be insensible to these changes 
 could not be expected or desired. 
 
 That college life is encompassed with danger and 
 temptation cannot be denied. There, alone, the 
 youth is exposed to all the seductions of vice, while 
 its deformity is veiled by the refinements of taste or 
 disguised by sophistry. The hand of apparent 
 friendship too often raises to the lips the honeyed 
 but poisoned cup, and the unguarded conscience is 
 too often betrayed into fatal error by the sneer of the 
 libertine or the example of the open-hearted worship- 
 per of Bacchus. The student who is above such 
 unworthy influences may yet be in daily intimacy 
 with those who have entered the university merely 
 because it affords an elegant and fashionable mode 
 of spending four precious years, — young men of 
 no fixed principles upon any subject, thoughtless, in- 
 dolent spendthrifts, who ha/e no taste for knowledge 
 and little capacity for acquiring it ; who pride them- 
 selves upon their wealth or family, and expect that 
 the wide world will be anxious to do them reverence 
 when they shall be ready to receive it ; scorning the 
 ambitious student, who, rather than to waste the 
 
MEMOIR. 13 
 
 midnight hours with jolly companions in idle dissi- 
 pation, prefers to spend them in communing with 
 the master-spirits of ancient times, and in treasuring 
 up their immortal thoughts. 
 
 Then there is the danger of a too high-wrought 
 ambition, that may lead to a miserable wreck of 
 health and happiness. The rivalry of youth, not 
 less intense than that of riper years, may lead the 
 heart far away from the pure and serene atmosphere 
 in which alone the tree of knowledge puts forth its 
 branches and bears its fruit. College life, like the 
 hot-bed, compels every seed either to rot or to germi- 
 nate, and each plant must be developed according to 
 the law of its own constitution. It will select of the 
 various species of nourishment offered to it that 
 which is congenial to its organization ; the rest it 
 will reject as poison. The law of its vitality will 
 instantly decide what it shall absorb and what it 
 shall refuse, and the result will disclose to us what 
 that law was. 
 
 Thus life in college develops each student's pure 
 individuality, and the young scholar from Exeter 
 was no exception to the rule. He had attained 
 knowledge enough of the preparatory studies to pass 
 a critical examination for admission to the Fresh- 
 man class. 
 
 Endowed by nature with a strong and healthy 
 physical constitution, his active habits had tended to 
 strengthen and improve it. He enjoyed the exhilara- 
 tion of out-of-door air and exercise, and was accus- 
 tomed, at frequent intervals, to walk a dozen miles 
 or more in the day, without sensible fatigue. Dur- 
 
 2 
 
14 MEMOIR. 
 
 ing vacations, he sometimes took long journeys 
 on foot, with one or more of his classmates. He 
 learned the arts of boxing and fencing, not only for 
 the vigorous and healthful exercise which they re- 
 quire, but for the purpose of self-defence. His eye 
 was quick, his judgment cool, his dexterity unusual, 
 and his skill added not a little to that fearlessness or 
 bravery which marked his personal bearing. He 
 feared no man in single combat, armed only with 
 nature's weapons. High-spirited, and quick to no- 
 tice insult, he bore it from no one, unless followed 
 by explanation or apology. Entertaining a high 
 sense of honor himself, he could not tamely submit 
 to a taunt more than to a blow. He was among 
 the foremost in all the games of the " Delta," and 
 his broad chest and well-developed form gave to his 
 figure, though but little above the medium height, a 
 certain solidity and dignity which corresponded with 
 the manliness of his character. Yet, in all these 
 athletic sports, even in the exciting broadsword exer- 
 cise, he was always fair, courteous, and good-tem- 
 pered, and he never forgot what was due to his 
 adversary, whether victorious or not. 
 
 Full of good-humor at all times, and delighting in 
 whatever gave pleasure to others, he was fond of 
 daring frolics ; and not a few of those wild pranks 
 which sometimes annoyed the college tutors, and 
 procured for his classmates " a miss " from recita- 
 tion, were supposed to have been shrewdly planned 
 and adroitly executed by this light-hearted youth ; 
 but he never destroyed a sixpence' worth of property, 
 or intentionally wounded the feelings of a single 
 member of the government of the University. 
 
MEMOIR. 15 
 
 Perhaps it could not justly be said that he loved 
 study over much ; his vivacity of temperament, 
 vigorous health, fondness for athletic exercise, and 
 other peculiarities of taste and temper, were all 
 against his becoming a recluse or a bookworm. Yet 
 he conscientiously devoted his time to the college 
 course of studies, always mastered his lessons, and 
 held, as a scholar, an honorable position among his 
 classmates. He was not inclined, at that time, to 
 the study of abstract science ; and the more recondite 
 branches of mathematics, and metaphysics were pur- 
 sued by him chiefly as means of mental discipline. 
 
 But he was a philologist ; he delighted in the 
 English classic poets. Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, 
 and Shakspeare were the objects of his genuine and 
 unaffected admiration. The Italian, French, and 
 German languages were also studied by him with 
 more interest than the ancient tongues, although 
 there was less opportunity then than at present for 
 attaining a thorough knowledge of them at the Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 The Italian first attracted him, because it was the 
 language of music, — he had not then become 
 familiar with the wild, harrowing pictures of the 
 " Inferno," the seductive stories of the " Decame- 
 rone," the Christian chivalry of the " Jerusalemme 
 Liberata," or the touching sonnets of the poet of 
 Vaucluse. 
 
 Bat the literature of Germany early took a deeper 
 hold on his imagination ; and as he became more 
 acquainted with the genius of the language, its radi- 
 cal affinity to the English, of which it forms so large 
 
16 MEMOIR. 
 
 an element, its richness, vigor, and flexibility, its 
 capability of being moulded to suit most opposite 
 characteristics, and, above all, with the freshness, 
 depth, variety, and independence of thought which 
 are embodied in it and constitute its chief glory, he 
 determined to master all its treasures. 
 
 As long as he lived, he never abandoned the 
 learning or the literature of Germany, enjoying not 
 only Goethe, Schiller, and the minor poets, but 
 studying with ever-increasing interest the works of 
 those great theologians who, by vigorous research, 
 and faithful investigation, have rendered such valu- 
 able aid to the profession which he afterwards chose. 
 
 Music was a source of daily delight to him ; his 
 organization was delicate, his ear accurate, his voice 
 agreeable, and of good compass. Many a time in 
 summer he wakened the midnight air with his gay 
 carols, and often the silent and sombre walls of the 
 old college buildings echoed back the trios and quar- 
 tettes to which his voice added much of their grace 
 and sweetness. 
 
 The college laws forbade the student to be present 
 at the opera and theatre, but the laws of his consti- 
 tution rendered these attractions irresistible, and as 
 the tutors and professors themselves occasionally 
 visited these places of amusement, he could see no 
 valid reason why he should be driven from the 
 shrine of the muses. But it was not mere amuse- 
 ment that he sought ; he was passionately fond of 
 music; every note melted into his heart, and the 
 memory of fine passages was a perpetual joy to him. 
 He practised the more remarkable parts of every 
 
MEMOIR. 17 
 
 opera which he heard, and became sufficiently famil- 
 iar with them, not only to understand them, but to 
 appreciate the difficulty of every " cadence." 
 
 His appetite for the science became more intense 
 as he better understood it, and his pleasure increased 
 as his acquaintance extended from the well-known 
 compositions of Rossini, Bellini, &c. to composers 
 of a widely different order of genius. 
 
 The drama, both comic and tragic, was from his 
 early youth a favorite source of amusement and in- 
 struction. The fine readings of the Kembles made 
 a strong impression on his mind; every new point 
 brought out by these great tragedians was remem- 
 bered, marked down in his copy of Shakspeare, and 
 not unfrequently repeated to his intimate friends, 
 with much satisfaction. He was accustomed to 
 study, and was perfectly familiar with the plays, not 
 only of Shakspeare, but of Ben Jonson, and of most of 
 the old English dramatic writers, and these were the 
 fountains whence flowed that rich and pure lan- 
 guage which seemed natural to him in later years. 
 His fondness for dramatic performances did not 
 cease till the more serious duties of life shut the door 
 against such entertainments. 
 
 The study of elocution, then for the first time in 
 the University made a special branch of education, 
 engi'ossed much of his attention. Indeed, it was at 
 that time a subject of general interest among the 
 students, and not a few of the most distinguished 
 scholars, in the different classes, entered into a gen- 
 erous rivalry with each other, in the practice of pub- 
 lic speaking or declamation. A learned professor of 
 
 2* 
 
18 MEMOIR. 
 
 elocution laid down rales for training and exercising 
 the voice so as to develop its full capacities, and 
 gave in his own performances admirable illustrations 
 of all that could be done by the orator, drilled and 
 disciplined according to the rules of art. He taught 
 his pupils that mere declamation, however elegant, 
 graceful, or perfect in its intonations, has no power 
 to excite the imagination or to touch the heart ; that 
 it is only when the speaker forgets himself, and is 
 carried away by glowing thoughts, genuine senti- 
 ment, and uncontrollable enthusiasm, that his words 
 are really eloquent and effective. 
 
 Young Harrington studied elocution as an art, 
 and in his Junior year carried off one of the Boylston 
 prizes for declamation, proving the high estimation 
 in which his powers as an elocutionist were then 
 held, and although no one could exceed him in the 
 euphony of his manly voice, in the musical rhythm of 
 his cadences, the propriety of his intonations, or in 
 the ease and gracefulness of his gestures, yet his 
 elocution fell short of that effect which it attained in 
 after years, when he spoke unconsciously, from a 
 full heart, and on subjects of momentous interest. 
 
 This practice of declamation, united as it was to a 
 genuine fondness for dramatic compositions, gave 
 him great advantages in the pursuits to which he 
 was afterwards devoted, as a teacher of youth, and a 
 preacher of the Gospel. 
 
 He was at one time much interested in the study 
 of phrenology, of which Dr. Spurzheim was then an 
 eminent advocate, and whose instructions were at- 
 tentively listened to by many students of his class ; 
 
MEMOIR. 19 
 
 but neither for this nor for any other pursuit did he 
 ever neglect his college duties, but was an exemplary 
 student, and faithful to every lesson. His high 
 sense of moral obligation ; the consciousness that his 
 future all hung upon the present ; his dread of dis- 
 appointing the just expectations of his parents, who 
 had made great sacrifices to give him a liberal edu- 
 cation ; his personal ambition ; and, above all, his 
 love and respect for his mother, — conspired to add 
 vigor to his manly resolves, that no duty should be 
 left undone, and that neither music, the drama, the 
 " Delta," nor his love of wild adventure, should 
 baffle his efforts to follow the straight path of labori- 
 ous study. His occasional letters show the difficul- 
 ties he encountered and the success he attained. 
 The strength of- a man's virtue is known only by the 
 power of the temptations he has vanquished ; and 
 that character is truly noble which obeys the imperi- 
 ous dictates of duty when it is opposed to the tastes, 
 habits, and passions. 
 
 Few young men have passed through the fiery 
 ordeal of college life with less cause for regret than 
 he. His life was pure in every sense of the word. 
 He was never guilty of profanity in earnest or in 
 jest, and one who was his friend for more than 
 twenty years, and who was, during all his college 
 life, in the habit of daily unrestrained intercourse 
 with him, and to whom, at all times, he poured out 
 his heart as to a brother, cannot recall a single in- 
 stance of coarse language, thought, or allusion 
 uttered or suggested by him. 
 
 At that period of life when the thoughtless are too 
 
20 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 apt to lay up for themselves a store of self-reproach, 
 — the season of hot and impetuous blood, — his in- 
 stinctive delicacy shrank in disgust from gross 
 wickedness, and his high sense of honor repelled the 
 idea of tampering with female innocence. 
 
 Yet he was a romantic youth ; his soul was filled 
 with dreams of poetic beauty ; he paid profound 
 homage to all that was graceful and lovely in man 
 or woman ; and he not only worshipped the ideal and 
 visionary, but was in truth an enthusiastic admirer 
 of the actual. He was ready to bend the knee at 
 the shrine of beauty, not senseless, insipid, and 
 unmeaning beauty, but that higher and nobler qual- 
 ity which commands "the admiration and respect of 
 refined and sensible men. 
 
 This fact sometimes subjected him to censure for 
 inconstancy. Yet the pure, chivalrous, and manly 
 sentiments which he entertained towards all females 
 formed one of the secret charms that shielded him 
 from the thought of dishonorable trifling. 
 
 Accustomed to good society, he was scrupulously 
 neat and unostentatious in his dress, and he was 
 graceful and self-possessed in manners. If in early 
 youth he had any tendency to display, it wore off 
 when the earnest work of life began, and simplicity 
 of heart and unconsciousness of self, indispensable 
 conditions of saying or doing any worthy thing, 
 were, in later years, the prominent features of his 
 mind. 
 
 He was a sincere and truthful man ; he made no 
 timid concessions or compromises, but stoutly de- 
 fended his principles when they were assailed, and 
 
MEMOIR. 21 
 
 in him the absent friend was sure to find a fearless 
 and independent champion, whenever the occasion 
 called for one. Though he loved to please others, 
 he was no time-server, but a brave, self-relying, gen- 
 erous fellow, and had withal that further quality 
 which lies at the basis of manly virtue, decision of 
 character. He was resolute, but not obstinate ; firm, 
 decided, steadfast ; he did not sit down satisfied 
 merely because he had come to a conclusion, but he 
 acted upon his determination. He had confidence 
 in his own judgment, a strenuous will, energy and 
 courage to bear and to execute. 
 
 Such were the striking outlines of his character 
 when he left the University, understood as they then 
 were by a few only of his intimate friends, but to 
 them as palpable and clearly marked as were the 
 features of his fine and beaming face. 
 
 Mr. Harrington was graduated in the summer of 
 1833, and received the usual degree of Bachelor of 
 Arts. He was thenceforward to depend on his own 
 resources, and not only to maintain himself, but to 
 lend a helping hand to the younger members of the 
 family. While in college, he practised rigid economy, 
 for a long time giving up the use of meat, and living 
 simply on bread and milk ; and he contributed some- 
 thing to lighten the burden of his expenses by keep- 
 ing school at Walpole. Shortly before the end of 
 his last term, having obtained leave of the President, 
 he went to East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where he 
 became principal of the academy. While teaching 
 there, he wrote the part which he delivered at the 
 time of his graduation. After residing a little more 
 
22 MEMOIR. 
 
 than six months at East Greenwich, he took charge 
 of the Hawes School at South Boston, January 14th, 
 1834. 
 
 This was at that time reputed to be one of the 
 most difficult of the Boston schools to manage, and 
 held the lowest rank of them all. Some of its pupils 
 were spoken of as " turbulent, refractory, and pro- 
 fane ; and the young man, not yet of age, who dared 
 to undertake its charge, was looked upon with curi- 
 osity and surprise by all." The spirit in which Mr. 
 Harrington undertook this new office, the powers he 
 brought to bear upon the hearts of his pupils, his 
 success as a teacher of youth, the gradual bending 
 of his energies to the great office of developing the 
 religious and intellectual nature of those over whom 
 he had influence, are well known to all who took 
 interest in that school. 
 
 He was the founder of an association in South 
 Boston, which still lives in full vigor, devoted to the 
 literary, moral, and religious culture of its members, 
 and their feelings towards him were expressed, upon 
 receiving the news of his decease, in a series of reso- 
 lutions which show how deep was the good impres- 
 sion his life and teachings had made upon the char- 
 acter and morals of the young men of that place. 
 
 " Whereas, recent intelligence from California has 
 brought to us the sad tidings of the death of the Rev. 
 Joseph Harrington, — one who had gone forth in obedience 
 to the injunction, " Go, teach all nations " ; and who has 
 died with the Gospel armor on, in the active discharge of 
 conscientious duty to the eternal interests of his fellow-man : 
 And whereas, the deceased has sustained the very im- 
 
MEMOIR. 23 
 
 portant relation of instructor to many of the members of 
 this Association, and has been instrumental in makinji a 
 deep impress for good upon the characters and morals of 
 the young men of this place, — 
 
 " Resolved, That by this allotment of Providence wo 
 stand as mourners at a father's grave ; for in the wisdom 
 of his counsels, in his assiduous care of our youthful minds, 
 in his anxiety to make pure and noble impressions upon 
 the yielding tablets of our forming characters, in his con- 
 stant labors to mould us to manly and virtuous life, we 
 have lost all of a father's wisdom, care, and devotion. 
 
 " Resolved, That we will, with warm interest, cherish 
 those wise instructions, those noble principles, those dis- 
 interested labors for others' good, that faithfulness to our- 
 selves and to every duty which it was his labor and desire 
 ever to inculcate in us ; and that, with all that is pure and 
 good in our hearts, we will embalm his memory, as the 
 only tribute to his manly talents and goodness of heart 
 which is left us in this hour of affliction, 
 
 " Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with his afflicted 
 family in this dispensation, knowing how great must be the 
 loss of one so friendly, so devoted, and so faithful in every 
 relation of life ; and we trust that the blessed consolations 
 of the Gospel which he preached, in which he lived, and in 
 which he died, may be ministered to them, in all its heal- 
 ing richness and power. 
 
 " Resolved, That these resolutions be entered upon the 
 records of this Association ; and that a copy, signed by the 
 presiding and recording officers, be forwarded to the family 
 of the deceased. 
 
 " Benjamin Pope, President. 
 Barnard Capen, Secretary.''^ 
 
24 MEMOIR. 
 
 Mr. Harrington's success as a teacher at the 
 Hawes School was remarkable. His own generous 
 heart, his fearlessness, his resolution and decision, 
 his gentleness and good-humor, his absolute truth- 
 fulness and sincerity, the commanding qualities of 
 his mind, his clear intellect, his love of justice, and 
 his excellent scholarship, all combined to render him 
 the inan for such a place. 
 
 To deal with wild and turbulent boys, who have 
 never felt the restraint of discipline, requires a fear- 
 less teacher ; to repress profanity demands the pres- 
 ence, not of the timid, but of the brave and heroic 
 man, who bows in reverence before God ; to eradi- 
 cate falsehood, there is need of magnanimous truth- 
 fulness to put it to shame. The bud of promise is 
 unfolded only under the crystal lens of a pure and 
 tender heart, that concentrates upon it the warmth 
 of a thousand scattered rays of light and love. 
 
 That such apparently inconsistent qualities should 
 be embodied in one individual is not to be often ex- 
 pected, but they were so combined in him, that each 
 held its due influence in his well-balanced mind. 
 One who was intimately acqiiainted with the Hawes 
 School thus writes : — 
 
 " His insight into human nature was so keen, that it 
 was often remarked by children themselves, ' Nobody can 
 tell a lie to Mr. Harrington.' 
 
 " While he required perfect order in his school, he made 
 every effort to relieve the tedium, by means of frequent 
 change of position, and by music, teaching singing himself 
 to his pupils. He also abolished the use of corporal pun- 
 ishment for girls, believing that by it their delicacy was 
 
MEMOIR. 25 
 
 outraged, and thus the standard of responsibility was lowered. 
 In introducing all these novelties into his school, he was re- 
 garded by some as an enthusiast and innovator, but the 
 efficacy of these plans has been shown by their general 
 adoption. 
 
 " At the close of five years he gave up his school to pro- 
 secute more closely his theological studies, leaving it 
 among the first in the city. 
 
 " He lived to be fully repaid for all his unwearied exer- 
 tions, and his anxious toil in this scene of his labors, by 
 witnessing the worth, respectability, and usefulness of his 
 pupils, as men and women, and by often receiving from 
 one and another letters of undiminished afiection and inter- 
 est. While in Boston, a short time before his death, he 
 met one of his first pupils, and congratulated him upon his 
 success in life. His reply was, ' Mr. Harrington, all that 
 I am I owe to you. Do you recollect when I was a reck- 
 less boy, and you had tried all common means to make me 
 attend to my duties, you at last said to me, " If your dear 
 mothcr,^vho loved you so much, can see your conduct now, 
 do you not think it will grieve her spirit .? " Then you 
 touched the right chord, and from that hour I determined to 
 become an altered being.' " 
 
 It was while in this field of arduous labor at South 
 Boston that Mr. Harrington began to turn his atten- 
 tion towards the ministry. Nor was it an unnatural 
 transition from the education of youth to the teach- 
 ing of men. Any instructor who feels the responsi- 
 bility and delight of unfolding to ingenuous youth 
 the elements of moral and religious truth, who ob- 
 serves how readily the frank-hcartcd child receives 
 impressions, and who thus perceives that his own 
 errors are repeated by many of his pupils, his faults 
 
 3 
 
26 MEMOIR. 
 
 daguerreotyped in their book of life, never to be 
 wholly obliterated, can with difficulty avoid thorough 
 and frequent self-examination. When that work is 
 once begun, it will be prosecuted, not only from a 
 sense of duty to himself, but from a just apprehen- 
 sion that the pure and trusting hearts of innocent 
 children might otherwise be touched and soiled by 
 the presence of some unhallowed thought emanating 
 from their instructor. 
 
 Having once tasted that supreme felicity which 
 flows from manly and successful efforts to exalt and 
 ennoble any human soul, what wonder that he should 
 feel that the path of duty and happiness lay in the 
 same direction. It is but a short step from the gen- 
 uine instruction of youth to the preaching of the 
 Gospel to all. The progress of Mr. Harrington's 
 mind towards this end was observed by many of his 
 friends, and among them a distinguished Baptist 
 clergyman, who was at that time most intimate with 
 him, and who watched his career with almost paren- 
 tal interest, thus wrote of him, after his decease. 
 
 " Mrs. Harrington : — 
 
 " Deeply do I sympathize with you in the bereave- 
 ment you have sustained by the recent death of your be- 
 loved husband. I have been acquainted with him for 
 many years, and only to cherish toward him increasing 
 respect and love. My acquaintance with him commenced 
 at South Boston, while he was yet a young man, per- 
 haps unknown to yourself. He had just succeeded to 
 the mastership of the Hawes School ;' and as I was then 
 settled in that part of the city, and had taken a house 
 near to his school, he applied for board in my family. 
 
MEMOIR. 27 
 
 I had no intention of keeping boarders, and, besides, felt a 
 little prejudiced against the new master for having succeed- 
 ed against my old friend Forbes, who was a rival candidate 
 for the vacancy. But young Harrington appeared so frank 
 and open, so intelligent and affable, and withal spoke so 
 kindly of his unsuccessful rival, that my scruples were 
 readily overcome, and in accordance with his request, he 
 became a member of my family. He celebrated the 
 twenty-first anniversary of his birth at my house, his par- 
 ents, brothers, and sisters being present on the occasion. 
 The characteristic joyousness which then beamed upon his 
 features is still fresh in my memory. The morning of life 
 dawned brightly upon him, and, alas ! his sun has gone 
 down while it was yet day. The many pleasant social inter- 
 views which I enjoyed with him while under my roof deep- 
 ened the favorable impressions I had formed of him, and re- 
 sulted in the permanent and uninterrupted friendship which 
 has since existed between us. He was not only a scholar, 
 and " a ripe and good one," enthusiastic in his profession as 
 a teacher, but I soon found that his heart was set upon some- 
 thing higher than mere intellectual training, and that he had 
 a growing desire for a profession in which he might devote 
 himself more exclusively to the development of moral and 
 religious truth. I endeavored to encourage and strengthen 
 these aspirations. I had confidence in his Christian charac- 
 ter. Though differing from him on some points of theol- 
 ogy, I believed, and that belief has been confirmed by his 
 subsequent history, that his ministry would be occupied 
 more in setting forth the spirit and life of piety, than in dry 
 speculations and unprofitable controversy. He had a keen 
 relish for religious truth, no matter from whose lips it came, 
 and seemed to feed upon it as upon the bread which cometh 
 down from heaven. It has not surprised me to learn, that, 
 in the various places where he' has preached, he has been 
 
28 MEMOIR. 
 
 known more as a Christian minister than as the advocate of 
 denominational peculiarities. Nor am I surprised to learn 
 that, in his last moments, when far from the home of his 
 childhood, whither he had gone to carry the good news of 
 salvation, and to furnish seasonably to the young, the ad- 
 venturous, and the tempted the safeguards of our holy 
 faith, — I am not surprised to be informed that, falling, as 
 he did, with his hai'ness on, in the midst of his benevolent 
 and religious enterprise, he was sustained and cheered 
 by the presence of God and the hope of a blessed immor- 
 tality. I sincerely grieve at his death. He was in the ma- 
 turity of his strength, full of life and hope. I can scarcely 
 realize even now that he is gone, that those lips are sealed 
 and that speaking eye closed for ever. Nay, my dear 
 madam, we are not compelled thus to think of our departed 
 friend. He is not dead, but hath ascended to a purer and a 
 higher life, where, through the grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, we may hope, amid brighter scenes, to renew the 
 acquaintance and the friendships of earth. 
 
 " When intelligence reached me of your husband's 
 death, I immediately wrote a letter of condolence to his 
 afflicted father, but in the evening paper of the same day 
 saw a notice that he, too, had gone, and was thus spared 
 the necessity of human sympathy, which would have been 
 but an inadequate relief under his crushing bereavement. 
 
 " Accept, Mrs. Harrington, these spontaneous reminiscen- ' 
 
 ces as a token of affectionate regard to the memory of your 
 
 departed husband, with my earnest prayer that Heaven's 
 
 choicest blessings may rest upon you and the fatherless child. 
 
 " Your sincere friend, 
 
 " RoLLiN H. Neale. 
 "Boston, August 1st, 1853." 
 
 Always prudent in his personal expenditures, 
 Mr. Harrington was ever ready to spend his money 
 
MEMOIR. 29 
 
 for the benefit of others. He devoted a large por- 
 tion of his salary at the Hawes School to liberal 
 efforts in assisting in business some of the younger 
 members of the family ; and, moreover, by this 
 praiseworthy generosity, incurred obligations which, 
 though small in amount, required for their ulti- 
 mate liquidation no less than fourteen years of he- 
 roic self-denial and untiring industry in labors out- 
 side of his professional duties. Only a few months 
 before his death, he had the satisfaction of paying 
 principal and interest, to the last farthing. 
 
 " It was while engaged in teaching," writes one 
 who knew him well, " that his mind revolved the se- 
 rious question of his future profession. His previous 
 inclination had been for the law, and he had gone 
 through considerable preparatory study ; but the 
 ministry now claimed his solemn attention. The 
 various worldly sacrifices of the latter were duly 
 weighed. He seriously put to himself the question, 
 whether he could relinquish all the gayeties of life, 
 into which he had hitherto entered with much enjoy- 
 ment. This and all kindred questions were long the 
 subject of earnest and prayerful consideration. Be- 
 lieving that he could serve God in one honest walk 
 of life as well as in another, he strove to know His 
 will in his decision. The impulse to devote himself 
 to his holy calling came, as he devoutly believed, 
 from on high. He was standing, during morning 
 prayer in his school-room, with closed eyes, leading 
 the devotional exercise, when his doubt and question- 
 ing vanished, and his duty seemed to be clearly opened 
 to him. With him, to know his duty was to form 
 
 3* 
 
30 MEMOIR. 
 
 his purpose, and to give himself entirely to the ful- 
 filment of it. So in the case in question ; from that 
 moment he was a minister of Jesus Christ." 
 
 In a letter to his mother, written on an anniver- 
 sary of this day of signal experience, he writes thus : 
 " This day^ three years ago, my mind received that 
 bias which it has since retained, and which I hope it 
 may ever retain, — about 9.20 A. M. on Tuesday 
 preceding Thanksgiving, 1836. The resolve was, / 
 tvill be a public teacher of 7norals and religiony 
 
 It has been before observed, that Mr. Harrington 
 was destined to the practice of the law, a profes- 
 sion to which his powers were well adapted, and in 
 which, doubtless, he would have acquired distinction. 
 Much of his previous education had tended in that 
 direction, and the law was well suited to his 
 ambitious nature, opening a field for exercising 
 the highest and noblest powers of the mind, and, 
 when pursued with high and honorable aims, calcu- 
 lated, not less than the clerical profession, to elevate 
 the morals, to enlarge the mind, and store it with 
 science, literature, and all that adorns the life and 
 character of a high-toned Christian gentleman. He 
 did not forsake the study of jurisprudence because 
 he undervalued its dignity, or because he thought 
 that the life of a religious teacher was less beset with 
 temptation, or less likely to lead him astray, than 
 that of a student of law. As a lawyer, he would 
 have been no less upright and conscientious than 
 as a clergyman ; nor would he have tolerated the 
 miserable cant which pronounces one person pious 
 merely because he dons the surplice, or another 
 
MEMOIR. 31 
 
 less virtuous because he ministers at the altar of 
 justice. 
 
 He was well aware that the lawyer is brought into 
 close contact with the naked heart of men. Their 
 undisguised passions are laid OjDen ; no sanctimoni- 
 ous pretensions veil their real designs or their genu- 
 ine characters, as, with passions roused to action, 
 excited by great temptation or maddened by real 
 or fancied injury, they pour their tale of wrong into 
 the ears of their legal "confessor." Then the law- 
 yer has his mission to perform, also, as a " teacher of 
 morals and religion." He has many a golden op- 
 portunity to make an impression on the character 
 of a client which time cannot efface. By a word or 
 look, the majesty of a noble Christian character may 
 be revealed, the unworthy impulse, the unhallowed 
 intention stand rebuked, and be perhaps for ever 
 crushed. 
 
 Fully appreciating the advantages of the legal 
 profession, Mr. Harrington, after mature deliberation, 
 felt himself called by duty to the ministry ; and hav- 
 ing thus made his choice, he entered upon the study 
 of theology under the direction of Rev. George Put- 
 nam of Roxbury, continuing his school, however, at 
 the same time, until the last year of his theological 
 course. 
 
 In the autumn of 1839, he was sent by the Amer- 
 ican Unitarian Association, as missionary, to Chi- 
 cago, Illinois, where he remained until the following 
 April. At that time he returned to New England to 
 solicit funds for the purpose of building a church. 
 By his individual exertions he raised about $2,500 ; 
 
32 MEMOIR. 
 
 and the further sum of about $ 2,000 being contrib- 
 uted by citizens of Chicago, the enterprise was car- 
 ried to a successful issue ; and before he finally with- 
 drew from that place, his society was left free from 
 debt. In September, 1840, he was ordained as an 
 evangelist at Federal Street Church, Boston, the 
 sermon on that occasion being preached by Rev. Dr. 
 Putnam. In October of the same year he returned 
 to Chicago, as pastor of the " First Unitarian Soci- 
 ety " of that city, having on his way a hair-breadth 
 escape from shipwreck. He reached Chicago on 
 Saturday, the last day of October, and preached his 
 first sermon as a settled clergyman on the follow- 
 ing Sunday. There he first met Miss Helen E. 
 Griswold, to whom he was mamed on the 6th of 
 April, 1841. Their eldest, and only surviving child, 
 Helen Josephine, was born in February, 1842, the 
 two sons who were afterwards born to them having 
 both died in infancy. 
 
 His labors were not confined to his own pulpit. ■ 
 In the summer of 1841 he was the first to preach the 
 doctrines of Unitarianism at Milwaukie, Wisconsin. 
 A large audience attended the services, and from 
 that beginning sprang the present church at that 
 place. 
 
 He received, in 1842, a call to become colleague 
 with the Rev. Mr. Eliot of St. Louis. 
 
 At Rockford, Illinois, he planted the Unitarian 
 church in 1843, where he passed some time, preach- 
 ing three times on each Sunday, and almost every 
 evening in the week. Six months after his depart- 
 ure, a friend visiting that place found the highest en- 
 
MEMOIR. 33 
 
 thusiasm prevailing among the people, of all denom- 
 inations, in regard to his power and eloquence as a 
 preacher. 
 
 In the spring of 1844, Mr. and Mrs. Harrington 
 left Chicago to visit their Southern and Eastern 
 friends, and on the journey he preached for several 
 Sundays, most acceptably, to the congregation of the 
 Unitarian church in Baltimore (Rev. Dr. Burnap's). 
 It was during this visit that he formed the determi- 
 nation to resign the charge of his parish at Chicago. 
 This movement had been a subject of deep consid- 
 eration with him for a long time, and the motives 
 inducing him to take this step are stated in the fol- 
 lowing letter to Edward K. Rogers, Esq. 
 
 " Eoxbury, June 21st, 1844. 
 
 " My dear Rogers : — 
 
 " After long deliberation, and great anxiety, I have come 
 to the resolution, which I have sat down to conimunicatc 
 to you. This resolution is, to transfer my duties from the 
 West to some place in the vicinity of my own home. 
 
 " The pi'imary, moving inducement to this step is the pre- 
 carious state of my mother's health, unitc^l to a condition 
 of family affairs which make my presence here a matter of 
 great importance, if not of absolute necessity. 
 
 " My mother is now considerably better than she has been, 
 and is rapidly improving. She ascribes her restoration to 
 her mental tranquillity, which tranquillity she believes to be 
 dependent upon the companionship, sympathy, and counsel 
 and support of her children. 
 
 " For anything that I now know to tlic contrary, my re- 
 moval from Chicago will not conduce to my worldly profit. 
 I have no place in view where 1 may be established. There 
 
34 MEMOIR. 
 
 are two desirable vacancies in the neighborhood, but wheth- 
 er or not it will be my fortune to fill either of them, — 
 whether my ministerial services will be desired or not in 
 either place, is more than I can even conjecture. 
 
 " I need not say to you, that it is with great pain that I 
 determine upon leaving you ; — not that I was ever per- 
 fectly contented and happy in Chicago ; but because I feel 
 a profound interest in the wellbeing of the church there ; — 
 because that place has been the scene of some active, anx- 
 ious labors on my part, and because a fair share of success 
 has crowned my work, and a growing and substantial re- 
 ligious brotherhood is rising up to reward solicitude and toil. 
 I regret, moreover, to leave the society at this time, be- 
 cause it is a period of critical interest in the Chicago 
 church. 
 
 " But it may all be well that I should leave you, — it 
 may be for your advantage that I abandon my Western 
 field of labor. Some of you, I feel assured, will mourn my 
 departure, others will be indifferent, — a few may make it 
 matter of congratulation. If ministers of our faith were 
 plenty, and were willing to establish themselves in those 
 remote fields of toil, I should have no reason to despond 
 for you, — for I should feel that another incumbent might 
 do you much greater service than I could. But our minis- 
 ters are few, and those who would be effectual among you 
 will, I fear, be reluctant to cultivate so remote a vineyard. 
 We will not, however, despair of excellent things to come. 
 
 " In respect to my own experiences among you I wish 
 to speak with perfect candor. I said I had not been per- 
 fectly happy in Chicago, — many things made me a little 
 uncomfortable, — but the chief difficulty lay in my own 
 breast, — I never could fix the home feeling there, — and 
 this destitution was fatal to my perfect content. I could 
 not look upon myself as other than a sojourner there, — I 
 
MEMOIR. 35 
 
 could not bear to buy a lot in the cemetery, because I was 
 reluctant to entertain the thought that that distant territory 
 was to be my perpetual abode, that remote soil the resting- 
 place for my bones. 
 
 " Why did I feel so ? I can hardly say. As much as 
 anything, the mode of my settlement among you contributed 
 to this feeling. I was voted in, as it were, from year to 
 year. Uncertainty of connection was written on the very 
 contract of alliance. You felt not permanently connected 
 with me. I never felt the real sentiment of an abiding pas- 
 toral relation. The terms of our union bore the stamp of 
 the uncertain, changeful spirit of the time and of the region 
 and of the community. And it may be that this is the bet- 
 ter way. I never objected to it, am not sure that I did not 
 advise it, that it was as much or more the result of the 
 want of the home feeling of which I have spoken as the 
 producer of it. 
 
 " The 7node of raising the salary stamped uncertainty 
 on all things. This was voluntarily subscribed. It made 
 me feel sadly my dependence. It seemed to place me on 
 the ground of perpetually receiving favors. It gave me no 
 security, no stability of position, and matters connected 
 with this voluntary contribution often occurred that affected 
 me painfully. There was then some uncertainty attending 
 the grants from the East, and, all together, obstructed a 
 lodgment of the home feeling in my heart. I have, my 
 dear Rogers, spoken out with frankness, and with a sad 
 and tender sentiment toward you all. I know that you 
 will welcome this candor. I shall return in three or four 
 weeks, shall remain in Chicago four, five, or six weeks, as 
 
 circumstances may direct, and then bid you farewell 
 
 " With affection, 
 
 "Jos. Harrington." 
 
36 MEMOIR. 
 
 That Mr. Harrington was loved and respected by 
 those most intimate with him at Chicago, that he 
 was faithful and untiring in his efforts for the pros- 
 perity of his society, that he made sacrifices of per- 
 sonal comfort for their sake, that he labored in sea- 
 son and out of season, that he succeeded in laying 
 the foundation of a permanent society in that thriv- 
 ing place, where tlnitarianism was little known, and 
 yet exceedingly unpopular, that he built up his so- 
 ciety and relieved it from a debt which came near 
 overwhelming it, that he did not fail to awaken that 
 deep and growing interest in religion, which alone 
 could satisfy a mind and heart like his, are facts too 
 plainly appearing, in all the correspondence between 
 him and his parish, to admit of a question. 
 
 When, in 1840, his first term of service was draw- 
 ing to a close, the following, among other resolu- 
 tions, were passed : — 
 
 " Whereas, the term of service of the Rev. Joseph Har- 
 rington, Jr. as pastor of this society is about to expire, in 
 view of which he has expressed his intention to depart from 
 this place : And whereas he has for the space of nearly six 
 months discharged his ministerial duties to the entire satis- 
 faction of every member of the society : Therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, That the contemplated departure of the Rev. 
 Mr. Harrington excites in us the most unfeigned regret, and 
 that we feel called upon to express our gratitude for his 
 valuable services, our sorrow of the prospect of parting 
 ■with him, and our cordial wishes for his future welfare. 
 
 " Resolved, That while the ministerial labors of the Rev. 
 Mr. Harrington have essentially strengthened the cause of 
 Liberal Christianity in this city, and gone far to build up 
 
MEMOIR. 37 
 
 and promote the objects of this society, his social character 
 has justly endeared him to all who know him, without re- 
 gard to sect or denomination, but more especially to the 
 members of this religious society. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Rev. Joseph Harrington, Jr. be, 
 and he is hereby, called to the permanent pastoral charge 
 of the First Unitarian Society of Chicago, and that we ear- 
 nestly solicit his acceptance of this call." 
 
 On his return from the East, after his successful 
 mission on behalf of his society, the following reso- 
 lutions were passed. 
 
 " Resolved, That this society gratefully acknowledge the 
 kindness of the several clergymen in Massachusetts, Rhode 
 Island, New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, who so 
 warmly espoused our cause and tendered the use of their 
 pulpits to our pastor. 
 
 " Resolved, That this society entertain the liveliest grati- 
 tude to their worthy and respected pastor, the Rev. Joseph 
 Harrington, Jr., for his zealous, laborious, and efficient ex- 
 ertions in procuring the amount necessary for the comple- 
 tion of our house of worship." 
 
 The following is an extract from a letter dated 
 April 13th, 1842, addressed to Rev. Francis Park- 
 man by the trustees of the society. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the unexampled distress and embar- 
 rassments which have pervaded this community, in common 
 with others, it is with unfeigned gratification that we are 
 able to state that our society has been slowly but steadily 
 increasing, that our church is acquiring a strength beyond 
 our most sanguine expectations, cheering to the cause of 
 Christianity and its friends. But notwithstanding all this, 
 for which we must render thanks to a kind Providence, we 
 
 4 
 
38 MEMOIR. 
 
 deem it our duty to set before you the great pecuniary 
 difficulties with which we are struggling and for which 
 there would seem to be no relief at present. The sum 
 guaranteed to our worthy pastor for the current year is 
 nine hundred dollars, to be increased to ten hundred and 
 forty if possible. While we deeply regret that any contin- 
 gency should have forced us to decrease his salary, we sin- 
 cerely trust that it will only be temporary. He has secured 
 our gratitude and esteem by expressing his acquiescence 
 in this measure, and by consenting to remain with us, not- 
 withstanding the many advantageous offers he has received 
 from other places. Appreciating as we do the spirit of 
 self-sacrifice and devotion which has ever guided him, we 
 do not hesitate to say that he will be seconded by all friends 
 of the cause in this place. We are fully aware that the 
 liberality so freely bestowed upon us for past years gives 
 us but little or no claim to any further assistance, but 
 under our present embarrassments it would seem that, if 
 ever that assistance should be continued, it is at the pres- 
 ent time. 
 
 " Our society is composed mostly of young men of little 
 means, struggling with adverse circumstances. They have 
 made strenuous efforts to sustain our church, and we know 
 they will continue to do so ; they have willing spirits, but 
 now little ability. We have dwelt on this matter, wishing 
 our Eastern friends to understand clearly our present situ- 
 ation. For the future we have the most earnest hope. It 
 has pleased a beneficent God to crown the labors of our 
 pastor with great success. The doctrines of Christianity as 
 advanced by him have created a deep religious sentiment 
 in many. Their constant attendance and strong interest 
 manifested in all religious subjects cannot but be gratifying 
 results to him who has so earnestly labored for us, and 
 cheering to all friends of the Gospel, which has but to be 
 
MEMOIR. 3d 
 
 widely spread, and prejudices and oppositions, which are 
 now wearing away, will soon be dissipated. While we 
 have ourselves increased in numbers, in the country round 
 about us an equal spirit is manifested." 
 
 And that these sentiments of affection and respect 
 continued in full force to the last is shown by the 
 following letter, among numerous similar testimo- 
 nials. 
 
 "August 16th, 1844. 
 " Rev. Joseph Harrington : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the members of the First 
 Unitarian Society, held on Saturday evening, the 10th in- 
 stant, a unanimous vote was passed instructing the Trus- 
 tees to express to you, in behalf of the meeting, their 
 deep regret that circumstances have rendered it neces- 
 sary for you to remove from your present field of use- 
 fulness, their heavy obligations for your faithful services, 
 and their kindest wishes for your future welfare and hap- 
 piness. 
 
 " In dissolving your pastoral relations with this society, 
 we feel that you will, like ourselves, experience many pain- 
 ful emotions ; we also feel that our church owes its present 
 strength and great promise for the future chiefly to your 
 active and arduous labors, not only among us, but among 
 our brethren at the East, and that our obligations to you 
 are greatly enhanced by the many discouragements and 
 privations which have surrounded you, and which are inci- 
 dent to a new countiy, and we shall look back with feelings 
 of heartfelt gratitude and pleasure upon your sojourn with 
 us and your faithful labors amid so many trying scenes. 
 In assuring you, in conclusion, of the hearty wishes of the 
 society for your prosperity and happiness wherever your 
 home may be, we feel that we have but very indifferently 
 
40 MEMOIR. 
 
 discharged the duty assigned us, in expressing the kindly 
 feelino-s and intentions of the meeting. 
 
 " J. H. Hodgson, 
 E. K. Rogers." 
 
 Thus ended his residence at Chicago. He retired 
 with sadness from a place never wholly congenial 
 to his taste, but with a consciousness that he had 
 been faithful to the last. Parting with many sincere 
 friends and true-hearted Christians, he turned his re- 
 luctant steps towards old Massachusetts. 
 
 After a short period of repose, he was invited by 
 several prominent friends of the Unitarian cause in 
 Boston, among whom was the late lamented Henry 
 H. Fuller, whose hand and heart were ever ready for 
 any good work, to take measures towards establish- 
 ing a new society at the " South End." He labored 
 zealously and effectually in this cause ; and while 
 thus engaged, he was applied to by the " Benevolent 
 Fraternity of Churches" to supply the pulpit of the 
 Suffolk Street Chapel, made vacant by the resigna- 
 tion of the Rev. Mr. Sargent. He engaged to 
 preach for them one year; hoping that, within that 
 period, the new society would have accumulated suf- 
 ficient strength to become permanently organized. 
 But owing to circumstances which it is unnecessary 
 to detail, it was found impracticable to carry this 
 project forward, and it was either given up, or the 
 proposed society was merged in some other con- 
 gregation. The committee and worshippers at the 
 Suffolk Street Chapel would gladly have had him 
 remain with them as a permanent pastor, but he pre- 
 ferred a different field of labor. 
 
MEMOIR. 41 
 
 During the winter of 1844-45, he preached two 
 Sundays at Hartford, Connecticut, before a Uni- 
 tarian society, first organized in July, 1844 ; and he 
 was urgently requested to accept a call from them, 
 but declined the offer at that time, feeling himself 
 pledged to stand by the " South End " enterprise, 
 until its fate was finally decided. 
 
 In April, 1845, his second son was born, again 
 awakening in his father's heart that most delicious 
 of all earthly dreams, the hope to leave behind him 
 one who should bear his name to posterity, but in 
 one short month this hope was blasted. 
 
 The call to Hartford was unanimously repeated 
 after his engagement at SuflTolk Street had termi- 
 nated, and it was accepted. On the first Sunday of 
 January, 1846, he preached his first sermon to the 
 congregation as his own people. 
 
 To detail the events of the next six years of his 
 Christian ministry is much easier than to appreciate 
 the peculiar difficulties of his position. His was not 
 a life of ease. The society was small and unpopular, 
 surrounded as it was with other denominations who 
 would naturally look with extreme aversion on the 
 intruder. He felt, from the beginning, that his labors 
 would be arduous ; and while he hoped for the best, 
 he never participated in the sanguine expectations 
 of many of his people. 
 
 There was not only a strong prejudice against the 
 doctrines of Unitarianism at Hartford, but a decided 
 disinclination to allow their apostle to be admitted 
 into the society of other clergymen. He was avoid- 
 ed, publicly and privately, by some ministers of the 
 
42 MEMOIR. 
 
 Gospel, who carried their exclusive feelings further, 
 perhaps, than they would have done, had they been 
 better acquainted with his real views, or with the 
 Christian character of him they proscribed. And 
 although he was occasionally associated with them 
 in the cause of education, of which he was a most 
 active, well-informed, and efficient promoter, yet 
 there were some who could never lay aside their 
 antipathy against one who rejected the doctrine 
 of the Trinity. Mr. Harrington, whose soul was 
 large enough and charitable enough to embrace in 
 love all Christians of whatever denomination, and 
 who acknowledged the common brotherhood of all 
 mankind, suffered intensely from the chilly and op- 
 pressive atmosphere of religious intolerance. But 
 to the general rule there were some honorable excep- 
 tions, — men distinguished, not only for their liberal- 
 ity in doctrine, but for many of those noble qualities 
 which give dignity and authority to the clerical 
 profession. 
 
 It is but an act of justice to mention the names 
 of the Rev. Dr. Bushnell and the Rev. Thomas Clark 
 of Christ's Church ; nor should the late lamented 
 Gallaudet be forgotten, — a firm believer in the " Or- 
 thodox " faith, but an advocate of freedom of opin- 
 ion, and one whose heart beat in unison with that 
 of his persecuted friend in every philanthropic cause. 
 
 Better acquaintance with the tone of Mr. Har- 
 rington's character, his blameless life, his ardent 
 labors in every good work, finally won for him a 
 more friendly feeling, and melted away something 
 of that icy coldness which chilled and. saddened the 
 first years of his life at Hartford. 
 
MEMOIR. 43 
 
 But soon another trial awaited him. It became 
 evident that the church in which he preached at 
 Hartford must be sold, unless the debt of the society 
 could be liquidated. This his people were wholly 
 unable to do, finding quite enough to contend with 
 in discharging their ordinary expenses. Bitter ex- 
 perience in his former effort to beg for the church in 
 Chicago had taught him how irksome, how humili- 
 ating, how repulsive to all his tastes and sensibil- 
 ities, would be the task of soliciting in person the 
 aid which his people demanded. 
 
 He felt that he could not propose this course ; but 
 he received from Dr. Gannett an urgent letter, put- 
 ting it to his conscience. " You are," he writes, 
 " the only man who can save the churchJ'' And as 
 he revolved the subject in his own mind, it so ap- 
 peared to him, and he felt, that, however distasteful, 
 repulsive, was the effort, he had no right to listen to 
 suggestions of personal sensitiveness or individual 
 scruples. Conscience pointed the way ; he had but 
 to go forward. Home, ease, health, and as it proved, 
 life itself, were sacrificed at last. He entered with 
 characteristic resolution upon the disheartening work, 
 — desperate it might almost be called, for his society 
 had small claims, as he too well knew, upon the 
 sympathies of others, and he had already gleaned the 
 field for his flock at Chicago. 
 
 Many will long remember the Christian manner 
 in which he fulfilled his wearisome task, and the 
 manly appeal which won its way to all hearts. 
 
 While on this mission, his power as a preacher 
 was first revealed to his brethern in the ministry. 
 
44 MEMOIR. 
 
 He gained many to his cause, because it was his 
 cause, and his whole heart was in it. Generous men, 
 whose names it would not be delicate to reveal, 
 came forward to the rescue of the church at Hart- 
 ford, and by their sympathy threw an occasional ray 
 of sunshine over the dark and lonely hours of heart- 
 sickness he suffered while engaged in this uncon- 
 genial work. No eye but the All-seeing fell upon 
 the discouraging struggles he went through, none 
 but He could see the self-denial of his faithful ser- 
 vant, who, with His blessing, was successful, and 
 brought his church triumphantly out of all its 
 troubles. And the grateful thanks of his people 
 threw back bright, golden tints over the rough and 
 thorny path he had travelled. 
 
 Through all these years of his residence in Hart- 
 ford, Mr. Harrington was earnestly engaged in ad- 
 vancing the cause of popular education, and his 
 labors were justly appreciated. " He was appointed, 
 during this period. Chairman of the Board of Visit- 
 ors of the Public Schools, in the success of which he 
 took a lively interest ; and he continued to fill this 
 office, to the entire satisfaction of all parties, till he 
 left the city." 
 
 He labored continually for the good of others; 
 and that he also had his own private perplexi- 
 ties and difficulties, the following extract from a 
 record, never intended for publication, will plainly 
 show. 
 
 " During all this time, the expenses of his household 
 were reduced to the least possible outlay consistent with his 
 position ; his library received no additions except from the 
 
MEMOIR. 45 
 
 occasional generosity of a friend ; he allowed himself no 
 journeys, nor even the relief of exchanges, because he felt 
 that he had no right to expend money on himself. Passion- 
 ately fond of music, he refrained from attending concerts, 
 and, in short, denied himself every enjoyment which cost 
 money, and all luxuries and comforts, till he could feel that 
 they might be conscientiously indulged in. Always scru- 
 pulously neat in his person, his clothes were nevertheless 
 often threadbare. Till his debts were paid, he said he must 
 consent to ' look poor.' 
 
 "He never allowed a laborer to call twice for his pay. 
 One morning he was discussing, at home, the economical 
 expenditure of a small sum of money, which was all he 
 then had, when a man called to whom the greater propor- 
 tion was due for labor performed the previous week. On 
 the spur of the moment,' it was suggested that he might 
 call again the next week, when the quarter's salary would 
 be paid, but Mr. Harrington unhesitatingly replied, ' No, 
 never do that ; if any suffer, let it be ourselves.' " 
 
 All old debts, in some instances forgotten by the 
 creditors themselves, were one by one wiped away, 
 principal and interest. 
 
 Thus he lived, at that time, isolated from all his 
 old friends, excluded from the sympathy of most of 
 his fellow-clergymen, struggling with limited means, 
 compelled to see his beloved wife deprived of the 
 luxuries and even the comforts to which she had 
 been accustomed, giving up, not only the indulgences 
 of refined taste, but even the books which he most 
 longed for; heroically denying himself every gratifica- 
 tion for the sole purpose of discharging his debts, 
 and doing his duty as a Christian servant of God ; 
 and all this with perfect submission, without com- 
 
46 MEMOIR. 
 
 plaint or murmur, without opening his burdened 
 heart to his most intimate friends, for fear of distress- 
 ing them. Is not this heroism higher than that 
 which conquers a thousand cities? 
 
 It was early in March, 1852, when it seemed cer- 
 tain that his efforts to save the church at Hartford 
 would be successful, and but little more remained to 
 be done, that he received the first intimation of a 
 call to San Francisco. He replied that he could 
 take no subject into consideration until he had fin- 
 ished the work upon which he was engaged. This 
 was done in the following May ; but as soon as he 
 came to the quiet and confinement of his own study, 
 he began to feel the effect of his exertions, and from 
 that period he dated the disease, which, gradually de- 
 veloping, aggravated by various causes, terminated 
 his earthly career. He was never well, never himself 
 again. 
 
 When the proposition to go to California came 
 before him for definite consideration, and the novelty 
 of the idea wore off with familiarity, his desire was 
 to determine what he ought to do. He felt that 
 it was not his duty to remain permanently in 
 Hartford, — he had done his utmost for this parish ; 
 and his conviction was, that he was called to do 
 more good elsewhere than he could accomplish in 
 that narrow sphere. 
 
 He pondered long before he decided on this great 
 move, and his will seemed to repose entirely on the 
 will of God respecting it. His deliberation ended in 
 the resolve to devote himself, with all the energy of 
 his being, to the work of the Gospel in this inspiring 
 
MEMOIR. 47 
 
 field. While passing a few days in New York and 
 Brooklyn, on an exchange, in June, he took a severe 
 cold, from the effects of which he suffered acutely, 
 being under constant medical treatment from that 
 time till he left for San Francisco. Few of his pa- 
 rishioners knew how ill he was during the last three 
 weeks of his stay in Hartford, having, for two Sun- 
 days previous to the last, only left his bed to perform 
 public services, returning to it as soon as they were 
 over. The exertion and anxiety consequent upon re- 
 moval, packing furniture, &c., were exceedingly ex- 
 hausting to him ; but as he was enjoined in the call 
 to California to make as much haste as possible, he 
 allowed himself no rest in preparation for the steamer 
 of the 20th of July. His physician said that medi- 
 cine was of little avail while his mind and his time 
 were so occupied, but recommended the sea voyage, 
 and thought that when once " off soundings " he 
 would be well again. 
 
 His last sermon was commenced late on Saturday 
 evening, after a week of incessant toil ; and, when 
 finished, he was so exhausted by the effort that noth- 
 ing but the excitement of the occasion enabled him 
 to deliver it. " His deathly paleness was remarked 
 by many, who, ignorant of what he had gone 
 through, attributed it wholly to his feelings at part- 
 ing with his people. This parting, no doubt, tended 
 to depress him, but he was fitter at that moment for 
 the seclusion of a sick chamber than for the services 
 of the pulpit. His discourse was, however, delivered 
 with more than his usual energy, and to a crowded 
 house, many having come then who never entered 
 
48 MEMOIR. 
 
 the church before. Expressions of regret at his leav- 
 ing came alike from all denominations, and to his 
 people the occasion was one of the deepest sadness 
 and bereavement." 
 
 The strong feeling of respect and attachment en- 
 tertained towards their pastor was manifested in 
 public and private. The following resolutions were 
 unanimously adopted and placed on the records of 
 the church. 
 
 " Whereas, the Rev, Joseph Harrington has tendered his 
 resignation of the pastoral charge of the First Unitarian 
 Congregational Society of Hartford : And whereas, its ac- 
 ceptance by the society is deemed a suitable occasion for 
 expressing the fraternal and respectful regard cherished by 
 us towards him : Therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, That in his connection with us, since the com- 
 pletion of the church, he has attracted to himself the full 
 measure of our confidence, esteem, and friendship. 
 
 " Resolved, That while his extensive acquirements and 
 eminent abilities will amply commend him to all that frater- 
 nize with us in religious sentiment, we shall take pleasure 
 in bearing record of him as a gentleman estimable and ex- 
 emplary in all the walks of social life, as a minister of supe- 
 rior endowments and attainments, as a religious teacher of 
 reliable and acceptable Christian doctrine, and as a pastor 
 assiduous, affectionate, and faithful in the discharge of his 
 various duties. 
 
 " Resolved, That while this society reluctantly accepts 
 the resignation of Mr. Harrington, it cherishes unwavering 
 faith in a prosperous future, and at the same time it cannot 
 but hope that the sphere of the usefulness of Mr. Harring- 
 ton will be extended by his proposed withdrawal to a new 
 field of labor. 
 
MEMOIR. 49 
 
 " Resolved, That we cordially unite our best wishes for 
 his future success and happiness, and fervently invoke 
 Heaven to shower upon him its choicest blessings. 
 
 " Resoloed, That the secretary transmit a copy of the fore- 
 going resolutions to Mr. Harrington, and cause the same to 
 be published in the daily papers of this city." 
 
 The following extracts from a sermon preached 
 after the decease of Mr. Harrington, by Rev. Charles 
 Brooks, before the Hartford society, give an interest- 
 ing account of him as a minister. 
 
 " In a community where a profound philosophy of human 
 life, a divine right of mental freedom, and where Christian 
 hopes of a true millennial glory are as common as household 
 words, Mr. Harrington was born and educated. He breathed 
 these principles wherever he went, and they made him what 
 he was, and they are calculated to make such persons. 
 They present no obstructions to the utmost expanse of mind 
 and heart. Both intellect and affection develop under their 
 influence as naturally as the petals of the rose unfold and ex- 
 pand beneath the sunshine and the dew. I have stated 
 these facts and made these remarks, because they furnish 
 the only proper position from which the taste, opinions, and 
 character of our friend can be viewed. 
 
 " With these truths before us, let us look at some of the 
 salient features of his mind and heart. 
 
 " You remember his zeal for the improvement of com- 
 mon schools, and the extension of education. You can 
 now see that he would have been a traitor to his own train- 
 ing and his own faith if he had folded his arms in idleness 
 and unconcern. All voices in your city, — the public pa- 
 pers and your valedictory resolutions (unanimously voted in 
 your parish meeting), all unite in saying that he conferred 
 permanent benefits on the schools, by elevating the standard 
 5 
 
50 MEMOIR. 
 
 of teaching and multiplying the means of improvement. 
 That his heart was in the work, is proved by the fact that 
 the children delighted to see his pleasant face, and hear his 
 rich, musical voice in their school-rooms. A bad man can- 
 not win the permanent love of children. 
 
 " You remember the affluence of his conversation 
 during his parochial visits. He was a genial spirit, and 
 loved to talk. So remarkable was his eloquence in social 
 debate, that he would at times throw over his thoughts a 
 drapery of illustration as glorious as the flush of morning 
 on the western hills. Commanding a wide compass of 
 phrase, his extemporaneous sermons had a freshness and 
 electricity which touched all hearts. It is said that ' he 
 never missed the right word.' This is no small praise in 
 our community, where we daily witness such random heap- 
 ing of turgid epithets. Few can always command the 
 word that geometrically covers the idea. Many of us, in 
 pensive mortification, are obliged to carry our diamonds in 
 broken baskets. 
 
 " He was a man of affairs, and could manage business 
 well. With this part of his character, I became personally 
 acquainted during his mission to Massachusetts, last winter, 
 to gather funds for liquidating your parish debt. In this, he 
 seemed to me to be a man of good judgment, sterling integ- 
 rity, and indomitable perseverance. He was not for look- 
 ing back, when the journey lies forward. Throughout that 
 arduous and unwelcome service he bore himself like a 
 scholar, like a gentleman, and like a Christian. He knew 
 that he was laboring for a people who could appreciate his 
 efforts. Full to overflowing with his subject, I marked the 
 courteous gravity and gentle patience with which he repeated 
 the details, whenever requested. His public ' Appeal ' 
 showed his tact ; it was mercantile and short, just the two 
 qualities to win our ' merchant princes.' Your gratitude to 
 
MEMOIR. 61 
 
 him I know is deep and hearty. By his success, he has 
 connected his name for ever with your church, and you will 
 rejoice to transmit it in your permanent records. 
 
 " Not devoted to metaphysics, he preferred to preach 
 about the common ideas and pursuits, the common wants 
 and hopes of man. As he was gifted in understanding the 
 common affairs of the world, and discerning the ruling mo- 
 tives of men, there were few who could preach better on 
 this text : ' Thou art the man ! ' With sin, in every form, 
 he held no parley, made no compromise. You can testify 
 to his fidelity. 
 
 ' Thou knowest how bland with years his wisdom grew, 
 And with what phrases, steeped in love, 
 He sheathed the sharpness of rebuke.' 
 
 " Knowing how the masses think and feel, he could look 
 from their angle, and therefore his appeals were full of prac- 
 tical philosophy and common sense. If he had faults of 
 style, they arose from having too many words and too 
 many rhetorical figures. 
 
 " As an expounder of the Sacred Scriptures, he was cau- 
 tious and faithful, bringing to his aid all the light he could 
 find in the wide circle of differing commentators, believing 
 that others were as sincere as himself, and perhaps more 
 learned. He was a prayerful student of the Book of books. 
 His reverence for it prevented him from touching the harp 
 of the Prophet with that unholy violence which snaps its 
 chords. He left the place of his birth, where the conflict 
 about doctrine had nearly ceased, and came here, where it 
 has just begun. He brough twith him the light of truth, 
 sanctified by the warmth of love. The weapons of his 
 warfare were Scripture and argument, 7iever ridicule or de- 
 nunciation. He did not believe that slander or fagots have 
 the essence of persuasion in them. His ruling aim was to 
 
52 MEMOIR. 
 
 express the whole will of God, and declare the whole Gos- 
 pel of Christ, regardless of human creeds or worldly suc- 
 cess. He went with his whole soul for the whole Bible, and 
 that made him higher and deeper and broader than all sects. 
 He was 
 
 ' That freeman whom the Truth makes free.' 
 
 " You will long remember his extraordinary power in 
 reading the Sacred Scriptures. So thoroughly did he ap- 
 prehend their meaning, that his reading of them had the 
 value of a commentary. His prayers, too, — how varied ! 
 how fervent ! how humble ! In the administration of the 
 sacred ordinances, he adhered to the simplicity there is in 
 Christ, and left the complexity there is in men. 
 
 " In his parochial duties, he was genial at the marriage 
 feast, tender in the chamber of sickness, and sympathizing 
 in the house of sorrow. His religion could be better de- 
 fined by the word love, than justice. 
 
 " Perhaps his peculiarity was his wholeness. He seemed 
 a fortunate blending of all the forces, physical, intellectual, 
 and moral. There were none of those ragged projections 
 which mar symmetry. The intellect, as well as the pas- 
 sions, was subjected to conscience, and conscience was en- 
 throned as God's representative in human nature. This 
 favorable adjustment of parts and harmonious action of 
 powers made his judgments seem to others like common 
 sense and natural truth. When a man thus fits the world, 
 and the world fits him, his decisions may be relied on. 
 
 " We do not suppose that he was infallible, or that he was 
 without the imperfections which may grow out of a deci- 
 sive, hopeful, and masculine character. Shadows are a 
 consequence of sunshine. 
 
 " There are several pleasing traits on which I have not 
 time to speak, and there are many ties which bound you to 
 him which your hearts can feel better than I can describe. 
 I know you will do justice to both. 
 
MEMOIR. 53 
 
 " We come, then, to this conclusion : that he was a wise 
 man, a good scholar, a warm friend, a safe counsellor, an 
 eloquent preacher, a faithful minister, and a devout Chris- 
 tian. The conscientious convictions of such a man, result- 
 ing from mature examination, are entitled to respect. Let 
 us glance at a few of them. 
 
 " He was a conservative, and not fond of aeronautic ex- 
 peditions in theology. In essentials, he was for unity, in 
 non-essentials, for liberty, and in all, for charity. Rejecting 
 all creeds of human device, he accepted the Bible, the 
 whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, as his creed. Ac- 
 cordingly, he believed that there is one God, the Father. 
 That the government of this world, and all worlds, is pater- 
 nal, and that it is as just for God to be merciful as it is mer- 
 ciful for him to be just. He believed in Jesus Christ as the 
 promised Messiah, the one Mediator between God and man, 
 the divine Teacher, the all-sufficient Saviour, the visible Rep- 
 resentative of God, who is invisible. He believed that 
 every child is born pure, and that Christ said what was true 
 when he declared that ' of such is the kingdom of Heav- 
 en.' Moreover, that the child, under proper Christian nur- 
 ture, will grow up a Christian, and that the development of 
 the moral character and spiritual life will be as natural as 
 the growth of the plant, or the progress of the seasons. It 
 would obey a great law of nature. He believed that man 
 is philosophically and morally free, — free to think, free to 
 will, free to act, — and is therefore responsible ; that he is 
 placed in this world at school, schooling for eternity, and 
 therefore has the making of his own character, and that his 
 character here determines his condition hereafter. He be- 
 lieved that error is mortal, and cannot always live ; truth 
 immortal, and can never die. He believed that God's grace 
 is unpurchased and free ; that the terms of pardon and re- 
 demption are offered, ' without money and without price,' 
 5* 
 
54 MEMOIR. 
 
 to every sinner ; that heaven is open to every holy and pi- 
 ous mind ; that God will give his sanctifying spirit to all 
 who truly seek it, and will at last render to every man ac- 
 cording to his deeds. 
 
 " With such a faith, and the character that such a faith 
 makes, no wonder that he was selected as the fit expounder 
 of enlightened and rational Christianity to the wide-awake, 
 independent, and exposed Unitarians of San Francisco. 
 He was emphatically the man for that important mission." 
 
 Mr. Harrington left Hartford on the 14th of July 
 1852, to visit his friends in Roxbury before setting 
 out for California ; and on the 20th, he, with his 
 wife and daughter, took passage from New York in 
 the steamer Illinois for Aspinwall. During the voy- 
 age, he suffered much from debility, but attributed it 
 to the effects of sea-sickness. Although there was 
 no rough weather, he could sit up but little, and was 
 ill-fitted to endure the hardships of the route across 
 the Isthmus to Panama. An extract from Mrs. Har- 
 rington's account of the journey says : — 
 
 " Words have no meaning when attempting to describe 
 our three days' travel from Aspinwall to Panama. The de- 
 bilitating atmosphere, wretched, dirty food, and miserable 
 lodgings, added to the excessive fatigue, making it almost 
 unendurable for persons in full health and strength. We 
 rode on mules from Cruces to Panama, a distance of twenty 
 or twenty-five miles. We started at seven, A. M., and rode, 
 with only once dismounting, till half past nine, P. M. The 
 road was in its worst state, and Mr. Harrington's mule, in 
 struggling through the mud, twice broke the girths and 
 threw him off". During the first three hours the rain fell in 
 such torrents as can only be seen in tropical climates, and 
 
MEMOIR. » 55 
 
 \vc were, of course, thoroughly drenched. Arriving at Pan- 
 ama, we were put, ten or twelve (ladies and gentlemen in- 
 discriminately), into one room, with dirty cots to lie on, and 
 no means of washing or of changing our clothes." 
 
 The steamer in which their passages for San 
 Francisco had been engaged having been jfilled up 
 with United States troops, they were compelled to 
 wait six days at Panama. 
 
 Mr. Harrington had been assured, before leaving 
 New York, by persons on whose statements he had 
 reason to place implicit reliance, that the fever which 
 was said to prevail at that time on the Isthmus was 
 confined almost exclusively to low and dissipated 
 travellers and the laborers on the railroad, and that, 
 with proper caution, there was no more danger then 
 than at any other season. This statement was in 
 some degree erroneous, and as it proved, it was im- 
 possible to guard against exposure and over-fatigue. 
 
 There were many cases of Panama fever on the 
 voyage to San Francisco ; and though none of these 
 proved fatal among the cabin passengers, there were, 
 from this and other diseases, a number of deaths 
 during the passage. At five of the burials at sea 
 Mr. Harrington officiated, and he exerted himself to 
 the utmost to console the bereaved, who in several 
 instances were left entirely alone in the world. 
 
 On the last Sunday of the voyage he was for the 
 first time able to preach. His sermon, which was 
 extempore, was on the " God-given power of the 
 human will for self-discipline." 
 
 They reached San Francisco on the 27th of Au- 
 gust, where they found kind friends ready to greet 
 
56 MEMOIR. 
 
 them and welcome them heartily to their new 
 home. 
 
 On the following Sunday he preached in the 
 United States District Court Room, to a large num- 
 ber of persons. This was a most delightful surprise 
 to him. Accustomed to small beginnings, he had 
 not expected so large a congregation ; and in the 
 course of the week he was gratified to learn that he 
 was wholly acceptable in his new pulpit. 
 
 The next Sunday, the Court Room was so crowd- 
 ed that many went away, unable to procure seats. 
 A large hall was afterwards engaged as a place of 
 worship ; and although it was feared that it would 
 prove too large, the first service determined that even 
 this would not comfortably seat all who came. Here 
 Mr. Harrington preached three Sundays, occupying 
 the intervening weeks in making acquaintances 
 among his new society, and also among other de- 
 nominations. In that freer, broader atmosphere, 
 where the narrow bonds of sectarianism loose their 
 hold, the cordial hand of brotherhood was extended 
 to him by ministers of differing theological opinions, 
 giving him, for the first time since his entrance into 
 the ministry, the happiness of unrestrained associa- 
 tion with the clergy. 
 
 The Building Committee now became much in- 
 terested in the project for a new church, and Mr. Har- 
 rington entered warmly into their plans. But his 
 health failed him, and after struggling manfully 
 against the evil which had been long threatening 
 him, he was obliged to yield to the diseases whose 
 combined force he could not resist. 
 
MEMOIR. 57 
 
 But the account of his ilhiess can be best given in 
 the words of her whose privilege it was, after a 
 happy union of nearly eleven years, enriched by an 
 ever-increasing store of mutual love and respect, to 
 stand by his bedside, adnriinistering and receiving 
 comfort to the last. 
 
 " From the moment of arrival, he was in health less and 
 less himself. He had one or two attacks of slight ilhiess, 
 commencing with chills, which confined him to his bed for 
 a day or two at a time ; and his friends and physician said 
 that he was passing through an acclimating process, and 
 that it might be a month or two before he was quite restored. 
 The fact that almost every one goes through acclimation 
 after arrival, more or less severe, was the reason that his 
 symptoms did not cause more alarm. 
 
 "About the first of October his debility seemed to increase ; 
 a short walk fatigued him so much, that he was obliged to 
 lie down after it, and all exercise was disagreeable to him. 
 At last he complained of constant chilliness, and one even- 
 ing, after returning from a call, he went to bed shivering 
 violently. A burning fever ensued, accompanied by severe 
 pains in the limbs and back, and intense headache. His 
 physician pronounced his disease Panama fever, but without 
 aggravated symptoms. On the third day he was seized 
 with congestion of the heart, which resulted in paralysis, 
 from the waist down. His prostration was then so great, 
 that he could not turn his head or raise his hand ; but 
 from that time he suffered no severe pain. 
 
 " After the first night of this excessive weakness, he first 
 spoke to me, with great solemnity, of the possibility of not 
 recovering, calmly expressing his wishes with respect to 
 certain business matters, in that event. I strove to do 
 away with such thoughts, as neither myself nor the physi- 
 
58 MEMOIR. 
 
 cian had any apprehensions at that time as to the result of 
 his illness ; but his seriousness was not changed, and I now 
 believe that from that time his conviction was, that his end 
 was at hand. He seemed to see at a glance through the 
 efforts at lively conversation by his physicians, in order to 
 induce him to relinquish the idea of his danger ; and one 
 day, in particular, after one of the consulting physicians 
 had been telling the news, and giving an animated descrip- 
 tion of late occurrences, which he thought might engage 
 his attention, he turned to me and remarked : ' Dr. Merritt's 
 motto is. Encouragement.' He watched his own symptoms 
 closely, counted his own pulse, watched the effect of all 
 medicines, and knew from hour to hour the slightest change 
 in his case, as well as if he had been a physician. Through- 
 out his entire illness his mind was appai'ently as clear and 
 active as when in health. 
 
 " He seemed utterly at rest in spirit, reposing unhesitat- 
 ingly in God's will. I once asked him if he regretted in 
 any event that he had come to California. He replied, ' No, 
 — the call was from God ; I did my duty ; I would not but 
 have come.' Perfect calmness possessed him, — ever 
 grateful for favorable symptoms, — ever unmurmuringly 
 resigned in discouraging change. He prayed constantly 
 and fervently for entire submission on the part of both^ in 
 the event of separation, and his faith was unfaltering in re- 
 union beyond the grave. 
 
 " On one occasion, when incidental reference was made to 
 a person who had treated him ill, he said ' all resentment 
 is iviped aioay.'* 
 
 " He never forgot, in his hours of extremest pain or weari- 
 ness, the comfort of those who were watching with him ; 
 caring lest they should become exhausted through fatigue, 
 or lest, through their devotion to him, their business or their 
 home duties should suffer. He also constantly contrasted 
 
MEMOIR. 59 
 
 his own sick bed (surrounded by wife and friends) with 
 many others in California, whose suffering occupants en- 
 dure alone, and die far from all that their hearts hold 
 dear ; and for the three weeks that he lay on ' his bed of 
 languishing,' not a murmur, not an expression of impa- 
 tience, fell from his lips. 
 
 " With the paralysis, the disease which had caused him so 
 much suffering before leaving Hartford [inflammation of the 
 kidneys] , reappeared ; and though from the deadening of 
 the nerves of sensation he suffered no pain, yet the symp- 
 toms were aggravated and unaffected by medicine. The 
 physicians considered that he suffered from a complication 
 of diseases, each influencing the other. At this time there 
 was but slight change in his general symptoms. He re- 
 gained the use of his limbs a little; but there was no return 
 of sensation to the spine. 
 
 " Owing to his being much disturbed by the noise of work- 
 men, engaged in making additions to the hotel in which we 
 boarded, the physicians advised his removal to some quieter 
 place, and accordingly, on Saturday, October 30th, he was 
 carried a short distance to the house of his generous friend 
 and parishioner. Captain F. W, Macondray. We watched 
 anxiously for the efiect of this exertion upon him, but we 
 could not see that it was other than beneficial. When he 
 uncovered his face after being laid on his new bed, it wore 
 such an expression of pleasure, that Dr. Merritt remarked, 
 'Why, Mr. Harrington, we will move you every day, if it 
 improves you so much.' 
 
 " The next morning (Sunday) Dr. Morrison found him 
 much better. He had passed the night in great comfort, 
 and his general symptoms were highly encouraging. The 
 doctor observed, ' You have nothing to do now, Mr. Har- 
 rington, but to get xcell as fast as possible.' During the 
 day, the news of his being better spread rapidly, and many 
 
60 MEMOIR. 
 
 friends called to congratulate me on the happy change. 
 Joseph himself seemed gratefully, prayerfully, accepting life 
 anew. 
 
 " When the doctor came to see him, about len o'clock that 
 night, he found a great alteration in his pulse, and every 
 indication of rapid sinking. He only intimated his fears to 
 one person, — the friend who was going to watch the latter 
 part of the night. I went to bed after midnight, in the ad- 
 joining room, entirely unconscious of any change. 
 
 " In the morning he was evidently so much worse that all 
 my fears returned. Three additional physicians were 
 called in, but they could suggest nothing to stay the precious 
 life that was fast ebbing away. Joseph watched their faces 
 as they examined pulse, tongue, and skin. Question seemed 
 unnecessary ; their countenances were hopeless. When I 
 returned to the room after a short absence with the phy- 
 sicians, and stood back of his pillows, that he might not 
 observe the emotion which could not be controlled, he 
 turned his head quite round to see me, saying, ' Ah ! you 
 cannot conceal those tears.' From this moment he ac- 
 cepted death in the same spirit in which he had received 
 the prospect of returning life. With respect to the dear 
 ones he must leave behind, he said he had no fears, — God 
 would provide for them. During the day he remarked, 
 ' I don't think of myself ; I feel only for my bereaved 
 wife and child.' And again, ' Tell my dear mother that 
 I loved her devotedly, and always loved her.' 
 
 " Among his associates, with whom he had conversed fre- 
 quently while at San Francisco, upon matters of opinion 
 and faith, was an Episcopal clergyman, who did not believe 
 that the faith of a Unitarian would support the heart at the 
 hour of death. He stood at his bedside in silence. 
 'Brother Moore,' said the dying Christian, 'One of us 
 lieth low, and the other standeth erect, through the will of 
 
MEMOIR. 61 
 
 the same merciful Father. I go willingly, — joyfully, — 
 all through a glorious Saviour.' 
 
 " Once he said, ' I fear the Lord has marked me for his 
 own.' ' No,' said I, ' you trust, you do not fear.'' ' O 
 yes!' he replied, fervently, — 'perfect trust and perfect 
 submission.' 
 
 " Gradually he grew weaker in body, but his clear con- 
 sciousness never forsook him ; he fully appreciated his 
 dying state. 
 
 " He had always had a great dread of physical pain, and 
 now, while speaking to me of the slight comparative suffer- 
 ing of his illness, he added, 'Oh, if it would please the 
 Lord to let the last hour be without agony ! ' And his 
 prayer was answered in mercy. God took him gently to 
 himself. The last words he spoke were in recognition of 
 his child, ' My own darling little Nelly ! ' 
 
 " At eight o'clock in the evening (Tuesday, November 
 2d, 1852), he passed serenely to his eternal reward. 
 
 " From the commencement to the end of his illness, he 
 was surrounded by every comfort that devoted friends 
 could furnish or wealth procure. Not only to the family of 
 his hospitable parishioner, and to his own congregation 
 generally, was he an especial care, but friends of all de- 
 nominations vied with each other in kind attentions and 
 faithful watchings. The house was perpetually thronged 
 with anxious inquirers and eager offerers of service ; and 
 if love were strong to bind on earth, he must have been 
 spared. 
 
 " The burial service was conducted by Rev. Mr. Hunt, 
 of the Orthodox church. He used (by request) the ' ser- 
 vice ' of the Unitarian Church of St. Louis, and made a 
 beautiful and touching address upon the character, life, and 
 death of his lamented brother." 
 
62 MEMOIR. 
 
 The remains of E-ev. Joseph Harrington were in- 
 terred at San Francisco, November 4th, 1852, and 
 at Forest Hills Cemetery, Roxbury, Massachusetts, 
 December 13th, 1853. 
 
 The news of his death spread sadness over the 
 hearts of many, who, even in a short acquaintance, 
 had become strongly attached to him ; and in various 
 parts of the country, where Mr. Harrington had been 
 best known, obituary notices appeared in the religious 
 and secular newspapers, expressing profound grief 
 for his loss, a just appreciation of his learning, and 
 admiration of his power and eloquence as a preacher. 
 
 The loss to the society at San Francisco seemed 
 irreparable ; and their sentiments were expressed 
 in the following resolutions, passed on the 8th of 
 November, at a meeting of the Unitarians of that 
 city. 
 
 " Resolved, That the death of our beloved pastor, the 
 Rev. Joseph Harrington, has impressed us with the pro- 
 foundest sorrow. 
 
 " Resolved, That whilst we bow in submission to this most 
 afflicting dispensation of Providence, we cannot but feel 
 that we have lost the head of our church ; one who was 
 pre-eminently fitted to be the pioneer of our fahh upon the 
 Pacific, and around whom might well cluster all the hopes 
 and efforts of our new society ; while our city has lost one 
 whose influence, both as a Christian minister and a prac- 
 tical philanthropist, would have been wide-spread and highly 
 beneficial. 
 
 " Resolved, That the brief but delightful connection 
 allowed us with our departed pastor and friend has en- 
 deared him to the hearts of all of us, and taught us how to 
 appreciate the greatness of their loss who were connect- 
 ed with him by the ties of natural afTection. 
 
MEMOIR. 63 
 
 " Resolved, That we sincerely sympathize with the family 
 of the deceased in the distressing bereavement which 
 has befallen them and us, and offer to them our heart- 
 felt condolence in our common misfortune. 
 
 " Resolved, That these resolutions be entered in the rec- 
 ords of our society, and copies transmitted_^ to the family of 
 our late pastor. 
 
 " George V. Noyes, Secretary.'''' 
 
 " So passed from earth to heaven God's gifted 
 and faithful servant." 
 
 From the time when he prayerfully consecrated 
 himself to the work of the ministry, all events 
 assumed to him a religious aspect, and every nerve 
 and fibre of his mental constitution seemed pene- 
 trated with the etherial spirit of Christianity. 
 
 Romance, touched by celestial fire, was trans- 
 formed into that beautiful devotion which for ever 
 united him to her in whose arms he breathed his 
 last. The heroic elements of his character infused 
 vigor, resolution, energy, and fortitude into those 
 efforts which would otherwise have disheartened 
 him. His magnanimity spread a genial atmosphere 
 around him. His devoted ness to duty saved him 
 from embarrassments, and generosity to others re- 
 lieved him from anxious concern for the worldly 
 interests of those who depended on him. 
 
 Throughout his ministerial life, filled as it was 
 with changes and self-sacrifice, he felt no misgivings, 
 — no want of confidence in an overruling Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 He was sure that all was for the best, and he ad- 
 vanced from one labor to another with enthusiastic 
 
64 MEMOIR. 
 
 earnestness and trust, with absolute resignation to 
 God's will, and anxious only to live nobly and do 
 his duty. 
 
 It would be difficult to find any instance of more 
 entire self-renouncement; or of more childlike sub- 
 mission to the dictates of conscience. 
 
 From all those instincts of the heart that made 
 his youth romantic, chivalrous, and even magnan- 
 imous, he advanced to those far higher and nobler 
 qualities that made his manhood religious. His 
 powers being consecrated to the service of God, he 
 knew no happiness but in doing His will. 
 
 He died in the prime of life, with the most bril- 
 liant prospects of usefulness before him, admired, be- 
 loved, and reverenced. The light of his example 
 still shines upon us, although the orb itself has been 
 withdrawn from our hemisphere. 
 
SERMONS 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 YE CALL ME MASTER AND LORD, AND YE SAY WELL, FOR SO X AM 
 
 — Jolm xiii. 13. 
 
 I TAKE comfort, and I find strength, in this dec- 
 laration of Jesus of Nazareth. My heart welcomes 
 every expression and every act that vindicates the 
 lofty, the unquestionable authority of Christ. 
 
 What can be the strength of that disciple who 
 goes to Jesus, carrying in his own bosom the test 
 whereby to weigh Jesus's claims, and determine his 
 authority, — acknowledging it sufficient or insuf- 
 ficient, as it finds response in his own sympathies 
 or intuitions ? This is applying the civil theory, 
 that the specific form of government, and the special 
 officers who are to govern, shall be determined by 
 those who are to be the subjects of the government. 
 Consequently, if these subjects unite to condemn 
 and overthrow an existing government, or particular 
 rulers, the act is a release to them of all homage 
 and service. 
 
 As I interpret Christ's position and relation to 
 God and to us, this theory is barred out from every 
 
68 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 estimate of his sovereignty. The divine right to 
 rule inheres in Jesus Christ. His dominion is abso- 
 lute. We have no pleas of personal and inalien- 
 able prerogative, whereby we may limit or abate 
 that dominion. I do not recognize our competency 
 to say, " Our judgments protest against such or such 
 precepts ; we do not find this or that counsel agree- 
 ing with the instincts of our natures ; the internal 
 evidence of the propriety or wisdom of this injunc- 
 tion, or of that act, is not sufficient to convince us, 
 therefore to that extent we reject the authority of 
 Christ." 
 
 I counsel no intellectual servitude. I know the 
 unhappy consequences of an assent to claims 
 against which the heart protests. I know that there 
 can be no life in faith, and no fruits of obedience, 
 where either is the product of a necessity, and not of 
 a cordial impulse. 
 
 But there is a certain frame of spirit in which we 
 should approach Jesus of Nazereth ; and if we admit 
 the verity of the records that speak of him, — if we 
 receive the facts of his transcendent mission, and of 
 his celestial relations, — if we recognize him as the 
 presence of a supernal power, the light of a divine 
 wisdom, and the expression of a heavenly love, — 
 we cannot fail to stand meekly before him ; and if we 
 question, to question not captiously, not curiously, 
 not selfishly, but with a solemn anxiety, and with a 
 spirit that feels that it may be dealing with mys- 
 teries not to be too minutely dissected, — not to be 
 impatiently and sceptically "interrogated. 
 
 I say this, yet abating no jot of reverence for the 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 69 
 
 majesty of reason, no jot of faith in the necessity of 
 an intelligent and sifting scrutiny of the highest and 
 most peculiar propositions, whether pertaining to 
 this or to the other worlds, whether to human or 
 to superhuman creatures. 
 
 I repeat, we all of us need, in larger measure, the 
 recognition that Christ has entered into the world 
 as by divine rig-ht ; that he comes to claim a throne, 
 that he seats himself thereon to rule and judge, 
 and that the seal of his right to this august sover- 
 eignty is the will of God, — that the end of this as- 
 sumption of power is the unlimited and the unresist- 
 ed control over our whole being, and that the spirit 
 and purpose of this inauguration into supernal 
 authority is the deliverance of our souls from sin. 
 
 When Christ, then, says, " I am your Lord and 
 Master," I interpret him to mean that he is our 
 authoritative moral and spiritual Ruler, — without 
 reserve and without question, supreme over this 
 realm of the soul (of course theoretically under God), 
 but supreme because utterly under God ; in spirit and 
 aim coincident with him ; in action and life mani- 
 festing him practically standing to us as God; and 
 that he leaves for us only reverence and submission ; 
 admitting the liberty to determine and to compre- 
 hend, as best we may, luhat he did say, or what he 
 did do, thereafter giving us no freedom but to per- 
 form what we find to be his will. 
 
 Is it anywhere manifest that the Saviour per- 
 mitted the wisdom or the righteousness of his words 
 or acts, to be questioned ? that he under any circum- 
 stance doubted the competency of his teachings, or 
 
70 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 the fitness of his course ? that he took any counsel 
 of man or admitted any responsibleness to man ? 
 Can we suppose that Peter's protestations ever 
 modified his acts? or that Matthew's good sense 
 ever shaped his judgment ? or that John's fine in- 
 stincts ever guided his sympathies ? or that James's 
 practical turn ever gave a more useful or efficient 
 direction to his love ? 
 
 If there be one fact conspicuous above another in 
 the life of Christ, it is his independence of human 
 suggestion. He is himself the fountain of the wis- 
 dom of others, — the inspirer of their hearts, and the 
 director of their practice. To God alone did he ap- 
 peal ; and God vouchsafed to him a sagacity, a holi- 
 ness, and a benignity, that were beyond the council, 
 as beyond the full comprehension, of men. 
 
 I feel then painfully at variance with that theology 
 which styles Christ our brother. Such phraseology 
 may not indicate any less experience of the power 
 of the Gospel in the individual heart ; but it inti- 
 mates a conception of the nature and relations of 
 Christ which seems to me to contradict the facts of 
 his history, and to be inconsistent with the aim and 
 the efficacy of his mission. In one sense we are the 
 brethren of Christ. Pie so styles those who do the 
 will of God. In view of the only self-existent one, 
 the universal Father, the whole family of created 
 intelligences, including angels, archangels, and Christ 
 himself, may be said to be brothers, and in the enun- 
 ciation of a truth, as antagonistic to some signal 
 misstatement, it may be properly said that we are 
 brethren of Christ. Thus, to an assertion that we 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 71 
 
 were all formed by Christ, as the author of our be- 
 ing, it would be a fitting answer that Christ is our 
 brother in derivation from, and in dependence upon, 
 and in obedience to, the one God. There is also a 
 limited relation under which we may speak of our- 
 selves as the brethren of Christ, as when his merely 
 human aspects are taken into view. 
 
 But beyond this, such phraseology grates repul- 
 sively on my ear. Christ is the centre of my religion, 
 — not merely the author of my philosophy, and the 
 exemplar for my life ; and the very words that pic- 
 ture him to me, must lift him above my soul, and 
 invest him with reverence ; then, as by fulness of 
 faith, and outflow of affection, and effort to catch 
 his spirit toward God, I may feel myself brought 
 into a loving contact with him. It may be that I 
 shall delight to think that he regards me as a broth- 
 . er, yet I cannot even then say, in my heart to 
 Christ, Thou art my brother. 
 
 " One is your master, even Christ ; and all ye are 
 brethren." This, then, is the title and the position 
 of Jesus of Nazareth. Most Christians concede to 
 him this nominal dominion. It will be profitable to 
 inquire into the nature, the sphere, and the reality of 
 the sovereignty. 
 
 1. First, what is the nature of this sovereignty ? 
 It is not an authority over names and shows and 
 places, or even acts. It has nothing of the nature of 
 a civil magistracy. It can inflict no direct penalties ; 
 it can grant no reprieves, no commutations, and no 
 remissions of sentence. It can employ no force, for 
 the very element of its power is the free will of its 
 
72 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 subject. Its nature is purely spiritual and loving 
 and gracious. When it speaks, it is with such a 
 tone as inflames no resistance ; when it conquers, it 
 exalts, not for itself, but for the victory of its subject j 
 when it is contemned, it sadly and solemnly warns, 
 not as if guarding its own mocked sceptre, but as if 
 in compassion for the wretchedness which the foolish 
 rebel is laying up for himself. 
 
 All heavenly in its nature is the authority of 
 Christ. It is clothed with the attributes that encircle 
 the Deity. His power is its right arm ; his truth is 
 its open path ; his justice is its crown; his holiness 
 is its robe ; his mercy is its heart. 
 
 2. And what is the sphere of this sovereignty of 
 Christ ? The outermost circle of its scope is not 
 approached by any form of homage, however elabor- 
 ately prepared, however gorgeously accompanied, — 
 at whatever cost of toil, of taste, of art, of wealth. 
 It acknowledges no ecclesiastical system as machin- 
 ery through which it is to compel allegiance. It 
 prescribes no immutable opinions as the high roads 
 over which its benefactions must pass, — it does not 
 deck itself in lawn or scarlet, in cassock or mitre, 
 and refuse its grace to such as doubt the sanctity of 
 its vestments. It has no exclusive chain of anoint- 
 ed hands, through which the electric current of its 
 blessing flows. It holds no special audience in 
 vaulted cathedrals, and at gilded altars. No propri- 
 eties of worldliness, no exactness of habits, no arma- 
 ment of theology, no sectarian zeal, no resorts of 
 prudence, no decencies for example's sake, no tributes 
 from the intellect, are its true subjects, — they can 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 73 
 
 never be naturalized into its realm. No I The 
 sphere of the sovereignty of Christ is the broad, the 
 simple, the humble field of human aifections, — the 
 varied domain of human experiences. What we 
 think, what we purpose, what we feel, is the realm 
 over which Christ assumes sway. Consequently, 
 however beset by ignorance, or enlarged by knowl- 
 edge ; though hemmed in by poverty, or lapped in 
 the ease and elegances of wealth ; though creeping 
 unnoticed from our cradles to our graves, or climbing 
 the ascents of power and fame ; though plodding 
 wearisomely through the shades of sorrow, or bound- 
 ing under the bright sky of success ; careworn or 
 careless ; confiding or distrustful ; recklessly sinning 
 or penitently serving, — we, our hearts, our souls, are 
 the sphere for the sovereignity of Christ. 
 
 3. But now as to the reality of that sovereignty ! 
 What must it be to be real ? What is to make 
 Christ truly Lord and Master of the soul ? 
 
 It would seem as if some thought that this our 
 nominal sovereign might be beguiled, by the shows 
 of homage, into the belief that he was enthroned in 
 their hearts. They pass in reverential procession 
 before him, — they salute him with frequent bend- 
 ings of the knee, — they sing his praises with no 
 stinted voice, — they cry to him, Lord! Lord ! But 
 is Christ blind, that he does not see through this 
 hollow service ? And do you, who render it, imagine 
 that in that hour, when you stand knocking at the 
 bolted portal of your sovereign's jjalace, you will fare 
 better than did the foolish virgins, who knocked at 
 the shut door of the marriage dwelling? 
 7 
 
74 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 There are some, too, who seem to imply by their 
 course that they would entitle themselves to the 
 benefit of Christ's sovereignty, by giving him the 
 place of power, while they retain to themselves the 
 substance of it. Such are those who constitute their 
 prejudices or their passions a kind of ministry or 
 college of councillors, who virtually discrown their 
 monarch, make him the instrument through which 
 they, under spiritual pretexts, give laws to the realm 
 of the soul. What perversion does selfishness often 
 incite of the sanctions of the Gospel ! How do 
 greed, love of pleasure, appetite, uncharitableness, 
 wind insiduously or rush defiantly to their ends, yet 
 as under the standard of the sovereign Christ ! 
 Shun any such deliberate disobedience as this. Do 
 not feign, brethren, to honor the Lord and Master ; 
 if you would thus deliberately give laws to your- 
 selves, — if you would seek to qualify or to interpret 
 loosely, or to pervert in application, any, the lightest 
 precept of the Saviour. The guile of the heart has 
 devices enough ; its impulses, energy enough ; its 
 indifference, hardihood enough, to attempt this, in- 
 dependently of any deliheraie encouragement on 
 your parts, whenever the desires look one way, the 
 restrictions of Christ another. But there is no real- 
 ity to his supposed sovereignty in your hearts, so 
 long as this practical disloyalty remains. Give him 
 the substance as the name of power. 
 
 Again, Christ's sovereignty, to be real, must be 
 continuous. He cannot be enthroned to-day and 
 dethroned to-morrow, and re-established in dominion 
 the third day. There is no such thing in the soul of 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 75 
 
 man as such vicissitudes of authority. Will the 
 mob that riots through the city one hour return to 
 peaceful duty the next, alternating between lawless- 
 ness and order ? No ! the authority of that city is 
 defied, and anarchy is within its borders. So Christ 
 is no longer Lord and Master of that soul, that, under 
 whatever inducement, deliberately suspends the rule 
 of his precepts. It is one thing, frail disciple, for 
 you to trip in your selfish haste, to be seized by some 
 fierce impulse, and be hoodwinked and borne on 
 suddenly to evil, or to be beguiled by a seductive lie 
 into abnegation of your allegiance, — and it is an- 
 other thing for you, deliberate offender, to seek, 
 though but for an instant, to evade the eye of your 
 Sovereign, or daringly to defy it. There was misfor- 
 tune under the former circumstances, and extenua- 
 tion of guilt ; under these circumstances, there is 
 hard, cold, unpardonable sin. 
 
 Still again ; the sovereignty of Christ is real only 
 as it is universal. It is possible for the monarch 
 over a confederated people, consisting of divers 
 tribes, to maintain complete dominion over most of 
 them, v/hile one shall have risen in rebellion, and 
 shall have absolutely defied his rule. They may be 
 at peace among themselves, and may lend to their 
 Sovereign their full power, in aid of his effort to re- 
 duce the disloyal province. 
 
 But, unhappily for any solace for sin, there is no 
 such division among the powers of the soul as will 
 permit a portion of them to acknowledge the sover- 
 eignty of Christ, while a part may disallow it. 
 The soul is one. All its faculties are welded to one 
 
76 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 consciousness. The act of the man, being the exe- 
 cution of his will, is the act of the whole man. If 
 there be disloyalty in one deed, it is for the time 
 being, not the insurgency of a single province, but 
 the uprising and the anarchy of the entire realm. 
 
 The Scriptures warn us against our " easily be- 
 setting sins " ; but all who only grant to Christ a 
 limited, which is an unreal sovereignty, give him 
 rule merely over the sins which do not easily beset 
 them, — which never seriously and do not frequently 
 tempt them. "While in the direction of their most 
 signal frailties, or their most exacting desires, they 
 reserve jurisdiction to themselves. " All these have 
 they kept from their youth up, — all these they still 
 keep," but the cankering lust that is eating at their 
 souls, — that secret carnal affection, whether of pride, 
 or selfishness, or sensuality, or covetousness, this they 
 cannot banish, and they " go away sorrowing," from 
 the injunction of their master, and practically abjure 
 his sovereignity. 
 
 Alas! my brethren, the law of Christ within us 
 must remain unbroken ; his reign must be uniform, 
 permanent, and unlimited, or it is not real ; and if it 
 be not real, it is nothing. 
 
 When, then, finally, we come to bring the ques- 
 tion home, of the reality of Christ's sovereignty in 
 our own bosoms, the best of us may well return a 
 look of sorrowful doubt. Is Jesus of Nazareth our 
 " Master and Lord ? " Let the history of our daily 
 life reply. What is there of the spirit of Christian 
 consecration in it ? What is there of systematic 
 effort to do the Master's will? If, as our courier 
 
CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 77 
 
 traverses the territories of our experience, he finds, 
 hei'e, anxieties that have their origin in pure worldli- 
 ness; there, material cares, that are crowding irrev- 
 erently around the throne of the Sovereign ; noiu, 
 peevishness, ill-temper, uncharitableness ; then, the 
 pursuit of an unlawful pleasure or unlawful gain ; 
 here, something of deceit ; there, something of pride, 
 and so on, well may that messenger bring back 
 tidings of a slack and doubtful allegiance. 
 
 My friends, it is your Lord and Master here, within 
 these sanctuary walls, and under the lowlier roofs of 
 your dwellings ; he is your Master in these public 
 ministrations, and in the musings of your secret 
 hearts. He is your Master through the whole round 
 of your duties, whether the business of the street, 
 the workshop, the counting-room, the public office, or 
 the obscurer cares of the household. He is your 
 Master in every personal and private act, and in any 
 act that affects your neighbor. He is " Lord and 
 Master " of your speech and of your conduct, and 
 of the unbetrayed purposes and aims of your hearts. 
 He is Lord over your tempers, your ambitions, your 
 joys, griefs, perplexities, and successes. He is the 
 one Supreme guide to the way of your souls to ever- 
 lasting life. Will you permit your mournful indiffer- 
 ence to his benignant rule ? Will you set up your 
 gods of wood or metal, of strange device, instead of 
 him ? Do you love the chains which bind you to 
 an illusive earthly joy rather than the free allegiance 
 that gives you the range of Heaven ? So, abjuring 
 Christ, you disallow the blessed reign of God in 
 your souls. 
 
78 CHRIST OUR MASTER AND LORD. 
 
 Happy they who take upon themselves the vows 
 of allegiance unto " Master and Lord " ! Blessed, 
 unspeakably blessed they, if they keep those vows ! 
 May God defend the sovereignty of his Son in their 
 hearts for ever and ever. 
 
 " And now unto the King eternal, immortal, and 
 invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory 
 through Jesus Christ for ever." 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 GOD WORKS IN YOU. 
 
 WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION WITH PEAR AND TREMBLING ; 
 FOR IT IS GOD Wnicn WORKETH IN YOU BOTH TO WILL AND 
 
 TO DO OP ms GOOD PLEASURE. — Philippians ii. 12, 13. 
 
 In the first clause of this text the Apostle enjoins 
 a duty ; in the latter clause he offers a reason and an 
 encouragement for the performance of the duty. 
 The duty is the " working out of our own salvation." 
 The encouragement is the " working of God within 
 us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." 
 
 1. Let us first consider the encouragement. God 
 works in us. It seems to me that no one, not spe- 
 cially hardened in vice, or signally insensible by na- 
 ture, can fan to admit this ; and even such a one will 
 probably acknowledge that there have been times 
 when it would have falsified his experience to deny 
 an inward working of God. 
 
 I do not seek to penetrate the mystery of con- 
 sciousness, to define how the Deity makes himself 
 felt within us. But the fact itself it is essential to 
 admit. Whatever theory of dej^ravity be adopted, it 
 must recognize this universal interior operation of 
 the Deity ; for depravity, after all, consists in a defect 
 
80 GOD WORKS IN YOLF. 
 
 or a perversity pertaining to the luill as the executive 
 force of the man, as the positive character, rather 
 than to any natural condition of being which may 
 be said to lie beneath and behind the will. It is not 
 depravity, a culpable sinfulness, to have an inward 
 chamber within which God's Spirit never dwelt or 
 spoke. It is depravity, that man, consciously wit- 
 nessing this inner presence and hearing this inner 
 voice, should yet set them at naught. 
 
 This interior flame, like the Promethean fire, 
 seems to come with life from Heaven. Once was it 
 made supernaturally visible. Before and since the 
 miraculous era it has been known only by its divine 
 heat and light within the consciousness. 
 
 And it burns despite a neglected or a perverse ed- 
 ucation. Probably never one grew to manhood, 
 whatever were the circumstances of his birth and 
 culture, who did not, at some time, feel himself the 
 subject of a divine possession. He may not have 
 known it by the name, divine. He may not have 
 acknowledged the possessor as God, but it was as a 
 presence, a foreign presence, a law, authoritative and 
 solemn, resisting him, clashing with his purposes, 
 bidding him toward other objects, and into other 
 directions, and convincing him that obedience would 
 be the only wise, right, happy course. And as he 
 withstood and finally vanquished this counsellor, and 
 sinned, he felt that he was a loser by his victory, and 
 that he had driven from his heart his truest friend. 
 
 Do not our daily experiences attest this fact of 
 a Divine presence ? How suddenly and powerfully 
 are we affected by thoughts, by resolves, to be ac- 
 
GOD WORKS IN YOU. 81 
 
 counted for by no laws of association, but in their 
 influences and results, if we heed them, fruitful of 
 the purest joy. How are outward scenes and cir- 
 cumstances, changes, disappointments, &c., made 
 to awaken feelings and enkindle desires whose end 
 is blessedness. If the tempter urge us to a base or 
 a wicked action, to dissembling and corrupting 
 words, to impure or selfish imaginations, there is a 
 protest heard from the monitor within, which re- 
 minds us of our allegiance to honor, chastity, disinter- 
 estedness, candor, uprightness ; or more strongly, and 
 all in one of our allegiance to the law of God. And 
 when we deliberate between the wrong and the right, 
 such sweet encouragements are made to surround the 
 latter, such blessings wait to crown our sinless de- 
 cision, that Heaven seems to open itself with visible 
 inducements to us to determine in the fear of the Lord. 
 In short, it is manifestly the desire and interest of 
 God, so to speak, that we should cleave to Him. 
 So he guards and warns and admonishes and afllicts 
 and allures, that we may be persuaded into right- 
 eousness. 
 
 Now this is the sublimestand most moving fact of 
 life ; it is the glory of the poor, infirm creature ; and 
 if we fully realized it, it would signally aid us to do 
 that great thing which the Apostle enjoins, namely, 
 work out our own salvation. 
 
 For what can more effectually inspire us to turn 
 with faith and love to another, than the knowledge 
 that he is pouring out his affection upon us, and en- 
 circling us with his helps ? Let a son forsake his fa- 
 ther's house, and wander in strange lands, and sur- 
 
82 GOD WORKS IN YOU. 
 
 round himself with loose associates, and every hour 
 transgress the sacred precepts and violate the most 
 ardent wishes of that father ; yet suppose evidences, 
 all along the wanderer's path, continually presenting 
 themselves, of regard, anxiety, and watchfulness on 
 the part of the neglected parent, — a letter here, a 
 message by a friend there, a book in one place, a 
 portrait in another, and so on. If the sense of this 
 entreating love, this unselfish care, this warning over- 
 sight, do seize upon that thoughtless young man's 
 heart, will it not be likely to subdue him, and bring 
 him to his father's feet again ? It must have its effect 
 whenever felt. 
 
 Just as distinctly is God hanging up within the 
 chambers of your hearts, and scattering along the 
 path of your affections, the tokens of his gracious 
 desire for your return to his house. It is not possible 
 for him to comjiel your return. Your moral consti- 
 tution admits persuasion only. But what forebod- 
 ings, what compunctions, what hesitations, marking 
 the path of evil on the one hand; what deep satis- 
 factions, what kindling thoughts of holy things, what 
 unutterable exultations, crowding the way of obedi- 
 ence on the other, go to make up that persuasion. 
 
 I can conceive that a sense of abandonment by 
 God, of being left entirely to one's own moral way 
 as if there were no care what sins, what miseries the 
 wayward soul were heaping up for itself, might 
 make the trangressor reckless, might awaken a vin- 
 dictive perseverance in evil, or might dull the spirit 
 to everything except a sense of resistless fate. But 
 what obligations which a thousand lives could not 
 
GOD WORKS IN YOU. 83 
 
 fulfil, which stoniest natures can alone deny, bind ns, 
 the ever watched, entreated children of God, to adore 
 Him in faith and obedience, and to work out that 
 salvation to which He inspires us. 
 
 2. Again ; this fact of an inworking God goes fur- 
 ther than merely to encourage with a sense of inter- 
 est and care on the part of the Deity. It offers the 
 still more effective encom'agement of direct aid to 
 our spiritual effort. God not only dwells with us 
 inwardly, but he works with us constantly. He is 
 not an idle observer, but an active co-laborer. 
 
 Let us turn back to our days of childhood. Can 
 we not remember how large and discouraging certain 
 tasks appeared to us, until the friendly hand of the 
 parent made the burden light, — not by lifting it so 
 that it should not press, but by the electric touch of 
 its sympathy, and by its presence there to steady us 
 if we staggered, and to relieve us of the weight if it 
 threatened to overtask our powers. Do we not re- 
 experience, in the effect of our assurances of aid 
 upon our oivn children, the blessed power of faith 
 in a helper ? 
 
 Is there not, then, for you who would forsake 
 your sins and work out your salvation, the most 
 abundant encouragement ? True, you approach the 
 effort in full sight of your numberless infirmities. 
 You cannot fail to recall, too, many endeavors that 
 have ended in disappointment. It seems a moun- 
 tain-height, a steep acclivity ; and you have but 
 weak and vmcertain limbs for the climbing. But — 
 and all is as nothing before this consideration — it is 
 not you, but God that will do the work, swelling 
 
84 GOD WORKS IN YOU. 
 
 your mortal sinews with heavenly strength, and giv- 
 ing his angels charge, that you dash not your foot 
 against a stone. O, work of sorrow and exhaustion, 
 and final failure, if dependent only on human pur- 
 poses ! but work of joy, and ever-freshening energy, 
 and of cumulative success, if performed in the faith 
 of a helping God ! 
 
 3. There is still another direction in which the en- 
 couragement presented by the text may be viewed. 
 
 Every person who seriously sets about the work 
 of religion has anxiety to know the quality of acts 
 and inward states which would naturally be pre- 
 sumed to enter into that work. As theologies run, 
 this is not the easiest task. Many a one has been 
 startled to be told, that efforts which he was humbly 
 making toward a Christian life were worse than 
 profitless, — that they indicated only a reliance on 
 personal, earthly instrumentalities for salvation ; 
 which must inevitably remove him who employed 
 them farther from God, — that certain interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture, particular views of Christ, and so 
 forth, were indispensable to safe exertions in behalf 
 of spiritual deliverance. 
 
 The text sheds all the light on this point that can 
 be needed ; and, by scattering doubts, throws open 
 a happy path for spiritual effort. It teaches the soul 
 to despise no emotion, no conviction, no purpose, no 
 act, no toil; whose end is the purification of the 
 heart, — the fulfilling of the Gospel law of love, — a 
 nearer communion with Christ, — a living faith in 
 God. The text renders presumption and self-trust 
 impossible. While it stamps true religious efforts 
 
GOD WORKS IN YOU. 85 
 
 as of divine quality, it refers the source of that qual- 
 ity, not to the human agent, but to the co-working 
 Deity within. It assures the meek laborer for the 
 meat that perisheth not (though in the face of a 
 thousand creeds) that the labors which he call s his 
 own are yet God's, — that the way which he him- 
 self, through his faith and prayers and watchings 
 and self-denials, seems to have opened for his prog- 
 ress, is yet the path which the Holy Spirit has 
 marked and prepared for him ; and that the salvation 
 which his endeavors would seem to be successfully 
 working out is but a blessedness offered by Infinite 
 Grace and achieved by a heavenly Power. 
 
 But it is time to turn to the first clause of the 
 text, — to the duty enjoined in view of the encour- 
 agements presented. That duty is the " working 
 out of your own salvation with fear and trembling." 
 
 Without doubt, mysterious are the processes of 
 the soul, — mysterious the relation which God sus- 
 tains to it. Here we are enjoined to work out our 
 own salvation and we feel that every w^ork, re- 
 ligious or otherwise, is our own, — yet are we as- 
 sured that that very work is God's, and we feel, — 
 yes, our whole souls bear witness to the fact, — that 
 it is God's. Let this tremendous mystery pass, — 
 we cannot fathom it. There is a practical truth 
 here which we can fathom, and closely does it press 
 upon each of us. 
 
 The whole responsibility of our salvation is thrown 
 directly upon ourselves. The appeal is to our own 
 determinations, to our own anxious, assiduous, and 
 persistent toil in the religious life. In short, we are 
 
86 GOD WORKS IN YOU. 
 
 called upon to work out into salvation the elements 
 which God has first created within us. There is no 
 salvation for us, except it be this of God's preparing ; 
 yet all this divine preparation is not salvation^ except 
 it be diligently and tremblingly loorked out by our- 
 selves. God throws open the prison-doors, — our 
 deliverance lies in our own going forth. God paints 
 on the soul the image of righteousness, — • sanctity is 
 the solid sculpturing of the inner type, into the mar- 
 ble of purpose, habit, action, life. God fills the 
 heart with persuasions, salvation is the practical con- 
 version of these into convictions, which may rule 
 and hallow the soul. No man is an inventor througb 
 whose thought the plan of a supposed invention 
 merely has passed. In the model it may a hundred 
 times fail. So no aspiration, and no supposed inspi- 
 ration (though embodied, it should prove to be the 
 very tracing and breath of God), is of any moment, 
 unless embodied. And to be embodied, it must 
 harden into Gospel substance, — a substance heard 
 in words, seen in deeds, manifest in feelings; the 
 very pith and marrow of daily, hourly practice. 
 This is what is meant by " working' out one's own 
 salvation." It is like any other work in its draft 
 upon the energies and devotion of the being ; only 
 transcending all other toils, as it exceeds all other 
 interests, in the solemnity and duration of its issues. 
 1. Therefore as a first specific suggestion, you 
 may not wisely trust for salvation to any sentiment 
 or theory, or gushing impulse, or chivalric imagina- 
 tion. If the flaming up of a genuine divine fire 
 within you will not of itself save you, surely these 
 
GOD WORKS IN YOU. 87 
 
 earthly glows, these flashes from lower lights, will 
 not do that service. Sunshine and rain, both from 
 the sacred sky of grace above us, indispensable to 
 the life of the soul, will yet not start a single nutri- 
 tive germ into growing, unless the practical energy 
 of the man, the out-working culture of the man, do 
 its full, necessary part. The sunshine and the rain 
 are blessings indeed, if, like resolute and prudent 
 husbandmen, you labor for these practical ingather- 
 ings of faith ; but give heed lest you convert these 
 mighty helpers into the very sources of your spiritual 
 sterility, by trusting, like indolent gleaners, to the 
 products which they call into spontaneous activity. 
 
 2. Again, it is not working out your salvation to 
 confide your spiritual interests to one who preaches 
 to you and prays with you upon the Lord's days. 
 If God himself, working within you, cannot save 
 you, except you yourself work, surely man has no 
 power to save you. You are not fettered by the 
 grosser forms of superstition, yet you may not be 
 wholly free from the senseless trust which is the soul 
 of superstition. When sickness, or death, or sorrow, 
 is in your dwelling, you give your pastor peculiar 
 welcome. It is well. A brother's real sympathy, 
 and his ready offices, are grateful to the suffering 
 spirit ; but you are none the nearer heaven that he 
 is at your side. And in the funeral hour, saving 
 that the customs and decencies of society are better 
 observed by his presence, it is no better for you and 
 yours, that he raises his voice in supplication. Just 
 so far as he helps you to open i/our soul before God, 
 — just so far as by leaning on him, you are gaining 
 
88 GOD WORKS IN YOU. 
 
 strength to walk alone, his companionship is pre- 
 cious. His highest function, his best success in 
 whatever circumstances, is through his sympathies 
 and suggestions, to lead you to that personal labor 
 whose end is salvation. 
 
 A distinguished criminal, lately executed in Eu- 
 rope, was informed that he had but a few hours to 
 live, and that he had better attend to the affairs of 
 his soul. " Ah ! that is the priest's concern," an- 
 swered he. From this reply we infer that he had 
 the blind faith of the Romanist. But there is some- 
 thing of the spirit, the practical working of this faith 
 throughout Christendom. It has some sway where 
 least suspected, though in forms less irrational than 
 this. But, by the terms of this text, we see that 
 though Christ, "the Lord from heaven," were min- 
 ister at an earthly altar, he could only help men to 
 " work out their own salvation." His purity could 
 not bear their sins, nor could his faith be their justi- 
 fication. 
 
 What is termed Sabbath-day religion, an occa- 
 sional putting on of devout habits, is a gross species 
 of this faith in a vicarious agency, as if the sanctu- 
 ary and its forms, the Bible with its words, the day 
 with its usages, could confer salvation, — could 
 throw immortal blessedness, like a robe, over unwil- 
 ling and indifferent souls. 
 
 3. But there is another point upon which I would 
 speak. The whole spirit of the text is violated, by a 
 certain relation, which the soul is sometimes urged 
 to sustain to Christ, — yes, even to Christ. In this 
 relation there is (speaking in general terms) no 
 
GOD WORKS IN YOU. 89 
 
 " working out" a salvation. It is a relation, first, of 
 superstition, founded upon faith in the priestly func- 
 tion ; next, it is equivalent to a salvation sought by 
 inward emotion, not by vital sanctity, by practical 
 righteousness. Still further, it is as a salvation 
 hoped for, through an external, vicarious agency. 
 All the fallacies of religious method, the foolish, 
 human expedients to furnish a siihslitiite for sober 
 ^'■ivork " of the soul are concentered in this relation 
 to Christ. 
 
 There was lately held up to us the mental condi- 
 tion and the language of a prisoner of a neighbor- 
 ing city, soon to pass from the cell to the gallows, — 
 one, who certainly had been a deliberate, merciless 
 villain, — and we were bidden to rejoice in the dem- 
 onstrations of a regenerated heart; in the saving 
 relation established between the criminal and his 
 Lord. Here was an example of a leaning of belief 
 toward the unapostolic way of salvation of which I 
 have spoken. And when I read the further state- 
 ment, that that prisoner desired not to live, — that he 
 would probably refuse a pardon if offered him, be- 
 cause he was eager to be with his Lord, and share 
 his blessedness; — and when it was manifest that 
 this statement, put forth by a minister of the Gospel, 
 was supposed to express the most natural, and the 
 most certain condition of salvation, — the highest 
 and truest relation to Jesus Christ, — I could not re- 
 press a sentiment of amazement, not to say horror. 
 It seemed to me as if, under such an interpretation 
 of the soul's duty, the moral universe were losing its 
 axis of motion and its very orbit around the Deity. 
 
90 GOD AVORKS IN YOU. 
 
 It seemed as if such a belief were tearing away the 
 very foundation-stones of the Eternal's throne. 
 Either St. Paul knew nothing of the stupendous 
 topic upon which he wrote, or a faith like this is a 
 terrible, terrible error. 
 
 The doctrines of death-bed repentances, of re- 
 generation in mortal perils, of deliverance through 
 spiritual convulsions, of heaven taken by force of 
 passions that rarely have value on earth, are the 
 fruits of this faith. It disparages a serene life of 
 trust, patience, and duty ; it cares little for the 
 " ivorking out of your own salvation." 
 
 I admit that regeneration is the result of a super- 
 natural force upon and in the soul, and therefore 
 not to be judged as from the premises and sequen- 
 ces of common experience. But even this super- 
 natural force has its limits, its directions, its de- 
 mands for cooperative energy, its fitness for the life 
 and soul of the believer, and is not to be looked upon 
 as an arbitrary meteor, flashing through God's firma- 
 ment, falling under no Gospel law, and playing 
 mockery with the whole spiritual system. 
 
 Let me say this much in admission, with respect 
 to the case to which I have alluded. If the reputed 
 change of that wretched man were such, as, if he 
 had lived, would have secured earnest and humble 
 efforts after a Christ-like life, then that change was 
 a transformation of soul. That such a change may 
 have then occurred, or might under similar circum- 
 stances occur, I do not deny. But to intimate that 
 such a case is according to the common law of 
 revelation is to set an Egyptian pyramid upon its 
 
GOD WORKS IN YOU. 91 
 
 apex, and say that so its architect intended it to 
 stand. 
 
 But O blessed faith in Christ, as the living; 
 daily inspirer of the soul ! Who can declare its 
 power, its joy, its immortal fruits I 
 
 Finally, " work out your own salvation ivith fear 
 and trembling ^^ ; that is to say, with deep and 
 solemn anxiety. And you will do this, when you 
 know the value of a life of sanctity and a death of 
 disciplined faith. In proportion as the magnitude 
 of your spiritual interests falls within your view 
 will you feel an increasing solicitude about this 
 great work, for which you were called into being, 
 and for which an immortality is granted you. That 
 you are so bound to the very spirit of God, in these 
 your labors, will render them august, and surround 
 them with hallowed anxieties ; and the earnestness 
 and watchful apprehensions with which the votaries 
 of the world seek their raiment and meat will cause 
 you to reflect whether a similar devotion is not de- 
 manded for that " body " which " is more than rai- 
 ment," and for that " life " which " is more than 
 meat." 
 
se:rmon III. 
 
 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 niS LORD SAID UNTO HIM, " WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL 
 SERVANT ; THOU HAST BEEN FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS, I 
 WILL MAKE THEE RULER OVER MANY THINGS ; ENTER THOU INTO 
 THE JOY OP THY LORD." — Matthew XXV. 23. 
 
 Christ came into the world to save the whole 
 family of man. His kingdom must embrace Gen- 
 tiles and Jews ; those from the east and from the 
 west, from the north and from the south, — every 
 tongue and kindred and people and nation. The 
 providence of God is every moment over the whole 
 earth and all its inhabitants. This universality of 
 interest, of care, and of grace, is one of the teach- 
 ings of revelation, is one of the marks of the 
 Fatherhood of the Creator. 
 
 Of course all theories, treatises, schemes, that 
 have for their end the well-being of man, take their 
 scope from the Gospel ; that is, they look to the 
 benefit of all mankind ; and some political econo- 
 mists, making philanthropy the basis of their plans 
 and systems, would adjust them for the benefit of 
 no one people, but for the world at large. 
 
 Active reformers often pursue something of this 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 93 
 
 method. They aim at the good of large commu- 
 nities ; they speak to the ear of the multitude ; they 
 write for the eye of the million. The man of 
 abounding energy and large sympathies, overleaps 
 his little domestic pale, and seeks to throw his ac- 
 tivity into a broader sphere. 
 
 Such aims are surely not to be condemned; 
 especially when they spring from the wide charity of 
 the religion of Christ. Every heart ought to enter- 
 tain them. There are those to whom such a broad 
 and general field of labor is, as it were, their special 
 province, — possibly, they could work efficiently 
 within no narrower circle ; if so, God meant them 
 for just such work, and just such work for them. 
 
 But, ordinarily speaking, the true theory of a safe 
 investment of human labor is, that it should be ap- 
 plied to one point, and within a smaller circle. No 
 human faculty is infinite. Stretched too far, its 
 power is exhausted. The eye that seeks a very wide 
 horizon, sees distinctly neither that which is far off, 
 nor that which is near. We are very feeble creatures ; 
 each one of us is an aggregation of infirmities ; yet 
 so bound together by a mysterious organism, that 
 acting, each of us in his legitimate sphere, we pos- 
 sess powers of resistance and powers of usefulness. 
 Acting beyond such a sphere, our infirmities seem 
 to be unbound, and to stand singly in their weak- 
 ness and uselessness in the world's way. 
 
 It is a common remark, that men who engage in 
 many schemes fail in all.« Seen from a worldly point 
 of view, those are the best prospered who have not 
 scattered their capital or their energies over too 
 
94 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 many objects. He has become the richest man, 
 and most securely rich, who acquainted himself 
 with one department of business, adhered to it, 
 gave to it his time and patience and sagacity ; shut 
 up his hopes and fears within it, and made sacri- 
 fices to it. When he forsook the tried path for a 
 wider area, the single end for a multiplicity of ob- 
 jects, the deep channel in which his energies rolled 
 on with a strong current, for the wide flats over 
 which they spread in feeble waves, he became 
 weak, distracted, and iinjwosperous ; and lost, per- 
 haps, all that he had won, in days of more prudent 
 activity. 
 
 So has it been with all arts and all professions. 
 A universal genius is rare ; but a universal genius, 
 eminent in each of many arts, and many professions, 
 has never existed. The painter, though a being of 
 vivid imagination, has miserably failed, when he has 
 sought to throw his imagination into written poetry. 
 The poet, who has forsaken the epic or the sonnet 
 for the landscape or the portrait, has found his fame 
 perpetuated, despite his attempts with the brush. 
 Modern peirfection in the mechanic arts, progress in 
 inventions and sciences, are due to the fact that 
 men are discovering the limitations of their faculties, 
 are dividing labor into sections, and are giving to 
 such sections the whole of what was once dis- 
 tributed over the entire field of labor. 
 
 We turn now from these general observations to 
 the consideration of our personal moral duty ; and 
 it seems to me, that our charge upon the earth is, to 
 be faithful to a few things. We may look abroad 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 95 
 
 upon this world, and especially with a Christian 
 light falling upon the field of vision, we may see 
 many painful objects, many corrupt usages, many 
 social evils, wicked systems and institutions; great 
 curses, lying in the public habit or passions or appe- 
 tite or ignorance, and we may say. Let us help to 
 do away these things, — let us make an inroad into 
 this dominion of Satan, and rescue some victims 
 from his grasp. Let us read upon these subjects, 
 let us write upon them, let us give money for deliv- 
 erance from these evils, let us plan and agitate to de- 
 stroy them, let us imitate the good providence of 
 God, which dispenses its blessings through all zones 
 and over all tribes. But I repeat, again, we are in- 
 firm creatures; we cannot take the world in our 
 arms, they are short and weak. The first law of 
 our life, the only certainty of doing anything with 
 success, lies in learning our appointed field of duty, 
 in determining what are the few things which God 
 has laid before us as the work of life ; then in bend- 
 ing to that work the muscle of the body, the zeal of 
 the heart, and the faith of the soul. 
 
 There is nothing in this limitation of industry 
 that encourages the selfish idea. I do not say that 
 we must begin with ourselves, continue with our- 
 selves, end with ourselves, for this would be faith- 
 lessness to the few things that God gives us. This 
 narrow circle, in which I maintain our chief duties 
 lie, may and must involve thoughtfulness of others, 
 and sacrifice of self. It is only circumscribing the 
 pool, so that you may agitate the waters all the 
 more thoroughly for others' healing. And this high 
 
96 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 blessing attends such fidelity in the few things, 
 that, despite your very self, your success here is your 
 most emphatic success abroad and elsewhere. 
 
 Still, here is one of ambitious energy, who is dis- 
 posed to complain and say, " The world is given me 
 to plough and sow my seed in, and gather my har- 
 vests from ; I can do nothing with this little patch of 
 soil." Let me reply to him, " Take your spade in 
 hand, go out upon that little patch of soil, and turn 
 it into a garden, and let your neighbor do so on your 
 right hand, and your neighbor on your left hand, and 
 the whole world will become a garden, blooming 
 with flowers and bending with fruits. There is a 
 peculiar power in working within modest limits. 
 Your industry is an example, your patience and 
 method are contagious, while you do not impair your 
 influence by awakening a sense of intrusion. 
 
 Life offers boundless illustrations of this thought. 
 Imagine a state, in which the desire is to realize the' 
 highest advantages of a political community. What 
 constitution, however wise and liberal ; what civic 
 organization, embracing courts and police ; what so- 
 cial methods, in the way of associations and fraterni- 
 ties ; what aids and instrumentalities of any form could 
 so perfect such a state, as the assigning to every man 
 his duty, and every woman her duty, and bidding 
 them be faithful to the few things over which they were 
 set ? You might constitute all the citizens a committee 
 of vigilance over each other ; you might enjoin upon 
 each one to take care that the republic received no det- 
 riment ; yet you might produce nothing but anarchy 
 and ruin. But you could not make the citizen a 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 97 
 
 committee of vigilance over himself, and secure his 
 diligence that none around him failed of the blessings 
 which his care and labor could produce, without 
 making a happy community and a perfect state. 
 Indeed, this would be social perfection, almost 
 without a state. The machinery of government 
 in this case would be simply a matter of conven- 
 ience. 
 
 Take any one of the professions, — the legal, for 
 example. Here is a lawyer who has the noblest ap- 
 preciation of his calling. He reverences law, as the 
 embodiment of the progressive wisdom, and the 
 careful experiment of past and present times. He 
 sees it as that invisible force that guards the order 
 and peace of communities. He sees it as the de- 
 fence of justice and of liberty. He would spread its 
 power, he would establish it in the reverence of so- 
 ciety, he would rescue it from the hands that would 
 discrown it and make it minister to selfish aggran- 
 dizement or to cupidity. He would do this for the 
 good-will he bears to the world. What seems to be 
 his duty, with such views? How could he most 
 effectually accomplish his noble end ? Not by lec- 
 turing on the ethics of jurisprudence ; not by a peri-' 
 patetic crusade against the low motives and mean 
 shifts in legal practice ; but by setting the example 
 of his own loyalty to the divinity whose minister he 
 is ; by embodying in his life the spirit of that glori- 
 ous system of which he is a functionary and a rep- 
 resentative ; by being faithful throughout his whole 
 course, from the filling of the smallest writ to the de- 
 livery of the weightiest plea, — to the canons of 
 
98 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 uprightness and equity, which the law virtually em- 
 bodies. Such a man carries sanctity into a court; 
 inspires juries with principle ; embarrasses and de- 
 feats fraud ; shames the disloyal ; and circulates 
 something of his own noble purpose through every 
 artery of this great system of justice. 
 
 And he does more than this. His position is one 
 oi far-reaching- power. He teaches the community. 
 His fidelity in a feiv things is his rule over many 
 things. Every profession is purified by him. Every 
 trade is blessed by him. His life is a better tract 
 than he could write. His integrity and purity are 
 better benefactors of his race than if he went about 
 scattering broadcast the words and deeds of a general 
 philanthropy. 
 
 Again, who is the best conservator of probity and 
 of exact justice in dealings between man and man? 
 Who can most faithfully instruct as to the sacred- 
 ness of property ? Who can most effectually weaken 
 the selfish principle in the community ? Who, above 
 all others, can establish usages that shall secure pru- 
 dence and moderation in enterprise, caution in incur- 
 ring responsibilities, promptness in the discharge of 
 debts, a considerate and liberal spirit in all pecuniary 
 transactions ? I answer, the punctual, conscientious, 
 humane merchant. If every merchant, from the 
 heaviest importer to the pettiest retailer, were to 
 labor by the law of exact justice and of kindly ac- 
 commodation, how would the whole mercantile sys- 
 tem become a network of uprightness, and benevo- 
 lence even, to entangle the fraudulent and the selfish ! 
 A single pattern of incorruptible honesty through all 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 99 
 
 varieties of mercantile intercourse is a constant in- 
 spirer of upright intention. It straightens many a 
 path which would be otherwise tortuous. It but- 
 tresses many a tottering conscience, and it sends out 
 its influence through buyers or sellers, — sometimes 
 forward, through their methods of traffic, and some- 
 times backward, into the dealings of the household: 
 Let the young men that serve him as apprentices 
 and clerks find a discipline for their moral natures 
 in the unspoken lessons of his daily scrupulousness; 
 and, instead of becoming familiarized with artifices, 
 whose success is to be their gain, they are taught 
 that gain purchased by such artifices is dishonor and 
 guilt. 
 
 In short, practical honesty has no better helper on 
 the earth than such a merchant. Reproaches go 
 forth from him against tricks and shufflings of every 
 sort, and in all callings. While he apparently con- 
 veys the necessaries or the luxuries of life from the 
 producer to the consumer, he is in truth also circu- 
 lating a living sense of justice and of mutual obli- 
 gation. 
 
 The same principle applies to the ministerial pro- 
 fession. He most helps the boundless kingdom of 
 Christ who most faithfully labors in the little prov- 
 ince of his own parish. All ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tions, in which pastors of churches might engage ; 
 all associative enterprises, for whatever purposes, 
 whether for the spread of doctrine, or the diffusion of 
 practical truth, or relief from infirmity and peril, or 
 deliverance from crime, can accomplish their high 
 ends with less certainty than can the pastors indi- 
 
100 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 vidually, by their faithful spiritual ministrations 
 among their own people. 
 
 Suppose, for a moment, that every Christian teach- 
 er throughout this our land had no other end in view 
 than the spiritual regeneration of the souls under his 
 care, no lateral issues to distract him, no merely sec- 
 tarian methods or ends to forward, no desire to build 
 up himself or his people except upon the ruins of un- 
 godliness and error, — build them up in the power of 
 a charitable, pure, devout, and self-denying Gospel. 
 Who could tell the result in all the highest graces 
 and the widest triumphs of Christianity ? 
 
 Providence conveys unmistakable intimations of 
 the direction and sphere of our several duties. Every 
 one is appointed a feio things for his oversight in 
 life. There is, as we have seen, the special calling of 
 the individual, and there is, moreover, the home with 
 which the individual is connected ; and still further, 
 there is the individual himself. These are, so to 
 speak, microscopic circles of labor and responsibil- 
 ity ; but, taken together, these circles fill out the sur- 
 face of all human interests, and cover the whole area 
 upon which God's earthly providence falls. 
 
 To you, then, whatever be your calling, however, 
 in your own view, humble and limited, however 
 cramping and disagreeable, and poor of recompense, 
 still, make that calling, so long as you are in it, your 
 moral field. There are the " few things " over w^hich 
 God has set you stewards. In that calling you may 
 grow inwardly noble, or inwardly mean and selfish ; 
 you may fit yourself for holy communings or foul 
 companionship. If no other living creature be inter- 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 101 
 
 ested in or connected with its vocation (which is not 
 probable), its moral significancy is not thereby de- 
 stroyed, nor are its moral facilities worthless ; iox you 
 are connected with it, and others are connected with 
 you ; and you have a heart to watch over and a soul 
 to save, and so have they. 
 
 Occasionally, in the experience of life, instances 
 are met with of such an interpretation of the nar- 
 rowest and hardest lot as actually transfigures the 
 most repulsive forms of labor, an interpretation as 
 luminous among the common views of toil as is the 
 candle in a dark place. There is no Apostle of the 
 highest charities upon earth, who might not receive 
 inspiration from this lowly faith. " To think," once 
 said, in substance, a poor creature, " that God does 
 not disdain to train up my soul for everlasting life, by 
 means of these my poor cares and hard toils ! Here 
 I can ' do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before 
 God,' and here the light of my Saviour shines to help 
 me." And while she thus walked in righteousness, 
 who can tell how far her " little candle threw its 
 beams," how much richer the world was for her good- 
 ness and her faith, how much she had helped its 
 dwellers to find the kingdom of God. 
 
 But further ; God has connected the most of you 
 with homes. Through these, you are indissolubly 
 related to others. Woman, within this sphere lie 
 most o{ your coxes and responsibilities. Within this 
 beautiful, this holy sphere ! Are there any of you 
 who ever think that, because your homes are not 
 splendid, therefore they are of inferior quality in the 
 eye of God ? and that, therefore, all that is lovely 
 
102 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 and noble and heavenly cannot be developed within 
 them ? Has that babe that lies upon your knee the 
 less of a soul than if its parents were crowned mon- 
 archs, and its attendants were peers ? Does God 
 love it the less ? Does he spend his providence upon 
 it the less ? Did the Saviour die for it the less ? 
 You may be poor, but because of this are you insen- 
 sible to all the hopes and fears, all the anxieties, all 
 the joys and griefs, that so solemnly and so awfully 
 agitate life ? No ! there is a comfort or two less 
 among the provisions of your household, there is a 
 luxury or two less to satisfy your artificial desires, 
 there is a spangle or two less upon your garments, 
 to feed your vanity, — but yom* moral texture is as 
 rich a velvet in the sight of God as is the tissue 
 of a royal soul ; and his angels have as earnest 
 a charge concerning you as concerning the rulers 
 of empire. 
 
 The round of your cares is wearisome. Some of 
 these cares seem petty and purely mechanical ; and 
 as a mere matter of discrimination, you may call 
 them drudgery. But I say first, if these duties are 
 necessary, and must be done by you, let them not be 
 annoying through your querulousness, nor dull be- 
 cause you will not seek to read their meaning. They 
 will find even beauty from the light of the Gospel. 
 Think of them, as a part of the training-service 
 of your tempers, of your contentment, and of your 
 faith. This earth needs every pebble upon its sur- 
 face, to keep its balance in its great path around the 
 sun. So God has ordained for our souls these small 
 cares, to keep them true to their orbit around him- 
 self. 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 103 
 
 And with respect to these trifling or unattractive 
 duties, I say, secondly, that they are interlaced with 
 so much of higher import, that they are really less 
 than the woof of domestic life ; the warp of the ten- 
 der relations and the vital responsibilities remains. 
 While your hands do these things, your hearts may 
 nourish the affections of the wife or the mother, 
 the sister or the daughter or the friend ; and if it 
 become a principle and a purpose with you, you 
 may, in most cases, make these high relations 
 lighten and diversify and consecrate all lower ne- 
 cessities. 
 
 And here let me say, that I have no disposition 
 to consider the burden of home cares as falling ex- 
 clusively upon you. Home seems to me peculiarly 
 woman's empire, an empire which probably neither 
 conventidns, nor even statutes granting equality of 
 civil and political rights, will ever seriously shake, — 
 but to a certain extent, an extent of kindliness of 
 sympathy, counsel, self-control, of measurable parti- 
 cipation, man must lighten the home burdens of the 
 woman. They are his burdens also, — he is ac- 
 countable for the way they are borne. He should 
 not be an appendage to the home, but a main branch 
 of its trunk. Its whole interests should circulate 
 through his pulses, and whatever withers its happi- 
 ness should make his spirits droop. 
 
 Were we all but faithful to the " few things " 
 gathered up within our homes, — faithful in the 
 training of our children, — faithful in our shows of 
 mutual consideration and kindness, — faithful in our 
 example of good temper and self-restriction, — faith- 
 
104 FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 
 
 ful in the discharge of recurrent tasks, faithful to 
 the religious obligations enfolded with such beauty 
 and power within this sheltered circle ; how could 
 we rule this great earth in virtue, how would 
 each household thus offer to the Saviour a place 
 wherein to lay his head, and a province wherein to 
 reign. 
 
 Finally, all the suggestions of this discourse cul- 
 minate in their application to the individual. As 
 " the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," 
 so is the securing personal righteousness the fountain 
 whence all directions of goodness flow. You have 
 felt it to be vanity itself to hope for any adequate 
 fulfilment of domestic relations, or for any sufficient 
 fidelity to the opportunities and claims of any voca- 
 tion, unless you yourselves have first come into per- 
 sonal relations with God, as the purifier of the heart, 
 and the strengthener of our infirmities. It is not 
 that you should seek to do all these things as if 
 thereby to merit his approval, — but it is, that you 
 must first dwell as in his presence, lay your infirm- 
 ities at his feet ; see and feel your sinfulness, pray 
 to be kept alive by his grace, and guided every in- 
 stant by his holy spirit, in order that you may there- 
 after be faithful to the things over which he appoints 
 you, whether of your home, or of your vocation. 
 All success is centred in this first attitude before 
 God. You as much need the daily prayer to nour- 
 ish your various purposes of fidelity as your bodies 
 need the daily meal to sustain your physical func- 
 tions. And to bring you into this attitude, Christ 
 shows you his everlasting truths, portrays your des- 
 
FIDELITY IN THE FEW THINGS. 105 
 
 tiny, and reveals the law of a just God, and the 
 grace of a benignant God ; and seals his teachings 
 and his love, — a Father's teachings and a Father's 
 love, " by his own most precious blood." 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 THE CIIRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHKIST IN TOU THE HOPE OF GLORY. — ColoSSianS i. 27. 
 
 A LITERAL interpretation of the text is evidently 
 impossible. Nor do I suppose it involves a literal 
 interpretation in any mysterious sense, further than 
 all faith, all divine influences are mysterious. 
 
 By common Hebrew idiom, the teacher is put for 
 the thing taught. And some will maintain that in 
 the text Christ is put for Christian, doctrine for the 
 Gospel. And can you doubt that, with such a sub- 
 stitution, the Apostle's premises would be substan- 
 tially occupied, and his conclusions would be sub- 
 stantially reached ? For, let any one of you possess, 
 — have within you, — Christianity, this divine, eter- 
 nal root of sanctity and blessedness, and would you 
 have no hope of glory ? would not glory beam 
 through every chamber of your soul ? would not the 
 bliss of heaven fill your heart ? 
 
 Yet this interpretation does not seem to exhaust 
 the whole signification of the clause. The analogy 
 of other expressions used by Paul justifies, perhaps 
 requires, a less abstract rendering of the text. 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 107 
 
 It is to be borne in mind that Christianity as a 
 system is in fact but an aggregate of the precepts re- 
 volving around the person of their author. If you 
 speak of Plato's teachings, or of Aristotle's, or of 
 Swedenborg's, you have the whole matter before 
 you. You may forget, and generally do forget, the 
 philosophers who promulged those systems. But 
 you cannot separate Christ from Christianity. Chris- 
 tianity is a sort of function of Christ. It is, as it 
 were, the attributes of Jesus of Nazareth. The mind 
 has a constant attraction away from the precepts 
 uttered to their glorious embodiment in the Son of 
 God, away from the mute record to the speaking 
 life. You cannot dissociate the petal from its hue, 
 the flame from its heat, — so I have always felt the 
 impossibility of dissevering Jesus of Nazareth from 
 his Gospel. 
 
 And so Paul manifestly felt, and wrote correspond- 
 ingly. Therefore, to the power of mere precept, ut- 
 tered and recorded, which we may admit Christian- 
 ity to be, we must add the perpetual action of the 
 Author of Christianity on our souls, as it were the 
 influence of a personal presence, — the living into 
 ourselves of his own being. 
 
 I have now presented, as I think, the Apostle's 
 meaning. The " hope of glory " depends upon a 
 right reception of Christ, as the incarnation of the 
 Gospel system, as (through the medium of his per- 
 sonal being) the living outflow of its divine charac- 
 teristics. 
 
 Instead, however, of what I have termed the 
 "right reception of Christ," as necessary to this 
 
108 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 great end, I will, for the purposes of this discourse, 
 employ the phrase, the reception of the right Christ. 
 
 But, is Christ divided ? Not by himself, but the 
 world and the Church divide him. The true light 
 of the sun is the unresolved, unobstructed white 
 beam ; not prismatic hues, not rays, passing through 
 mists or dust or colored media. So there is but one 
 Christ, whom a dissentient world has presented 
 under antagonistic forms. And perhaps the saddest 
 fact that can be discovered with respect to the many 
 Christs that have been adopted as leaders of opinion 
 is, that, unlike the prismatic rays which, united, con- 
 stitute the solar beam, the several Christs conjoined 
 cannot make the Lord from heaven. 
 
 "Who, then, are these various Christs, supposed by 
 those who adopt them to be to each respectively the 
 " hope of glory " ? 
 
 I shall call them, for convenience' sake, and with 
 no pretension to philosophic accuracy, the Historic 
 Christ, the Dogmatic Christ, the JEsthetic Christ, the 
 Reformatory Christ. And I shall finally speak of 
 the Sjnritual Christ as the true Head of the Church, 
 as " the Lord from heaven." 
 
 Taking together for an instant, in order to em- 
 brace them by a common observation, the Historic, 
 the Dogmatic, the, JEsthetic, the Reformatory Christs, 
 it may be said that this deficiency pertains to them 
 all. They demand little or none of that higher 
 action of the soul, commonly styled a religious faith. 
 They all act horizontally on the mind or heart, as if 
 they stood on an earthly human level. Their attrac- 
 tion is not toward the skies, as the realm of spiritual 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 109 
 
 truth, and as the home of God. And as the glory 
 of which the Apostle speaks is something above and 
 beyond any terrestrial product, it may be inferred 
 that no one of these Christs can be to the soul the 
 hope of that glory. 
 
 1. Let us first consider the Historic Christ. 
 
 This form in which Christ so commonly^appears 
 is one of the lowest, yet it is one of the most im- 
 portant, and for this reason, that it lies at the bottom 
 of all others, sustains not only the least estimable, 
 but the noblest forms of the Christ. Just as you 
 might say of a tower, strong, yet low, on which is 
 built the lofty signal that guides mariner and travel- 
 ler. That tower, of itself, indicates no dangers, and 
 points out no path of safety; yet on it rests firmly 
 the beacon that does warn from peril and invite to 
 security. 
 
 There is a school of critics who reject the Christ 
 of the Gospel histories, and who, therefore, can re- 
 ceive no other Christ. These found their sceptical 
 conclusions, I presume, on what they deem sufficient 
 evidence. It is not in point to speak at length of 
 these doubters. I allude to them only to say that 
 nominal Christian believers are ready to confront 
 their opinions by an array of learning, or by zealous 
 declarations of an unshaken evangelical faith. Yet 
 of this phalanx of Gospel confessors many are no 
 better men, no better practisers of Christian morals, 
 than some of those whose convictions they oppose. 
 
 In other words, a mere defence of the Historic 
 Christ does not make one a Christian, does not enti- 
 tle him to the " hope of glory," except, perhaps, of a 
 
 10 
 
110 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 glory similar in kind — superior, possibly, in quality 
 — to that which Henry the Eighth acquired from 
 Leo for his defence of papacy against Luther. 
 
 To be placed in a historic relation to Christ is 
 merely to stand upon an eminence and to say, " I 
 see such and such things." The question is, sight or 
 no sight. The point is. Historic credence or historic 
 doubt. With the exception that the facts to be de- 
 termined are of superior magnitude to other facts, 
 you might as well agitate the question whether Ig- 
 natius wrote all the epistles imputed to him, or 
 whether Phcenician navigators scrawled the hiero- 
 glyphics on the Dighton rock. 
 
 A man's motive powers, the affections that turn 
 the great wheel of the will, are near the base of the 
 being. They have the foundation-chamber to them- 
 selves. Historic teachings are only light let into the 
 front and upper rooms of the feeling, working man ; 
 and mere light moves nothing. If light be followed 
 by faith, and faith by love, then it is like raising the 
 gate whose lever the light discloses, and letting in, 
 through subterraneous channels, the waters that are 
 to give impulse to the volitions, and set into opera- 
 tion the spiritual machinery. 
 
 Probably, you all receive tKe Historic Christ. You 
 look with distrust, with something of dread, perhaps, 
 upon one who says, " There was no such Christ as 
 the Gospels represent." But does this, your historic 
 belief, enfold a " hope of glory " ? In disputation 
 with a doubter, would the fire of your zeal be the 
 fervor of a heart-faith ? Do you derive any appre- 
 ciable comfort, or any practical guidance, from what 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. Ill 
 
 you hold as the Gospel History ? Are the Saviour's 
 words vague imaginings, or are they verities, to which 
 your conduct, conversation, desires, destiny, are in- 
 separable, are eternally linked ? As your eye notes 
 the rebukes which he uttered against sin, do you ever 
 conjecture that he meant your sin ? Or, do his dis- 
 closures of a judgment to come enkindle any sense 
 of peril in your own souls ? 
 
 I cannot dwell upon this topic longer than to say. 
 When God gives facts for you to credit he expects 
 from you a spirit wherewith to interpret them. The 
 facts without the spirit are like the lyre and the plec- 
 trum without a hand to bring them into contact. 
 Or if you seize the facts, to make them give forth 
 any other than their true divine meaning, it is as if 
 you struck the wires of the instrument, not to evoke 
 their harmonies, but to prove that sound may result 
 from vibrations of a string. 
 
 2. We will now look at another Christ. 
 
 There was a Being of unsullied perfection, of gra- 
 cious demeanor, of an outflowing love, who once 
 appeared among the tribes of Palestine. His words 
 were a message from God ; his life was an embodi- 
 ment and an illustration of the message. He was 
 simple and direct. There was a heavenly power in 
 his acts and in his presence. There was no mind, 
 docile and devout, that could not understand him ; 
 no soul, receptive of his spirit, that did not shine in 
 his beauty and bathe in his peace. Contention, sor- 
 row, and dread shrank from his presence, or in it 
 were beguiled of their stings, and the believing 
 earthly was transfigured into the heavenly. 
 
112 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 And there was another being, born of a later age, 
 and in a different region, the offspring of speculation, 
 of philosophy, of the cloister. The sharpness of 
 logic was in his mouth, and fine-edged subtleties 
 were set around his cardinal tenets. He was many- 
 sided in aspect, and changed his form with territory 
 and with time. In Egypt, he wore one appearance, 
 with Clement; in Asia, another, with Theophilus ; 
 in Carthage, another, with TertuUian ; in Greece, 
 another, with Athenagoras. He was always present 
 at councils to settle opinions for the world. At Nice, 
 he anathematized Arius. At Tyre, he thundered 
 against Athanasius. At Sardica, he severed the 
 Eastern from the Western Churches. At Constanti- 
 nople, he provided fresh articles of faith, to meet 
 every form of heresy that had arisen since the Nicene 
 decision. And thus he went on, instigating hatreds, 
 persecutions, and schisms. 
 
 It was this being who invented the wheel and the 
 thumb-screw. He built the dungeons of the Inqui- 
 sition, and kindled the fagots of the Auto da fe. 
 His letters-patent were confiscatory edicts and de- 
 crees of exile. When he spoke, it was to frame a 
 creed ; when he acted, it was to execute, in defence 
 of that creed, penal statutes. He alone ever inter- 
 preted sternness of conscience and depth of faith as 
 crimes to be expiated by blood. None but him ever 
 made that path of experience, that should be one of 
 earthly quiet and of heavenly peace, a path of end- 
 less embarrassment or of crushing sorrow. 
 
 It is this grim disturber that has everywhere turned 
 the supernatural grace that heals into the diabolic 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 113 
 
 power that rends ; that calls down fire from heaven, 
 not as a Pentecostal inspiration, but as a consuming 
 flash. He yet counsels and holds partial rule in the 
 world. He has some sure retreats within the general 
 Church. Now and then he rejoices to seize the 
 crosier, now and then to float in lawn, now and 
 then to fulminate from the pulpit ; now and then he 
 dooms in the tract. Here he rivets bonds around 
 the professor's understanding, and tethers the stu- 
 dent's intellect to shrivelled conceptions ; there he 
 sits in the editor's chair, and dispenses perdition to 
 heretics. 
 
 Sometimes, at the communion-table, he refuses to 
 entreating disciples the " body and blood " of the 
 Lord. He denies the name of Christian to blame- 
 less and Christ-loving men ; and often withholds 
 the courtesies of life and the responsibilities of 
 distinguished duties from brethren who see not 
 with his eyes and comprehend not with his under- 
 standing. 
 
 But praise be to God ! this once so formidable ad- 
 versary hath little else than his ancient spirit left, nor 
 this in its ancient measure. The sword has been 
 shivered in his grasp ; the state has disclaimed his 
 remorseless alliance ; and only over petty domains 
 and through inferior instrumentalities does he now 
 seek to exercise authority. 
 
 I have not yet named the being who has for so 
 many ages been this chief counsellor, as this chief 
 executor of evil ; but before this you have named 
 him, — the Dogmatic Christ. 
 
 My hearers, can a hope of glory abound in that 
 
 10* 
 
114 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 breast which this Christ fills ? If so, define that 
 glory. 
 
 With respect to the victims of dogmatism every- 
 where, nature will dictate resistance to intolerance as 
 men, yet grace must prescribe forbearance as Chris- 
 tians. For as the Jews who crucified the Lord 
 knew not what they did, so they who tread with the 
 heel on honest consciences, who seek to trample out 
 convictions by trampling on rights, must surely know 
 not what they do. 
 
 Let us, then, beware how we embrace the Dog- 
 matic Christ for the true Christ ; for Beelzebub was 
 not more the Messiah's foe than is this false Christ 
 the foe of the genuine Christ. The Saviour said, 
 " For many shall come in my name, saying, ' I am 
 he,' but do not follow them." This is one of those 
 lying Messiahs. And, in fact, he has done more to 
 expel the true Christ from the affections .of real be- 
 lievers, and to banish from reflective minds a belief 
 in the Historic Christ, which is at the foundation of 
 all faith, than all other causes united. The combined 
 sin of the world has not so glorified the career of 
 Satan or so obstructed the progress of the Church. 
 Give to every man his liberty of conscience, and to 
 your own conscience give no liberti/. Overcome er- 
 ror, if you may, by argument ; defend and propagate 
 your convictions ; but aim at a holier victory than 
 that of mere opinion. God save you from the Dog-- 
 matic Christ. 
 
 3. I come, now, in the third place, to speak of the 
 /Esthetic Christ, — the Christ of the ideal faculty. 
 
 I suppose it is undeniable that there is a re- 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 115 
 
 gion round about the heart and conscience that 
 has little to do with either ; a sort of midway 
 sphere between the dull solidity of the senses and 
 the etherial realm of the spirit. It is within these 
 intermediate limits that the Esthetic Christ seems 
 to dwell. And because he stands above the coarse- 
 ness of the vulgar taste, and above the level of the 
 grosser vices, he is sometimes thought to possess a 
 religious purity, and to be of divine kindred. 
 
 But who needs to be told that worldliness in its 
 corruptest spirit, if not in its fouler forms, may be 
 allied with keen sensibilities, with scholarly attain- 
 ments, with a poetic imagination ; all of which may 
 eulogize Christ as a being of beauty, of harmonious 
 development, of theoretical perfections ? Who needs 
 to be reminded of the fact, that, early in this century, 
 devout observers noted with pain and alarm the ab- 
 sence among men of letters, everywhere, of a faith 
 in Christ as a religious, spiritual guide, as the Son of 
 God, as a personal Saviour ; though with no absence 
 of respect for his historic character, indeed of enthu- 
 siasm for the grandeur of his system, and for the 
 grace of his spirit. 
 
 This class of believers are connoisseurs in moral 
 proprieties, critics of ethical systems, reviewers of in- 
 fidel pretensions. Their religion seems to be a com- 
 pound of intellectual judgments and dainty medita- 
 tions; it is not a cordial and grateful faith, it is not 
 a downright earnestness of soul. The same kind 
 of a3sthetic criticism which is directed toward 
 Christ is exhibited toward the Bible. It is the 
 poetry, the dramatic capabilities, the simplicity of 
 
116 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the Book that they admire ; the fire of the Lyrist 
 kindles them, the sacred frenzy of the Prophet 
 awes them ; they are charmed with the sententious- 
 ness of the Proverbialist, with the pictures of the 
 Gospel biographers. They are stirred by the bold 
 eloquence of the Apostle, they delight in the visions 
 of the Seer of Patmos ; but they do not prize the 
 Booh as the glad tidings of Life, as a fountain of 
 spiritual redemption. 
 
 As Romanists, the worship of such believers 
 would consist in admiration of the picturesque 
 groupings and scenic effects of the ceremonial ; in 
 homage of Raphael, as a painter of cartoons or Ma- 
 donnas ; of Hayden, as a composer of masses ; or in 
 reverence of the genius embodied in mediaeval archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 In fine, the ^Esthetic Christ may be compared in 
 its aspects, and its effects, to a palace of ice. It 
 glitters with corruscations of every hue, but it is as 
 cold as a sepulchre ; and it is a sepulchre for every 
 soul that makes it a dwelling. 
 
 4. But we must now bestow some consideration 
 upon the Reformatory Christ. 
 
 By this designation, I mean to present that con- 
 ception of Jesus of Nazareth, as a moral reformer, 
 which many hold, and which seems almost to ex- 
 clude him in any other aspect from recognition. 
 
 This class of believers appeals to the life of 
 the Saviour ; yet not as a divine radiance so much 
 as an earthly example. They will declare their 
 doubt whether he possesses a spiritual constitution 
 different from or superior to that which is possessed 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 117 
 
 by you or by me. But they are ready to say, So 
 unexceptionable a code of morals no philosopher 
 ever yet devised ; so potent an engine of civil re- 
 straint no statesman ever yet conceived ; so admir- 
 able a system of social amelioration no philanthro- 
 pist ever yet projected ; another so glorious a model 
 for human imitation history nowhere presents. 
 
 All these are valuable admissions. That men, 
 acknowledged to be zealous in humane efforts, who 
 welcome sacrifices in their paths of compassionate 
 toil, admit that before them all, at unapproachable 
 distance, moves Christ, the great lover of his kind, 
 is a pleasing fact to contemplate ; yes ! even though 
 they see him in no special relation to God, as one 
 anointed with a holier unction than nature and hu- 
 manity can confer. 
 
 I do not dare to say how much or how little the 
 reception of this Christ can feed the heart of the 
 world; for I cannot separate from the influence 
 which spreads from this centre that which flows im- 
 perceptibly, in conjunction with such influence, from 
 the widely-received Christ, as the Divine Son of 
 God. 
 
 But I may express the opinion, that, were there 
 only this Christ for the reliance of the world and for 
 the redemption of society, his power, great as it is, 
 would speedily decay; and were it not that some 
 other Christ led the way, this Christ would never 
 have had existence in human recognition. 
 
 Plerein lies the deadness of portions of the Church, 
 — in benevolent progress and in good works, — that 
 they too readily reject Christ the Reformer^ and hold 
 
118 THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 another Christ exclusively. And herein lies the 
 spiritual deadness of many moral livers, that they 
 receive the Reformatory Christ, and seek for no 
 other. 
 
 To me, it appears that the theology or the Chris- 
 tianity of such believers lacks, say, but one thing ; 
 but that is the thing needful. It is the very ele- 
 ment that God gave to the message and work of 
 Christ, to distinguish and characterize them ; a new 
 element for the recognition of the world, whereby its 
 impotency of faith might be reinforced and its de- 
 bility of will receive a victorious impulse. I mean 
 the element of an assurance of God's special and 
 personal help, for the rescue of his children from 
 their infirmities and their sins. 
 
 When I look back through the centuries of dis- 
 traction and trial, to learn what it is that has upheld 
 the heart of the Church, I see that Church turning 
 for inspiration to no monument commemorating 
 human greatness, to no tablets inscribed with earth- 
 ly wisdom, but watching, as did the Israelites of old, 
 a column of heavenly fire, — the Shekinaii of God, 
 — the living and divine Christ. 
 
 And when I have read the records or have noted 
 the manifestations of private experience, I have 
 seen conversion not the fruit of the Reformatory 
 Christ, but that " neio creatioti," which it is the spe- 
 cial and mysterious function of Christ, through his 
 divine relations, to achieve. 
 
 5. Therefore, lastly, I say, Christ as the soul's Sav- 
 iour, as its " hope of glory," such as he " had with 
 the Father before the world was," is not the Historic, 
 
THE CHRISTS OF THE WORLD. 119 
 
 nor the Dogmatic, nor the jEstheiic, nor the Refor- 
 matory Christ; but Christ, the manifestation of 
 God, — Christ, who by displays of heavenly love 
 unlocks the imprisoned affections, and lures them to 
 the skies ; who so reveals God's abhorrence for sin, 
 and so depicts its issues, that the heart pauses trem- 
 blingly in its path of transgression, and seeks the aid 
 of a super-earthly Helper. 
 
 Let us not, then, neglect the study of the Historic 
 scenes in which Christ is placed. Let us prize his 
 teachings, as doctrines of unspeakable worth. Let 
 us welcome his example, as guiding us to practical 
 good. But above all, let us give up our wills to his 
 spiritual control, as " Son of God," as " Lord from 
 Heaven," whereby we shall be "born again unto 
 newness of Life." 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 VAIN THOUGHTS 
 
 HOW LONG SHALL THY VAIN THOUGHTS LODGE WITHIN THEE? — 
 
 Jeremiah iv. 14. 
 
 My present object is to show the importance of a 
 just regulation of the thoughts, and to strengthen 
 your purpose against vain thoughts. 
 
 The first consideration to which I ask your at- 
 tention, is this, — vain thoughts sap the strength of 
 character. I do not now particularize the kind of 
 vain thoughts. The proposition is a general one, — 
 thoughts that are adverse to the open action of the 
 man enfeeble his mental and moral vigor. Vain 
 thoughts may be said to be of this class. 
 
 Are you fully aware of the power of action on 
 thought ? and of thought thus re-enforced on char- 
 acter ? By action, I mean the visible execution of 
 purpose, the carrying out of the conception. 
 
 Take an inventor, — how definite become his plan- 
 nings, how proportioned, how effective, as soon as 
 he embodies his conception, — sees it in its workings ! 
 Some minds may elaborate their designs in thought, 
 but they are imperfect; something needs adjustment, 
 
VAIN THOUGHTS. 121 
 
 which a material representation, a working model, 
 will alone supply. This renders the obscure con- 
 ception clear, furnishes stimulus to the inventive 
 power, and makes the practical mechanician or ar- 
 chitect. 
 
 Take extempore speaking. It is one thing to be able 
 in one's study to elaborate a speech, and it is another 
 thing to look an audience in the face, and com- 
 mand the power of utterance of connected thought 
 of persuasive illustration. And no man can make 
 a free and impressive extempore orator who is not 
 trained for success on the platform of actual speech. 
 A daguerreotype of his address, in its outlines and 
 details of conception, might exhibit exact logic and 
 faultless rhetoric, but its author, for all this, might 
 fail of effect in attempting to render his conceptions 
 orally ; indeed, the product itself, unless moulded by 
 the tact and fired by the electric ardor which habits 
 of public speaking beget, would be probably deficient 
 as a spoken address. 
 
 Many a man's thought has been shaken as from a 
 stupor, and his purpose matured as by miracle, by 
 some sudden emergency in which he has acted with 
 decision. The very pigmy in moral force has be- 
 come a giant, by measuring his stimulated powers 
 against some formidable circumstance. Warriors 
 have sprung full-grown and full-armed from the brain 
 of an exigency. Genius has been enkindled by sparks 
 struck out by the friction of necessity. 
 
 All theories, all school-rules, all abstract principles, 
 are brought to the test in action, and are exploded or 
 are substantiated in the experiment. Practice is the 
 11 
 
122 VAIN THOUGHTS. 
 
 great expurgator of vain thinking, and it is the great 
 attestor of sound thinking. 
 
 It is action, then, in general terms, that gives life, 
 force, exactness, to thought. The scholar must write, 
 the artist must paint, the clerk must plunge into the 
 mysteries of entries and balances, the mechanic must 
 ply his tools, the advocate must plead, the physician 
 prescribe at the bed-side, the minister ^reacA. Every 
 laborer, whether of head or hand, must work his 
 thought or knowledge into action, before he is wise, 
 or skilful, or efficient. 
 
 I need not show specifically the effect of thought 
 reinforced by action on character. If I have left the 
 impression on your minds that action is all-potent to 
 modify and invigorate thought, you wall see at once 
 the effect of both on the character of the man ; or 
 rather, you will see that both do constitute the man. 
 From a schemer, he becomes the practical inventor; 
 from the dainty theorist, he becomes the sound phi- 
 losopher ; from the man of dreams, he becomes the 
 man of force, dexterity, accomplishment. 
 
 Nor does the proposition halt, when, instead of 
 estimating the influence of action on intellectual 
 thought and character, or on manual dexterity, you 
 consider it with relation to moral qualities. 
 
 A person of impure imaginations is a polluted 
 creature and a dangerous companion ; but he is far 
 this side of the line of vice which the practical profli- 
 gate occupies. He is on the track, indeed, toward 
 signal achievements in iniquity ; but taking him as 
 he is now, a sensualist in thought only, and com- 
 paring him with the systematic, habitual debauchee, 
 
VAIN THOUGHTS. 123 
 
 he is a tyro in unholy living. He has not the force 
 of the overt transgressor ; he has not the hardi- 
 hood, the almost irreclaimable tendencies of the prac- 
 tised libertine. Desire that yearns, though hesitates, 
 in the one, is the purpose that plans and executes in 
 the other. 
 
 There are some individuals as had as passive, 
 timid baseness can make them ; but their vicious- 
 ness is less defined, less peremptory, less diffusive, 
 than that of the actively corrupt. 
 
 I do not say that, comparing the two classes of 
 wicked men with the Christian standard, there is 
 much difference in radical sinfulness, but only that 
 the characteristics of the vice of each greatly differ. 
 
 Force of character, then, development, depends 
 upon thought reinforced by action, or upon a cor- 
 respondence between the practice and the meditation 
 of a man. 
 
 Now vain thoughts generally run counter to one's 
 actions. The inward life and the outward life do not 
 harmonize. The man is therefore comparatively an 
 imbecile. Your dreamers are never men of power, — 
 air-castle builders never build granite palaces. Rev- 
 eries are the deadliest foes to achievements. Pic- 
 tures of the imagination hardly more resemble daily 
 realities, the substance of life, than the mirage does 
 the solid earth or the rolling sea; and they who 
 habitually contemplate these mental images bear 
 about the same relation to men who observe, handle, 
 act, that the morning vapor bears to the beating rain. 
 
 At the very outset, then, the man or woman who 
 cherishes vain thoughts, shrivels those productive 
 
124 VAIN THOUGHTS. 
 
 energies which God gave for duty and for his ser- 
 vice, — they stint their immortal stature. 
 
 But again, not only do vain thoughts rob the 
 being of its momentum, by causing thought and ac- 
 tion to draw oppositely, but they enfeeble it, simply 
 on the principle that what is false must enervate. 
 Now vain thoughts are obviously false thoughts. 
 They come short of the truth, or they go beyond the 
 truth. Experience never realizes these fancies. There 
 is no strength but in truth. Is it the dreamer who is 
 adequate to the emergencies of life ? Is it he who 
 measures wisely its trials ? He who calculates accu- 
 rately its claims ? He who is contented with its 
 allotments ? He who is cheerful under its disasters ? 
 No. The vain thinker brings all things, all beings, 
 not excepting the Infinite Controller himself to the 
 bar of an idea ; and this idea being a false one, he pro- 
 nounces, practically, if not formally, a judgment on 
 the world, men, life, and on the Supreme Disposer. 
 
 The vain thinker, shut up with his fancies, bereft 
 of the ventilation of sound thoughts, little realizes 
 the moral weakness he inhales with that tainted air. 
 He is in a sphere of illusions ; consequently, he views 
 none of life's indispensable discipline ; he enjoys 
 none of its healthy privileges ; he accumulates no 
 reserved force for sterner and inevitable realities. 
 
 Under this division of my subject, I will add but 
 one other consideration to the two already submit- 
 ted, — why vain thoughts should be controlled. 
 
 I have said they weaken, by dividing the forces of 
 man, the meditative from the executive. They de- 
 lude, and so enfeeble, by surrounding the being with 
 
VAIN THOUGHTS. 125 
 
 falsehoods ; and thirdly, they directly debauch by 
 their intrinsic corruption. Vain ihong-hts are vicious 
 thoughts. An evil idea mai/ pass across the mind, 
 and leave no blur, but such ideas cannot lodg'e within 
 the mind for any length of time without staining it. 
 These suggestions enter the field of consciousness, 
 and if the heart invite them to remain, they loill 
 remain, and that which was the result of human 
 infirmity becomes a testimony to human guilt. The 
 discarded conception would not dishonor an angel, — 
 the cherished image is shame and corruption to the 
 man. 
 
 I believe God grants the power to man to resist 
 the Devil ; but it must be on even ground, and be- 
 fore odds are given to the foe. Thoughts are the 
 successive steps by which the great Enemy seeks to 
 win us down to his realm. So long as we stand 
 away from the edge of the pit, on the solid footing 
 of early and sturdy resistance, God gives us the vic- 
 tory ; but if we descend a single step, the adver- 
 sary has us at advantage. We seem yet to be above 
 and away from the perilous edge, because our eyes, 
 in their higher level, discern the beauty we have not 
 utterly forsaken, rather than the evil that yawns at 
 our feet. We take a second step and a third with 
 equal complacency. The gradations are easy, but 
 sure ; and at any instant we may lose sight of all the 
 forms of virtue, and find ourselves in the terrible grasp 
 of the fiend. 
 
 It is in view of the facts now presented that the 
 Scripture so urges purity within. It is the thouglU 
 that is brought into the Eternal Presence. It is 
 11* 
 
126 VAIN THOUGHTS. 
 
 thought that participates in heavenly bliss. It is 
 thovght that suffers retributive woe. 
 
 But I will classify our vain thoughts, that our 
 heed with respect to them may be increased. 
 
 Take first the vagabond class, — the idlers, beggars, 
 vagrants of the mind, without avocation, without 
 home, without aim. As well might you expect a 
 town to thrive whose population consisted of strollers, 
 unsettled in habits, without ambition, without en- 
 ergy ; coming without purpose, and going without 
 object; as a mind to prosper, a character to flourish, 
 through which ideas wander without control : pursu- 
 ing no end as busy and patient citizens of the men- 
 tal state, but only staring at sights, and roaming as 
 impulse or chance directs. As well expect the wind 
 to waft timbers, shingles, boards, into a compact 
 building, as to hope that such random ideas will ever 
 adjust themselves into a solid mental edifice. As 
 well hope that the colt that never knew bit or halter 
 will plough up your farm or draw your harvests to 
 market, as that unregulated thought will stir up the 
 intellectual glebe to fertile action, or convey any 
 product worth keeping into the mental granary. 
 
 Nor is all this true only of mind. It is true also of 
 the heart. The moral product is affected like the in- 
 tellectual. Collapses of character, failures in plans, 
 defeats in life, wretched issues out of fair beginnings, 
 are to be accounted for on the ground of unmethod- 
 ical and capricious thought. 
 
 Again, take the painted, bejewelled class of 
 thoughts, all taste, all beauty, all comfort, all honor, 
 all joy ; the pleasure-seekers, the elegant schemers, 
 
VAIN THOUGHTS. 127 
 
 the dainty gentlefolk of the mind. As well expect 
 in a town mouths to be fed and backs clothed, the 
 ring of the hammer and the whiz of the lathe, the 
 prosperity of universal industry, the content of just 
 recompense, the sound judgment that rules the pres- 
 ent, the forecast that provides for the future, where 
 fops and belles (whose sole aim is to avoid care, to 
 shine and enjoy, to escape wrinkles and cheat fate) 
 are the only agents, as to expect the performance of 
 duty, the right reading of life, the true discernment 
 of moral and spiritual relations, — love toward man, 
 and trust in God, — from those who cherish extrava- 
 gant fancies, who welcome none but rosy images, 
 hope unattainable bliss, and dream impossible 
 achievements. 
 
 The mind that would breathe a true atmosphere 
 must enter the realm of tempests as well as of calm, 
 — must snufF discipline beneath skies streaked with 
 lightning and pealing with thunders, as well as be- 
 neath clouds of gold or a canopy of azure. 
 
 God tries with adversity as well as with prosper- 
 ity, and it is through that door, rather than this^ that 
 the Gospel child must enter the kingdom of God. 
 That pictured lot, which would probably be your 
 ruin on earth, will not qualify you for heaven. 
 
 But still again. There is a class of vain thoughts 
 that may be called the gloomy, the desponding. 
 These answer to the discomfited, the hopeless dwel- 
 lers of a town, who do nothing ; who repine at every- 
 thing, who prophesy disaster, who mope, who accuse 
 the world, who are faithless in God ; the social 
 ravens, ready to pick up another man's morsel, ceas- 
 
128 VAIN THOUGHTS. 
 
 ing to croak only while they devour it. No better 
 citizens of the moral and spiritual realm are these 
 dark imaginings, than are those selfish malcontents 
 of the social world. 
 
 How unlovely, how profane, is this morose habit 
 of mind! How unworthy the protected and loved 
 child of God ! Be sedate, be solemn^ if you will ; for 
 life's responsibilities may well make the heart grave 
 and reflective ; but be not a brooder. Until you are 
 an outcast from God, never despair. 
 
 Akin to this class of " vain thoughts " are those 
 sad memories which bereavement leaves, which 
 have nothing of heaven in them, which are merely 
 oppressive reminiscences. I would not easily chide 
 such, would rather pity the victim of them. Yet 
 they are wrong, and they should be dislodged. Faith 
 is no tenant of that soul that gives itself up to the 
 smitings of sorrow, that yields itself to the dominion 
 of a past calamity. There are aspects of death, if 
 we might reach them, marked on the event by the 
 Son of God himself, which should yield high conso- 
 lation, if not expel every gloomy sentiment. It was 
 to meet just such crises of the heart that Jesus of 
 Nazareth came among tried and sufTering men. 
 
 The last class of vain thoughts I shall mention 
 (and hardly more than mention, since I have already 
 alluded to them), is that of the profligates, answer- 
 ing to the revellers, the debauchees of the social do- 
 main, — inhabitants that are the drones and scourges 
 of every community. As these have a sad power of 
 corruption over the young of that community, so the 
 thoughts which they symbolize vitiate the germs of 
 
VAIN THOUGHTS. 129 
 
 every pure emotion, and train up rioters rather than 
 worshippers. 
 
 It is a dreadful habit to give the reins to some 
 greedy appetite or some flushed sentiment, and let 
 them whirl the soul at will in this chariot of sense. 
 If a man could see himself in this wild career of 
 thought, or if this invisible reality could become a 
 visible representation, that others might see it, or if 
 a person might conjecture how in these reveries he 
 appears before the Searcher of hearts, many a one, 
 in shame or disgust or horror, would bring his con- 
 science, his spiritual determinations, to the rescue ; 
 and as one violating the sanctity of his being, as one 
 profaning the Temple, wherein God's honor should 
 dwell, would cleanse his breast of its foul imag- 
 inings. 
 
 You may now be ready to inquire, Where is the 
 remedy for vain and wicked thoughts ? I answer. 
 The basis of all successful effort at control over the 
 thoughts is faith that they can be controlled. Some 
 seem to doubt this. They say, " Demand of us action, 
 and we will respond. Set before us the deed^ and we 
 will do it ; but thought is so subtle, so illusive, that it 
 evades our grasp and defies our sway." Brethren, 
 this is not true. You are led to doubt your jurisdic- 
 tion over your thoughts, chiefly because you set them 
 in contrast with your deeds. These are admitted to 
 be within man's power, but by. a presumptuous in- 
 ference, those cannot be, because they have no char- 
 acteristics in common with deeds. You forget that 
 actions, foreborne merely through fear of law or 
 dread of opinion, or any such constraint, are fore- 
 
130 VAIN THOUGHTS. 
 
 borne by yourselves only as agents of a foreign force. 
 Wherever you have truly controlled action, you have 
 controlled thought. Your will is the sentinel that 
 may bolt or may unbar the gates. It is the word of 
 your purpose, that will shut out the regal procession 
 or the filthy rabble ; yes, or the saintly throng. Do 
 not doubt ! Have faith in God, and in his everlast- 
 ing succors ! Call upon his Spirit, and be sure of 
 deliverance ! 
 
 I will not close without adverting to that surest 
 defence against " vain thoughts," a mind instructed 
 to delight in sound thought and a heart impressed to 
 covet pure thoughts. Parents, remember this in the 
 early nm'ture of your children ! There are some 
 foes better conquered by array than by conflict. 
 Such are the appetites out of which sinful sugges- 
 tions spring. Let Christ abide in the Temple, and 
 the money-changers wiU not desecrate its courts. 
 Low lusts stand in awe of the religious spirit, as 
 the demons quailed before the Son of God. Seek 
 to awaken the love of the holy, and the desire of evil 
 will perish. 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 FOEBEAKANCE. 
 roEBEAEiNG ONE ANOTHEK. — Colossians iii. 3. 
 
 One of the marks of the divine origin of Chris- 
 tianity is the inculcation of what have been termed 
 the passive virtues. 
 
 Whoever has a merely personal end or an earthly 
 object to accomplish, in the establishment of a sys- 
 tem or an institution, seizes for the principles upon 
 which it must rest something that is not too far in 
 advance of his age, and that is not too hostile to the 
 common thought and feeling of man. Contrasted 
 upon this very point, the Bible and the Koran dis- 
 close, the one its heavenly, the other its earthly 
 origin. Mahometanism would not have won its 
 quick and broad triumphs, if, like Christianity, its 
 standard had been forbearance. 
 
 There is no virtue less natural, so to speak, than 
 forbearance. There is none to desultory effort more 
 difficult of attainment. Indeed, we are hardly in a 
 position to estimate its quality, or the difficulty of 
 its practice, sitting thus, as we do, in the composure 
 of the sanctuary. 
 
 It is a virtue that has no existence, except under 
 
132 FORBEARANCE. 
 
 circumstances of aggression and moral disturbance. 
 That it is a grace hard of acquisition we begin to 
 feel only when it interferes with our resentments, 
 when it lays its hand upon our passions, and seeks 
 to repress our speech or mould our actions accord- 
 ing to the teachings of Christian love. 
 
 It is no strange thing, at this day, to preach for- 
 bearance, to proclaim non-resistant ideas, to hold 
 peace congresses ; for these all are the product of 
 Christianity ; — though even now, men governed by 
 theories of expediency, and trammelled by the usages 
 of nations, see in these doctrines and projects of 
 Christian philanthropy something visionary and 
 absurd. 
 
 But how must it have been in a heathen age ? 
 How repulsive to its customs and directions of feel- 
 ing an inculcation of forbearance, as a foundation 
 principle of a new system of religious faith and of 
 worldly practice. 
 
 To the Jews, also, a people that had received limit- 
 ed revelations, even from God, the doctrine of for- 
 bearance was eminently unpalatable. That Christ 
 should have proclaimed it, I might almost say, as 
 the life of his religious system ; and that he should 
 have lived out its utmost beauty and power, and 
 should have required its expression in the life of 
 every disciple, is a mark of the superhuman source 
 of his revelations. 
 
 And yet, though the embodiment of this doctrine, 
 as a cardinal principle of the Christian's faith and 
 practice, bespeaks a heavenly origin, we feel how 
 suited the doctrine is to the condition of man. We 
 
FORBEARANCE. 133 
 
 can discover its beauty, we can appreciate its pur- 
 pose, we can discern the consequences of its adop- 
 tion. We see that it is an attainment thrown be- 
 fore the soul for the effort of its highest faculties. 
 
 Perhaps, you say, I am claiming too much for this 
 virtue. True, it is humble, retired, silent. But the 
 noiseless forces of Nature are the mightiest, and the 
 unnoticed labors of man are his most exhausting and 
 most productive. So the least conspicuous char- 
 acteristics of Christianity will be found to exert the 
 most influence upon the development of character 
 and the spread of truth. 
 
 As a labor-demanding virtue, forbearance is en- 
 titled to the highest consideration, and stands in a 
 position of highest dignity. A charioteer, urging his 
 mettlesome steeds onward upon some errand of 
 mercy, may symbolize an effort of active charity ; 
 but the more difficult act of tempering the violence 
 of those steeds, and guiding their activity for the 
 same end of mercy, typifies the higher worth of the 
 grace, forbearance. 
 
 The importance of forbearance can be appreciated 
 only by a consideration of the consequences involved 
 in a violation of it. I should feel willing to hold the 
 vice of intemperance or the calamity of war in con- 
 trast with the violation of forbearance ; and I doubt 
 whether the miseries of either of those would weigh 
 as heavily as the aggregate wretchedness from this. 
 Consider the multitude of little streams that flow 
 together to form the great reservoir of such wretch- 
 edness. Count the families upon the face of the 
 earth. Each consists of a greater or smaller num- 
 
 12 
 
134 FORBEARANCE. 
 
 ber of wills, inclosed within four walls. No two 
 were ever constituted alike. No two were ever 
 affected by circumstances precisely similar. No two 
 ever had exactly the same end in view; yet they 
 must dwell together, and make up the unit of a 
 household. Now glance for an instant at a day's 
 history of those families. Some, the morning sun 
 awakens only to bickering, to mutual resentments ; 
 and the night falls only to suspend these painful 
 hostilities. In others, there may be no conflict of 
 blows, none of marked actions, none of loud speech ; 
 yet, for all that, there may be a course of painful 
 retaliations, thrusting out invisible stings, and en- 
 gendering intolerable annoyances. 
 
 The history of all these domestic broils, whether 
 between brothers and sisters, husband and wife, or 
 master and servants, is a simple one. They start, 
 generally, from the same little beginning. Grant 
 that there is first an aggressor, the real fire seems to 
 kindle with the retaliatory act or answer. This is 
 the gust that fans the spark into flame. The severer 
 retort then follows, succeeded by the still more angry 
 rejoinder, until that trifling dispute culminates, per- 
 haps, in a fearful contest of passion and blood. 
 
 But the little infelicities that spring up in a family 
 like this cannot be recounted. There, they are like 
 thorns among the plays of the children ; here, like a 
 bitter sauce at every meal. Again, these mutual re- 
 pulsions render work sullen and cheerless. They 
 take the heart out of amusement, and make marriage^ 
 instead of an inclosure of harmonies, a fenced arena 
 of repugnancies. 
 
FORBEARANCE. 135 
 
 Then, passing out of the family to other relations 
 in life, — to partnerships, to the relation of buyer 
 and seller, of employer and employee, of neighbors, 
 and so forth, — the same miseries are found to exist, 
 attributable to the same source. And even war 
 itself, with whose dreadful calamities we were about 
 to compare the woes springing out of a contempt for 
 the law of forbearance, is, in the main, a fruit of that 
 very contempt. 
 
 What is forbearance, — this comforter of society, 
 this helper of our happiness ? It is a disposition to 
 claim less than one's due, to forget the sting of 
 injury, in a regard for the well-being of your injurer, 
 a backwardness to fortify one's own position with 
 the armament which nature supplies, a readiness to 
 to sacrifice self, though justice may not demand the 
 sacrifice, to the claims of love and peace. 
 
 The methods of its operation are various ; but its 
 primal effect is on the feeling, the sensibility. It 
 stops the mouth from its quick, angry reply. It 
 holds the hand from the retaliatory blow. But more 
 than this, it tranquillizes the threatened agitations of 
 the heart, so that oftentimes the flash that would in- 
 voluntarily leap to the eye is left under the embers 
 below; and the flush of the cheek that signals re- 
 sentment is folded up like the red banner of a sleep- 
 ing host. 
 
 This beautiful Christian sentiment can never be 
 mistaken for pusillanimity, — never for the indiffer- 
 ence of a phlegmatic nature. It has the calmness 
 and the self-possession of power; yet nothing de- 
 fiant, nothing aggravating. Its ground is peace, its 
 natural language is conciliation. 
 
136 FORBEARANCE. 
 
 How almost invariably effective is forbearance in 
 the commencing strife. Forget yourself, your claims, 
 your position of right. For a moment let the sense 
 of injury even sleep, and instead of retorting the 
 sharp word in the same spirit, utter a mild, consider- 
 ate reply, and see what a result ! That little cloud, 
 no bigger than the hand, which a defiant or a com- 
 bative spirit would have spread over the whole 
 heavens, with its lightnings and thunders, has 
 vanished into mist before this sunshine of your 
 kindly speech. And another beautiful effect of this 
 course is, that your aggressor, through the clear at- 
 mosphere which you have dispensed around him, 
 sees, and will probably confess, the wrong he has 
 done you. What you could not have extorted from 
 him by the batteries of your wrath he surrenders to 
 you at the waving of your white flag. To quote 
 the words of a wretched criminal and suicide, yet a 
 man of culture, and of keen insight into life : 
 " Love is strength, and the power of kindness most 
 efficient. With thrust for cut I have fought the 
 world, and been a loser^ even ivhen victorious^ 
 
 Children, as well as adults, are affected by demon- 
 strations of forbearance. A child once burst into 
 the room where her mother was sitting, exclaiming 
 with delight in her looks and tones, " O mother, 
 come out and see one of the best little girls I ever 
 knew ! I was angry with her, and told her I would 
 never speak to her again, and she said, ' Well, 
 then, I will speak to you the oftener ' I " 
 
 To what an extent would the relation between 
 debtor and creditor be improved by a display of this 
 
FORBEARANCE. 137 
 
 virtue. Let him who owes forbear, when the cred- 
 itor presses him for a just debt ; and let him who 
 is owed forbear, when his debtor fails of prompt 
 payment; forbear, I mean, the display of angry 
 feeling and the utterance of harsh words. And 
 how much sooner will the one pay his debt, and 
 how much less oppressive will be the importunity 
 of the other. And when the account is settled be- 
 tween the two, no friendship will have been broken. 
 Let your memories cite one instance, in which such 
 a course would probably have averted a most tragic 
 issue. 
 
 What multitudes of wretched lawsuits, costly, 
 protracted, vexatious, has the lack of this Christian 
 grace engendered. Immeasurably would it shorten 
 the docket of every court in Christendom, if no case 
 should come within its jurisdiction other than those 
 in which forbearance, upon one side at least, had 
 been fully tried. Nor would this result involve the 
 abandonment of claims, or loss of dues, or latitude 
 to shuffling debtors ; or in any wise enfeeble the 
 rule of social justice. It would merely not permit 
 the heart to suspect injury where possibly none was 
 intended (a fruitful source of litigation) ; and it 
 would withdraw from the matter in controversy all 
 collateral aggravations, which are often a more 
 serious bar to agreement than the substance of the 
 controversy itself. 
 
 It is a fact, noticeable, and to be lamented, that 
 many who set faces, as of iron, against the abuses 
 of the day, seeking to bring a practical Gospel more 
 closely into contact with the customs and institu- 
 
 12* 
 
FORBEARANCE. 
 
 tions of society, and with the daily life of the indi- 
 vidual, — men who are called by some, reformers, 
 by others, radicals, — should apparently possess so 
 little of this grace of forbearance. How much bet- 
 ter would it be for themselves, for their cause, to 
 be armed in this persuasive panoply. Why should 
 they seek to add to the obstacles of the truth they 
 bear an opposition, summoned by an impatient and 
 exacting temper? By gentleness, they need abate 
 no jot of earnestness, sacrifice no tithe of their 
 moral force. Forbearance calls tipon no man to 
 blench, to surrender a conviction, to dally with 
 falsehood and sin, or their abettors. It does not 
 repress conscience nor faith, nor any high faculty. 
 Its whole action is against the power of self, that 
 springs up to vitiate every conflict, and lighten the 
 weight of the blows struck for truth and humanity. 
 
 How signally deficient have theological disputants 
 generally been in this cardinal virtue. Where there 
 has been one Melancthon, there have been fifty Lu- 
 thers. Where one Fenelon, fifty Knoxes. It is 
 painful to read the controversies of the Reformation ; 
 if Christianity were alive in them, civilization hardly 
 was. We should expect from Henry the Eighth, 
 " Defender of the Faith," a strain of coarse, almost 
 profane retort; but hardly from such men as Luther 
 and Chancellor More. Whatever be the energy of 
 character, or the depth of conviction, or the sense of 
 wrong, or the determination to uproot abuses, it 
 would seem as if, with these uncompromising quali- 
 ties, there might be conjoined forbearance, as a part 
 of the indispensable wisdom, as well as the Christian 
 obligation of controversy. 
 
FORBEARANCE. 139 
 
 It is delightful to turn from the pages that record 
 the asperities in which Sir Thomas More indulged, 
 as a controversialist, to his conduct before the court 
 which sentenced him to death. Surely he kneiv, 
 and could practise upon the Christian precept of 
 forbearance. Said he to the court, after its inhuman 
 and every way unjustifiable sentence : " More have 
 I not to say, my Lords, but that, as St. Paul held the 
 clothes of those who stoned Stephen to death, and 
 as they are now, both saints in heaven, and shall 
 continue there friends for ever ; so I verily trust, and 
 shall right heartily pray, that, though your Lordships 
 have here on earth been judges to my condemna- 
 tion, we may nevertheless, hereafter, cheerfully meet 
 in heaven, in everlasting salvation." 
 
 We have reason to deplore the want of this virtue 
 of forbearance in the political controversies of our 
 country. Religion does not indeed suffer from the 
 acrimony of these disputes, as she does from the bit- 
 terness of sectarian strife ; because the disputants in 
 this latter are, almost without exception, recognized 
 teachers of Christian morals, and professed disciples 
 of the Lord of love. But even political controversy 
 ought in some measure to reflect the Christian civil- 
 ization, from the midst of which it springs. A sin 
 of our country is, its want of Christian forbearance. 
 In the midst of so much enterprise, so much personal 
 activity, where every individual feels his freedom, 
 his power; where his words have weight in the 
 formiiig of public sentiment, and his acts still 
 greater weight in the direction of public action, — 
 where self-hood, so to speak, becomes conscious, 
 
140 FORBEARANCE. 
 
 and proud, and domineering, — in a community like 
 this (and a community in this country means the 
 government, as well as the people), there is danger 
 that forbearance, public, as well as private, will be 
 among the feeblest of its virtues. The patriot may 
 well tremble at the prophecy which such a fact 
 utters for the future history of his country. Happy 
 will it be for this nation, when it shall find it easy 
 to practise forbearance toward other nations. "When 
 it will prefer the fame of being backward to resent 
 (a characteristic its power may well permit), to the 
 glory of being sudden and quick in quarrel. 
 
 The culture of this generous spirit in private rela- 
 tions will alone insure its activity in public senti- 
 ment and public legislation. 
 
 There is a little fountain of this Gospel grace, to 
 which I again allude, to help, if I might, its per- 
 petual flowing. I refer to the home culture of for- 
 bearance. And, beginning at the very root of the 
 matter, I say that we parents may contribute more 
 largely than any or all others to the supply of this 
 virtue in our households and in the community. 
 "We may begin our benefaction with the commence- 
 ment of parental duty. We must forbear with our 
 children, not be indulgent, not be blind to their 
 faults, not weary in efforts at discipline, not be 
 weak that we may be moral ; but we must forbear 
 with them. That is to say, a sense of personal of- 
 fence at their misconduct, selfish jealousy of the 
 authority of our own laws, must never rise up to 
 inflame our rebukes or to alloy the purity of our 
 discipline. An intelligent love and sympathy for our 
 
FORBEARANCE. 141 
 
 children will beget a gentleness of relation, a patience 
 and a self-restraint, all included in the grace, forbear- 
 ance. Christ vindicated the demonstrations of the 
 spirit of God from the disbelief and sneers of the 
 Jews, but he patiently bore the contumely that was 
 directed to himself. Thus, practising this virtue in 
 our relation as parents, we shall early call it into 
 being in the hearts of our children ; and they who 
 have been long trained at home under its genial in- 
 fluences will carry its sweetness into the activities 
 of manhood. 
 
 I would help this counsel to forbearance by one 
 specific consideration. It is only with the living 
 that you can forbear. The dead are equally beyond 
 your anger and your patience. A touching story 
 recently went the round of our journals, of a father 
 who impatiently sent his little son — a noble boy — 
 out of his presence for a violation of a command; 
 refusing to hear any explanation of the disobedience. 
 During the night, a fever developed itself in the 
 lad ; he became delirious, and died, — never again 
 recognizing his father. That father would have given 
 worlds to recall his harsh words to the little pleader 
 for his forbearance, — worlds for a lucid interval, in 
 which he might implore his son's forgiveness for his 
 hard, angry sentence. It was not permitted him. 
 Afterward, he learned that the little hero had trans- 
 gressed through an impulse to save his younger 
 brother from drowning, and that it was his exposure, 
 through this act, that brought upon him the fatal 
 fever. We need not wonder if that father carried to 
 his grave a pang that had gnawed daily at his heart 
 through a long life. 
 
142 FORBEARANCE. 
 
 So it may be with any one of us, with respect to 
 child, friend, or even stranger. Bnt oh ! may God 
 spare us the bitter necessity of ever remembering, in 
 the presence of the dead, words or acts of unkind 
 or angry haste, — which we cannot recall, for which 
 we can entreat no pardon, and which have gone 
 with their weight of injury behind the veil. What 
 pang, like the consciousness of an irreparable wrong! 
 What accusers, like the voiceless lips of the dead ! 
 
 A word now, in conclusion, as to our ability to 
 attain this grace. I believe none better rewards vig- 
 ilance and effort. The biographies of men eminent 
 for their sanctity instruct us to what extent this 
 power of forbearance may grow in the character. 
 The heathen Socrates, with no life of Christ to in- 
 spire him, brought a naturally violent temper under 
 restraint, and made his philosophy beautiful by his 
 forbearance. George Washington, constitutionally 
 quick and passionate, achieved many a conquest over 
 man and over circumstances through his prior con- 
 quest of himself. John Wesley melted an obstinate 
 servant by the display of meekness and patience. 
 Doubtless, there are many among our acquaintances, 
 whose daily record tells of victories in this field of 
 moral action, which would have been once deemed 
 impossible. If philosophy have ever won the palm 
 in this conflict with selfishness and passion, surely, 
 philosophy, aided by Christian conviction, should be 
 sure of high success. If we have never made the ex- 
 periment, let us try it, for the sake of the direct 
 blessings which the attainment brings, and for the 
 sake of the aid it renders to other spiritual effort. And 
 
FORBEARANCE. 143 
 
 especially may we, who are willing to be called dis- 
 ciples of Christ, seek a virtue that shone so signifi- 
 cantly in his life ; and without which, as he has in 
 substance declared, we have no part with him. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 THE KESUERECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 JESUS SAID TJNTO HER, " I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE : 
 HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE -WERE DEAD, YET 
 SHALL HE LIVE : AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN 
 ME, SHALL NEVER DIE." — Johu xi. 25. 
 
 There is a depth and solemnity of meaning in 
 this passage which a light glance at it cannot meas- 
 ure. Lotus aim to penetrate the purport of this re- 
 markable utterance of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Martha had said unto Jesus, " I know that he 
 (Lazarus) shall rise again, in the resurrection at the 
 last day." It was in reply to this saying of Martha, 
 that Jesus spoke the words of the text. Martha's 
 mind was fixed upon the simple physical fact of the 
 rising of the body unto a second life. Her idea did 
 not go beyond that event. It did not question con- 
 cerning any law, or seek to learn concerning the 
 spirit that might be said to pertain to a resurrection 
 from the dead. It was a barren, material concep- 
 tion. Her heart, bleeding at the death of her brother, 
 wished him back at her side. She would not wait 
 until the great scene of the last resurrection, — she 
 
THE RESURRECTION ANB THE LIFE. 145 
 
 would have her brother then. The substance of 
 Jesus's reply to her was, " Lazarus believed in me, — 
 my spirit dwelt in him ; and having such a faith, 
 and such a spirit, he is already risen to life, — nay, 
 more ; he has never died, and could never die." 
 
 We have been accustomed, perhaps, to interpret 
 the first clause of the text, " I am the resurrection 
 and the life," by itself; regarding it as expressing 
 in words a testimony to immortality elsewhere ex- 
 pressed by facts of Christ's life. With respect to this 
 testimony to immortality, we justly affirm, first, that 
 our faith in the doctrine of a future life rests in part 
 upon the declarations of Jesus. His mission was a 
 supernatural one, — his life was a special manifesta- 
 tion of God, — a power beyond human dwelt in him. 
 Knowledge more than earthly illumined him. His 
 connection with the Infinite Source of truths and 
 realities was extraordinary and mysterious. There- 
 fore he had endowment and auiliority to affirm. And 
 as these affirmations declare the undying life of the 
 soul, we incline to believe on the mere authority of 
 him who uttered them ; especially since there is 
 nothing in nature or reason or instinct to controvert 
 them, — that the soul is immortal. 
 
 We, in the second place, justly regard Christ's 
 words in testimony to a future life as emphasized 
 by certain /ads of his history; such facts especially 
 as the raising of the dead, and his own resurrection. 
 Since these wonderful events were, so to speak, 
 products of Christ's power, or of God's power through 
 him, we may suppose that he did not exclude refer- 
 ence to such products as bearing witness to immor- 
 
 13 
 
146 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 tality, when he said, " I am the resurrection and the 
 life." Yet let us not place a wrong estimate upon 
 the testimony which even these stupendous miracles 
 afford. Of themselves they seem to me to teach the 
 doctrine of immortality rather negatively than posi- 
 tively. They meet all our objections to the physical 
 possibility of a resurrection. They show that the 
 decomposition of the body is not the annihilation of 
 the soul. They leave all the inherent energies of 
 the living man unaffected by death. The divine 
 spark that glows within him is not extinguished 
 when the flush fades from his countenance and the 
 light dies out of his eye. The argument of the ma- 
 terialist falls to naught. He says, " Press your thumb 
 upon the mass which we call brain, and the being 
 into whose faculties that brain sent life and intelli- 
 gence falls a senseless clod." The Gospel miracles 
 tell us that the mortal body is the dwelling of the 
 spirit ; and that into whatever ruin the dwelling falls, 
 its tenant survives unharmed. 
 
 But the declaration of Christ which we are pon- 
 dering has a meaning beside either of the two to 
 which I have alluded. " I am the Resurrection and 
 the Life," says Christ. He does not say that the 
 raising of Lazarus from the dead will make such a 
 resurrection sure, or that his own rising from the 
 dead will bear witness to the immortal life, but he 
 says, "Jam the Resurrection and the Life"; that 
 is, his spirit, his purposes, his affections, his aspi- 
 rations, tlie quality arid condition oj his soul, are ele- 
 ments of being that cannot perish, are the germ of a 
 life whose limit and end are pot the grave. And the 
 
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 147 
 
 latter part of the text bears out this interpretation 
 of the former clause ; for the Saviour declares sub- 
 stantially that this life is communicable. He asserts, 
 as if it were his loftiest prerogative, that he is the 
 Fountain of that life to others. But how ? Through 
 faith in him. " He that helieveth in me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth 
 and believeth in me shall never die." All that Christ 
 here means by life is linked io faith; a faith, not 
 that looks on and assents and wonders, but a faith 
 that clings to, that loves, that partakes of, that de- 
 lights in the spirit and affections of the Saviour. 
 
 If these suggestions approach the real meaning of 
 the passage under consideration, if they hint at the 
 true solution of the problem, not of natural, but of 
 Gospel immortality, how far away do they leave the 
 ordinary, dogmatic inculcations of the Church. I 
 will not divert your minds too long by a considera- 
 tion of these dogmas, but I cannot leave them un- 
 mentioned. 
 
 The doctrine of Christ, in the text, I hold to be 
 this. It seems to me to admit of no doubt and of 
 no qualification. It is only by participation in the 
 spiritual elements of ChrisVs being, that lie ivho is 
 dead can live, and that he ivho lives shall not die. 
 And if I may throw in my own comment here, I 
 would say, that it was for this purpose that Christ 
 was sent into the world, — to impart to trusting 
 souls a life which, without him, they could not find. 
 He declares, " As I live by the Father, so shall ye 
 live by me." And how did Christ live by the Fa- 
 ther ? By losing his own will in the Infinite "Will, — 
 
148 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 by embosoming his own life in the life of God. 
 Thus he drank of immortality from Him who alone 
 hath it. 
 
 How are ive to live by Christ ? Solely, by lean- 
 ing upon his breast, with humble love, so that into 
 our hearts his spirit may pass ; that the immortality 
 which filled his soul from the outpouring of the life 
 of God may flow into and around our souls. 
 
 But the teachings of much of the prevailing theol- 
 ogy, — do they recognize such a necessity for the 
 human soul ? Do they find any such basis for sal- 
 vation ? They make Christ nominally, nay, — with 
 how profound an emphasis, — the source of the 
 soul's hope ; but do not some of their propositions 
 take a shape that renders such a relation to Christ 
 as the text makes indisputably essential, of subor- 
 dinate, almost of no consequence ? How does, how 
 can a dogma that asserts the indispensableness of 
 a belief in certain propositions concerning Christ's 
 metaphysical nature, or concerning the unfathoma- 
 ble mystery of his union with God, or concerning 
 the nature and direction of the effect which his death 
 exercised upon the possibilities of the divine admin- 
 istration, — how can any such dogma do anything 
 but impair the obligation, chill the desire which a 
 soul must feel toward a reception of the Saviour's 
 spirit? Metaphysics have nothing to do with the 
 pulses of a divine life. A scholastic theology is a 
 bleached, rattling skeleton. Beneath its ribs no 
 heart of practical and transforming faith can beat. 
 " He that liveth and believeth in me, not about me," 
 says Christ, " shall never die." When the hour of 
 
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 149 
 
 test shall come to us, it will not catechize us upon 
 the subtleties of doctrine. It will not rank us accord- 
 ing to our schools of metaphysical opinions. It will 
 close its eye to the inscription on our intellects; 
 but it will simply lay open our affections, and seek 
 what there is of Christ-like quality in them, and so 
 determine their claim to "the Resurrection and the 
 Life." This faith that seems to be prescribed as 
 the condition of our immortality is a positive convic- 
 tion of the heart, is a controlling energy of the affec- 
 tions, is a religious, Christian direction of the will. 
 
 Here an objection may arise to the present inter- 
 pretation of Christ's words, that they make im- 
 mortality conditional. There may seem to you an 
 implication in what has been said that they who do 
 not believe in Christ are not immortal. Does not 
 this doctrine, you inquire, teach the annihilation of 
 the wicked ? I might answer, " No matter what it 
 teaches, if it be true." I might say, " Let no philo- 
 sophical theories, let no theological adjustments, let 
 no consideration for the fate of sinners, let no 
 shrinking of our instincts step forward to disallow a 
 plain statement, or a plain interpretation of a state- 
 ment of Jesus of Nazareth." I might ask, " Does 
 not the text imply, does it not substantially, unam- 
 biguously teach, that he who does not believe in 
 Christ, living, shall die, and dying, shall not live 
 again ? " Ponder these often-repeated words, and 
 see if they teach anything else, if they do not pre- 
 scribe a condition of immortality. 
 
 But it does not follow that a simple future exist- 
 ence is made conditional by the words of Christ. It 
 
 13* 
 
150 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 does not follow that they who have no belief in him 
 are literally to perish, — to be annihilated; for the 
 words life and death in Scripture have reference 
 rather to conditions of being than to the bare facts 
 of existence or non-existence. Life, — death, they 
 are the contrastive terms for states of the soul. All 
 that is worthy, desirable, blissful, glorious, is involved 
 in the descriptive epithet, life. All that is desolate 
 and wretched is signified by the epithet, death. 
 Heaven is synonymous with the one ; hell with the 
 other. Then immortality, as a Gospel term, does 
 not mean deathlessness, but an everlasting life of 
 peace and joy. And it is less, far less, the intent of 
 Christ to affirm the continuance of being after death, 
 than to show what shall crown that being with bless- 
 edness, — than to cheer on all virtue and all faith, 
 by pointing to their awards, — than to gather up the 
 infinite sanctions of a never-ending future to inspire 
 and direct the present. Poor, poor work of Christ, 
 had it been limited to that barren disclosure of a 
 re-arising. Immortal life was not his original revela- 
 tion, — it was fluttering on the confines of men's 
 belief. The great mass of mankind never credited 
 that the grave folded the soul as well as the body in 
 everlasting decay ; but Christ brought this dim fact 
 forward, substantiated it, expounded it, set forth its 
 conditions, sought to make it real ; and strove to 
 lodge it, not among the superstitions nor the philo- 
 sophic theories of the world, but in the conscious- 
 ness of the believing creature. He would not write 
 it, as upon the wall with a phosphoric gleam, but 
 upon the soul, in letters that should burn as with 
 
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 151 
 
 fire. It was thus that he " brought life and immor- 
 tality to lights 
 
 What a striking comment are the words of John 
 upon the thought I am urging. " He that hath the 
 Son hath life." He in whose heart the spirit of 
 Jesus dwells possesses the inextinguishable elements 
 of felicity now, — of felicity for ever. 
 
 It is common in the burial service to say over the 
 dead, " I am the resurrection and the life ; he that 
 believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
 never die," — or as some translations more strongly 
 render it, " shall not die eternally.''^ With the inter- 
 pretation , which I urge of this passage, it is easy to 
 see what a source of consolation it should be to 
 those who are mourning the departure of the humble- 
 minded and the pious. What does Christ say to 
 you, mourner, concerning that relative or friend 
 whose marble features look upward from that coffin- 
 head ? He tells you that the life of that dear one 
 was not inwrought in those tissues of clay, that it 
 did not dwell in the simple animate principle, but 
 that it lay enfolded in the loving heart., whose earthly 
 beating has ceased. He tells you the faith which 
 was nurtured in that breast was the germ of unfad- 
 ing blessedness, that there was a life there, hidden 
 with Christ in God, and that, in the midst of all 
 these shows of sadness and admonitions of decay, 
 that life is still hid with Christ in God, as it were, 
 disallowing these gloomy demonstrations, chiding 
 your tears, and saying to you, " If you have faith as 
 a grain of mustard-seed in the risen Saviour, believe 
 
152 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 that I your friend — an imperfect but an earnest 
 believer in Christ — have been accepted by God's 
 grace into the companionship of the redeemed." 
 
 There is no mystery in the condition of immor- 
 tality which I have presented. I could almost find 
 illustration of the differences of condition that attend 
 faith or faithlessness in Christ, in the common 
 world, setting aside all reference to the presence or 
 absence of a vital Christian principle. 
 
 Take two characters out of the circle of daily, 
 practical life. Here is one, courteous and kind- 
 hearted. He thinks of the comforts and wants of 
 others as well as of his own. He is not seeking 
 his own profit to others' damage. He is sensitive to 
 their rights, whether of property, speech, or charac- 
 ter. He has sympathies, good counsels, friendly 
 attentions, generous gifts. The world calls him 
 " noble." Men say, " He has a soulP 
 
 There is another, hard, cold, calculating, selfish. 
 Nobody warms up in his presence. Nobody catches 
 any generous enthusiasm from his spirit. Rare are 
 the circumstances that draw forth from him self- 
 forgetful sympathies, disinterested services, or that 
 common form of favor, — money. Princely-hearted 
 men loathe such a character, — every eye can note 
 its meanness ; observers say, as with a common 
 voice, " That man has no souU^ 
 
 There is something of truth in this classification 
 of the street. There is something in the one man 
 that suggests growth, immortality ; the power, prog- 
 ress, and felicity that belong to a soul, — and there 
 is something in the other man that suggests the 
 
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 153 
 
 cramping and the withering of all that might be 
 noble and glorious within. That degradation and 
 barrenness of a nature without a soul. 
 
 Suppose now you add the Christian element to 
 the former attractive character. In the heart of it 
 you plant a sturdy conscience, written all over with 
 the fear of God. You open within it the fountain 
 of Gospel charities, — you see there a trembling 
 dread of sin, — a mingling of trust and pray erf ulness 
 toward God, — a steadfast and grateful faith toward 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. Then tell me, my brethren, 
 whether the contrast between these two individuals 
 be not as the contrast of light with darkness, — of 
 life with death ? Is there not something in that 
 character that should seem to say, " it shall live," — 
 while this character should a thousand times perish ! 
 
 Such is my idea of the meaning of the language 
 of Jesus in the text. Man, in the first birth of the 
 senses and the appetites, lives without belief in 
 Christ. Man, in the second birth of the spirit, lives 
 with the belief in the Son of God. The state of the 
 former is a species of death. To man, as a moral 
 and spiritual being, possessing heavenly opportuni- 
 ties, having relation with invisible glories, and en- 
 dowed to commune with God, it is death, — death 
 here and hereafter. The state of the latter is life, — 
 the flowering of all the beautiful sensibilities of the 
 heart, — the fruitage of all practical duties, — the 
 sense of a peace that passeth understanding, and of 
 a joy that cannot decay. 
 
 My brethren ! it is but a very small item of a wise 
 man's faith, or of a Christian's creed, that the spirit 
 
154 THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 shall survive death. There is no drier conception 
 in the mind, than that of a natural and necessary 
 immortality merely. What is life, — what is the 
 longest life on earth, apart from its moral condition, 
 — from its experiences of joy or sorrow ? It is 
 nothing, — a mere abstraction, — a dream ! So im- 
 mortality is nothing to you, apart from its conditions. 
 You may survive the grave, — you may live /or eve?', 
 and yet perish. For, without affections, the root 
 and the fruit of faith in Christ, your life will yet 
 show, if it have not already shown itself, alienated 
 from holy things and holy beings, — dreary, mis- 
 erable, unblessed. And this is precisely the state 
 against which the whole Gospel directs its warn- 
 ings, and which the sacred teachers designate by 
 the term " death " ; and out of which God sent his 
 dear Son to deliver us, and for which end that Son 
 died. 
 
 It is a delightful testimony to the truth of what 
 has been urged in this discourse, that persons, in 
 proportion to the elevation of their moral natures, 
 in proportion to the nearness of their souls to God, 
 have had awakened within them a faith in, a con- 
 sciousness of, immortality ; as if there were some- 
 thing in goodness, in spiritual life, that not only 
 cannot die, but that so discloses itself to the soul. 
 Such was the case even among the heathen. Said 
 Socrates to his friends who stood around him after 
 he had drunk the hemlock, " Do you think that 
 the body which you will soon see lying here cold 
 and stiff is myself? / shall be gone." And how 
 is this sense of the supremacy and eternal life of 
 
THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 155 
 
 the soul intensified in the heart of the Christian 
 believer ! O, you cannot quench his faith in an 
 existence of endless blessedness ! No philosophies, 
 no sophistries, no dark passages of his life, no ex- 
 amples of scepticism and indifference can put out 
 the light of his trust in God and in his Christ. 
 Living and believing in Jesus, the record is on his 
 soul that he shall never die. 
 
 Are you not then, my hearers, urged by the most 
 solemn necessities of your being, as well as by your 
 highest hopes, to a faith in Jesus Christ ? Can you 
 with indiflerence anticipate an immortality which, 
 through your practical unbelief in Christ, will be to 
 you, not life, but death ? 
 
 Blessed be God for the helps he has given to the 
 faith of his children, — that, as we gaze up to heav- 
 en, we may see Jesus, the Author and Finisher of 
 our faith, at the right hand of the Father! He who 
 burst the doors of the sfepulchre by his exaltation 
 into glory reminds us continually of his triumph 
 over the last enemy ; and we feel that, participating 
 in his might through faith, and experiencing the 
 grace of his perpetual intercession, we too shall rise 
 again, — not to an exile of darkness and sorrow, but 
 to a communion of everlasting joy. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 
 
 HE THAT IS FAITHFUL IN THAT WHICH IS LEAST, IS FAITHFUL 
 ALSO IN MUCH : AND HE THAT IS UNJUST IN THE LEAST, IS 
 
 UNJUST ALSO IN MUCH. — Luke xvL 10. 
 
 Let me seek to impress upon you the moral and 
 spiritual fact or law here set forth. It is a fact of 
 man's condition, the law of his experiences. The 
 fact or law may be expressed as follows. As a man 
 is in trifling matters, so he is in graver concerns. 
 
 You may incline at first to object and say, " Some 
 men take latitude in insignificant transactions, but 
 they are scrupulous in affairs of moment." Per- 
 haps you may make a personal matter of it, and say, 
 " lam conscientious in things of importance, though 
 I may occasionally swerve a little in deeds or deal- 
 ings of small consequence." Or you may fix your 
 eye on a neighbor, and say, " He is without reproach 
 in his more conspicuous relations and duties, though, 
 it may be, not so rigid in some inferior dealings. 
 There is Mr. A., for example, he pays all his 
 large bills, and is slack only on penny matters. 
 There is Mr. B., he has been an officer of a corpo- 
 ration many years, large sums of money have 
 
FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 157 
 
 passed through his hands. In his accounts he was 
 never behind a minute in time nor a mill in amount. 
 There are charges against his punctuality and in- 
 tegrity in his private pecuniary concerns, but he is, 
 on the whole, an honest and an honorable man." 
 Or of another you may incline to say, " His de- 
 meanor is always decorous and humane ; he treats 
 me, and he treats all, as a gentleman should ; he 
 appears amiable in his family, and men love his 
 companionship. There are, indeed, times (when 
 some favorite purpose is * to be gained) when he 
 loses temper, and lets slip some severe words, and 
 some heartless deeds, but, on the whole, he is a val- 
 uable neighbor, and a good man." 
 
 And the world may appear to you to furnish 
 abundant examples of similar distinctions, so that 
 you are inclined to say, " A man may be somewhat 
 slack in obscure departments of conduct, but he is 
 not, therefore, necessarily remiss in all." And as I 
 at first said, your own experience comes up ear- 
 nestly to fortify this conclusion. You cannot dis- 
 guise to yourself that you are somewhat loose in 
 some paths of action. That you deliberately come 
 short of full duty in some spheres of minor respon- 
 sibility ; you are too candid to deny this, but as you 
 look at wider departures from what is exactly just, 
 you exclaim with Hazael, " Is thy servant a do^, 
 that he should do this thing ? " But the world has 
 always found it hard work to doubt a clear Bible 
 doctrine, and it is only the superficial glance that 
 inclines to doubt the doctrine of the text. 
 
 Mark, then, the distinction to be drawn in the out- 
 
 14 
 
158 FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 
 
 set between the direction of such observations as 
 have just been quoted and the direction towards 
 which the Gospel precept looks. Those all discrim- 
 inate about a man's actions, this speaks of man's 
 condition. Those declare what a man does, or what 
 he does not; this affirms what he is, or what he is 
 not; and it might be all true, that a man should 
 shun certain deeds of villany, yet be a villain, or 
 perform certain acts required by honesty, yet not 
 be honest. 
 
 The Gospel does not deal with such superficial 
 things, such debatable affairs, . such possible illu- 
 sions as mere deeds. It always leaps within the 
 boundary of manual operations to inspect the secret 
 things of the soul. It lays its hand on conscience, 
 establishes itself among the thoughts, the aims, and 
 the motives, and says, " Here is my domain, my 
 judgments, and my sanctions concern this realm 
 alone ; if you read the title-page, I decipher the 
 great meaning of the Book itself." 
 
 Before you decide, then, as to the truth of the 
 Scripture maxim, that, " he who is faithful or un- 
 faithful in the least, is faithful or unfaithful also in 
 much," you must take a different stand-point from 
 that which has furnished you with opinions. 
 
 But before looking from this new ground, let me 
 ask you to prolong your survey in the direction 
 already taken, that is, on the outside of a man's 
 being, and note whether, even here, there are not 
 some indications afforded that the Gospel is true. 
 
 Have you never seen the development of such in- 
 consistent courses as you have described? There is 
 
FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 159 
 
 an end as well as a beginning, and a middle of such 
 courses. Do you always discern this end, so that it 
 hold in check the judgment which you would form 
 from the beginning and the middle ? Have you not 
 seen certain characters which were stainless to the 
 public eye (yet which you knew were lax in hidden 
 directions), by degrees, or suddenly, and without de- 
 gree, by some deed of flagrant wickedness, come 
 crashing to the ground, in moral ruin ? And if you 
 have, you are prepared, in such case, to think that 
 the injustice in the little was also injustice in the 
 much, only the time for the latter exhibition had not 
 come. 
 
 It is not uncommon for a great peculation to unveil 
 itself all at once ; though the dishonesty that rolled 
 up such an amount of turpitude has been silently 
 working for years. The defaulter for a hundred thou- 
 sand to-day is no more a defaulter than he was 
 twenty years ago, when he first abstracted for his 
 private use from the bank vaults or the public purse. 
 And if your eye could then have seen all the deeds 
 of the man, you would not have been inclined to 
 admit that his want of integrity in subordinate mat- 
 ters was cancelled or overborne to the honor of his 
 conscience by his scrupulousness in matters of great 
 account. No! it is no way to judge of a man to 
 inspect his actions, unless you can by such inspec- 
 tion see through the husk to the moral kernel. 
 
 Look, then, at the conscience, not at the deed, as 
 the Gospel looks, and see if it be not true that the 
 little will furnish a test for the much. 
 
 Here is a man's moral nature, his whole being, 
 
160 FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 
 
 in its relation to duty, to faith, to righteousness, to 
 God brought into collision with some deed (if I may 
 suppose the deed to be something out of the man). 
 Now does it matter, so far as the man is concerned, 
 so far as the result of his collision is concerned, so 
 far as the moral complexion of his surrender or of his 
 resistance is involved, whether the deed be petty or 
 mighty ? So far as Adam's moral being was affected 
 by his disobedience, did it matter whether it was 
 the transgression of a decree prohibiting the eating of 
 an apple or the murder of a world ? If a sheet of 
 glass be shattered, is it of consequence whether the 
 ruin were affected by a pebble or by aPaixhan ball? 
 Conscience is like the sensitive plant. Touch it 
 with sin, and it curls and droops, whether the instru- 
 ment of contact be a hair or the " mast of some High 
 Admiral." If I have bowed before evil, it is of no 
 account whether the evil lay in a word of yours or 
 in the lifting of your finger, or whether it lay in 
 the environment of a legion of seducers. I have 
 fallen, sin is on my soul, — sin foreseen, sin avoid- 
 able. I am not what I was, — I cannot be what I 
 was. What a profound observer says of Truth is 
 predicable of the conscience : " It regards with the 
 same serenity the lightest and the boldest violations 
 of its law. There are some faults slight in the sight 
 of Love ; some errors slight in the estimate of wis- 
 dom, but conscience forgives no insult and endures 
 710 stain." 
 
 When I hear one saying of another, " He is un- 
 faithful in those little things, but faithful under these 
 great trusts," I am ready to ask, " Can a sunbeam 
 
FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 161 
 
 glance with splendor through mighty oaks, and 
 athwart towering precipices, yet fall as a black 
 shadow on blades of grass and on grains of sand ? 
 Can a spring that fills a goblet with poisoned waters 
 fill a reservoir with healthy waters ? So, can one 
 be an honest man before great deeds, yet a dishonest 
 one before small ones ? " 
 
 In estimating moral condition, it is not easy to de- 
 cide whether one can properly be termed just or un- 
 just, faithful or faithless. A man may fall owce, but 
 his conscience, strong and in agony, may spring up 
 and reassert itself. In the language of Milton, it 
 may be true, that, 
 
 " From this his descent 
 Celestial virtues rising will appear, 
 More glorious and more dread than from no fall." 
 
 You could not say such a man is unjust, or faith- 
 less. There are, there will be, lapses with good, with 
 Christian men, for all are covered with mortal infirm- 
 ities. A just man is now and then wwjust, a 
 faithful man is now and then faithless ; but it is 
 under protest of the conscience, it is under penalties 
 of remorse, it is under a baptism of tears. The soul 
 is still like the eagle, having its eyry on the dizzy 
 peak, and its flight in the upper air, from which it 
 has stooped to do a wrong, out of which, in shame 
 and in prayer, it again soars. 
 
 Different, altogether, is such a man, from him who 
 transgresses heedlessly or habitually in small things. 
 This one is a sinner. His sphere is truly the bog 
 and the ditch, and if he ever breast the sunlight and 
 
 f4» 
 
162 FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH, 
 
 the breeze, it is for some end, beside the gratification 
 of the native longings of his spirit. It is a common 
 and it is a true maxim, that a man is disclosed in his 
 relation to little things. What he is, seen through 
 the microscope of a tiny fact, he is, seen through the 
 lens of a signal event or of an entire life. It is the 
 petty annoyances within the domestic inclosure, not 
 the mighty vexations of public station, that reveal 
 the temper of man or of woman. It is the disposi- 
 tion to kindliness in the familiar circles, and in unob- 
 trusive directions, that betrays the disinterestedness 
 of the heart. The cupidity that hoards the dollars, 
 was the penuriousness that saved the dimes. If a 
 man in these by-paths of life show himself just and 
 faithful, sure it is that he will so show himself on the 
 high-ways of life. 
 
 When you pass out of the strictly moral sphere, 
 possibly these remarks may admit of some qualifica- 
 tion. I have heard of men being careful of their 
 small earnings, and prodigal of larger sums; of 
 their being heedless with respect to the details of 
 their business, but circumspect with regard to its 
 prominent claims ; but such cases will, I apprehend, 
 when closely analyzed, fall under the general rule. 
 
 Before closing this train of thought, I appeal once 
 more to your individual consciousness. Does not 
 the Gospel declare the w^hole truth of the matter ? 
 Look closely into your supposed scrupulousness with 
 regard to prominent acts ; especially if you are con- 
 scious of some laxity in your less significant transac- 
 tions. You may ask yourself, Why does not that 
 unconcernedness in minute aifairs extend to affairs 
 
FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 163 
 
 of magnitude? Is it due to conscience that this 
 is not the case ? Suppose your conscience easily 
 evades the paying of a s?7iall debt, is it your keen 
 moral sense that pays the larger one ? Do no other 
 elements creep in to compel such payment, which 
 elements have no afHnity with the moral sense ? In the 
 latter case, there is a calculation of the consequences 
 to yourself of non-payment of so considerable a sum, 
 the community would brand the neglect, neighbors 
 would withdraw their confidence, social and business 
 facilities would be abridged. You could not endure 
 the public mark of fraud or dishonesty. Or possibly 
 your benevolent impulses might take the side of 
 duty, by suggesting the loss or suffering which your 
 dishonesty on so large a scale would entail on your 
 creditor; — but in such, and in all kindred transac- 
 tions, is your conscience the agent ? Does a con- 
 science ever argue in this wise, " Here are two 
 duties, as duties equally obligatory. I may neglect 
 this one with no moral peril, but that one I am con- 
 strained to perform ? Never I unless as a dying 
 speech! But how constrained, — by the revived or 
 remaining life of that conscience ? No ! but by 
 the judgment, by the calculations of prudence, by 
 pride, or by vainglory. Emotions all outside of the 
 moral and spiritual man. 
 
 I shall now offer one or two practical inferences 
 from what has been said. 
 
 Every man has the criterion of his life hourly 
 before him, and with any disposition to self-inspec- 
 tion, he may suffer from no delusion touching his 
 moral state. It is the fine print of minute and mo- 
 mentary experiences that will teach him the truth, 
 
164 FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 
 
 rather than the coarse block-type of larger and rarer 
 deeds. He has only to scan closely, and to ponder 
 wisely, this page of important disclosure. 
 
 Secondly, the sphere of duty, of profitable ex- 
 perience, of discipline, lies immediately about us. 
 God has placed the leaves of vast moral issues 
 directly in our hands. Duty, like the Deity, encom- 
 passes us, — we need not feel around, if happily we 
 may find it, for it is near to each one of us. 
 
 Some, after reading the biography of Oberlin or of 
 Howard, of Fry or of Tuckerman, might say, O if I 
 only had the sphere and the opportunities of doing 
 such good, and in such a way, how devotedly would 
 I labor! Would you so? Has no opportunity of 
 doing a similar good been presented to you the past 
 week, which you have neglected ? Are you now in 
 the path of benevolent action, thinking, contriving, 
 counselling, giving, doing, praying for your unhappy 
 fellow-men ? Have you, since that biography stirred 
 your aspirations, dried a single tear, relieved a single 
 want, lightened a single burden, dispelled a single 
 prejudice, struck down a single temptation, nerved a 
 single failing heart? What! with such a domain 
 of opportunity about you, have you done little or 
 nothing toward one of these ends ? Alas ! that you 
 should think it possible (thus shunning the privileges 
 which God crowds into your daily life) that you 
 could toil over the world in pilgrimages, and search 
 out all loathsome forms of suffering, and carry heal- 
 ing to the worst diseases of the soul ! 
 
 If God had made such ostentatious services ne- 
 cessary for the discipline of man, what an outcry 
 there would have been against his administration ; 
 
FAITHFUL IN LITTLE, FAITHFUL IN MUCH. 165 
 
 but now that he has made virtue accessible to the 
 very humblest, what indifference to the outspread 
 opportunity ! The bread and water of mercy and of 
 duty, the soul's common privilege, is disdained, and 
 only the rare viands and exotic fruits of moral ser- 
 vice are to be tasted. What strange, and what 
 foolish, and what unworthy creatures we are! we 
 want what we have not, and ought not to have ! we 
 contemn what we have, and what alone we need ! 
 we excuse neglect of duty, because circumstances do 
 not favor! and when circumstances most favor, we 
 are most remiss in duty ! The record against us is 
 a sad one ; and nothing short of daily and hourly 
 discharge of incumbent obligations can set any com- 
 pensatory checks against the list of our transgres- 
 sions. Nothing but a fresh heart of faith, an out- 
 gushing of grateful, free service, a glad availing of 
 Divine opportunities, can give us any favor with 
 Him who holds that record in his hand. 
 
 Lastly, it is not single deeds (which, like reser- 
 voirs, contain moral stagnation), but it is the flow- 
 ing current of daily life that finds an outlet in char- 
 acter, and character alone has its issue in eternity. 
 
 It has been found that no treasury is so effectually 
 replenished as that which gathers in universal penny 
 contributions ; so no man can so surely lay up treas- 
 ure in heaven, as he who sets aside for the holy 
 coffer the Peter-pence of thought, and speech, and 
 deed. .O despise not these trivial acts of the soul, 
 because they arc of the soul I — trivial only in seem- 
 ing, — of infinite moment in reality. Each one of 
 them has an endless issue, a relation to Heaven or to 
 Hell. 
 
SEEMON IX. 
 
 THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 
 
 AND THE PRATER OF FAITH SHALL SAVE THE SICK, AND THE LORD 
 SHALL RAISE HIM UP ; AND IF HE HAVE COMMITTED SINS, THEY 
 SHALL BE FORGIVEN HIM. — James V. 15. 
 
 The Sacred Writings make use of other terms, 
 equivalent in spirit to this. There is " the effectual, 
 fervent prayer " : " I will, therefore, that men pray 
 without doubting^' (1 Timothy ii. 8). "Whatsoever 
 ye ask in prayer, believing', ye shall receive" (Mat- 
 thew xxi. 22). "Ye ask and receive not, because 
 ye ask amiss " (James iv. 3). 
 
 Let us aim to ascertain the force and scope of the 
 expression, " The prayer of faith," 
 
 There is nothing mysterious, either in the term 
 prayer or the term faith.' Both are words indicat- 
 ing common and familiar experiences of the mind. 
 Though there may be faith without prayer, there 
 cannot be prayer without faith. Evidently, the 
 mind might entertain a deep conviction upon a sub- 
 ject, yet the desires might not look in that direction, 
 and when there is no desire, there can be no prayer. 
 While, on the other hand, if I do not believe in the 
 
THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 167 
 
 possibility of a certain attainment, any supplication 
 which I should make toward that attainment would 
 be only a nominal p7-ai/er, — or no prayer at all. 
 And, in general, just in proportion to my doubts 
 respecting the accomplishment of a coveted object 
 will be the debility and worthlessness of a prayer 
 directed toward that object. Or, perhaps, it would 
 be better to say, Justin proportion to absence of con- 
 viction (which may more accurately describe that 
 negatively doubting state of the mind), will any 
 petition or request be destitute of the quality of 
 prayer, — be merely a verbal proposition. 
 
 It may, perhaps, seem that supplication mai/ be 
 made where there is little or no hope of a favorable 
 result. A man says, " I will go and ask him, 
 though I have no expectation of accomplishing any- 
 thing." If the man be destitute of all hope of a suc- 
 cessful issue to his request, he will not make it, un- 
 less it be for some other end than the direct one 
 involved in the petition, — the gratification of a 
 friend, or his own sense of duty, for example ; and 
 when the request is so made, it is only a nominal, a 
 verbal prayer. And if the request should be granted, 
 it would not be an answer to the petitioner's suppli- 
 cation, for no supplication has been made; but a 
 result^ correspondent with the mere signification of 
 the terms of the request. 
 
 It will be seen that I do not confine the function 
 of prayer within religious limits, that I do not so 
 demonstrate the exercise of mind which it denotes, 
 simply because it is directed to the Supreme Being. 
 Prayer is a general term for a certain inward pro- 
 
168 THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 
 
 cess, experience, and, let it be distinctly appre- 
 hended, that which is generally called prayer is only 
 a form under which this immortal state exhibits 
 itself, or a medium through which it makes itself 
 known. The language, the words in which prayer 
 renders itself, are no more the prayer itself than the 
 melody we hear is the breath or the string that oc- 
 casions it, or than the electric wire is the galvanic 
 current which it transmits. We are so educated, 
 that all thought presents itself to our consciousness 
 in the envelope of words. Whenever the mind ru- 
 minates, all its processes are probably carried on by 
 the agency of the symbols with which from infancy 
 it has been familiar. Thus, a deaf mute, who has 
 been taught only signs, must make his prayer, and 
 himself apprehend his prayer, in signs ; and one 
 whose inward processes have always been associ- 
 ated with the finger alphabet must communicate 
 thought, and must think, through these digital trans- 
 formations. Let us, then, be careful not to confound 
 prayer, a mental condition, with an artificial adjunct 
 or instrument, whether word, natural sign, or manip- 
 ulating process. 
 
 Let prayer, then, be defined as a mental or moral 
 desire, — as an inward state of craving, — a con- 
 scious want, united with a looking for relief. It is 
 thus that every man prays. I can hardly conceive 
 of one who does not so pray, — though some pray 
 continually and fervently, and others intermittingly, 
 and coldly, — but still the world is full of prayer. 
 Man, dependent, needy, a creature of emulation, of 
 ambition, of hope, mvst pray ; and the high achieve- 
 
THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 169 
 
 ments of life, its successes, its gratifications, are the 
 fruits of this all-pervading spirit of prayer. The pur- 
 suits of men, — the breathless haste and absorbing 
 eagerness of toil, the diversity of plans, the self- 
 sacrifices in behalf of aim and purpose, the medi- 
 ation and the motion of human thought and human 
 energy are but the world's prayers. But there is 
 another name for these prayers, — effort. 
 
 Effort is the very maturity of prayer; it is "the 
 prayer of faithP Hence the world's prayers are 
 effectual. Effort is purpose in action, but at the 
 bottom of this is conviction, — faith ; there would be 
 no action, no effort, without a confidence in the ob- 
 ject toward which it was to be exerted, and a trust 
 in the means to be employed in the attainment of 
 that object. If you could impair this fundamental 
 faith, or conviction, you would, in just that propor- 
 tion, diminish the world's efforts ; in other words, its 
 prayers. If it had only liopcs toward a successful 
 issue, its action would be sluggish and vascillating ; 
 but now it knows, not thinks, it probable ; it is as- 
 sured, not hopes, that such or such ends are attain- 
 able by such and such an instrumentality, that is, it 
 has faith ; and possessing beforehand the want, the 
 yearning, the ground, the " effectual " prayers spring 
 forth of necessity, and life presents us the sublime 
 picture of cheerful, confident, triumphant action. 
 
 Individual history is a complete illustration of 
 these truths. 
 
 I have said that every man is more or less a pray- 
 ing man, and just in proportion as his prayers are 
 fervent will be the success of his purposes ; which is 
 
 15 
 
170 THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 
 
 but asserting, that, just in proportion as his sense of 
 want is keen, his desire of relief is intense, his effort 
 is patient, will his victory be complete. This con- 
 sciousness of deficiency, this consequent yearning, 
 this corresponding action, taken together, make up 
 his prayer. He prays, and is answered. 
 
 And here let me throw in a few general observa- 
 tions respecting certain unalterable conditions attend- 
 ant upon prayer. 
 
 Praying must be done ivisely. However earnestly 
 one may pray, he may fail of his end if he pray /oo/- 
 ishly. A certain degree of intelligence must preside 
 over success in this respect, as in all others. The 
 appointed luay must be followed or the goal will 
 never be reached. 
 
 A man desires to be rich, but he must pray for it, 
 or he will remain poor. And he must pray ivisely, 
 — pray within the appointed conditions. If he sit 
 down and bury his face in his hands and deplore 
 his poverty, and resolve to sit there in despond- 
 ency and tears until he is a rich man, he will die 
 a pauper, on the very spot of his faithful idle- 
 ness. Or if he go out upon the mountain, and 
 mark out for himself a circle upon the earth, and 
 begin his walk therein with a heavy burden upon 
 his back, and determine so to walk and so to bear 
 that burden until the purse of gold is dropped 
 upon his track, it is evident that he must perish 
 with his desire ungratified, in the path which he has 
 worn with so much toil and self-denial and faith. 
 His labor was a prayer, a devoted prayer, but a 
 prayer of folly, and it was consequently unanswered. 
 
THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 
 
 171 
 
 But suppose this aspirant after riches pray wisely. 
 He begins with personal economy. He seeks out 
 the most profitable fields for effort. He studies 
 others' mistakes and others' successes. He treads 
 cautiously. He wins friends. He secures allies. 
 He is unweariedly active, cheerfully patient. He 
 gets and keeps, and in time becomes a man of for- 
 tune. His success is the fruit of prayer, — a deep, 
 earnest prayer of faith. In other words, of wise 
 effort, based upon conviction. 
 
 The idea of prayer, as generally interpreted, in- 
 cludes a recognition of some external agent or 
 power, to whom or which the supplication is made, 
 and through whose instrumentality the petition is 
 answered. It may be asked, " How is this idea ten- 
 able with the definition which I have given to prayer, 
 — to whom, for example, does the man greedy of 
 acquisition pray ? " 
 
 If you please, I will say he prays to Mammon, — 
 to an idol whom his own cupidity has enthroned ; 
 but really his prayers are directed to an agent whose 
 competency to answer them he knows well, and in 
 whose aid and fidelity, thus invoked, he has implicit 
 faith. This agent, soulless, but undeceptive, with- 
 out will, yet of unerring truth, is the established law 
 of things. In point of fact, it is the course of Prov- 
 idence, the terrestrial ordination of God ; but not so 
 recognized by him who prays, who only views it as 
 the order and law of nature. But to this his prayers 
 are directed. It is a law that industry shall experi- 
 ence recompense, — it is a law that patience shall 
 achieve success, — it is a law that sagacity shall 
 
172 THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 
 
 outwit ignorance, — it is a law that prudence, econ- 
 omy, shall multiply gains ; and he who would be 
 rich, prays to these laws, — to an abstract deity, 
 of which these laws are attributes ; and that deity 
 answers his prayers. The god of this world has his 
 prerogatives and his patronage, as surely as the God 
 of heaven has his attributes, and his will and ability 
 to bless. 
 
 Yes, the man avaricious of worldly acquisitions, 
 planning for them, toiling for them, sick at heart 
 for them, living, dying for them, is through his life a 
 man of deep, devoted, successful prayer. 
 
 If, then, to him the voice of the pulpit should ap- 
 peal, the word of the living God should come, and 
 say, " Pray thou to Jehovah, have thou faith in 
 the Eternal Spirit, and in the unseen world," and he 
 should answer, " I know not what you mean, — 
 prayer, faith, is a mystery to me," I would reply, 
 " Have the trust in the will of Heaven that you have 
 in the law of earth. Believe in God as you believe 
 in Mammon. Pray toward virtue as you have 
 prayed toward gain ; love righteousness as you have 
 loved lucre. Your whole life has been a prayer, but 
 a prayer to the Evil One, — to the great /a/se spirit, 
 — and your prayer has been answered^ as all ear- 
 nest, judicious prayer shall be answered, but not 
 to your benefit. You have now a dry, husky 
 heart; you have a close, narrow soul ; your native 
 manliness is dwarfed ; you are down below noble 
 thoughts and noble deeds ; you have swelled your 
 purse, but shrivelled your affections. You have 
 walked by the torch-blaze of low passion, and have 
 
THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 173 
 
 forsaken the guidance of the lights of Heaven. You 
 preferred the mine of Pluto to the paradise of God ; 
 but your prayers are answered, your faith is 
 triumphant. You do know what prayer is and 
 \v\\2it faith is, but you do not know what prayer to 
 the God of Holiness is, what faith in his kingdom 
 of love is. To every plodding, anxious worldling 
 the answer would be the same. 
 
 It must be obvious, then, that religious faith is as 
 simple, as easy of comprehension, as practicable an 
 experience as a mercenary faith, — the love of lucre 
 stimulating one, the love of God the other ; and 
 that religious prayer is but the yearning, the energy 
 of the faculties toward spiritual objects, as worldly 
 prayer is their direction toward temporal objects. 
 
 I may now ask. Is it not manifest that much that 
 passes for prayer in the religious world has no right 
 to be so called. What, for example, are so many 
 of the superstitious mum.meries of Christendom, not 
 entitled even to the name of prayers ? Suppose 
 prayers were visible, suppose their spiritual quality 
 to be represented by their buoyancy, — that just in 
 proportion to their possession of this quality they 
 would rise above the ceiling of the private closet, or 
 the arches of the vaulted cathedral, in their way to 
 the skies, how "many of these nominal globes of 
 soul would float upward to the courts of grace? 
 how many would surmount the cross-current of an 
 earthly atmosphere? how many, indeed, would 
 overtop the level of the petitioner's heart? Nay, 
 how many, how very many, would fall, like leaden . 
 
 15* 
 
174 THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 
 
 balls, upon the earth, as if they were prayers to the 
 god beloio instead of the God above. 
 
 Why are not the prayers of Christians more suc- 
 cessful ? Why are not praying Christians better 
 men ? Why do they not grow better, as they pray ? 
 For this reason. They fall upon their knees, they 
 utter words, they go through a form, but they do 
 not pray; their worship is hardly upon the outer 
 sill of true devotion. If men desiring eminence 
 were to pray so, they would pine in obscurity. If 
 men seeking wealth were to pray so, they would 
 perish in an almshouse. Posture is not prayer; 
 words are not wishes; forms are not faith. If 
 the nominally religious world might this day pray 
 before the God of purity and of Christian influences, 
 as the secular world will this week to the god of 
 gain, the result of that supplication would be almost 
 instantly felt ; would be almost instantly visible. 
 There would be an increased illumination over the 
 soul-world, as there is in the gas-lighted temple, 
 when a fresh current is let in upon the dim blaze. 
 Religious action would take on an energy that 
 would startle sin in his dreams. The vigor and 
 dignity of moral purpose would abash the wicked 
 in their plots and pursuits of evil ; and if the world 
 (as some sad-hearted observers have supposed) were 
 retrogading in righteousness, were rushing onward 
 in an evil orbit, such a prayer would bring it, in all 
 its momentum of vice, to a stop, as if Jehovah's 
 hand had stayed it. 
 
 We have all seen cases in which young persons, 
 who have had tasks set them, have returned to their 
 
THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 175 
 
 teachers or parents, declaring their inability to do 
 what was required of them. They have returned, 
 faithless as to themselves, as to the objects set before 
 them, as to the means pointed out for the attainment 
 of those objects. But we have heard the parent or 
 teacher bid such children " ^ry," and we have seen 
 the children with an enkindled determination go 
 back to their effort, and easily accomplish their task. 
 
 It is against precisely such a distrust with respect 
 to jrraijer that I would guard you. You doubt, be- 
 cause you have not " triecV^ If you weigh prayer 
 in the balance oiform, or of habit, or of indifference, 
 you may expect to find it wanting ; but it never was 
 found light when placed in the scales of real faith 
 and real religious desire. Discriminate, then, be- 
 tween sai/ing, " O God I we would be blessed," 
 and that yearning of the soul that cries for the bless- 
 ing, — that purpose of the spirit that labors to be 
 blessed. One ejaculation of the heart avails more 
 than verbal petitions, protracted through eternity. 
 A single jet from the spiritual depths is worth more 
 than an ocean of frothy sentimentalism. 
 
 My hearers, as I have shown, you know what 
 faith is, what prayer is. Let it now be the endeavor 
 of your lives to know the true objects oi faith and of 
 prayer. Some will say to you, and perhaps your 
 secret desires will repeat the counsel, " Pray to the 
 world's idols, and have faith in the world's rewards " ; 
 but I say to you, and the Gospel and your destiny 
 repeat the counsel, Pray to God, and have faith in 
 Jesus, and in righteousness, and in immortality. 
 
SEHMON X. . 
 
 BEAKING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 
 
 TO THIS END WAS I BORN, AND FOR THIS CAUSE CAME I INTO 
 THE WORLD, THAT I SHOULD BEAR WITNESS UNTO THE TRUTH. 
 
 — John xviii. 37. 
 
 The great force of this declaration falls upon the 
 phrase " bear witness," as the chief power of Christ's 
 mission itself lay in the " testimony " to the truth. 
 
 Let us sufficiently distinguish between holding 
 the truth and testifying' to the truth. 
 
 A man may, for example, knoiv the facts in a case 
 which is tried before a jury, but, for reasons, he may 
 maintain silence concerning those facts. He may 
 not disclose to any one that he possesses a knowl- 
 edge of them ; consequently, he is not summoned as 
 a witness. The trial proceeds. Suppose a verdict 
 to be rendered in conformity with the facts of which 
 he is cognizant, the issue is right ; but his knowledge 
 had nothing to do with that issue. The result may, 
 indeed, have been founded upon incorrect premises, 
 so that it is in reality false as connected with those 
 premises, though true when viewed in relation to the 
 real facts of the case. Here, then, the man who 
 alone knew of those exact facts permitted the tri- 
 
BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 177 
 
 umph of a lie in relation to the premises (the as- 
 sumed facts in the case), which were all that the 
 jurors or the community could observe. 
 
 But suppose the verdict had been inconsistent 
 with the facts, as known by the individual of whom 
 we speak, how palpable now is the distinction be- 
 tween his knowledge of the truth, and this verdict 
 contrary to the truth ! And this is but saying, how 
 signal is the distinction between a possession of the 
 truth and a testimony to it ; for testimony in this 
 case would have averted that false verdict, — false, 
 because such testimony was not rendered. The 
 withholding of testimony here negatively originated 
 the falsehood ; nay, perhaps positively established it, 
 — for one who, by deliberate self- withdrawal, gives 
 a foreseen scope to a lie, is, in so far as that act is 
 concerned, hardly less criminal than if, by false tes- 
 timony, he had established the lie. 
 
 To make the application more general. Does the 
 mere possession of any fact, or any tnith, whether of 
 science, or of circumstances, or of theology, consti- 
 tute the possessor a truthful man ? In no respect. 
 Two persons may be placed in contact with what 
 we see to be error ; one may receive it, the other may 
 reject it. Is he who receives it the less veracious of 
 the two ? No ! his very veracity, his sincerity, his 
 integrity, may have caused him to embrace the error, 
 while the disingenuousness of the other may have 
 inclined him to reject it. For the former seizes the 
 error honestly as the truth, and is the truth-lover ; 
 while the latter, perversely influenced, declines the 
 error, not knowing that it is error, and is the truth- 
 hater. 
 
178 BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 
 
 It is not, therefore, the mere possession of truth 
 that entitles a person to the name of a defender, or 
 a friend of the truth. He may be its foe. We often 
 obtain truth through accident, through constitutional 
 aptitude, through natural sagacity. It sinks into our 
 conviction without effort, and without merit of our 
 own. We cannot help entertaining it. 
 
 Now, in what consists any dignity, or any worth 
 of one's mind or heart, in its connection with truth ? 
 It consists in this. In the relation which such 
 mind or heart maintains toward the truth, and so far 
 as the moral life, the spiritual energy of society, is 
 concerned, it is this relation rather than the truth 
 itself that is the vitalizing power of that society. 
 
 Cast into the mass of human knowledge the ivhole 
 truth concerning the stellar universe. Here is one of 
 the sublimest communications that the mind can 
 embrace. But of what service is this bequest to the 
 world, unless minds quake beneath the awful bur- 
 den, or hearts are awed and silenced by its vastness ? 
 Would it not be better that the great body of the 
 truth should have been withheld, provided that the 
 world had been enabled the more effectually to seize 
 and feel the residue of the truth ? 
 
 What is Christianity in the world independently 
 of hearts, consciences, and wills ? It is, as it were, 
 nothings — no more than light is without eyes. Sal- 
 vation is not Christian truth, but it is the relation 
 of the individual soul to that truth ; and if you would 
 seek the source of life to a church, you must look for 
 some exalted relation maintained by individuals of 
 that church to its life-giving doctrine. Doctrines 
 
BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 179 
 
 might be proclaimed for a centmy, and they might 
 embosom truths which should be scattered in a mil- 
 lion minds and hearts, yet those truths might be as 
 unprolific as the seeds which for' thousands of years 
 have lain in the dust of an Egyptian catacomb. 
 But let the relation which one soul may sustain to- 
 ward those doctrines declare and illustrate them, — 
 it is like uncovering the seeds at the mummy's feet 
 to the air, and the light, and the dews. Or such 
 relation is like the spark which touches fireworks 
 that were hidden in the darkness, and which lights 
 up their dull outline into beauty. Such an example 
 has been sometimes found in the martyr who per- 
 ishes for faith. The martyrdom shows not the truth, 
 the absolute truth, but it shows the relation of a soul 
 to what it believes the truth. It shows human truth, 
 truth of character, truth of life, truth of being. 
 
 It is easy to see why it is, that what an after age 
 may deem error for so many generations has held 
 almost absolute sway over nations. We discover 
 this reason in the sublime exhibitions which were 
 made of personal relations to supposed truth, — rela- 
 tions stronger than those to property, country, or life. 
 How is the religious history of Scotland, for exam- 
 ple, illustrated by facts of this character ; and what 
 a faith they must enkindle in the popular heart. 
 One hundred and fifty years ago, (in the language of 
 Macaulay), Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wil- 
 son, the former an aged widow, the latter a maiden 
 of eighteen, suffered death for their religion. They 
 were offered their lives if they would consent to ab- 
 jure the cause of the insurgent Covenanters, and to 
 
180 BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 
 
 attend the Episcopal worship. They refused, and 
 they were sentenced to be drowned. They were 
 carried to a spot which the Solway overflows twice 
 a day, and fastened to stakes fixed in the sand, be- 
 tween high and low water mark. The elder sufferer 
 was placed near to the advancing flood, in the hope 
 that her last agonies might terrify the younger into 
 submission. The sight was dreadful ; but the cour- 
 age of the survivor was sustained ; she saw the sea 
 draw nearer and nearer, but gave no sign of alarm. 
 She prayed and sang psalms till the waves choked 
 her voice. When she had tasted the bitterness of 
 death, she was, by a cruel mercy, unbound and re- 
 stored to life. When she came to herself, pitying 
 friends and neighbors implored her to yield. " Dear 
 Margaret, only say, ' God save the king,' " The 
 poor girl, true to her stern theology, gasped out, 
 " May God save him, if it be GocVs will." Her friends 
 crowded round the presiding officer : " She has said 
 it ; indeed. Sir, she has said it ! " " Will she take 
 the abjuration ? " he demanded. " Never ! " she 
 exclaimed ; " / ajn Chrisfs ; let me go." And the 
 waters closed over her for the last time. In like 
 manner was the truth, as it is in Jesus, sustained 
 through the early centuries of Christianity. Believ- 
 ers sealed it as a reality by their unconquerable 
 faith, — by their unshunned deaths. The inference 
 was, such a relation to known falsehood no soul can 
 sustain ; under hypocrisy, no such expression is pos- 
 sible. 
 
 When old Polycarp (a pupil of the Apostle John) 
 was apprehended, and was conducted into the 
 
BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 181 
 
 crowded stadium, the Proconsul in compassion en- 
 treated him to conceal his name, on account of the 
 vindictive feeling of the heathen mob toward him. 
 But such silence would not have expressed the 
 saint's relation to the truth. He then proclaimed 
 aloud that he was Polycarp. The trial proceeded. 
 " Sivear,^^ shouted the multitude, " bi/ the Genius of 
 CcBsar ; retract and say, Away with the godless ! " 
 The old man gazed in sorrow at the benches of fran- 
 tic and raging spectators, rising above each other, 
 and, with his eyes uplifted to heaven, said, " Away 
 iciLh the godless I " The Proconsul urged him fur- 
 ther. '•'■ Swear, ajid I release thee ; blaspheme Christ.''^ 
 " Eighty and six years have I served Christ, and he 
 has never done me an injury ; now can I blaspheme 
 my king and my Saviour ? " And Avhen bound to 
 the stake, he prayed, " O Lord God Almighty I I 
 thank thee that thou hast graciously thought me 
 worthy of this day and this hour, that I may receive 
 a portion in the number of thy martyrs, and drink of 
 Christ's cup, for the resurrection to eternal life ! " 
 
 But pass back to the martyrdom of the Saviour 
 himself. It is his relation to his own truths, which 
 more, even than those truths themselves, are trans- 
 forming the world ; because that relation was the 
 greatest, the most appreciable and the most touching 
 of all the truths. Hence, the world agrees that 
 Christ's life (involving of course his death) is more 
 vital than his doctrines, — that more of transforming 
 truth flashes from his tnitli of souly than from the ab- 
 stract revelations that fell from his lips. 
 
 And here let me say what I have before alluded 
 
 16 
 
182 BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 
 
 to ; that it is not necessary that what is held for 
 truth should be the absolute truth. In Christ it urns 
 the transcript of eternal and perfect verity ; but in 
 mortals, the only perfect truth lies in the conviction 
 of the possessor that what he holds is truth. In this 
 direction lies what, in humanity, may be said to 
 border on the divine, — what illustrates the spiritual, 
 — what prophesies of immortality. For, search 
 where and as you will, fealty of the conscience, con- 
 secration of the being to conviction, the soul's 
 homage to its perception of the truth, is the sub- 
 limest moral spectacle in the world. It makes all 
 other shows seem trivial, and it makes all other sub- 
 stantialities seem mutable and fleeting. 
 
 You err, if you think that I have been declaiming 
 upon abstractions, — that, in general, all is as I have 
 said, but that it cannot converge into a practical ap- 
 plication to yourselves. It can, and in various ways. 
 But I shall allude to one or two points only. Most 
 or all of you believe, that you hold Christian doc- 
 trines under forms nearest to the truth ; or, to speak 
 more definitely, that you hold the truths of Christian 
 doctrine. 
 
 Well, this is your possession. What is it worth 
 to you ? what is it worth to the world ? The an- 
 swer is found here. That worth lies in the relation 
 which you maintain toward those truths, — in your 
 expression and witness of those truths. Do not shut 
 out from your conviction this fact, that a true rela- 
 tion of the soul to error will work a nobler purifica- 
 tion for the world, and for the individual heart, than 
 a false relation of the soul to truth. For in the 
 
BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTJl. 183 
 
 relation lies the chief vitality. Give a denomination 
 the whole circle of the truths ; yet let it be supine or 
 unfaithful, and-its falsity of relation will kill it, and 
 perhaps its doctrines ; while a denomination, min- 
 gling with its creeds many errors, yet in its relation 
 to those errors showing devotedness, self-sacrifice, 
 faith will spread and establish itself. From the 
 heatheu world, God will take for his saints such as 
 maintain a true relation to convictions dark with 
 error ; while, out of the Christian world, he will not 
 take for a saint one who maintains false relations to 
 knowledge illuminated from on high. 
 
 You may now determine what your doctrinal 
 truth is worth to you or to the world. Does your 
 relation to it, does your expression of it, sanctify it, 
 or give it life, — enlist for it reverence, clothe it in 
 power, or help its weary and obstructed footsteps ? 
 If any bring you to the rack of severe questioning, 
 or of urgent entreaty, or of compassionate warning, 
 do you shrink and compromise, — do you disclaim 
 and profess ignorance, — do you avow uncertainty, 
 — lay all forms of doctrine on the same precarious 
 platform, — profess unbounded toleration, and hesi- 
 tatingly ask the liberty you grant ? If you do, what 
 an infinite distance there is between God's majestic 
 truth which he has lodged in your bosoms and your 
 relation to that truth ! And in the breast of another, 
 how quickly would that truth fade away before the 
 timid and deprecatory expression of it from your lips 
 and from your position. You absolutely throw over 
 it the drapery of falsehood and worthlessness, and 
 challenge a sneer, or rivet incredulity. 
 
184 BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 
 
 Or, are you indifferent ? Then you hold truth as 
 the stomach would hold a diamond. It merely comes 
 into contact with your inward nature ; but it is in 
 nowise assimilated. It rather oppresses than vital- 
 izes. Who will honor, or who will accept from you, 
 or through you, as a truth that should be as a force 
 to upheave the will, or as the very principle of soul- 
 life, what does not even ruffle the surface of your 
 being, what is practically, to you, a delusion or a 
 lie? 
 
 Do not mistake the nature of this genuine, vital 
 relation, nor the fitting expressions of it. Individual 
 or joint action on your parts, for the spread of the 
 doctrines you hold, may reveal such genuine relation. 
 Money expended, sacrifices borne for the same end, 
 may reveal it ; but its true disclosure waits upon 
 conviction, upon character, upon the quality of your 
 daily life, to which men may point and say, " It is 
 beautiful, — there is the testimony to a faith that has 
 been with Jesus ! " 
 
 Will there not be some of you who will have to 
 render an account for your lukewarmness toward 
 what you acknowledge to be the truths of the Gos- 
 pel, — for your faithlessness in that stewardship of 
 doctrine, which God has committed to your charge ? 
 You seem to think that the foundations of truth, as 
 it is to be built up in this world, do not rest upon 
 layers of human faith and endeavor; that the Al- 
 mighty can establish his verities without your agency, 
 perhaps without your cognizance. As well might 
 you hope to kindle a fire on the naked granite, with 
 air for fuel. If God drops upon earth the living coal 
 
BEARING WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. 185 
 
 of his truth, it is for men to heap the combustibles 
 around it ; and if the coal die out, it is maris guilt, 
 not God^s neglect. You are responsible for the 
 darkness and the chill which follow the extinction of 
 the spark. 
 
 In what I have said, it is true my thought has 
 leaned primarily toward your vindication of the 
 Gospel, in the peculiar form in which you hold it. 
 Yet do not understand me as urging to this end for 
 no other result than the spread of a mere doctrine 
 and the enlargement of a mere sect. I value the 
 form of the Gospel which we in common accept, not 
 as a denominational symbol, but as a heavenly power 
 in the life. True, your Christianity must rest upon 
 doctrinal beliefs ; but its living relation is to your 
 moral and spiritual condition, generally to your in- 
 ward purity, your social probity, your truth of speech, 
 your peace-making desires, your unselfish and un- 
 worldly aims. In these directions, every earthly 
 interest, and every heavenly hope, — the claims of 
 men, and the law of God, urge you to hear witness 
 to the truth. 
 
 Would that you might feel that there is com- 
 mitted to you no stewardship so solemn, and none 
 so glorious, as the stewardship of the faith which is 
 by Jesus Christ. 
 
 16* 
 
SEHMON XI 
 
 STEPHEN. 
 
 AND THET CHOSE STEPHEN, A MAN FULL OP FAITH AND OF THE 
 HOLT GHOST. — ActS vi. 5. 
 
 The central point of this discourse will be the 
 history of Stephen, as it can be gathered from the 
 scanty suggestions of Scripture, carried out by prob- 
 able conjecture. Around this centre, facts and cir- 
 cumstances illustrating the position and growth of 
 Christianity will be naturally grouped. 
 
 Immediately succeeding the ascension of Jesus 
 there was, without doubt, a feeling of loneliness in 
 the hearts of the disciples. It was natural that it 
 should be so. That form, which by its presence had 
 imparted trust and power, was removed from sight 
 and from appeal. Those lips could no longer coun- 
 sel, — those eyes could no longer rebuke or reprove. 
 That attraction that made companionship and ser- 
 vice so sweet a joy was dissolved, and the invisible 
 bond of memory was to take the place of the strong 
 tie of the senses. 
 
 Yet the disciples lived in trust of even a personal 
 terrestrial reunion at some future time. The words 
 of the angels, as their Lord faded into the heavens, 
 supplied them with constant food for expectation. 
 
STEPHEN. 187 
 
 The declarations also of Jesus himself sustained an 
 undying interest in that anticipated event. 
 
 Naturally their relation to Jesus began to change. 
 What before was a species of earthly intercourse 
 gradually took the form of spiritual communion. 
 Unselfish aspirations by degrees displaced their tem- 
 poral covetings. Their eyes and their hearts looked 
 toward those heavens into which the divine form of 
 their Lord had passed, and through channels other 
 than human and ordinary they anticipated the fulfil- 
 ment of the promises, in blessings less tangible and 
 gross than had once filled their conceptions. 
 
 Thus impressed, the circle of Apostles retained its 
 outward integrity of relation to Jesus. The place 
 made vacant by the death of Judas they filled by 
 lot, so that twelve eye-witnesses and personal attend- 
 ants of the Lord, were still set apart, as during his 
 life, to testify to his deeds and his resurrection. 
 
 A new consecration fell upon the disciples ; a 
 clearer illumination of the truth, — a profounder 
 comprehension of their tie to Christ, on the day of 
 Pentecost. From that hour, they felt that the promise 
 IV as fulfilled; and before their eyes spread, unclouded 
 by doubts, the field of their duties. " Jerusalem, Ju- 
 dea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth," were 
 to hear the word of God. 
 
 For a while, the residence of the Apostles and the 
 disciples was Jerusalem. They met continually, in 
 private houses, in synagogues, and in the temple. 
 They encouraged each other in the faith, — they 
 taught it publicly, and God confirmed their teach- 
 ings with " signs following." The more prominent 
 
188 STEPHEN. 
 
 and active of them were seized, and catechized and 
 threatened and imprisoned by the Jewish rulers, — 
 but to no effect. No sooner were they released, than 
 they repaired to their own little brotherhood ; and 
 there they recounted the scenes they had gone 
 through, and each recruited the other's faith, and they 
 prayed and sang together, and pledged themselves 
 anew to the persecuted cause. 
 
 One feature in this early community deserves 
 especial mention. I refer to the close bond of union 
 and fellowship that existed among the primitive 
 Christians. They in fact constituted one household 
 in their affection and reciprocation of services and dis- 
 tribution of goods. Not that they threw their prop- 
 erty into one common stock, maintaining the equal 
 right of each in the whole, according to the modern 
 theory of communism, but they held their means 
 in constant readiness to relieve wherever necessity 
 existed. They, without doubt, constituted a more 
 intimate and sympathetic and unselfish brotherhood 
 than the most Christianized communities of the 
 present day. In view of the blessing of the Gospel, 
 all other possessions were insignificant. ']^o the 
 transcendent worth of that these were joyfully and 
 eagerly sacrificed. The living Christ was among 
 them, as, to our reproach, he is not with us. 
 
 As the number of disciples multiplied, the difficulty 
 of a satisfactory distribution of alms increased. The 
 recipients of this bounty were scattered far beyond 
 the limits of Jerusalem. They were composed of 
 two classes, those of Hebrew extraction, who resided 
 in Palestine, and spoke the native dialect of Pales- 
 
STEPHEN. 189 
 
 tine, and those of Jewish descent, who had dwelt 
 beyond the confines of Palestine, and to whom the 
 Greek language was vernacular. For some reason, 
 the Grecian disciples conceived that partiality was 
 manifested in the bestowment of the common chari- 
 ties, and that the Hebrew widows received more than 
 their share. The Apostles were perplexed. These 
 complaints probably became numerous, and required 
 time and attention to sift and set right what was 
 wrong. To do this faithfully, diverted the energies 
 of the Apostles from their great work of teaching the 
 Gospel. It became therefore necessary to appoint 
 certain individuals whose duty it should be to super- 
 intend this distribution of alms. Seven men were 
 accordingly appointed to this charge, — men of hon- 
 est report, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom 
 and among these, and first chosen, was Stephen. 
 
 From the names of the seven, it has been inferred, 
 that they were Grecian Jews. They, probably, 
 would know better than others the wants of the 
 complaining portion of the disciples ; they were 
 more conversant with their language, and would 
 command a greater degree of confidence than if 
 they had been Hebrews in the full sense of the term. 
 What wisdom and tact did it evince in that body, 
 thus to select their almoners. 
 
 After this arrangement, the cause of the Gospel 
 acquired new strength ; the number of disciples 
 largely increased in Jerusalem, and, what is a fact 
 of special significance, " a great company of the 
 priests were obedient unto the faith." 
 
 The new position of Stephen not only connected 
 
190 STEPHEN. 
 
 him with the dispensing of the charities of the 
 community, but also with preaching, exhortation, 
 and argument in presence of the gainsayers of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Where Stephen was converted to Christianity, or 
 by whom, we know not. Yet we call to mind the 
 fact, that during Jesus's life, while he was at the feast 
 of the Passover, at Jerusalem, there were certain 
 Grecian Jews present, who desired to see Jesus. It 
 is not unlikely that Stephen was of this number. 
 From what we gather of him, he was of such a char- 
 acter as would have been deeply impressed by what 
 he might hear and see of Jesus. Educated away 
 from the centre of Jewish influences, lightly bound 
 by the traditions that trammelled others of Israel- 
 itish descent, and standing less in awe of the priests 
 than if he had been nurtured beneath the shadow of 
 their pride, he would not hesitate to accept as truth 
 what, from its repugnancy to Rabbinical interpreta- 
 tion, would have been rejected by the majority of 
 Hebrew listeners. But whether or not he did receive 
 his impressions of the Gospel from Jesus himself, 
 this is certain, that Gospel, in the fulness of its 
 spirit, dwelt in his heart. 
 
 Stephen was probably about St. Paul's age ; and, 
 n some respects, he reminds us of the great Apostle. 
 He had a quick insight into the truth, he was thor- 
 oughly versed in the ancient Hebrew history, and, 
 like Paul, gave strength to his argument and serious- 
 ness to his discourse by ample quotations from the 
 Prophets. Morally^ he was like Paul, — bold, ear- 
 nest, and direct; he feared not the face of man. In 
 
STEPHEN. 191 
 
 his intrepid defence of the truth, he seems to have 
 caught a higher spirit, if possible, than Paul's, in 
 which the sublimity that marked Christ's demeanor 
 before human tribunals in no slight degree appears. 
 In the power of his religious imagination, and in the 
 vehemence of his feeling, he greatly resembles the 
 Apostle to the Gentiles. But with all his unflinch- 
 ing adherence to purpose, his clear perception of the 
 dissimulation and perverseness of the Jewish rulers, 
 his open hostility to their views, he carried with him 
 a serenity that was truly admirable, and a tenderness 
 that could have been borrowed only from the cross. 
 In this beauty of the Christian character, Paul and 
 Stephen were brother disciples. 
 
 The foreign Jews who occasionally assembled at 
 Jerusalem met together for instruction in their own 
 exclusive synagogues. These assemblages, consist- 
 ing of Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and Cilicians, 
 and Asians ; Stephen especially addressed upon the 
 great subject of the messiahship of Christ. Evidently 
 he was the fittest person to stand in this position. 
 The culture of his auditors was not unlike his ; he 
 would best understand their needs, could best com- 
 prehend their difficulties, and with more certainty 
 could meet their arguments and dispel their doubts, 
 than could any other disciple who had been trained 
 in Jerusalem or its neighborhood. 
 
 From this class of Jews Stephen made many con- 
 verts. The sphere which was thus open to him was 
 diflcrent from that which invited the labors of Paul^ 
 The latter, by descent, by natural affinities, by cul- 
 ture, had been intensely Jewish ; when, therefore, 
 
192 STEPHEN. 
 
 he broke away from these early and tenacious bonds, 
 resigned everything that he had once held so sa- 
 cred, and threw his whole energies and soul into a 
 work so diverse as that of laying Judaism at the feet 
 of Christ, the effect upon those who had been simi- 
 larly trained must have been prodigious. Hebrews 
 would less reluctantly follow where " a Hebrew of 
 the Hebrews" led. And although Paul was spe- 
 cially Apostle to the Gentiles, yet throughout his let- 
 ters we see with what power he brought all the pecu- 
 liarities of his origin and associations to bear upon 
 the uncompromising Jews with whom he was called 
 to deal. A similar power, probably, Stephen exerted 
 over the Hellenistic Jews. 
 
 The success that followed the labors of Stephen 
 aroused against him a formidable opposition. The 
 unconvinced of the temporary sojourners at Jerusa- 
 lem made their way to the Chief Priests and Scribes, 
 and incited them to demonstrations of hostility 
 against Stephen. They carried with them suborned 
 witnesses, who testified that Stephen had blas- 
 phemed against Moses and against God. There 
 was without doubt a foundation on which this 
 charge was made to rest. With his superior free- 
 dom of interpretation of the Jewish law and the 
 Prophets, Stephen spoke less reservedly than some 
 would have done of the Mosaic institutions. Be- 
 lieving that they were to be merged in Christianity, 
 that all the prophecies could be fulfilled only in 
 the Gospel, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish 
 Messiah, that is to say, their anointed, spiritual de- 
 liverer, he would not scruple to affirm that cleanli- 
 
STEPHEN. 193 
 
 ness of the soul must displace circumcision of the 
 body ; that the offerings of a contrite heart must 
 succeed the oblations of bulls and goats ; and that a 
 universal and spiritual worship must take the place 
 of the national services in the Temple. This decla- 
 ration to bigoted Jews would be tantamount to blas- 
 phemy, and upon this charge Stephen was brought 
 before the Sanhedrim for trial. Here also witnesses 
 falsely testified to some /or»i of ivords that should 
 make out a case of blasphemy against him. As this 
 perjured evidence brought him into deeper and deeper 
 peril, and whetted against him the vindictive pur- 
 poses of his judges, all eyes were fastened upon him. 
 And as he stood there, the light of his faith, the 
 purity of his purpose, and that serenity that be- 
 speaks a pure conscience and a divine trust, shone 
 from his countenance, as from the face of an angel. 
 The High-Priest then calls upon him for his defence. 
 He enters upon it with a boldness having no look of 
 audacity, and a manliness unalloyed by conceit. 
 He begins, as it were, apologetically. His purpose 
 was to show that all that he had really said was con- 
 sistent with the general tenor of Hebrew Scripture, — 
 that he had affirmed no other blasphemy than the 
 prophets had predicted. He exalts the standing and 
 commission of Moses, — then quotes him as testify- 
 ing to the prophet that should come after him. As 
 he touches upon the elder prophets and their times, 
 the thought forces itself into his mind that the same 
 perverse and vindictive feelings which the ancestors 
 of his accusers had displayed toward those sacred 
 teachers of God were exhibited in more malignant 
 17 
 
194 STEPHEN. 
 
 forms by these living persecutors towards the Sav- 
 iour of the world. These had filled up the measure 
 of their fathers ; and as this thought swelled in his 
 mind, his whole moral nature afire with indgnation. 
 he burst forth into that terrible rebuke, " Ye stiff"- 
 necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do 
 always resist the Holy Ghost! As your fathers did, 
 so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your 
 fathers persecuted ? and they have slain them which 
 showed before the coming of the Jast One, of whom 
 ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, — 
 who have received the law by the disposition of 
 angels, and have not kept it." 
 
 A German critic has said that the conscience of 
 the Jews was particularly sensitive. Their long 
 training under their peculiar dispensation would 
 induce us to believe that this might be. Unfortu- 
 nately, that sensitiveness of conscience worked out 
 results of passion and wicked energy rather than 
 meekness and penitence. Stephen had probed the 
 depths of this active faculty, and as he reached that 
 part of his discourse which I have just repeated, 
 there was a fearful stir in the council. As if despair- 
 ing of permission to prosecute his defence farther, he 
 allowed his prophetic zeal to carry him whither it 
 would. It snatched his mind from the train of 
 earthly events which he had been following, and 
 bore it suddenly upwards, in divine contemplation. 
 His eye was fixed upon the heavens, — the vision of 
 glory burst upon his sight, — the " Just One^^ whom 
 they had murdered seemed standing there, exalted 
 by Jehovah above all creatures, and ruling the seen 
 
STEPHEN. 195 
 
 and the unseen world, — and Stephen cried, " Be- 
 hold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man 
 standing upon the right hand of God." Upon this 
 the assembly burst into tumult, and thrusting their 
 fingers into their ears, rushed, with outcries of rage, 
 upon the poor lone disciple, and dragged him out 
 of the chamber, and beyond the city walls. They 
 waited for no trial, — they sought no judicial verdict, 
 — but, taking the law into their own hands, they 
 executed it upon the uncondemned Stephen. The 
 heavy stones fell thick and fast upon him. As he 
 staggered beneath the terrible shower, he called out, 
 in the steadfastness of a faith that could not per- 
 ish, and in the joy of a speedy deliverance, " Lord 
 Jesus, receive my spirit I " Then, for a moment hold- 
 ing himself reverently upon his knees, with a life fast 
 sinking beneath the missiles of his persecutors, — with 
 their shouts of execration in his ears, he called out in 
 a voice that absorbed every expiring energy, " Lord, 
 lay not this sin to their charge," " and when he had 
 said this, he fell asleep." How descriptive of his 
 peace of soul, and of the narrator's faith in an awak- 
 ening, that phrase, " fell asleep " ! 
 
 Agreeably to the Jewish law, those whose testi- 
 mony convicted a prisoner, and brought him to death, 
 must cast the first stones at him, so that if their tes- 
 timony should afterward be proved false, they might 
 be held to the responsibility of murder. The law 
 was a security against perjury. 
 
 In the crowd that surrounded Stephen was a 
 young man, whose hostility toward the Christians 
 had been particularly bitter, and whose persecutions 
 
196 STEPHEN. 
 
 of them had already rendered him noted. Before the 
 witnesses could begin their bloody work, they were 
 obliged to fling off their encumbering mantles, and 
 these they placed in charge of that young by-stander. 
 This fact shows, plainly enough, their sense of his 
 sympathy and approbation of their act. He was 
 known as Saul of Tarsus. 
 
 This martyrdom, the triumph of the mob-spirit, 
 was the signal of a terrible persecution of the dis- 
 ciples, in and about Jerusalem. They were scattered 
 to distant parts of Palestine, — none remained be- 
 hind but the Apostles. Saul of Tarsus was the 
 chief agent of this persecution ; and such was the 
 ferocity with which he engaged in this inhuman 
 work, that it seems not out of place to suppose that 
 the impression which he received from the death of 
 Stephen, goaded him onward, as by the rule of con- 
 traries. 
 
 It is not impossible that some misgivings may, for 
 the instant, have visited him as he witnessed Ste- 
 phen's touching and sublime death. To crowd away 
 these misgivings, — to shut his heart resolutely against 
 what might have seemed to him a forsaking of the 
 Jehovah of Israel, — to smother what he might deem 
 the preposterous questionings of a conscience, on 
 which glimmerings of the truth might be falling, un- 
 consciously to himself; he may have rushed to the 
 work of persecution with a morbid zeal, piling pur- 
 pose upon purpose, act upon act. One thing is cer- 
 tain, that his participation in the death of Stephen 
 dwelt upon his memory ; for afterwards, in recount- 
 ing the facts of his previous history, as offering cause 
 
STEPHEN. 197 
 
 why he should not be trusted in his new mission of 
 love, he particularly designates as the crowning act 
 of his hostility to the followers of Christ, that he 
 stood by when Stephen's blood was shed, and con- 
 sented unto his death, and kept the raiment of them 
 that slew him. I have little doubt that that death 
 of Stephen operated in preparing the moral nature 
 of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, for that super- 
 natural visitation which fitted him to bring heathen 
 nations to the feet of Christ. We know that this 
 tragic event, like a moral whirlwind, scattered 
 through distant regions the living fire of the truth. 
 It sent forth the preachers fresh from this experience 
 of sorrow, — fresh from this example of faith, to en- 
 counter in the holy cause a similar peril, if need be, 
 to die a similar death. 
 
 In tracing the consequences of this first martyrdom, 
 we are deeply impressed with the truth which age 
 repeats to age, and generation to generation, that no 
 man can live a life of righteousness and fidelity in 
 vain, — that though, when sown in the world it may 
 be overlaid by adverse circumstances, as falling 
 leaves may cover the seed, it will spring up at some 
 future day, in power and blessing, when the shade 
 that chilled it shall have been removed, or when 
 other circumstances shall have uncovered it to the 
 ripening influence of God's providence. 
 
 17* 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 "NO JVIATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 
 
 THE TIME COMETH, THAT WHOSOEVER KILLETH TOU WILL THINK 
 THAT HE DOETH GOD SEKVICE. — Johu Xvi. 2. 
 
 I WISH in this discourse to examine a proposition 
 somewhat popular, and to expose the fallacies which 
 it contains. The proposition takes this form : " It 
 is no matter what one believes, look to his prac- 
 tice ; no matter what one believes, only let him 
 be sincere." 
 
 It makes a good deal of difference what class of 
 persons urge this statement, and in what spirit it is 
 urged. From the lips of one class, it is empty of all 
 serious meaning, yet it is pregnant with mischief. 
 From the other class, the spirit in which it is pre- 
 sented robs it of a portion of its dangerousness. 
 
 Thus this saying (for it has become almost a 
 maxim with some) is a favorite with such as are 
 less anxious to guard purity of practice than to ex- 
 empt from rigor of opinion, who disrelish serious 
 investigations after a true Christian doctrine, and 
 who are equally indifferent to the claims of a true 
 religious life. Their position is negative. They 
 
" NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 199 
 
 hate the wars of sects. They dislike ecclesiastical 
 organizations. They disparage the Church, it may 
 be; they see no necessity for holding clear and 
 earnest opinions concerning Christ and the soul, and 
 out of this negative position comes their protest 
 against the importance of opinions, which protest, 
 from a sort of verbal necessity, rises up into a cor- 
 relative statement of the value of conduct ; proposi- 
 tions which maintain a rhetorical equilibrium, rather 
 than a balance of convictions. 
 
 The protest, then, of this class, originating in 
 moral indifference and practical laxity, prostrates all 
 theoretical barriers to evil, while it erects no other 
 defences in their stead. It is simply a plea for gen- 
 eral license. 
 
 But there is a second class, who urge the proposi- 
 tion which we are considering from a different spirit. 
 They desire to further practical righteousness, — they 
 lament the prodigious waste of power in the Church, 
 in teaching sharp dogmas upon whose razor-edges 
 they believe no practical issues can rest. They think, 
 that, if the forces that have been spent in mutual 
 antagonism among the doctrinal sections of Chris- 
 tendom had been allied for the overthrow of practi- 
 cal immorality, that there would have been an un- 
 speakable gain to the purity and rectitude of the 
 world. In short, their ground of protest is, not that 
 they value opinions less, but that they prize virtue 
 and sanctity of living more. 
 
 The mischief, then, that is likely to ensue from the 
 protest against opinions put forth by this class re- 
 sults from the fact that, while they themselves do 
 
200 "no matter what one believes." 
 
 really hold sound convictions in resjDect, they are 
 understood as setting- but a slight value upon them ; 
 and further, what they, with their serious purpose 
 may hold without harm to themselves, others with 
 no such purpose cannot hold without mischief. 
 
 But by whichsoever class the conception concern- 
 ing belief is entertained, it is founded upon fallacies, 
 and can only be built up into temptation and moral 
 danger. 
 
 I will repeat the proposition : " No matter what 
 one believes, look to his practice, only let him be 
 sincere." 
 
 The first objection to this is, that it is vague and 
 sweeping; from its very indefiniteness, it invites 
 every species of perversion. Unless interpretation of 
 it be dictated by the hearer's good sense ; unless it 
 find qualifications in the disinterestedness and moral 
 purpose of him to whom it is addressed ; unless, in 
 short, wise and good men alone are called to act 
 upon it, it is an unsafe maxim for the individual 
 and for society, for worldly prosperity and for spirit- 
 ual well-being. 
 
 Note the drift of the first clause, — " No matter 
 what one believes." Now, with what does a man 
 believe ? With anything less than his rational facul- 
 ties ? with any powers inferior to those which raise 
 him above the brute, and clothe him in immortality? 
 No, — the formation of opinions is one of the highest 
 processes of the inner being. It is the action of the 
 understanding in conjunction with the action of the 
 moral nature. It is that part of man which sweeps 
 out from himself through the universe, and which 
 
"no matter what one believes." 201 
 
 comes back from this wide track and turns inwards 
 and scrutinizes self, — which weighs all the problems 
 of life, which would even pierce the mystery of the 
 divine providence and being. 
 
 Now, the proposition which we are considering 
 exempts this whole, noblest province of human ac- 
 tion from the oversight of God. In other words, it 
 declares that the creature, responsible for the work 
 of his hands and the path of his feet, is not respon- 
 sible for the exercise of his intellect and for the course 
 of his opinions. " No matter what a man believes" ; 
 that is the phrase, — " No matter.^^ His conscience is 
 not concerned in this, — his judgment need not enter 
 into it. Hap-hazardlis as good as deliberation, — 
 reckless plunges are as valuable as cautious and 
 scrupulous gropings, — " No matter," as pertaining 
 to morals or as pertaining to consequences, whether 
 his opinions make man a clod or an angel, this life 
 a slope that ends for ever in the dark valley or a 
 plain from whose glorious level a soul may advance 
 to brighter and better worlds ; " no matter" whether 
 God be an infinite impersonal force or a father bend- 
 ing down to his creatures in love, — it is all the same, 
 provided conduct squares with certain rules, or, if 
 you please, embodies a certain spirit. 
 
 This proposition substantially assumes, that opin- 
 ions do not affect practice. 
 
 Now the broad history of the world teaches us 
 that ideas, or opinions (that is, what men have be- 
 lieved), have been the seeds of the world's practice. 
 They have preceded all progress. Nay, opinions are 
 the true spiritual substance, of which after-realizations 
 are the projected earthly shadows. 
 
202 " NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 
 
 So individual conduct is the embodiment of some 
 sort of opinions. These cannot exist in the mind 
 without products in the life ; nor can the life take on 
 a single deliberate phase which is not the result of 
 opinion. 
 
 The sheerest fallacy runs through the idea that " it 
 is no matter what a man believes." The only form 
 which the proposition can assume to save it from 
 being an absurdity, is to suppose it to assert that it 
 is no matter what opinions of a certain kind one 
 possesses, provided they are conjoined with those of 
 another kind which entirely overrule them. For ex- 
 ample, one might say, " No matter what you believe 
 concerning the essence oi Jesns's psi/chological consti- 
 tution, provided you admit his divine authority and 
 the obligation to seek the inspiration of his spirit." 
 But here there is a denial of the proposition that it 
 is no matter what opinions one holds. It is made to 
 appear a matter of moment that certain opinions 
 should be entertained. The pivot noiu on which the 
 proposition turns is a choice of opinions. 
 
 But even on those very points, excepted from the 
 dominion of exact opinion, I am not ready to admit 
 that it can be no 7natler, absolutely no matter, ivhat 
 is believed. The history of sects shows that it is 
 matter. While differing portions of the Christian 
 Church may be moral and pious, — the result of the 
 broad precepts and holy example of Jesus, — a com- 
 mon ground of faith, it is not to be denied that 
 their sti/les of morals and religion vary, — which is 
 the result of different opinions concerning points 
 which some would set outside of the circle of thought 
 
"no matter what one believes." 203 
 
 and which others would regard as entirely uninfluen- 
 tial. It is these very opinions that give to Calvin- 
 ism its hue, to Wesleyan Methodism its peculiar- 
 ities, to Unitarianism its distinctive aspects, and to 
 No-religion-ism its characteristics. 
 
 This disparagement of opinions is what chiefly 
 gives such imbecility to many lives, — disjoints the 
 skeleton of belief, and leaves conduct and the whole 
 mental structure deformed or changeful in its aspects 
 and uncertain in its gait. Seek out any life that is 
 especially consistent and persevering, worthy of honor 
 and confidence, and you will find it upheld by a 
 framework of definite and decided opinions, and 
 definite and decided, probably, with respect to some 
 of those very points by you so lightly prized. In 
 short, taking the proposition, " It is no matter what 
 one believes," generally, it is as false as history and 
 experience can make it. There is nothing o/a man 
 except his opinions. Take away from him what he 
 believes, and he has no practice. Confuse what he be- 
 lieves, and his practice is inconsistent and capricious. 
 Deteriorate the quality of his opinions, and you de- 
 grade his life. Improve that quality, and you elevate 
 his outward living. It would even be a wiser and 
 truer proposition to reverse the maxim, and say, "No 
 matter what one practises, look to his belief P 
 
 There is another point to be considered. The 
 world is full oitrullis, — God's gifts and ordinations. 
 One's beliefs arc the approximations of his mind 
 toward those divine facts or relations. Every correct 
 opinion is a correspondence of the human with the 
 divine thought. Every incorrect opinion is a depart- 
 ure from the exactitude of the Creator's facts. Now 
 
204 " NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." I 
 
 truth, in whatever form and in whatsoever| measure, 
 is a blessing to the mind. It is a touch of life to the 
 heart. "Whoever is reckless of the belief which he 
 holds upon any subject is liable to fail of the influ- 
 ences which accurate conclusions dispense, and he 
 certainly loses the whole inspiration of an honest 
 and humble search for the truth. 
 
 Let us now bestow a few thoughts upon 
 another clause of the proposition we are consider- 
 ing : " Only be sincere " ; " No matter what one be- 
 lieves, only be sincere." 
 
 There is a charm in sincerity. We can easily see 
 hoAV it may be made to cover a multitude of sins. 
 It is a lovely, it is a heroic quality. When one 
 really displays his inward being in full, he seems to 
 throw himself upon the generosity of observers. The 
 more transparent he makes himself, out of a sort of 
 magnanimous trust in his fellow-men, the less clearly 
 do they see his frailties and sins. Or, perhaps, it is 
 thought that he who confesses frankly his imperfec- 
 tions and taints shows in his confession that he has 
 the purpose to remedy, if he has not already rem- 
 edied, some of those imperfections, — and that he 
 has the intent to wipe away some of those stains, if 
 they have not already been cleansed from his heart. 
 
 Then, again, hypocrisy is so odious a vice, — is so 
 fruitful of embarrassment, misery, loss, in social or 
 business life, — is so prolific of meannesses in per- 
 sonal character, — is so indissolubly allied with pre- 
 sumption and censoriousness, that override the meek- 
 ness and carp at the lapses of the good, and is so 
 fatal in its poison to the healing power of the 
 Church, that its opposite is honored with a double 
 
"no matter "WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 205 
 
 reverence and loved with a double reafard. So it 
 comes to be a virtue broader than its base will allow; 
 and is made to fill the vacancy left by mournful de- 
 ficiencies of character. 
 
 But we come now to the point, whether the 
 fact that one honestly entertains certain opinions 
 is a justification of those opinions. If so, then what- 
 ever be the real quality or the influences of senti- 
 ment, sincerely held, he who holds them is fully ex- 
 onerated from all blame for entertaining them. " No 
 matter what he believes, if he is only sincere." But 
 here, no account is made of the methods and cir- 
 cumstances under which he brought himself to such 
 belief. He may have travelled to these sincerely 
 held opinions through crime. He may have resorted 
 to processes of self-education that were every way 
 blameworthy, and that might have been easily avoid- 
 ed. In short, the whole responsibility of the forma- 
 tion of his opinions is undeniably with himself, and 
 yet this proposition takes away from him all respon- 
 sibility for his conclusions after they are fairly lodged 
 in the conviction, provided they are sincere. It is 
 wicked to perversely court evil doctrines. It is harm- 
 less to hold them when habit and familiarity esteem 
 them good, and sincerely welcome them. It is cul- 
 pable to remain passively indifferent in the presence 
 of ideas or tenets that may be of mischievous ten- 
 dency, but if they have, through the crevices of your 
 mental sloth, insinuated themselves into your very 
 soul, controlling it in its whole action, 7io mailer, pro- 
 vided you sincerely believe Ihem true. 
 
 The mere disclosure of this absurdity of reasoning 
 
 18 
 
206 "no matter what one believes." 
 
 is enough to show that we are responsible for every 
 opinion into whose formation our own free-will or 
 the voluntary exercise or non-exercise of our faculties 
 entered. By the same obligations that bind us to 
 the exact performance of duty are we bound to take 
 all possible pains to arrive at correct opinions. 
 
 Ingenuousness in disobeying the laws of the physi- 
 cal world does not relieve the offender from penalties, 
 and why should such offence against moral laws, 
 equally inexorable in their sovereignty, nobler in their 
 guardianship, be pardoned ? Here is one in the 
 prime of life in the habit of drinking three or four 
 glasses of intoxicating liquor a day. You reason 
 with him and point out the danger of his course. 
 He replies, that he is convinced that moderate drink- 
 ing does nobody any harm ; that it is, on the con- 
 trary, a benefit to many ; that he is satisfied that 
 the effect has been good upon himself. He does not 
 dissemble ; he believes what he says, — he is sincere. 
 
 But you tell him that his habit has injured him ; 
 that his face has begun to show his excess ; that his 
 family and his friends are anxiously commenting 
 upon the gradual change that is taking place in his 
 appearance and manners ; that his business habits 
 are beginning to suffer; that his temper is becoming 
 affected, and so on. 
 
 But he replies that you are wholly mistaken. His 
 opinion (he affirms) is very decided, that all this 
 temperance agitation is full of harm, and all this in- 
 terference with men's personal habits is full of im- 
 pertinence. He is very sincere in his convictions. 
 He has been brought up to believe as he talks. All his 
 
" NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 207 
 
 apparent interests have counselled on the same side. 
 Well, then, let him alone, his sincerity shields him. 
 
 Who is that, yonder, reeling into that wretched 
 hovel ? Who are those tattered and emaciated chil- 
 dren, that flee from the poor wretch as he enters the 
 door ? Who is that broken-hearted woman, pale, 
 tearful, trembling, who, at the bidding of his curses, 
 stirs the embers into a faint life to prepare his food ?' 
 O, he is that unhappy man who sincerely defended 
 the habits that have ruined him ! they are the family 
 of that sincere drunkard. And this is the way God 
 says it is matter what a man believes, — ^uhat sin- 
 cere opinions even he holds. 
 
 Or take another case, in which the opinions held 
 shall be of a different character. They are opinions 
 about the Bible ; about Christ ; about destiny ; about 
 God. They are infidel opinions. They pronounce 
 the Scriptures inventions, — Christ a man glorified 
 by fable, — imperfect as other men, and having no 
 authority beyond human. They doubt of the soul's 
 immortality, — or if it be immortal, they say its after 
 life will be a deliverance from present misery, and so 
 they care not whether it be immortal or not. With 
 respect to God, they have no faith in any such being. 
 There may be one, — but he will be known only in 
 the operation of laws, — so it is no matter whether 
 there be one or not. 
 
 Now, I ask whether these opinions 7nay 7iot be 
 sincerely held ? There is no inherent impossibility in 
 this. The next question is. Can they be held without 
 coloring life, and the aims and motives of living? 
 You will answer, No. Is it then no ^natter what the 
 
208 " NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 
 
 nature of religious opinions is, provided they are 
 sincere ? 
 
 Yes, it is matte?; even though such sincerity were 
 displayed from the very earliest moment of the 
 power of thinking, — even though it accompanied 
 every stage of after thought, — even though it sought 
 all aids from the counsels of the living and from the 
 pages of the dead, — though it directed all faculties 
 and all opportunities in the path of investigation, — 
 even though it sought with religious simplicity and 
 with prayer to disembarrass the heart of all preju- 
 dices and all proclivities, that the work might be 
 well done and the issues might be correct. It is 
 matter whether man, after all his severest trying, 
 finally reaches truth or error. And if opinions, 
 formed after pure and genuine endeavors like these, 
 are of high importance, as to their possibilities oi evil 
 as well as good, what shall w^e say of those that 
 result from prejudice, or conceit, or bias of evil incli- 
 nation, or indifference, or sophistry ? 
 
 One may have Christian piety for, but he can 
 hardly withhold intellectual contempt from, some 
 who talk of their sincerity/ in the forming and hold- 
 ing of their opinions in religious matters, — who 
 have never studied nor seriously looked at the oppos- 
 ing propositions, — but by some shallow impulse are 
 moved to leap at once into a whole circle of strange 
 tenets, or to shake from their minds all definite beliefs, 
 and sink into scepticism and indifference. Surely, if 
 this haste and folly be sincerity, its recommendation 
 of an opinion is somewhat questionable. 
 I will close by applying the popular proposition 
 
" NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 209 
 
 which we have been pondering to Paul's case, and 
 noticing the result. 
 
 Paul was one of those of whom Christ propheti- 
 cally spoke, when he said to his disciples that the 
 time would come when " ivhosoever should kill 
 them luould think he ivas doing' God service.''^ I 
 will then substitute the name Paid for the word one, 
 in the proposition, and it will read, " No matter what 
 Paul believed, look to his practice." What ivas his 
 practice ? It was inhuman and murderous. He in- 
 flicted dreadful sufferings, not on the guilty, but on the 
 innocent and the meek. Then he, being judged by 
 his visible conduct, was a blood-guilty monster. 
 But not so. His practice falsely interprets him, un- 
 less you make it a great deal of matter what he be- 
 lieved. Ascertaining this, a new complexion passes 
 over his deeds. They are none the less mournful and 
 mischievous, but they cease to be criminal ; because 
 Paul supposed them to be the only just expression 
 of the faith which he had imbibed at Gamaliel's 
 feet, — the only true service to God. 
 
 Our proposition, then, is, so far, barren of all fruit, 
 except a painful absurdity. 
 
 But again, " No matter what Paul believed, he 
 was sincere^ 
 
 But the fruits of these sincere opinions were cruelty 
 and torture toward others for conscience' sake. Their 
 very sincerity gave them a bloody edge. When those 
 opinions gave way before the supernatural call of 
 Christ, they were attended by no profounder sin- 
 cerity, yet, contrasted with those they displaced, they 
 were as angels flying down into the vacated nest of 
 
 18* 
 
210 " NO MATTER WHAT ONE BELIEVES." 
 
 demons. They bore love and peace, sanctity and 
 joy, upon their v^ings. They blessed, the others cursed, 
 the world. 
 
 Therefore it ivas matter what St. Paul believed, 
 even though he were sincere. 
 
 Our proposition drops another absurdity from its 
 poisoned branch. Let us away with it. It is not 
 fit to live among the honest maxims of life. Let us 
 look (as it counsels) to our practice. Let us give heed 
 (as it admonishes) that we are sincere. But let us, 
 also, as it does not advise, be careful how and what 
 we believe, as before God and the Judgment. 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE BLESSING OR THE CURSE OF THE laNGDOM. 
 
 AND INTO ■\VnATSOEVER CITT TE ENTER, AND THET RECEIVE TOU, 
 SAY UNTO TIIEM, " THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COME NIGII UNTO 
 TOU." BUT INTO WHATSOEVER CITV TE ENTER, AND THET RE- 
 CEIVE TOU NOT, SAT, NOTWITHSTANDING, " BE TE SURE OF THIS, 
 THAT THE KINGDOM OP GOD IS COME NIGH UNTO TOU." — 
 
 Lukex. 8-11. 
 
 The kingdom of God, a blessing or a curse, ac- 
 cording to the spirit in which it is received, is the 
 great idea of the text. 
 
 For illustration of this idea, let us glance at some 
 of nature's forces ; that of gravity, for example. This 
 agent holds the rolling spheres to a common centre, 
 and keeps in its place every particle of dust and every 
 drop of water. It concerns itself also with all earthly 
 mechanism, with all terrestrial structures, and with 
 the motions and positions of the human body. Its 
 laws are read by the instincts of the tottling child. 
 Adult prudence and skill make these laws the basis 
 of products of beauty, of comfort, of grandeur and 
 stability. The principle of gravity, then, appealing 
 to intelligence and fidelity, is one of God's best bless- 
 ings. 
 
 Yet, observe what disasters gravity carries to the 
 careless or the ignorant, — the fall, that dislocates the 
 
212 
 
 BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 limbs or fractures the skull, — the toppling of walls, 
 that crush out the lives of scores of workmen, — 
 all varieties of accidents from loss of equilibrium, or 
 failure of support. Terrible, yet benignant inflexi- 
 bility of law ! 
 
 Again, the sun is the source of countless blessings. 
 So fruitful of favors is it, that many nations have 
 worshipped it as the benevolent Deity ; yet, its rays 
 so strengthening to this well-rooted, sap-abounding 
 plant, are scorching that one into crisp. Here it 
 comforts and gladdens the prudent pilgrim, there 
 it beats upon the unwise traveller, until he leaps in 
 madness or sinks in exhaustion. Judiciously used, 
 it fills the eye with pleasant hues and images ; 
 abused, it turns its own splendors into darkness, and 
 sends the abuser groping through the world. Most 
 hospitable and gracious is the sun, when man would 
 deserve its favors ; most terrible, when man would 
 resist its power. 
 
 There is no blessing which does not involve the 
 possibility of a curse; not through itself as a cause, 
 but through resisting circumstances as occasions. 
 The mightiest benefaction, moreover, contains the 
 possibility of the mightiest calamity. The propelling 
 force that makes the benefit so signal must render 
 the mischief proportionally disastrous. 
 
 Let these illustrations take their intended direc- 
 tion, and throw light upon the twofold working of 
 the king'dom of God. 
 
 By this kingdom, then, I understand the whole 
 moral Providence of the Deity, — everything, whether 
 law or grace, whether natural administration or 
 
BLESSING OK CURSE OK THE KINGDOM. 213 
 
 revelation, that is attributable to tlie Divine pur- 
 pose. And of this kingdom I affirm that to be true 
 which we have seen to be true of gravity and of the 
 sun. 
 
 This kingdom, whose life is the benignity of God, 
 is to the resisting creature whom it was intended to 
 bless, the most terrible of scourges. (See 2 Peter ii.21.) 
 " It had been better for them not to have known the 
 way of righteousness, than after they have known it, 
 to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto 
 them." 
 
 We might spare circumlocution, and say, " God 
 obeyed is our Father ; our Father disobeyed is God." 
 He, the most gracious to the trusting, is inflexible to 
 the rebellious. " God is love," says one Apostle I 
 " our God is a consuming fire," affirms another. 
 Both are true. The fire of the Divine Presence is 
 love, in its guidance and its genial heat, to those who, 
 bewildered, seek the beacon, or to those who shiver- 
 ing, seek the warmth. So the love of the Deity is 
 fire, in its deterring aspects and its retributions, to 
 those who are turning toward sin, or who arc already 
 in the paths of wickedness. 
 
 There are theologians who divide the future world 
 into regions, of which one is the abode of the blessed, 
 the other the realm of the cursed. But where is the 
 necessity of such a literal partition of hell from 
 heaven, when by the very laws of the Eternal, sin 
 finds its own hell, shut in from all blessed allevia- 
 tions, by walls invisible, but tougher than brass, and 
 higher than the cope of the firmanent, — and all this 
 in the very heart of Paradise itself, — amid its bliss, 
 
214 BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 its harping angels, its perfect saints, its blessing 
 Saviour, its sovereign God ? 
 
 My faith is such, that I cannot shut the Deity out 
 of hell, this realm of perdition ; for first, I cannot 
 conceive of a soul, while it is a soul, as beyond the 
 pale of the Divine oversight, — and next, the pains 
 of retribution (as it seems to me) must be in part, if 
 not chiefly, the agonies which the presence of a rec- 
 ognized God will excite in the heart which has 
 trifled with his grace. 
 
 What theology can demand or desire a sadder 
 destiny than that which sees fire in a Father's loving- 
 eye ; a storm of retribution in a shower of grace ; 
 which makes the methods and the aims and the 
 spirit and the joys of the holy, rebukes and tantaliza- 
 tions and prophecies of the doom of sin ! 
 
 Let us now make some specific applications of the 
 idea upon which we have been dwelling. As one of 
 God's most benignant ordinations, take a well-or- 
 dered family. Into this family let the infant boy be 
 born. A father's good counsel and consistent exam- 
 ple are before him. A mother's solicitude, — her 
 patience, her gentleness, guard him. Sisters entwine 
 around him their defences of love. Religion, a 
 sweet and peaceful sense of God's presence, breathes 
 like a spring-air through the household. The spirit 
 of Jesus is invoked in daily prayer ; and, to the ex- 
 tent of human imperfection, is lived out in daily 
 practice. Under God, here is a discipline ordained 
 to deliver the child safely into the perils and cares of 
 manhood, — to equip him for life's conflict. If this 
 youth surrender himself to this discipline, he will 
 
BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 215 
 
 carry into all future emergencies the double defence 
 of a heart trained to virtue, and of memories sacred 
 and loving; that continually refresh his spirit, like 
 gales from some blossoming Eden. He is safe. His 
 heart and faith are sure. He is in God's handS' 
 Such is the precious influence of home upon the re- 
 ceptive heart of this youth. 
 
 But suppose a different condition of things. Let 
 that youth rebel against the discipline of home. Let 
 him despise its tender influences. Let him drop its 
 dear memories, as he goes forth into life ; and his 
 career of evil (for he will hardly escape such) will be 
 more than ordinarily dreary and hopeless. Worse 
 is the state of one who thus turns a leaden ear to 
 voices that early guided him, and a brazen heart to 
 smiles that once shed light into his bosom, than of 
 one who never heard such voices, and was never 
 gladdened by such smiles. If that early training and 
 those heavenly influences are ineffectual, God's treas- 
 ury of entreaties and of defences may be said to be ex- 
 hausted. What metodies could even the seraph's 
 'hand draw from the harp, whose form remains, but 
 whose strings, like straight veins in marble, are parts 
 of one solid petrifaction? No I I can hope for that 
 young man of whom in the midst of his career of evil 
 it may be said, " he had no home ; " but if, despite 
 this gracious privilege, he show a hardness in iniquity, 
 I tremble, lest what was intended to be to him the 
 life and sustenance of a high, true manhood, by his 
 perverseness has increased the sterility of his spirit- 
 ual nature ; lest those chambers, swept and gar- 
 nished by early hands of love, have become the 
 dwellincr of more wicked and more tenacious fiends. 
 
216 BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 Take, again, the Lord's day as a gift of Christian- 
 ity ; a day for abstraction from secular cares and 
 worldly tumult, — a day for meditation and worship. 
 I know of no institution ordained for man which, 
 in its significancy and its possible influences, can 
 take precedence of this. It is the sacred inclosure 
 of time, in which the Church is built, and all the 
 sanctities of the Bible, the tender, free, fresh influen- 
 ces of the Bible, consecrate the day. To society, it 
 is what the green, shaded, watered park is to the hot 
 and dusty streets and packed squares of the city. 
 To the meditative and devout soul, it is the soliciting 
 opportunity, — the significant leisure, — the lull of 
 the tempest, — the parting of the clouds, — the lawn 
 before the heavenly gates. 
 
 See next what this day is when desecrated, — the 
 worst of all days, — the white blessing, begrimed in- 
 to a curse. The jubilee of the devout become the 
 carnival of the profligate. There is no such dissipa- 
 tion on common days as there is upon this holy day. 
 Not because other days do not offer the release from 
 labor, but because the bonds of reverence to the day 
 being severed, other sacred ties snap with them. 
 Dissipate the awe with which the stranger saunters 
 among the deep shadows or enters the vestibule of 
 the temple, and the sanctuary itself loses its hold 
 upon his veneration. 
 
 If I desired to lure a young heart into the worst 
 excesses of sin, I would first strive to make him vio- 
 late his reverence for Sunday ; and while he was in 
 this profane mood, I would ply him with solicitations 
 to deeper vice. Better make the Lord's day a holiday, 
 
BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 217 
 
 having no odor of consecration about it, and invite 
 the world to spend and laugh and visit upon it. 
 Better expect of it a deeper relish of merriment, and 
 trust, through this channel, to impart more wisdom 
 and more sobriety and more devoutness to the world, 
 than to call the day a religious day, and permit the 
 conscience to suffer extra debauch, from a prior vio- 
 lation of its sanctities. 
 
 A young married couple once started to join a 
 steamboat excursion upon Sunday. They had been 
 religiously brought up, — brought up to revere the 
 day, — but the novelty of the entertainment to them, 
 the fact that they were in a strange place, the luxury 
 of the weather, — a conjunction of facilities, together 
 with that bewildering absorption of heart, so charac- 
 teristic of this period of wedded life, persuaded them 
 to the experiment. 
 
 But an uneasy sense of wrong-doing, the instant 
 they started, set upon their track. A slight accident 
 occurred before they reached the boat, and this brought 
 them face to face with the moral question, " Shall we 
 or shall we not employ this day in this unwonted and 
 irreligious manner?" They hesitated. Conscience 
 responded to conscience. The spirit of reverence in 
 the one breast fanned the kindling spirit of reverence 
 in the other breast, and they said, "No! let the 
 Lord's day be hallowed ! " — and they forbore, and 
 went home penitent. 
 
 Forty years have passed with them since then ; 
 that day has ever been to them a sacred season, and 
 they have taught their children to revere and to love it. 
 Its religious associations, revived and intensified from 
 
 19 
 
218 BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 that early experience, have intertwined with and 
 have strengthened the whole spiritual fibres of their 
 being. 
 
 But — and here is the point — if they had gone, with 
 trampled consciences, with moral hardihood, through 
 that day, confronting the protest of the soul with the 
 sophistry of the senses, they might, — it is no stretch 
 of supposition, — they might easily have lost, with 
 certain exterior defences of the heart, its interior and 
 radical integrity. If the indulgence had wo^ been for- 
 borne, and if, in consequence, the religious beacons 
 that have so brightly burned for them upon these 
 Lord's-day heights for so many years had failed of 
 being kindled, what would have been their history, 
 as they journeyed along the dark secular vales? 
 Would that those who have broken in upon the 
 sanctities of the Lord's day, and have reaped the 
 consequences, might answer! 
 
 Again, that highest of all blessings, the Gospel 
 itself, will furnish illustration of the truth we are 
 pondering. The Gospel is a tremendous force in 
 the world ; its energies were meant for good ; its 
 progress should be an ever-widening benediction. 
 But beneath its heavenly wheels the careless and 
 the hostile may be crushed. Even Christianity, un- 
 intelligently, superstitiously, received, may darken 
 rather than brighten life, — may bear before it the ex- 
 asperations of war rather than the greetings of peace. 
 
 Take that class of persons, residentst)f a city, who 
 have not known, or who have forsaken, the culture of 
 the Gospel. The idle and unworthy poor, the prof- 
 ligate, the ignorant, dwellers in foul places, exiles 
 
BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 219 
 
 (through their own fault chiefly) from moral society. 
 To these the Gospel, since they do not or will not 
 receive its blessings, may be a curse. The enterprise 
 it awakens, the civilization it spreads, the wealth it 
 helps to accumulate, may produce all the more sig- 
 nal contrasts, deepening the unhappy shadows in 
 which the class of which I speak dwell. 
 
 What land of Paganism is so utterly benighted, 
 stands so sorely in need of the regeneration of 
 the Gospel, as the purlieus of a crowded city, out- 
 side of, yet touching, the circle of Christian influen- 
 ces? The social defences that Christian civilization 
 erects, its profounder horror of human vices, its surer 
 punishment of human crime, its scrupulous discrimi- 
 nations of charity, its religious habitudes, its very 
 contentment, seem not unfrequently to aggravate the 
 sin, and to add to the desperation of the unprincipled. 
 Nothing will so soon worse than heathenize a heart 
 as an abused Gospel. Nothing is so corrupt within 
 us as that which we would defend by the perverted 
 sanctions of our own pure faith ! Startling thought ! 
 — that we cannot be constrained to God's will I that, 
 having cast at our feet the gift of his grace, he leaves 
 us to take it up and carry it as a treasure in our bo- 
 soms, or to stumble over it in guilt, shame, and loss ! 
 
 Again, consider labor as one of the Creator's 
 vastest dispensations, — as a chief method of admin- 
 istration within his kingdom. 
 
 Labor, then, is to you either a curse or a blessing. 
 If you encounter it with a stony indifference, you 
 cause its divine purpose to perish ; and its oppressive- 
 ness only remains to gall you. If you wrestle with 
 
220 BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM, 
 
 it in discontent, you " kick against the pricks " ; you 
 bruise and wear away your best faculties in the 
 strife, as the body wastes in contending with disease. 
 If you make it the mere physical instrument of 
 gain, a sort of procurer to your sordid yearnings, it 
 deplorably belittles and debases you. It depends 
 upon yourself, whether your temper, or your content, 
 or your interpretation of life, or your sentiment of 
 brotherhood, or your estimate of the Deity shall be 
 impaired by the labor that is your lot, or whether 
 by it they shall be purged of frailties and bright- 
 ened for eternity. The altar of the cathedral may 
 be the very spot on which the fanatics of a reign of 
 terror may most successfully immolate their rem- 
 nant of piety ; as it may be the very spot on which 
 languid faith may most easily catch a kindling glow. 
 So labor may be a field of trial in which man may 
 become a muttering blasphemer, or it may be a 
 school of culture, in which he may learn to become 
 a humble steward of sacred opportunities. 
 
 Follow labor, then, lowly as it may be, with pa- 
 tience, with trust, with cheerfulness. It may be an 
 obscure and a thorny path. But it is one of God's 
 roads to heaven. 
 
 Think of its meaning' rather than of itself. Look 
 at its heai't, not at its garb. See it in its relation to 
 your soul, not alone to your income. Change its 
 forms (if it be well to do so), but keep the unchang- 
 ing content and faith and piety that transfigure any 
 and all of its forms. 
 
 Again, disaster of every kind, disappointment, trial 
 of the affections, bereavements, are from the kingdom 
 
BLESSING OR CURSE OF THE KINGDOM. 221 
 
 of God. They must come nigh unto yon. But how ? 
 In blessings or in judgments? Precisely as you re- 
 ceive them, — with a subdued, devout temper, or with 
 a resistive spirit. Through tribulation you may enter 
 the kingdom, but through that same tribulation you 
 may be seduced into deeper suffering ; and what is 
 worse, into the deepest guilt. Griefs have turned 
 misinterpreting hearts into stone, and they have 
 changed stony hearts to flesh. Sorrow that has 
 looked upivard has seen a shining way to heaven, 
 while sorrow that has looked doivnivards has seen 
 the dull earth strewed with curses. There is a pa- 
 tience that can soothe the vexed spirit, and touch the 
 most desolate lips into prayer. The sheet of blackest 
 water, if tranquil, will reflect the sunbeam to your 
 eye. So disaster, if made placid by your faith, will 
 reflect a heavenly light upon your soul. 
 
 Finally, the kingdom of God comes nigh unto 
 you, in the constant and indefinite mercies of God. 
 He is long-suflering. He does not cut down at once 
 the thriftless plants of his vineyard. He is not strict 
 to mark our iniquities. But shall his forbearance 
 through our misappropriation of it, prove to us a 
 curse? Will you sin, that his grace may abound? 
 Will you lengthen the score of your iniquities, trust- 
 ing that his lenity will, with an unquestioning readi- 
 ness, finally blot it out ? 
 
 My hearers, it remains with yourselves, whether 
 you will make this encompassing kingdom of love as 
 the brightness of the New Jerusalem or as the ter- 
 rors of Sodom and Gomorrah ! 
 
 19* 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 LIFE A VAPOR. 
 
 FOK WHAT IS YOUK LIFE f IT IS EVEN A VAPOR, THAT APPEARETII 
 FOR A LITTLE TIME, AND THEN VANISHETH AWAT. — JamCS iv. 14. 
 
 The brevity, the uncertainty of life, was the writ- 
 er's passing topic. It was in a few words pressed 
 upon his readers' notice, as a rebuke of their world- 
 liness, of their irreverent confidence, of their ava- 
 rice. In view of this solemn fact, they were coun- 
 selled to defer more to the will of God, to rejoice 
 less in their presumption, to be piously distrustful. 
 
 James, here, by life means, of course, the material, 
 worldly life, — the life of the senses, of the flesh, 
 of time ; — the life of merchandise, of physical com- 
 fort, of terrestrial schemes, desires, satisfactions, — 
 that life whose existence depends upon the beating 
 heart and heaving lungs, and which perishes with 
 every function and possession when the body's pulse 
 ceases. 
 
 Well would it be for us, if we could realize this 
 truth, — if, with all that pertains to a corporeal exist- 
 ence, we might associate the consideration of its 
 perishableness. Would that we might all feel, amid 
 
LIFE A VAPOR. 223 
 
 the varied and pleasant, — yes, and for consolation's 
 sake, amid the painful, — experiences that are begot- 
 ten of our fleshly relations, that none of these experi- 
 ences, that nothing which induces them, is immor- 
 tal. How healthful, how corrective, would be such a 
 conviction ! Will it never truly seize our minds ? 
 Shall the "vanishing vapor" always seem to our 
 misinterpreting eye to be the solid adamant ? 
 
 The great benefit to us of such a conviction as 
 this of which I have spoken would be, that it would 
 almost necessarily force upon us a thoughtfulness as 
 to that other life which, as immortal beings, we must 
 possess. Having rightly answered the question, 
 " What is your life ? " according to the purpose of 
 the Apostle, we should be ready to consider the same 
 interrogation, as propounded by the whole Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ, and by our unalterable relation to the 
 spiritual world and to God. What is your life, — 
 your true life ? Let this question be the subject of 
 our discourse. 
 
 Does your life lie in things around you? Is it 
 made up of your influences of condition and circum- 
 stance? Are you nothing but what accident and 
 the elements make you ? Is your life a simple ter- 
 restrial existence, perpetuated by food, secured by 
 raiment and shelter ? Is it a delirium of pleasure, — 
 a sleep of sloth, — a march of habit ? No I your life 
 is the aspiration of your being, the energy of your 
 will, the purpose of your soul. Thus God hath 
 decreed it, mysteriously blending dependence upon 
 His providence with absolute independence in per- 
 sonal resolve and r^onduct. 
 
224 LIFE A VAPOR. 
 
 You will sometimes hear lamentations over the 
 force of circumstances, — you will hear the weak and 
 the fallen justify their surrender of the citadel, by 
 pleading the power and vantage-ground of the assail- 
 ant. Yet who responds to these poor complaints? 
 Who does not feel that they are a miserable refuge ? 
 Who believes that the might of external obstacle or 
 seduction ever fettered down the energies of a living 
 purpose ? Eve said, " The serpent beguiled me, and 
 I did eat " ; Adam said, " The woman tempted me, 
 and I did eat." But was the forbidden fruit tasted 
 through the force of importunity or the weakness of 
 resistance ? The more I observe, the more fully I 
 am persuaded of the impotency of circumstances 
 over a determined aim and a resolute will. 
 
 A little water, poured into the crevices of granite, 
 freezing and expanding, tears from the precipice the 
 rocky avalanche, and splits the very mountain-side 
 asunder. So with the energy of the will. Shut it 
 in, — hedge it about, — bear it down. What barriers 
 will it not burst through ? What bands of embar- 
 rassment will it not snap asunder ? What weights 
 of oppression may it not fling off? 
 
 One of the great interpreters of the human heart 
 rightly read this power, when he put into the mouth 
 of a noble character, a champion of the cross, this 
 sentiment, " Know, minstrel, and put it in song if 
 you list, that Hugo de Lacy, having lost all he car- 
 ried to Palestine, and all which he left at home, is 
 still lord of his own mind ; and adversity can no 
 more shake him, than the breeze which strips the 
 oak of its leaves can tear up the trunk by the roots." 
 
LIFE A VAPOR. 225 
 
 He that has lived a life of irresolution and inactivity, 
 who listlessly walks in a circle or willingly treads 
 the path of accident, does not know the force which, 
 like the electric charge within the battery, slumbers 
 in his breast. Tell him to put forth his will, — to do 
 something, — to be something, and he will smile at 
 your enthusiasm, will sigh at his inability. He has 
 never felt the thrill of victory over obstacle. But 
 rouse him to the trial. Once inflame his will, and 
 mark what a new life you infuse ! You cause him 
 to realize his moral competency, — you set agoing 
 the enginery of his soul, — you stimulate him by his 
 own motion and progress, — you teach him that his 
 will is a substance, and not a shadow, — a reality, 
 and not a fiction. 
 
 The record of every day bears testimony to the 
 conquering power of a resolute purpose. Begin the 
 morning with random acts, — have no fixed plan, — 
 go, — do, — here, — there, as impulse may propel. 
 Let your thoughts be desultory, your hours be bro- 
 ken up, and what will your day have been to you ? 
 What will have been that day's life to you ? Free- 
 ly may you declare that you are the sport of acci- 
 dent. Your will, that should have been vigilant, 
 vigorous, triumphant, has slept ; and pigmies have 
 made you a prisoner. No one, that has any remnant 
 of the man in him, passes such a day and is not 
 ashamed and pained at his unprofitableness, — at 
 his voluntary surrender of his high prerogatives, — at 
 his faithlessness to himself. 
 
 " Such indecision brings its own delay, 
 And days arc lost, lamenting o'er lost days." 
 
226 LIFE A VAPOR. 
 
 But if all this be reversed, — if the day's duties be 
 begun in resolution, — if the mind have its purpose, 
 the soul its aim, — if your thinkings and your doings 
 are persevering, continuous, determined, — that day's 
 close will have for you its congratulations. If your 
 aim have been a noble one, though the results of 
 your toil were scarcely perceptible, yet are you more 
 than compensated for these scanty outward returns, 
 by the dignity of conviction with which your toil has 
 been crowned. It is not the sum total of achievement 
 that fills the spirit with delight, so much as it is the 
 consciousness of honorable activity of the faculties, 
 and the maintenance of the rightful supremacy of 
 the will. 
 
 It would, of course, be folly to deny that there are 
 barriers to the power of the will. So far as it may 
 act outwardly, it has its definite sphere, and no coun- 
 sel is reasonable or profitable that would urge it to 
 overleap natural restrictions. 
 
 Thus, it is evident that our condition may fetter 
 the range of the faculties, the direction of the wilh 
 Your path in life may be forced upon your accept- 
 ance by what you may denominate the tyranny of 
 your lot. But what, if it be so ? The prescribed 
 sphere of your duties is the arena for your conflict, 
 not the antagonist with which you are to contend. 
 Many of the circumstances of your condition you 
 cannot appoint, but you still, in a substantial sense, 
 may control them ; you may make them the submis- 
 sive ministers of your household, though they ob- 
 truded themselves within your doors. 
 
 The world's record of splendid successes owes its 
 
LIFE A VAPOR. 227 
 
 existence to the iron energy of individual wills. 
 Reputations are but the tracks of light which the 
 resistless enforcement of well-defined purpose has 
 struck out in the moral firmament. Power and 
 renown, the capacity of usefulness, and the securi- 
 ties of happiness, are not dropped upon human brows, 
 like flower-wreaths, from the skies. No! they have 
 been reared from common seed, and out of the soil 
 of God's common providence. 
 
 Who has not heard of the " Society of Jesus " ? 
 a name that has made liberty tremble, and purity 
 sicken with fear. Who knows not of the past work- 
 ings of that engine of spiritual despotism, whose 
 central springs were are Rome, and whose wheels 
 and bands did their silent, precise, resistless working 
 at the very ends of the earth ? That power, com- 
 pared to which the other widest and most efficient 
 organizations that the world has ever known have 
 been but playing companies of children, was the 
 embodiment of the perpetuation of the ivill of a 
 single man. What was Ignatius Loyola, that a pro- 
 ject conceived by him should gird the whole world, 
 — should dictate to the proudest intellects, and con- 
 trol the most rebellious consciences, — that it should 
 catch, as with supernatural sense, the softest whis- 
 pers of domestic privacy, and record with unerring 
 pen the secret deliberations of cabinets, — that it 
 should be a universal eye and a universal ear, — 
 black as midnight, diff"used as space, noiseless as 
 the grave, rapid as lightning, irresistible as death ? 
 What, I say, was the wounded soldier of Pampe- 
 luna, that he should have achieved a thing so mighty? 
 
228 LIFE A VAPOR. 
 
 The answer is, He was the incarnation of a toiling, 
 suffering, indomitable purpose. 
 
 How pregnant the history which Michelet gives 
 us of the French weaver, whose mind thirsted for 
 culture, while he could hardly snatch from the toils 
 of his lot sufficient intervals for necessary repose I It 
 was his habit, amid the whirl and vibration of twenty 
 looms, to seize the unoccupied instants that followed 
 the flights of the shuttle ; and, appropriating these 
 to study, without neglecting duty, he crept line by 
 line over the opened page before him, garnering in 
 his intellectual harvest grain by grain. It was his 
 purpose that thus picked up these little stray threads 
 of opportunity, and wove them into a fabric of golden 
 privilege, — which gathered together, as it were, one 
 by one the cuttings and the trimmings of the book 
 of time, and spread them into pages, on which his 
 life's best history was written. 
 
 How is the power of will exemplified in the his- 
 tory of George Wilson, — the little ignorant, work- 
 house pauper, picked up in the streets of Hartford, 
 and taught the first rudiments of learning while 
 doing household service ! This was his position, — 
 what is it now? He is professor in the Royal Col- 
 lege of St. Petersburgh, — a favorite of the reigning 
 czar, courted by the great, distinguished by prizes 
 awarded by foreign universities and by royal so- 
 cieties. And what is the secret of this high and 
 honored position ? Fortune, luck, had little to do 
 with it. It is the legitimate triumph of a steady, 
 upright, and unconquerable purpose. 
 
 Again, for the crowning success of a resolute 
 
LIFE A VAPOR. 229 
 
 human will, I point you to the career of a little knot 
 of drunkards, in the city of Baltimore. Drunkards ! 
 met to drown reason and paralyze will in a bar-room. 
 There they sit, as if to shelter each other in shame, 
 as if to make each other's weakness strong ! There 
 they are, bloated, trembling, outcasts, — almost too 
 besotted to mark the hours, each one of which may 
 bear their blighted bodies to a dishonored grave, 
 their crushed souls to the bar of judgment. But 
 what is the reversal of the picture? It is the up- 
 starting of their 7?;-05^ra/e wills, — it is the birth of 
 purpose within their souls. It is the power of the 
 perpetually asserted " I iviU,''^ or " I will nol^'' — a 
 power on which regeneration and redemption hang, 
 
 — which the Giver of our lives has bestowed with 
 our lives. All glorious exemplification of the mighty 
 capability of God's free child ! Who, henceforward, 
 shall say, that man living- shall be baffled when he 
 sets his soul to work ? 
 
 Perhaps you may demand instances of the power 
 of the will in some other direction beside that of the 
 intellect, or of visible character, or of outward enter- 
 prise, — in the direction of spiritual life, specifically. 
 If this direction have not been included in what has 
 been said, it would be easy to point to Christian 
 martyrs, — to ascetics, — to pietists, — to a Polycarp, 
 
 — to an Augustin, — to a Pascal, — to a St. Bernard, 
 
 — to a Madame de Guion, and a Thomas a Kempis. 
 But the power of spiritual volition does not make 
 men conspicuous, except before angels, and before 
 God. It does not show out in visible conquests. 
 It is the soul, struggling and triumphing within her- 
 
 20 
 
230 LIFE A VAPOR. 
 
 self. Its history is private. If I might call in the 
 testimony of the humble multitudes who, while in 
 the " far country," said, " I will arise and go to my 
 father," and who in the power of that resolve have 
 arisen and have gone to the Father, you would fully 
 feel, that in the spiritual, as in every other depart- 
 ment of action and experience, the will is the sov- 
 ereign of the man. Jesus said, " Ye ivill not come 
 unto me, that ye may have life " ; by implication 
 asserting, that on their ivills depended their spiritual 
 rescue. 
 
 Poorly do material things illustrate spiritual ; but 
 I will suppose myself standing upon the wharf of 
 a seaboard city. Before me floats a mighty ship. 
 Within her is ponderous and complicated machin- 
 ery. She is divided into manifold compartments, 
 furnished for bodily comfort and repose. In capa- 
 cious pantries are stored a month's provisions for 
 hundreds of human beings ; within her saloons or 
 upon her ample deck are gathered scores of men, 
 women, and children ; and in her deep holds are 
 crowded the various productions of soil and labor. 
 But why this congregation and accumulation ? the 
 vessel is as motionless as the piers that hem it in ; 
 the wind plays around its iron pipes and amid its 
 scanty rigging, but it is as stationary as the hills 
 before your breath. 
 
 But as you watch, that prodigious mass, with 
 all that it contains, moves from its moorings, and 
 commences its journey upon the highway of nations. 
 But how or where this motion ? "TAe ship's fires are 
 kindled" and these arouse, as it were, her irresist- 
 
LIFE A VAPOR. 231 
 
 ible iviU, and send her onward triumphant over her 
 own inertia, and the resistance of the element that 
 embraces her. And now the ship rides upon the 
 boundless waste, — the security of the harbor is 
 abandoned, and winds and waves vex and thwart 
 her, — they foam and lash about her prow, — they 
 beat against her sides, — they lift her upon their mad 
 crests, — they plunge her into their terrific abysses. 
 But those patient fires still burn, — that hidden en- 
 ergy still survives. She drifts and tosses, her speed 
 is stayed, but her course, though indirect, is oniuard. 
 She ploughs her way to the foreign port, and lands her 
 freight without loss, and her passengers without detri- 
 ment. 
 
 So, my hearers, is it with your life. The secret of 
 its force, its progress, and its victory, is the kindling 
 of the fire within you. To this end circumstances 
 and your own needs bring their quick friction near 
 your hearts. To this end nature spreads out her 
 splendors, that they may converge into the kindling 
 of your faith and adoration. To this end God has 
 sent the Lord Jesus Christ into the world, that the 
 Divine may light up your souls into flame. 
 
 Your motion depends upon the fii'e. Your direc- 
 tion depends upon the aim that sits at the helm. 
 And the solemn question now presents itself, — Wliat 
 shall this aim, this purpose, be ? In what objects 
 and to what end shall it act ? From some, the 
 answer comes, " Accumulation " ; from others, " Re- 
 nown " ; from others, " Station " ; — from others, 
 again, " The means of pleasure." So be it then, if 
 this is their will, — if this is their life. Let them 
 
232 LIFE A VAPOR. 
 
 sagaciously apply their resources ; let them maintain 
 this purpose with unwavering steadfastness, let the 
 energies of their whole being be engrossingly applied 
 to the desired consummation, and who shall say that 
 their reward will be denied them ? Our God doth 
 not vary his ordinations, though man abuse them to 
 his destruction ; and he will not render human will 
 impotent, human energies unproductive, though dedi- 
 cated to ends that dishonor and blight them. 
 
 Rational and accountable beings ! Children of 
 God! Heirs of eternity! "What are your lives? 
 "What are your purposes ? Have you any purpose ? 
 or is your mortal existence best likened to a succes- 
 sion: of prints upon the sands of the beach, — to the 
 shifting will-o'-the-wisp, a glimmer without heat, 
 now here, now there, resembling the true light of a 
 steady purpose enough only to mislead and harass 
 those w^ho trust to it, and bring disappointment and 
 despondency unto the soul? Or is your purpose, 
 your will, your life., of earthly origin and for earthly 
 ends ? Is it a toil for fame, or homage, or wealth, or 
 show, or physical comforts, or terrestrial delights ? 
 Shall these be the only results of the awful power of 
 the loill, the only achievement of the immortal na- 
 tures? Can it be possible that the allotments of 
 life, the teachings of God's visible glory, the course 
 of His providence, the suggestions of experience, the 
 the voice of the Gospel, the example of Jesus, can 
 inspire no other purpose, no other will, no other 
 life than this ? 
 
 My hearers ! in your own bosoms is lodged the 
 mysterious, the unutterably solemn capability of 
 
LIFE A VAPOR. 233 
 
 moral, of spiritual decision. Determine, in this mat- 
 ter, aught in the fear of the Lord, and a waiting 
 spirit shall mightily strengthen you. Let your un- 
 fledged faith but struggle to fly, and hidden pinions 
 shall unfold themselves to bear you up. Under- 
 value none of life's sterling virtues ; but to temper- 
 ance, industry, prudence, to honesty, courtesy, truth, 
 add the dedication of your souls to the Lord. Mark 
 out your path, establish your goal ; but let that 
 path be of the spirit, that goal a heavenly character. 
 
 20- 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 THE "HOUK" OF TllOUELE NECESSARY. 
 
 NOW IS MT SOUL troubled; and what shall I SAT? FATHER, 
 SAVE ME FROM THIS HOUR : BUT FOR THIS CAUSE CAME X UNTO 
 
 THIS HOUR. — John xii. 27. 
 
 What hour was it ? " The hour is come that 
 the Son of Man should be glorified," said Jesus. 
 " Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; 
 but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." It was 
 the approaching hour of pain and humiliation and 
 desertion and death, that cast its shadows upon the 
 Son of Man. 
 
 It is not unreasonable to assume that Christ's suf- 
 ferings were unparalleled by the sufferings of prophet 
 before him or of martyr after him ; for he brought a 
 heavenly organization to be acted upon by the tor- 
 tures of earth ; an unstained purity and delicacy of 
 soul into collision with the grossness and wicked- 
 ness of his times. He brought his supernatural in- 
 sight into the nature of the human soul, and his clear 
 vision of its destiny into conflict with the blinding 
 passions and besotted sensuality of a people rushing 
 
THE "hour" of trouble NECESSARY. 235 
 
 to their destruction. It seems impossible, under such 
 circumstances, that Jesus should not have experienced 
 tortures, both bodily and mental, in passing through 
 the final crisis of his mission, which we with diffi- 
 culty conceive. The same natural shrinking which 
 you or I would experience in view of an imminent 
 and agonizing trial Christ experienced ; but was it 
 right for him to supplicate deliverance from that 
 trial ? It was not self-sought. No alloy of impru- 
 dence or unwisdom, much less of selfishness or sin, 
 had invoked his perils. They came as a necessity of 
 his fidelity. They were the indispensable setting of 
 the times around the jewel of his sanctity. They 
 had been pre-entwined, so to speak, with the history 
 of his mission, and with the events of the world. 
 Christ, from the beginning, knew that it must be so. 
 From the hour of his conflict in the desert, he had 
 foreseen this temptation of the Devil, and from the 
 hour of the ministering of angels to his spirit, he had 
 consecrated himself to the over-mastery of such temp- 
 tation. His work thereafter was 2)atience. His 
 cause was the truth. To its sovereignty he must be 
 the sacrifice ; therefore he would not pray to escape 
 the hour, for, in defence of his cause, he came to 
 that hour. 
 
 It is triie, Christ, on his divine side, is " God mani- 
 fest in the iiesh." Looking upon that aspect of his 
 life, we arc studying the heavenly Parent. We are 
 instructed as to what our Creator is, in all his rela- 
 tions to us. It is an opening, in fact, of heaven to 
 the earth, this divine side of Christ ; yet we are not 
 to forget that he embodies also all experiences and 
 
236 THE "hour" of trouble necessary. 
 
 necessities of man. He goes before us showing 
 lohat it is that is to enter the kingdom of God. The 
 problem of life is solved by him. Its end opening 
 into futurity, — itself merged therein, is pressed upon 
 our view; and this truth, among others, appears 
 conspicuously, — let us not say sadly, — that it is 
 through conflict, and sufferings, and tribulation, and 
 some crucifixion, that has perhaps the pain of death, 
 that we are to enter the kingdom of God. 
 
 I say, let not this fact be a sad one to us. The 
 victor, at his goal, crowned amid the plaudits of the 
 spectators, looks back upon his hard training, his 
 fastings, his sweatings and sacrifices, with joy. It 
 was the pain of those early hours that enters into 
 the muscular vigor, fleetness and endurance of this. 
 The angels, from their sphere of wider observation, 
 may see each moment of sorrow, dropped as a seed 
 into the plain of human destiny, to germinate after- 
 ward, and bear each its blossom of delight. So let 
 us receive the lesson which the fact to which I have 
 alluded teaches, and let us not say that the teaching 
 is cruel, until we know the recompense, — until we 
 can expound all mysteries and possess all knowledge. 
 
 For myself, I think I can see clearly how and why 
 it is that such trying instrumentalities are needed to 
 lift us to God. God, in the highest conception which 
 we form of him, is not of the prosperous fortunes 
 of the earth ; not but what his laws are sovereign 
 through all fortunes, not but what his smiles may be 
 reflected and his blessing may be confessed in pure 
 earthly successes and triumphs ; but he is a Spirit, 
 aside from the processes and results of practical life, 
 
THE "hour" of trouble NECESSARY. 237 
 
 however much he may be regarded as within such. 
 To one distinctively seeking God, he is a Spirit 
 alone and apart from everything thus tangible and 
 visible. What rare soul is there, rather, what 
 anomalous and fearful being is there, among men, 
 that can learn of and feel God in his highest attri- 
 butes and relations along a path of unbroken com- 
 fort and success ? Such knowledge, by such means, 
 is not found ; or so rarely as to form an exception 
 that places the general law in bolder relief. Men 
 wordlily prosperous are not, as observation shows 
 us, the clearest seers of God. Communities like the 
 Ephesians, rich and luxurious, become spiritually 
 blind and dead, and given up to the grossness of 
 idolatry. The hope of immortality, like a night-light, 
 fades out in the gairish day of earthly prosperity. 
 
 The entirely successful man comes to deify his 
 own energies and his own sagacity. The highest 
 powers are to him the laws of physical cause and 
 effect, — the certainty of results following care, dili- 
 gence, and shrewdness. He is likely to become a 
 materialist ; a practical necessarian, which is not far 
 from being an atheist. The entirely successful man, 
 the man freed from sickness, pain, and sorrows, finds 
 this horizon broad enough for him, and tries to find 
 this heaven happy enough. 
 
 The one signal result of such an earthly condition 
 is, that the creature, with a dominant, sensual, or 
 worldly nature, with the inward vision blinded, the 
 soul bewildered by present splendors, finds no need 
 of God. And yet, God, or the sense of God, is as 
 necessary to the human soul as sound to the ear or 
 light to the eye. 
 
238 THE "hour" of trouble necessary. 
 
 It is for this reason that the human lot must be 
 comparatively a lot of ill success, of suffering, of 
 want. Man must be goaded by a sense of incom- 
 pleteness, of non-requital. He must pluck the bitter 
 berries of disappointment, with the fruits of content, 
 along the hedgerows of his pilgrimage. There must 
 be a death's-head at his feast. 
 
 This is all necessary, I say, to make God a reality 
 to the soul, to make the soul " feel after him," and 
 lean upon him as its strength, and embrace him as 
 its comfort. This is all necessary, as the prophecy of 
 a future condition. These wants and sorrows, creat- 
 ing desires, visions, hopes, are the cross lights and 
 shadows thrown across the earthly path from the 
 heavenly city. They are the monitions, thickening 
 as we go, that this is not our rest, that there is be- 
 yond the present a better country. 
 
 Let us remember, that all these instrumentalities, 
 judging of man by what he is here, seem superfluous, 
 nay, more, mal-adapted, inhuman. But man is not 
 to be so judged. His condition is not to be so 
 viewed. This life, in comparison with the life to be 
 unfolded, is as the embryo to the full-formed crea- 
 ture ; is as the grossness of matter to the subtlety of 
 the spirit. We must, therefore, as I have before 
 intimated, seek the solution of the problem of this 
 life in the fact of another and an endless existence. 
 The rudiments of all after-functions are implanted 
 with the original creation of being. Those rudiments 
 must and will give sign of their existence ; and as 
 far short should we fall of a fit estimate of man, 
 neglecting these rudiments of his after condition, 
 
THE "hour" of trouble NECESSARY. 239 
 
 judging alone by his developed earthly proportions, 
 as we should fall short of a proper estimate of the 
 plant, judging from the short stalk alone, and negleet- 
 ing the little bud that is to be unfolded from that 
 stalk into a plume of graceful branches and of shin- 
 ing leaves. 
 
 Therefore, Christ revealing to us the necessities 
 and destiny of the human creature, made and tempted 
 like his brethren, led the way through tribulation 
 unto glory. I cannot conceive of a Saviour of man, 
 though he were pure Divinity itself, as doing his 
 work of redemption by a life of earthly splendor and 
 success. The glory of such a life must be the glory 
 of the touching and tender virtues. The exaltation 
 of such a life must be the depths of its disinterested 
 endurance. The power of such a life must be its 
 weakness in all the defences which art or prowess 
 could erect. The crown of such a life must be the 
 radiance of heavenly approval, upon a head that has 
 been bruised by contumely and enveloped in the 
 shadows of all earthly sorrow. How touchingly do 
 the memorials before us proclaim this great truth. 
 They are the double seal of a cgvenant ratified by 
 the quivering body and the gushing blood of the 
 divine sufferer. Elements infolding the mystery of 
 the power that lay in that life, of the success of that 
 leadership unto glory. 
 
 A practical question may now be put, in view of 
 what has been suggested. Are tiiere not many who 
 feel that everything is well with them, that they have 
 found peace of heart, and joy in devout exercises, who 
 have not brought these conditions of spirit to the 
 
240 THE "hour" of trouble necessary. 
 
 great test which Christ has disclosed and illustrated ; 
 namely, the test of suffering, of reverses, of embar- 
 rassments, of some ill to body, mind, or estate ? 
 
 To make my meaning clear, I will offer a plain 
 illustration. I will suppose the head of a family to 
 be oppressed with debt. His business yields him an 
 insufficient income. He finds many wants which he 
 must leave unsatisfied. It costs him great care, and 
 contrivance, and economy, to save himself from 
 serious difficulties. He is a man of religious habits, 
 and desires to be a God-fearing man ; but he grows 
 discontented and querulous ; perhaps, grows nig- 
 gardly in spirit ; perhaps impugns the course of 
 events, utters hard judgments of his successful 
 neighbors, loses the evenness of his temper, and 
 perhaps the line of exact honesty. The thought 
 comes over him that he is losing foothold of the 
 Christian ascent ; his heart smites him, that with a 
 fair seeming there is great hoUowness within, and 
 many an ejaculation escapes him, " God be merciful 
 to me a sinner !" 
 
 His outward condition slides gradually into im- 
 provement. Income increases. Unsatisfied wants 
 grow fewer. The stream of his fortune finally glides 
 on without eddies, almost without a ripple. 
 
 And now, reflecting upon himself, he says, with no 
 insincerity, " I am a better man than I used to be; 
 my temper is more even ; I have fewer wicked dis- 
 contents in my heart ; I love my neighbors more ; 
 I have a more vivid sense of the mercies of God ; 
 my life is more effectually guided than it was wont 
 to be by the Christian rudder " ; — and then he really 
 thanks God for the blessed change. 
 
THK "hour" of trouble NECESSARY. 241 
 
 Ah ! sincere, but mistaken man ! You are the 
 same being that you were a few years since, when, 
 with a smitten heart, you besought God to " be mer- 
 ciful to you a sinner." The circumstances around 
 you have alone shifted their positions ; your tempta- 
 tions are fewer, your distresses are none ; there are 
 no rocks before your prow, and the wind is in your 
 sails. But your departing embarrassments have not 
 borne away with them your frailties and your sin- 
 fulness. You need again the Christian test, tribula- 
 tion, to try the purity of your metal, and thus tried, it 
 would show again the dingy spots of your moral alloy. 
 You have not gone through the purgation that is to 
 fit you for heaven. You are good, simply through 
 lack of inducements to become bad. Watch now, 
 in your present comfortable lot ; there may still be 
 in it some trifling annoyances. Go manfully into 
 the search ; and ask yourself how you. stand the test 
 of these. What! is there something of the old 
 frailty left under the prick of these little thorns ? 
 Must your moral nature flee away to covert beneath 
 this mere drizzle of resistance ? What, then, when 
 the heavy drops of trial come pattering upon your 
 head ? What, then, when the very tempest and flood 
 of tribulation beat upon you, and threaten to over- 
 whelm you? 
 
 Peace, my hearers, — the peace that is enduring 
 enough to reach heaven, — the peace that is of a 
 quahty to be welcomed in heaven, — " the peace that 
 passeth understanding," — is not the equableness 
 of an undisturbed lot. More like this peace is the 
 repose of the gorged animal basking in the sun. 
 
 21 
 
242 THE "hour" of trouble necessary. 
 
 Spiritual peace is not the quiet of a nature that has 
 no foes to challenge it, but it is the rest and content 
 that come after victory, — victory over self. When 
 circumstances crowd try in gly around the man, threat- 
 ening him with inward turbulance, — loss of patience, 
 discontent, unkindness of heart, — then let him say. 
 These things are as a fire to burn up the chaif that is 
 within me, and present me purer before man and 
 God ; and let him then be true to these promptings, 
 and fight down the rising foe, and meekly invoke 
 the great Helper to his side, and he becomes the vic- 
 tor, and has the peace of victory. He has conquered 
 circumstances, not they him. He, his rightful self, 
 his conscience, his diviner functions, have risen to 
 supremacy over the carnal nature, — a nature given to 
 drag onward the mortal chariot in which the spirit 
 sits as lord. 
 
 There is nothing human but must pass through 
 fire before it becomes divine. When contentment 
 has passed through the furnace, and is still content- 
 ment, it may be sure that it is of heavenly quality. 
 Before, it may have been satisfaction with outward 
 favors or with worldly exemptions ; now, it must be 
 a satisfaction in God. Sanctity must pass through 
 the fire, or it may be a sanctity of forms and habits ; 
 a sanctity of traditional opinions and traditional 
 observances; a sanctity of discretion, or expediency, 
 or inheritance. But pass it through the fire, and if it 
 live, it becomes a sanctity of the soul. You will 
 then find it praying amidst the sound of curses; keep- 
 ing the Sabbath where there are no temples ; and 
 feeding upon memories of the Bible where the Bible 
 
THE "hour" of TUOUBLE NECESSARY. 243 
 
 itself is wanting. You will find it standing alone in 
 righteousness and devotion, when there are no eccle- 
 siastical organizations to lean upon ; when there is 
 no moral finger to point in scorn to religious laxity ; 
 and when indeed irreverent thinking and latitudi- 
 narian practice invite to their evil counsels and evil 
 ways. 
 
 This fiery trial, my hearers, is not kindled for you < 
 in some remote valley, or on some mountain-top, but 
 at your own hearths and in your own daily walks. 
 In the outset of this discourse, I supposed an im- 
 possibility, — a man successful in every direction of 
 desire. There are sufl'erings oj" some kind in every 
 path. As with Christ, so to every man there is an 
 hour to which he must come, — an hour of light 
 tribulation compared with Christ's, but heavy enough 
 to try, and test, and discipline, and deliver the soul. 
 This very day many of us have doubtless had such 
 an hour ; an hour of some grievance, or some provo- 
 cation, or some annoyance, or some seduction, or 
 some inward desire, clashing with the sense of what 
 is true, and right, and God-approved. And how 
 have we come to such an hour, and how have we 
 gone through it ? Scorched, — shrivelled, — crisped 
 by the flame ? or stronger and brighter for it as we 
 sit here ; fitter for prayer, for thanksgiving, for com- 
 munings with the unseen world. Christ's hour came, 
 and he was glorified thereby ; and his triumph is to 
 us the spur and the lure which we may not despise ; 
 to the end that every hour of trial to our souls may 
 bring to us glory and not shame; and, O Holy 
 Saviour ! sent by the Father into the world for the 
 
244 THE "hour" of trouble necessary. 
 
 help of the frail and the deliverance of the trusting, 
 may the lesson of thy fidelity be engraven on our 
 souls ! and may the spirit of thy mission be kindled 
 in our hearts ; and may we drink of thy cup, nor 
 shrink from thy baptism, that we may enter into 
 thy glory I 
 
SEEMON XVI. 
 
 OFFENCES MUST GOME. 
 
 WOE UNTO THE "WORLD BECAUSE OF OFFENCES ! FOR IT MUST 
 NEEDS BE THAT OFFENCES COME J BUT WOE TO THAT MAN BY 
 WHOM THE OFFENCE COMETH ! — MatthcW XA'iii. 7. 
 
 Suppose either of the two latter clauses of the 
 text, " It must needs be that offences come," " Woe 
 to that man by whom the offence cometh," had stood 
 alone, unqualified by the other clause ; what would 
 have been the doctrine taught ? 
 
 Take the first of the two clauses, " It must needs 
 be that offences come." This declares the certainty, 
 nay, the inevitableness of crime. If it were the only 
 declaration in Scripture in anywise connected with 
 human transgression, what a doctrine of necessity, 
 of fatalism, would it teach. How it would seem 
 coldly to state the inevitable conditions of humanity! 
 to bear testimony to the inherent, ineradicable sin of 
 the world I to point out the unchangeable workings 
 of the stupendous machine, the moral universe ! to 
 banish the idea of a Providence, and of course to 
 chill the ardor and dim the hope of benevolence in 
 any of its aims toward relief from the various ills of 
 the world I 
 
 21* 
 
246 OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 " Offences must comeJ^ Suppose this were the only- 
 doctrine taught ; what would be public action, or 
 what private effort ? Chiefly defence and alleviation. 
 Laws would be enacted to restrain the offender; to 
 limit the consequence of the offence. It would be 
 taken for granted that the sources of evil could not 
 be dried up ; that the putrid waters 7nust Row. Care 
 only would be exerted to keep the stream within 
 channels that should guard its direction, and to dis- 
 infect the air into which it throws its poison. 
 
 But the idea of personal accountableness would 
 be no part of the philosophy begotten of the state- 
 ment, " Offences must come." The idea of modify- 
 ing such a result, by effort acting on the individual 
 heart, through the instrumentalities of blame for 
 wrong, warnings against delinquencies, encourage- 
 ments toward uprightness, would be faint, if it had 
 any existence at all. And think what exhibitions of 
 tender devotion or of heroic endeavor (founded on a 
 faith that the soul is the voluntary engenderer of of- 
 fences) would be lost to the world ! There have 
 been no such labors, no such sacrifices of tears and 
 of blood, no such expenditures of the treasures of 
 love, as those compelled by interest in the soul of 
 man, as a free, accountable agent. 
 
 There are practical teachings of our day, as there 
 have been in times past, which seem to be founded 
 in no slight degree on such an interpretation of the 
 conditions of the moral world as the dissevered clause 
 which we are considering suggests. These opinions 
 say, " Offences must come." And they find the 
 cause of them in mai-adjusted social relations ; in 
 
OFFENCES MUST COME. 247 
 
 defective laws ; in artificial contrasts of position ; 
 in unjust relations of capital and labor ; in false con- 
 nections of man with woman ; in the existence of 
 many similar abuses founded on selfishness. 
 
 And so far do some of these modern teachers 
 carry their theories, that they in substance say, 
 While society is thus out of joint, the constraints to 
 evil-doing are irresistible. The moral results, though 
 pitiable, are not blameworthy. The individual, the 
 instrument of the offence, is to be avoided, perhaps 
 confined, certainly to be compassionated, but not 
 condemned as guilty. He is a victim, not a crim- 
 inal. 
 
 Some of the modern French writers on Social 
 Ethics, take this view, with more or less qualifica- 
 tion. It seems to be a natural view for those who 
 have deeply felt the pressure of exterior evils ; espe- 
 cially who have been scourged by social wrongs ; 
 who have dwelt amid the oppressions of a bad gov- 
 ernment ; the indifference of class toward class ; pub- 
 lic rapacity and corruption ; who have seen enough 
 in these outward, material arrangements and opera- 
 tions of the civil and social world to overbear all 
 patience, all purity, all rectitude ; to compel, in other 
 words, the development of evil in the trampled indi- 
 vidual, — recklessness, wild passion, revenge, craft, 
 etc. 
 
 Then, further, and especially with the French 
 school of reformers, the religious sense seems to be 
 weak, moral principles seem to be placed upon a 
 false foundation, to have hardly an absolute exist- 
 ence (independent of man, so to speak, and al- 
 
248 OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 lied with God), but are diluted into fitnesses; con- 
 founded with instinctive affinities ; limited by natu- 
 ral desires ; made changeable with the caprices of 
 the individual, or the shiftings of external circum- 
 stances. The consequence of such a philosophy 
 (and it has been training the hearts of the French 
 people for a hundred years) must be, to look to the 
 external for supports or hinderances to '■^ hai'moniaV 
 and " unitary " (it would not be styled virtuous) 
 action ; to look to the external as begetting the 
 clashings and interferences of follij, it would not 
 be styled the iniquity of sinful affections. ' Nothing 
 would so soon quiet the turbulence of a Parisian 
 pandemonium, as to throw open its doors and win 
 Jesus of Nazareth to cross its threshold. There can 
 be no hope for the French people, in the v/ay of true 
 liberty, until the seeds of the virtuous be first sown in 
 their hearts; until religion be unbound and un-eccle- 
 siasticized ; until she come down from her pedestal, 
 and out of her stately and unnatural surroundings, 
 and with life-blood in her cheeks, and the fire of love 
 in her eye, and the ministrations of brotherhood in 
 her ready hand, mingles with the multitude, and 
 makes her daily blessing felt to be indispensable ; 
 until the French can reverence the past, they can 
 never build for the future ; and the past on earth 
 will never find reverence in the heart, until a higher 
 reverence first exists there. This seems to be the 
 difficulty with that strange nation in its attempts at 
 self-improvement; and with many of its writers on 
 social reform. They see in the external chiefly the 
 causes of misery, and they spend their endeavors in 
 
OFFENCES MUST COME. 249 
 
 modifying the outward ; wliereas, they need to know 
 that it is the regulated powers, the fixed principles, 
 the living faith of the individual man, that must lie 
 under every successful attempt at beneficial, social, 
 or civil change. 
 
 But suppose, now, that the last clause of the text 
 stood alone, " Woe to that man by whom the offence 
 cometh," what doctrine would it teach ? The doc- 
 trine of harsh judgments, of unrelenting condemna- 
 tions. Its philosophy would be that of unqualified hu- 
 man responsibility ; of wrong-doing in every form as 
 unextenuated sin. It would sharpen the edge of every 
 penalty. It would draw tighter the cords of all dis- 
 cipline. It would admit no allowances in estimate 
 of blame, and temper no verdict with lenity. On the 
 guilty affections, the disobedient will of the trans- 
 gressor, would fall the whole weight of condemna- 
 tion. 
 
 And it is not to be denied that there are those 
 whose moral and religious philosophy takes this 
 direction. They are stern overseers, not wise and 
 benignant watchers, of human affairs. They take 
 into very little account the circumstances that sur- 
 round the heart, and attribute all evils to the deliber- 
 ate and conscious transgressions of the individual. 
 And especially is this disposition to overlook out- 
 ward, extenuating circumstances, and hold the of- 
 fender to his responsibility, aggravated by the theo- 
 logical theory of original sin and of total depravity. 
 Hardest do they bear upon the transgressors who 
 hold this theory. Least interested are such in efforts 
 at social reform. Where they seek the improvement 
 
250 OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 of society, it is with little care for any modification 
 of the external conditions under which men dwell, 
 but with a direct interest in, and effort in behalf of, 
 the moral and spiritual forces of the creature ; there- 
 fore they are far less solicitous to remove poverty, or 
 exposure of facilities to intemperance, from the midst 
 of a community, than they are to distribute tracts 
 and bibles, and bring the sinner within the sound of 
 the Gospel. All things, say they, are possible with 
 God. His spirit entering into the heart can alone 
 regenerate it, and avert its own sins and the public 
 evils. They have no faith that this divine Helper 
 can find a surer entrance into the heart through com- 
 fortable clothing, and across a well-spread table, and 
 beneath a tight roof, than through rags, and starva- 
 tion, and exposure. If they would make a law for 
 the benefit of the community, it would be one not to 
 remove or diminish temptations to sin, but to in- 
 crease the penalty for offence. You would never 
 find these voting to substitute imprisonment for life 
 for the death penalty, but voting to hang a man 
 tivice over, if convicted ; and their theory pushes its 
 effects into the next world. The sinner, with his ter- 
 rible guilt, stands before the judgment-seat ; his sen- 
 tence is unmitigable, for his iniquities have been 
 intolerable ; freely, with no constraint, clearly seeing 
 the right, with the sanctions of eternity before him, 
 with God's everlasting law upon his conscience, he 
 transgressed. He fell in the midst of his Eden, 
 therefore let the flaming sword keep him from the 
 tree of life ; therefore let him find his eternal doom. 
 Need I say that both classes of moral interpreters 
 
OFFENCES MUST COME. 251 
 
 of whom I have spoken, rallying each around a 
 single clause of the text, take very incomplete and 
 unjust views of human condition and of human 
 responsibility, — that there can be no equity of judg- 
 ment which does not embrace both sides of the sub- 
 ject we are considering ; which does not blend the 
 teachings of both clauses of the text. Conjoned, 
 they announce the mystery of life. They intimate 
 the compulsions under which man acts, and they de- 
 clare also the freedom with which he acts. They 
 assert the simple doctrine of his relative and limited 
 responsibleness. They weigh in a just balance what 
 he can not help with what he can help. They show 
 the grounds on which the justice of God holds his 
 steward to the giving of an account, and affirm the 
 the inflexible impartiality and righteousness of his 
 tribunal. 
 
 " It must be that offences come." We are per- 
 haps not aware of the certainty of stated percent- 
 ages of crime, under certain fixed outward conditions. 
 You are aware that tables of longevity , have been 
 calculated, from long and accurate observation, by 
 which it is ascertained with great exactness how 
 many persons out of a thousand or a hundred die 
 within a year. Statistics of almost equal exact- 
 ness, on data furnished in Flanders or Belgium, 
 are able to predict the amount of public transgres- 
 sion in the year. Understand thoroughly the out- 
 ward conditions of a given community ; everything 
 that pertains to its civil institutions ; its religious 
 facilities ; its domestic culture ; the amount and 
 quality of the education of its youth ; its amuse- 
 
252 OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 ments; the numerical proportion between its male 
 and female members ; their trades and callings ; 
 the natm'e of the soil ; the climate, and so forth. 
 Know all these conditions accurately, and I have no 
 doubt that the amount of visible, which would indi- 
 cate the amount of invisible, wickedness, in such a 
 community, might be computed beforehand, and 
 that a company might, with as large a chance of 
 profit, insure a given amount of righteousness, as 
 other companies insure life or property. 
 
 Strange this ! yet no stranger than the rest of the 
 wonders of creation and Providence. How clearly 
 does such a fact interlock with the ordinations of 
 God. How manifestly does the law which this fact 
 declares take its place among other laws of the 
 universe, all of them showing an overruling purpose, 
 a sovereign will, excluding chance, and demonstrat- 
 ing the impossibility of human volitions contravening 
 divine ends; proving how out of evil God educes 
 good ; that there is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 that the wrath of man even shall praise the Lord. 
 
 " Offences must come." Some of the elements 
 that enter into such a necessity of offence, and to a 
 definite extent limit responsibility, are easily specified. 
 First, country, climate, soil, are beyond the elec- 
 tion of the individual. Geographical conditions 
 shape the outer and the inner m.an. The same race 
 of men divided; one portion planted upon the fat 
 soil and amid the hot and humid airs of the South- 
 Asian peninsulas or the Northern Brazils ; another 
 portion planted on the granite ledges of New Eng- 
 land; a third upon the steppes of Siberia, could 
 hardly retain an identity in moral characteristics. 
 
OFFENCES MUST COME. 253 
 
 Again, government and civil institutions are be- 
 yond individual election. The same race would 
 enevitably develop into dissimilar qualities under 
 despotic and under republican laws. Thirdly, the 
 manifold disciplinary influences that surround the 
 youth will, in the long run, more or less definitely 
 block out his character, and that, to some extent, 
 despite himself. The pressure of society, the quality 
 of companionships, the supply or want of adequate 
 school instruction, parental example and training, — 
 all these constitute a sort of necessity under which 
 the youth loses his responsibility in a certain meas- 
 ure, and beneath which his will must bow. Then, 
 again, there are hereditary tendencies, stronger or 
 weaker ; there are constitutional limitations and pro- 
 clivities, which make certain paths impossible and 
 certain proportions of character unattainable. 
 
 Now, the extent to which these external shapings 
 and enforcements bear upon the individual should be 
 fully understood and admitted. It is futile to say 
 that the will has power over them ; they are pre- 
 cisely the barriers which Providence has purposely 
 erected around the will. They possess a sort of ma- 
 terial inflexibleness; and where they all operate 
 adversely to the well-being, to the harmonious de- 
 velopment, to the free direction of the highest facul- 
 ties of our nature, there exists in the individual a 
 moral impossibility to become what, under different 
 circumstances, he might become. 
 
 But, is the individual thus circumscribed delivered 
 from moral responsibility ? Not so long as he stands 
 this side of moral idiocy or insanity. Is he a ma- 
 
 22 
 
254 OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 chine, moving only as he is moved ? Not so long 
 as he possesses the power of deliberation ; not so 
 long as he can waver between two decisions ; not 
 so long as he can see the parting of the ways, and 
 know that one is right and the other wrong, one 
 is wise and the other foolish; not so long as the 
 consciousness dwells within him (to which a desire 
 for forgiveness or a sense of blame or a dread of 
 punishment can attach) that he is free to determine 
 upon one or another act, to contend for one or 
 another result. A man is free according to the 
 make of his being and within his appointed range 
 and upon his appointed level ; and within that range 
 and upon that level there is no man who has not free- 
 dom enough to crowd his life with responsibilities. If 
 he have the one talent, he is accountable for the one, 
 and for no more. If he have the ten, he is account- 
 able for the ten, and no less. There is a definite 
 amount of moral gain, of spiritual discipline, to be 
 acquired under whatever stewardship of the soul. 
 
 " It must needs be that offences come ; but woe to 
 that man by whom the offence cometh." 
 
 In looking upon this first clause, in a practical 
 light, and in connection with the after clause, we are 
 not to regard it as declaring a naked necessity or 
 constraint to an evil course. It speaks of a necessity, 
 inferred from the fact, that, what daily is and has 
 been since the world began, will continue to be. 
 The affirmation, that " offences must come," is a 
 proposition founded upon experience. It is simply 
 the title of what has been noted as a constantly re- 
 curring chapter in the world's history. It is a proph- 
 
OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 255 
 
 ecy of what it is believed xvill be, not an omnipotent 
 decree as to what shall be. All that I have said 
 concerning the constraints that hedge around the 
 will, annihilating its freedom, is to be forgotten in es- 
 timating the real elements of human offence. So 
 far as the word " woe " may mean sorrow and suffer- 
 ing and confusion and defeat, it would pertain even 
 to involuntary offences, — offences of ignorance or 
 of necessity. Bat so far as it may be construed to 
 mean the deeper misery of the soul, engendered by 
 voluntary sin, it of course pertains alone to that 
 large circle of actions which lie within the range of 
 human volition. 
 
 If I were finally to ask myself what are the prac- 
 tical directions in which the whole text should lead 
 me, I would answer, first, it should lead me so to 
 exert every influence which I possess, and so always 
 to act^ as to diminish the temptations and constraints 
 under which my fellow-men are urged into evil. If 
 " offences must come,'' I know where to look for the 
 causes of such a necessity ; and I know that those 
 causes can be greatly modified. I have a power to 
 utter decided convictions ; to seek to persuade my 
 fellow-men ; to vote for local regulations or for pub- 
 lic statutes. I am one of a community ; and that 
 community, if it would consent in action, could so 
 modify its own external conditions as to reduce im- 
 measurably the offences that must take place within 
 it. I am thus accountable to my fellow-men for the 
 use of this ability to do them good by action or 
 harm by inaction. And I am responsible to God for 
 my exercise of a stewardship which he has made in- 
 
256 OFFENCES MUST COME. 
 
 strumental in establishing my relations to himself. 
 I will therefore not be behindhand in the path of 
 reform. I will seek to avoid precipitancy, fanciful 
 and impracticable measm-es, violent and radical dem- 
 onstrations. I will aim to take counsel from ex- 
 perience and sobriety ; but I will spare no effort to 
 diminish the necessities that call offences into being, 
 and that fill the world with a woe that has more of 
 wretchedness than of guilt. 
 
 The second direction in which the text instructs 
 me is, to look well to myself; to look after my own 
 conscience, and to discern my tremendous responsi- 
 bilities. The woe visited upon the offender by the 
 Saviour is the doom upon avoidable sin. It is the 
 spiritual penalties upon the soul that doeth evil. It 
 is the anger of God against the conscious transgres- 
 sor of his laws. 
 
 Here, then, within my circle of free action, stand- 
 ing master over my field, self-poised amid the cir- 
 cumstances that surround me, I may elect my pos- 
 sessions and my path. I may shut those induce- 
 ments out, and I may bring these into nearer view. 
 I may look upon that low range for my prom- 
 ises, or draw them from on high. I may stand still, 
 or go backward, or go forward, in either evil or good. 
 I may resist the Devil, so that he shall flee from 
 me, or I may garnish the inner chambers for the 
 dwelling of his worst spirits. If, therefore, I choose 
 the evil, I am to stand at the bar of God and answer 
 why ; and no sin which I commit will be without its 
 woe, here or hereafter. 
 
 Brethren, I have spoken as for myself. I have 
 
OFFENCES MUST COME. 257 
 
 spread before you my sense of the extent of my own 
 responsibility in the sight of God. What I have 
 detailed for myself, I am justified in applying to each 
 of you. Our common duty now is, — a duty urged 
 by earth and heaven, by every hope and every fear, by 
 all things present and all things that are to come, — 
 to be more faithful to our responsibilities, and more 
 fitly to offer our free service unto God. 
 
 22 
 
SEIIMON XVII. 
 
 FAllEWELL SERMON TO THE IIARTEORD SOCIETY. 
 
 NOT FOR THAT AVE UAVE DOMINION OVER YOUR FAITH, BUT ARE 
 HELPERS OF TOUR JOY: FOR BY FAITH YE STAND. — 2 Coiin- 
 
 tbians i. 24. 
 
 There are some crises in which one would be 
 glad to live a lifetime, to unite all that he can bestow 
 of effort with all that he has gathered of experience, 
 and cast them with unwonted force into the pressing 
 instant. 
 
 Not that there is a special urgency upon me, the 
 speaker, or upon you, the listeners, at this time. I 
 mean in regard to the themes ordinarily the subjects 
 of meditation in the pulpit. I am under no superior 
 obligation to-day to announce with earnestness the 
 demands and sanctions of the Gospel ; nor are you, 
 in this hour, under any peculiarly stringent necessity 
 of an application of those demands and sanctions to 
 yourselves. We are never out of such necessity. 
 The current of our sinful tendencies needs to be 
 broken every day, every hour, against the blessed 
 impediments which a gracious Creator casts athwart 
 the stream. 
 
 Yet still, if I might, I would crowd into the occa- 
 
FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 259 
 
 sion now vouchsafed whatever of conviction, of de- 
 sire, of interest, of hope, may have wisely stirred my 
 heart since I first accepted the office of your Chris- 
 tian counsellor. I would pray, that whatever beams 
 of light God has permitted to struggle through the 
 mists of frailty that have shrouded this place of 
 speech might converge into a focus, not without 
 some glow. Do not mistake my desire. I do not 
 mean the dazzle of rhetoric, but the fervor of simple 
 and direct earnestness. 
 
 For, my brethren, — for what purpose have we held 
 each other's hands so long ? Why have we come 
 hither, — I to my place here, you to your places 
 there ? Not for the interest of curiosity, — not for 
 the perishable stimulus of the intellect, — not in the 
 spirit and hopes of a worldly confederation, — not 
 with aims toward no higher than outward strength 
 and show ; — but this sanctuary has won our feet as 
 to the courts of preparation for the immortal service. 
 Here the heart has, by just theory, had but one 
 question to ask, and has sought, as from the very 
 Author of faith, the sufficient answer. The question 
 has been, " "What shall I do to be saved " ; the an- 
 swer, if true to the New Testament, has been, " Be- 
 lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Faith, — some sort of faith, better than common, 
 than of every day, — has brought us here. Faith in the 
 forms of virtue and of sanctity, — faith in some dis- 
 tinct endeavors after religious ends, — faith in needs 
 and usages not wholly secular, — faith, that there is 
 a better way of peace and happiness than we dis- 
 cover for ourselves, or our friends for us, — faith in 
 
260 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 futurity, — vague, shifting, inoperative in the main, 
 but better than a dead faithlessness to everything 
 that is not within measure of the foot-pace or the 
 hand-span. Faith, that sin is the darkness over 
 heaven, — that it is the curse of the soul, — that 
 God has offered us help to be delivered from it, — 
 that Jesus is that sent help, — that here the hands 
 may reach higher for it than elsewhere, — and here 
 the soul cry louder for it than elsewhere. Some sort 
 of a faith of this quality, and looking in these di- 
 rections, has brought us hither from time to time. 
 And this faith, in its lowest forms, is better than no 
 faith ; for it is the mark of the man over the brute, — 
 it has in it the mysterious ring of immortality, and 
 therefore, if this were the last word that I should 
 utter to you, it would be (if I could make it such) a 
 word that should seize these threads of faith, — some 
 floating gossamer-like in upper air, — some stretch- 
 ing out heavily on the level, and some draggling in 
 the dust, — and bear them all, within the dove-beak 
 of love, to the hand of Him who, by them, should 
 draw their possessors to himself. 
 
 " By faith ye stand.^^ Ye, the whole being, stand ; 
 just as mind stands by intelligence, just as body 
 stands by temperance and health, just as conscience 
 stands by integrity. A man without faith is as an 
 idiot in the department of the understanding, or as a 
 paralytic in the department of muscles. A soul! 
 what is this without faith ? "What is a sun without 
 radiance ? What is music without sound ? What 
 is any substance without its chief property ? or any 
 organ without its specific |f unction ? Think of this, 
 
FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 261 
 
 my hearers, a soul ivithout faith ! an 'entity sprung 
 from God, yet knowing only the name God, through 
 the same perceptions that buy a loaf, or build a 
 iiouse, or count coin ! 
 
 Some one has a beautiful allusion to the shell, 
 which, in the heart of the desert keeps up its tiny roar, 
 as if it had an undying yearning for the surges from 
 which it borrowed its diapason. Hold the ear down 
 to the soul without faith, and do you imagine you 
 would hear from its depths the faintest resonance, 
 as from some divine birthplace ? a murmuring, as of 
 an inextinguishable desire after that other endless 
 home ? Alas, no ! 
 
 " By faith ye standi This is a strong word, stand. 
 Intellect can do much. Practical sense can take 
 many buffets. Indifference can seem to make light 
 of many hard pressures. There is a shrewd way of 
 fighting off troubles, or a dogged way of bearing 
 them ; but after all, faith is the only power that 
 can ^^ stand'' under burdens, or be firm before the 
 floods. 
 
 Note who reels, who totters, who stumbles, who 
 falls, in the world. It is not he who abounds in 
 faith. Fortune may fail, snares entrap, foolishness 
 counsel ; but disaster or entanglement or unwisdom 
 is not prostration. He who has faith, touches bottom, 
 and is erect, come what may. Show me the person 
 witliout faith (and by faith I mean belief in God and 
 spiritual verities, — in the sanctions and compensa- 
 tions of truth, — in the disclosures and life of Jesus 
 Christ, as the outshowing of the Deity), — show me 
 one without faith in these things standings when sor- 
 
262 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 row bursts itS waterspouts over the head, — when 
 disasters roll on, a full tide, — when any of the deep, 
 serious ills of life encircle and submerge the soul. 
 
 To a faith like this, my hearers, I have tried to 
 lead you ; yet not, in the Apostle's words, as " by do- 
 minion." Any so-styled faith, that is not voluntary, 
 is misnamed. Anything acceded to because pre- 
 scribed, is not faith. You can no more produce faith 
 from dictation, than you can force the twig to spring 
 from the trunk, or the bud from the twig, with a 
 punch and mallet. 
 
 You bring here a certain mystery of life, having 
 its sovereign force and its inflexible processes. It 
 can only assimilate, and this only by its native pre- 
 dilection, not by exterior stringency. I have felt this, 
 and my purpose has been to win you, if possible, to 
 faith, your understandings by arguments, your hearts 
 by persuasion. 
 
 So, I have aimed to be a " helper of your joy," — 
 for a true cordial faith is the most joyous of all pos- 
 sessions ; as precious and satisfying as a forced, un- 
 sound faith is vexatious and torturing. Is not a 
 sense of the security of which I have spoken in itself 
 above all price ? Is it not blessedness to say, " I 
 know in whom I have believed," and to feel that 
 we also "are known of Him in whom we have 
 believed." 
 
 You do not, I trust, forget what this pulpit has 
 taught for faith, both with regard to doctrines (so 
 called) and to the principles of practical Christianity ; 
 yet it will not be unwise at this time to pass under 
 rapid and condensed review some of the instructions 
 in each direction. 
 
FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 263 
 
 You have been taught, then, first, to look to God, 
 as the inexhaustible fountain of grace, — as the holy, 
 just, yet loving One. And you have been urged to 
 recognize Him, in the spirit of the pronoun Him^ — the 
 Intelligence, — the Will, — the Sovereign Agent, — 
 the Infinite Person, — the Reader of thoughts, — the 
 Hearer of prayers, — the Bestower of bounties, — the 
 Father. Not it, — the great abstraction, — the vague 
 embodiment, — the vast, mysterious impersonality. 
 You have been warned against this reef, along 
 the shallows of a profane philosophy, on which 
 every wreck has shown its name upon the stern, 
 " Atheism.''^ 
 
 Next, yet rather parallel with the first truth, you 
 have been pointed to Christ as revealing the Father, 
 as furnishing evidence that a force, that could for a 
 specific end display itself in attributes analogous to 
 those which pertain to man, must itself be a force 
 analogous also to the human will. You have been 
 taught the Divinity of Christ, — strictly his Divinity ; 
 that is to say, the phase of God in him, — the out- 
 showing of a certain mystery, whereby a being in the 
 form of man holds out powers and qualities that 
 measure, to the uttermost stretch of our faculties, the 
 Heavenly Parent. 
 
 You can afford to bear the slur of receiving Christ 
 as " a mere man," though candid opponents cannot 
 afford to make such imputations. Not that I think 
 any person who does, through candid inquiry, and in 
 a meek spirit, believe Jesus to have been a mere 
 man, is a fit subject for a slur from other religionists ; 
 but you, I trust, are far enough from that line of be- 
 
264 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 lief to look with considerable indifference upon char- 
 ges which violently insist, that you do come squarely 
 up to the full heretical mark. For my own part, I 
 am content to enjoy my own thoughts, when I hear 
 of some commentator on Unitarianism affirming that 
 it is essential to this form of doctrine, that it deny the 
 Divinity of Christ. 
 
 I have set this Being before you as the living 
 centre of light for your opinions on all matters of 
 ethical and spiritual import, — as the object around 
 whom all our anxieties, our hopes, our affections 
 cluster, — as the Revealer of our destiny here and 
 for ever, — as the only middle instrumentality between 
 the plains of earth, and the heights of heaven ; — 
 in a word, as the witness to, and the virtual presence 
 of. Him who is on high. 
 
 This is an age of reckless speculation as well as 
 of bold inquiry. I might almost say, it is an age of 
 assumptions of the Christ. New revelations are pre- 
 tended, the heavens are affirmed to open, an almost 
 visible contact of the supernal and the terrestrial 
 spheres is declared. I will not seek to give too great 
 weight to the testimony of ill-defined phenomena ; 
 but, on the contrary, I would not entirely ignore 
 them ; yet this I have urged upon you, and still 
 urge, — that Christ is the only messenger who has 
 come to us from the bosom of the Father, — the 
 specially, supernaturally accredited Revealer of the 
 Eternal Power and Godhead, — the Infinite Love 
 and Mercy, Whatever other truth is taught will 
 marshal itself into its fit place under the leadings 
 of Gospel principles. Whatever propositions incon- 
 
FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 265 
 
 sistent with the Gospel are urged, must be main- 
 tained only by the demolition of the structure which 
 eighteen centuries have reared on the foundation of 
 historic evidence, of internal fitness, of a contented 
 and blessed experience, of a widening dominion, of 
 a record of vast and multifold beneficence. Amid 
 these meteors that glare along the horizon, — flash- 
 ing out their deceptions almost too transiently to 
 awaken any other sentiment than passing wonder, — 
 I turn to the steadfast Star, — the culminating, the 
 serene " lig-ht of the world." I see the Lord from 
 heaven ; from his lips issuing all the words of life ; 
 his hand holding the everlasting scroll ; his eye beam- 
 ing a love that swallows up all the philanthropies of 
 the world ; and I indicate him to you as the fixed 
 point of support for your souls. Can you reach a 
 crisis in life through which he cannot guide you ? 
 Can you dutifully assume a burden which he can- 
 not fully help you to bear ? Can you go down the 
 steep acclivities needing any other companion, or 
 across the dark valley needing any other guide, 
 or before the questionings of the Judgment Seat, 
 and need a more merciful or a juster Judge? Do 
 not say so until you have made experiment of the 
 power of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 I have made prominent to your minds the doctrine 
 of an ever-present, helping Spirit. In view of our 
 perishing resolutions, of our sinking frailties, of our 
 inclinations to sin, I have held up the Divine Power 
 as the only supplement. This teaching alone puts 
 the heart of life into prayer ; believing it, you are 
 never deserted in the world. Without this belief, 
 
 23 
 
266 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 whatever we may seek, we are sadly near the bor- 
 ders of a theoretical Atheism. 
 
 I have thus far specified three points on which this 
 pulpit has sought to be explicit and urgent, — points 
 embraced in the Baptismal formvila, — " in the name 
 of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." 
 
 The dread doctrine of retribution for sin has also 
 found utterance here. It is the simple doctrine, 
 founded on the law of growth and progress ; on the 
 law of continuity of being ; on the law of personal 
 identity; on the law of connection between past, 
 present, and future ; on the law of experience, and 
 of consciousness. A doctrine not created by Jesus 
 of Nazareth, but more distinctly set forth and illus- 
 trated by him ; a doctrine which even brutes recog- 
 nize on the ground-level of their faculties ; which 
 the vegetable world obeys ; which no organism can 
 evade. But oh I the harvest of sin, in the moral and 
 spiritual creature ! My hearers, I have spoken too 
 coldly on this point ! God forgive me, if I have 
 painted in neutral tints what should have been 
 flashed out in hues of fire! but if my past words 
 have been weak, let my present convictions atone ; 
 and let me utter warnings that will not perish with 
 the breath that vents them ; warnings that enfold the 
 truth, that " the wages of sin is death," and that man 
 must render an account of his stewardship ; that he 
 who believeth not in the Son, the wrath of God 
 abideth on him ; that it is better to enter all maimed 
 hy self-denial into life, than to carry the indulged 
 soul, whole, into the hell of a just retribution. 
 
 For our exposures under this terrible law ; for our 
 
FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 267 
 
 woes in view of an aroused consciousness of sin, 
 Jesus is the Deliverer, the Atoner, the Reconciler. 
 
 I do not present this epitome of past counsels from 
 this pulpit, because I suppose that here, alone, you 
 are fed with fitting spiritual food ; that the doctrines 
 which have been specified are, in any eminent sense, 
 inculcated here. It is my privilege to believe that 
 there is not a pulpit in this city, no one in the land, 
 occupied by a true, practical disciple, in which sav- 
 ing doctrines are not preached. So that I cannot 
 utter the opinion, that this church, or any single 
 church among others, is positively essential as a dis- 
 penser of absolute Christian truths. All denomina- 
 tions dispense such truths. Salvation is a power hid 
 in any utterance that has been drawn from the depths 
 of the New Testament, out of a heart of genuine 
 experience. I hold myself to stand on the same 
 platform of substance with my brethren of all sec- 
 tions of the Christian Church. Would to God that 
 they could with all sincerity so esteem of me I 
 
 But, having said this, I shall utter but half my 
 conviction, if I leave you to suppose that I am indif- 
 ferent to the peculiar views, for the dissemination of 
 which this edifice was reared ; or to certain specific 
 inculcations, probably never heard in any other pul- 
 pit around us, or, if in any, in very, veri/ few. 
 
 I refer to the Protestant doctrine of Liberty ; to 
 the Apostolic doctrine of "let every one be fully per- 
 suaded in his own mind " and be " able to give a 
 a reason for the hope that is in him." For this, I 
 rejoice to have stood here for a season, and I rejoice 
 at the thought that, for many years to come, the 
 
268 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 right of private judgment will be vindicated from this 
 spot. 
 
 How beautiful is nature around us ! How cath- 
 olic are her bounties I those rounded hills ; that 
 flowing stream ; these waving trees ; this sun by 
 day ; the stars by night, — these are not fenced in 
 from common participation. And the beauties of 
 architectural forms ; the roll of diapasons ; the con- 
 cords of the wide-mouthed bell, — these, the embodi- 
 ments of subtle laws of material nature, make their 
 universal appeal, and receive a universal response. 
 And then, this Book; this unlimited comforter; this 
 friend of every heart ; this teacher of every family ; 
 bound in covers, but unbound in its spirit ; how like 
 the blue vault is it, in its magic amplitude, enfolding 
 the entire world ! 
 
 And now shall a petty man thrust himself up 
 amid these universal appeals, and utter his little 
 egotism ? Or shall a body or band of frailties just 
 like himself, make him the mouthpiece of the cor- 
 porate dogmatism ? " The companionship of these 
 my soul hateth ; Lord, let me not come into their 
 counsels." 
 
 Yes, I claim for this pulpit, that it has not been 
 draped in illiberalities. Whatever infirmity of tem- 
 per or heat of occasional discussion may have let 
 unfortunately slip, at which a just sensitiveness may 
 have taken offence, this will be pardoned to its 
 source; but the theory, and the deliberation of this 
 pulpit have been toward spiritual emancipation ; 
 toward entire liberty of conscience. And this com- 
 munity yet needs this vindication of private rights. 
 
FAREAVELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 269 
 
 It is in a corner ; public opinion drives it into nar- 
 row quarters ; but all the greater necessity that it 
 should live, and toil, and endure. 
 
 My friends, who have so long listened to counsels 
 here, if by any chance it should be your lot, in this 
 or any other place, to mingle in services around 
 creed-imprinted altars, I cannot refrain from saying, 
 Do this in meekness of heart for all the good that may 
 be administered, but do it not with any other than 
 firm-set minds against the zm-charities of a narrow 
 theology. If it did not savor of the very assump- 
 tions of priesthood, of the very spirit of domination 
 against which I contend, I would say, cleave to your 
 own altar, cost what it may. Throw in some little 
 sacrifice for the truth, as you believe it to be in 
 Jesus ; do your part, not only to convert yourselves, 
 but to instruct the world. 
 
 I am happy to believe that something has been 
 done in this direction since this house was dedicated. 
 Concurring circumstances have introduced some little 
 alleviation into the theological odium, — the sectarian 
 rancor of the place and time. May the good influ- 
 ences begun be continued and expanded, until it 
 shall come to be suspected that there is truth at the 
 bottom of every pellucid well, whose feeders are the 
 rills of the New Testament ; that there is room with- 
 in the circle of every creed for charity, — toleration, 
 — nay, neither of those is the word, — for Justice, to 
 believers of whatever form of doctrine. 
 
 There arc encouraging signs that the days of 
 ecclesiastical tyranny arc passing away ; there is 
 lig-lU on the wrinkles of the aged beldame, and she 
 
 23* 
 
270 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 will retire from a very sense of ugliness into the 
 holes of the earth. The purple flood of the morning 
 is breaking over the east ; those upon the mountains, 
 looking afar, believe that they see the day. Your 
 instrumentality is indeed slender in the general con- 
 tribution of liberal forces, but it has its worth. Your 
 channel, though no wider than a thread, will still 
 push its rapid way, with and beyond the advan- 
 cing flood ; and though the general onward swell of 
 waters will render your motion less marked, there 
 will be for you, none the less, a triumph for the 
 great end. 
 
 You have gained something within six and a half 
 years. It is no inconsiderable acquisition for a re- 
 ligious society to have obtained unembarrassed pos- 
 session of all the external aids to worship. Seven 
 and a half years ago, your advertisement in one of 
 the public prints, for a religious meeting, was paro- 
 died in a subsequent issue of the same journal. It 
 is too late in the day for another such small display 
 of intolerance as this. 
 
 I would not drop for you one word of inflated en- 
 couragement ; but I say to you, you have no reason 
 to take a glomy look at your condition. It is not to 
 be disguised that you need, as you have needed, 
 patience, fortitude, and steadfastness ; but it would 
 be gratuitous solicitude to apprehend that with these, 
 and a usual fortune in other things, you are not to 
 succeed. God in his providence may hold enfolded 
 within the event that vacates this pulpit an indis- 
 putable favor to you, whose fruits will speedily be 
 your blessing. May it so prove ; do not anticipate 
 that it will not so prove. 
 
FAUKWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 271 
 
 Yet, turning from the external to the inward, it is 
 here that real joy will make discoveries, if at all. 
 It is a question for financial interest to ask, whether 
 the pecuniary concerns of a religious corporation are 
 flourishing. It is a question for sectarian sympathy 
 to ask, whether the numbers within a special society 
 are multiplying. But it is the question of spiritual 
 solicitude to put, — whether souls have been touched, 
 redeemed, saved, in an administration of six years. 
 Not that it would not be a source of consolation to 
 think that errors of opinion had been rectified ; that 
 prejudices had been dissolved ; that morals had been 
 promoted ; that the indefinite well-being of the indi- 
 vidual and of society had been advanced ; but the 
 (juestiou of questions is, Have souls been edified ? 
 that is, built up in the Gospel. 
 
 This question I cannot answer, except in the hope 
 which God permits me to entertain ; but I loill reply, 
 that unless something of this has been the result of 
 my ministrations, they have been essentially unblest. 
 If, my hearers, not one of you has a testimony in my 
 behalf, in the presence of our common Master, then 
 have I failed of my stewardship here. But if your 
 consciousness accord me that testimony, — yes, if one 
 soul have found through me nearer audience of God, 
 then blessed be his mercy I I will not veil my heart 
 in utter shame; for a soul, — a creature capable of 
 immortal benedictions, — what reward higher than to 
 have won the good witness of such before God I 
 
 I cannot part from you as a society, without ex- 
 pressing my entire satisfaction with your prompt 
 fulfilment of the obligations which you assumed at 
 
272 FAREWELL SERMON TO THE HARTFORD SOCIETY. 
 
 my settlement, and for your unvarying courtesy and 
 kindness of judgment. In faith, you have done 
 much. May your faith be still equal to more! 
 
 Our ways henceforth part. If some doubt and 
 some anxieties hover over your prospects, mine are 
 by no means exempt from uncertainties and from 
 solicitude. We each need the guidance of a higher 
 power, and the support of a heavenly arm ; but those 
 divergent ways, through whatever vicissitudes and 
 experiences they lead in after days here, may they 
 finally meet at the Celestial Gate. 
 
 Brethren, sisters, friends ; my elders on whose 
 good counsels I have leaned; men of my own years, 
 with whom I have largely sympathized ; young men, 
 whose ways I have watched with interest, and whose 
 welfare I have sought to cherish ; children, dear to 
 us all, our living hopes, our unceasing care, — Fare- 
 well ! 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The following additional notice we extract from 
 the Alta Californian : — 
 
 " At the earnest solicitation of the committee of Boston 
 clergymen to whom the Unitarians of San Francisco had 
 assigned the selection of their Pastor, Mr. Harrington came 
 amongst us, some two months since, and immediately en- 
 tered upon the duties of his sacred office. How well he 
 has satisfied the hopes and anticipation of all, how accepta- 
 bly he has walked among us, is sufficiently evident from 
 the sorrow manifested among all classes and denominations 
 of our city. He was emphatically the man for the position 
 to which he was called. He was inspired with the spirit of 
 the age and the country ; he felt deeply that this congress 
 of the nations and races of men must exert a mighty influ- 
 ence in the great scheme of universal enlightenment ; he 
 recognized to its fullest extent the responsibility of his post 
 as a sentinel upon this watchtower of republicanism and 
 Christianity ; he accepted cheerfully all its labors and its 
 cares. A scholar in the fullest sense of the word, and un- 
 usually gifted with biblical and classical learning, he had a 
 yet more important knowledge, — the knowledge of the hu- 
 man heart, and of the liiddcn springs of action which move 
 men in actual every-day life. Of distinguished talents, de- 
 voted to his holy calling, and filled with the spirit of his 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 Master, he had, moreover, a warm, earnest interest in all 
 the great moral, educational, and benevolent movements of 
 the day. 
 
 " Thus, while he was versed in all the learning of the 
 schools, he was able, unlike too many of his profession, to 
 approach the heart of every man with the sympathy and 
 encouragement which he needed ; he understood how to 
 make his discourse practically effective upon the life. He 
 was peculiarly impressed with the importance of individual 
 man, apart from all creeds, or association, and with the ne- 
 cessity of individual effort and piety. In the sacred desk 
 he was deeply impressive and forcible, his discourses satis- 
 fied the minds of the most intellectual, and touched the 
 hearts of all hearers. 
 
 " Such is the pastor, and such the citizen whose loss we 
 are called upon to mourn. Cut off in the very commence- ' 
 ment of his labors, denied the fulfilment of his hopes and 
 anticipations of usefulness, he has left behind him a mem- 
 ory which will long be cherished in the hearts of all who 
 know him. Calmly and peacefully, in the full possession 
 of his mental faculties, he met his death, and beautifully 
 illustrated in that last moment the warmth of his earthly 
 affection, and his deep and devoted trust in the God whom 
 he had served, — a fitting close to his earthly teachings, — 
 a fitting end to such a life. 
 
 " The sorrow at this affliction is peculiarly heartfelt and 
 universal. Far away from home, and among comparative 
 strangers, the wife and daughter of the deceased are left 
 alone and in sorrow. The large religious society just spring- 
 ing up under his auspices is without a head. The city has 
 lost a citizen whose influence for good would have been 
 wide-spread and most distinctly marked." 
 
\ 
 
/