/-v <55:5sV OF P;f/,V(:u> SEP 25 1963 ^ BX 9225 .G63 A4 1860 Gordon, Joseph, 1819. The life and writings of Rev. Joseph Gordon REV. JOSEPH GORDON THE fi\ LIFE AND WKITINGS REV. JOSEPH GORDON. WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE FREE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD. CINCINNATI: PUBLISHED FOR THE FREE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD. 18 6 0. PREFACE. Kev. Joseph Gordon was one of a few ministers, who uni- ted and formed the Free Presbyterian Church, in 18-i7. In the midst of prevailing declension and Hunkerism, they came out from their ecclesiastical connections, with a manifesto of principles adverse to the popular religion of the day ; and on these they based the new organization. During seven years he was the editor of the Free Presbyter-ian — the organ of the new formed church. After his death, the Free Synod at its next meeting held in Ripley, 0., in October 1658, appointed a committee of two persons to write a biography of the deceased and compile a selection from his writings, and have them pub- lished. Of this committee, Rev. T. M. Finney, of Martins- burg, was one. The other member expected him to write the biography, and aid in selecting from the writings of the de- ceased. After a lingering sickness of some four months, Mr. Finney died on the 20th of July, 1859, without having begun the work. Amid a pressure of other duties the surviving member of the committee was compelled to dispatch the mat- ter in a short time, and without the advantage that even his limited share of ability might have given it, with more leisure and attention. This statement extends to the biography, the selections and the arrangement, but of course not to the writ- ings of the deceased. If, however, the humble effort helps to preserve the memory of one exceedingly dear to him, and in any good degree promotes the cause of truth, and righteous- ness, and church reform, he will be thankful and satisfied. contents: Preface 3 Introduction 8 Memoir. Lines on the Death of Rev. J. Gordon 18 Presbytery of St. Clairsville— " Case of Rev. J. Gordon" 25 " Rev. J. Gordon has died " 42 Obituary 43 Religious Articles. Religion and Reform 51 We should be Men and AVomen of Devoted Piety 54 Mission of the Free Presbyterian Church 56 What Can I Do to Bring the World to God ? 60 What is Necessary to the Efficiency of the Church in Doing Good ?. 61 Have Faith in God 64 i' Stingy Christians" 6T Power of Prayer 67 Peace with God 70 Christian Integrity 73 The Religion of Principle > 76 "Ambassadors for Christ" 77 Duty of the Christian Minister 79 " The Harvest is Past, the Summer is Ended, and We are not Saved."— Jer. viii : 20 81 "0 Lord, Revive Thy Work." 83 Christ's Divinity and Atonement 85 Samuel Lewis 88 "Ultraism" 90 Death of Henry Clay 93 Jesus Christ Driven from the United States 96 «3r Tl CONTENTS. Is it Consioteut for Free Presbyterians to Commune with Churches which Fellowship Slavery 99 Radical and Conservative 100 Schism 102 Christian Union 106 Unity of the Church 109 Southern Revivals 113 Revival Excitements 114 Revivals of Religion 119 Decay of Public Virtue — Its Cause and Cure 121 Creeds '. 124 Scientific and Moral Articles. Christianity and Science 127 Science and Christianity — Another Coincidence 131 Geology 132 War 186 War 140 Martial Law Destroys Personal Accountability 144 True and False Heroism 146 " Look on This Picture, and on This" 149 Drunkard-Making 152 Controversial Articles. Communication from the Hon. Horace Mann 156 Reply 160 Imprisonment of W. L. Chaplin 165 Can Crime be Legalized? 167 Can Crime be Legalized ? 168 Proscription - 172 Is there a Law for the Rendition of Fugitive Slaves? 174 Higher and Lower Law 178 Outside the Range of the Divine Operations 179 Savage 181 Dr. McGill on the Free Presbyterian Church 182 Cant 185 Sound Doctrine , 189 An Accommodating D. D 193 " The Spirit of Abolitionism" 195 Injustice to the Dead 197 Slavery in the Old School General Assembly 199 CONTENTS. Vll Misdirection of Anti-Slavery Effort , 201 "No Apology for Schism" 205 "Candid Answers" 207 Sidney Presbytery and Rev. William Perkins 212 Hard Names 218 A Standing Testimony 220 Numbers against Principle 224 Position of the New School Presbyterians 226 Apostasy 228 Miscellaneous Articles. Another Benevolent Society Needed 232 Publications of the American Reform Tract and Book Society 237 What is a Religious Newspaper? 238 Cheap Newspapers 241 Lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson 243 Lecture by Bayard Taylor 246 Colonization 248 Co-existence of Liberty and Slavery Impossible 251 Slavery and the Slave Trade 252 Perversion of Scripture 255 Anti-Slavery Men in Pro-Slavery Organizations 257 Sentiments against Slavery 261 Religious Instruction of Slaves 266 Bible Revision 274 The Form of Godliness without the Power , 280 Decrease of Theological Students 283 Trouble in the Episcopal Church 286 Catholicism and Civil Liberty 288 Sectarian Selfishness 290 Speaking Evil of Dignities 293 The New Pro-Slavery Church 296 Movements in the Roman Catholic Church 299 Effete Orthodoxy 303 Covenanting 305 Modern Infidelity 307 The Waiter-Killer Acquitted 311 INTRODUCTION. The thunderstorm and the tornado produce great ethereal commotion. There is a terrific war of elements — the heavens are covered with blackness — bolts of livid lightning stream and flash across the horizon — the hoarse thunders bellow — the storm rages— and the passive earth is swept with desola- tion. With the fertilizing rain it is different. It descends from the calm and quiet clouds with gentle distillation, and a luxuriant vegetation rejoices after it. Yet we gaze with emo- tions of grandeur and sublimity on the one ; and are but lit- tle impressed with the dull quiet of the other. So it is with the men who have lived, and acted, and gone to their last resting-place. One class filled the earth with excitement and terror. Their course could have been traced by the stormy commotions around them, and could be readily followed by the cheerless and melancholy desolations after them. To the eye of the common observer there are the scenes of exciting violence, and the success of brilliant achievements ; but on closer investigation, there lie behind these conquests, the destruction of unnumbered ties of kindred and affection, and the desolation of hopes and prospects never estimated. Those of the other class are too quiet to excite much attention, yet their influence is on the side of peace, virtue and happi- ness. Like the course of the fertilizing shower, their way is strewed with benefactions to the race. The Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons employ many pens — fill many volumes, and these give deep interest to millions ; while the Luthers, Melancthons, Howards, Judsons and Spensers, the real bene- factors of the world, furnish but tame materials for the biog- rapher and the historian. INTRODUCTION. 9 To this there is an occasional exception. When a moral hero, in fighting the battles of the Lord for truth and right- eousness, meets bloody opposition ; when persecution lights her fires and brings forth her racks and tortures ; and when, in the strength of faith, he triumphs or dies in the contest, then his life assumes poetic interest. It is also true that men cf violence and blood, are rapidly loosing their hold on human admiration, A Havelock must be robed in the white folds of Christianity, as viewed from one standpoint, to get general admiration for his character; while his very profession was that of one well qualified to inflict evil, spread desolation and destroy human life. The very incongruity, like that of another distinguished commander, who required a city under martial law, to observe the fore- noon of the Lord's day, shows progress. Most of the world's heroes were prodigies of brutality and crime. Others pos- sessed native and inherent nobleness, which would have made them blessings to their age and ornaments to the human race, had their energies by a proper education been turned iu the right direction. Great minds must have some object on which to concentrate their energies, and if one worthy of their pow- ers be not presented or sought, one of evil will necessarily be found and embraced. Had Alexander or Bonaparte lived in diflFerent ages, or been educated so as to see and appreciate real greatness, they had stood as high among the world's benefactors as they do amid its scourges ; while Paul without liis piety might have run the career of Alexander, and v/ept for another world to conquer. But the world is changing, all boys are not now encouraged and educated to first glow over the siege of Troy — the con- quests of Alexander, or the campaigns of Napoleon. Some get their first and generally lasting views of the true ends of life from the benevolence of a Howard, the piety of a Payson, the self-sacrifice of a Henry Martyn or the consecration of a Judson, a Moffat, a Livingston or a G-eorge Thompson. To multiply such characters, we need the numerous biographies o 10 INTRODUCTION. of those who acted on their principles, and walked in their footsteps. The best subjects for such books (other things being equal) are those who lately left the world. AVith the good of ancient ages we hold but imperfect communion. They seem to us more like angels than tempted, tried, feeling, suffering human beings, living and acting like ourselves. Few biographies are much read in after ages. A few like Paul, Luther or Howard become immortal. The majority fade way in a few ages and their memory is lost. Often important principles are esteemed and cherished, long after the persons who contended for their value and secured their adoption, are covered with oblivious veil. But the published lives of such are not wasted labor. They become an appendix to their existence, and carry on and finish their work Should this humble volume share the common fate, the writer and compiler will still feel that his labor has not been in vain. Yet as the work will consist chiefly of the writings of the deceased; as these subjects are various, some of them lasting in their nature, and the writer's clear views on others were greatly in advance of the age, it is hoped they may present a legacy of thought to the coming generation. Mr. Gordon was a varied and copious writer. His constant changes of employment of course rendered his articles mis- cellaneous. His ministerial life was only about twelve years in length. His editorial career ran over seven years, but the time of actual employment was only six. The last year his health failed so much, that his mind was somewhat enfeebled with his body. Of this he was himself fully sensible, and mentioned it in a letter to a friend. When we add to this his labors as a minister, his work in the printing-oflice, with the cares and anxieties incident to an establishment meagerly supported by a small subscription list, and yet which required to be so managed as not to sink him into debts beyond his means; it seems wonderful that he could write weekly edito- rials of any merit or power. Had his leisure permitted it, INTRODUCTION. 11 and his powers been concentrated on one or a few leading top- ics, no one can doubt that his success would have been bril. iant in proportion. It was remarked by a very sensible and intelligent reader of the Free Presbyterian^ after his death, that when he made an argument on any of the great questions of the day, or on the principles advocated, other opposing editors never cop- ied it, or replied to it. This statement was generally true. Hunker editors snarled at his side, and barked on his track, but never faced him. This probably arose quite as much from their convictions of the strength and correctness of the prin- ciples he advocated, and the weakness of their own, as from fear of him personally as an opponent. To keep their people from reading or hearing any thing on the other side of the controversy, has been the common policy of ministers and editors who continue the ecclesiastical fellowship of the slave- holder. Even so respectable and generally candid a j)aper as the Presbyterian of the West^ with its talented and titled edi- tor, manifested the conviction that discretion was the better part of valor, as the following editorial will show : "No Response. — Our readers will remember that some weeks since we proposed to discuss with the editor of the Presbyterian of the West^ the charge of schism which he made against the Free Presbyterian Church, and to publish two columns of what he might write on the subject for every one he should publish from us. To this proposal, as wc expected, no response has been made. Why is this? It will not do for the editor to throw himself back on his dignity, and pro- fess to regard us as beneath his notice. He has already made us the subject of a column of editorial. We have our own opinion of the reasons why the discussion is declined. If the reader is anxious to know on what that opinion is based, he will find some light on the subject, by referring to the Gospel of John 3d chapter, 20th and 21st verses." In the selections made, the personal taste of the writer and compiler has alone been consulted ; for since the death of Mr. 12 INTKODUCTION. Finney, many controversial articles were necessarily omitted on account of their ephemeral nature. At the time of their appearance they were in many cases specially interesting, but the circumstances which drew them out have faded from the public memory, and their republication is therefore not desir- able. Others were written in answer to articles from corres- pondents, and can not appear well alone. In his editorial career, the well written and sensible articles of persons diifer- ing in sentiment, were very freely published. The censorship of his columns was exercised with the largest liberality. Were it possible for Mr. Gordon himself to be consulted in the selection of his own best articles, it were " a consummation devoutly to be wished." But that can not be. He has gone beyond the reach of praise or blame. From the " irrepressi- ble conflict " between truth and error, he has passed away. His trenchant pen is no longer wielded, and his earnest voice no longer raised in vindication of the supremacy of God's higher law, and the rights of his down-trodden poor. The surging world sweeps on in its course over his lowly grave, unconscious of the good he labored in life and death to be- queath it. As he remained faithful unto death, and fell in his armor; may his mantle fall on us who survive him, and may we transmit the victory, rather than the conflict, to those who come after us. JSIEMOIR. Joseph Gordon was born near Washington, Penn., on the 28th of September, 1819. His parents occupied the middle walks of life, and his childhood and youth were spent amid the labors of a farm. He was one of the younger children of a moderately large family. Nothing very peculiar marked his early years. His habits were quiet, retiring and unobtru- sive. From childhood he manifested a kind of careless inde- pendence — generally formed his own opinions, and seemed neither to seek those of others, nor to be over-anxious for the adoption of his own. His intellectual powers were bright and vigorous — a good deal above mediocrity. The first rudiments of his edu- cation were obtained in the common schools of the neighbor- hood. In 1836 he became a student of Washington College, remained four years in its classic halls, and graduated in 1840. While pursuing his course as a student, he exhibited the same quiet, unobtrusive disposition which characterized his whole life. He was punctual in his recitations — had the general approbation of his teachers — never complained of the burden of his professor's demands — met their requirements alike without a complaint of their severity, or a boast of the amount of his achievements. At this point we insert an article published after his death, in the Christian Leader^ from the pen of his special friend and classmate. Rev. T. M. Finney, who has since joined him in the spirit world. The attachment and confidence of the two friends was strong and mutual, and such as is seldom experienced in this selfish and wicked world. After their acquaintance they ran a parallel course. They graduated in the same class — both became Presbyterian ministers — both left the church in which they were born, educated and licensed, on account of its complicity with American slavery — both united with the Free Church — and both were cut down in the prime and vigor of manhood, and in the midst of extensive usefulness. Like Saul and Jonathan, " they were lovely in their lives, and in their 14 LIFE AND WHITINGS OF deaths they were not long divided." Mr. Finney survived his friend but a little over one year. The article is copied from the Leader, April 2d, 1858 : The death of this faithful servant of God has been already noticed in the Leader, very appropriately, both by the editor and a correspondent. This might seem sufficient ; but friend- ship claims the mournful privilege of placing another humble tribute to his memory, upon his new made grave. Twenty- two years ago, the writer became acquainted with Brother Gordon, at Washington, Penn., where we entered and passed through college together. During this time a friendship was formed, which has never been interrupted. There are very many personal reminiscences, which it would be pleasant to record ; but for the present I must pass them by, to present a few of the leading incidents in the brief life that has closed. During his college course Bro. G. was studious, but not what is usually termed " a hard student." He needed and took a great deal of exercise. But he never came to his class unprepared. He acquired knowledge easily, and mastered in an hour, what many others would labor upon for half a day. He graduated in 1840, and in most respects was the best scholar in the class. He took a part of the first honor. It was perhaps about two years before he ended his college course that he made a profession of religion, and united with the Presb3''terian church of Washington, Penn. Before this he had thoughts of turning his attention to the Bar, In this profession he would at once have taken a prominent position. But God had other work for him to do. In the fall of 1841, he went to the Theological Seminary at Allegheny city, where he continued until he was prepared to be licensed as a minister of the gospel. After his licensure he supplied for a time the Presbyterian church of Ashland, Ohio. During ths time and while he was a student at Allegheny, he and the writer corres- ponded with regard to the sin of slavery in the church and our duty in reference to it, and at one time concluded to start a religious newspaper, vindicating the doctrine held by the Free Church on that subject. Not meeting with sufficient encouragement, and not having sufficient funds to commence the enterprise, it was abandoned. In Nov. 1844, Bro. G. removed to New Philadelphia, Ohio, where the writer had settled as pastor of the Presbyterian church, and we commenced teaching an academy together, which we continued one year, and then gave it into other hands. During this year Bro. G. supplied the church of IIEV. .lOSEPir GOKDON. 15 Urichsville. During this year also, he was married to Miss Sarah A. Rohertson of New York. During the summer of the next year he was elected professor of mathematics in Franklin College, and in the autumn removed to New Athens. Here he continued about five years, discharging with great fidelity, and ability, the duties of his ofl&ce. He also preach- ed to the church of New Athens. Meanwhile the General Assembly had met at Cincinnati and passed the pro-slavery action of 1845. That action which has caused so many to mourn over the degeneracy of the church and assisted to such a fearful extent in strengthening the hands of the slavehold- ers, and paralyzing the efforts of anti-slavery ministers, and members of the church. Bro. Gr. bore a faithful testimony against this action, and the position of the church upon the subject of slavery. He was not yet ordained, and the vigilant eyes of the defenders and apologists of slavery were upon him. The church of New Athens gave him a call to become its pastor, and the Presbytery of St. Clairsville set a time for his ordination. He passe:! with approval through all his parts of trial, and just at the moment when the ordination services were about to commence, a member rose and objected to fur- ther proceedings in the case on account of Bro. Gr's senti- ments in reference to the action of the General Assembly on the subject of slavery. The whole thing as it afterward appeared, had been preconcerted. This was the signal for unchaining the whole pro-slavery pack. It is said by those who heard it, that Bro. G's defense was manly, eloquent, and unanswerable. There was no crouching fear, no retraction of truth, no apology for having uttered the honest sentiments of hi: heart, in reference to the iniquitous position that " domes- tic slavery under the circumstances in which it is found in the southern portion of our country is no bar to Christian commun- ion." Of course the Presbytery attempted to silence him. The church however stood by him, and he was shortly after- ward ordained by the Presbytery of Ripley, which had left the New School body on account of its position on slavery. Bro. G. joined with Bros. Bradford and McClain (who as pioneers in the Free Church movement in Western Penn- sylvania had declined the jurisdiction of their Presbytery, on the same ground), formed the Free Presbytery of Mahoning, and this Presbytery uniting with that of Ripley formed the Synod of the Free Church. This was in Nov. 1847. Bro. G. continued at New Athens, and preaching in the church till (I think) near the close of 1848, when his health failing he 16 LIFE AND WPJTINUS OF was obliged to resign. The fatal disease which finally brought him to the grave, was already at work. Meeting him soon after in Washington, Penn., the writer proposed to him the idea of starting a weekly religious news- paper, in connection with the Free Church movement, and of his becoming its editor. After serious and prayerful delibera- tion, he consented that the subject might be proposed to the Mahoning Presbytery, then to meet in a few days at Mt Jack- son in Mercer Co, Penn. This was done, and all the members seemed to recognize in this arrangement the hand of God. It was resolved, that with the concurrence of the brethren in Southern Ohio, we would start a weekly journal at Mercer, Penn., to be published by W. F. Clark and edited by Bro. Gr. This arrangement was made. Bro. G. went to Mercer, and commenced the publication of the Free Presbyterian^ in the summer of 1850. The paper, on account of the position it occupied, had necessarily a limited circulation ; but one suffi- cient for its maintenance. Its list was slowly, but steadily increasing, when after two years it was thought best to unite it with the Christian Press, an anti-slavery religious paper, published at Cincinnati. According to this plan Bro. G. went to Cleveland, where it was proposed to have one branch of the publishing office. Owing to causes which I need not mention, but over which he had no control, the experiment was a fail- ure, and it was resolved to resume the publication of the Free Preshyterian. Inducements were held out to the Synod, to publish at New Albany, Athens Co., and the press was remov- ed thither, and was conducted by Bros. Gordon and Kephart as editors. Before this Bro. G. had been a number of times very near the grave by a severe hemorrhage of the lungs. Still he labored patiently and perseveringly on, always seeming con- scious that his time to work would soon be ended. This loca- tion was unsuitable, especially on account of its want of proper mailing facilities, and the press was removed to Y'ellow Springs, Green Co., where Bro. G. again became sole editor, it not being found practicable for Bro. Kephart to leave his other engage- ments, and go with him. Plere he continued till last autumn. During his stay at Yellow Springs, his labors were very severe. Often, with his poor health, he labored far into the night; till at last the feeble frame would bear no more press- ure and sunk beneath it. Many of those who read weekly with delight, the soul -stirring words he wrote, did not know that the hand that penned them was becoming more and more feeble — REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 17 did not see the pale brow that was bending over the midnight lamp — did not realize that the glorious intellect that shone so bright and clear, was so fast ripening for heaven ! But those of us who knew him best, knew that he was dying. Alas! that the good and gifted, so soon should leave us. In October, he removed with his family to his native home, near Washington, Penn. He went back only to die ; and on Sabbath morning the 28th Feb, he calmly fell asleep in Jesus. The closing scene has been feelingly described by another, and we shall not dwell upon it. He sleeps under one of the old, familiar trees, that he loved so well in childhood. There let him rest in peace till the resurrection of the just. As a ChrisHaa Bro. G. was consistent, faithful and humble. His religion was that of principle. He knew no compromise with sin, and never sought popularity by betraying truth. As an editor, he was able and independent. His mind was of the first order. He thought deeply and expressed himself clearly. In argument he had but few equals. He wrote with great facil- ity, and the subject that was clear to his own mind, he could always make clear to others. There was a clearness and direct- ness about his style, which was admirable. He had no honied words for sin, but always called it by its right name. He plead for pure religion, and longed to see Christians coming out from their connection with the sins of the world. He plead the cause of the poor, and enslaved, and on his dying bed claimed the sweet promise of God in the 41st Psalm. Oppressors, time-servers and trimmers, hated him of course. And although they said " all manner of evil against him," his death-bed con- firmed his upright course, and in near view of eternity he declared that he felt the position he had taken in the church to be right and good. He made a most interesting paper, for all who love to think and act aright. Eternity alone will develop the greatness of the work he has performed. As a speaker, he was calm, collected, clear and often impas- sioned and eloquent. His language was always concise and pure, and he carried conviction to the hearts of his hearers by an irresistible aplication of trutli. As a friend, he was generous, frank and cheerful. His conduct was never fickle or wayward. The warm grasp and kindling eye, always told the pleasure he felt in meeting with acquaintances and friends. And now as I write, memory is busy with the past. He my friend. Through long years of trial he had always been the same. I have loved him as a brother, and now feel a loneliness even in the midst of busy life. 18 LIFE AKI» WKITIInGS OV Yet I can rejoice that he is liappy. I know that he is with the blood-washed company. The feeble body shall know no more trial and weariness — the overwrought mind no more anxiety and care. " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord — they rest from their labors." He has gone " to be with Christ, which is far better." He has met again his little ones — the stricken lambs of his flock, the "Good Shepherd," has taken to the fold above. May they who yet remain, his com- panion and his son, be prepared to meet them, and be an unbroken family in heaven. Friends of my youth farewell ! Life's changing day of sin and toil is past, And from the gathering swell Of earth's rude tempests thou art safe at last. Past are these scenes of care, The appointed nights of weariness are o'er. No pain can reach thee there, In the bright mansions of that summer shore. Brother I miss thee here, A shadow falls upon life's gloomy way, But in thy brighter sphere The eye of faith beholds unclouded day. Rest for i\i(i weary, rest! — Take back native earth thy toilworn son, And on thy peaceful breast Pillow the aching head whose task is done. T. M. F. LINES ON THE DEATH OF PvEV. J. GORDON. Dead! in the manhood's golden i^rime, Ere life reached its zenith hour. Ere long dark years of time had dimmed Thy spirit's power. Yet in that life so quickly o'er, Rich triumphs have been won; The work thy father bad'st thee do Was noblj'- done. Hushed now the pr.ayer that thou might'st live To battle 'gainst the tide of wrong That now seems darkening o'er our land, Swift rushing on. We only aslc, the seed thou'st sown Of earnest thought, and purpose high, Of kindly word, and noble deed, jSIay never die. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 19 "We look abroad, for one like thee, Mighty in word, in spirit brave, But seek in vain; sadly our hearts Turn to thy grave. Mourn Africs sons ! from slavery's curse Fair Freedom's soil he strove to save ; To right thy burning wrongs, his life An offering gave. Thy Leader's fallen; Zion mourn! 'Twas 'purity he sought for thee, A fitting Bride for " Christ thy head," That thou might'st be. Best, weary one, we would not break Thy quiet slumber, calm and deep, That sleep "God giveth His beloved," Calm, peaceful sleep. The rest for which thy spirit longed, Where all the strife of earth is o'er, Where blight of sorrow and stain of sin Comes never more. Great was thy work ! great thy reward I A radiant crown thou now dost wear: "An eternal weight of glory now Thou'st strength to bear." Dost see thy Father face to face, And in his unveiled presence stand. While thy song of rapture swells among The angel band. We'd hush our murmuring hearts and say • 'Tis well, "Thy will, God, be done." We thank thee that our strength comes not From man alone. Albany, Ohio. M. In addition to the above, a few things demand a fuller notice. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Washington in 1843. While he was a student of the theological semin- ary, some of his utterances on the subject of slavery, and especially on one occasion, a truthful, but severe animadver- sion, on the criminal silence of the ministers and D. D's of the church, gave special oflfense. An unsuccessful effort first to flatter, and then to gag him into silence, was made by an aged professor of theology (P.). He was licensed by the Presbytery of Washington in the spring of 1843. After his licensure, he labored a short time in Ashland, Ohio — a few 20 LIFE AND WKITraGS OF months in Claysville, Pennsylvania, and about a year in Urichsville, Ohio, while he was teaching in New Philadelphia. In May, 1845, the General Assembly of the 0. S. Presby- terian church, passed the Rubicon in her downward march from the bights of ecclesiastical liberty, into the territories of despotism. Once, in common with other branches of the Presbyterian fsimily, she bore a strong and truthful testi- mony against slaveholding. The Assembly of 1794 declared the slaveholder identical with the man -thief — the worst crim- inal designated in the Mosaic law. That of 1818 pronounced it utterly inconsistent with the law of God, and totally irre- concilable with the gospel of Christ. But during all this time the man-thief was permitted to preach the gospel and commune in the church, under the delusive hope that a paper testimony from the highest church courts would work a silent destruction of the sin. Instead, however, of dying out, it steadily grew, struck its roots deeply around the pulpit, the altar, and the communion table ; and this year it felt strong enough to throw off the mask, and claim that the Assembly was originally organized, on the conceded principle that its existence should be " no bar to Christian communion." In common with many others, Mr. G. was greatly exercised, and deeply grieved with this apostate action. In July fol- lowing, he was invited to attend a convention of ministers and elders at Mt. Pleasant, whose object was to try to induce the Assembly of 1846 to rescind the action of that of 1845, and re-affirm that of 1818, which had been the standing tes- timony of the church during twenty-seven years. The invita- tion found him prostrated on a bed of sickness; yet he responded by letter. He always wrote with a trenchant pen, and now disease probably added to its point. As this letter was made the subject of flagrantly unconstitutional action, and the occasion of bitter and relentless persecution afterward, we here insert it entire : New Philadelphia, July 23, 1845. Dear Brethren: A severe and dangerous attack of sick- ness, under which I was suffering at the time your letter was received, prevented an immediate reply ; and now the feeble- ness incident to but a partial recovery, will preclude a labored answer. Most gladly would I mingle with you in your proposed convention, but the state of my health, and nature of my engagements, forbid the expectation. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 21 WitTi the prominent object of the meeting you invite me to attend, I deeply sympathize — "to induce the General As- sembly to rescind their late action on the subject of slavery." The emotions excited in my mind by perusing that action, have alternated between bitter grief and burning indignation. The moral character of slavery^ I have ceased to regard as an open question. I no longer admit it as a debatable pointy whether slavery be a sin. The united voice of the civilized icorld — the innate consciousness of every human heart — and the plain teachings of the word of God — have all combined to settle the question. Common sense alone is sufficient in its plain teachings. With these views, I looked with anxious solicitude to our highest court, hoping to see them arrange themselves on the side of truth and Jehovah — hoping to hear the strong voice of affectionate, but stern rebuke to those who " deal in slaves and souls of men." To blast these fond anticipations, came the blasphemous (the word is not too strong) report of the reverend commit- tee, to which was committed the anti-slavery memorials of large and respectable numbers in the church ; a report in which Christ and his Apostles are ruthlessly pressed into the service of " the vilest system of oppression that ever saw the sun." which is made up of a tissue of contradictions — in one breath pronouncing slavery the favorite institution of Jesus and his Apostles, and in the next, promulgating in the ear of the master as his rule of conduct, the broad principle of doing to others as they would have others do to them — which is destined to sweep the system of abominations from the earth ; a report, which, in connection with the subsequent action of the Assembly, trampled on the right of free dis- cussion, and manifested a reckless determination on the part of the majority, to earn the title of " brotherhood of thieves," and " wear it as a feather in their cap." Is this language too strong? Look for a moment at the nature of the case. Slavery is either right or lorong — either a holy institution approved of God and pleasing in his sight, or a system of crime and blood, over -which the Almighty frowns, and over which the Saviour weeps. A system so de- cided in its character and effects, precludes the idea of neu- trality in its moral nature. If then it be a holy institution, as the drift of the report would make it, why in the name of all that is manly, this driveling policy of seeking to justify it, and yet not wishing to be understood as denying 22 LIFE AIS'D WRITINGS OP that there is evil connected with it? If it be a holy institu- tion, let them proclaim itboldly, and call upon its opposers to cease their wicked efforts ; and should they refuse to do so, proceed to discipline and expel them from the church for seeking to contravene a Heaven-ordained institution, appoint- ed by God himself, and baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Spirit, by Christ and his disciples. But if on the other hand slavery be, as it surely is, the "sum of all villainies " — "a gross violation of the most pre- cious and sacred rights of human nature, utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves — and totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ ; " if such be the character of slavery, then no language is too strong in speak- ing of those who, while claiming loudly to bo the ministers of the merciful Jesus, lend all their energies to uphold the vile abomination. Is slavery then the monster which the good and great of all ages and our own Assembly in years past declare it to be? As I have said, I shall not reason fhc/t question. Bring but one of its many constituent parts to bear on these reverend divines, and you shall hear a difierent response from their recorded action in the Assem- bly of 1845. Place one of them in the hands of a master possessing but one of the slaveholders' prerogatives — the power to separate him from wife and children — to compel him to toil without reward in the burning southern sun — the right to sell him to the most cruel tyrant — or the pow- er to forbid him reading the word of God — and you would hear from that holy man no declaration that to " pronounce slavery a sin, would be to contradict some of the plainest declarations of the word of God." And yet not one, but all of these elements, and more, enter into the composition of slavery. And yet these holy men can say that Christ and his inspired followers did not condemn the system ! ! " How long, oh Lord ! how long- Shall such a priesthood baiter truth away ! And in thy name, for robbery and icrong, At thine own altars pray ! " The time and circumstances in which the General Assembly of our church have taken this impious stand, gives to their position a painful singularity. While the civilized, and even many parts of the savage world, are combining in one grand effort to crush the blood-stained monster; while almost all other branches of the Christian Church are uttering their EEV. JOSEPH G0KD02S. 23 testimony against it; while just across the river, where the Assembly sat, the voice of a former slaveholder — reared under the influence of the system — a politician making no claim to the Christian character, is pouring his denunciation in words of burning eloquence, and calling, in language to which the heart leaps as to the blast of the trumpet, upon all to marshal to the death struggle with the demon of oppression, men claiming to be chosen ministers of Him who came "to pro- claim liberty to the captive," are seen rushing to plant their shoulders in support of the tottering Bastile, as it reels be- neath the sturdy blows that fall thick and fast upon it. Over such a scene, surely Jesus and angels must weep; and that such a state of things may soon cease to disgrace our beloved church, will surely call forth the prayers of all that love the truth. In all consistent and energetic action to secure the great object of the coming convention, you have my most hearty sympathy ; and to the extent of my feeble powers, my earnest co-operation. May God speed the day of the slave's deliverance; and permit -us to live to join our voices in the jubilee shout, w4ien " Liberty shall be proclaimed throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." Yours, for Truth and Freedom, JOS. GORDON. ■ Mr. McCullough, and others. This letter, in connection with those of several others, was published in the Liberty Advocate of Cadiz, Ohio. In the following October he was invited to the church of New Athens, and elected Professor of Mathematics in Franklin College. Previous to this he had taken a letter of dismission from the Presbytery of "Washington, and put himself under the care of that of Coshocton, Ohio. To that Presbytery he was alone accountable for all the acts which were done while he was under its care. It was rather an anti-slavery body, and took no official notice of the published letter. After his removal to Athens, he took a letter of dismissal from the Presbytery of Coshocton, and put himself under the care of that of St. Clairsville. That body, without any open objec- tion, took him under its care, and appointed him to supply the church of Athens a whole year, without a hint that his conduct in writing the above letter, and permitting its pub- lication, had been offensive. In 1846, one year afterward, the church made out a call — the Presbytery without objection put it into his hands — he signified his acceptance — and they 24 LIFE AKD WRITINGS OF appointed a meeting for his ordination. The day came, and the body met. Their plans of operation were concealed. They proceeded with his examination, and heard his trials, as if nothing stood in the way of his ordination, till they were almost ready to lay on hands. Then a member arose and gave the information (which every member of the body knew a year and a half before) that the candidate had writ- ten an offensive letter in July, 1845, in reference to the action of the General Assembly. Pretending to receive this as a piece of new intelligence, the Presbytery appointed a committee to confer with the candidate, and endeavor to induce him to retract the sentiments of the letter. To the committee he made what he called "an explanation." He said the letter was written while he was on a sick bed — the language might not have been well chosen — and that it was not his right to judge the private motives of the members of the Assembly ; but that in reference to the action itself, he had expressed his firm and matured convictions, and that he could not, and would not, retract them until they convinced him they were wrong. The explanation was pronounced un- satisfactory ; the committee so reported to the Presbytery, and the whole body spent a considerable time in trying to wring from him something more. They put on the gag — prohibited him from making a public defense — confined him down to simply answer their questions — charged him with being " a young man" — "a mere tyro" — with many other phrases equally dignified, and rendered deeply impressive by the bitterness and anger with which they were uttered. All this heat, and zeal, and rhetoric he met with the calm serenity and self-possession of one who stood on the principles of con- scious rectitude. No one attempted to convince him that his expressed sentiments were wrong, or to grapple with him in discussion of their truth or falsehood. The Presbytery evidently designed to spring the matter on him suddenly — frighten him into some sudden concessions, and thus tie his hands, and gag his lips for the future. This was now a failure. What could be done? Should they give him a regular trial, as he demanded ? This would entitle him to the right of being heard in defense. This they could not meet. They therefore suddenly arrested the proceedings and adjourned. This was supposed to be done to enable them to form some new plan for the future. They had persistently refused him a hearing. As soon as the body adjourned, he requested the crowded congregation to remain ; and made to REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 25 them an eloquent, njanly and resistless defense of his course and conduct. A few days afterward his church met, and passed resolutions approvino- his course, and condemning that of the Presbytery. The Presbytery, through their stated clerk, published a one-sided statement of their action. The Pre^hyferlan Advocate — a paper that seldom, if ever, mani- fested either candor, fairness, or love of truth, if their oppo- sites seemed to better serve its purpose — refused to publish either his reply, or the resolutions of the congregation. The congregation, however, had them published in an extra sheet at the office of the Liberty Advocate^ in Cadiz. These papers we republish. Some of the members of that Presbytery have gone the way of all fleshy and have passed themselves the ordeal of a higher tribunal. Most of them yet live, and their unrepented acts make a part of their reputation, and the one under consideration ought not to be forgotten. [From the Presbyterian Advocate.] Presbytery of St. Clairsville — Case of the Eev. Joseph Gordon. The committee appointed by Presbytery to prepare a record of the proceedings of Presbytery in reference to Mr. Joseph .Gordon, for publication, submit the following : Mr. Joseph Gordon, a licentiate under the care of the Presbytery of Coshocton, was, by virtue of a dismission from said Presbytery, received as a licentiate under the care of this Presbytery, at its meeting in June, 1846 ; and at the meet- ing of the Presbytery, Oct., 1846, there was a call laid on the table of Presbytery, for Mr. Gordon, by the church of New Athens, to become their pastor. The call was put into the hands of Mr. Gordon ; and he having signified his acceptance thereof. Presbytery adjourned to meet at New Athens, on the 1st Tuesday of November next, with a view to ordain and in- stall him as pastor of said church, provided the way was open. Presbytery having met at this time, pursuant to adjournment, heard the trial sermon of Mr. Gordon, from the text previ- ously assigned him; and also examined him on the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, the Natural and Moral Sci- ences, the Sacraments and Church Government; all of which examinations were sustained, as satisfactory parts of trial for ordination. At this stage of the proceedings, and wlien Presbyterj' were about to have a recess, it was intimated to Pre.-?bytery that 26 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF there had been some letters written by Mr. Gordon, and pub- lished in the Liherty Advocate^ in reference to the General Assembly of 1845 ; in which there were improper and unbe- coming expressions made use of by him in reference to that body. Whereupon it was JiesoIvcJ, That inasmuch as it had been represented to Presbytery that Mr. Gordon, the candidate for ordination, has written letters, published in the Liber/7/ Advocate^ in which there are expressions and sentiments which are slanderous to the Presbyterian church ; therefore Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to exam- ine such letters, and converse with Mr. Gordon on the sub- ject, ascertain whether a retraction of such expressions be nec- essary, and how far Mr. Gordon is willing to retract; and report to Presbytery as soon as possible. The Rev. Dr. Rea, Rev. James Kerr, and Mr. Thos. J. Holliday were appointed that committee. Presbytery having again met. it was moved that the report of the committee of the preceding evening be adopted. The report is as follows : The committee appointed to examine certain letters writ- ten by Mr. Gordon, and to converse with him on the subject, report. That having examined one of the letters, acknowl- edged by Mr. Gordon to have been written by him, they found that the following language, in reference to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, that met at Cincinnati in 1845, occurs, viz. : " To blast these fond anticipations, came the hlasphemous (the word is not too strong) report of the reverend Committee." Again : "A report which, in connec- tion with the subsequent action of the Assembly, trampled on the right of free discussion, and manifested a reckless deter- mination, on the part of the majority, to earn the title of ' brotherhood of thieves,' and ' wear it as a feather in their cap.' " Again : '' And yet these holy men say that Christ and his inspired followers did not condemn the system." " ' Great God of truth! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away! And in thy name, for robbery and wrong, At thine own altar pray ?"' ' Again : " The time and eircuiustances in which the General Assembly of our church have taken this i'^qnons s/and." The above are the principal expressions to which the Committee directed the attention of Mr. Gordon ; and after much con- versation with him on the stibject, presented to him tlie fol- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 27 lowing plain and simple questions; to which he himself appended the negative answers, viz. : 1. Are you willing to acknowledge that the language used in your letter to the Mt. Pleasant Convention is too strong? A7isice7\ — '• I am willing to say that I impugned no man's motives ; but that the language is not too strong, if applied to me, should I with mi/ views, do the same thing." 2d. Are you willing to acknowledge that the language was inappropriate, as used, to that reverend body? Ans2ce)'. — 5,' I would say as above, that I apply the language to the act, not the -nun." 3d. Are you willing to pledge yourself that you will refrain in future from using such language to your brethren ? Answei-. — " I would again distinguish between the men and the act. Toward the action I hold the same language. Against my brethren I will in future use no abusive or slan- derous language whatever." After some discussion on the adoption of the foregoing report, the following question was presented to Mr. Gordon, and answered by him in open Presbytery, viz. : " Is Mr. Gordon willing to say that he regrets having writ- ten the letter in question?" Answer. — " I do not regret writing the letter, but I regret the construction that is put upon it." Whereupon, the foregoing report was adopted by yeas and nays — yeas, 10; nays, 4; excused, 1. And hence all further proceedings in reference to his ordination were suspended. Benjamin Mitchell, Slated Clerk. Cadiz, Ohio, April 22, 1849. Mr. Gordon — Dear Sir : I am sorry to have to perform, as Clerk of the Presbytery, the duty which you will perceive is enjoined in the following extracts from the minutes : Extract from the Minutes of the Presbytery of St. C'lair.'ville, wet at Morristown, April 21, 1847. "A communication was received from the congregation of New Athens, requesting that the action of the previous meet- ing of Presbytery in reference to Mr. Joseph Gordon be reconsidered, and that he be ordained as their pastor; and also a letter from Mr. Gordon himself on the subject, "A motion was made and recorded that the request of the congregation be granted, which motion was lost by a unani- mous vote. 28 LIFE Aisi> wiirrraos ov "A motion "was ^hen made and recorded that Mr. Gordon be deprived of his license. After some discussion, it was moved that the subject be postponed till next meeting of Presbytery. This motion was lost. At this stage of the busi- ness the subject was committed to Messrs. Rae and Kerr to bring in a minute for the adoption of Presbytery. " Presbytery had a recess till 7-i- o'clock. "After recess, the committee appointed to bring in a min- ute for the adoption of Presbytery, in the case of Mr. Gordon, presented the follov/ing, viz. : " The committee appointed to bring in a minute for the adoption of Presbytery, in the case of Mr. Gordon, present the following, viz. : " Whereas, The congregation of New Athens have pre- sented a request that Presbytery should reconsider their action at last meeting in reference to the ordination of Mr. Gordon, and that he be ordained and installed as their pastor, accompanied with a letter from Mr. Gordon himself on the subject; and, whereas, Presbytery has now refused to grant the request of the congregation of New Athens ; and, whereas, the letter of Mr. Gordon contains no manifestation of a dis- position to reti-act any of his offensive espressions used in reference to the General Assembly, but rather a reiteration and defense of said expressions. Whereas, he has published in the Liberty Advocate, since the last meeting of Presbytery, a lengthened defense of said expressions, and thus continued to reiterate instead of retracting the accusations against the highest judicatory of our church, for which Presbytery ar- rested his ordination at its last meeting; and, whereas, a licen- tiate is a probationer for the work of the ministry, and Pres- bytery have now twice decided that they can not introduce him into the full work of the gospel ministry, Mr. Gordon's term of probation ought now to cease. Therefore, '■•Resolved, That Mr. Joseph Gordon be and he hereby is deprived of his license to preach the gospel, and that his name be stricken from our roll of licentiates. ^^ Resolved, furihcr, That the letter of Mr. Gordon, pub- lished in the Liherlij Advocate, o^ Dec. 23, 1S4G, and his letter at the same time to the Presbytery, be kept on file. " The report was accepted, and then the following resolution was presented and unanimously adopted, viz. : '■'■Resolved, That the previous report be postponed for the present, and that when Presbytery adjaurns it adjourns to meet at Wheeling Valley on the second Tuesday of iMay at REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 29 11 o'clock, and that a copy of the records of this meeting in his case be sent to 5Ir. Gordon, and that he be cited to attend that meeting, and informed that in case he does not then answer satisfactorily the questions previously put to hira, that then the preceding report will be adopted. " By order of Presbytery. " James Kerr, Clerk,". [For the Liberty AJvocitc] Mr. Hanna : The following communication was prepared for the Preshyterian Advocate ; but, (after publishing the re- port to which it refers) the editor refused to insert this ; I, therefore, ask the use of your columns to lay it before the public. J. G. [Fur tha Presliyterian Advocate.] Mr. Editor : As the Presbytery of St. Clairsville have given publicity, through your columns, to their proceeding in reference to myself, at their late meeting in New Athens, I hope you will permit me to present to the public, through the same medium, my reasons for dissenting from that decision. Public acts 0^ puhlic men are jyuhb'c projjerf.y. The humblest individual has a perfect right to call in question the justness of any decision of men in the highest stations; and when statements are published touching the standing of an indi- vidual as a Christian minister, he ought in fairness to have the opportunity of vindicating himself. The history of my connection with St. Clairsville Presby- tery is briefly this : Last June they received me as a licenti- ate from another Presbytery, and appointed me to preach to the congregation of New Athens till their fall meeting, which ■v^as all the time the congregation then asked for — intending to present a call for my pastoral labors at that time. A call was presented and put in my hands at the October meeting of the Presbytery, and after my acceptance of it, they proceeded to assign me a subject for an ordination sermon, and " ad- journed to meet in New Athens on the" first Tuesday of November, to ordain and install mc pastor of this church, ' if the way was clear.' " At the time appointed, the Presbytery met, proceeded to hear the sermon, and attended to nearly all the examinations, which were all unanimously sustained as parts of trial. But at this point the proceedings were arrest- ed, by a motion " to appoint a committee to examine certain 30 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF letters written by me, and if possible, to induce me to retract certain expressions," which the Presbytery chose to consider oQensive. The result of this conference, and the subsequent proceedinfrs of the Presbytery, have been given to the public in their published report. The " letters " were written with reference to the action of the General Assembly of 1845, on the subject of slavery. My answers to the questions of the committee were, that so far as the langunge of my letter was an expression of opinion on the action of the Assembly, I hold the same language now; and hence, on that point had no retractions to make ; but that I did not when I wrote the letter, and did not then intend to impugn or judge any man's motives. With this explanation the Presbytery was not satisfied, and hence adopted their report, which re- commended that all further proceedings be suspended, till I should make the required acknowledgments. On this de- cision I wish to ofi'er tlie following considerations : First. It is inconsistent with, and contradictor^/ to, the previous action of the Presbytery in regard to myself. The " letter " complained of was written in the summer of 1845 — before I came into the bounds of the Presbytery of St. Clairsville at all — nearly a whole year before they received me as a licentiate, and sent me to preach to one of the churches, and more than one year before their last meeting, at which they refused to ordain me. The language, then, of my letter, which they call "slander- ous of the Presbyterian church," had been before them long before the time in which they took any action in my case. And yet, without the least objection, they took all these several steps preparatory to my ordination ; nor was any diffi- culty even hinted at, until they were almost ready to " lay hands upon me ! " Now what is the inevitable inference from all this? Plainly this, that the Presbytery of St. Clairsville considered that there icas no objection to my reception as a licentiate — that they considered me fit to preach by their authority, to one of their own churches — fit to receive a call through their hands — fit to be examined, and to have those examinations sustained — and yet (for an act done before I ever came into their bounds) not fit to receive ordination at their hands!! By their previous action in my case, the Presbytery virtually indorsed every hvoicn act of my life, of which they had no evidence that I had repented. They said explicitly, by their act, that they knew of no reason why I was not a proper person to preach by their authority. Now, is liot the preaching of the gospel the most important and REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 31 solemn part of a minister's work ? and if I am in their judg- ment qualified for this, by what process of law do they come to the conclusion that I am unfit for the minor parts of the work? One of two conclusions seems therefore to force itself upon us — either that the Presbytery of St. Clairsviile did not and do not consider the sentiments of the offending " letter" as a disqualification in one of their preachers, and therefore that they are insincere in their refusal to ordain me — or, on the other hand, that they are totally unfit for the oversight of the churches committed to their care, since they sent a man whom they profess to regard as a " public slanderer " to preach by their authority to one of those churches, and that too without one word of warning to that church to beware of the errors of this public slanderer. The Presbytery can exercise its discretion, in choosing between the horns of this dilemma. In the second place, I object to the decision of the Presby- tery, because I regard the language of my letter (in the sense in which I used it, and which I explained to the Presbytery) OS true, and capable of ample vindication from the icord of God and the teachings of the Preshyterian church. One of the expressions that gave most offense, was the term " hlasphem- o!(s," applied to the report of the Assembly of 1845, on the subject of Slavery. Now, if I prove the term applicable and true, whatever consequences it may involve, I am not responsi- ble. What is, then, the teaching of that report? The amount of it is this — " that slaveholding as it exists in the Southern part of our country, should be no bar to Christian communion." Now, the conclusion is irresistible from this, that by the decision of the Assembly it is no sin at all. What is the teaching and practice of the church on this point? That " EVERY SIN deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and the life to come." If it deserves God's wrath and curse, does it not deserve the church's censure ? The practice of the church has been to exclude from her com- munion every man guilty of the open and constant practice of even the most venial sin, if he refuse, after proper admon- ition, to forsake it. Now, slaveholding is an open, constant practice, and slaveholders not only refuse to abandon, but openly avow their intention to continue it. Then when the General Assembly say that "to pronounce it a sin deserving the discipline of the church, would be to contradict the plain- est teachings of the word of God," they say by the plainest inference, that it is not a sin at all. If, then, to pronounce slavery a sin would be to contradict the plain teachings of the 32 LIFE AND V."EITINGS OF Bible, to pronounce it holy must be to accord with these " plain teachings." Slavery, then, they teach, harmonizes with the teachings of the Bible : it must of consequence harmonize with the character of the xVuthor of the Bible : God's word is but a transcript or copy of his character. Then I understand the report to teach that American slavery accords with the character of God. Now what is blasphemy ? Noah Webster says, "it is an indignity or dishonor cast upon God by writing or speech." If, then, it be not an " indignity and dishonor" of the grossest kind, and therefore hlasphemi/ the most daring, to say even by remote implication, that Amer- ican slavery harmonizes with the character of Deity, I am at a loss to know how God could be dishonored or blasphemed. But to the same point we come by a shorter process. The report says explicitly, that slaveholders were taken into the church by Christ and his apostles. Their open practices were taken along. Into his Church nothing ever came with the approval of Christ, but what was holy and like himself. Slavery, says the report, came by his approval, therefure is slavery lioJy and like to Jesus. But what is slavery? The same authority that says this, defines it to be a gross violation of the most sacred rights of human natui'e — utterly inconsistent toith the law of God., and totally irreconcilable with the gospel of Christ." And yet there is no blasphemy in saying that this thing came into the Church with the approbation of God, and therefore bears his image ! ! I quote just one extract to show that I am not singular in the use of this language. The Presbytery of Chillicothe (and some of its members are old men) declares that " they can not hold fellowship with any Presbytery, Synod, or other ecclesiastical body, that tolerates the justification of slavcholding by appeal to the Scriptures, which in their judgment is hlasphemy of Almighty God, and a shocking prostitution of his word." There is one other expression in my letter that gave special oifense — that " the majority of the Assembly of 1845 mani- fested a determination to earn the title, " brotherhood of thieves." This may seem harsh language from " a mere tyro," but the Presbyterian church (" our mother," as a vene- rable Doctor delighted to call her) has taught me to use it; therefore let me not bear the guilt of its use alone. If slave- holding be thfft, then not only those engaged in it, but those fraternizing with them and sanctioning them in the practice, deserve the appellation, "brotherhood of thieves." That slavcholding is man-stealing, is the express teaching of the REV. JOSEPH GOKDOK". 33 Presbyterian cliurcli in former days. ''Stealers of men are all those who are engaged in bringing men into slavery, or in detaining them in it," said the Church in 1794. Who are slaveholders, if not those engaged in " detaining " men in slavery ? and, therefore, who are men-stealers, if slaveholders be not? Hear the Church again: "Men-stealers are all those who heep, sell, or buy slaves." Who, we ask again, are slaveholders, if not those who "keep slaves?" Yet these the venerable fathers call men-stealers. Now when the Pres- bytery of St. Clairsville has made out a clear distinction be- tween a man-stcalcr and a thief, then, and not till then, will they have a right to proscribe me for the use of the phrase, " brotherhood of thieves." It is the language of gamine " Old Schoolism " — not of the patent, spurious, pro-slavery Old Schoolism so rife at the present time. Why then must I be condemned for using the language taught me by Dr. Ash- bel Green, and other men, whose memories the Church de- lights to honor ? Why this " building the tombs of prophets, and garnishing the sepulchers of the righteous," and yet per- secuting the men that preach their principles ? But there is higher authority than even the Church for using the language. "Our mother" only borrowed it from the pages of inspiration. "The law, says Paul, "is made for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for whore- mongers, for men-stealers." The law here referred to may be found, Exodus xxi : 15, 16, etc. " He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death, and he that steal- eth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, shall surely be put to death. Now, in whose hands are the stolen sons of Africa found, if not in the hands of slaveholders ? and who, I once more inquire, are slaveholders, if not those in " lohose hands the slave is found? " Slaver}' came originally by theft and piracy : the stolen men, or their offspring (which is just the same) are now found in the hands of the very men who, the General Assembly say, should not be excluded IVom Christian communion. Now, I call upon the Presbytery of St. Clairsville to meet these proofs and authorities fairly. I claim the authority of the Church, of the fathers and the word of God, for using the language I did use; and until this evidence is fairly set aside, I hurl back the charge of indiscretion and presumption so lib- erally heaped upon me, because, forsooth, I was not born quite so soon as some other men — because I am ^^ a young man," or, as a venerable Doctor expressed it, "a mere tyro." 4 34 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF I close this communication with two remarks : First, Fair- ness would require of the Presbytery the publication of the whole letter, and not of detached sentences taken out of their connection. The language was based on two suppositions — that slavery is a system of theft and blood, and that the As- sembly of 184:5 gave it their approval. If these assumptions are correct (and it was never once attempted to prove the contrary), then the language of my letter was neither " too strong nor inappropriate." "Was any of the Presbytery in place of the slave, he would not think the language " too strong." Yet God commands us to " feel for those in bonds as hound with (hem.'' The second remark is, that I wish the majority of the Presbytery of St. Clairsville (and I have spoken only of the majority : to the minority I tender my thanks ) ; to know that to retract (o authoriUj is a proceeding I do not understand. It is manly and Christian to recant error and abandon a false position, when the judgment is con- vinced ; and thus I hope God will make me willing always to do. But it is base and pusilanimous in the extreme, to " take even a letter back " simply because other men choose to think it out of place, and offer no reason save that they will to have it so. Retraction on such grounds, I utterly and forever dis- claim. JOSEPPI GORDON. New Athens, Nov. 23, 1846. Wishing to occupy as little space as possible in the papers to which the above article was sent for publication, I said nothing of the unconstitutionality of the proceeding of Presbytery. It constitutes a further objection that it was a palpable violation of the Constitution. If the language of my letter was " slanderous," and constituted an oifense deserving judicial investigation and censure — then the Presbytery of Coshocton was the only court competent to try the case. The Constitution expressly teaches, tJiat everi/ offense shall he tried hy the court under lohose jurisdiction the individual is ichen he commits it. (See Discipline, chap. 10, sec. 1 and 2.) If, on the contrary, it was for for my " views and sentiments," of the action of the Assembly, that they refused to ordain me, then their act was not only unconstitutional but tyrannical. On this subject opinions are Icftfree. The Constitution prescribes the trials fur ordination, and leaves nothing to the discretion of the Preshytery save the hranches of learning on ichich the shall he examined, and the numher of his trial sermons. On all sub- jecta not authoritatively settled by the Constitution, a man REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 85 has the right to hold and utter whatever sentiments he pleases; nor has any church court a right to call him to ac- count for the proper expression of those views. If a Presby- tery may exclude a man from the right of ordination for his sentiments on subjects in regard to which the Constitution has left opinions free, then that Constitution is a rope of sand ; and the terms of admission to the ministry, are left to the whim of every Presbytery. [For the Liberty Advocate.] New Athens, Dec. 6, 1846. The congregation of the Presbyterian church of New Athens, having met agreeably to adjournment, Judge Hanna was called to the chair. The meeting having taken into con- sideration the proceedings of the Presbytery of St. Clairsville, lately held in this place, to ordain and install Pev. Joseph Gordon pastor of said church, after due deliberation, unani- mously passed the following preamble and resolutions : Whereas, The Presbytery of St. Clairsville received the Rev. Joseph Gordon as a licentiate, appointed him to preach to us as a supply ; put a call into his hands; adjourned to meet here to ordain him ; and after hearing nearly all his examinations and his sermon, unanimously sustained them as parts of trial ; and then, for sentiments published nearly a year before they received him, refused to ordain him, There- fore, Resolvd, That we regard the action of the Presbytery as a breach of implied faith — plainly given in their previous acts. Resolved, That we feel aggrieved by said action of Presby- tery. Resolved, That as a congregation, we cordially sustain Mr. Gordon in the position ho has taken before Presbytery. Resolved, That we believe the language of Mr. Gordon's letter to the Mt. Pleasant convention of July 23d, 1S45, is not "stronger '■' than aui/ man would use if subjected to the condition of the slave, and, that we are required to ''feel for those in bonds as hound tcith them.'' Resolved, That these proceedings be signed by the Chair- man, and published in the Rreshylerian Advocate and Presby- terian of the West. JOHN HANNA, Chairman. After the adjournment of Presbytery he continued the dis- 36 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF charge of his duties in the college, and ministered to the church during the succeeding winter. In the following spring the congregation sent up two commissioners to the next stated meeting, requesting them to reconsider their action, and come back and ordain their minister. The request was refused, and a new plan was struck out. They took advantage of Sec- tion 11th, Chapter l-lth of the book of discipline, which de- clares that " when a licentiate has been preaching a consider- able time, and his services do not appear to be edifying to the churches, the Presbytery may. if they think proper, recall his license." This article did not in letter or spirit meet the case. The candidate could preach ; the congregation thought him edifying and were urgent for his ordination. Still it was the best they could do. Sheltered behind it, they could keep their victim gagged, and pass him through their ecclesiastical guillotine in silence. To give him an opportunity of defense they dreaded. They consequently appointed a meeting at Wheeling Valley, some miles from Athens. By this time the people of Athens generally had very little respect for them, and its atmosphere did not suit them. They again de- manded a retraction on mere ai^thorit}^, which was respectfully declined as before. They then by a large majority voted to strip him of his license and struck his name from the roll of candidates. The moderator contrary to the Constitution voted to swell the majority. Thus the Presbytery of St. Clairsville made a false and perverted use of an article in the book of discipline, never intended for such a case ; and neither for alleged crime nor heresy, virtually deposed a young minister, and tried to degrade him from his office, and in the true spirit of inquisitors, refused him a hearing in his own defense. A license was taken away which was conferred three years before by another Presbytery immensely their superior in every de- sirable qualification. Mr. Gordon bore their persecution with that quiet, yet fixed determination for which he was remarka- able in all his movements. His friends wished him to carry the case up by " appeal or complaint " to the Synod of Wheel- ing next fall. This he declined. He expected but little sympathy from a body whose highest court had declared " do- mestic slavery under the circumstances in which it is found in the southern portion of the country, no bar to Christian communion." -* It seemed to him better at once to seek an ecclesiastical connection where he could enjoy Christian liberty of thought and utterance. In the. doctrines and order of the Presbyte- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 37 rian churcli he had been educated and to them he was strong- ly attached. He had often made the mortifying, but truthful confession, that the two branches of the Presbyterian church — the Old and New School in the United States, were the only members of the great Presbyterian family, that were false to the principles of civil and religious liberty. He resolved to seek ordination from the Presbytery of Eipley, a body which on account of their complicity with slaveholding had declined the connection of both Assemblies ; accordingly he was or- dained by that Presbytery in September, 1847. In the meantime his church and congregation met and re- solved to withdraw from the jurisdiction of a Presbytery for which they had lost respect. They believed the body had violated ecclesiastical law and order, and requested their min- ister to treat their action as a nullity, that is, continue to preach to them by virtue of his original license by the Pres- bytery of Washington, which they wished him to regard as Still valid. To this he consented, and preached some three months in this way before he was ordained. After his ordination the Presbytery of Eipley was divided into two, and Mr. Gordon was dismissed with a view of unit- ing with Messrs. Bradford and McLean, who had seceded from the Presbytery of Beaver ; in forming the " Free Pres- bytery of Mahoning." This was soon afterward done. A short time afterward the three Presbyteries united and formed the Synod of the " Free Presbyterian Church of the United States." The question has been asked, would the Synod of Wheeling have sustained this action, so manifestly unconstitutional and high-handed on the part of the Presbytery, in case an "ap- peal " or "complaint" had been regularly carried up? Of course the question can not be answered with certainty. The writer thinks it due to that body to say he believes they would not. The course afterward taken by the Presbytery, clearly indicated their own fears on the subject. The only way the Synod could reach it was by " review and control " when their minutes would come up for examination. Their stated clerk, Eev. B. Mitchell, brought them to the Synod, and after the committee to examine them was appointed he sent them home. The excuse given was that their temporary clerk had been sick, and consequently they were not completed. Why they were brought to Synod at all under these circumstances, and immediately sent away after the committee to examine them was named, they did not state. The only explanation that 38 " LIFE AND WRITINGS OF suggests itself was either that the plan of keeping them back a year, that the matter might to some extent fade away, was an after thought ; or else that the committee of examination was one that did not suit them. Several members of Synod manifested dissatisfaction. A Dr. of Divinity of high respectability and influence, said it was particuhirly unfortunate for that Presbytery to keep back their minutes, after the strange proceedings that were reported of them. One member of the Presbytery came to the aid of the stated clerk, seemed to wax warm and bold and said '-they had done nothing they were ashamed of" That was a lower degree, and greater obtuseness of attainment, than their con- duct seemed to indicate! The circumstances under which men evince fidelity to God, to truth and to principle are immensely varied, but the spirit of such actions is in all cases much the same. The elements of real greatness may often be exhibited in an humble way. The mean and diabolical spirit of persecution with which such men are tried, is much nearer alike also, than is generally suppposed. The implements to be wielded by the enemies of Luther, were the stake with its faggots and fire, or the inqui- sition with its racks and tortures. We seem to see a sublim- ity in the courage that could calmly face these terrors, and adhere to principle while they flashed and threatened. Hence we gaze with emotions of grandeur and sublimity on Luther as he stood before the Diet of Worms, and plead the cause of God and truth; and when a retraction was vociferously de- manded by the minions of the Papacy he calmly laid his hand on his breast and said "I can retract nothing, God help me." Stii! the lofty moral courage shown by the great reformer was the same in nature, and differed only in degree and circum- stance from that of the man who can stand erect against the vociferous demands of a modern ecclesiastical court, armed with the jDOwer of public opinion and popular odium. Neither is there the difference between the spirit of the Ghostly In- quisitors who surrounded the monk of Wittemburg, and the ecclesiastics who apologize for slaveholding in our day, and persecute those who expose its fathomless abominations; — that at first view we would generally think. When human actions pass in review before the "judge of quick and dead," they will be much nearer alike than is generally supposed, John C. Calhoun said the war of the abolitionists against the South was more to be dreaded than one of devastation and blood ; as it was a war waged against their characters. The REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 39 great mistake of the statesman was that the war of which he complained, is not levied acainst the Southern people, but against this *' peculiar institution." He vras right in regard- ing a war against character as the worst. In Luther's case life was threatened. In our day the plan is to fulminate eccle- siastical censures and suspensions — destroy reputation — pre- vent congregations from giving employment — take away the means of living from a man, and thus afflict him with the wants of a dependent family; and by these and similar annoy- ances (as a popular divine expressed it), "keep order in War- saw." Times and circumstances change but human nature remains the same. "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you." " They that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution." After the church of Athens left the Presbytery, and their minister was ordained, and the Free Church was organized, nothing very special occurred with Mr. Grordon, during the next two years. The severe ordeal through which he had passed unscathed, resulted in his good. It enlisted the sym- pathies of good men generally in his behalf and brought him into notice. His quiet, unobtrusive disposition required some- thing of the kind to rouse him, and draw him out. Small Free churches were organized at different points within his reach. With these he labored in season, and out of season. His friend — Rev. Thomas Merrill — who with a few intelligent and noble-souled elders had stood by him all through his per- secutions in the Presbytery, seceded soon after he left, and became co-laborers in the cause of church reform. Their numbers were small, but what they lacked in this respect, was made up in union and zeal. In the spring of 18-1-9 he had a hemorrhage from the lungs, which eight years afterward resulted in his death. It came on as he was returning on horseback from his last appointment on the evening of the Lord's day. It seemed by no means improbable to himself that he might die on the road. His preaching was suspended, but his college duties were kept up during the year. In the spring of 1850, the Free Church determined to start a weekly paper, and with entire unanim- ity he was selected as its editor. He consequently removed to Mei'cer, Pa., and continued to edit the Free Prcshijferianj till the summer of 1852. In the mean time his health im- proved, and he gradually resumed his pulpit labors. The Free church of Mercer, now under the pastoral care of Rev. J. W. Torrence, and the nucleus of the flourishing pastoral charge 40 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF of Rev. A. B. Bradford, in New Castle, eacli enjoj^ed a share of his labors. In the summer of 1852, the Free Missionary published at Cincinnati, and the Free Presbyterian were merged in the Christian Press. Mr. Gordon was appointed one of its editors, and also one of the Secretaries of the "American Missionary Association ; " in consequence of which he removed to Cleve- land, and entered on the duties of his office. He had but commenced in his new field, when his health suddenly again gave way, and he left Cleveland and retired among his friends, not expecting to live but a few weeks. After a time his constitution again unexpectedly rallied, and by the sum- mer of 1853 he was able to resume his editorial chair. In connection with his colleague. Rev. Wm. G. Kephart, the Free Presbyterian was revived, and published at Albany, Athens county, Ohio. At the same time he was elected prin- cipal of the "Albany Manual Labor vVcademy." For some cause, or causes, not fully known to the writer, the situation did not suit him. After a year's hard labor, on the part of himself and colleague, they dissolved with mutual kindness and confidence, and he removed the paper to Yellow Springs, in April, 1854. Here he edited and published it till Septem- ber, 1S57. Though not a practical printer, necessity com- pelled him to learn the art, which he did in a very short time; and for three years and a half he acted as foreman in his office; did a journeyman's labor in setting type; besides editing the paper, and supplying the church of Clifton, and occasionally some other points with the ministrations of the gospel. But the labor was too great. The last year his health gradually declined, and in the fall of 1857 he relin- quished the editorial chair, and removed to the home of his childhood. He hoped to recruit his constitution by light labor on a farm, but it was too late. It had twice rallied before, but now its vitality was too far spent. His voice so left him, that he could usually speak but in whispers; his strength also declined, and the grave was manifestly soon to inherit all that was mortal in his nature. He met the stern approach of the "last enemy," with the same cheerful and calm serenity, which always characterized him in the day of trial. He breathed his last on the morning of the Sabbath, 28th of February. Death is always a solemn and melancholy scene. To the subject it is momentous — to the watchers impressive. It is the abandonment of tho lonfr-lovod and cherished rerilitics of REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 41 life, for the land of silence and of gloom. The passage from the visible to the invisible; an abandonment of the warm and tender affections, so long familiar, to a new and incompre- hensible mode of existence. The whole passage and change is such an act of unnatural violence, that we instinctively shrink back from it, and cling with tenacity to the familiar realities of time. Probably, no other beings in the universe have such a passage to make, or such a change to undergo. Angels are not required, like men, to pass at any time a dark barrier, impenetrable to their vision, and full of vague and unnatural uncertainties beyond. On man's future, nature gives no light. She may stand by the dying scene, see the form grow cold and ghastly, the eye glazed and dim; but when the soul seems to float away with the closing breath, she can not tell whether the living, feeling, thinking soul passes into another mode of develop- ment, or sinks into the dark night of unconsciousness. Such is death without revelation. Faith alone reveals the future, and gives it substance and reality. Its achievements are all wonderful. How often the dying alone are cheerful, calm, and happy. They shed no tears, feel no gloom, experience no fears, but look on the separation from their friends as short, and catch a glimpse as they pass the shadowy vale, of brighter and better scenes beyond. These consolations were sweetly experienced by the subject of this memoir. We subjoin a short extract from a letter written by his bereaved and widowed wife, a short time after his death. The letter was written without any idea of its publication, and the extract inserted without the knowledge or consent of the writer. " On New-Year's day he appeared very sad ; he told me he might never see another return of the day; that he had been reviewing his life, had tried and wished to do right, but had been a great sinner; that he thought the Lord had forgiven him, and if ho lived he hoped to live better, and do some good in a quiet way. * ^' -'^ At times he seemed very happy, and would say that he could almost see the smile of his heavenly Father. The peculiar and constant state of his mind, seemed that of perfect repose, and confidence in the goodness and wisdom of his heavenly Father, entire trust in his Saviour, and complete submission to his will. He always thought too much stress was laid upon the words of the dying, 42 LIFE AND WHITINGS OP and that a much better test of character was the tenor of their life. " Pic said, not long before he left us, that ho supposed some would think he delighted in saying hard things, and opposing others ; but that no one could cwr know how hard it had been for him to take the coiirse he did : that he liked the good will and approbation of men, as much as any one, but that he thought duty called him to take the stand he had. " How ^cv^ live such a life ! So self-sacrificing, so bur- dened with the woes and sins of humanity ; so firm and unyielding in vindicating the ho^or of God. His last words were, ' I will go to sleep.' He then fell into a gentle slum- ber, and passed to the sleep of death." To the above we add an obituary, from the pen of the Rev. Robert Burgess, a Free Presbyterian minister, and pub- lished in the Christian Leader^ together with the preliminary remarks of the editor, Rev. William Perkins. Rev. Joseph Gordon has Died. Our whole church is bereaved. For years our deceased brother was its weekly teacher and faithful pastor. By his voice and pen, he spread abroad the whole truth, whether men would hear or forbear. He warmly and courageously espoused the cause of the poor, down-trodden stranger. Could these millions in their prison-house of despair now hear of the faithful friend they have lost, their weeping were like the widows of Joppa, over the body of Dorcas ! Poor sufferers! we fondly hope that in the gi'cat mercy of Christ, not a few may greet their noble friend, where "the wicked cease from troixbling" and "the weary " forever "rest." Our cause has lost one of its most efficient advocates. The " Leader^''' in a double sense must credit Bro. G. with much of its huiublc influence. It succeeds the weekly he so ably conducted for years, while its unworthy editor was reasoned into his Free Church position, chiefly by his lucid arguments. So has it been with many others, He wore out his voice and his body in this blessed service. Did our success alone de- pend upon efficient laborers, our loss were irreparable. But wo must remember that the race is not to the swift, nor tlie battle to the strong. Could we plant as did Paul, and water as did Apollos, all were vain till God chooses to give the increase. Never is he more ready to give it than when we REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 43 feel our humble dependence upon Him. "When I am weak, then I am strong." We sorrow then, not as others without hope. God having raised our Saviour, in whom our brother has fallen asleep, will, in due time, reanimate his slumbering body. So will he raise up other faithful servants to carry forward his precious cause. The war is not ended, though a good and great sol- dier be discharged. As the conflict waxes, needful means will be furnished, and the powers of darkness tremble. Left as we are on the field with the bright example of our fallen brother to animate us, let us put on the whole armor of God, and lead on his host to that victory which is made sure by the promise of Him who has loved us, and given himself for us. Obituary. Died, at his residence near Washington, Pa., on Sabbath morning, February 28, at 3 o'clock, the Eev. Joseph Gordon, aged 38 years, 5 months and 9 days. death ! how rich are thy spoils ! Another great man has fallen — another heart and home are made desolate — an- other household-light has been extinguished ! Nay, more, a beacon-light to guide a ship-wrecked world ; a watch-fire on the mountain-hight of eternal truth, to cheer the hosts engaged in the struggle which is to decide the world's destiny, in the war for the " rights of God and man "< — the last great " war of principles." How rapidly pass away the flower of earth's nobility! He was the first and foremost in the conflict for the right, the first to fall upon his laurels won ! Truly a '• Prince and a great man Aa.s fallen in Israel." "Our fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for- ever." But if they have ascended in triumph, borne from our sight by the " Horses and chariots of fire," leaving behind their "mantle," by which we may smite the waters of oppo- sition and death, is it not a great gain? Is not their triumph our own ? How fitting too, was the death of our brother ! Plow suita- ble to his life of toil and sacrifice, and weariness, that he should sink to rest in the calm and quiet of a sweet Sabbath morn ! Literally worn out in the sacred cause of God and humanity, it was rest that he needed, and it came in love, the symbol and the reality together. One of his last expressed wishes was, " That he might fall asleep, and awake in Heaven." It was granted. Near his last moments he called for drink ; 44 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF he drank largely and remarked, "I ■will now go to sleep." His sad wife replied, " Yes, dear ! you will soon be drinking the pure ' water of life.' " Accordingly he sank to rest, and while he seemed to be sleeping sweetly, he gently breathed away his life. His wife alone was with him in the closing scene, having dismissed all the family to much needed repose. He had bid "good night" to his young son, with a conscious last kiss, following him with a yearning eye as he retired, aware that he should see him on earth no more. His dear wife had been for some time at his side, wiping away the death-sweat as it arose on his pale brow. Not thinking this was to be his long, last sleep, she turned a moment to stir the fire. Returning, he breathed twice, and was no more. A few days before, he said, " That he preferred rather to die than to live ; but that, for his wife and child, he was will- ing to live." At a former visit by the writer and Bro. Dyer Burgess, the latter had remarked, on parting, " That he thought he might live to do a great deal of sinning yet," a remark to which he often afterward referred, as a strange and sad saying, and as a reason why he did not " Wish to live, and return again to the world, and to sin." He had little pain to endure, and said, " That he had nothing to complain of; much to call for gratitude." During all his sickness he uttered not a solitary complaint; and throughout gave three distinct proofs of preparation for death : a calmness and patience seldom equaled ; a sensible increase, nay, an overflowing of " brotherly kindness," and a great delight in prayer. On his bed he said with emphasis, in reference to the opening of the 41st Psalm, " There is a promise I can plead ! I have spent all my talents and strength in the service of the poorest of Clod's poor : I claim that promise." It was fulfilled. " Blessed is he that considereth the poor ; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive ; he shall be blessed on the earth ; and thou wilt not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing; thou wilt make all his bed in his sick- ness." His labors of love for poor down-trodden humanity, flowed from his fountain of unfeigned love to Christ. Christ forever made sacred our humanity, and all the " rights of man," by his union to our nature, "eternal in the heavens." So Bro. G. thought. Hence, when his wife inquired of him, " What do you now, in the full light of eternity, think of REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 45 your course in tlie Cliurcli? " he replied, " That he had never written a sentence, which he did not then and now believe; that the position of his church was God's truth ; only admit- ting, that he might have erred in the proper spirit." A few days previous to his death, he was visited by Rev. Dr. Thomas Hanna, of the Associate Church, at which time the grounds of his hope were fully discussed. The Doctor remarked, that there was a true and a false hope ; and defined the former. The sufferer added, '-Such is my hope, — a hope founded on the blood of the Lamb, on the intercession of Je- sus ' within the vail.' " He then quoted the promises, such as " In sis troubles, I will be with thee ; and in seven, I will not forsake thee. The mountains may depart, and the hills be removed ; yet shall not my kindness depart from thee, nor the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. " As to his character as a man, a minister, or an editor, I leave the task of drawing the sketch to his more intimate friends, and to abler pens. I write this hasty notice with a deep sense of my imperfection, and only because no other is on the ground possessing proper information. If we write to "comfort those that mourn," we must not delay till they too are in the grave. At his funeral services, six ministers were present, includ- ing two of his own church, Bro. Dyer Burgess and the writer. The order of the exercises was as follows : Mr. Hanna opened by singing a Psalm and reading a chapter. This was followed by some very appropriate remarks by Dyer Burgess. Concluded by some additional remarks and prayer by the writer. The benediction was pronounced by the Bev. James I. Brownson, of the 0. S. Church. A large and solemn pro- cession, inclement as was the day, followed his remains to the grave. He was much emaciated ; and yet as he lay in his coffin, in his full suit of black, he looked so natural that we all felt as though he were just ready to rise, and "preach to us as of old." We laid him beyond the bustle of the busy town, in the still and beautiful new cemetery, beneath the shade of a native oak grove. The sunshine, as was most fit, broke through the wintry clouds, and fell upon his fresh grave, while we sadly turned away to come again with the spring, to plant evergreens and eglantine on his green grave. Peace to his weary head ! There let him sweetly " sleep in Jesus" till the glorious resurrection morn. He himself said, 46 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF not long before, that " though a man of war, he was a man of peace." He had fought for a solid, reliable peace, under the banner inscribed, " First pure, then peaceable." He well knew that no other peace could last. He wanted a peace approved of God, — he hath it now. Reqiiicscat in pace. Often will we and others return to visit that grave, to reassure our feeble virtue, to see the windows of heaven open above it, to kneel as in a temple, to plant not the cypress and yew, but roses and amaranths. A short portrait of the character of the deceased will close our part of the volume. Like all the descendants of Adam, he had his faults, and inifierfections. But like those of Gold- smith's village-pastor, even these " leaned to virtue's side." Unobtrusive, quiet, and retiring modesty was natural to him, and was carried to an undesirable degree. Many men, with the same amount of intellect, scholarship, and gifts, would have more decidedly drawn the gaze of admirers, and been more prominent — sometimes more viseful. Until their exer- cise was demanded, he seemed unconscious of his own pow- ers ; and no man of our acquaintance had less to say about himself. The reader may think this is labeled as a fault, though really an amiable virtue. Yet it is meant as expressed. A larger share of self-esteem would have pushed him forward more prominently, drawn out to better advantage his social nature, given him a wider range of private power, and secured the warm attachinent of the many, instead of the intimate few, and enlarged his field of influence. Those social gifts, by which many good men talk others into their views, sympa- thies, and wishes, he possessed in but a limited degree. The tripod of the editor, and the stand of the orator were his places of power. The social gifts of the pastor, and imposing loquacity of the agent, he possessed only in a very moderate degree. A more prominent, and perhaps the worst fault that belonged to him, was rather extreme severity in dealing with wrongs and wrong-doers. It is common to great minds to possess strong passions ; and disease in his case probably sharpened them. His own " eye was single," and his pur- poses transparent, and he gave no quarter to opposite qualities in others. When, however, instead of consistent honesty he met selfishness, cunning, duplicity, Jesuitism, and injustice, he was apt to become indignant, and express himself with a severity, of which few men are capable. Especially was this REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 47 the case in dealing witli sinnei'S in high places, and of large pretensions. With corrupt politicians, making boastful pre- tensions to patriotism and democracy, when selfishness and despotism marked their conduct; and with ministers of the gospel, who ignored their profession by lower-law principles, or pro-slavery proclivities, or any hypocritical drivelings, he was severe and unsparing in exposure, and used scathing denunciations. These were the only recollections of his moral warfare, that gave him pain on a bed of death. He said he had always vindicated what he believed to be right; and opposed, without respect of persons, what he knew^ to bo wrong ; but not always with a meek and quiet spirit. This is a fault which probably no prominent reformer (except the Lord Jesus Christ), ever entirely escaped. It belonged to Luther, Calvin, and Knox ; to Whitefield, Baxter and the Wesleys. In presenting a few salient points of his intellectual char- acter, Ju's remarkahl'i clearness of thouglif, and accuracy of scholarship mai/ be mentioned. To investigate thoroughly, and become master of the subject, was his motto when a student; and on the well-formed habit, much of his success, no doubt, depended. He grasped a subject in all its prominent bear- ings, was free from confusion or mixture, and presented it with such clearness and simplicity, as often to make the hearer think he understood it as well as the speaker, and wonder that he never saw it so before. When he discussed a subject, the intelligent hearer felt that it was finished, and that nothing more was needed to fill it out. iSome speakers are brilliant and clear on detached parts, but leave the discus- sion incomplete; and when they close the hearer thinks of " Ephraim " as " a cake unturned." This was not the case with him. 2. Hii was in the most desirable sense an original man. Hi.s was not the originality of mere novelty, but that of a clear, accurate and independent thinker. Some persons surprise and startle us by the newness and strangeness of their con- ceptions and expressions, and the novelty of their departures from the old and familiar track ; but too often they axe empty and fallacious. It is originality at the expense of truth. It was not so in his case. His positions and thoughts met us with something of the familiarity of an old acquaint- ance ; hut in a dress so new and improved, as to make us wonder at the felicitous advancement. Every thing he said bore the impress of having been elaborated in his own men* 48 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF tal alembio. The thinking power of the hearer was not ex- ercised to know whether the idea presented was true ; but was delighted to gaze on it for a stand-point from which he now viewed it for the first time. Some writers and speakers don't plagiarize, and yet their conceptions and views are so formed by those of others, as to impress the reader or hearer with a mere mechanical rehearsal of which he heard twenty times before. Their productions have no impress of their own minds. Such persons have no originality. Others will re- hearse a common-place thought, or a familiar principle, with a freshness which makes us half fancy we have now heard them for the first time. This is the most desirable sense, in which, in this age of intelligence it is possible to be original. 3. As a debater he had the rare ability to look over the entire subject, and perceive at a glance the strong and the weak points in the arguments of an opponent. This gave him entire self-possession. He was never startled, or embar- rassed in reply. He could unravel a sophism, uncover a weak point, and develop a false position of an opponent, with ease and power ; and then overwhelm him with the mo- mentum of the opposing truth. His unmixed sincerity kept him from ever using the arts of the sophist himself. Hence he never descended to " sap and mine " and quibble in a dis- cussion. He attacked the arguments of an opponent openly; and always attempted to carry his fortifications by storm. From this course he seldom or never departed. 4. As a speaker he was clear in thought and utterance, rather deliberate than rapid, and ahvays self-possessed. His command of language was copious, and accurate, and extreme- ly free from any semblance of confusion. Plis style was racy and sufficiently adorned ; yet, rather strong than beautiful. He usually addressed the intellect, yet had power, both to rouse the passions and touch the heart. When aroused, es- pecially in debate, he was eloquent in thought, argument and manner. When the soul seemed to radiate from the counten- ance — flash in the eye — burn on the lip — and tremble on the tongue, the spell-bound hearer was enchained, and for the time being held under the mesmeric influence of the speaker, and confessed the glowing control of the mind that entranced him. Of his moral and religious character, but little remains to be written. Its lineaments are interwoven in the narrative al- ready given. His confidence in and obedience to God have been noticed. Practically and theoretically he was a " higher REV JOSEPH GORDON. 49 law " man. The will of the Lord was ever with him the par- amount consideration. His piety was the religion of princi- ple ; and to the claims of duty his life was one of steady and daily obedience. Possessing talents and acquirements with which he could, and most men would, have cleared a hand- some fortune, he died poor. The only legacy that he left his wife and son was his stainless character and good name. He considered the interests of the poor, and looked for the bles- sing promised to such as do. In all his intercourse with men, and especially as his edi- torial life was one of sharp controversy ; he cultivated and manifested a constant love of truth. His aims, motives and actions were alike transparent. He was always frank. Few men were ever more free from cunning, and mere manage- ment. Had he not possessed a pretty fair insight into human character, that trait would have made him often the dupe of the wiles of others. He was, however, reasonably quick in perceiving in others, what he never harbored in himself. The last trait we shall mention was liis deep and strong sympathies and affections. These were more powerful and tender than a partial acquaintance would lead any one to sup- pose. In the hour of trial and separation they came out in full manifestation. As a watcher at the bed of a dying mother, and a mourner for the loss of two infant children, who died each at the age of about one year — one in 1850, the other in 1852; his depth of tenderness was intensely called forth. With some hesitancy about the propriety of publish- ing a letter so entirely written for a single person, the writer has concluded to give a short extract from one dated April 2, 1850, after the death of his little daughter. It is one of those productions in which the writer unbosoms himself, and we see into the fountains of the soul. The object of its publica- tion is, to show how a man of strength, of intellect and lofty moral courage — who fearlessly met opposition and relentless persecution for the truth of God, and the cause of humanity, could at the same time, show a depth of parental tenderness, that few experience. After describing the sickness and death of his child he adds : " Thus died our little Mary. To us she was very lovely. She was too gentle and timid to attract the notice of strangers, but alone with us she was sweet, and playful and good ; and we loved her all the more tenderly for the timidity that made her cling to us alone. How tenderly we loved her, they alone can know who have lost a little one so gentle and sweet as she 50 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF was. * * * I do not murmur at the sad loss, but feel as well as know that all is right. ' He doeth all things well.' Our little babe that nestled a little more than one short year in our arms, is now gathered gently as a lamb in the bosom of Jesus. Her suiferings are all over. She can never more feel pain or sorrow, and oh ! to know that she is now infinitely happy is enough. She was beautiful in death. As she lay in her little cradle, with a plain white dress, and her little hands and bosom filled with flowers — a sweet smile on her face — her body seemed a meet emblem of her pure and gentle spirit. Death was divested of all terror — all gloom. It was like a quiet sleep. It is ours to suifer and struggle on a little longer. She has reached home before us, and awaits in her robes of white to welcome us there. God grant that we may be ready to follow when our time comes ; to die as peacefully and sweetly as did our little babe. Life never before seemed to me so uncertain. Death, heaven, and the resurrection, never before seemed so near and real as now. The grave seems divested of all gloom, and I now feel that when life's ' fitful dream is over,' I can lie down there as to a place of quiet rest." In his oratory he generally addressed the intellect and con- science, yet he easily could and frequently did point for the heart, and stirred the deep fountains of feeling. This power is necessarily based on personal susceptibility. One incapa- ble of the exercise of tender susceptibilities can not reach and stir the fountains in other breasts, and start the tear in other eyes. We here close. We have given a very imperfect portrait, but truthful as far as it goes, of as good and true a man as Heaven usually lends to earth. Could the wishes of hundreds have prevailed, he would not have left us so early in the con- flict. His eloquent voice would yet be heard cheering on the Free Church hosts of freedom. His powerful pen would yet be puissant in defending right and exposing wrong; and urging forward the reign of peace, purity and righteousness. But he is gone. In him the slave, the church, the world has lost a friend, and no man has lost an enemy. The balance of this humble volume will be his own. " Though dead he yet speaketh ;" but speaks as one from the spirit land. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 5l WRITINGS OF REV. JOSEPH GORDON Religion and Reform. True religion includes all genuine reform. The Christian is, from the nature of the case, a radical reformer. There may be a measure of reform without religion, but there can be no true religion without thorough reformation. Thus the drun- kard may become habitually sober, without becoming con- verted, but no one can become truly religious without aban- doning all open vices. True religion is supreme love to God, and equal love to man. But it is impossible for any one to love God with his whole heart, and cherish sins which God hates ; or to love his neighbor as himself, and practice vices which are at war with his neighbor's well-being. Thus, supreme love to God will purify the heart of secret sins, and leads to the cultivation of inward holiness, while love to man will restrain from outward crime, and promote the practice of pure benevolence. Hence the true Christian is a genuine reformer. To reform is to re-construct, to re-model, to re- form or make over that which has been marred or broken. Man's whole nature, physical, mental, social, and spiritual, is marred and broken. Man is a ruin, and the work of true reform is to re-construct his shattered powers, and form them into primitive order and beauty. Sin is the great disorganizer. It is sin that has broken down this temple of God, the human body and soul, and spread ruin and disorder over all its fair proportions. Hence true reform is to forsake sin, to break its power, to undo its work of destruction ; and in opposition to it, to cultivate and attain a power of goodness and virtue. True reformation in its full extent is to gain a complete vic- tory over sin, and to attain to the love and practice of genuine love and holiness. Hence the reason why every true Christian is a radical re- former. The Christian is one who is like Christ. His heart 52 LIFE AJTD WRITINGS OF has been reclaimed from the love and power of sin, and been filled with the Holy Ghost. His life is therefore, hencefor- ward a battle with sin. He sees in it a cause of infinite dishonor to God, and the source of infinite ruin to the uni- verse. Hence he sympathizes with Christ in the great object of his mission to earth, which was to destroy sin. In this sympathy with Christ is found the root and strength of every genuine reformation. But it is altogether possible for men to be too religious to be genuine reformers. As true religion embraces true reform as a part of itself, so false religion is the most deadly and fatal enemy of genuine reformation. Fill a man's soul with the religion of superstition, of forms and creeds, or of mere ex- citement, and there is no room left for any real love either to God or man. The superstitious man is one whose soul ; under the power of a slavish and crushing dread of a Supreme Being, whom it regards clothed with judgment and wrath. But servile fear is incompatible with love. The being that is feared, whether he be God, man, or devil, is sure to be hated. Hence the spring of all purity of life, and of all benevolent eff"ort is wanting. The soul becomes narrowed and shriveled under the influence of this degrading- fear. The man whose religion consists in periodic fits of excite- ment lacks the firm and steady principle which is necessary to nerve and sustain the reformer in an earnest grappling with gigantic social, political, or moral evils. Hence he can only be relied on when the reformation goes by excitement. So long as it can be urged on with the agency of large crowds, exciting speeches^ parades, etc., he will shout with the loudest, and labor with great zeal and energy. But the hard work of all reforms is to be done before it reaches that point. It is when over-spreading and popular crimes are first attacked ; when their opposers are few, weak, and despised, and their friends are many and popular, that the real strength of Chris- tian principle is tested. The man of excitement is never found then battling with the heroic few, amid persecution and opposition against popular and rampant systems of crime. He will very likely be found in the ranks of the enemy. Again, the mere formalist in religion is generally too selfish to make any eftorts or sacrifices for the good of his race. This class generally contains the stufi" of which "old fogies" are made. They are the well-to-do men of society ; the conser- vatives, who dread change and innovations as the Pandora's REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 53 box, filled witli every imaginable evil and calamity. Their special horror is any thing which interrupts the steady flow of golden streams into their coffers, and which interferes with their growing ''fat and sleek." The chief end of their life is physical comfort, and social respectability. Hence they are always found arrayed in solid phalanx against every reforma- tion. It matters nothing to them that slavery, or drunken- ness, or licentiousness, or any stupendous social and moral evil may devour hecatombs of the young and fair and lovely at a meal, and like the apocalyptic dragon, "draw down the third part of the stars of heaven." If they can draw fat divi- dends, if their stock can be kept above par, and their purses grow longer and heavier each day, it is all they desire. Their religion is in harmony with their ruling selfishness; and the cause of reform finds in them its most steadfast and uniform opposers. From these principles we may derive a test by which to try any system of religious agencies. Do they harmonize with, promote, all true reformation ? If so, it may be safely con- cluded that they are in unity with the gospel and spirit of Christ. Do they, on the contrary, tend to array those under their influence against vital reforms, or to render them indif- ferent? Then are they essentially anti-Christian. It is by the application of this test, that we have lost faith in the genuineness of many modern revivals. We have often no- ticed that men pass through scenes of religious excitement, and come out almost totally indifferent, if not utterly opposed to the real work of the Christian — the renovation of his own heart and life and of the world. We do not, indeed, as a general thing, find them any more ready than before to labor earnestly for the salvation of the drundard, the deliverance of the slave, or the conversion of the heathen. The probability is that they will be so filled with sectarian zeal as to have no heart for works of genuine Christian love. It is a standing remark of the world, and one of the truth of which there is no question, that the existence, and the neces- sity for temperance, anti-slavery, moral reform, and other benevolent societies are a standing reproach on the Church. They are organized to do the very work for which Christ insti- tuted his Church ; and it is because the Church is faithless to her mission that these voluntary associations are necessary. It is no true answer to this assertion to say that members of the church are among the most active members of these socie- ties. The Church should do this in her qrfjanized cwpacUy. 54 LIFE AND WKITINGS OF Every local church should be a temperance, an anti-slavery, a moral reform society, by virtue of her divine constitution. But so far are the great majority of modern churches from being so, that the most bitter opponents of all true reforms are found in their pale ; and the aggregate influence of the churches is against reform. Hence the reformers within the Church must be made so, not by the Church, but in spite of its influence. Thus the divinely appointed instrumentality for reforming the world, is robbed of the honor which it should reap in the fulfillment of its great and glorious mission. We should be Men and Women of Devoted Piety. There are many reasons for this : 1. In the first place, true reform can only be efi"ected by the power of God. The best system of human agencies ever devised, is utterly powerless without his blessing. His spirit and truth alone can regenerate the human soul, they alone can truly reform the character ; and the reformation of the world can only be efi'ected by the reformation of each individual man and woman in the world. This being true, human efi'ort in this work can succeed only so far as it takes hold of divine strength. While the means are put into the hands of men, the efl&cient power is of God. But only the man of piety can lay hold of the arm of Omnipotence for this end. A truly pious man is one who has sought and ob- tained the pardon of sins through the atonement of Jesus Christ ; who loves and obeys God ; who tries to do all the good he can ; and who is a man of faith and prayer. It is to this man that God promises to look ; it is upon the labors of such that he pours out a blessing. Only he who trusts God can look to him for aid in doing good. For " to the wicked God says, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant into thy mouth ? " No true reformation can be greatly promoted without the agency of prayer. For the aid of his spirit in converting and reforming the world, God says he will be inquired of by the House of Israel. Only as God's servants feel their depen- dence on him, and look to him in believing prayer, can they hope to be successful in doing his work. That reformation whjch ignore this iRstyumentality, must fail. But it is only REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 55 the truly pious man who can pray in faith. He alone who loves, trusts and obeys God, can offer acceptable and prevail- ing prayer. 2. Again reformers should be men of ardent piety because none others can work in harmony with God in saving the world. The secret of all success in doing good depends on this harmony. All the plans, truths, principles and institu- tions necessary for the reformation of the world, have been provided and revealed by Jehovah. He furnishes each one of his moral soldiers a complete suit of spiritual armor. He has drafted a perfect chart of the work to be done ; has given a full description of that temple of holiness and love which his children are to labor in building up. The only work man has to do in reforming^the earth is to use the instrumentalities which God has provided for the redemption of the world of mankind, in humble reliance on divine aid. But it is evident that none but the pious man can thus work in harmony with God. This is so because he alone is himself 4:i harmony with his Maker. He alone has had his will, and principles, and purposes brought into unison with the will of God. The un- converted are at enmity with him. Their characters are dis- cordant with his. Their aims and purposes are in conflict with his designs, and hence they are of course unprepared to labor for him in harmony with his plans. 3. A third reason why reformers should be men of devoted piety, is that none others will endure the persecutions and trials which are the lot of true reformers. To reform is to re- model the human character, and all the laws, customs, and institutions of man which are sinful. This work of re-con- struction frequently requires the destruction of existing habits and institutions. Thus before the human soul can be imbued with the principle of holiness, its native depravity must be destroyed. Before righteous laws and governments, and pure churches can be established, those which are oppressive and corrupt must be overthrown. Before holy and benevolent customs and habits can be introduced among men, those which are vile and selfish must be rooted out. But this work of overturning existing principles, laws, customs, and institutions is one which excites the fiercest opposition of the wicked. Hence he who engages in it must often expect the severest persecution. His motives will be misrepresented ; his char- acter will be slandered ; his plans will be ridiculed ; and some- times his person and life exposed to danger and abuse. This 56 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF has been the lot of reformers in all past ages, and it is their lot still. Now, to endure this opposition patiently, the reformer needs a large measure of God's grace in his heart. He needs a strong, unwavering, child-like faith in God, and a deep bap- tism into the firm, meek, loving, gentle spirit of Christ. But these are the characteristics of the truly pious man. 4. Once more, reformers should be persons of devoted piety, because their teachings will be powerful for good only so far as their example corresponds with them. It is a well under- stood principle of human nature that example impresses more deeply than precept. No matter how great and important may be the truths taught us by a fellow-man, if his life is a violation of the claims of those truths, we reject him and his teachings. He who lives a truth is its mightiest preacher. He whose example is a standing testimony against sin, is its most effective opposer. He whose life is the exemplification of pure benevolence, is the most radical reformer. But to live the truth, to forsake sin, and to practice pure benevolence, are the works of the sincerely pious. We may draw many practical inferences from these prin- ciples : It follows from them, for example, that he who re- bukes slavery should not be hard and oppressive to his hired laborers; should not be grasping and dishonest in his deal- ings; should not cheat his neighbor in a bargain. He who reproves the drunkard should not sell his corn to the distiller ; should not rent his buildings to the grog-seller ; should not himself be a wine-bibbcr. He who preaches against the un- fruitful works of darkness done in heathen lands, should not be a member of secret conclaves, whose midnight revelings bear close resemblance to the mysteries of a heathen temple. He in brief, who labors for the reformation of the world, should reform his own heart and life. " Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." Mission of the Free Presbyterian Church. The mission of every true church is two-fold. First, gen- eral; second, special or particular. The general mission of every true church is to "go into all the world, and preach REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 57 the gospel to every creature." To be "the salt of the earth " and " the light of the world : " To lift up Christ in her teachings and in the holy lives of her members, that all men will be drawn unto him ; attracted irresistibly by the moral power and surpassing beauty of his character, as they are exhibited and exemplified in his Church. The special mission of any particular church grows out of the peculiar circumstances in which she is placed ; and con- sists in the specific application of the gospel to the most prevalent sins and the most pressing wants of the age and nation in which she exists. The Church is God's witness for truth, and against wrong ; and her particular duty in any age is to witness against the most common and popular iniquities, and in behalf of the truths that are the most despised and re- jected in the age in which she lives. It is of the duty of our church in this last respect that we wish now to speak. The great want of the present age must be obvious to the most casual observer. It is a living practical faith in the religion of Christ, as the power that is to reform the world and govern the entire life and actions of men. Christianity as professed and practiced by the mass of nominal Christen- dom, is an abstraction. It is something to be worn as a Sab- bath garment, and thrown aside during the rest of the week. The idea that it contains a system of laws for the govern- ment of the whole life, has become almost obsolete. The consequence is that the Church, failing to embody and ex- emplify the religion of Christ, in this direction, has lost, to a great extent, her power to restrain men from sin, and to impress upon their hearts the constraining and converting power of the gospel. As the most prevalent sin of our age and nation we do not name slavery, or drunkenness, or licentiousness, or any one particular practice, but that which lies at the foundation of them all — practical Atheism. These various developmtjuts of depravity are only the working out of this radical sin of the human heart. The man who makes merchandize of God's image, or de- bases his own soul and body by the indulgence of low and sinful propensities, has lost a sense of God's presence, and of his government of the world. The Apostle names, as the cause of all the hideous crimes and abominations of the heathen of his day, the fact that "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge; " and the Prophet says of the most abandoned sinners of his age, that 6 58 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF they said in their hearts : " The Lord ■will not do good, neither will he do evil." The mission of ours, as of every true church, is, therefore, to bear a practical testimony against this prevalent Atheism, and against the wide-spread and abounding iniquities to which it gives rise. This can best be done by exhibiting in her teachings and in the lives of her members the doctrine of God's special government of the world ; and by manifesting in all their actions a sense of the divine presence, and of the constraining power of a belief in the supremacy of his law and kingdom. Let the world see by the conduct of a church that she is governed by a principle which chains every action to the throne of God, her power for good will be mighty indeed, God has wisely adapted the organization of the Church to the successful accomplishment of the great object for which he has formed her. A bond of closest union, and, consequently, an element of strength, is found in that brotherly love which is one essential trait of Christian character. In the diversity of gifts be- stowed by his Spirit, he has provided for the discharge of various and diverse duties. The teachings, sacraments, forms of worship and orders of officers, are all adapted to enforce and impress the truth, and to give it a living power in the liearts of God's people. As different forms of church order and government have been adopted, each denomination is bound to show some peculiar excellence in that which it has embraced. The propriety or impropriety of denominational divisions among the people of God is not the question. Perhaps in the present state of the world such divisions are inevitable. But while such is the case every Christian is bound to pro- fess Christ in that branch of the Church which he regards as the purest in its doctrines and practice, and which he believes to conform most fully to the Scripture model of government and order. By his connection with a particular church every man does really profess to regard it as nearest the right standard. Now the world asks and expects a practical exhibition of these peculiar excellencies which every member professes to regard as embodied in his church. These thoughts suggest an important part of the special mission of the Free Presbyterian Church. Its members have a warm and decided attachment to their own order and form REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 69 of government. They believe it to come nearest to the Scripture standard. They think it best combines that com- pact union which is essential to strength, with that individual freedom which is necessary to the full and harmonious devel- opment of Christian character. Thej hold these views in entire charity for other denominations. The very fact that they prize and love their own order, makes them tolerant to the conscientious preferences of others. But the fact of this preference to the form and order of their own church, im- poses upon them the duty of giving the world a practical exhibition of what they regard as their peculiar excellency. They ought to show to the world that Presbyterianism makes the highest style of man. They ought to show that instead of the mere badge of a party or sect, it is the fullest embodi- ment of the spirit and principles of the Christian religion; and that those who are imbued with its doctrines are thereby baptized into the spirit of universal love and benevolence, and peculiarly fitted for every good word and work. Presbyterianism has won for itself, in past yeai's, a place among the reforming powers of the earth. It has uniformly until now been found on the side of freedom and right — the fast friend of civil liberty and of the poor and oppressed. It has brought forth and matured many a heroic apostle of lib- erty, whose names the world will not willingly let die. In view of its glorious achievements in the past it is melancholy to find the Presbyterianism of this age, as embodied in the Old and New School General Assemblies, in close league with the worst tyrants with whom the world has ever been cursed. These bodies are among the firmest pillars of that stupendous system of despotism in this country, which is now running riot over the crushed liberties of the American people. They have disregarded the hallowed names and memories of the past, and done what they could to make that system, which has hitherto been identified with many a heroic struggle for civil and religious freedom, the synonym of oppression and infamy. In view of these facts it is a part of the mission of the Free Presbyterian Church to rescue the name it bears from the foul disgrace of being reckoned the handmaid of op- pression. Let her voice be heard in all her pulpits in stern reprobation of the recent outrage perpetrated by Congress, and of the other schemes of the propagandists of slavery. Let her testimony against this giant iniquity be rendered still more pointed and emphatic. Let her speak through pulpit, 60 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF press and ballot box to our godless rulers in such tones of rebuke and warning as John Knox was wont to utter in the ears of kings. Above all, let the lives of all her ministers and members be living epistles in which the world shall read lessons of the living power of Christianity in controlling all the actions and relations of life. In fulfilling this mission it is pleasant to expect the coop- eration of the other branches of the Presbyterian family that occupy the same ground on the great moral questions of the age. Let our church consecrate herself to this great work. Let her, by faithful believing prayer, secure the influences of the Holy Spirit ; and she will accomplish a work that will glorify God and bless the world. What Can I do to Bring the World to God. You can do much. First and chiefly, you can give your- self to God if you have not done so already. The world of mankind is made up of individuals. You are one of the separate human beings who, taken in the aggregate, consti- tute the world of men and women. If each one will give himself to Christ the work will be done. The reign of peace and love will begin. The Saviour will see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. The hosanna of the world redeemed will roll round the earth. And this is the work which every one must do for himself You alone, his grace enabling you, can consecrate your own soul to Christ. You must repent, believe, love and obey for yourself No one else can do this for you ; no man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him. But if you have already given yourself to God, you can, as the first step toward bringing others to him, renew the con- secration. You can make it more complete and unreserved. In looking over your course since you first tasted that the Lord is gracious, you can see, doubtless, that in many things you have come short. The world has sometimes divided your heart with God. Satan and the flesh have sometimes got the better of you. Often, perhaps, you feel that you have been very far from doing what you ought and might have done to bring sinners to the Saviour. Repent, therefore, and do your first works. Come again to the fountain, wash and be clean. Seek a fresh baptism into the very spirit and temper of Jesus. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. ~ 61 Do this, and you will be ready in the second place to set such an example before sinners as will bring them to Christ. A pure example is the mightiest agency in drawing men to Jesus. This, by Grod's grace, you can set before the world. You can show by a life of unsullied integrity, of earnest practical benevolence, and of holy christian love, how pure and blessed is that gospel that brings forth such fruits. You can be a living epistle wherein all who see you may read how rightous, holy, loving and pure is the faith of Christ. Doubt not that if your own life is true to the Saviour, you will be the means of drawing others to him. In the third place you can speak a word of warning and in- vitation to this and to that impenitent sinner whom you meet in your daily walks. You will meet some who expect this of you. Their consciences have been pierced with the arrows of truth. They are weary and heavy laden with sin. They long to come to Jesus for rest. But they tremble and shrink, and fear to come. A word of kindly encouragement is just what they need to bring them to the foot of the cross. That word you can speak. If you have no words of your own you can repeat the ineffably tender and beautiful words of Jesus : " Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But some sinners you fear will scorn your words of warn- ing and entreaty. Then for them, and for all, you can wrestle with God in prayer. His grace which was sufficient to humble a Saul of Tarsus and save a dying thief, can sub- due the hardest heart. That grace is bestowed in answer to prayer, and the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man availeth much. Dear reader, will you begin to work for God? The sands of life are running out. The shadows lengthen upon the plain, and ere long your sun of existence will set. If you would have its setting cloudless and serene, then be diligent for God. Work while the day lasts, for the night cometh in which no man can work. What is Necessary to the Efficiency of the Church, IN Doing Good ? This is an important question. The Church is God's in- strumentality for the salvation of the world. It is the salt of 62 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF the earth, and the light of the world. It is therefore of the highest importance to know what is essential to the efficiency of the Church in the great work to which she is appointed, and how her moral power may be increased to the utmost. It is a common answer to this question to say that the effi- ciency of the Church depends on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. This reply is true, but it is not sufficient. God pours out his Spirit in accordance with fixed and certain laws ; and ihe Church must be in the right position to receive the divine influence. God is always ready to pour down his Holy Spirit. Men are not straitened in him, but in them- selves. But only when his Church comes up to her duty, and is prepared to receive the divine influence, can he con- sistently bestow it. The practical view of the question then, is in the light of human agency. If the Church does her part, she need never doubt that God will do his. So far, then, as human instru- mentality is concerned, the two essentials of an efficient church are a faithful ministry and a devoted membership. By a faithful ministry, we mean a ministry that will preach the whole truth of God, and that will exemplify it in their lives. Every word of God is pure. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for re- proof, for instruction in righteousness. To preach God's word is the business of the ministry. To this they are set apart as their peculiar calling. And they are bound to de- clare the whole counsel of God ; to preach all the truth. God knows what truth the world needs, and the fact that he has revealed a truth, is an all-sufficient reason why his mes- sengers should proclaim it to the world. To suppress any part of divine revelation, is to set up our judgment in oppo- sition to Jehovah's. To hold back any portion of revealed truth, for fear of ofiending the prejudices of men, is to prove faithless to our trust. The fact that truth is unpalatable, is the strongest reason why it should be faithfully proclaimed, because it is proof positive that men are living in violation of its claims. But for God's ambassadors to withhold the truth for that reason, is necessarily off'ensive to God, and is an abundant reason why they should not expect his blessing on their labors. The whole truth of God is needed to make a symmetrical and healthy Christian, just as a whole diet is needed to make a vigorous body. Unless all the elements of nutrition which enter into the composition of the human body, are supplied REV. JOSEPH GORDON.- 63 in the diet of the child, its growth will be distorted, and its body will be imperfect. So unless the whole truth of God, which is necessary to form a whole Christian, is supplied as the spiritual diet of the convert, he can not grow up to the stature of a perfect man in Christ. But it is not enough for the ministry merely to preach the whole truth. They must feel its quickening power in their own souls, and exemplify it in their lives. They must them- selves practice the duties they enjoin on others. They must shun the sins they condemn ; and walk in the path they point out to others. When they inculcate the duty of benevolence, they must themselves set the example of giving as God has prospered them ; and when they teacii self-denial, they must take up the cross. It will avail but little to preach the whole truth of God, if the life of the preacher does not exhibit its constraining and sanctifying power. A devoted membership is not less essential to the efficiency of the Church, than a faithful ministry. It will be in vain that ministers will preach and pray, if the members are cold and lifeless. The Church stands between the ministry and the unconverted. They will either receive, intensity and re- flect upon the world the rays of light and heat which emanate from the pulpit, or they will absorb and quench them. The Church will be either a wall of fire to throw the intense brightness of God's truth over the world, or it will be a mountain of ice to absorb its heat, and yet will itself derive no warmth therefrom. Every Christian should be a missionary ; should feel that he has a mission to fulfill in the service of the Saviour. It may be a mission to a foreign land, but it is, in a majority of eases, to the neglected and impenitent around his own door. That mission, no matter who are its objects, is to make known in word and action the truths of Christianity. It is by this influence as much as any other, that the gospel advances in the world. It is compared to leaven, which works quietly and unseen, but actively and mightily, till the whole mass is per- vaded by its influence. This figure represents the silent but mighty power of Christian principle, as put forth in the faith- ful labors and holy lives of Christians. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation or outward show. It is not in noisy, ostentatious, spasmodic efi"orts, that God requires his people to expend their strength, but in the calm, constant, un- tiring exhibition of a godly example, and in the putting forth G4 LIFE AND WRITINUS OF of daily exertions to do good, though they may be but humble. Flora all this it follows that the efficiency of the Church de- pends greatly on each member individually devoting himself soul and body to the work of the Lord. If members of the Church feel that all direct eff'orts for the conversion of the world should be confined to the ministers, and officers of the Church, that they are hired by the congregation to do this work, and that private members do their whole duty when they employ a minister for this purpose, the cause of God can not prosper. Men can not serve God in this respect by prosy. They can not hire others to speak to the impenitent the words which they ought to speak themselves, and to set the holy example before them which they themselves are bound to exhibit. The gift of God can not be purchased with money. As each one must give account of himself to God, so each one will be held responsible for all the good that God has put it into his power to do, individually, When the Church of God is composed of sucih members; when each one sets himself to cultivute his own part of the vineyard, and then all come together with one heart for the common and united eff'orts which the whole Church puts forth, the world will witness such triumphs of the gospel as have been but ijirely exhibited in the past. Have Faith in God, There are moments when the spirit of the Christian grows weary of the burdens of life. Many causes there may be-for this. Sometimes, perhaps, he may find an old sinful appetite, with which he had long struggled, and which he had thought was finally subdued, start suddenly into life under the power of strong temptation. He feels, consequently, discouraged. The battle with his besetting sin is to be fought over again. The ground which he thought firm beneath him, sud- denly trembles and grows unsteady. The weary work is all to do over. Harder than he had thought, is the duty of self- conquest and self-control. His spirit sinks within him at the thought of past failure and of future conflict; and not strange is it if, in his despondency, he is led to doubt the reality of his convert-ion. Can it be, he asks himself, that a really re- newed heart can contain so much latent corruption ? Can REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 65 the Holy Spirit have ever made that heart his temple, where so much depravity still lurks? Has he not deceived himself? Is not hia hope vain ? And will it not prove, in the end, as " the spider's web, or the givinpj up of the ghost?" Something like this is, doubtless, at some period of their course, the experience of many Christians. At such times how appropriate to their case the exhortation of Christ to his disciples : " Have faith in God." Has God ever revealed himself to the Christian's soul as the God of mercy and sal- vation ? Then will he not leave his work undone. He has promised that he will never leave nor forsake them ; that he will perfect that which concerns them ; aid that he will final- ly bring them oflfmore than conquerors through him that hath loved them. When by the power of a living faith these promises are fully received and rested on by the believer, the burden of despondency rolls ofi", and he feels his heart grow strong for fresh and more determiued battle with his remain- ing corruption. " This the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Another source of despondency to the Christian may be in the slow progress made in the conversion and reformation of the world, and in the apparent hoplessness of the work of finally bringing the whole race under the controlling power of the gospel of love and peace. In the fervor of first love, the Christian consecrates himself to this work. He feels the glow of gratitude to his Saviour in his heart. The Lord Jesus Christ has been revealed to him as '-the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." His heart burns within him to tell to others of the love of his Saviour, and urge them to come to him for life. He imagines that that which is so sweet and lovely to himself needs only to be presented to others to be joyfully embraced. Then the vision of a king- dom of justice, and purity, and love, and peace, and universal brotherhood, as revealed in prophesy, is so wondrously and surpassingly beautiful to his soul, that he thinks it need only be preached to the world, and men will crowd into it at the first invitation. With these thoughts and hopes glowing in his heart, he goes to his work. But he soon meets with bit- ter disappointment. He finds, as did the meek compeer of Luther, that the '' old Adam is too strong for the young 3Ielancthon ;" that men have hearts that are by nature en-- mity to God ; hearts deceitful above all things, and desperate- ly wicked. The truth he proclaims, instead of being joyfully accepted, is scornfully rejected. The pride of the human ^6 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF heart spurns the humbling terms of the gospel. From ha- tred of the truth the transition is easy to hatred of him who urges it on their acceptance, and he finds himself the object of the fierce opposition of men whom he seeks to bless, and whom he expected to hail him as a messenger of good tidings of great joy. Disappointed, surprised, and grieved, how natural is it for the heart of the Christian to despond and grow weary in these circumstances ! When he first fully realizes the depth and strength of man's enmity to God ; and then looks out on the world and sees how crime and woe and sorrow walk the earth on their mission of death, his heart sinks within him. He is ready to ask in the spirit of incipient un- belief, " Can these dry bones live ? Can this world be re- deemed ? is the gospel of Christ adequate to the mighty work ? Why does not Christ come and bring light out of this darkness, and order out of this confusion ? And where is the promise of his coming?" Here, again, is the time for the work of faith. Only by its living power can the soul thus cast down continue to hope in God. But it is adequate to its work. The weary soul of the Christian turns to his Father's Word, and reads promises like this : " They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." He knows that the waters cover all the sea; and faith in prophesy assures him that thus shall the knowledge and peace of God cover all the earth. He reads again that Christ shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth ; that the heathen shall be given to him for an inheritance, and the ut- termost parts of the earth for a possession. And all over the Holy Book he finds promises like these glowing and flashing on every page. " By faith he realizes that all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ ; the burden is lifted from his heart ; the weary spirit grows strong in faith, and nerves itself for new efi"orts in the glorious work of persuading men to be reconciled to God." Thus in all scenes of weariness and discouragement, faith is the anchor of the soul. It brings near the promises of God. It lifts the soul out of the darkness of the present, and per- mits it to look onward and upward to the time when the clouds that now lower over the earth, black with crime and sorrow, shall be dispelled, and the earth shall bask in the sun- light of God's peace and love. Ever appropriate to the Christian worker is the exhortation : " Have faith in God." rev. joseph gordon. 67 "Stingy Christians." There are none such. It is as great a contradiction of terms as to talk of an honest thief. But there are stingy pro- fessors of religion in most churches. One mark of these men is their ingenuity in contriving excuses for not giving to the cause of Christ. Ask them for a missionary contribution, and if they have heard of the slightest error in the manage- naent of the particular society to which they are asked to give, they triumphantly parade that as an all-sufficient excuse, for- getting that all human instrumentalities are imperfect. If they have not that excuse they will talk perhaps of their great sacrifices to support the gospel at home. — Ask them for a contri- bution to the cause of Christian education, and they will tell you of a donation they made years ago to some institution of learning, which was not managed exactly to suit their notions. They will not be cheated again. Ask them for money to send the Bible to the poor, or to print religious books or tracts, and they will tell you that the aifairs of the publishing society are not managed economically. This or that officer gets too much salary, and they will not give their precious dimes to be squandered in that style. Ask them to take a religious newspaper, and they have more papers now than they can read. Their stock of newspaper reading probably consists of one or two dollar weeklies, filled with moral poi- son, for the ruin of their children. The simple truth in regard to these professors of religion is that they love their money more than they love their Sa- viour. Their excuses are mere pretense. They may cheat their own consciences with them, but they deceive nobody else. The true Christian loves to give to the cause of Christ. He feels it to be a 2?rivilege to give. He regards himself merely as a steward of the property God has given him ; and his experience is that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Power op Prayer. The Bible tells us that "the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." A simple history of what it has accomplished will be the best commentary on this text, as the narrative of the apostle, in the 11th Chapter of He- brews, is the best possible illustration of the nature and pow- 68 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF er of faith. The history of the achievements of prayer is a record of wonders. Abraham prayed, and in answer the destruction of Sodom was suspended on the contingency of finding ten righteous men among all its inhabitants. The servant of Abraham prayed, and the appointed wife of his master's son comes forth in accordance with his request. Jacob wrestled with the An- gel of the Covenant in prayer, and the fierce heart of his brother melts. The hoarded enmity of years, with all its dark purposes of revenge, is subdued; and he who had come forth with his men of war to imbrue his hands in his broth- er's blood, falls on his neck and weeps the gentle tears of for- giveness and love. Moses cried to God, and the east wind drove back the waves of the Red Sea, and piled them up as a wall to guide the chosen people over. In the wilderness he prayed, and the waters of Marah were healed and became sweet to the taste. When, on another occasion, his hands were raised in supplication, the hosts of Amalek were scattered in battle; but when they sank the armies of Israel were spoiled. The parents of Sampson prayed, and the Angel of the Covenant came back to their sight, and kindled the miraculous fire that consumed their accepted sacrifice. The mother of Samuel prayed, and the prophet child is given, a precious boon from heaven. " Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit." The same prophet prayed, and the dead child of the widow of Zaraphath was restored to life. Again he prayed on Mt. Carmel, and the fire fell from the sky and consumed the sacrifice, to the confusion of the wor- shipers of Baal. When the king of Israel sent forth a com- pany to seize the prophet Elisha, and the heart of his servant was aiFrighted, the prophet prayed and the eyes of the young man were opened, and he saw the mountain covered with chariots of fire. Again he prayed, and the Syrians were smitten with blindness, and led helpless captives into Samaria. He prayed again, and the son of the Shunaraite was restored to life, and delivered into the arms of his mother. Hezekiah prayed, and the Angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians " a hundred four- score and five thousand, and when they arose in the morning REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 69 they were all dead corpses." Again he prayed, and the Lord added fifteen years to his life, and as a sign of his recovery caused the shadow to go back ten degrees in the dial of Ahaz. Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple, and fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifices, and the visible glory of the Lord filled the house. Nehemiah prayed, and the heart of King Ahasuerus was moved to send him back to repair the city of his fathers ; and to give him letters of recommendation to the governors beyond the rivers to aid him in the work. Again he prayed, and the counsels of the enemies of Israel were brought to confusion, the walls of Je- rusalem were rebuilt, and much of the ancient glory of the city restored. Passing from the Old to the New Testament, and the nar- rative of wonders is continued. In answer to prayer addressed to the Saviour, when person- ally on earth, the lame walked, the deaf heard, and the blind received their sight, the lepers were cleansed, devils were cast out, and the dead were restored to life. The disciples " con- tinued with one accord in prayer and supplication," after the ascension of Christ, and in answer the Spirit came down as a mighty rushing wind, on the day of Pentecost, "cloven tongues as of fire " were given to the apostles, and three thousand souls were converted to God. Saul of Tarsus pray- ed in his blindness, and the messenger is sent to him at whose coming the scales fell from his eyes, and he received the Holy Grhost. Cornelius, the centurion, prayed, and the an- gel of G-od appeared to show him the means of procuring in- struction in the gospel of salvation. Peter prayed, and the heavens were opened, and the vision which showed that to the Gentile as well as to the Jew the gospel was to be preached, was presented to his view. When the same apostle was cast into prison by Herod, prayer was made for him with- out ceasing by the Church, and the angel of the Lord opens the door of his prison, strikes off his chains and sets him at liberty. Paul and Silas prayed in the dungeon of Phillippi, and the heaving of the earthquake opened the doors of the prison, the keeper was converted and set them free. Paul prayed, and. the ship in which he sailed to Rome was saved from the violence of the tempest. Again he prayed, and the father of Publius and many others were healed of their dis- eases, and the word of God was greatly spread abroad. "And what shall we say more? for the time would fail to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Sampson, and of Jephtha, and 70 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF of David also, and of Samuel and the prophets. Who through j:)rof?/er (as well as faith) subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Here, then, is the Christian's strength and hope. When darkness gathers over his own soul and shuts out the light of the Divine love ; or when moral gloom overspreads the earth, the ways of Zion languish, oppression and war and violence and every wrong riot in scenes of guilt and suffering, let him kneel at the mercy -seat and pray; and he whose arm controls the winds and waves, and moves the stars in their courses, has promised to hear and answer. "Prayer moves the arm that moves the world." And the record of God's faithfulness in answering it in all past time, should encourage his children '•to draw near to him that they may find grace and mercy to help in every time of need." Peace with God. Peace is thirsted after by the human heart. Amid all scenes of strife and turmoil, a dream of rest and quiet, when those scenes shall have passed away is most fondly cherished. The man of business, in the feverish toil of the counting- room and the mad chase for wealth, consoles himself with thoughts of the quiet country residence. The statesman, riding on the angry waves of political strife, looks forward with keen delight to the time, when having gained the eleva- tion he seeks, he shall be permitted to wear his laurels in peace. The sailor on the stormy ocean, the soldier in the din of battle, cherish fond visions of a return to the quiet cottage by the hill-side ; and of exchanging the roar of the strife that rages round them, for the murmur of the rivulet, whose gentle music soothed the slumbers of their childhood. But the peace which the soul needs to meet and satisfy this ardent longing, is one which the earth can not impart. A voice to still the inner strife which sin rouses in the heart, and to point the way of peaceful reconciliation with an offended God is what the soul demands; and that voice speaks in accents of melting tenderness in the gospel of Jesus, " Come iinto me. all ye fhat hhor and are heavy lacfen.^ REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 71 and 1 loill give you rest.'' " Peace I leave icith yoii^ my i^eace I give unto you ; not as the world giveth give I iinto you: let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." " There- fore, being justified by faith, ive have peace with God." In language such as this is this blessing described. The invitation to seek this peace implies that man is now at en- mity with Grod. This is the necessary result of sin. Sin is a violation of the divine law, and the man who does this pro- claims himself God's enemy. The man who violates the laws of the State in which he lives, by that act, both makes and declares himself the enemy of the State. His crime is a declaration of war against the government. It is setting its authority at defiance, and declaring its laws unworthy of re- spect and obedience. Just so sin, which is breaking Grod's law is a declaration of war against the Almighty. It is an open repudiation of his dominion and government, and, therefore, the highest treason in the universe. It is no arbitrary proceeding on the part of Deity that makes him the enemy of the sinner. It is the transgressor's own act. The law he breaks is based on infinite justice and goodness. His own happiness can be secured only by ob- serving it. The breach of it is an open declaration on his part of his hostility to Grod, not of God's to him. It is a necessity, therefore, of his own choosing, that God shall be his enemy. The gospel reveals a plan for the pardon of the past offenses of the sinner, and provides the means of changing his disposition, so that he shall no longer take pleasure in sin. The result of an interest in this plan is peace with God. The transgressor becomes a dutiful, obedient child of God. The smile of his heavenly Father rests upon him, and he finds an unspeakable peace in keeping his commandments. " Great peace have they that keep thy law, and nothing shall offend them." The results of this reconciliation are, first, peace among all the powers of the soul. Man, as a sinner, is not only at war with his Maker, but at war with himself. The passions war with the judgment; the appetites with the conscience; the claims of truth and duty and God with the selfish and sensual desires of the soul. Love and hatred, hope and fear, forgiveness and revenge, all struggle for the mastery. But, by the voice of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration, all this wild tumult is stilled. The angry waves are hushed to peace. The mental and moral powers assume their right- 72 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ful supremacy over the merely animal part of man's nature. The soul becomes as a well regulated machine, all parts of which work in beautiful harmony — as a happy family, every movement of which is in unison and love. 2. A second result of this reconciliation is a peaceful sub- mission to all the afflictive dispensations of providence. The soul, at peace with God, looks up, by the eye of faith, and sees his heavenly Father seated on the throne of the universe. All the events of life are referred at once to his disposing hand. Afflictions are felt to come in the order, and as part of his wise designs. They are even hailed with joy as tokens of a father's love ; for the child of God reads in the book of inspiration, " Whom the Lord loveth He chastenefh, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." He sees in these trials a necessary part of his discipline. He " glories in tribulation, also ; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope niaketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart." 3. A third effect of peace with God, through the gospel of his Son, is a greatly enhanced pleasure in prosperity. The soul at one with God is at peace with all around it except sin. It looks abroad on nature, and sees the perfect smile of God in the sunlight, on hill-top and valley. The sparrow preaches to it of his tender care ; the flower of his love for the beau- tiful. The rock-piled mountain and the roaring cataract are tokens of that almighty power which is pledged for his own salvation. The streams of domestic love are sweetened. Parental, conjugal and filial affection flow on in deeper and holier channels. The full cup of blessings causes the fuller heart to go up in ascriptions of boundless gratitude. The heart whispers to itself in accents soft as the quiet murmurs of the gentle stream, " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters." " Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." 4. A fourth result of the peace the gospel imparts, is a calm and heavenly triumph in death. The soul hears the voice of its beloved, saying to the waves of death's dark river, "Peace, be still." When the eye grows dim, and the curdling life-blood trembles faintly along the quivering chan- nels, a tide of immortal vigor is poured through all the powers of the soiil. It bursts like the chrysalis from its REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 73 shell, and floats away through the new element of its exist- ence, lit up with glorj' from the opening heaven. In the parting hour the voice of promise sounds in his ear with words of blessing: "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, yea, from henceforth, saith the Spirit ; that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." " And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." Christian Integrity. The design of the Christian religion is two-fold. First, to save the souls of men ; second, to reform the world. It is in- tended and adapted not only to save believers from hell, but also to make them pure, and honest, and benevolent in life. The last mentioned of its effects is the first which it pro- duces. It makes men upright, just and good, and afterward takes them to heaven. The one result is both the evidence and surety of the other. It is by transforming human char- acter that Christianity evidences, in a great degree, its power to save from future punishment. It follows that none but those who are ti'cm^formad will be saved by the gospel. An impure, selfish or dishonest Christian is as great a contradic- tion in terms as an honest thief, or a reverent blasphemer. Purity, benevolence and honesty are essential elements of Christian character. If any one of these elements of char- acter is manifestly wanting, it is an evidence of the want of all ; for " he that offends in one point is guilty of all." Overwhelming evidence of the spurious character of " the current religion of the country" is found in the w^ant of strict integrity among professing Christians. Many of the prevailing maxims of trade are palpable violations of that hon- esty enjoined by the Christian religion. Let us look at some of these. 1. It is considered a fair rule in business to "buy cheap and sell dear." In both particulars this rule is grossly dis- honest. To buy cheap is to buy for less than the real value of the article ; to sell dear is to sell for more than its true value ; because if articles are bought and sold for their real worth, they are neither cheap nor dear. Now, no Christian will habitually trade on any other principle. His simple rule will be, both in buying and selling, to give and receive the 74 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF real value of the articles bought and sold. He may honestly, if he chooses to be generous, pay more for articles bought than their real worth, but never will he knowingly take them from others for less. Yet to such an extent is this rule of simple justice violated, that a professor of religion who should rigidly adhere to it, would be a marked exception. He would be set down at once as fanatical, impracticable, " righteous over much," etc. Excuses for this want of strict integrity, as for any other vice, are never wanting. Sometimes the plea is urged that the seller parts with his wares voluntarily, and hence no in- justice is done to him. If this were true, which in the vast majority of cases is not, it is no excuse to the buyer. That state of mind which induces a man to offer less than what he knows to be the full value of an article, is itself dishonest. It shows a covetous desire for what belongs to his neighbor, for the value of the article over the offered price is honestly his neighbor's. But the excuse in most cases rests on false- hood. There are often circumstances surrounding the seller which amount to a virtual compulsion. Ignorance of the market price (known to the buyer) often induces him to take less than value. Combinations among merchants often ena- ble them to carry into effect the motto, " Buy cheap and sell dear." Necessity again often forces the poor to part with the products of their hard labor without an equivalent. There are many other ways (known to the initiated') of taking the advantage in a bargain. In business transactions, conducted on such principles, the truth of all parties suifers quite as much as their honesty. This introduces a second practice as dishonest as the first. 2. It is very common among professing Christians, as well as others, to violate the truth both in praising their own wares and depreciating those they wish to buy. Graphically does the prophet describe this : •' It is nought, it is nought, saith the buyer, and straightway he goeth his way and boast- eth." The simple rule for the Christian is to tell " the whole truth and nothing but the truth " in his business trans- actions. He should tell the imperfections as well as the virtues of his wares. He will " nought exaggerate," either in setting forth the superiority of what he wishes to sell, or de- preciating what he designs to purchase. He will in this, as in other things, act in the spirit of the golden rule : what he wishes others to do to him in business transactions he will try to do to them. Every one feels, when he is himself the REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 75 sufferer, the injustice, not only of false representations, but of witliholding part of the truth, and of thus deceiving by silence as well as by words. 3. A third and perhaps the worst indication of the want of strict integrity among professors of religion, is found in the habitual disregard of their promises. The promise of a pro- fessor of religion is considered generally as worth no more than the promise of any moral man. Men will no more trust a man because a professor of religion, without bond and secu- rity, than they will many others. Now, this fact is a stand- ing reproach to religion. The word of every truly consistent Christian is as good as his bond. So the world regards it. There have been men, and some are now living, whose sim- ple promise the men of the world consider the most ample security. Thousands of dollars will be entrusted to them with nothing but their simple promise as pledge of its return ; and those who know them well feel that it is as safe (if they are not utterly deprived of ability to refund) as if a whole community were legally responsible for the amount. But that such is not the confidence reposed in the vast majority of professing Christians is a most notorious and most humiliating fact. What is still more disgraceful is, that when implicit confidence is reposed in any of this class, it is not, in any degree, because they are j^i'ofessors of religion, This fact, in itself, is not regarded as any security whatever. Men feel generally that they must guard as carefully against being cheated by members of the church as by any other class. They feel it as necessary to have them bound in bond and security, and as little count on their strict punctuality in fulfilling their promises, as on that of any other portion of community. The influence of these things on the honor and power of religion is most disastrous. These facts are a standing dis- credit thrown on the Church and a profession of religion. If men understand the Christian religion, they know that it in- culcates the strictest justice and honesty in business, and the most scrupulous regard for truth. When they see its pro- fessors habitually violating these principles, they set them down as hypocrites, and make their delinquencies an excuse for their own neglect of the claims of Christianity. If men do not understand the Christian religion, they naturally load it with the evil doings of its professors — imagine that their religion has made them dishonest and false. In either case the effect is ruinous and melancholy. Thousands stumble 70 LIFE AND WRITINGS OP into ruin over the example of these faithless professors of re- ligion. They daily " crucify afresh " the Saviour they pre- tend to love, and " put him to an open shame." The Religion of Principle. The form and shape of the religious principle in man is very much diversified — as diversified as the influences by which it is developed. It sometimes takes the type of mere formality — observes days and times, and forms and ceremo- nies, with scrupulous exactness. In this it consists, and hence exerts no controlling power over the life and conduct. It is, therefore, no uncommon thing to find the most scrupu- lous formalist, the most dishonest man. It is not at all un- usual to find men who would be shocked at the thought of breaking the Sabbath, who can cheat a fellow-man without any compunction. The religion of mere formality is, there- fore, worthless. Another form of religious development is that of mere feeling. This type of religion is spasmodic. The person under its influence, makes religion consist in excited feeling — in ecstacies and excitements of the emotions. It is, there- fore, periodical in its exercises. It manifests itself at irregu- lar intervals, and usually leaves its possessor under the con- trolling power of worldly motives and feelings during these periods. Hence it is not generally the case that those whose piety all consists in mere feeling, exhibit a high regard for justice and strict integrity in the conduct of life. The religion the Bible inculcates, is the religion of princi- ple. It does not exclude forms or feelings, but controls them, and makes them subservient to the claims of duty, which with it are paramount. Its essence is doing right — doing the will of God from the heart. This is declared to be the condition of admission to God's kingdom. " For not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." The soul under the power of this living principle regards the revealed will of God as the expression of eternal righteousness. To conform its own desires and feelings and actions to that revelation is, therefore, its highest aim. Re- ligion is with the man of principle u practical reality, con- trolling his daily actions and all his intercourse with his fel- REV. JOSEPH GOKDOX. 77 low-men. His piety may not, and usually does not, rise into ecstacy or sink to corresponding depression ; but with calm, steady current, moves on in the regular channels of useful- ness and duty. There is always deep feeling in the religion of principle. It is not, however, the fitful outburst of transient excitement, but a calm, deep under-current of love to God and man. This, indeed, supplies the motive and energy to the true re- ligious principle, for while that is a principle of faith, yet " faith works by love." The affections and feelings are chas- tened and made subservient, and not superior to the obliga- tions of conscience and duty. The habitual conviction of the man of religious principle is, that duty must be done. If his feelings and desires stand in the way of duty, they must be crucified ; but his constant desire is so to discipline these, that they may work in harmony with the claims of right and duty. ''Ambassadors for Christ." Ministers of the gospel are ambassadors for Christ. They are sent to propose to men God's terms of reconciliation, and to urge their acceptance. " Now then," says Paul, "we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us ; we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God." Several important truths are brought to light in this figure : 1. In the first place, ministers are not to preach their own words, or to propose their own terms of pardon to sinners. An ambassador sent to negotiate a peace between parties at war receives fixed and definite instructions. His fidelity con- sists in adhering strictly to these instructions. He may neither change nor abate one jot or tittle of them all. His mission is confined to the simple duty of stating the terms of peace, proposed by the party from which he receives his com- mission, and of urging their acceptance. Especially is this the case when the guilt and wrong of the quarrel are all on one side. It is then the exclusive prerogative of the other party to dictate the conditions of peace. Still more is this the case when subjects are in unnatural and guilty rebellion against their lawful ruler ; when creatures are in revolt against their Maker; when children are in wicked mutiny against a kind and good Father. Proposals and terms of reconciliation can then come only from the latter ; and His ambassadors are 78 LIFE AND AYRITINGS OF doubly bound to adhere with strictest fidelity to the very letter of their instructions. If they depart from theiu, they them- selves assume the attitude of rebels. Ministers of the gospel are ambassadors to make known the condition on which God, the creator and ruler of all things, proposes to be reconciled to the race of men, who are in guilty rebellion against him. It is Jehovah's exclusive pre- rogative to propose terms of peace, and it is the business of his ambassador to expound these to their fellow-transgressors, and to pursuade them to accept. If they fail to declare his whole counsel they are f^ilse to their trust, and will be held guilty of the blood of those who may perish through their unfaithfulness. 2. Another truth brought to view by this figure is, that the people are most deeply interested in having their ministers preach the whole truth. It is their interest surely to know pre- cisely the terms on which their offended Creator and Judge will pardon their guilt, and restore them to his favor. If they are deceived on this point they must be infinite and eternal losers. And it is quite possible to be deceived. There is a false peace which may be mistaken for that which is real. The evidence that God has become reconciled to the sinner, is peace of conscience, a sanctified heart and a holy life. But a seared and stupid conscience may be mistaken for a good conscience, and mere selfish morality may pass current for genuine obedience. God may be really angry with a soul that fancies itself in loving fellowship with him. The only way to guard against this fatal mistake is to examine critically the t^rms of pardon and salvation proposed in the gospel, and to examine strictly the heart and life, to see if they have been really accepted. To aid men in doing this, God has appointed a ministry as his ambassadors to declare and enforce these terras. If they are false to their mission, the people are the more likely to be deceived. From this we see the super- Vlative folly of men becoming angry with God's ambassadors for the faithful and pungent preaching of the truth. Their own eternal interests may depend on the word being thus preached. 3. Again : In the light of this subject we see that it is the duty of the people to examine for themselves the terms of re- conciliation proposed by their ministers. The instructions of God's ambassadors are not sealed. The word of God is not bound ; and God commands all men to search the Scriptures. Tho Jews of Berea were coramendGd for searching to see if REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 79 the word preached by the apostles was in accordance with the inspired oracles of God. Christians are commanded to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. They are en- joined not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits whether they be of God. All these and many other injunctions in the Bible are totally inconsistent with a blind and unques- tioning reception of the teachings of the ministers of the gospel. Men are bound to receive those teachings with all submission so far as they are true. But they are also bound to bring them to the test of the inspired word of God, and to see if they are true before they receive them. And this, all true ambassadors of God desire. The true minister of the gospel desires to preach nothing but the truth. He feels the solemn responsibility that rests upon him as a watchman, at whose hands the blood of the wicked will be required, if he fails to warn them of their danger. Hence he desires that those to whom he preaches should use the faculties of their minds in investigating the word of God, that by their labors in this behalf, thus united with his own, they may all come to a more perfect understanding of the lively oracles. He de- sires this also because those who thus examine for themselves are thus prepared to receive his message with a more ready mind. And from the nature of the case, this is the duty of all who have access to the word of God. While the unfaith- ful ambassadors will have a fearful account to render for themselves, they can not answer at the judgment for those whom they have led astray. The soul that perishes through their unfaithfulness will bear its own iniquity. For this reason should men examine for themselves, with most scrupu- lous care into the terms of their acceptance with God. Duty of the Christian Minister. The chief duty of christian ministers is not to battle the dead heresies of the past age, or the obsolete sins of a by- gone generation. Neither are they to spend their strength in proving points, on which their hearers are already con- vinced, or in dealing out abstractions having no special bear- ing on their immediate duties. The preacher of the gospel sees before him a congregation of dying men and women, each having a mighty work to do, to secure his or her personal salvation; and another work equally momentous in bringing 80 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF tlie world under the po\\^er of the truth of God. Hence his great concern is to show them, first what they must do to be saved; second, how they can best labor for God. And as sin is that which destroys the present and eternal welfare of men, and robs God of his honor, the work of the faithful preacher of the gospel brings him in direct conflict with all the sins of all his hearers. It is his duty to hold up the law of God in all the extent of its claims, and show his audience how they personally, politically, or socially violate it. As every sin is destructive of the peace of men, so every sin is the ob- ject of his reproof. But his special efforts ought to be against the prevalent, besetting sins of his hearers, as these are always the most dangerous. Every one has a favorite sin which he loves above all others, and this is the one he needs to be most warned against. This is the one most likely to ruin his soul. Now for a preacher to rebuke every crime except just those his hearers are most addicted to, is worse than for a physician to prescribe remedies for all diseases save just the one his patient is suffering with. Suppose him called to a man having one fatal disease preying upon his body, and sev- eral of less dangerous tendency. — If the physician has a rem- edy for the worst disease, and for fear of causing present pain neglects to apply it, and contents himself with prescribing for the others alone, he is simply a murderer. Just so the min- ister of the gospel who for fear of offending his hearers, neg- lects to expose and rebuke their favorite sins is guilty of the worst kind of murder — the murder of the soul. 17 Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 When I say unto the wicked thou shall surely die: and thou givst him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; but his blood will I require at thine hand. — Ezekiel 3: 17, 18. It follows from the principles laid down that the preacher of the gospel in selecting truth to be presented to his con- gregation, ought to choose that bearing most directly on their condition. It is cruel mockery of a soul which asks in the eager agony of conviction for sin, " What must I do to be saved?" to hear a labored argument to prove the doctrine of predestination or the perseverance of saints. For a preacher to spend his time in curious speculations about the origin of evil, and the way in which it was transmitted from Adam to his posterity, while he never once exposes and warns against the sins that are sending the souls of his hearers to REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 81 perdition, is " daubing with untempered mortar." To preach to the drunkard against the sin of lying, or to the liar against the sin of drunkenness, is folly. To preach to a congrega- tion of slaveholders, or those cherishing a pro-slavery spirit, of the horrors of heathenism in a foreign land, is worse than folly. To entertain these or any other class of sinners with long discussions about abstract theology, or points of doubt- ful disputation is to be a traitor to God. Practical conclusions of great importance may be derived from these principles. If a man is called to a congregation imbued with a pro-slavery spirit, and giving ecclesiastical or political support to the system, he ought at once to exhibit in all its enormity the sin of slavery, show his people how they are involved in it and urge them to repent and reform. If his hearers are living in the breach of any one commandment in particular, its solemn obligations ought to be most promi- nently held up to their view. — Such a course on the part of the ministry of this land, would redeem it from disgrace; would stop the mouth of Infidelity, and make the church "mighty to the pulling down of strong holds." " The Harvest is Past, the Summer is Ended, and we ARE NOT Saved." — Jer. viii : 20. The revolution of seasons has brought us again to that period of the year, when the imagery of this passage of holy Scripture, is most vividly appreciated. The natural harvest is past, the summer is nearly ended. The earth has yielded her increase to the hand of the reaper, and now while the in- cense of praise and the voice of thanksgiving should go up from grateful hearts, the mind may turn to study with profit the moral lessons which the occasion is designed to teach. God speaks to man in the dispensations of his providence, and the works of his hands. Each one of the seasons teaches its own lessons. When spring comes forth with its reviving breath and clothes the earth in beauty, the whole scene speaks of the goodness of God, which adorns even a sin-cursed earth with so much that tells of heaven. Winter teaches the lesson of decay and death. Summer and autumn are witnesses of the boundless love of God, in causing the earth to bring forth its fruits in rich luxuriance, that they may give "seed to the sower, and bread to the eater :" and at their close they ad- 82 LIFE Ai>-D WRITINGS OF raonish us of the importance of improving all periods of time ; they call us to consider that the seed-time and harvest of life are passing, and that if we fail to improve the precious hours, we will at last be compelled to take up the mournful wail, that "the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." The simple idea of this passage is that life is a probation, that it is rapidly passing away, and that if neglected or mis- improved, the soul will not be saved. As the husbandman who should fail to sow in spring or reap in harvest would starve in winter, so if the soul fail to sow the seed and gather the fruits of holiness, it will wail its loss when forever too late to repair it. A probation is a time for favorably affecting the future. From the present we may send an influence forward which will meet us there, and be of more value to us, than all the pains and labor it will cost us now. The actions of men are not confined in their results to the time when they are put forth. They run on into the future with an influence for good or evil, and often the most trivial actions apparently, are fraught with the most far-reaching and momentous results. It is indeed a solemn truth that the whole future of man's existence may be, and often is, fixed by a single act. There is a crisis in our histoi'y when the whole future is suspended on a single point. Many illustrations of this might be given. The moment when the youth who has been reared in habits of sobriety, is invited to drink the first glass of intoxicating liquors very of- ten decides his fate. If he yield now other and more pres- sing temptations will follow, while his power of resistance will be weakened, and his doom will in all probability be sealed. But if the first temptation be resisted and overcome, a second will come with weakened force, while the power of resistance will be proportionately increased. The first act is important as it settles a principle, and gives direction to the future life. The hour when the youth is first tempted to pilfer a few dimes from his emplpyer, under the delusive expectation of being able soon to return them, is another turning point, when the destiny for time and eternity is decided. His path in life is chosen, and his downward course, if he yield, is henceforth, without almost a miracle of grace, swift and steady. So we doubt not there is a crisis in the history of the soul when it^ destiny for eternity hangs suspended in the balance, KEV. JOSEPH GORDON. 88 and the slightest force may turn the beam toward heaven or toward hell. There are moments when the spirit of God presses the decision of the great question of accepting Christ on the terms of the gospel on the soul, until it is almost per- suaded to yield. The motives are about equally balanced. The person comes to the very door of the ark of safety, and the next decision will either land him safely within, or behold him turning his back on God and salvation. As "there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune," so there is doubtless a tide in the spiritual affairs of men, when their fortunes for the eternal world are suspended on a single act, or it may be a single thought of the heart. These are the summer and harvest moments of life. Once wasted they can never be recalled, but through eternity the lostsoul must pour the bitter but unavailing lamentation, " the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved." How is it with you, dear reader ? Are you sowing the seeds of holiness and love ? Are you wisely improving the summer and harvest seasons of life ? The time is favorable for serious reflection. Another harvest is over ; another summer is almost gone. Nature will soon wear the somber dress of autumn ; tree and flower will be stript of their beauty by win- ter's chilly winds. The notes of song will die away from woodland and meadow, and the joyous melodies of nature will be hushed and still. So man passes away — " He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down, he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not." '• We spend our years as a tale that is told." Soon those forms which glow with beauty and rejoice in their strength will be cold and still in the grave. The flowers of spring will wave above our quiet resting-places. Our probation will be closed, our destiny sealed. Shall we be then rejoicing in the presence of God with joy unspeakable and full of glory; or, shall we be wailing with the lost that " the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved?" "O Lord Revive Thy Work." Christian reader are you praying for a revival of religion? Do you earnestly desire that God's work should be revived in your own heart, and in the Church? Unless you really de- sire this you can not, of course, pray for it in earnest. True 84 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF prayer for a revival of religion always contemplates it as God's work. The prophet's prayer is, "O Lord revive thy work." There are so-called revivals which are the work of men. Re- vivals of religion are not uncommon in the Roman Catholic Church, yet few will believe that the spirit of God has any agen- cy in their production. No part of this country is more fre- quently visited with revivals than the slaveholding States, and men go from the altar of the church, where they have just pro- fessed to '-get religion," to tear the mother from her babe and sell her where she shall never see it again. Revivals followed by such fruits are the works of Satan or of men. The genuine converts of a true revival immediately set about doing the work of God. It is the Lord's work to call them into his kingdom, enlighten and regenerate their souls. The inevitable result of this is that they begin at once a life of obedience to God. And what doth the Lord require of all his own children in this world? "He hath showed thee, O man ! what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Piety toward God, and justice and benevolence to- ward men, are the great duties here required. No revival is genuine which is not productive of these results. A pretend- ed conversion which leaves the convert as selfish, worldly, and regardless of justice and benevolence as he was before, is utterly spurious. Now acceptable prayer to God for a revival of religion will have reference to these truths. All true prayer is based on an intelligent understanding of what is prayed for, and of God's promises in respect to it. Acceptable prayer is only for such blessings as God has commanded us to seek for, and has promised to grant. Hence our prayers for a revival of religion, to be heard and answered, must be for holiness of heart and life in ourselves and others. L^nless we really desire God to rule in, and reign over us, we can not praj in earnest tlie prayer, " Lord revive thy work." But will we not all strive for grace to offer that prayer in sincerity and truth? Surely, Christian brother and sister, a revival of God's work in our own souls, in the Church and the world is greatly needed. Souls are going unprepared in multitudes to the judgment-seat of Christ. — May it not be that our coldness and worldliness are in the way of the sal- vation of some of them? If needed so much, surely then a genuine revival of religion is infinitely desirable. The world is full of the works of men and of the Devil, but oh how little REV JOSEPH GORDON. 85 of the work of Grod is seen in the lives even of his professed followers. The subjects of Satan's kingdom in this world are multiplying faster than the subjects of Christ. Most of the professed cJuirchcs, even, of this land are supporting a system which makes heathen faster than all the churches of the country are converting them. Where all this must end, without a revival of God's work, it is not difficult to see. A revival of true religion is also practicable. God only awaits the prayer of faith from his people. For the outpour- ing of his spirit he will "be inquired of by the house of Israel." But he is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask, than earthly parents to give good gifts unto their children. If we ask, therefore, we shall receive, if we seek we shall find. Christ's Divinity and Atonement. Were a man to sit down for the express purpose of teach- ing the proper deity and vicarious atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, he could not employ language more explicit and precise than that of the Bible. All the names, attributes, works, and worship of God are given to Christ. He is called "the true God." He is called the "Everlasting Father," the "mighty God." The glory of "Jehovah of hosts" seen by Isaiah, as' recorded in his sixth chapter, was the glory of Christ, as is declared in John 12, 41. Christ claimed for him- self divinity with all its attributes, and was therefore properly God, or else an impostor. He repeatedly declared that he and the Father are one. He made himself equal with God by declaring that he was his son. Thus the Jews understood him, and when they charged him with blasphemy for claim- ing equality with God, instead of correcting their error, as he must in honesty have done if he were not God, he goes on to defend his claim to divinity. — Again: Christ and He alone is the son of God by generation. He is the "on7?/-begotten son." All other creatures are God's sons by creation. Now however impossible it is for us to conceive of the process of generation in the divine nature, the term yet irresistibly conveys the idea of the perfect sameness of the Son in nature, with the Father. A son by creation is inferior to the father, but a son by generation is of necessity equal to him. The son of a human father is perfect man, because begotten, so Christ, the ^'onl;!/ begotten of the Father" must be perfect God. — If this is 86 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF not so the use of this term is calculated to wholly mislead the human mind, and the Scriptures can not be received as a safe and sure revelation of truth. Based on the divinity of Christ is the doctrine of his vica- rious atonement. — This doctrine is simply that Christ obeyed the law in our place, and "died for our sins according to the Scriptures." He died that he might satisfy the truth and justice of God, and magnify his law, and thus provide pardon and life for the guilty race of man. The work of atonement consists of obedience and sacrifice. But unless Christ is God, as well as man, his obedience, and suffering unto death, could have no merit that could be imputed to others, or avail for their salvation. If he were a mere creature (though the first born of every other) he would owe perfect obedience for him- self, and therefore his obedience could not be acceptable as satisfying the claims of the law upon the guilty. As a mere creature he would hold his life from God, and would have no right to lay it down for sinners. It is not true of any crea- ture that he has "power to lay down his life and power to take it again." But Christ declared that he had this power, thereby claiming that he is Lord of life, which is not true if he be not God. The divine nature of Jesus united to the human gave infinite value to his obedience and sufferings, and also gives assurance to the convicted and anxious soul that "he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him." With this view of the teachings of the Scriptures on these points accords the experience of every truly earnest and anxious soul. They alone give peace to the deeply convicted sinner. The soul that has been brought by the Spirit of God to feel the infinite guilt of sin, feels at the same time that the blood of a mere creature can never wash that sin away. He whose spiritual eye has been opened to see the number and power of the obstacles and enemies that are opposed to his salvation, feels that none but a divine Saviour can bring him off victorious over them all. He feels that he needs a Re- deemer who is " mighty to save." From the darkness and terror of deep and pungent conviction of sin, the soul can emerge into light and peace only through faith in a divine Saviour and an infinite atonement. We have been led to these remarks by reading some extracts from a volume of sermons by Professor Huntington of Cam- bridge, Mass. The Professor has been a Unitarian, and is yet, we believe, nominally in connection with that people. He REV. JOSEPH GOBDON. 87 is a man of powerful intellect and of fine seliolarship. He is also a man of deep spiritual experience, and as such, lie finds peace only in Christ as properly and really a divine be- ing, and as making in his death a vicarious sacrifice for sin. On these points he makes the following explicit avowal of his faith. He is speaking of the Apostle Paul, and says : " Like all men since, of very deep and intense moral ex- perience, and such always find themselves interpreted and satisfied only by Paul, he came out at last upon the ground of acceptance on account of faith in Christ, and entire giving up of the soul to the free mercy of God ; the only permanent ground for Christian theology to rest upon." Equally clear and scriptural are his views of the nature and office of Christ, as the following extract will show : " There are two prevalent apprehensions of the character and office of Jesus the saviour of the world. One contemplates him as specially appointed to represent the perfection of hu- manity, meaning by humanity what we have hitherto known or conceived of the spiritual powers and possibilities in a human being. This view holds Jesus to have been a perfect man ; the completest moral example and religious genius of our race in exhibiting in his life and death the utmost that human excellence can do or be ; as showing the ultimate achievement, thus far at least, of a man's virtue, love and faith ; and as having withdrawn his personal presence and power from the world at his ascension, so that the communion of his followers is not literally a communion with him, but is only a commemorative observance for a Teacher living on earth in the past, but retired now into the heavens. " The other view regards Christ as showing forth not only a perfect humanity, but also and primarily God himself; repre- senting God to man, as well as man to himself; being God in the act and character of revealing or manifesting himself; creating and saving the world ; separate at no point from God's sover- eignty, nor knowing in his divinity, any limitation or abridg- ment from the fullness of God ; exhibiting, as in God's behalf, through a union of nature with the Father, not explicable to to us, the divine attributes ; and reconciling alienated souls by manifesting God in his flesh. According to this doctrine, he survives in his Church to this day, and will survive, not only by influence and memory, but by the presence of his person ; a distinct and everlasting person in himself, without beginning of days or end of years, the same yesterday, to- day and forever. SS LIFE AND AVRITINGS OF " The latter of the two views appears to me not only incom- parably the most benignant and precious, but to stand toward the other in the relation of truth to error ; to be charged with inestimable benefit to our religious progress ; to be liable to fewer theological perversions, and less dangerous abuses ; and to need also that it be more distinctly asserted and impressed, on our present habits of thinking, especially among the inquiring and the young." The promulgation of such views in such a quarter will pro- bably mark an era in the history of New England Unitarian - ism. The Professor will gather around him all that is vital and evangelical in that denomination. A separation of the elements will probably ensue. The one party will come out on the ground of distinct evangelism and orthodoxy. The other party, cut loose from this vitalizing element, will pro- bably gravitate to the congenial infidelity of Strauss and Parker. Samuel Lewis Died on Friday last at half past 12 o'clock, p. M., in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Although this event has been expected for a considerable time, yet the announcement falls sadly on the ear of all who knew, and consequently loved the deceased. Indeed every friend of the slave, whether person- ally acquainted with him or not, will mourn the loss of one of the truest, ablest, and noblest advocates of the cause of the poor. Every one who has ever listened to the eloquent voice of the departed, will feel a sad regret that its tones of warn- ing, entreaty, and touching pathos will be heard no more. One of the purest and bravest soldiers of the army of free- dom has fallen at a time when his services were eminently needed. But he died in the harness; and has bequeathed to his comrades in arms a name of which they may be proud, and an example which if they will faithfully emulate, will, to some extent, compensate the loss. We have not the materials nor the space for a biography of Mr. Lewis. A few points of his character, hastily sketched, are all that our limits admit of. 1. He was an eminently earnest and honest man. This high praise even those who most strongly oppose his views, freely accorded to him. No one ever listened to his voice, we presume, without being fully convinced of the deep earnest- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 89 ness of feeling, and honesty of purpose which pervaded all his words and thoughts. The sacrifices he made for the cause nearest his heart, are abundant evidence that he was actuated by an earnest and honest conviction of duty. No man stood higher in the confidence and affection of the people of the State, at the time he threw himself, soul and body, into the then unpopular anti-slavery cause. Through his valuable and persevering labors in the cause of education, he had be- come known and loved by the great mass of the people. Had he chosen the field of political preferment, there is no honor in the gift of the people which he might not have attained. But the mute appeal of the dumb and suffering slave touched his heart. His soul was fired with indignation at his wrongs, and with deep sympathy for his woes. And without " con- sulting with flesh and blood," he threw himself a living sac- rifice upon the altar of humanity. He made no reserve in the consecration, but gave mind, soul, body, influence and property freely to the holy cause. And from that time on- ward never wavered from his high purpose, amid all the obloquy, reproach and violence that were poured upon the hated advocates of the down-trodden and the poor. 2. In the second place, Mr. Lewis was a man of great energy. He was, in the true sense of the word, a self-made man. His early opportunities of education were very limited. A pioneer in Ohio, he came before the school-house opened its doors for the admission of youth. His training was his own work. Yet no one ever listened to the compact logic of his speeches, and marked his great command of the English language without feeling that he was, in the truest sense of the word, a well educated man. It was his great energy that triumphed over the difficulties and privations of his early life, and which bore him on in all his subsequent career. What his hand found to do, he did with all his might. And he lived to accomplish a great work. The common-school system of the great State of Ohio is one of his monuments ; and when the fetters shall at last be stricken from the limbs of the toiling slave, few names will be more gratefully remembered than that of Samuel Leavis. 3. He was an humble, devoted Christian. This is his chiefest praise. This at once stamps him as the noblest and highest style of man. It may be doubted whether his natu- ral earnestness, sincerity and energy of character, would have sustained him in all the trials and persecutions to which he was exposed had the power of high Christian principle been 90 LIFE AND AVPJTINQS OF wanting. But when to tliese natural traits was added the constraining power of the love of Christ, a life of noble pur- pose and of great usefulness was the certain result. There is nothing comparable to the influence of Christian principle in nerving a human soul for the endurance of trial, or the accomplishments of great ends. Amid the many allurements of the world, adapted to turn men away from the path of duty, it is the only safe and certain guide. It was to this principle, no doubt, that the subject of this notice owed most of his success. The dispensation of God's providence, which has removed him from the field, has its lessons for the living. They are called by it to watchfulness and prayer, and to renewed con- secration to the Christian work. They are taught that their entire dependence is in God, and not in an arm of flesh. And they are called to emulate the virtues of the deceased, and follow his example in so far as he followed Christ. " Ultraism." There is no term more flippantly applied than this by men of small minds to unpopular reforms. The changes are rung upon it through all the notes of the gamut. Owl-faced con- servatism, with its canting affectation of wisdom, mutters it in solemn tones, when any curtailment of hoary abuses or canonized wrongs is proposed. Pigmy politicians, whose glory is to follow their leaders and do the bidding of their party, prattle glibly of the ultraism of those who propose any higher aim in politics than power and spoils. Lilliputian divines, who live in the smiles of the titled dignitaries of the Church, use this term as their mightiest argument against those who " walk not with them " in sustaining the infalli- bility of their ecclesiastical organization. Ultraists are given over, in their charitable judgment, to the " uncovenanted mercies of God.'' This term has been applied, in times and ways innumera- ble, to the opposcrs of slavery, drunkenness. Free Masonry, war and other evils in this country. Being misunderstood, it has become a term of reproach, and has, probably, served to deter timid souls from the investigation and adoption of right principles on these subjects. It is really a term of honor. No man ever benefited his race by any great discov- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 91 ery in science or art. or by the exhibition and defense of great truths in morals and religion, without being counted an ultraist by the men of his own generation. Ultraisra, in any one's estimation, is simply getting beyond himself. The term is, therefore, entirely relative. The position which exposes any man to this charge depends entirely on the ground occu- pied by those who make it. Sad, therefore, would it be for men — sunk, as the mass of them have ever been, in ignorance and error — if no one ever got beyond them in the investiga- tion and discovery of truth. It is by raising up men to explore the paths of truth and wisdom, and announce their discoveries to the world, that God promotes the real progress of the race. But those men are, from the nature and neces- sity of their vocation, ultraists to the men of their own times, who fail to make the same advancements. And though the progress of these discoveries may be but small, yet it is still ultraism to those who make no progress at all, but who plod on, from generation to generation, in the beaten path their fathers trod before them. The history of the world furnishes an illustrious catalogue of ultraists. On it are enrolled the names of all the great and good of past ages. When Moses and Aaron " agitated " for the abolition of slavery in Egypt, their notions were thought exceedingly ultra by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. " Who is the Lord that I should obey him ? " was his in- dignant question. What new-fangled fanaticism have we here? Has not four hundred years of legislation '■'■sanctioned and sanctified " the bondage of these Hebrews? Away with such ultraism^ I will not let the people go. When the decree went forth from the King of Babylon that no petition should be asked for thirty days of any god, save of King Darius, the conduct of Daniel was exceedingly ultra. Why could not he have drawn the curtains of his window and prayed to his God in secret? Why could he not have refrained from assuming the attitude of devotion ? He could still have prayed to his God in silent ejaculations. What fanatical ultraism to expose himself to the fury of the lions that were fasting to whet their appetites for blood. When the image was set up in the plain of Dura, and the people commanded to fall down and worship, it was ultraism that kept the three young Hebrews erect. What need for them to brave the wrath of the king about so trifling a matter as falling down on their knees with the rest of the crowd ? Could they not embrace that as a time for prayer to 92 LIFE AND WRITINGS OP the Grod of heaven? Would not the intention sanctify the deed? Then what fanatical ultraism not to have the fear of the glowing furnace before their eyes. Isaiah was deemed so ultra for commanding the Jews, in the name of the Lord, to "break every yoke and let the oppressed go free," that he was sawn asunder as the only cure for fanaticism. Jeremiah was repeatedly imprisoned, and punished in other ways, for his ultraism, in denouncing woe unto him that used his neighbor's service without wages, and gave him not for his work. The Lord Jesus Christ was the very Prince of ultraists. When he denounced the Scribes and Pharisees as serpents and vipers, exposed to the damnation of hell — when he drove out the sacrilegious trafficers from the temple — when he called the Jews, who boasted of their freedom and of their descent from Abraham, the servants of sin, and the children of the Devil, his words and conduct were deemed intolerably ultra and fanatical. Not less so were some of his sayings deemed by his own disciples. When he pronounced blessings on the poor in spirit, when he exhorted to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and to have no thought for the morrow in regard to the things of this life ; and when he as- sured his followers that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven ; so ultra were these things regarded, that even his disciples exclaimed in utter astonishment, " Who, then, can be saved ! " Examples of the same character multiply upon us when we come to the history of the apostles and martyrs. What Ultraism to refuse to throw a handful of incense on the altar in the idol's temple, and to eat of the meat offered there in sacrifice? When commanded to speak no more in the name of Jesus, their declaration that they " ought to obey God rather than men," was thought then, and is now, the most ultra fanaticism. The rulers thought the "peace and har- mony " of the nation endangered by such radical doctrines. The supremacy of the laws could not be maintained if such notions should prevail; nay, the very union of the (Jewish) States would be dissolved " if men should thus set up con- science above the Constitution and laws." As with the apostles and the Saviour, so with the doctrines they taught. There are very plain and explicit precepts given in the sacred writings, which if now reduced to practice by members of any of the leading denominations of Christians, EEV. JOSEPH GORDON". 98 will expose them to the imputation of the very folly of ultra- ism. For instance, the following: "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." The world has its maxims and fashions, and the man or woman who conforms not to these, is at once set down as ultra and fanatical. Instances will suggest themselves to every mind, and need not, therefore, be specified. Another explicit command is, "I say unto you that ye shall resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also." Let this teach- ing be proclaimed now, and urged as a practical duty, and Uved out by its advocates, and at once they are denounced as impracticable ultras; as promulging principles that will over- turn all order, and all government. Again: an express command of holy writ is, "Remember those in bonds as bound with them." Let any one manifest but a tithe of the zeal for the oppressed, that he would feel if himself enslaved, and the English vocabulary is ex- hausted to stigmatize the ultraism of his conduct. The Bible is full of passages which we could quote to the same effect, but our limits do not admit it. We hold it just as impossible for men to be too earnest in the advocacy of truth, justice and right, as it is for men to be too holy in their character and conduct. That truth may be defended through wrong motives, and under the influence of bad passions, is of course true. That men may be ultra in wickedness is equally true. All sin — the least, (if there be any least) — is ultra rebellion against God. We have used the term only as it is commonly applied, in reference to the advocacy and practice of truth. That men can ever say too much, or do too much, for truth, and justice, and right, is simply impossible. — Equally impossible is it to carry out truth and righteousness too far in the practical duties of life. Death of Henry Clay. This long looked for event has at length transpired. Min- ute guns and tolling bells have proclaimed to the nation the statesman's departure. Were the nation but wise it would learn a solemn and impressive lesson in the event. That les- son however will not be learned in the fulsome adulation of political admirers, or in the wholesale panegyrics of the pul- 94 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF pit and the so-called religious press. Nothing more danger- ous to the morals of the young can issue from these sources than the indiscriminate eulogy which is habitually meted out to the worldly great, on their departure from this life. The true moral of the life and death of a man like Henry Clay is not learned in those high wrought funeral sermons and orations which hold him up as a model of every political, moral and social virtue. But in a calm contemplation of the great object of such a life, in the contrast between what it did accomplish and what it might have accomplished, and in the view of its last reckoning at the bar of eternal justice, there is a volume of rich and impressive instruction. It teaches the vanity of mere worldly ambition. What now are the honors of successful statesmanship, or the tri- umphs of his glorious powers of oratory to Henry Clay? If rescued from oblivion his name will go to posterity as one of the chief pillars of the worst system of wrong and oppression that ever cursed the earth. Often in the day of their extrem- ity has his clarion voice rallied the fainting cohorts of slavery to a renewed and successful charge upon the hosts of freedom. Now as the result of his efforts the dark pall of slavery is settling down over millions of acres of territory until lately free from its polluting touch. In the light of eternity as these "works of his life do follow him," how must they appear to the vision of the departed statesman ? In contrast with what he might have accomplished for Grod and humanity, the actual results of a life like that of Clay presents a saddening object of contemplation. Seldom have his powers of oratory been equaled. But rarely has man possessed the power to draw around him, and fjxscinate by the spell of his social accomplishments such crowds of admiring and devoted friends. With these qualities were combined an iron energy and will and an unyielding firmness in defense of his position. Had these glorious gifts been sanctified by the Holy Spirit and consecrated to the service of God, what unspeakably blessed and happy results would have followed! Had the fires of genius been purified and fanned to a higher glow by the coal that touched Isaiah's hallowed lips, what clouds of moral darkness would have been dispelled by their light. Had the battle-axe of truth ever been wielded by the strong arm of the departed statesman, how many a frown- ing Bastile of error would have been leveled in the dust. For what have these glorious objects been sacrificed? For the idle flattery of political admirers, and for the unrealized REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 95 hope of reaching the highest office in the gift of the people. Alas that so glorious a birthright should have been bartered for so mean a price. During his long public career, though we admit that he has "done the State some service," truth compels us to say that he has also done it much injury. Of his connection with the pecuniary policy of the country, we need only remark, that he had the peculiar misfortune of living to see the death of almost every question of public policy of this nature which he took under his special protection. But it is the influence he exerted when the great question of freedom came up for action before the councils of the nation, with which the present and the future will have most to do in writing his history. No period in the annals of the legislation of this country has possessed deeper interest than when Missouri applied for admission as one of the States of the Union. The pregnant question was then presented — shall this Government, formed to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty, falter in its holy mission ? The issue was watched with intense interest, and the hopes of the friends of humanity beat high, as indications were given that the right would triumph. But in an evil hour Henry Clay, summoning all the intellectual powers he possessed, threw his influence into the opposite scale, and gave the victory to the side of robbery and wrong. The result was that Missouri was admitted with a Constitution making human slavery perpetual ; and we may add that this triumph of the slave power did more, probably, to paralyze the efforts of the friends of freedom in this country than any other single act since the foundation of the Union. - The next issue presented was the terms of the admission of Arkansas. When that State presented her Constitution for acceptance on the part of Congress, an amendment was of- fered providing for the emancipation of all the slaves within her bonuds at a given time. This amendment was defeated by the casting vote of Mr. Clay, and slavery was thus left to curse the soil of Arkansas. We need hardly say that to Mr. Clay, more than to any other individual, is the country indebted for the series of acts known as the Compromise Measures of 1850. It has been stated by his physician tbat the labor he bestowed and the anxiety he felt, when these measures were before Congress, did much to shorten his life. We need not here analyze those measures — they have been fully discussed, and are now fresh in the public mind. 96 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF These, then, are some of the most important measures in which Mr. Clay acted a conspicuous part, and they will tell more upon the character of the country than any others. Those who approve of them, will of course feel prepared to laud his memory for the part he acted in them. Not being of that class, we dissent in this particular. He has gone, however, from the scene of his earthly labors, to appear be- fore the Judge of all ; and it is said by those who were with him as his confidential friends during his last illness, that he looked forward with calmness to the hour of his departure, expressing the hope that he was prepared to meet the great change. We would speak no evil of the dead. Let the veil of ob- livion be drawn over his vices, and let his soul be left in the hands of a just and merciful Grod. But let not the fulsome eulogies of a venal press and a hireling pulpit drown the voice of solemn warning and instruction that speaks in his life and death. Jesus Christ Driven from the United States. The Bible represents believers as " one with Christ." They draw their spiritual life from him, and live in him as part of himself. "1 am the vine, ye are the branches." Christ is the head, believers are the members; for says the apostle, "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Hence the Lord Jesus Christ regards things done to his children as done to himself This is repeatedly and explicitly taught in the Scriptures. At the final judgment the right- eous are rewarded because they ministered to Jesus when sick and in prison, when a stranger and when suffering hunger and thirst. When they inquire when they saw him in want and relieved him, he says, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me." The wicked are condemned for withholding this assistance ; and in an- swer to their inquiry it is said, "inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my brethren ye did it not to me." When Saul of Tarsus was on his way to Damascus, the question that arrested him was "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me." In reply to his question " Who art thou Lord," it was said, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." But it was not Jesus in person that Saul persecuted, for he was then in heaven, but it REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 97 was Jesus in the person of his disciples. This is a plain and unquestionable principle. Let us look at some recent facts in the light of it. By the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill large numbers of professing Christians have been driven from the United States. One hundred and thirty members from the Baptist (colored) church of Buffalo, left for Canada. A large num- ber went from the .Methodist (colored) church of the same place. One hundred and twelve members of the Baptist (colored) church of Rochester, including their pastor, a na- tive Kentuckian and a fugitive, were driven off. From the colored church of the same denomination in Detroit eighty- four members fled. Many others have gone from other places. All these were forced to flee, contrary to their wishes and in- terests, by an enactment of the American Congress. Among these professors of religion are no doubt many real Chris- tians. They belong to that class to which in especial manner "pertain the promises," for "hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him." Every true Chris- tian among them is really and spiritually "one with Christ" — in facta part of the Saviour. In the person of every one of these, therefore, has the Lord Jesus Christ been driven, by violence, from the United States. The question here arises who is guilty of this fearful crime ? — a crime no whit less than that of nailing Jesus to the cross, and mocking his dying agonies. To this question there can be but one answer. The authors and supporters of the fugi- tive slave bill are the men. And these include not merely the evil Congress that enacted it, and the parties by which they were elected, but the mass of the large denominations of jirofessing Christians in the country, with one or two exceptions. Look at facts. The vast majority of professors of religion belong to the Whig and Democratic parties, by which the fugitive slave bill was enacted. They, therefore, voted for the men by whom it was passed. Being done by their agents, therefore, it was done by themselves. Again : the leading doctors and ministers of these churches have come out in justification, or extenuation of the bill, and in opposition to its repeal. Large ecclesiastical courts of these bodies, after discussing the matter for days, refused to express the slightest opposition to it, and recommended obedience to its provisions. These facts are notorious and unquestionable. Again : the man who advocates a principle or supports a 9 98 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF measure, is individually guilty of all the evils flowing natu- rally from that principle or measure. If I deny the existence of God, and the truth of the Scriptures, I am guilty of all the evils flowing from the atheism and infidelity I advocate. If others proclaim the same doctrine, their guilt is just the same as mine. Crime does not divide into fractional portions, so that each of twenty millions, that commit a single murder, is one twenty-millionth of a murderer. There are in such a case twenty millions of full-sized murderers. In the light of this principle, then, we see that every church which by silent acquiescence or avowed defense, upholds the fugitive bill, is guilty of all the wrongs and crimes flowing from it. Among these crimes is the forcible expulsion of the Lord Jesus Christ from the territories of the United States. We defy the world to successfully controvert this conclusion. The Lord Jesus Christ, in the jyerson of his poor discijiles, has heen driven from the United States hy his oivn professed cliurches. The conclusion just stated would seem to throw considera- ble light on the mooted question, whether these churches are really churches of Christ. Are churches which drive the Saviour from the country, through the fugitive slave bill which they uphold, the churches of Christ? With just as much propriety might we ask, were the Scribes and Pharisees who crucified the Saviour his disciples ? It seems to us high time that the advocates of secession from slaveholding and slave-catching churches, should cease admitting that these are churches of Christ. This viay be the fact, but it is not a fact to be assumed on one side and conceded on the other. The evidence at this day is prima facie against it. Facts like those adverted to above, and many others, are fearfully against the claim of the leading sects of this country to be the churches of Christ. It can, therefore, only be admitted on evidence of the most direct and unques- tionable character. But it may be said that a part of these churches protest against and oppose the fugitive bill, and similar abominations. This is true, but these protesters are not the churches to which they belong, but on the contrary a despised and insig- nificant minority. Their number is becoming every year less, and their voice of remonstrance more feeble. Their princi- ples and measures are utterly repudiated by the vast majority in the churches to which they belong. The claim, there- fore, that these churches are not apostate, because a few op- pose the reigning policy and practice of the church, would REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 99 apply with equal force to the apostate Church of Rome. God has doubtless " a people " in her communion, but that fact makes her none the less " the Mother of Harlots." Yet what has Kome ever sanctioned worse than the fugitive slave bill ? What has she ever done that was worse than expelling the Lord Jesus Christ from the country? Is IT Consistent for Free Presbyterians to Commune WITH Churches which Fellowship Slavery ? This question has been submitted to us by a brother. We answer it by asking another : Is it consistent for a man, after signing a total abstinence pledge, to tipple occasionally ? Or for a ''^penitent thief," after professing reformation, to pilfer on occasions? The very ground on which Free Presbyterians left the communion of the Old and New School Presbyterian Churches, was that membership in those churches involved them in the guilt of religious fellowship with slaveholders. The Presbyterian theory of the Church is that it is a unit, that each particular congregation is a part of one body -which is made up of all the several congregations comprised in its communion. It follows that a communion table spread in an Old or New School Church in Ohio, has an end stretching into Georgia and South Carolina, and that he who takes his seat at the Ohio end, acknowledges as a Christian brother him who sits at the Georgia end. This theoretical unity is made visible to the world in the Synods and General Assemblies of these churches. In these ecclesiastical gatherings the representatives of the churches from all parts of the Union meet together. The slaveholder from xllabama, who openly and defiantly affirms that he " buys, sells and holds his fellow-beings for gain," takes his seat at the council board and around the communion table with the Abolitionist from Wisconsin, who holds with the General Assembly of 1798, that " slaveholding is the highest kind of theft, and the slaveholder a sinner of the first rank." As these churches jog now, these antipodes meet, shake hands, sit down in council together, take their place side by side at the Lord's Supper, while the infidel world looks on and be- holding this attempted fellowship of Christ with Belial, sneer- ingly exclaims, " Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell tofjether in unitv ! " 100 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF Now this communion, thus rendered visible, extends to all the members of the Presbyterian Church. These Synods and General Assemblies are representative bodies, and their con- stituents are all the members of the church, — men, women and children. Every member of the church, therefore, is in the closest possible religious fellowship with every other. Hence we repeat, the act of communing with a local Old or New School Presbyterian church in a free State, is an act of fellowship with the whole church, including their thousands of slaveholders. For a Free Presbyterian to do this is to commit the very sin of holding religious fellowship with slaveholders, to get free from which was the very object of seceding from those churches and organizing a separate eccle- siastical body. Such Free Presbyterians had a great deal better stayed in their former connection. We have known a very few nominal Free Presbyterians — men molded after the fashion of Ephraim of old — who from the very hour of their deliverance from their spiritual Egypt, were seized with a strange hankering after its leeks and onions, and flesh pots. They would go still to the communion of the church they had left, thus stultifying themselves, causing the enemy to rejoice, and weakening the testimony of their breth- ren. We had the conduct of one of these half-baked profes- sors once brought up in argument by a venerable doctor of divinity now dead, lo prove that Free Presbyterians acted in- consistently with their profession. We could only reply that the man was an exception to the generality of the members Of our church, and was acting most inconsistently. From such members may the good Lord in mercy deliver all our churches. These men of course have the privilege of remaining in the fellowship of the slaveholding churches. But they have no moral right to leave the communion of these churches, unite with those who are free from fellowship with that un- fruitful work of darkness, slavery, and then go back to their former connection. By such a course they convict themselves of folly and inconsistency, and bring weakness and reproach on those who are testifying against the sin of holding reli- gious fellowship with slavery. Radical and Conservative. It has become the fashion of the hunker presses and preach- ers in this country to represent the principles expressed by REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 101 these terms as tlie opposites of each other, and to apply the first term to reformers as a term of reproach, and the second to themselves as a term of praise. But there is no opposition between true radicalism and true conservatism, while there is a very wide difference between the latter and hunkerism. Genuine radicalism is laying the ax at the root of evils, while true conservatism is holding fast that which is good. The one therefore is the complement of the other. The most ultra radical may be the truest conservative. The best, and indeed the only way of preserving what is good, is to root out the opposing evil. This is true of individuals, and true of society. The love of falsehood must be eradicated from the mind before the truth can be implanted and cherished. The ax must be laid at the root of selfishness, lust, pride and hatred, before the graces of benevolence, purity, humility and love can grow in the soul. He who would preserve his soul from sin and ruia must abhor and root out that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good. So, also, in society. Evil and good, light and darkness, justice and injustice, peace and discord, can not co-exist. Neither can opposing laws, customs and institutions exist and operate in harmony. The good and the bad are destructive of each other, and one must finally prevail to the extinction of the other. Hence the truest conservatism of good is in seeking the most speedy and thorough eradication of the bad. It follows that genuine radicalism and conservatism instead of opposing, CO- operate harmoniously together. On the contrary there is not only a wide difference, but oftentimes a total antagonism between true conservatism and hunkerism. While the former will preserve only what is good, the latter will maintain the existing order of things, whether good or bad, simply because it is the existing order of things. Its motto is the atheistic sentiment, " Whatever is, is right." Whatever is received and established as law and custom, it will preserve whether right or wrong. Hence it often comes to pass that the hunker will at one time defend with the ut- most obstinacy, laws and customs which at other times he has most bitterly opposed. True to his one idea of resisting all change and all reform, he is a bundle of contradictions. Con- sistency with his ruling principle leads him into endless inconsistency. With him the destructive radicalism of to-day, is the object of his intensest conservatism to-morrow. True conservatism has nothing in common with such a 102 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF spirit as this. It is not in haste to adopt proposed changes, for in its vocabulary chan^^e and reform are not synonymous terms. Neither is it doggedly bent on maintaining estab- lished laws and institutions, simply because they are estab- lished. But examining carefully into first principles, it accepts what is good and rejects what is evil. It " proves all things, and holds fast that which is good." It is evident from these principles, that those in this coun- try who are laboring to abolish slavery, both in Church and State, are the true conservatives ; while the politicians and Drs. of Divinity who seek to maintain that system are radi- cals of the worst and most dangerous character. Both slavery and freedom have been " proved " by their fruits — the one to be the prolific parent of every conceivable crime and abomina- tion, the other to be the source of numberless blessings. The abolitionists see that the only way to hold fast the latter is to abolish the former. Both can not exist. They are in utter and deadly antagonism. If slavery lives freedom must die. Hence it follows that he who is truly conservative of liberty is radically destructive of slavery. The radicalism that lays the ax to the root of this upas of oppression, is near akin to the conservatism that would water and cherish the tree of liberty. Schism. Schism, in the Church, stands opposed to Unity, and signi- fies division. On no subject do more confused and mistaken notions prevail. Very many members of the church, and preachers too, who pass for intelligent men, think that schism is nothing else than leaving a visible church organization. If this were correct then all Protestants are schismatics ; for all the various sects among them are secessions, more or less remote, from the visible organizations of the Catholic Church. Nay, Christianity itself is schism, for the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles left the Jewish Church organization, and formed the Christian Church. Christ having solemnly excom- municated the Jews when he said, " The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of righteousness," afterward, on the night preceding his betrayal, organized his immediate followers in the Chris- tian Church, and thus, without being excommunicated, seceded from thjit visible ohuroli organization. Thus, this notion of REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 108 schism, if true, would uncliurcli the very men themselves who hold it. Another class hold those schismatics who proclaim the whole counsel of God, when a portion of a professed church reject portions of it : and urge discipline for sins which have become popular and prevalent. That this course will often divide, and even break up professed churches, is certain. It is not therefore schism, however. The church that is divided by preaching the whole truth of God, is necessarily, in part or in whole, apostate. The church that can not bear the whole truth on every subject, is living in practical rebellion. It is therefore nonsense to say, that dividing such a church is causing division in the body of Christ, for it forms no part of his mystical body. Schism may exist in a church, which yet retains an exter- nal appearance of unity. Outward union and inward discord are found often together. Paul says to the Corinthian church, " I hear that there be division^ among you, and I partly be- lieve it." The word translated divisions is, scismata, the Greek for schism. That this would be a correct translation all scholars admit. Here while no secessions were taking place, there was divisions or schisms among the members of the church of- Corinth. Indeed, schisms of the very worst description have been most common in the Church, when out- ward union of organization was most compact. The Jews were schismatic every time they turned aside to the worship of idols. When most devoted to religious forms and cere- monies they were guilty of causing wicked divisions. They even made those religious exercises the occasion of such divisions. " Behold," says God, " ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness." When they rejected the mes- sengers of God, '' killed the prophets and stoned those that were sent unto them," they were yet visibly organized into one church. The word of God through the prophets, by stirring up their rebellious passions, occasioned strife and divisions. On the principle of many modern interpreters these prophets were schismatics. They " caused divisions," by denouncing popular sins, such as oppression and cruelty. Yet the Jews who practiced these wrongs, were the true schis- matics ; while the prophets who faithfully proclaim God's will were doing what could alone produce true unity. This point may be illustrated in a simple way. Suppose a father to lay down right and proper rules for the government 104 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF of his family. He leaves his house for awhile, and on leaving commands his children to obey during his absence, the laws of the household. The children, however, all find a strong propensity to do something the father has forbidden. In his absence they fall into these practices, and all agree that they will disobey the father. Now there may be perfect unity, of a certain kind, in that family. The children all agree that it is necessary to their peace and quiet that some of the father's just commands should be violated. Is this a righteous unity? Is it honorable to the father? Suppose further, that one or more of the children become convinced of the wickedness of their conduct and resolve to reform. They begin to remon- strate with the other members of the family, on account of their disobedience. At once the cry of schism is raised by the offenders. They gravely assert that the peace and prosperity of the family imperatively demand, that all such " distracting subjects" as that of filial obedience, ought not to be agitated. It is easy to see in this case who are in the wrong and who in the right. It is also obvious, that it is the duty of the re- pentant children to rebuke the others, and urge them to change their course, even if the entire disruption of the family should be the result. This case illustrates several points. The Church of God is his spiritual family. Now a peace in that Church, which is founded on open or tacit agreement to disregard some of his commands, is a false peace. It is most dishonorable to God, and must prove ruinous to man. It is also evident that it is the duty of all God's obedient children to urge his claims to the obedience of all ; and especially to denounce and warn against those particular acts of disobedience that are most prevalent. Now, whenever it is necessary to the peace of a church that anti-slavery truth, or truth bearing on the subject of temper- ance, must not be preached, then that peace is spurious and false. Those who talk of it " cry peace, peace, when there is no peace." God's express command is, to "open the mouth of the dumb, and plead the cause of the poor and needy." Every professed Christian, minister or layman, who neglects this command, who does not plead the cause of the slave, the poorest of all God's poor, is guilty of disobeying his Heavenly Father. Hence, as in the case of the family, it is better that such a church should be broken up entirely than continue a union founded on open breach of God's command. REV. JOSEPH aOllDON. 105 Again : it is evident in such a case that the real schismatics are not those who obey God's command to plead for the poor, but those who reject the truth, and refuse to do likewise. It is not in such a case a question of numbers. If there were ten disobedient and one obedient child in a family, that one child would be the only one entitled to a place in the father's household. The others by their disobedience cut themselves off from the name and privileges of children. So in the Church — Grod's spiritual family. If but ten obey God's com- mand to plead for the poor, as well as all other commands, and ten thousand disobey it, those ten are God's true family, his true Church. If cast out for their faithfulness, or withdraw- ing to avoid participation in the disobedience of the majority, God still owns them as his true spiritual household. There are then but two ways of committing the sin of schism ; one is by disobeying the laws of God in the Church : the other by withdrawing from any branch of the visible church without a sufficient reason. An example of the first is found in every member of the church that does not labor and pray, and do all in his power for the deliverance of the slave. God's express command to all his professed children is, " Remember those in bonds, as bound with them.^' That is feel and act and pray for the oppressed the same as you would if you were yourself in bondage ; or do for them as you would wish others to do for you in that condition. Now, true unity among God's followers, consists very much in a cheerful, affectionate obedience to his will, therefore to habitually break this command by doing and feeling nothing for those in bonds, is directly destroying the unity of the Church ; and is schism of the very worst description. In regard to withdrawal from any professed church, if the toleration and practice of the " sum of all villainies " in such church is not just cause of secession, then there never can be such cause. If the churches of this land, should search for a system of crime for the express purpose of apostatizing, through its reception to their communion they could find none so bad as slavery which they have thus received. Their cordial welcome of those practicing this " most atrocious of all institutions " to their communion tables, is schismatical to the last degree. It follows that the course of those churches, which have excluded these criminals from their communion, is to the same extent promotive of the real unity of the Church. 10 106 LIFE AND WRITINGS Oi' Christian Union. This subject is just now occupying a large share of the at- tention of various churches. This fact is our apology, if any apology is needed, for the space we devote to it. On our first page will be found a discussion on this question in the Gen- eral Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian, or New Side Cove- nanter Church. — The same subject occupied the largest por- tion of the time of the Associate, or Seceder Synod, which met a week or two since, in Xenia. The conclusions at which they arrived, will be found in another place, and indi- cate a decided advance in the right direction. The Union of the Associate Reformed, Seceder and X. S. Covenanter Churches, appears to us far more likely to be accomplished now, than it has ever seemed before. The bigots in these bodies may succeed in delaying the consummation, but it is sure to come ere long. A proposal for the union of the Reformed Presbyterians and the Free Presbyterian Church of Canada, is now under discussion in that province, and some late indications are promising. Of the proposed union between the United Brethren in Christ. Wesleyan Methodists, and Evangelical Association, our readers are already informed. These various movements toward the same point, arc full of significance. In the first place, they are without concert. Each is impelled forward in this movement by a power with- in itself. It is not the result of a concerted and previously arranged plan. Hence, it is manifest that the hand of God is in it. There can be no doubt in the mind of the Christian that these various churches are moved upon by the Spirit of God; and that the desire for union is his suggestion. How else can we account for the fact that churches having no out- ward fellowship with each other, and which are supposed to be widely apart in doctrine and order, should simultaneously and without consultation, start forward with zeal and energy in the holy work of gathering into one the scattered frag- ments of the Saviour's family? Another significant fact is that this movement is confined to the anti-slavery churches of this country. Among the pro-slavery churches the tendency is toward wider division. The New School Presbyterians and Congregationalists are srettins: further apart every day. Each of these denominations has been seized of late with an intense sectarian spirit, which is the very essence of the spirit of disunion. The Old and KEV. JOSEPH GORDON. 107 New School Presbyterians are more completely at arm's length to-day than they have been since the excision of 1837. The Methodist Church has divided once, and there are symptoms of a second rupture in the Northern branch, grow- ing out of the efforts of the living piety within it, to throw off the dead carcass of slavery. But among the churches which exclude slavcholding and its kindred evils, this sim- ultaneous, movement for closer union has commenced, and the spirit of unity and brotherly love is becoming more and more prevalent. Now this fact certainly means something, and we think it is not difficult to read its significance. An anti-slavery religion can alone save the world, for no other religion is Christianity. A pro-slavery religion is the religion of hell, and to call it Christianity is to blaspheme the Son of God. The Church is the agency appointed by Christ for preaching and extending his gospel over the earth. To do this successfully, she must be a united church. This is clear- ly implied in the prayer of the Saviour, John xvii : 20, 21. Again, the time for the universal establishment of the king- dom of Christ on earth is near at hand. All interpreters of prophesy agree in this. The time of the birth of the Saviour was not more clearly foretold, than the time of the destruc- tion of the Man of Sin, and all antichristian powers, and the establishment of the Redeemer's reign ; and upon this time we are just verging. But the only church that he can use as an instrument for this work, is a church which embraces his re- ligion, which is a religion at vv'ar with slavery in all its forms, at war with drunkenness, secresy, popery, and every system of darkness and oppression. Is it then presumptuous to con- clude that God is bringing the churches which embody this religion, into one, in order to use them as his instrument for the triumphant establishment of his kingdom of righteous- ness on earth? We may be sneeringly asked at this point, if we mean to teach that to the comparatively small baud of anti-slavery Christians alone will be committed the mighty work of prop- agating the gospel over the earth; and if no use will be made of the Christians in the large and popular church organiza- tions of this country? — We mean nothing of the kind. We have never doubted that the Lord has thousands of his own blood-bought people in the slaveholding churches of this land, and we have no doubt that he will use them as honored in- struments for the establishment of his kingdom. But we have just as little doubt that he will bring them out of their 108 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF pro-slavery church organizations, before they will be made largely useful in this work. These organizations are anti- christian. An organization, whether ecclesiastical or political, which supports slavery, is of neccssify antichristian, for slavery in its every element is anti-Christ. Hence, before the Saviour's reign on earth can become universal, these organizations must be destroyed, just as the Roman Catholic hierarchy must bo destroyed. But the Lord's people in these corrupt bodies will be brought out, and united with those already out in one mighty phalanx, for the last and triumphant onset upon the kingdom of the Devil. This thought suggests another mighty reason for the union of the anti-slavery reforming churches of the land. United, their power to break up the antichristian, pro-slavery church organizations of the country, would be ten-fold what it is now; and, united, their moral power would irresistibly draw the pure members of these corrupt churches to themselves. There will be a moral power and grandeur in the spectacle of all the reformed and reforming churches of this land, laying aside the shibboleths that have heretofore divided them, and coming together on the foundation of Christian purity, and in the spirit of Christian love, which would be irresistible. Before the combined influence of this host made mighty through the living God, the huge ecclesiastical structures which constitute the bulwarls of American slavei-y would be broken in pieces, and all the living, spiritual stones in them would be gathered together and builded into tiiis new and holy temple of the Lord. The efi'ect of all this on the conversion of the world, opens a theme so vast and grand that we can hardly trust our pen to touch upon it. Emancipated from their bonds, as the slaves would then soon be, educated and Christianized, they would become missionaries to the land of their fathers ; and through their instrumentality, " Ethiopia would soon stretch forth her hands unto God." The religion of this country, cut free from the incubus that has hitherto weighed it to the dust, and with the warm, fresh blood of freedom in its veins, would start forward anew in the missionary work, with an energy and success that would find their only parallel in the Apostolic times. If we have read aright the indications of God's providence in the union movements of our day, it follows irresistibly that those who oppose these movements are planting them- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 109 selves directly atliwart the path of the Divine purposes and operations. A fearful responsibility is theirs ! Unity op the Church. The unity of the Church is its oneness. The Lord Jesus Christ distinctly intimated that his Church should be one : " That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, arl in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe that thou has sent me. " And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one. " I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." — John 17 : 20—23. The Church of Christ is his appointed instrumentality for the salvation of the world. Its power as such depends on its unity. Its union is its strength. It is, therefore, very important to know wherein this unity consists; how it is destroyed and how it may be promoted. The oneness of the Church does not imply that all its mem- bers are exactly equal in bodily and mental power ; that they shall be equally learned and wise ; follow the same calling in life, and believe exactly alike on all scientific, political or historical questions. These are simple impossibilities in this world. Again : it is not essential to the true unity of the Church that all its members should believe exactly alike on all religious subjects ; that they have the same spiritual gifts, and possess in equal measure the power of the Holy Ghost. Diversities of mental structure are the work of God, and so long as these exist, men will differ in their modes of thought and expression, in the views they take of various questions, and also in their religious experience and exercises. A vast variety in all these is consistent with the highest degree of Scriptural unity. " For there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations; but it is the same God that worketh all in all." Wherein, then, does the unity of the Church, or the oneness of believers consist? 110 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF 1. In the harmonious blending of these various "diversi- ties " in one body. Instead of causing divisions, these diflPer- ences of character, gifts, etc., are designed to produce the directly contrary effect. They are all essential to a perfect church, just as all the members are necessary to a perfect body. This is the figure of the apostle : " For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ," These varied gifts and characteristics fit the members of the Church of Christ for the different posts of labor in the Church. Through them believers are fitted to encourage, strengthen, aid and comfort each other. The lofty courage of one blends with the timid gentleness of another, and by the mutual union both are benefited. The ardent hopes of one preserves others from despair, while the humble fears of the latter saves the former from presumption. Thus are the members of the Church fitted " to bear each others burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." So, also, are the followers of Christ fitted for the various duties connected with the propa- gation of the gospel. As in its first proclamation, the daring courage of Peter, the loving gentleness of John, and the iron energy of Paul were all required, and all answered their end ; so now the various gifts of Christians are all to be brought and consecrated on the altar of the Saviour. And when each one comes forward to do the work for which God has fitted him, and as one united host the Church moves on in the strength of this union, the triumph of the cause of Christ will not be distant. Unity amid diversity is universal among the works of God, and of this, such a church will be a beautiful example. 2. A second thing essential to the unity of the Church, is the belief of all its members in the fundamental truths of the Bible. While opinions may differ as to what are and are not essential truths, every one will admit that the belief of some truths is necessary to make men Christians. For instance, they must believe that such a person as Jesus Christ lived, taught, wrought miracles, was crucified, rose from the grave and ascended to heaven. Christianity is revealed in the Old and New Testaments. To deny these as authentic and true histories of real events, renders it impossible for him who denies to be a Christian; just as the man who should deny the history of Mohammed and the truth of the Koran could not be a Mohammedan. The belief of all the essential truths and doctrines of the Bible is, therefore, necessary REV. JOSEPH GORDON. Ill among other things to constitute men Christians. In this oneness of belief is found another element of the true unity of the Church. The power of a belief in Ihe same truths to unite men together is every where seen, especially when those truths are of great practical interest and importance, which is eminently the case with the truths of the Christian religion. This is one important link in the chain that binds together the various religious sects in the world. Hindoos, Moham- medans, Catholics and the various sects of Protestants, unite together in consequence of holding the same belief on the essential points of their religion. The same is true in polit- ical and other voluntary associations. The bond of union is a common belief in certain truths. Hence a lively faith iu the essential truths of the Christian religion will draw believers into intimate union and fellowship, and make them one in Christ. 3. A third essential element in the unity of the Church is a oneness of aim among all its members. The great object of life is with all true Christians essentially one — the promo- tion of God's glory — through and by the advancement of their own and neighbor's highest temporal and spiritual wel- fare. Though the temporal callings in life of Christians are as various as among the men of the world, yet with true be- lievers those callings are only means to a common end. In the pursuit of this one great object there is no jealous rivalry, and no disappointment. The success of one is tlie success of all, as all harmoniously co-operate together. Now this unity of purpose and aim begets a oneness of feeling and desire. By a law of our mental constitution, it binds together in closest bonds all that truly love the Saviour, and thus " they being many are one body in Christ." 4. Again, the Church of Grod is one, as subject to the same king and head, and governed by the same code of laws. Christ is "head over all things to the Church." He has given her a perfect code of laws in the Bible, and by those laws each and all of the true members of the Church are governed. They are thus one community, one nation, one kingdom, one family. In the kingdom of God, there is no forced submission to the government of a king, and code of laws which the subjects hate. It is a joyful and ennobling obedience to a government which they love. Thus the king and laws of the Church are a bond of union among its mem- bers of the strongest kind. 5. Once more : the true members of Christ's Church are 112 LIFE AJfl) WRITINGS OF essentially one in character. The elements of Christian character are in all the same. It is character hy which the followers of Christ are distinguitihed from the rest of men. They have been " transformed by the renewing of their minds;" "changed into the image and likeness of God." Through the principle that '• like seeks its like," the true dif-ciplcs of Christ unite together in closest unity. Tims is the true Church of the Lord Jesus one body, one in faith, one in aim and purpose, subject to one king and law ; one in character, spirit, feeling, desire ; having the same hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, and the same eternal home in prospect. From these principles important conclusions follow. Out- ward, visible unity to be lasting and profitable, must be founded on this inward unity of faith and character. Hence the way to promote it is not through Evangelical Alliances, to patch up an outward union of incongruous elements: but by proclaiming in all its fullness the word and law of God ; submitting ourselves to its power; and laboring to bring all others to the love and obedience of Christ. Another conclusion is that the unity of the Church is vio- lated, not by proclaiming the whole counsel of God. and exer- cising discipline on uJl offenders, but by the contrary. By suppressing the truth, admitting known transgressors to the Church, under the plea of reforming them there, refusing to exercise discipline on open, acknowledged sinners, and thus throwing the doors of the church open to those influences which will not only mar its unity but destroy its very exist- once. Christ, as King in Zion, merits and claims implicit obedience to the laws of his Church. The known and willful transgressor of those laws, therefore, unfits himself for mem- bership in that Church. To retain him in her communion is, therefore, in direct contravention of the law and will of Christ; and, therefore, destructive of all true unity. When the Church of Christ shall (as she will) become really one; when one in faith and purpose, in obedience and char- acter ; she devotes herself in her combined energy to the glo- rious and benevolent work entrusted to her by her head, the triumph of his truth on earth — the downfall of all oppression and crime, and violence and every form of evil, will speedily follow. Her true union, will give her a strength which earth and hell will in vain oppose. REV. JOSEPH GORDOS. 113 Southern Revivals. The following item is circulating in the papers : The Editor of the Wesfcni Chri^dan Advocate says — "We have the following on authority that admits of no questioning: Recently in a town of a certain slave State, a revival took place in the church under the charge of the Rev. Mr. . During the meeting a slave-trader ^)rr;/r.sse(Z conversion, and joined the church, and a local preacher became much encour- aged thereat. Soon after the close of the meeting, the slave- trader made a purchase from the local preacher of a slave woman, who had a child at her breast. The trader not wish- ing the child, and the mother refusing to go without it, strong cords were obtained. A dray was sent for, she was tied hands and feet, and was carried by main force, and strapped down to the dray, and was thus driven off." Our exchanges, from time to time, contain accounts of " re- vivals of religion " in Southern slaveholding churches. These revivals are held up as evidence that God has not forsaken those churches, and that therefore Christians in the North should not forsake them. We never publish these accounts, because we have no faith in the genuineness of these revivals. We find no evidence at all that those who are the subjects of them are in the least degree changed in their character and conduct. They continue to rob and oppress the poor, just as before. As the foregoing item shows, they are just as cruel as ever. They can tear the tender infant from the mother, just as ruthlessly as they were wont to do before they pro- fessed conversion. Indee-l, the evidence we have in the case, goes to show that the subjects of these revivals are generally made worse instead of better, and it is in accordance mt)x the philosophy of human nature, and with the teachings of the Bible, that this should be the case. All men have some ground on which they base a hope of happiness in a future existence. Very often the '-men of the world," as they are called, place their hope in their natural humanity and justice. Hence it is their religion to '• do justly and love mercy," so far as they conveniently can. But as the gospel of Jesus Christ is prciiched in many places, in these modern days, it is made the minister of sin. A free pardon, through the blood of Christ is proclaimed, and men are taught that if they rely on Christ alone for justification, thou salvation is secure. The teaching of the Bible that sanctifi- cation is the necessary accompaniment of justification, is not 114 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF SO presented as to awaken and alarm the conscience. Without any real, radical change of heart, the convert settles down into a false and carnal security, and with a conscience at rest for the future, feels at liberty to indulge his wicked propensities to the full, for the present. I.n the practice of that guilty abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith, which the Apos- tle Paul so pointedly condemns, he " continues in sin that grace may abound." The parallel to these conversions is found in a passage from the sayings of Jesus Christ: "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves^ We believe in genuine revivals of religion — revivals which stir the conscience of the sinner to its profoundest depths ; which bring him an humbled, heart broken penitent to the foot of the cross, and then send him out to the world a par- doned and sanctified soul, to lead a life of holiness and true benevolence. But those "revivals" in which loud shouting is received as the evidence of conversion, and from which the " convert " goes out to " tear the mother from her babe, and chain her to a dray," are the Devil's own peculiar work. Kevival Excitements. The long article on this subject which will be found in to- day's paper, we publish by request. We suppose it is intended as a reply to our article headed " The Religion that Saves," published two weeks ago. But as a reply to that article, it strikes wide of the mark, for we have never opposed genuine revivals of religion, but on the contrary have ever taught that they were the great need of the world. We think that the " Old Carmelite" was a very stupid old fogy. But we think also that the scenes sometimes witnessed in what are called modern revivals, bear a much closer resemblance to the frantic ravings of the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel, than they do to the calm but intensely earnest prayer of Elijah. From the immense force of lungs that is often expended in the prayers heard at these reviv^als, we have sometimes thought that the suppliants must believe that the God to whom they were ad- dressed, was " either talking, or pursuing, or on a journey, or peradventure asleep and must bo awaked." There is very often a fallacy in illustrations of spiritual things drawn from REV. JOSEPH GOEDON. 115 material objects. Thus, in the article in question, the com- parison of the influences of revivals to rain, would prove that all revivals are genuine, because rain is always rain, whether it flows in gentle showers or in overflowing torrents. But the most enthusiastic advocate of religious excitements will hardly contend that evenj such excitement is a genuine revival. All sorts of religion may be revived, andr every kind of church has its revivals. Again, the smoke and fire anecdote, at the beginning of the article, is utterly absurd and fallacious. If a man must take part in every scene that he witnesses in order to judge correctly of its effects, we should find ourselves in a bad condition truly. A company of revelers, for instance, are indulging in scenes of drunken mirth. A looker-on re- proves them for their sin and folly. Oh, you have got smoke in your eyes, say they, and can't see clearly; come down and partake with us of spiritual refreshment, and you will be able to see clearly. Must men become slaveholders, or gamblers, or Mormon polygamists, or pagan idolaters, or Roman Catholics, before they can judge correctly of these various practices and systems? We do not wish to compare modern revival excite- ments to any of these things, but the anecdote proves as much in the one case as in the other; and proves just nothing in either. Then we would hope that modern revival prayers are not always mere " smoke,'^ for every one knows that the greater the smoke the less the fire. But passing by these things, we come to other matters. We have already remarked that any kind of religion may be revived, and that all sorts of churches have revivals. The Roman Catholic Church often has extensive revivals. We were in Wisconsin a few years ago, when a legate of the Pope, just from Rome, was visiting the churches. Revivals every where attended his labors. In a single town, after a protracted and excited meeting of three weeks, he received about eight hundred persons into his church. Mormonism often enjoys seasons of revival,' during which large numbers are taken into that fold of adulterous " saints." No part of our country "enjoys " so many revival seasons as the South, and yet the "converts" do not keep "the fast which Grod has chosen." It is only a few weeks since we published an account from the leading Methodist paper of the North, of a Southern revival, in which a slaveholder and slave-trader were both "converted," and during which the former sold to the latter a mother, re- reserving to himself her inffint child. The mother resisting their efforts to part her from her babe, a dray was procured, 116 LIFE AiSID WRITIisGS OF to ■which she was chained by the " converted " trader, after being forcibly torn from her infant, and driven away, uttering the most heart-rending cries of anguish. Now in all these cases, and many others which we might name, no one believes that these so-called revivals are the work of God's spirit. Hence, the mere fact of a church having a religious excite- ment, and bringing many to profess '• conversion," and " in- dulge " a hope, proves nothing one way or the other. It only proves that the religion professed and practiced in that par- ticular church has been revived. That religion may be Mor- monism, Roman Catholicism, the religion of form and cant, or it may be genuine Christianity. The character of the reli- gion and of the revival must be determined by another stan- dard altogether. We are then brought to another inquiry. Is the religion professed and practiced by the majority of the large popular Protestant churches in this country, the religion of Jesus Christ? Let us look into this question a little. The religion of these churches fellowships, and thereby sanctions American slavery. This assertion is so notoriously true, that we shall not stop to prove it. But American slavery is a system at deadly war in all points with Christianity. Never has there been a definition of the system so comprehensive and so liter- ally true as that of the great founder of Methodism, John Wesley, "American slavery, the sum of all villainies," The mission of Jesus Christ was to ch-sfrm/ " all villainy." For this was he manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil." Is that his religion which fellowships and sanctions the "sum of all villainies?" Again, the popular religion of this country sanctions offen- sive war. A few years ago our government made a wanton and unprovoked attack upon a feeble neighboring nation. This government was the aggressor from beginning to end. The assertion of the President of the United States, on which the declaration of war was based, that '• war existed by the act of Mexico ; American blood having been shed upon American soil," was a deliberate and willful falsehood. But upon that falsehood war was declared and carried on, till the feeble Mexican Eepublic lay helpless at our feet, and a vast portion of her territory was wrested from her possession. There was guilt enough contracted by this country in that crusade to damn ten thousand worlds. But no sooner was it over, than the American people picked up from the blood and dust of its battle-fields one of its successful captains, and amid wild RET. JOSEPH GORDON. 117 huzzas elevated him to the highest office in their gift. His only qualification for the office was his success in that mur- derous and infamous war. It was by that alone that he be- came known to the nation, and on the strength of the fame won in the work of human butchery was he elected to the highest office in the government. And the popular church of the land sanctioned the deed. Nineteen-twentieths of her members, we presume, voted for the successful commander, and joined with others in the wild acclamations amid which he was borne to the presidential chair. Four years later and both the leading candidates for this office were selected from those whose hands were dripping with the blood of this mur- derous crusade, and again voted for by the mass of those professing to be the followers of the Prince of Peace. Is that Christianity which thus does homage to the spirit of aggres- sive war, by honoring its successful captains? Once more : Some thirty years ago freedom and slavery had a pitched battle in our national Congress. It was a time of intense excitement. Momentous consequences hung upon the issue. But the forces of freedom were worsted in the con- flict. They made a " compromise " which was a hard bargain for freedom. But it secured the prohibition of slavery North of 36 deg. 30 min. A third of a century passed away. Slavery had possessed the lion's share which she gained by the compromise, without molestation. At the end of that period, with malice prepense, the bargain was deliberately and foully broken. With a degree of fraud, villainy and impu- dence that would disgrace a gang of pirates, a majority of the U. S. Congress tore down the barriers, that the overflowing scourge of slavery might sweep over vast portions of virgin and free soil, in the very heart of the continent. By this act the heathenism, licentiousness, cruelty, and all the matchless atrocities of slavery, are likely to be spread over vast regions that, under the magic? touch of free labor, would bloom as the garden of God. We can not help believing that this was the Devil's work, and that those who did it, and those •whoji/sh'Jied it lohen iIo)ie, were the Devil's servants. But the churches of our country claim a large number of these covenant-breakers as members "in good and regular standing." Some of them even desecrate the sacred desk as professed ministers of Christ. Is that Christ's religion which such men teach and practice? Are those genuine reuu-a/s which such men assist in getting up and carrying on? Yet we have heard of such "revivals" not 8 thousand miles from the spot where we write. 118 LIFE AND WEITINGS OF We have no space to multiply the proofs of the essentially antichristian character of the popular religion of this coun- try. They could be multiplied a thousand fold. The religion of Christ says, " Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you." The prevalent religion of the American people says, kill your enemies, and do honor to those who can destroy them most successfully. Christ denounced in terms of awful severity the rich, and powerful, and haughty sinners of his day ; but spake in words of win- ning love and gentleness to the poor and lowly. The popular churches of this land reverse the order. They fawn upon and court the great and the guilty, but trample and scowl upon the poor. Christ declared that unless a man denied himself, and took up his cross and followed him, he could not be his disciple. But it is no cross to profess religion in any of the large denominations of this country, but on the contrary it is often a stepping-stone to wealth and respectability. But it is a pretty severe cross, as we have been learning for the last ten years, to expose the iniquities which find a safe nestling-place in their bosom. The true Church of Christ is the salt of the earth. But while the popular churches of this nation control, or might control public sentiment, the most abounding and alarming evils are sweeping almost unchecked over our land, notwithstanding these churches enjoy their yearly "revivals," and are constantly adding to their numbers and wealth and power. " By their fruits ye shall know them ; " and until we see diflFerent fruits, we must be pardoned our want of faith in the vast majority of the so-called " revivals of religion " which annually visit the churches. Yet we repeat what we said two weeks ago. We speak of things only in general, We rejoice to believe that God has a people in all the ecclesiastical organizations of our land, the Roman Catholic not excepted. We war upon no man for his creed, or his opinions, in regard to things not essential to sal- vation. If his life only gives evidence of the practical power of the love of Christ in his soul, we hail him as a brother. We moreover earnestly pray, and are trying in our poor way to labor for, the upbuilding of pure and undefiled religion all over the world. But until the professed churches of Christ are prepared to bear a decided and consistent testimony against all sin, and until they become pure enough to exclude known criminals like slaveholders and their abettors, we have little hope of any great good to C( me from their revivals. In conclusion, we have only space to say, that those REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 119 churches or individuals who feel that they are free from fiar- ticipation in the popular iniquities we have named, will not be offended at our remarks. But we do expect that those who feel that they are not free from a guilty participation in these crimes, will be offended. Revivals of Eeligion. The fact that revivals of religion take place in slaveholding churches of this country, is held by many to be conclusive of God's favor. It is plead that those churches must be owned as his on which he pours out his Spirit, and in which he revives his work. If such revivals of religion were genu- ine, and were really followed by the fruits of righteousness, there would be force in this plea. But such is not generally the fact. A few months after these excitements, called revi- vals, the subjects of them are usually as frivolous and as worldly as ever. It is an exception if in any case a marked change in the life of the convert is the result. Even during their progress the grossest crimes are sometimes perpetrated by those professing to be the subjects of converting grace. A true revival is a revival of GocVs icorh. The result is that those whom he converts live henceforth to do the work of God. But we did not commence this article to pen an argument, but to relate a few facts. If revivals of religion prove the church in which they occur to be genuine churches of Christ, then the Roman Catholic Church is such. In no church do more extensive revivals of religion occur than in this: — and these revivals are followed generally by the most punctilious observance of the outward ritual of the worship of the church. During our recent visit to Wisconsin, extensive and powerful revivals of religion were in progress in the Catholic church in parts of that State. A Legate had just come on from Rome, clothed with apostolic powers. He exercised the function of forgiving sins ; and we were told he had pardoned the sins of some persons for the next three years. This man held daily and nightly meetings in the larger towns, and in the cities of Wisconsin, and his labors were usually followed by extensive revivals of the Catliolic religion. In the town of Green Bay, a place of fifteen hundred or sixteen hundred inhabitants, I was informed that be received eight hundred 120 LIFE AND "WRITINGS OF people into the church. He preached there night and day for weeks, and the whole community was moved by his preach- ing. Protestant schools, in which Catholic children were receiving education, were broken up. Backsliders were re- claimed, the faithful were strengthened, and converts were gathered into the fold. Now this was really a revival of religion ; but it was a re- vival of the current religion of the Roman Catholic Church. The converts would not, of course, embrace higher principles than those preached to them by the Pope's Legate ; and his principles permitted him to engage in the infamous traffic of indulgences, in denunciation of which, when practiced by Tetzel, the voice of Luther sounded the first notes of the Reformation. But if the argument from revivals be valid, then the Catholic Church can plead it, and it will prove her a true church of Christ. But the plea is fallacious. The fact usually is that the current religion of the church in which these revivals occur, is that to which their subjects are converted. In the Catholic Church they are converted to the Catholic religion. In slav'eholding churches the converts embrace the prevalent type of religion which permits them to trade in slaves and souls of men, and covers the atrocities of slavery with its mantle of protection. In churches which permit their members to sell and drink intoxicating poisons revivals are frequent, but their spirituality is not of the Holy Ghost's imparting. Thus it will be found that revivals of religion take their character from that of the church in which and the teachings under which they occur. To plead, there- fore, that such revivals prove these churches to be truly of Christ is simply absurd. But the question may here be asked, whence comes the in- terest in religion which attends and marks these revivals, if not from the spirit of God ? With the same propriety we may ask whence the interest which attends Roman Catholic revivals? If the one is of God, simj)ly because excitement ex- ists, so is the other. But do men need to be taught that religious excitement is no evidence of genuine piety? True religion leads men to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. It is not every one that says Lord, Lord, that shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of the Father which is in heaven. Excitements, hopes, fears, joys and sorrows, mental exercises and im- aginary experiences are no evidence of true piety. John Newton had " sw^et experiences " while pursuing the slave- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 121 trade on the coast of Africa. If iilive now, and similarly engaged, these sweet experiences would not save his neck from the halter. Excitements on religion may be from be- neath as well as from above; hopes may be false, joys may be unfounded, fears may be slavish, sorrows may be of the world and work death, exercises and experiences of mind may be very fallacious. By their fruits ye shall know them. If, therefore, the fruits of revivals, in the lives of their con- verts, are not justice, mercy, faith, truth, honesty, love, peace, and all the graces and fruits of God's Holy Spirit, the revival is not of God, and does not prove the church in which it occurs to be his. Decay op Public Viiitue — Its Cause and Cure. That public morality is declining, year by year, in this country, is a fact of which even politicians are becoming sen- sible. High-toned honor and strict personal integrity are hardly looked for now among public men. (Charges of whole- sale bribery against Congressmen and Judges excite no sur- prise. Peculation of the public treasury has almost ceased to be disgraceful. There is no conceivable villainy that is not freely practiced and fully justified, if the success of a political party is supposed to require it. Attempted assassi- nation, of the most beastly and cowardly sort, in the halls of Congress, only prepares the assassin for a splendid ovation of public honor at his death. Profanity is looked for in office- seekers, and, in fact, a man can hardly succeed in the rough- and-tumble of politics without it. Some of the law-makers of the country are noted for the ingenuity and intensity of their blasphemy. To be able to coin a new word of insult of Almighty God is a passport to the society of a class of public men. That chivalrous sense of personal honor which would scorn to strike a man from behind, or to take any unfair advantage even of an enemy, is altogether out of fashion. That nice and scrupulous integrity of character which shrinks from the oifer of a bribe, as from the touch of a leper, is obsolete. That reverential fear of God, which characterized those who planted the seeds of our free institutions in New England, and elsewhere, is a forgotten legend. From those high in place the corruption spreads down through all ranks of society, as is to be expected. Pro- 11 122 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF fanity, licentiousnes?, fraud, swindling;, embezzlement are lamentably common. Human life has become wondrously cheap. The cowardly practice of carrying concealed weapons is becoming general. Assassinations and murders now excite less commotion in a neighborhood than an assault and battery did a fev.' years ago. It is a hopeful sign that thoughtful and upright men are beginning to inquire for the cause and the cure of this alarming condition of things. The main cause, however, appears to have escaped the notice of those whose opinions on the point we have seen. That cau^e is undoubtedly the low state of religion in the churches. The connection between piety in the Church and morality in the world is as intimate as between the heart and the pulse. This connec- tion may be stated and solved with mathematical accuracy. The problem would stand thus : Given the state of piety in the church of a country to find the state of public morals therein. This intimate relation is alluded to in the words of Jesus to his disciples, " Ye are the salt of the earth." " Ye are the liglit of the world." The Christian influence emanat- ing from the Church is the salt that preserves-society from corruption. But that influence is preservative only so far as it is Christian. " If the salt have lost its savor, it is thence- forth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." If the influences that emanate from a church are unchristian, instead of staying, they hasten the process of decay. To the extent to which the influence of the Church is mighty for good, when she is true to her mission, to the same extent is it powerful for evil when she proves false to her trust. " If the light that is in her be darkness, how great is that darkness ? " However the wicked may affect to despise, and may really hate a holy church, the}' are yet powerfully restrained by its influence. There is a power in goodness before which vice shrinks abashed and confounded. The pure and burning light of the holy religion of Jesus, reveals and shames the dark schemes of the ungodly. A single man, " strong in the Lord and in the power of his might," is often more dreaded by the ungodly than an army with banners. John Knox was more feared by the Queen of Scots than all the military force the Protestants of Scotland could muster. Calvin did more to restrain and confound the schemes of Popery in France than all the Huguenot armies of Conde and Coligny. Before the meek eye of Jesus the most REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 123 hardened sinner quailed in conscience-stricken terror. Hence it is that a church, in any community, which is deeply influ- enced with the Spirit of Christ, and exemplifies his doctrines in all its conduct, is the most truly restraining and conserva- tive power that can exist in its midst. In the light of these truths the cause of the present deplorable state of public morals in our land is manifest. The Church has ceased to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Instead of being the terror of evil-doers, she has become their safest hiding-place. The robber and oppressor are among her most honored members and minis- ters. The wine-bibber and the distiller are welcomed to her fellowship. The most flagrant political crimes may be per- petrated by her members without rebuke or question, for the current doctrine is that the Church has nothing to do with politics. The wealthy church-member may lease his build- ings for rum holes or brothels, and the blood-money which he draws from these sources is freely received into what is called the treasury of the Lord, and his name stands high on the subscription list, and he is lauded for his Christian (.') benevolence. Ministers (?) of the gospel may sell virgins into forced prostitution without compromising their ministe- rial standing in the least. These statements are true of all the large and widely influential denominations of this country. With this state of things in the Church, the wonder is that it is no worse in the world. It tvoidd be worse if all the churches, without exception, were involved in this fellowship with crime. " But there is a remnant, according to the election of grace," who have not " bowed the knee to Baal." There are those also, in the large and corrupt ecclesiastical organizations, who sigh and cry for the abominations that are done within their pale. It is owing to the influence of these classes, who embody and exemplify all of practical Chris- tianity that is left in the land, that any vestiges of public virtue are left, and that the nation is not left without right- eous men enough to save it from a political, social, and com- mercial conflagration. With this knowledge of the cause of the low state of pub- lic virtue, there can be no mistake as to the remedy. " Judg- ment must begin at the house of God." The sanctuary must be cleansed before the purifying streams can be poured through the Augean stables of social, political, and financial corruption. A general revival of religion can alone raise the standard of public morality. But it must be a revival of true 124 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF and not shara religion — of that relip;ion which consists in " doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God ;" which consists in "visiting the widow and fatherless in their affliction, and keeping uaspotted from the world." Creeds, There is no subject, scarcely, upon which there has been such an infinite amount of twaddle, as that which we have placed as the caption of this article. One would be almost tempted sometimes to think that all " the ills that flesh is heir to" are the result of creeds, and that their universal abolition would be the consummation of the millenium ! Now what is a creed? It is simply a system of religious faith, it matters not whether written or unwritten. The man who has no creed has no faith — no system of religious truth, and is simply a pagan or an infidel. There is no intelligent Christian who has not a c^red. But, says the objector, my o})jection lies only against writ- ten creeds. Do you, then, object to the Bible? for that is the written creed of universal Christendom. Oh ! no, says the objector, I only war upon creeds of human composition, the Bible is my creed. Nay, my brother, your creed is i/our ■understanding of the Bible. Suppose, for example, that you should write out your opinion (or belief, if you please,) of what constitutes Bible regeneration, repentance, faith, justifi- cation, sanctification, etc.; or of what the Bible teaches con- cerning the character of God, his nature and attributes; or of the resurrection of the dead, or the judgment, or future rewards and punishments. You certainly have some fixed opinions or belief concerning these and all other Bible teach- ings, and this belief written out would be your written creed. But is it any the less a creed because not written? Are you not just as tenacious of your umoritten creed as the veriest creed-monger? and do you not as certainly recognize as crror- ists all who do not subscribe to your umoritten c7-eed, which is simply your uiiderstcuidiiig of what the Bible teaches? Now, although Christianity is not merely a science, yet it is as certainly a science as astronomy or political economy. If a science, it has certain fixed and definite principles, and these principles, so far as understood, constitute, whether written or unwritten, tho creed of him who embraces it. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 125 You, my brother, who have an unwritten creed, pronounce those who have a lorittcn creed all wrong. But suppose you should write out your creed, would there not be quite a prob- ability that the world would find as much wrong in yours as any other ? And do you not subject yourself to the suspicion that it ia to avoid this very judgment that you do not commit your creed to writing? But creeds ai-e an abridgment of Christian liberty. So far, then, they are wrong. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that this is true of all existing creeds, and still it is far from being proved that this is an inherent or essential defect in creeds. It would only prove that those who drew them up had inadequate conceptions of what constituted true Chris- tian liberty. Suppose you should torife out your ideal of Christian lib- erty, is there not a strong probability that it would be found quite as objectionable as any other? Here again you escape the judgment of the world by retreating into the dark laby- rinths of an unwritten creed. But certainly your brother, with his written and published creed, has this advantage, that by the very publication of his creed, he has given evidence that he is not ashamed of it, nor afraid to have it submitted to the test of strictest investigation. We might pursue this course of argument much further, but we think it is a matter comparatively unimportant. We are no creed-worshiper, and no advocate for creed supremacy. In their proper place and their legitimate use, we believe they answer a good purpose. If any have been found to give them an improper place, or pervert them to the destruction of true Christian liberty, or have exalted their authority above the Word of Grod, it is no more the fault of the creed (though no creed, we presume, is faultless) than the monstrous assumptions and aggressions of the slave power are the fault of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. That much evil has resulted from creeds — that creeds mon- strous in wickedness have been promulgated — and that others, as a whole correct in theory, have been monstrously perverted in their application, is all doubtless true, but it would be a strange freak of logic to infer, therefore, that all creeds are necessarily and essentially wrong. Up to the present day every civil government ever organized has been organized upon principles subversive of human right, ignoring the doc- trine of God's universal fatherhood and man's universal brotherhood. Must we, therefore, necessarily infer that all 126 LIFE AND WRITINGS 0¥ civil government is of the Devil, or that man is incapable, with the light and teachings of God's Revelation to aid him, of drawing up a form of government which, properly admin- istered, shall secure the great ends for which government was instituted ? But while we thus speak, we enter our unqualified protest against all creed-worship and creed-supremacy. They are matters of mere convenience. They have no authority in themselves, nor can they derive any merely from the will of the body enacting them. Their sole authority is derived from the Word of God. All creeds must, like the stars in the firmament, shine with a borrowed light. Let them, then, occupy their humble, subordinate, but not useless sphere, receiving and reflecting the light of God's holy truth, and the world may be blest by their beneficent influence. We believe the doctrine of our Confession of Faith is the true position upon this question : " The Supreme Judge, by whom all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures." — Con. F., chap. 1, sec. 10. Again : " An offense is anything in the principles or prac- tice of a church-member, ivhich is contrary to the Word of God:' " Nothing, therefore, ought to be considered by any judi- catory as an offense, or admitted as matter of accusation, which can not be proved to be such from Scripture, or from the regulations and practice of the Chnrch, founded on Scripture," etc. — Book of Discipline, chap. 1, sec. 3, 4. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 127 SCIENTIFIC AND MORAL ARTICLES. Christianity and Science. The pertinacious efforts and oft-vaunted success of infidels in trying to extort from the revelation of nature a contradic- tion of the truths of the Bible, have caused many serious Christians to fear and distrust scientific investigations into the teachings of nature. They hence look coldly on all at-, tempts to fathom her secrets, regard the man as little better than an infidel who avows his faith in any alleged new discov- ery, and regard as deceptive any new light that may be thrown on the laws and properties of matter or mind. This feeling may find some apology in the thousand pretended dis^ coveries of superficial observers, which for a time have occu- pied the attention of men, and have then been exploded and succeeded by some new wonder equally foolish and false. But this attitude of hostility to the researches of science, and this tremulous apprehension lest some evidence should be extracted from the volume of nature to throw discredit on the records of revelation, is unworthy of intelligent Chris- tians, and dishonorable to their holy religion. All Christians believe that the Creator of the universe is the author of the Bible. They believe that the revelations of nature and of the Scriptures have both emanated from the same infinitely wise and perfect mind, a mind that is alike incapable of mistake or contradiction. It follows that these revelations must harmonise with and mutually confirm each other. The object of both revelations is the same, the exhibi- tion of the glory of God through the holiness and happiness' of men ; the one is in part a history of the other. Both are intended for the instruction of the same intelligent beings, and relate in many things to the same subject. It follows as an inevitable conclusion from all this, that these revelations must mutually illustrate and establish each other, and that it must be the very madness of atheism that leads any person to try to extort from the perverted pages of the one, a con- tradiction of the other. 128 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF As was to be expected, therefore, wc find all the past efi"orts of infidels in these attempts, have signally failed. Again and again, indeed, has the world rung with their boastings over some alleged discovery of science that had completely exploded the credibility of the Christian Scriptures. But no sooner have these pretended discoveries been investigated than it has been found that they have been false in themselves, or that their alleged opposition to the Bible has been founded on an entire misrepresentation of the teachings of the holy volume. The weapons with which the unbelievers have sought to destroy the citadel of revealed truth, and the foundation of the Christian's hope, have been turned with terrible efi"oct on the cobweb theories of the infidel. Of the truth of these remarks the present position of geo- logical science furnishes a pertinent illustration. In nothing more than the alleged revelations of geology has infidelity sought for evidence to destroy the claims of the Bible to be the word of God. For a time the Christian world looked on with alarm, and investigation into the phenomena of the geological formations was discouraged and distrusted. This was just what the infidels wanted. Loudly did they scofi" at the fears of Christians, and boastingly did they proclaim that they were afraid to examine into the structure of the earth, as the evidence furnished would inevitably overthrow their faith in the Bible. But the field was at last entered by the believ- ers in revelation, and at every step of their investigations have they found the most abundant confirmation of the truth, of the inspired records. The contradiction to its teachings which the infidels pretended to have discovered, were found to rest upon the most superficial observation of the phenomena of nature, and upon the most false and distorted views of the facts. A single instance is all we now have room to furnish in illustration of those remarks. A work was published a few years since, called the "Vestiges of Creation." One object of the work was to establish what is called the " development " theory of animal existence. This theory is, that all animal life, from the lowest form up to that of man. is a result of the operation of the laws of nature — that currents of electricity passing through small masses of matter in a certain state gener- ated monads, or the lowest forms of animal life ; that from these the developments and improvements went on to reptiles, fishes, birds, four-footed animals, monkeys and men. The "great fact " that was adduced in support of this theory was, that the REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 129 only fossil remains found in the first or lowest geological formations were those of the lowest order of animals, and that the development and perfection of these fossils kept pace with the geological formations, thus proving that they began and proceeded together. The object of this theory was to disprove the Mosaic account of the creation, and thus throw discredit on the Bible. This was considered for a time a triumphantly established theory. But, alas for infidel con- fidence ! subsequent investigation has proved the pretended " fact " on which the theory was based, to be no fact. The researches of Miller and others have resulted in the discovery of some of the most perfect forms of vertebrated animals, in the lowest geological formations. Thus the flimsy foundation of the superstructure of air has been overturned, and the faith of the Christian in the truth and inspiration of his Bible vindicated. Many similar illustrations of the truth of our remarks might be furnished. We waive them for the present to make room for the following observations by an able writer, which will be found interesting : " While revelation thus lavishes its favors on science, sci- ence in its turn, illustrates and confirms revelation. Seeming facts have, indeed, at times, been promulgated, which appeared to contradict and bring discredit on its statements ; but fur- ther research, on the part of scientific men, exposed their fallacy, and confirmed the Scriptures. For example, the accu- racy of the Mosaic chronology has been more than once impugned. Toward the close of the last century, the astro- nomical tables of the Indians formed the topic of protracted discussion. These tables professed to record observations conducted during millions of years. Attempts were made to verify this remote chronology, and to show that there was internal proof that the observations must have been actually made at the time specified. This theory was adopted by sev- eral philosophers in this country and on the continent ; it was advocated by some of the leading journals, and infidelity seemed to have gained a victory. Its triumph however was short. By Bentley, Delambre, La Place, and others, these tables, to which the Brahmins had assigned so high an anti- quity, were subjected to a more rigid and scientific scrutiny. The result was an unanswerable proof that they had been fabricated only a few centuries before. Again, when the celebrated zodiac of Dendara was brought from Egypt to Paris, Bupuis and his disciples expected to 12 130 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF derive from it an argument in support of their skeptical rev- eries on the " origin of religions," and of pretended civiliza- tion, which they maintained had existed in Egypt long before the times of either Moses or the deluge. The calculations by •which they attempted to prop their fallacious theories were investigated by men distinguished in the scientific world, and proved to be erroneous. Still the adversaries of revelation were unwilling to acknowledge defeat, and persisted in ascrib- ing to their zodiac an antiquity of more than six thousand years. Quite recently, however, Champollion, in his researches among the mysterious paintings and hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, found, on the very temple from which it was taken, two inscriptions, one of them in Greek, containing the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra and the Koman emperors, by whom it had been built about the commencement of the Christian Era.. Thus the truth of the Mosaic narrative, instead of being subverted, was confirmed, and its opponents covered with confusion. The inquiries of the learned into Egyptian documents and monumental inscriptions, have thrown light on sacred history and furnished independent evidence of its accuracy. The sojourn of the Israelites, their state of slavery, the occupations at which they were compelled to labor, as well as the period of their abode, are all recorded in the documents to which I have referred. Had Voltaire been now alive, he would not have ventured to put the sneering question, how, and on what materials the Hebrew lawgiver would write the Pentateuch ; for it was proved that papyrus was in common use for writing in his time. Nor would he have tauntingly asked how, after an interval of a thousand years, Hilkiah, could find in the tem- ple of Jerusalem, the autograph of the law; for writings and contracts on papyrus, as old as the times of the Pharaohs, still exist, and are still legible. Nor would he have incredulously inquired, how so many objects of art for the tabernacle, and the sacred vestments and vessels, could be wrought in the desert; for the arts then flourished in Egypt, and there Moses had acquired a knowledge of them. Nor would he have insin- uated against Ezra the charge of having forged the sacred books which he had collected ; for the written and monumen- tal history of Egypt so coincides with these books, in dates and facts, as to demonstrate that they could not be the work of an impostor. The remark respecting this celebrated infidel, made by Benjamin Constant, an eminent philosopher who had REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 131 abandoned infidel opinions in consequence of the numberless difficulties which the facts of science oppose to skepticism, is very pungent ; " He who would be gay with Voltaire, at the expense of Ezekiel and Genesis, must unite two things, which will make his gaiety sufficiently melancholy — ignorance the most profound, and frivolity the most deplorable." — Rohson. Science and Christianity — Another Coincidence. One man of real science, Agassiz, and several smatterers, Gliddon, Nott, etc., have lately been trying to prove that the human race have not all descended from one original pair. They pretend to find such differences of physical conforma- tion among the different nations of men, as preclude the idea of their having the same ancestry. This idea is, of course, at variance with the teachings of the Bible. Its history is, that Adam and Eve were the progenitors of all the race. The apostle's declaration is, that " G od has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." If the theory that there was more than one original pair could be established, of course the testimony of the Scriptures on this point would be discredited. But the recent discoveries of science come in at this point to confirm and establish the testimony of revelation. By the aid of the microscope it has been discovered that the blood of every animal is specifically different from that of every other, and that human blood is entirely distinct from that of all animals, while it is the same in all races of men. A writer in the Presbyterian Banner and Advocate thus states the prop- osition of the apostle in his speech at Athens : " I. There is a common life-stream flowing through the veins of all men, of whatever tribe or nation, which, notwith- standing its accidental modifications caused by influence of climate, food, health, and habits, is yet everywhere character- istically the same, and can be recognized as such. "II. This life-stream of the human race is characteristic- ally different from all other life-streams, found in all other creatures : in other words, the blood of beasts, birds, or fishes, or any other creeping thing, and can be clearly distinguished therefrom." These propositions he demonstrates thus : " Science has actually established our interpretation of the 132 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF Pauline statement as the true one ! The light hreaks at last upon our path ! The achievement of scientific naturalists furnish to our hand the materials for a true interpretation, and bring vividly to mind the pertinent and far-reaching remark of Bishop Butler, that ' Events as they come to pass will open the fuller sense of Scripture.' The microscope accomplishes to-day a splendid work in behalf of the living oracles of Grod. It interprets to-day a part of the oration of Paul. It has superseded the tedious and circuitous method of chemical analysis relied upon for the last twenty years, but with so much misgiving and dissatisfaction. The most that could be accomplished by this means, was simply the detec- tion of coloring matter in the blood, without any evidence, whatever, whether the blood was that of a man, a beast, or a bird. But the microscope has done more. It has done for the blood just what the telescope has done for the nebulous stream in the heavens. It has resolved the mazy mass into separate globes, and determined the variety, character and size of each. First, came the discovery that the blood of every animal is composed of an infinite number of minute, red globules, floating in a colorless fluid. Next, that in the Mammal class, these globules were uniformly circular and somewhat y?a^; in thickness equal to one-fourth the diameter. Next, that in birds, fishes, reptiles, these globules are oval in form, and last of all, that ' every kind of animal has its blood globules difi"ering in size from those of every other kind.' " Geology. So far as our Brother Bradford is concerned with the foregoing communication, " he is of age and can answer for himself." Having admitted the assumption of the geol- ogists that the earth is more than six thousand years old, he is bound to reconcile the supposed fact with the Mosaic account, or reject the latter as false. Wc have made no such admission, though in our former article in reply to the ques- tion of a " Sincere Inquirer," we showed one way in which the assumptions of geologists in regard to the age of the earth and the history of creation as given by Moses, could be reconciled. Our want of success in " fully satisfying " our correspondent, does not encourage us to repeat the attempt in EEV. JOSEPH GORDON. 133 that direction. Wo shall content ourself. in the present arti- cle, with defining our position and giving a true statement of the point at issue between the infidel geologists and the Bible. We neither admit or deny the assumption of the geologists that the " earth's monuments prove her to be tens of thous- ands of years old." It seems to us quite too soon to make such assertions with overweening confidence. Geology is too young, and, hitherto, too confined in her researches to speak as those who know whereof they afiirm of the age of the world. Let her votaries content themselves with examining phenomena, collecting and classifying facts, and thus laying the foundations of a true science. When the entire field of investigation open to their research has been thoroughly explored, it will be time enough to call in question the hith- erto received interpretation of the Mosaic cosmogony. That they have yet furnished any thing approximating a " demon- stration^'' that the earth is more than six thousand years old we deny. The alleged demonstration is derived from the fossil remains found in the secondary formations, and the following extract from Professor Silliman is, perhaps, a fair specimen of the mode of reasoning from these discoveries : " We will not inquire whether Almighty Power inserted plants and animals in mineral masses, and was thus exerted in working a long series of useless miracles without design or end, and, therefore, incredible. The man who can believe, for example, that the Iguanodon, with his gigantic form, seventy feet in length, ten in hight and fifteen in girth, was created in the midst of consolidated sandstone, and placed down one thousand or twelve hundred feet from the surface of the earth, in a rock composed of ruins and fragments, and containing vegetables, shells, fish, and rolled pebbles — such a man can believe any thing with or without evidence. If there be any such persons we must leave them to their own reflection's, since they can not be influenced by reason and sound argument ; with them we can sustain no discussion, for there is no common ground on which we can meet." Now can the learned Professor, or any one else, affirm that the huge monsters of which he speaks, were not antediluvian animal productions, cotemporary and corresponding in mag- nitude with the " mighty men which were, of old, men of renown," and that they were not buried in the fearful convul- sions attending that event, when the fountains of the great deep were broken up ? Or can the geologists tell what effect six thousand years, with its earthquakes, volcanoes, its one 134 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF general deluge and thousands upon thousands of violent floods have produced upon the earth ? Well may the lan- guage of Jehovah, to one of old, be addressed to these speculators : " Where wast tliou when I laid the foundation of the world? Declare if thou hast understanding." The state of the question then as between the infidel geol- ogists and the Bible is this. The Bible does not rest on geology for evidence of its truth, but geologists appeal to their science for evidence to prove the Scriptures false. It is then evidently for the geologists to make out a case for their science, as against the Bible, so clear that the shadow of a reasonable doubt can not rest upon it. Until this is done it is both impudent and absurd to set up their speculations to prove the Scriptures false, and then clamor against the bigotry of those who refuse to cast aside the only book that holds out any hope for man in time or in eternity. The Bible presents better authenticated historical records than any other book. There is more and better historical evidence that Moses led the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan — gave them the law and established their system of religious worship, than there is that Cecrops founded Athens, and that Grreece became the seat of learning and arts. There is more and better histori- cal evidence that Jesus Christ lived, taught, wrought miracles, was crucified and rose from the dead on the third day, than there is that Julius Caesar lived, subdued Gaul and Britain, led his armies back to Borne, crossed the Rubicon and became Emperor. The evidence from prophesy is so remark- able that some ancient enemies of the Bible were compelled to resort to the silly plea that they were written after the events they professed to foretell. The evidence from this source is cumulative, and is growing stronger by the lapse of time. Now, if the accounts of the miracles of Moses, the Prophets, and of Jesus, were published and believed at the time in which they are said to have been wrought — and to deny this is to falsify and discredit all historical evidence — they must have been true. If events were foretold hundreds of years before they transpired so clearly that they are a true history of the events, then the book which is attested by these miracles, and which contains these prophecies, must be divinely inspired. But the Bible presents evidence of its own truth and inspi- ration, above the testimony of prophesy and miracles. In the correspondence of its parts, the agreement of its writers one with another — writing as they did during a period stretching REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 135 over fifteen liundred years, in different parts of tlie earth — being men of different liabits and education and mental endow- ments — in all this, and in the i^ractical effects of the Bible, there is evidence that it is of Grod, that amounts to the very strongest moral demonstration. Whatever progress the world has made in knowledge, and virtue and happiness, it owes directly or indirectly to the Bible. The institutions under which the infidels of the present day have been educated into the outward decencies of civilization, and into the knowledge and practice of some moral virtues, owe their existence to the Bible. Serpent-like, these men would destroy the bosom on which they have been warmed into whatever of intellectual and moral life they enjoy. The Bible goes to the rude hovel of the Hottentot, bi'eathes over him its own divine spirit, awakes his debased and feeble intellect to newness of life, and transforms his fierce and more than brutal soul into the divine likeness of Jesus. The liou becomes the lamb. The revengeful, blood-thirsty savage, becomes the meek, non-resisting, peace-making Christian. The lustful become pure, the proud are made humble, and the selfish become benevolent. Following in the track of the Bible, the arts and sciences of civilized life take the place of the debasing institutions of heathenism. Thus, by its prac- tical eflfects, the Bible vindicates its claim to be the book of God. The life of one Christian Africaner, before and after conversion, is an argument for its divine inspiration which infidelity in vain attempts to gainsay. Again : the Bible goes to the bedside of the dying believer, and transforms that scene of mortal agony into the lofty tri- umph of the conqueror. Its voice of hope and promise rises high and clear above the roar of the billows of death. Its light of future glories throws a hallowed radiance over its dark and bitter waves. While the infidel ti'emblingly and in agony exclaims, " Eemorse ! remorse !" the Christian shouts, " death, where is thy sting ! grave, where is thy victory ! thanks be to God, who giveth its the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Thus^ also, the Bible vindicates its claims to Divine inspiration. We might pursue this train of argument to an indefinite length, but we stop here. So much evidence do the Scriptures afford that they are of God, that men like Locke and Newton — giants of intellect, before whose colossal proportions the sciolists of this age that call in question the inspiration of the 136 LIFE AND AVRITIXGS OF Bible, dwindle into microscopic dimensions — bowed in pro- foundest veneration to their infallible authority. Now this is the book which geology — a science of yesterday, having dug a few holes one eight-thousandth part of the earth's diameter in depth, and extracted therefrom a few bones of extinct species of animals — would set aside as a forgery and a lie. The theories of geology, built upon this most super- ficial and narrow examination of the earth's monuments, have been legion. It has been the fate of one theory after another to explode, after new facts have been brought to light by fur- ther examination. Yet these structures of gossamer, rising, sparkling, and bursting, like the soap-bubbles which the child blows up for a moment's amusement, are to overturn the adamantine pillars of revelation, built on the moveless foun- dation of the Rock of Ages. And when the infidelity of Low- ell peddles out at second hand these flimsy speculations, to discredit the truths of revelation, a "Sincere Inquirer," and those he represents, are ready to " beg for quarter ! " We have said nothing about the matter of the obligation of the Sabbath, because that question depends on the truth or falsehood of the Bible. Wab. One of the brightest revelations of Prophesy is the entire cessation of war. It is thus announced by the Prophet Isaiah : — "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills: and all nations shall flow unto it. "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teaeh us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. " And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peo- ple: and they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." The time thus foretold is called by Christians generally, the jMillenium. This is the time of the Lord's reign on earth, either personally and visibly, as some believe, or spiritually in the hearts of men, according to the faith of others. Before REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 137 this period arrives, war must universally cease, and the reign of peace extend over the earth. This consummation is to be brought about by the gospel of Christ. When the Christian religion shall become prevalent in the earth, and the hearts and lives of all are brought under its power, "wars will cease unto the ends of the earth." War is, therefore, opposed to the spirit and principles of the gospel. It is a practice which is undesirable, the exist- ence of which all the good deplore, which no one with any feelings of love to God or men, desires to see extended and perpetuated. This is enough for our purpose. It is abun- dant proof that it is every one's duty to labor for the abolition of war and the war-spirit. It is an all-sufficient reason why no Christian should seek a justification of war, even in extreme cases, from the gospel of Christ. War is one of the Devil's favorite agencies for the ruin and misery of men. Satan, no doubt, never feels better pleased than when he beholds two armies engaged in slaughtering each other. How far Chris- tians may adopt and employ one of his favorite instrumen- talities would not seem difficult to determine. That this has been done extensively, by professing Christians is as much out of character, and as much a matter of wonder, as the fact that they have engaged in the foreign and domestic slave-trade, and in holding men in slavery; or that they are found en- gaged in the making, vending, and drinking of intoxicating liquors. Their conduct in these and many other instances, is a libel on the religion they profess ; a gross misrepresenta- tion of the teachings and spirit of Christ. Even though a plausible argument for war in an extreme case might be made out, it proves nothing. Extreme cases are not the rule of action, hut the except io}i, and exceptions only establish the rule. We therefore, oppose war to the same extent that we oppose slavery, drunkenness, caste, polygamy, or any other organic sin. Ranking it with these, we would be faithless to our con- victions of duty if we did not raise our feeble voice against it. There are different grounds of opposition to the practice. It appeals to different motives. We oppose it, 1st. On account of its fearful and wasteful ex-penditures. The wars of what are called Christian nations, have cost more than all other purposes of government besides. Confining our attention to our own land, and we find that the expense of preparation for war in time of peace, is four times greater than all other expenses of the Government. A few facts will abundantly establish this position; and we shall use only 138 LIFE AND WRITINGS OP those which are familiar to all. The army and navy of the United States cost the nation eighty per cent, of all the public revenue. This percentage is higher than in any other nation on the globe. In Austria it is 33 per cent; in France 38; in Prussia 44; in Great Britain 74; and in the United States 80 per cent! That is eighty cents out of every dollar of the public revenue, paid by the laboring classes of the country, is swallowed up in making and sustaining preparations for the work of human butchery. The remaining twenty cents answers all the civil purposes of the nation. Pays the salary of all the public officers; the outfit and salaries of foreign min- isters ; the light-houses, from Maine to California ; all public buildings of the nation ; the complicated, extensive and most useful machinery of the post-office department, together with various other espenditures. A few items in this account may be looked at with profit. The military academy at West Point has cost the nation more than four millions of dollars. Each cadet receives, besides a gratuitous education, twenty- eight dollars a month for the privilege of being educated at the public expense. There are kept there 100 horses, with grooms, blacksmiths, &c., for the accommodation of the pupils. A single lesson at target-shooting costs the nation fifty dollars. The salary of a colonel of dragoons is 82,000 ; of a briga- dier general ^2,958 ; a major general $4,500 ; a captain of a ship of the line receives on service $4,500, out of service $3,500. A larger salary for doing nothing than any minister of relig- ion, or president of a college, receives in the United States. A single regiment of dragoons costs annually $700,000. There are now at least three of these in the nation, costing yearly $2,100,000. The cost of two ships of the line has been $2,000,000. Every gun carried across the ocean costs $15, 000. The building and outfitting of the line ship, Ohio, cost $834,485. The expense of the same for one year is $220,000. During the fifty years of peace from 1789 to 1843, there were devoted to the army and navy $538,964,000. A moder- ate estimate of the expenses of the militia for the same period gives the enormous sum of $1,335,000,000. Of these sums there were spent in time of peace more than sevenfcen hundred millions of dollars — a sum beyond the power of human con- ception. All this spent in peaceful preparations for war in times of profound peace ! These are a few of the facts and figures in the case. They are such as may well arrest the attention of every thoughtful REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 139 mind. Had this immense expenditure been devoted to the education of the people, and the dissemination of Christianity over the world, a Christian civilization would ere this have been attained which would render future wars utterly impos- sible. Since the foregoing calculations were made the Mexican crusade has been carried through, involving the nation in a direct expenditure of probably two hundred millions of dol- lars. The actual sum of money paid, however, in sustaining military operations is but a small part of the waste of property in actual war. The withdrawal of troops from industrial occupations, and the consequent loss of their productive labor, and the destruction of property attending the march of an army, would swell the estimate to an amount beyond the power of human conception. Resting our estimates of the cost of war and military estab- lishments here, many serious questions arise to the mind. Could not the objects for which all the wars of this nation have been waged, have been attained by peaceable arbitration ? Would not the nation and those with whom she has been at war, have all been immense gainers by such a mode of adjust- ment? — Can a nation professing to be more completely under the influence of Christian civilization than any other on the face of the earth, fail to have incurred fearful guilt, by this destruction of those things which a beneficent Providence has provided for the wants and happiness of man? These ques- tions we can not now discuss. They are indeed their own answer. Another question, full of important suggestions, immediately presents itself. What has been gained by all this fearful waste of property ? By the Mexican war a vast territory, which has become the cause of more wide -spread agitation and strife than any that ever distracted the country. A strife that threatens to tear down the very pillars of the Grovernment. Territory has been acquired, immense portions of which will be given up to the withering curse of slavery, if the purposes of the authors and supporters of the war be attained. In addition to this the nation thinks it has gained a little glory. A little empty fame. A crop of Presidential aspirants, in the shape of military commanders. And this is candidly and really all. On the other hand, what has been lost? What is always lost by the prosecution of war? All the immense amount of property of which we have spoken ; thousands and thousands of precious lives ; the respect of all other nations among whom any sentiments of honor prevail, 140 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF — the force and efficacy of a high and beneficent example to the nations of the earth. Depravation of public morals, and the prevalence of a military spirit among the people, have resulted ; the disposition to give military renown the precedence to statesmanship and virtue, as a qualification for civil office. These evils every candid man must see as fol- lowing inevitably in the train of wars, waged under circum- stances similar to those attending that with Mexico. But we must leave these considerations to a future article. We were speaking in this merely of the expense of war. The war debt of Christendom at this day would plant and sustain a school, with a competent teacher, for every thirty children in the world. It would build a church and support a preacher of the gospel for every five hundred inhabitants on the earth ; sustain a printing-press, and endow and support a college or university for every county ; feed the poor of all nations ; sustain the alms-houses, hospitals, and other public charities, of the world. In short, it would supply and sustain all the instrumentalities needed for the redemption of the whole world from ignorance, superstition, idolatry, caste, slavery, and all other evils that afflict the race; and then be scarce half exhausted. And all this incalculable amount of property, that might have been devoted to these beneficent objects, has been worse than wasted in the prosecution of the work of human butch- ery. Brethren — children of one father — made of one blood — destined in a few brief years to a common resting-place — have wasted money enough to furnish the means for fiooding the earth with the light of science and salvation, in the fiendish work of each other's destruction ! Terrible will be the reck- onings of the Judgment Day for this. Remarks on other aspects of the subject must be deferred to future numbers. War. There is an allegory which tells of one of the " Elder Spirits of Heaven "' being appointed to conduct a youthful angel down to earth, for the purpose of learning the char- acter of this world and its inhabitants. The guardian spirit conducted his charge first to the scene of conflict between the fleets of two hostile nations. The battle was raging with fearful carnage. The roar of cannon was incessant; the wounded lay weltering in their blood, mingling their groans REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 141 and 6ries of agony with the din of battle. The combatants, ■with faces begrimed with blood and smoke, stood by their dread engines of death, that at every discharge revealed their grim and ghastly countenances, glaring with all the fierce passions of incarnate fiends. For miles around the ocean was discolored with blood ; while fragments of broken spars and masts, and mangled human bodies, were floating on the reddened waters. The youthful spirit turned to his conductor with an air of displeasure, and exclaimed, "What is this? You were appointed to guide me to earth, and you have brought me to hellP'' The moral of the legend is obvious. There is no doubt that every human being, imbued to any extent with the Chris- tian spirit, would be similarly impressed by such a spectacle, if he had never read of war or battle. The idea that those whom God has made of one blood to dwell upon the face of the earth — brethren possessed of a common nature and com- mon interests, partakers of the same joys and sorrows — should resort to the work of each other's wholesale destruction, for any purpose whatever, is one which were it not a stern reality, would be regarded as one of the wildest freaks of a distem- pered fancy. Were the proposal to resort to war for any of the purposes for which war is waged now, for the first time, made, it would strike the whole civilized world with horror. Yet the guilt of the first war would be no greater than if ten thousand had been waged before. The frequency of the recurrence of warlike collisions between hostile nations, while it blunts the impression of their guilt, at the same time really increases it. From such a point of view as we have supposed there would be but one opinion of the character of war. There would be but one verdict from the civilized world. In this may be found, therefore, with unerring certainty, the tes- timony of nature and of nature's God against the practice of war. In strict harmony with the revelation of nature on this subject is the fuller revelation of the Bible. We shall now enter into the discussion of that branch of the question ; but basing our opposition to war on those broad grounds of inex- pediency and immorality, on which all the virtuous and humane may stand together, we propose now to inquire what can be done for the entire suppression of the system, and for the substitution of other more rational methods of gaining the ostensible ends for which wars are usually waged. 1. The first thing essential to the establishment of uni- versal peace on earth, is to dispossess the minds of men of the 142 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF idea that wars are necessary for self-defense among nations. A strictly defensive war is, in this age of the world, a simple impossibility. Let a nation observe strict justice in all its intercourse with other nations ; let it say to them, "W e desire to live in peace with all the world; any injury done by our agents or citizens, to the property or lives of any of your sub- jects, shall, when brought to our notice, be promptly redressed ; ' let there be no strife between us ; for we be brethren ; ' " let a nation proclain such principles as these, and act in accord- ance with them, and that nation is safer from invasion than if its fleets darkened every sea, and its forts and arsenals frowned on every hill-top. There could then be neither motive nor pretext for attack ; and the nation that without these should invade its soil, would raise a storm of indignation against itself more terrible than fleets and armies. Bad as the world is, it is too far on in civilization to tolerate such open, wanton aggression. Besides, " There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations," and who, "when a nation's ways please him, will cause even its enemies to be at peace with it." But so long as a strictly defensive war is admitted as a probable, or even a possible event, so long will preparations for war be thought necessary ; and so long as men are trained for war — so long as navies and armies are kept up — so long will wars continue to devastate the earth. This assertion is susceptible of the clearest demonstration, both from the truths of history and from the necessary tendency of such prepara- tions. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, gave once as a reason for invading a neighboring State, that " he had an army of one hundred thousand men tinder his command^ There is a vol- ume of meaning in this honest confession of an atrocious motive. The only chance for distinction among military men is in the occurrence of actual war. The end of their entire education is to fit them for the work of death on the field of battle. It is only there that they can show ofi" their accom- plishments. Now, while a standing army and navy are kept up, with officers and men stationed all over the country, enjoy- ing, through a false public sentiment, admission to the best society, and permitted to exert a controlling influence over the public mind, pretexts for war will be found just as often as these trained and respectable murderers may wish for an opportunity to distinguish themselves by military achieve- ments. But let it once become a settled conviction in the public mind, that preparations for military defense are unnecessary, REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 143 and the army and navy will be disbanded. The vessels of war will be employed for the useful purposes of commerce ; and the soldier compelled to resort to the peaceful pursuits of life. 2. A second thing which each one can do to hasten the time " when wars shall cease to the ends of the earth," is to resolve never, under any circumstances, to vote for the military man for any civil office of profit or trust. If the road to poli- tical promotion was once fast closed against the professional sol- dier, the days of the demon of war would be numbered. The very reverse of this is now true among all civilized and savage nations. The army offers the surest and shortest road to civil and political promotion. The qualifications of a man for office are gener- ally counted by the number of his battles and victories, and by the number of victims he has slain. This has come to be more and more the case in this country, and in the last Pres- idential election a large majority of the voters of the country, by electing a man who had been forty years in the army, and had never performed an hour's civil service, thereby announced their belief that nothing but military prowess was necessary to fit a man for the highest office in their gift. If the " signs of the times " are not deceptive, the same thing is to be acted over again at the next electoral canvass. Those things augur badly for the Republic. Military rule, and the disposition to honor military achievements more than political wisdom and integrity, and moral worth, are the surest precursors of the ruin of public virtue, and the prevalence of anarchy and licentiousness. Now, the half million of voters in this country, who are the professed followers of the Prince of Peace, have it in their power to arrest this dangerous tendency. Let them resolve, as one man, that no man who follows a profession opposed to the entire letter and spirit of the pure any peaceful religion they profess, can ever under any circumstances, secure their votes, and the politicians will look elsewhere than to the army for their Presidential and other candidates. Every professing Christian who refuses to do this, ought to feel the blood and guilt of every war which grows out of a reckless ambition, resting on his conscience. Other means of hastening the overthrow of war and the war spirit, might be named. The dissemination of light and truth on the subject. Facts, arguments and appeals, showing the utter failure of the ordeal of battle to establish any right principle, or secure any valuable end, ought to be brought to 144 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF bear on the public mind. Petitions sbould be circulated for the abolition of the army and navy, and the substitution of rational and Christian modes of adjusting national difficulties. And above all, the fervent prayers of God's people should be offered up without ceasing for this glorious consummation. When the public heart shall be awakened to this great sub- ject, and become more deeply imbued with the spirit, of Him who " came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them," the days of legal and wholesale murder will be numbered. The orator and poet will then cease to enshrine the bloody achieve- ments of the warrior, in eloquence and song. Their " gifts divine " will then be consecrated to the conquests of the moral hero. The triumph of intelligence over ignorance, of light over moi'al darkness, of love over hatred, will then claim the admiration of men. The vision of the Prophet will then be realized; the swords will be beaten into plow-shares and the spears into pruning-hooks ; and the nations learn war no more. Martial Law Destroys Personal Accountability. At a time when our public servants are voting increased and most extravagant appropriations to the army and navy, it is highly proper that the people should look closely at the organization of these institutions, which they are taxed so heavily to support. A well written article on the subject of martial law will be found in another part of this paper. From the incontrovertible facts and principles laid down in that article, the conclusion is inevitable that, so far as human instrumentality can do so, martial law destroys individual responsibility. Let us look at what is implied in personal accountability ; and then we shall see how military law inter- feres with it. It is a doctrine both of natural and revealed religion that every one shall give account of himself to God. The very idea of a moral government over intelligent beings, involves the doctrine of their accountability to their ruler. Man's moral nature corresponds with this obligation. He is endowed with a judgment to discriminate between right and wrong, and with a conscience to approve the one and condemn the other. A law also has been given by the Creator, command- ing all duty, and forbidding all crime ; and it is to this law that he is accountable, and by it that he will be judged. But to render this accountability just, it ia necessary that man REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 145 should be perfectly free to exercise his judgment in consider- ing questions of duty, and free to follow the convictions of his conscience. But this freedom of judgment and of conscience is just the thing which martial law takes away from every soldier, from the commander-in-chief, down to the private in the ranks. Every man below the commander-in-chief is bound, under terrible penalties, to yield the most implicit and unquestion- ing obedience to the orders of his superior officer, and the commander-in-chief is bound to render the same obedience to the commands of his government. Prompt and unhesitating obedience to orders, coupled with skill and courage in their execution, are the essential elements of good soldiership. The soldier has no possible use for a conscience, or for any moral faculty whatever. His whole conduct, as a soldier, is laid out for him by others. A cultivated and enlightened conscience would indeed be utterly incompatible with military regulations, as it would cause its possessor to revolt from the execution of many a command of his superior. All the soldier needs is intelligence enough to understand his instructions and courage and vigor in carrying them into execution. But the question irresistibly arises here, if God had intended men for soldiers would he have endowed them with faculties which unfit them for that position ? Would he have given them a judgment to distinguish right from wrong, and a conscience to approve or condemn, as their conduct accords or conflicts with their con- victions of duty, when the only result of these faculties is to unfit them for the work of the soldier? Such incongruity between means and ends is found in none of the works of God. Let it be noted, moreover, that this absolute submission to orders is essentially necessary to the organization of an army. No army could hold together for a day, in which every man had the right to think, decide, and act for himself. Discip- line would be completely at an end. But it is a military axiom, that discipline is the soul of an army, and every one knows that when the soul is out the body is dead. It was not an arbitrary love of power merely, which led to the enactment of the Draconian code of martial law. It was the necessity of the case. Entire unity of counsel and purpo,:'e is indispensa- bly necessary to the efficiency and success of military opera- tions, and that unity can only be secured by placing the whole mass under the absolute control of a single mind. To divide the supreme command even between but two persons, as has 13 146 LIFE AND WHITINGS 0¥ sometimes been done, is found to lead almost invariably to divided counsels, weakness, and defeat. But it is not only necessary that the command be in one person, but also that his authority be absolute. Even a murmur against it is not to be tolerated for a moment. The organization and efficiency of the army can only be maintained by every subordinate officer and soldier becoming a mere animated machine, to execute, without question or scruple, the will of another. Now we repeat, that if it is right to place men in this abso- lute subjection to the authority of another, it is wrong to hold them individually responsible for their actions. They have no choice but to obey. There is no room for the exercise of judgment and conscience. The soldier, for all moral pur- poses, is as much a tool as the sword, in the hands of his commander. But God's laws may not be thus set aside by human arrangements. He still holds men to their accountability, and by no act of their own can they throw it off. It still remains true that we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ ; and that every one must give account of himself unto Grod. The soldier's oath to obey his leader does not free him from his obligations to the higher law of God ; nor will the plea that he only obeyed orders, excuse him at the bar of God, for the crimes he has committed. No man has any right to place himself in a situation in which he can not exercise his own free agency ; and that must of necessity be an inherently vicious institution which can only be maintained by annihilating men's freedom of choice and action. The fact that there is no despotism so absolute and relent- less as that established by martial law, furnishes the reason why standing armies are ever the willing and ready tools of tyrants. Men educated in the school of despotism can not be expected to love liberty. They who are voluntary slaves themselves, can have no true regard for the freedom of others. Truk and False Heroism. At the present moment a hundred thousand of the chivalry of Western Europe, are gathered in deadly conflict with a greater number of Northern barbarians, around a Russian stronghold, on the shores of the Black Sea. War there rages in all its fury. Death riots on prey, and banquets daily on REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 147 hecatombs of the slain. By battle, by disease, by hunger and exposure, by shot and shell, by bayonet and dagger, the work of slaughter goes on. The wild excitements and fierce passions of war are fanned to a fearful glow. The fields around Sebastopol are fattened with human blood, and whitened with human bones. All the enginery of destruction which modern skill, and science and energy have devised, is there employed. Stratagem and plot are brought into play. The fierce sortie, and the dogged and desperate resistance, are almost nightly repeated. The angel of death waves his dark wing over the embattled hosts, and his foul fiends hold daily and nightly revel in the crammed and reeking charnel-house which engulfs the slain. And this fearful work of death has not even the extenua- tion of being, on either side, a contest for a great and holy principle. It is not a struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor. It is not a fight for liberty against despotism, nor a battle for the protection of the weak against the strong. It is only a conflict of despots over points of barren and tor- tuous diplomacy. The tyrant adventurer, who controls for the time the destinies of France, and the efiete aristocrats, who rule the English cabinet, have just as little sympathy with freedom, as Nicholas or Alexander. The crushed masses of Europe have nothing to hope from either party, but every- thing to fear from both. As now waged, the war is a wan- ton, useless, reckless waste of human life. Yet every man who is thus sacrified, is the center of a circle of home affections. Each one is bound to father, mother, wife, children, brother, sister, or friend. None there so friendless as to fall utterly unregretted, while over the fall of the vast majority, loving eyes will long weep tears of bit- ter anguish. Many a lovely home will be desolated forever. The light on thousands of happy hearth-stones will go out, never to be rekindled. And the soldier who escapes the dangers of the campaign, will in many cases come back so depraved by the vicious influences of the camp, as to cause deeper sorrow by his life than would have been excited by his death. And this fierce strife of man with man, the world calls heroism. The more successful the man in the work of death, the greater the honor accorded to him. When either party gains a partial advantage over the other, whole nations shout in triumph. Public thanks are returned to the same God, alike by Russian for the slaughter of Frank or Englishman, 148 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF and by the latter for the destruction of the Russian. In temples professedly dedicated to the worship of God, te deums are chanted over the gory triumphs. But it requires no high courage to be a soldier. A moder- ate share of the lowest animal courage, combined with a large infusion of the most brutal and ferocious of human passions, are the best material for the warrior. In entering the camp as a professional soldier, the man of necessity gives up his conscience to the control of his superiors. That high sense of right which shrinks from the very appearance of evil, and that lofty moral courage which adheres to the right, not only in the face of personal danger, but in the face of scorn and hatred, and bitter obloquy, are utterly incompatible with the profession of arms. But turning from the picture of strife and carnage, a spec- tacle of another kind meets our view. The war that has been the cause of all this display of wrath and blood, has been the occasion of the exhibition of pure and true heroism. A young female, of ample fortune and high social position, beautiful in person, refined in manners, surrounded by all that could minister enjoyment to cultivated and elegant tastes, leaves all the endearments of home, and all the pleasures of refined social life, to minister to the sick and suffering victims of the war. She incurs not only the loss of all the comforts and enjoyments which her position commanded, but even the sneers and insinuations of some who were base enough to hint that her mission of mercy betrayed a want of modesty. And there, in that ghastly receptacle of the wounded and the dying, on the shores of the Bosphorus, this heroic woman may be seen, day after day and night after night, moving like an angel of mercy among the long lines of the suffering and the dying. Her gentle hand administers the healing balm to the wounded, and cools by its soft touch the brow of the fevered sufferer. The sight of ghastly wounds, of gory and mangled bodies, the cries of the agonized sufferers, and the groans of the expiring victims, so shocking and revolting to sensitive nerves, are all borne and braved with a lofty moral heroism, before which the brute courage of the soldier is totally eclipsed. Look at the two pictures. On the one side " the smoking hell of battle," where all that is fierce, and foul, and fiendish in human passion, seethes and rages in its fiery flow. On the other, the gentle ministry of purest and holiest benevolence. From the battle-plain goes up the roar of cannon, and bomb- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 149 sliell, the fierce shouts of the combatants, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the mingled cry of agony from horse and man. From the receptacle of the wounded sounds clear and soft the gentle tones of love ; the voice of Christian sympathy and soothing consolation. Almost in hearing of the conflict breathes forth that still small voice, with its music of love. "Like lutes of angels, touched so near Hell's confines, that the damned can hear." On the one side, the rage of man mutilates and destroys his brother ; on the other, the loving ministry of woman binds up the wounds and soothes the pains of the victims. The one curses, the other blesses. The one destroys, the other saves. From the one goes up the hoarse imprecation, the foul blasphemy, the shriek of rage and hate ; from the other the tones of kindness, the voice of hope, and the accents of prayer. And yet, of these pictures so broadly contrasted, the first fills by far the largest portion of the world's history, even among nations calling themselves Christian. The heroes, falsely so called, of blood and carnage, are those whose names stand highest on the scroll of earthly fame, while the deeds of sacred charity and love, from earth's true heroes and hero- ines, are altogether unnoted, or passed by as things of little worth. But it will not be always thus. Even now the faint dawning of a better day may be detected by the spiritual eye. " The soldier's name will be a name abhorred," while earth's true heroes will be recognized in those whose lives are given to bless and save the race. " Look on This Picture, and on This." Congress has recently passed a bill creating the oflice of Lieutenant Grcneral, conferring the ofiiee upon General Scott, giving him S30,000 for past services, and adding ^1,600 a year to his salary, which was $7,000 per annum before. The bill has received the signature of the President, and gone into effect. This act of Congress is in harmony with the received and prevailing sentiment of the country. To honor and pay her military commanders is part of the standing policy of our country. The general, the commander of a man-of-war. and 150 LIFE AND WRITINGS OP even " the swearing frontier colonel," receive from three to six times the salary of our college presidents and professors, and our ministers of the gospel. Then the former are the stuff of which Presidents and Senators are made. The act of pensioning Gleneral Scott, therefore, is consistent with past policy and the prevailing public sentiment. But, while we admit the consistency of the measure with the popular practice and opinion, we condemn the morality of both the act and the sentiment that sanctions it. Without asserting any extreme views of the wickedness of war in all cases, we yet maintain, with all confidence, that the profes- sional soldier is neither more nor less than a professional murderer. His contract with his Government is to kill whom- soever it may order him to kill, without ever asking the ques- tion whether those he is commanded to destroy are innocent or guilty. The first and last duty of the soldier, from the commander-in-chief down to the private, is to obei/ orders. He has no right to exercise his own conscience and judgment in considering whether the order is right or wrong. The exercise of his moral sense in this way would destroy all dis- cipline, and discipline is the life and soul of an army. If the soldier has the right to judge of the right or wrong of his orders, he must also have the right to cany out his convic- tions ; and if he concludes, on a calm and conscientious review of the case, that his orders, in any instance, are to commit a great crime, he should have liberty to refuse to obey, otherwise his right of private judgment is a farce. But the attempt to do this will cost the soldier his head. It is neither more nor less than mutiny, and a court-martial would make short work with the mutineer. The general gives himself over, body and soul, to his Government, and binds himself to do just what that Government commands hirn, "asking no questions for conscience sake." The private soldier gives himself up to the same unconditional subjection to his supe- rior officer. Without strict subjection there can be no dis- cipline, and without discipline an army becomes a mob. But aggressive war is wholesale murder, whatever defen- sive war may be. Every life lost in a war of aggression is a murder with malice aforethought, and if hanging were right, ought to cause the execution of the officers of Government that declare the war and the army that wages it. There is no escape from this conclusion, unless a multitude may nullify the lavv' uf God. If the private man who makes aggression upon his neighbor, and hires a professional assaesin to kill him, is a REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 151 murderer, so the government which makes aggression on its neighbor, and sends its hired butchers to kill its subjects, is guilty of wholesale murder. And as the hireling who kills in the service of one man is judged guilty of murder, so the hireling who kills in the service of twenty millions of men is also a murderer. But this is just what General Scott and the whole of his subordinates have done. This is just what the Government ordered them to do, and for doing this he is now rewarded. The war in which his freshest laurels were won, was a war of wanton aggression, according to his own assertion, and the unanimous vote of the political party to which he belongs. It was his exploits in this war that brought him prominently before the American people. And for his great skill and suc- cess in blowing out the brains of innocent men, women and children, he is promoted and rewarded, and the President promptly sanctions the act of Congress conferring title and wealth upon the professional assassin in epaulettes. This is one side of the picture. Let us turn the canvass, and look upon the other. A few years ago a young female, moved by the compassionate spirit of Christian love, devoted her life to the cause of the sufiering. Those unfortunate members of the human family who have lost the use of their reason, were the especial objects of her sympathy. Like an angel of mercy, she passed from asylum to asylum, and from prison to prison. Her path- way was as a line of light over a dark background of sin and sorrow. Wherever her deep, low tones of love fell on the ears of the raving maniac, his passions were stilled. In mute rapture he drank in the heavenly music, and the demon of his breast was for the time cast out. She penetrated like Howard and Mrs. Fry, the most dismal dens of suffering. Like them she carried hope and life to many of their inmates. Through her efforts the old and barbarous modes of treating the insane, were superseded by others more rational and more merciful. Love was substituted for fear, in their man- agement. Physical comfort took the place of squalid misery. The means of intellectual and moral training were provided. The fruits of these efforts have been the restoration of the shattered powers of many an intellect to their wonted harmony. Many a raving maniac, touched by the magic power of her Christian love and sympathy, has been seen sitting at her feet, " clothed and in his right mind." To aid in the enlarged and comprehensive schemes which 152 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF her expansive benevolence devised, Miss Dix sought an appro- priation of a part of the public domain for the use of the wretched objects of her sympathy. She sought no wealth for herself, but only the accouiplishment of her noble schemes of philanthropy. And the present Congress, to their praise be it spoken, after long and earnest solicitation, granted her prayer. The bill appropriating a portion of the public lauds to this object was passed. But no sooner does it reach tho hands of the President, elected though he was by people claiming to be Christians, than it is promptly vetoed. Just as the long-cherished hopes of that loving and gentle heart were about to be realized, the tyrannical one-man power interposes to dash the sweet draught from her lips. The hopes of thous- ands of the unfortunate and suffering were crushed by the same cowardly and perfidious blow ; and the " outer darkness," over which bright gleams of hope were beginning to shine, was rendered blacker than before. Heart-sick and sorrowful, the angel missionary of the unfortunate left our shores to pursue her work of mercy in a foreign land. These pictures teach their own moral. Franklin Pierce is an average representative of the statesmanship, morality and religion of our country. He is neither far above nor far below the standard of benevolence and religion by which the mass of the people, in and out of the church, are governed. The religion of the land has no quarrel with the leading acts of his administration. The mass of the ministers and mem- bers of the churches voted either for him or General Scott at the last Presidential election, and gave no evidence of peni- tence for the deed. What is the obvious inference from all this ? Evidently that the people of this country esteem him who destroys life worthy of more honor and reward than him who tries to save it and alleviate its woes. Yet, Christ " came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Is that his religion which honors the professional destroyers of life, while it denies the means of relieving human suffering to the benevolent? Drunkard Making. This infamous business is frightfully on the increase in all parts of the land. Never before were the manufacture, sale and consumption of intoxicating poisons so great; and never REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 153 before were these poisons so deadly and fatal to human life. The pure liquors which our fathers drank were harmless com- pared with the drugged and adulterated compounds which the tipplers of this age imbibe. One of the most alarming feat- ures of this increase of drunkenness is that it embraces, more than ever before, the female sex. When the mothers of the people become intemperate, then, indeed, may we expect to become actually a nation of drunkards. The children will literally drink the poison with their mother's milk, and become possessed of the depraved taste of the inebriate by natural inheritance. That things are tending rapidly to this terrible state admits of no serious doubt. The invariable results of this increase of drunkenness are witnessed every day. Crime keeps pace with its cause. Our nation, though young in years, is old in guilt. Murder, rape, arson, burglary, thuggery, are commonplace. The prover- bial ingenuity of our people is exercised with dire success in the invention of new modes of transgression. The catalogue of crime is rapidly lengthening. "Hoarse, horrible and strong," rises to heaven the cry of guilt and the skies grow black with its portentous clouds. This state of things presents to every serious mind a sub- ject of the most anxious reflection. Where is all this to end ? How shall it be remedied ? Has the temperance reformation been, after all, only a signal and disastrous failure? To what causes is this immense increase of drunkenness to be attrib- uted? and how shall those causes be removed? These are questions that call for the most serious and anxious thought. The subject must be probed to the bottom. It can never be successfully dealt with by superficial thinkers and flippant declaimers. School-boy rant about the evils of intemperance, or the inefiiciency of prohibitory laws is vastly out of place. None but minds that can trace efiects to causes with logical precision, and that are wise to apply the adequate remedy to the evil, are fit to grapple with this momentous subject. That the temperance movement, which has occupied so large a share of the attention of the public for the past thirty years, has been at least a partial failure, admits of no denial. It has not freed the nation from drunkenness. It has saved thousands undoubtedly from the drunkard's grave, but for every one thus saved, probably hundreds have perished. And now the force of the movement seems nearly spent. The barriers which it erected to the progress of the black tide of 14 154 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF intemperance are being swept away, and the weary work is all to do over again. Now, if we can ascertain the cause of this failure of past efforts for the suppression of drunkenness, the knowledge of that cause will guard the friends of temperance against like failure in future. The prime cause of that failure is undoubt- edly the fact that the cause failed fully to enlist the religion of the country. The religion of a nation, whether true or false is the controlling power of that nation. The reason is that the religious element of man's nature is the controlling power of the individual man. The Church and priesthood of a nation, as the embodiment and exponent of its religion, are consequently its controlling institution. By these the public opinion of the people is molded. By these the government is shaped, and the laws framed. Now this which is true, more or less, of all nations, is pre- eminently true of this nation where the people are the gov- ernment. Any cause, therefore, in this land, which does not array the religion of the people in its favor, must fail, and hence the partial failure of the temperance reformation. It has only had a partial support from religion, and has there- fore been but partially successful. The Christianity of the country has all been in favor of temperance, as it is the foun- dation of all true reform, and as temperance is one of the Christian virtues. But the Church and clergy of the nation have, to a large extent, been arrayed against the cause. There is not a large and influential denomination of professing Chris- tians in the country in which the makers and sellers of intox- icating drinks do not enjoy full fellowship. But a few of the smaller churches make these practices a bar to communion. The popular religion of the country has no quarrel with drunkard-making. The true Christians in all the sects are opposed to the iniquity, but these are probably largely in the minority. Ministers, elders, class-leaders and deacons may and do carry on grog-shops and run distilleries without losing their standing in the professed church. Thus the cloak of religion is thrown around these practices of atrocious crimi- nality. They are made respectable by the Church, and find their safest resting-place beneath the altars of the professed churches of the Lord of hosts. If we are correct in these positions, then the true course of the temperance reformers is evident. They must begin at the foundation. They must purify the fountain. They must array the religion of the country against the infamous and REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 155 guilty business of drunkard-making. They should call upon the churches to array themselves on the side of temperance. They should abandon every church organization that refuses to do this. A church at this day, which fellowships the crime of drunkard-making, or even refuses to denounce and oppose it, is that far false to God, and, on that point, in league with the Devil. Their true character should be exhibited, and the cloak of affected piety torn off. A professed church which will not raise its voice and wield all its power in opposition to a business which sends annually thirty thousand souls to the drunkard's hell, is a curse to the world, and a libel on Chris- tianity. Its influence, if it can not be brought into the right channel, should therefore be destroyed. When the religion of the country is separated from its com- plicity with drunkenness, and arrayed on the side of temper- ance, the work will be done. Laws for its suppression can then be made and executed, as the public opinion in which laws have their origin and efficiency will be pure and right. 156 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF CONTROVERSIAL ARTICLES. [From tho Free Presbyterian.] Communication from the Hon. Horace Mann. Mr. Gordon : — I thank you for your laudatory remarks upon the performances of the graduating class at our late Commencement. Coming from so good a judge as yourself, they confirm the opinion which I hear from so many other sources, that the members of that class acquitted themselves in a highly reputable manner. The commendation you were pleased to give to the main points of my Baccalaureate Address, was most acceptable ; for it gives me assurance that you will labor with me for effect- ing the great reform there advocated. It may seem ungracious in me, after accepting your gen- eral approval of my performance, to except to your single criticism or animadversion upon it. But such is the way with what we call "poor human nature." We think a man very wise while he agrees with us, but how suddenly is he bereft of wisdom when he comes to differ. I fully acquit you of any intention to misrepresent me ; and yet, the omission of an idea which I several times repeated, gives, as it seems to me, all its plausibility to your criticism. My position was not, as you aver, that " supposing there were fifty difi'erent sects, forty-nine of them must be wrong, and the whole fifty ini(/Jit be." Each time I had occa- sion to refer to the difixjrences between the sects, I said, " forty-nine out of the fifty must be wholly or partly wrong." By the alternative words " or partly," which you did not hear, or forgot, one of the points of your criticism becomes wholly inapplicable. At the same time the starting-point of my argument is left untouched ; which was, that, so far as the sects diff"er from each other, all but one (possibly all) must be wrong. So far as the fifty sects inculcate their hostile views upon the minds of youth, they inculcate forty-nine errors at the least, REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 157 to one truth. For, if we say that the fifty, in their distinc- tive points, are all true, we affirm truth and error to be identical. This being mathematically certain, what is the best method of discovering that truth which lies wholly, or partly, outside of them all, or outside of all but one? How is Truth to be discovered ? Doubtless, according to the order of God's providence, by human instrumentalities ; for we do not expect a new and special revelation from God on that subject. Now, what are the best and highest of pos- sible instrumentalities for the discovering of truth by men — by the sects ? I answer, diligence in searching for truth as the supreme good, and candor and impartiality of spirit in discerning between truth and error ; in one word, a power of honest investigation and reception. And what does more than all other things to destroy this candor and impartiality of spirit — this power of honest investigation and reception ? I answer, the notorious fact that each sect trains up its children and youth to believe that its own dogmas — those in which it dififers from others not less than those in which it agrees, are true, and that all conflicting ones are false. Now the authorities and arguments by which these con- flicting points are to be vindicated or assailed, demand the most extensive research, the soundest and best trained judg- ment, and, above all, a mind so poised in impartiality, that the slightest preponderance of evidence will turn the beam. Yet nothing is more certain than that the teachings of these dogmas to children and youth, in catechisms, creeds, or by oral instruction, as ultimate truths, unfits the mind — the very instrument to be used for the discovery of truth — for making that noblest of all discoveries. This early inculcation does all it can to make present difi'erences perpetual ; so that if each sect could fulfill its own desires in regard to its own disciples or pupils, a thousand years hence would find the Christian world quarreling on the same points which would now embit- ter and disgrace it. Now, instead of kindling in the youth- ful mind the supreme love of truth, and training it to the honest use of all those methods of exegesis by which Scrip- tural truth can be discovered, almost all our private schools, our Sunday-schools and our colleges, are disabling the rising generation from discovering where truth lies ; and are thus perpetuating these strifes and contentions of the sects by which the body of Christ is wounded and pierced with pains, I have no doubt, sharper than those of Calvary. 158 LIFE AND WETTINGS OP Now, what I would venture to suggest as a better course, iSj^that sound morality should be made a peremptory condi- tion in all cases of college standing and graduation, and that all the knowledge and argument which can bear upon con- troverted points should be honestly and impartially communi- cated ; and then, that the mind of our youth should be left free and unbiased to form its own conclusions. Who does not see that such a mind would have a far better chance of discovering truth than you or I ever had ? Nor does this suggestion of mine lead to any laxity of Christian doctrine. It tends rather to establish the true doc- trines of the gospel on firmer ground than ever before. It is as in science. When the great body of accredited scientific expounders agree, we teach youth accordingly. When there are two schools, we announce the prevalent doctrine, but always qualify it by a full and fair statement of the dissenting authorities. If I departed from this rule, and suppressed the views of acknowledged great men because I did not aglee with them, I should consider myself a bigot iu science and unworthy to teach it. So when we encounter controverted points in religion, let us frankly state the great names and fairly present the argu- ments on all sides — acting magnanimously toward our antag- onists — so that the new, unsophisticated, unpreoccupied mind may hold the balances more steadily than the teacher was able to do. It is in this way that science has made such immense advances, and that conflicting philosophies are so rapidly harmonizing and blending into one ; while the science of theology remains nearly or quite stationary, and the Ishmaelitish sects, whose hands are against every man, are on the increase. In closing this topic, you say you " can understand why an infidel should seek to magnify the alleged differences among Christian sects, but can not understand what interest a ' Christian ' has in so doing." As you must now perceive that so far from having any desire to " magnify differences among Christian sects," my sole aim is to obliterate those differences by eliminating the errors which make us differ, and evolving the truth on which we can agree, you must also see that the sting which you inserted in that paragraph is beautifully extracted. Again you say : " If a particular denomination establishes a college, they must do one of three things in this matter : they must either teach what they themselves believe to be the REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 159 true religion, or they must teach what somebody else believes, or teach no religion at all." And again: "So far as Presi dent Mann teaches his students religion, he teaches what he himself believes to be true, and not the notions of somebody else." Now, my dear sir, in the first of the above quotations, which is matter of opinion, I think you are wholly wrong; in the second, which is a matter of fact, I know you are so. So far as I teach religion — and I have a very large Sunday- school class every Sabbath — in elucidating points upon which there is a substantial agreement between all Christian sects, I have no occasion to note any differences ; but when I come to a contested point, I endeavor, with the utmost honesty of my heart, and the utmost ability of my head, to set forth the views of others as fully as my own. Indeed, on those points, I refrain from announcing that I have any views. I assume, as far as in me lies, a judicial character. I present the evidence fully and impartially to the jury, whose province it is to decide. I refrain from doing as many judges do, getting down into the jury seats, and usurping their functions. If, then, in any point, you and I differ, I mean they shall under- stand your views as completely, as profoundly as they do mine, so that, after full opportunities of investigation, if they discard your opinions, they shall see the reasons why ; and if they should afterward encounter you, or one of your one- sided, half-taught disciples, they will know the holes in your armor through which they can perforate your vitals, and let the day-light of truth shine in wliere it had never shone before. You must now see, that by the three methods enumerated in your paragraph, above quoted, you did not exhaust the subject as you supposed, but left out wholly what I conceive to be the best method of all, and the only true one, namely, that of a full and fair presentation to the minds of the young, of all the facts and arguments which have a bearing upon contested points, so that their minds may not be fettered by the prejudices which all who have been educated in the com- mon way can not help bringing to the subject. When an exciting cause is to be tried in a civil court, does not every honest judge examine the jurors upon oath, to learn whether they have expressed or formed an opinion on the case ; and does he not set aside, as unfit to be upon the panel, those who have formed such an opinion? Every man sees and feels the reasonableness of this course. Yet this is just the reverse of what is done in regard to controverted religious doctrines, 160 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF in most of our private schools, Sabbath-schools, colleges, and theological seminaries. Hence, Truth, claiming by divine warrant to be heard, is silenced ; error, worthy of annihila- tion, is perpetuated, and hostile sects, the scandal of the Christian religion, are increased. I trust I need not assure you that it is not at all from any personal feeling, excited by your animadversion (for I believe you wholly incapable of desiring to do me injustice), but only because I believe a truth, most sacred in itself, and most indispensable to human progress, has been assailed, that I trouble you with these remarks. As I am expecting to leave town, I may not see your com- ments upon this communication (should you deem it worthy of any), but, trusting to your candor and sense of justice, I leave it in your hands without apprehension. Yours, very truly, Horace Mann. Yellow Springs, July 13th, 1857. Reply. We publish very cheerfully the preceding article of Presi- dent Mann. We had not the remotest intention to misstate his position. We have long since learned that truth gains nothing by misrepresentation. For the President, personally, we entertain none but feelings of the highest respect, and the most unaffected kindness ; and if there is the appearance of " a sting " in a single sentence of our former article, we beg to assure him that it was not so intended. But after a re-examination of the subject, since the recep- tion of Mr. Mann's communication, and with the light of his explanations before us, we are fully satisfied of the substantial justness of our "criticism." Let it be distinctly noted that the only thing to which we excepted, in the President's most eloquent address, was the application of his strictures on sec- tarian education to Protestant evangelical sects. That they may be abundantly just, as applied to all other sects, it is not for us to deny. The terms Protestant and evangelical have a well-defined and well-understood meaning, and it is only of sects answering to these descriptive terms that we assume to speak. Two things must be true to form a valid basis (or the Presi- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 161 dent's argument. First: There must be, if not vital and fun- damental, at least grave and important doctrinal differences between these sects. Second: The teaching of their distinc- tive principles must be extensively, if not generally practiced in the literary institutions under their control : For if the theoretical differences among Protestant denominations are comparatively trivial, and if they teach these differences in their schools and colleges only in a few obscure and excep- tional cases, then it was hardly worth the President's while to spend his eloquent reprobation upon them ; and certainly, in that case, he would not be justified in representing the differences as important, and their inculcation in denomina- tional schools as general. Now we venture to question the truth of both these alleged facts. Certainly, in the great majority of cases the doctrinal differences among evangelical denominations are comparatively trifling, and even where they differ the most, theoretically, they agree practically. For instance, no parties among these sects differ more widely, perhaps, than Calvinists and Arminians. But while they differ in points of speculation, they harmonize in views of duty. For example, the Calvinist — to use the technical, theo- logical language of these parties — believes in " the persever- ance of the saints," while the Arminian believes in " falling from grace." But both believe that it is a man's duty to " take heed lest he fall " — that watchfulness is necessary in him who would live a true Christian life. The one believes in election, and the other don't. But each believes that he should " give all diligence to make his calling and election sure." Then in regard to fundamental morality and the great duties of life, which we agree with Mr. Mann in regarding as of the very first importance, there is absolute agreement. All Protestant sects profess to believe that man's great duty is to " do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God " — that the sum of all duty is to love the Lord with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. Hence our former remark remains substantially true, that " Supposing there are fifty different Protestant sects, instead of forty-nine of them being wrong, to any important extent, the whole fifty may be essentially right." Now we submit that to base an argument against the sects on alleged differences between them which do not exist in fact, is virtually to " luagnify " those differences, though we doubt not such a purpose was entirely foreign to Mr. Mann's intentions. The practice of these sects on some of the great moral questions of the day we do not defend ; and 162 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF when Mr. Mann shall employ his almost unrivaled powers of wit, argument, and eloquence, in exposing and denouncing their practical inconsistencies, no one will shout a heartier amen than we. But the source of these practical wrongs is not in their creeds, for they are perpetrated in violation of their teachings. But admitting, for the argument, that there are grave and important diiferenees between the Protestant sects, the next question is, do they teach these discordant views generally, or even extensively, in their literary institutions? A man's opinions on such questions are governed by his knowledge of facts, and from our knowledge of facts, we should answer this question emphatically in the negative. We spent five years as pupil in an institution wholly under Presbyterian control, and we do nat now remember to have heard the theoretical difierences between Presbyterians and others once alluded to. We are very certain that no systematic effort was made to teach them. We spent nearly five years more as teacher in another institution under the same control, and of it the same statement is true. Nothing was taught on the subject of religion but its great principles, on which all Christians agree. So far as we have learned the practice of other liter- ary institutions, under the care of different sects, the same thing is true of them. Mr. Mann's acquaintance with insti- tutions of learning is, doubtless, far more extensive than ours, and we of course do not deny that he may know of dif- ferent practice in some sectarian schools. But admitting both these supposed facts — that there are great differences of doctrine among these sects, and that they teach their distinctive doctrines generally in their colleges, — and they may still be justified, provided they teach them fairly and impartially, and do full justice to the views of those who differ from them. This brings us to the second point in dispute. An addition of two words to our statement, that a college controlled by a sect " must teach in religion what they themselves believe, what somebody else believes, or teach no religion at all," would more fully express our meaning. The sentence as amended would read, that a college under the control of a particular denomination " must teach for truth what they themselves believe, or what somebody else believes," etc., and with this qualification we think these " three methods " do " exhaust the subject." We would respectfully ask Mr. Mann "hethor, when he teaches his students a religious doctrine REV. JOSEPH GORIWN. 163 which he wishes them to receive as truth, he does not teach it solely because he himself believes it to be true, and not because some other great man so believes ? and whether, if all the other great men in creation received a dogma as true which he believed to be false, he would teach it for truth to his students on the ground of their faith? If he answers the first of these questions in the aflfirmative and the second in the negative, then does he not teach for truth " what he him- self believes, and not the notions of somebody else? " We agree with the eloquent President as to the mode in which controverted points in religion should be taught. But his remarks on this subject only confirm our position, for this impartial method is the only one by which any views can be thoroughtly taught. A student is but half instructed in a disputed dogma when he has been taught only the arguments for its truth. He must likewise be taught the objections to its truth, and the mode of answering those objections. If we desired to impress what we knew to be an error on the minds of others, we would try to state, with at least the appearance of candor, the objections to it; much more if we wished to teach what we believed to be a truth. Candor and impar- tiality in a teacher are the surest means of gaining a lodg- ment for his own views in the minds of his pupils. But this impartiality may be carried too ftir. When it reaches the point of neutrality it becomes in the highest degree pernicious. If an important controverted point is so presented as to create the impression on the minds of a class that the subject is involved in great uncertainty, that much can be said plaus- ibly on both sides, that definite and truthful views on the point are hardly attainable, and that it is not very important which side of the question they adopt, thus leaving them, with their comparatively undisciplined fiiculties, as likely to adopt wrong as right views, we can only ejaculate, in the language of the litany, "from such teaching, good Lord, deliver us." Mr. Mann will probable agree with us, that a religious teacher ought to have fixed and well-defined views on all the important doctrines of religion, controverted or not contro- verted (we admit the existence of radical differences between many nominal Christian sects, although we deny their exist- ence as between one class of the sects) ; that these views ought to be the result of the most thorough and impartial investi- gation, and that he ought to believe them with his whole strength of conviction. Now a religious teacher holding thus opinions which he is fully convinced are true, and knowing 164 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF tliat truth is infinitely important to his pupils, mtist earnestly desire that they should adopt his views, not because they are his, but because in his judgment they are true; and thus desiring, we do not see how he can honestly do otherwise than seek to impress his own opinions on the minds of his scholars. But a teacher who thus acts teaches what " he himself believes to be true, and not the notions of somebody else." He will, of course, if honest and impartial, present fairly the objec- tions to the truth of his own views, will admit that he may possibly be wrong, will gladly receive new light from all sources, and when convinced that his opinions are erroneous, will modify or change them. But so long as he believes them to be true, and consequently of infinite importance to all men, he must, as an honest man, seek to instill them into the minds of others. Mr. Mann will thus see that, as our method of teaching controverted points is the same as his, our " disci- ples " would be no more "half-taught and one-sided" than his own, nor would our "vitals," perchance, be in anymore danger of perforation by the Ithuriel spear than his. The analogy between the position of a judge and of a relig- ious teacher fails in important particulars. An honest judge has no personal interest in the issue of the cases brought be- fore him for trial, but the religious teacher has the same deep personal interest as his pupils in the right decision of the questions with which he has to do. He therefore combines the functions of judge and juror. Again, a jury are pre- sumed to have minds sufiiciently disciplined to form right de- cisions, if the law and the facts are fairly laid before them. But a class of youth are in process of discipline, and there- fore need more careful and fuller instruction than a jury. But taking the illustration as employed by Mr. Mann, and it seems to us to confirm our view of the matter. The great aim of an honest judge will be to administer exact justice in all cases. That this may be done he knows that correct views of the law and the facts must be adopted by the jury. To arrive at such views himself he will investigate each case with all possible fairness and thoroughness. But, having thus inves- tigated the case, and formed his opinion, and fully believing that opinion to be the true one, he must desire that the jury should adopt the same. Now we hold that it is neither pos- sible nor desirable for a judge in such a case to so charge the jury as to lead them to believe that he " has no opinion in the case." The man who is so vciy impartial between truth and error, justice and injustice, as to argue with equal force and REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 165 earnestness in behalf of each, is just the man whom we would not wish to sit in judgment on us in court, or instruct our child in religion. A profound conviction of the vast import- ance of truth to his pupils will lend a force, depth, earnest- ness and power to a teacher's reasonings in behalf of truth, which he can not, and ought not, to bring to the defense of error. In view of what has been said we can not possibly see how instructing youth in religion, according to this impartial method, even when the teacher has deep personal convictions and labors to impress them on his students, can unfit their minds for the " discovery of truth," as Mr. Mann assumes it does. On the contrary, it seems to us that its effect would be to create such a conviction of the importance of truth as to form a good guaranty of the success of the young in its pursuit. We join with our highly-esteemed friend in deploring the divisions of the Christian world ; and agree with him that those divisions are the result of prejudice and pride of heart and opinion. When we can all lay these aside, and come to the study of truth with the docile spirit of little children, these divisions will soon cease. If Christians could enter into discussion with each other, feeling that if they are convinced of the falsity of their present views, they will come out of the friendly contest, not disgraced and humble captives to grace the chariot-wheels of an opponent's triumph, but glorious vic- tors over their own past errors, the unity among his followers for which Jesus prayed would not be remote. We join with all who love the Saviour in devout prayer that we may all come soon to such a mind as this. Imprisonment of W. L. Chaplin. The National Era is out in condemnation of Mr. Chaplin formerly editor of the Albany Patriot, for assisting the escape of the slaves of Messrs. Toombs and Stephens from Wash- ington City, for which he was arrested and imprisoned. We have no heart to join in this censure. The slaveholder is sim- ply a pirate, holding by a thief's title, his fellow-man in bon- dage, who has precisely the same right to be free as himself. This being the case, it is not only the right, but the duty of the slave to get free whenever he can by lawful means. The only lawful means in his power is to run away. It is, there- 166 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF fore, his right and duty, whenever a chance of escape is pre- sented, to embrace it. If it be right for him to make his escape, it is of necessity right to assist him. Therefore, the act of Mr. Chaplin, for which he has been arrested and com- mitted to prison, was, we honestly believe, pleasing in the sight of God. The Era quotes, in condemnation of this act, from an arti- cle written by the editor, in Cincinnati, commencing thus: " The human mind is so constituted, that it will attach some- thing dishonorable to that which has to be done in the dark, or by stratagem." On this principle the editor would condemn the primitive Christians, who assembled " in the dark," in the " caves and dens of the earth," to worship their Saviour. He would con- demn the Waldenses and Albigenses of France, the Covenant- ers of Scotland, and the Puritans of England, whose only "freedom to worship God " was obtained by meeting "in the dark and by stratagem ? " Would it be " dishonorable " for a man taken captive by Algerine pirates to escape "• in the dark or by stratagem ?" Then why is it wrong for the cap- tives of Toombs and Stephens, and other Congressional pirates, to do the same thing ? Was it " dishonorable " for the persons taken prisoners by the Indians, during the first settlement of this country, to avail themselves of " stratagem and darkness" to escape? Yet slavery is more intolerable than Indian captivity ; for who does not know that one object of the Seminole and Florida Wars was to recover the slaves who had escaped from the "tender mercies " of Christian civilized slavery to the "hor- rors of life in the wigwam ? " We fancy that if Dr. Bailey's wife and children were reduced to slavery, and he had a chance to recover them " in the dark or by stratagem," his scruples would vanish marvelously soon. If Mr. Chaplin shall be doomed to follow the lamented Torrey, it will be for an act on which we have no doubt Jesus and angels smile with approbation. Can Crime be Legaliked ? The National Era takes the affirmative of this question. In some comments on the proceedings of the Illinois Conven- tion, these sentences occur: "A legal relation is one which the law allows, creates or protects." Again : " The legality/ of a relation is one thing — its morality another. It is legal if it REV. JOSEPH GORDON. ' 167 is established by the law-making power of the State, acting under the Constitution which prescribes its extent and limita- tion." We demur to the above sentiment. The proper meaning of the term law, as applied to intelligent beings, is a ride of duty. That which is immoral is never duty, and, therefore, can never become law in the true sense of that term. It is not, of course, our intention to deny that men may pass enactments which " allow, create or protect " crime. But are those enactments, laws ? Do they impose the duty of obedience ? Does it require a person to obey such enactments, to earn the charac- ter of a law-abiding citizen ? For illustration, suppose Con- gress should pass a bill offering one thousand dollars for the scalp of every Indian, belonging to any of the peaceable tribes in this country, and should " command all good citizens " to shoot down and scalp unoffending Indians, wherever they had the opportunity. Would such an enactment be legal? Cer- tainly not. But it will be said such a bill would be a viola- tion of the Constitution, and, therefore^ illegal. Exactly so. But why does this make it illegal ? Because the Constitution is aJiove the laios passed under it, and whatever violates the Constitution is illegal. This is precisely our position, and because we recognize (as everybody else except an atheist does) a code of laws above all human Constitutions, we con- clude that whatever violates that higher code is illegal. A Constitution which " allows, creates or protects " that which violates the higher law, is itself null and void. It has pro- perly neither legal nor moral force. The highest Constitution in the universe is that which obliges men to do right. The law of justice, of equity, of eternal righteousness, or in other words, the law of God is first and supreme. Next to that are the Constitutions which nations adopt for themselves ; and next to these Constitutions are the laws passed by the proper authorities under them. There is in all a just and beautiful gradation. Now, as enact- ments, passed under human Constitutions, which violate these Constitutions, are null and void, and illegal because of this violation, so requirements framed into these same human Con- stitutions, which violate that which is above them, are void also, and for the same reason. All ethical and legal writers of any authority, so far as we know, lay down certain qualities as essential to constitute an enactment a law. One of these is that they be passed by a competent law-making power ; another is that they do not 168 LITE AND \niITINGS OF violate the eternal jyrLnciples of right and justice. Now, if an enactment declaring one human being the property of another, is not a violation of the eternal principles of right and jus- tice, no such violation is possible. Yet the Era holds that these enactments are laws, that the property relation is really a legal relation. The doctrine of this paper is, therefore, iden- tical with the famous (or rather the i?ifamous) dogma of Henry Clay, " That is property which the law makes prop- erty." Of course, then, if the law declares the wife and chil- dren of the editor of the Era property, they are legally such. "VVe are greatly mistaken if there is a freeman on earth, who would not think such an enactment as destitute of all legal, to say nothing of moral force, as any of the worst regulations of a gang of Algerine pirates. We hold that all enactments, passed by any of the States of this confederacy, which allow one man to hold another innocent man as property, are in violation, not only of the law of God, but of the Constitution of the United States. The great object of the Constitution, as set forth by that instrument itself, is to " establish justice and secure the bles- sings of liberty; " and if enactments which establish injustice and deprive men of the blessings of freedom, are not violations of the Constitution, how are such violations possible ? If that which wars upon THE object which the Constitution was made to promote, does not war upon the Constitution itself, we confess our inability to see how anything can conflict with that instrument. There are other sentiments in the Era's strictures on the Illinois Convention which we think erroneous. It is not our special vocation to defend the sayings and doings of that Con- vention. The men who composed it are abundantly compe- tent to vindicate their own positions. But the sentiment to which we have especially referred in this article, is general in its bearings ; and we are sorry to see the Era using its great influence to give currency to doctrines which we think false in themselves, and of mischievous tendency. Can Crime be Leqalized? The National Era responds to our notice of his position on this question as follows : " The Free Presbyterian is rather anxious we fear, to disa- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 169 gree with the Era The difference between us is one of definition, not jyrinciple. We agree with the Free Presbyterian, that no human enactment can justify a relation, or impose an obligation upon an intelligent being to do an act, which the law of nature or revelation forbids. In common with the editors of that paper, and with every man who believes in the existence of a God, we acknowledge the absolute supremacy of the divine law. In principle we agree. Wherein, then, lies the difference between us? In definition — nothing more. The Free Preshyterian defines law to be, a right rule of con- duct : one of the essential elements of law, in its judgment, is, its harmony toith justice. It follows from this, that the phrases — ^had laws,^ '■loicked laws,' ^tyrannical laws,' ' cruel laws,' are all misnomers : there can be no such laws. A ' bad law ' is no law at all. No enactment is law which commands, sanctions, or allows anything wrong, " Need we say that this definition is not warranted by the etymology of the word ' law,' not supported by authority, not in conformity with popular ideas or modes of expression? "The word is derived from a Saxon root, meaning ^laid, set, or fixed,' and means simply a rule of conduct — not of duty, as the Free Presbyterian has it. Human law is a rule of conduct prescribed by the supreme power of the State ; Divine law, a rule of conduct prescribed by the Creator. The latter can never be otherwise than just and good, because its Author is always just and good. The former may be short- sighted, absurd, or unjust, bearing the stamp of its fallible or corrupt author. " Human laws may be right or wrong, humane or barba- rous — allowing in one country what they forbid in another, prohibiting to-day what yesterday they legalized." Again, the Era says ; " The Free Presbyterian says that the doctrine of the Era is ' identical with the famous (or rather infjimous) dogma, — " That is property which the law makes property." ' The dogma is true — and the offense of Mr. Clay was, not in giv- ing utterance to it, but in vsing it as a reason to justify slavery — for, he added, ' two hundred years of legislation has sanc- tioned and sanctified negro slaves as property.' Two hundred thousand years of legislation can not sanction and sanctify a wrong. The law in the free States makes the soil and its products, capital, and the productions of capital and labor, property — and in the slave States it makes men, women, and children, property. This is a fact ; and it is because it is true, 15 170 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF that what the law makes property is property, that we so utterly detest the system of slavery. Our heaviest charge against that system is. that it takes man, who was created a little lower than the angels, and to whom was given dominion over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and the beasts of the field ; drags him down to their level, and makes him property in the same sense that they are made property. This is the very element which makes slavery the monster crime against humanity — dishonoring human nature and insulting its Creator." We are not " anxious to disagree with the Era,^' but happy to coincide in the main with that excellent paper. We rejoice in the Era\ prosperity, and had we the power it would afford us unmixed pleasure to multiply that prosperity a hundred fold. We have dissented publicly from the teach- ings of the Ura twice, in about eight months — once in the case of Chaplin, and again in the present instance. This does not appear to us often enough to justify the "fear" of the editor that we " are anxious " for such disagreement. But to the point at issue. The Era thinks the difference is merely one of definition. There is, of course, no difference of opinion as to the fact, that many wicked enactments exist in the world, which are regarded as laws. All the wrongs specified by the Era, and many more, have a legislative sanction in different States. But are the enactments which create, allow, or protect these wrongs, properly laws ? We still think not. The Era says, a law is a rule of conduct, not of duty. But does not all legislation proceed on the assumption, that the conduct of the citizen shall be coincident with his duty? Does the law make any provision for the perpetration of acknowledged wrong? Is not obedience to the very worst enactments — the Fugitive Slave Bill, for instance — urged on the ground of duty ? This shows the universal conviction, that law and justice ought to be one — that duty and conduct ought to coin- cide. If, then, a legislature enact, as a rule of conduct, what is not a rule of duty, its enactment lacks the essential attri- bute of law. The main question is, Has law, or has it not, moral char- acter? The Era makes it a moral nondescript, having all characters, and no character, and opposite elements of charac- ter, at once. If his idea of law is correct, then it seems to us quite as desirable to cultivate lawless as law-abiding sentiments among the people. If " a bad law " has all the legal force of a REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 171 good law, then the people ought to be taught that it may be their duty to disobey, quite as often as to obey human laws. According to the Era's doctrine, ANY enactment which a com- petent law-making power may choose to pass, is in the proper sense of the term a law. Now there are surely some things which would not be law if enacted by all the law-making powers in the world. We adduced an example or two in our former article ; they might be multiplied indefinitely. An enactment commanding murder, is the example given by Blackstone, and he declares such an enactment has no legal force. But we are no lawyer, and perhaps have no right to express an opinion on this subject. We are, however, only reiterat- ing principles taught by the masters of jurisprudence. Let us look then at some of the authorities. " Law is an inteUiglhle jprincipJe of right, necessarily result- ing from the nature of man ; and not an arbitrary rule, that can be established by mere will, numbers or power." — Spooner. " Jurisprudence is the science of what is just and unjust." — -Justinian. " The precepts of the laio are to live honestly ; to hurt no one ; to give to every one his due." — Justinian and Black- stone. " All laws derive their force from the law of nature ; and those which do not are accounted no laivs.^' — Fortcscne. Jacobs^ Law Dictionary. " Law. The rule and bond of men's actions ; or it is a rule for the well government of civil society, to give to every man that which doth belong to him." — Jacobs' Law Dictionary. " Of law no less can be acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage ; the least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power." — Hooker. " Lawful : Agreeable to law ; conformable to law ; legal ; Zc^iVi'ma^e ; constituted bylaw; riglitfidJ' — Webster. "Jurisprudence: The science of law ; the knowledge of the laws, customs, and rights of men in a State or community, necessary for the due administration of justice.'" — lb. For most of these references we are indebted to Spooner on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery, where others are given of the same import. In view of them what becomes of the Eras declaration, that our definition is " not supported by authority"? 172 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF We are surprised that the Era should assert the truth of the dogma, " That is property which the law makes property." That is property which (jrod made to be the proper subject of property, and that is my property of which I have obtained honest possession. If I steal a horse all the enactments of all the governments of the earth can not make him my prop- erty, because he belongs to another. The right of self-own- ership is the inalienable right of every human being. Every man properly owns himself, and hence can never be made the property of another. The man who claims and uses him as such is a thief; the so-called laws which uphold him in the act, are the most lawless outrages possible. The regulations of a banditti, or a gang of pirates, by which their prey is divided are just laws as much as these. The practical tendency of this popular notion of law is most pernicious. Reverence for law is deeply instilled into the minds of American citizens. They are taught to regard it as sacred; hence, when any enactment, no matter how atro- cious, is passed, the people are taught that it is law, and the reverence they feel for law is at once appealed to, and enlisted in its support. The man is blind who does not see that it is through this principle that profligate politicians and apostate doctors of divinity are now leading the people to acquiesce in and obey the infamous Fugitive Slave Bill. The remedy is to teach the people the true nature of law — that justice is its essential element; and that lacking this it lacks that which is indispensably necessary to make it law. Proscription. It is stated in the papers that the National Era has lost seven thousand subscribers through the influence of the Know-Nothings. The Era has never shown any friendship for the Free Frenhi/krian, and, so far as possible, has ignored our very existence. It will not exchange with us, and hence we know of its condition only from statements we see in other papers. But these facts shall not prevent us from bearing our testimony to the fidelity of the Era to the great cause of freedom, and against the proscription that is crippling its cir- culation and endangering its existence. The position of the Era at the seat of the National Government, the very center and focus of the slave power, gives it an incalculable import- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 173 ance. Hence the antislavery people of the country have always felt that one of their fir&t duties was to give it an am- ple support. Then the ability and fidelity with which it has been conducted have been all, in the main, that its friends could desire. It has steadily and fearlessly exposed the schemes of the propagandists, and from time to time has lifted up the warning cry, as a faithful sentinel upon the watch- tower of freedom. And yet, because the Era^ in common with the vast majority of the true and tried friends of free- dom, suspects danger to the cause from the new secret order, and has faithfully exposed its pro-slavery tendencies, thous- ands of those who profess to regard slavery as the paramount issue before the country withdraw their support, and pursue a course to endanger the very existence of that paper. This secret proscription is one of the most dangerous and detestable features of secret associations. Eound by solemn oath to the strictest secresy, their members can by common concert strike down whom they will, and yet never permit the victim to see the hand that gives the blow. Men who are too honest and upright to seek concealment find themselves crip- pled in their business, often without even suspecting the cause. They are placed under the ban of a secret, irrespon- sible order, each member of which does all in his power to ruin them in their calling in life, while these very members are probably themselves receiving, in some other branch of business, the support of the men they are trying to ruin. The member of a secret society has this double advantage. He is sure of the support of all the members of his order, and has an equal chance with others, to secure his share of the patronage of the rest of the public. Should these things continue and increase, it may yet drive the opponents of secret societies into an open combination for their own defense. Certainly the members of these secret conclaves ■would have no right to complain if the cup they fill for others should be commended to their own lips. An open league among the opposers of secret societies, to patronize none but those who agreed with them in sentiment on this subject, would be a very legitimate fruit of the secret obligation which the members of secret societies take, to patronize none but those of their own order. We trust it may not, through necessity, come to this. Free and fair and honorable competition is the right law of trade. But " What a man sows, that shall he also reap." These remarks have led u» away from the subject with 174 LIFE AND WHITINGS OF wliicli Ave started — the condition of the National Era. And yet the positions we have been stating are strikingly illustrated by the proscription of that paper by the Know-Nothings. Dr. Bailey stands where he has stood for years, on the broad platform of the equality of men in rights. The so-called antislavery Know-Nothings have left that platform and adopted another, which makes man's rights depend on the place of his birth — a matter over which he had no control. The order is also developing, in most of the States, the most thorough pro-slavery proclivities. It is becoming clear, almost beyond possibility of doubt, that Know-Nothingism is but the ghost of Hunker-Whiggery, trying to sneak back to life. Yet there are thousands of antislavery men in the order who have been blinded to its real purposes. And these men, regarding the slavery question as the one great over- shadowing question of the country, and as controlling all other questions, can yet be so hoodwinked by their connection with a secret society as to proscribe and try to destroy one of the most important antislavery agencies in the country. Can stronger evidence be needed of the dangerous and pernicious influence of secret oath-bound associations? The Era is not the only paper that has suflFered from the same cause. The Ohio Columbian, the able and efficient anti- slavery organ at our State capital, has been the object of the same unrighteous proscription. That our own list has not suffered in the same way is owing, we presume, entirely to the fact that we have probably not a dozen Know- Nothing sub- scribers on our books. That all the members of this secret order sympathize with its intolerant spirit we do not suppose. Once in a while a man can be found in their ranks with magnanimity enough to tolerate a difference of opinion on a few points while there is full agreement on many points. But such magnanimity is, we fear, exceedingly rare ; and the direct tendency of the influences of the order is to destroy it. Is THEBE A Law for the Rendition of Fugitive Slaves ? We take the negative of this question. We deny that there is either moral or civil law binding the people of the free States to aid in the recapture of fugitive slaves, or even to permit them to be pursued and captured on their soil. REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 175 This question may be regarded as stale and unprofitable by some, but the outrages upon the feelings of the North which slave-catchers are constantly perpetrating, force the question upon us as one of the highest practical import. It is, after all the discussion that has been had on the subject, an unset- tled question, and until it is settled the country can enjoy no real quiet. So far from God's law sanctioning the return of the escaping slave, it forbids it in express terms. " Thou shalt not return unto his master the servant that is escaped from his master unto thee," is the explicit mandate of Jehovah. The return of the fugitive is also forbidden by direct and necessary implication in all those passages which command to show mercy to the poor, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to hide the outcast, etc. A more direct, flagrant, impious and diabolical violation of God's law than the infamous fugitive act of 1850, was never conceived or executed by man. Every person who gives the least aid in executing this act, does it at the peril of his soul's salvation. It is a sin that will inevita- bly secure his eternal damnation unless he repents ; and those professed ministers of the gospel who defend this atro- cious enactment will be doubly damned without the most deep and bitter repentance. But not only is the return of the escaping bondman a violation of the revealed will of God, but also of the law of nature, written on every human heart. Heathen nations have always held the right of hospitality to be sacred. It is con- sidered by them intensely base and wicked to betray the wanderer who takes shelter under their roof. Even his bit- terest enemy is safe if he breaks bread in the tent of an Arab. This is not the only instance in which the virtues of heathenism shame the crimes of nominal Christendom. But leaving this point, we inquire is there civil law for the rendition of fugitives ? We deny that there is, for the three following reasons : 1. All civil enactments which violate God's law, are null and void. 2. The Constitution of the United States gives Congress no power to enact such a law, and Congress has no power of legislation except what is conferred by the Constitution. 3. If there had been a Constitutional compact for the return of fugitives, the repeated and habitual violation by the South of other provisions of the Constitution, have freed the North from all moral and civil obligation to keep such compact. 176 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF The first of these positions is distinctly taught by all writers on civil law of any standing. It is, moreover, a posi- tion which none but a downright atheist will deny. If there be a God, the creator and upholder of all things, it is not only his right but (speaking after the manner of men) his duty to govern the universe he has made. None but an almighty and infinite being is fit to rule over intelligent spirits. Hence he only can rightfully govern. But his law must be supreme and above all other laws, or his power is not absolute and his right to rule is a farce. It follows from this that those professed ministers of the gospel who teach that human enactments, like the fugitive bill, which contravene God's law, shall be obeyed, are the worst practical atheists. Our second position is that the Constitution invests Con- gress with no power to pass a statute for the recovery of fugitive slaves. The article of the Constitution claimed as conferring such power, refers to persons owing service or labor in certain States by the laws of those States. But according to the so-called laws of the Southern States, the slave is a chattel, and not a person held to service by law. The slave is held to labor by brute force, not by law. Legal obligation to labor is always based on the assumption that an adequate compensation is paid to the laborer. But the very essence of slavery consists in making the slave property, and forcing him to labor without wages. Eminent Southern statesmen deny that there is any law in the Southern States establishing the relation of master and slave. The govern- ment of those States found the slave in the hands of his captor, and merely interposed to regulate the relation. The slaves are held to labor precisely as the captives on a pirate ship are held to labor ; and it is an abuse of the holy terra laio to apply it to any enactments made either to establish or to regulate this piratical robbery. Again, the so-called fugitive clause of the Constitution speaks of service and labor as due from one person to another. But is any thing dne to the man-thief from his victim ? Nothing, unless it be cold lead or a halter. The law of God pronounces the man-thief worthy of death, and it would be passing strange if an innocent man could owe life- long service to a culprit condemned to die. He who forfeits his right to life, forfeits his right to every thing else, and, of course, to all claim of service or labor from his fellow-man. But, finally, admitting the existence of a Constitutional compact for the rendition of fugitives, and we claim that the REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 177 South, by its habitual violation of other parts of the com- pact, has released the North from all obligation of whatever character, to keep it. A compact or bargain always implies two parties and mutual obligation. It is an undisputed doc- trine, both in law and morals, that when one party violates any part of the bargain, the other is legally and morally free. Now, the slaveholding States have habitually and persistently trampled down the plainest provisions of the national com- pact, and have violated every act of Congress passed under the Constitution when it suited their purposes to do so. The Constitution declares that the citizens of one State shall enjoy all the rights of a citizen of the United States in all the other States. But in the South the citizens of the free States are seized the moment they step on Southern soil, thrust into prison, and then, if no one appears to buy them out, are sold to pay their jail fees. The freedom of speech and of the press is guaranteed to all persons by the Constitu- tion, but in the South it is certain death to attempt to exercise this right in speaking or writing against slavery. Compacts which stood a generation are coolly repudiated by the South. After securing their own part of the property in stipulation, they turn round, and, without a word of excuse, attempt to steal that part which had, by their own solemn compact, been secured to the North. By these and a thousand similar acts of villainy, the slaveholders have proved themselves incapa- ble of keeping faith, and hence no faith should be kept with them. They should be commanded to give up their stolen goods, including three millions of men, women and children, and if they refuse, should be hunted from the earth as pirates are hunted from the seas. In view of these indisputable facts and principles, we are amazed that the Republican party, and nearly all the papers in its interest, continue to concede to the slaveholder the right to pursue and capture his escaped victim on Northern soil. If justice and manhood prevailed, every free State would pass a law securing freedom to the fugitive slave the moment he set his foot upon their soil, whether he came with or without his so-called master's consent ; and making it a penitentiary oifense for the latter to pollute their territory by his presence in pursuit of his victim. If Grod's law were in force in Ohio, the poor fugitives now on trial for their liberty, in Cincinnati, would dwell safely " where it liked them best" in the State, and their pursuers would be doing the State ser- vice in a public institution at Columbus. 16 178 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF Higher and Lower Law. The reader will find a specimen of each in our paper to-day. On the first page is the eloquent, thrilling, Christian speech of Mr. Jolliffe ; on the fourth page is the weak, inhuman, atheistic decision of Judge Leavitt. How great the contrast ! The antagonism between light and darkness, holiness and crime, Christianity and atheism, we have rarely seen more broadly marked. The decision of Judge Leavitt, as a mere specimen of legal ability, is weakness personified. The whole question of the relative rights of the marshal and the sheriff to hold the fugitives, is made to turn on the mere accident of the marshall having com& first into possession of them. But in the nature of the case it could not possibly be otherwise. They were arrested by warrant, issued by the commissioner under the fugitive act, in the hands of the marshal. At the very moment of arrest, the killing of the child, which gave rise to the indictment for murder, took place. The arrest was the cause of the killing. The act was barely consummated when they were seized by the marshal, and hence it was an utter impossibility that an arrest for murder should take place before the arrest under the fugitive act. But on this mere casual incident, Judge Leavitt decides the broad and momen- tous question of the relative jurisdiction of the State of Ohio and of the United States. Could the fugitives have been first arrested on charge of murder, the right of the sheriff' to hold them in spite of the commissioner's warrant, according to Judge Leavitt, would have been undoubted. Was ever such a grave legal question before decided on such trivial grounds ? Was there ever judicial trifling equal to this? But the legal weakness of the decision is not its worst feature. It moral character is even worse. The Hon. Judge reiterates the lower law atheism, which has been the current teaching of venal pulpits and religious presses for the last five years. Speaking of that compound of meanness and villainy, the fugitive act, he says : " And I may here remark, that, speaking judicially, this question is not affected by the fact that the law of the United States under which the process issues, and these persons are in custody, may be viewed, even by a majority of community, as inexpedient, unjust and oppressive. Until repealed, or adjudged void on the ground of unconstitutionality, by the proper judicial tribunal of the Union, it must be be respected and observed as law." REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 179 Then, of course, the midwives of Egypt were rehels against law and government, and deserving of severest censure. Then Daniel was guilty of rebellion, and his three brothers were wicked fanatics. No doubt if Judge Leavitt had lived at Babylon in their day, he would have thought them guilty of causing a very foolish and sinful waste of fire-wood in the heating of the furnace for their raartyrdon. According to his doctrine, Paul and Peter, and the other apostles were traitors to the government, deserving of death. They should have "respected and observed as law" the decree that forbade them to teach and to preach in the name of Jesus, until it had been " repealed, or adjudged void by the proper tribunal." All who have ever stood out for right against power, and for jus- tice against oppressive and infamous statutes, were traitors and fanatics. But when this doctrine is taught in the pulpit, it is not strange that it should be taught as good morality from the bench. Injustice and oppression, if embodied in the form of law, according to Judge Leavitt, are worthy of respect and obedi- ence. Then all that is necessary to make any injustice and op- pression worthy of respect, is to enact them into statutory law. If the Legislature of Ohio should pass an act to sell Judge Leavitt and his wife and children on the auction block, he would be bound on his own principle to " respect and obey " it. This doctrine is subversive of all distinction between right and wrong. It overturns the very foundation of jus- tice. It will produce the very worst anarchy and disorder. It is practical atheism of the most dangerous character. Outside the Range of the Divine Operations. The forces of God's kingdom, both of nature and of grace, operate ordinarily within fixed boundaries and in certain directions; and it is quite possible for men to place themselves outside the range of their operations. Thus the natural laws by the operation of which rain falls upon the earth, act only within certain limits. There are portions of the earth, as the Desert of Sahara, for instance, on which it never rains. Now, the mi»n who desires the rain to fall upon his fields and render them fruitful, must not make his home and plant his seed in the barren desert. By so-doing he places himself outside of the forces of nature by which rain is produced. 180 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF It is a law of light that it will not penetrate opaque sub- stances. Hence the man who would live in the sunlight must not make his home in the deep mine. So doing he puts him- self beyond the operation of the laws of light. Those portions of the earth's surface which lie around the poles, never come suflSciently under the rays of the sun to become warm. Hence the man who desires the warmth of the sun must not make his home amid the icebergs around the poles. He is there outside the operation of the forces by which the earth is warmed. Now it is quite within man's power to betake himself to the desert, the mine, or the polar iceberg. But so long as he remains there he can not hope to enjoy the blessings of rain, of light, or of heat. In like manner, a man may put himself outside of the ope- ration of the forces of God's kingdom of grace. The dew and rain of the Divine Spirit fall not on the heart that has made itself wholly desert and barren. Yet every man may harden his heart until it is like nothing but the arid and sandy desert. The heart is hardened through the deceitful- ness of sin, and it is in every man's power to give himself up without restraint to a course of sinful indulgence. But the habitual indulgence of known sin will make the soul a waste Sahara on which no dew of grace distills, and where not a sin- gle green blade appears to relieve the eye or give promise of the least fruit. The man places himself beyond the range of the operation of thot Divine Power, by which the soul is refreshed and quickened, and made fruitful in works of right- eousness. Again, the light of God's truth and Spirit can not fall on the heart that is sunk in unbelief. Infidelity is a deep mine, to whose dark recesses the rays of the Sun of Righteousness never penetrate. And a man may make himself an infidel. He has only to close his mind against the evidences by which the inspired oracles are attested, and give himself up to the lusts of an unbelieving heart, and the work is done. The Bible forbids the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. But the natural heart loves these, and there- fore hates the Bible ; and man has only to give full scope to this love of sin and this hatred of truth to become completely blinded. His soul is then beyond the territories over which the Sun of Righteousness shines. Again, the natural selfishness of the heart, if freely indulged, will soon render it a spiritual iceberg. Every REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 181 warm, generous, and benevolent emotion will be chilled and frozen. The soul may create around itself a moral atmos- phere as cold as that which circulates around the eternal snow fields. So long as it resigns itself to the native selfishness of the carnal heart, it can feel no warmth from the sun of truth and love that shines in the moral heavens. The man has placed himself outside the operation of those Divine influences by which the heart is warmed. The genial heat of God's love can not reach his soul. Now it is, of course, possible for God to exert his power outside of any fixed limits. He could cause the clouds to gather and empty themselves on the deserts of Africa. He could rive the earth asunder by an earthquake, and pour the sunlight into the deep mine ; and he coidd reverse the earth's axis, and bring the polar regions under a tropical sun. So he can, if he choose, pour the dew and light and heat of his Holy Spirit on the hardened, unbelieving and selfish heart. But such is not his way of action, and it is desperate pre- sumption in the sinner to calculate on such miraculous inter- position of God in his behalf. There is not a single promise in the book of God to the sinner who voluntarily places him- self outside the limits within which the saving influences of the gospel usually operate. Savage. The Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, alluding to the fall of Mr. Giddings from illness on the floor of the House of Rep- resentatives, says : " We are pretty sure that some Southern members rather relished the peculiar manner in which the old Abolitionist occupied the floor then and there." This is another illustration of the barbarism into which slavery is sinking the people of the South. None but a mind thoroughly brutalized could pen the above paragraph ; and none but a half-civilized people would support or tolerate such journalism. Mr. Giddings has grown gray in a long life of faithful public service. His head is crowned with the honor which follows a life well spent. However men may diff"er with him in sentiment on particular questions, all must accord to him unshrinking devotion to his convictions of right, the manners and deportment of a gentleman, and a life of 182 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF unspotted integrity, both public and private. To " relish " the sudden fall of such a man by the stroke of disease, betrays the heart of a brute or a fiend. How diflFerent the spirit in which the Northern press chron- icled the recent sudden death of a somewhat notorious South- erner. They point the moral which his departure teaches, and rebuke the unseemly eulogy which his comrades lavished upon him, but they express no exultation. Had his friends permitted they would have suffered him to be borne quietly to his grave, without allusion to the act that will make his name infamous in all coming time. Yet the memory of Brooks was crowned with lasting dishonor, while no stain of atrocious crime attaches to the name of Giddings. Dr. McGill on the Free Presbyterian Church, The Rev. A. T. McGill, D.D., professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and permanent clerk of the 0. S. Gen- eral Assembly, was the delegate from that body to the Con- gregational Association of Massachusetts. His speech before that body, at its late meeting, was mainly a glorification of the position of his church on the subject of slavery. Speak- ing of the results of the "adjustment" of the question made at Cincinnati in 1845, he says : " Some of our body were dissatisfied with the position in which this adjustment left us. I. do not know personally all who left, to form what is called the Free Presbyterian Church. I know that some of them were estimable men ; but I know that the foremost and hottest man in repudiating the church of his fathers has, since that time, repudiated all religious organizations, has renounced the Saviour, has cursed the Bible, and has gone to the world a violent infidel — a mis- creant reviler of all that is sacred and decent in the usages of Christian civilization. And I know that another of the most eloquent in leading off that exodus from us, on account of slavery, has since turned the sacred desk into a mere political stump, and takes every text to vilify all that is dominant in Church and State. Now, sir, if we had nothing else to justify this action in our eye, this ruin of those who have gone off would satisfy us that we are, in all probability in the right." We have seldom read any misrepresentation of our church with as much regret as the above ; not so much on account of REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 183 the statements it contains (for they are too utterly unfounded to do us any harm), as on account of the source from whence they come. For the greater portion of two terms in a theo- logical seminary, it was our privilege to enjoy the instruction of Dr. McGrill. The intercourse between us as teacher and pupil was uniformly of the most kind and agreeable character. We have ever regarded him as a man of the strictest truth and integrity, and as a kind, amiable, courteous Christian gentleman. We formed for him an attachment which the^ lapse of years, and our separation from the Old School Pres- byterian Church, have scarcely weakened. It is this which causes our regret in reading statements so unfair and untrue as are contained in the foregoing extract. In the first place, it is not true that a single minister, who left the Old School Presbyterian Church on account of the " adjustment " of 1845, and aided in organizing the Free Presbyterian Church, has become an infidel. The individ- ual to whom, we suppose. Dr. McGill alludes, left the 0. S. Pres. Church two years before the year 1845, and never was a member of the Free Presbyterian Church. He has de- nounced our church quite as freely as he has the 0. S. Pres. Church. His infidelity moreover is the work of the pro- slavery teachings of Old School Drs. of Divinity, and others. Whatever " ruin " there may be, in his case, is the result of the persistent eff"orts of pro-slavery " divines " to prove that the Bible sanctions slavery. Instead of indulging, therefore, in self-righteous glorification over such cases, Dr. McGill and his colaborers should take to themselves shame and confusion of face over the " ruin " their own hands have wrought. Again, the statement that " another of the most eloquent in leading ofi" the exodus from the Old School General Assem- bly, has turned the sacred desk into a mere political stump, and takes every text to vilify all that is dominant in Church or State," is not true. Free Presbyterian ministers believe that civil government is God's ordinance, and that he has defined the character of the civil ruler in his word. They believe that men should vote as they pray ; that they should vote, as well as eat and drink, to the glory of God. They have, therefore, preached these Bible truths to their people, and have tried to show them how, in their judgment, they could vote for the glory of God. To this extent and no more, they have turned the " sacred desk into a political stump," and we defy Dr. McGill and every body else to snow to the contrary. 184 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF But the worst thing in the Dr.'s tissue of false statements is representing those who have gone off from the Old School as "ruined." Suppose the foregoing statements about two individuals were as true as they are false, and what a mon- strous conclusion is it, that the whole Free Presbyterian Church has gone to "ruin " in consequence. The Free Pres- byterian Church numbers about fifty ministers. Suppose two of them had gone to moral ruin, which is not the fact, what then ? With far more propriety might an old Pharisee have represented the church and cause of Jesus Christ as gone to ruin, because out of a ministry of twelve one did prove a vile traitor, whereas, according to Dr. McGill's own showing, only two out of fifty, or one out of every twenty-five, of our min- isters, has proved recreant to his high calling. This mode of judging and pronouncing sentence is monstrous. From time to time ministers of the 0. S. Pres. Church are tried and excommunicated for heresy, for dishonesty, for adultery, fornication and other crimes. We could name more than a dozen fuch, within our own limited range of observation. Shall we, therefore, say that the whole body is ruined ? Such cases occur in all churches, and it is the grossest injustice to charge their guilt upon the whole church, unless the church retains them in fellowship, after their guilt is brought to light. There is another fact which renders the statements of Dr. McGill still more inexcusable. He represents Free Presby- terians as having gone to ruin, because they seceded from a church which proclaims that its own organization is based on the conceded principle, that slavery, as it exists at the South, is no bar to Christian communion, and because they have formed a church which denies Christian fellowship to slave- holders. This position he represents as the cause of their " ruin." Now what will the reader think, when he is told that Dr. McGill was baj.tized, reared, educated, studied theol- ogy, was licensed and ordained to preach, and actually did preach several years in a church which, as long ago as 1832, took the very same ground of non-fellowship with slavery, which our church occupies; and has maintained it ever since? Yet such is the fact. Dr. McGill had all his training, and spent the first years of his ministry, in the Associate Presby- terian (Seceder) Church; and he knows full well that the position of that church, of the Covenanters and Associate Reformed, all of which exclude slaveholders from fellowship, has not been their ruin. They have grown as rapidly in pro- REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 185 portion to their numbers at first, as other churches ; and they are distinguished above others for their steadfast adherence to the doctrines of the Bible, and to the Presbyterian form of church government. And, yet, with these facts before him, Dr. McGill can represent a church as going, or gone to ruin, because it refuses Christian fellowship to slaveholders. So saying, he reproaches and " repudiates the church of Ms fathers." Dr. McGill is a man of powerful and brilliant intellect. The fact, therefore, that he can bring no better reasons than the foregoing misstatements, to prove that his church "is in the right," is the strongest possible presumptive proof, that on the question of slavery it is wholly in the wrong. Cant. In the course of a sermon, preached before the Old School General Assembly, at St. Louis, by Dr. Humphrey, of Louis- ville, on the subject of Domestic Missions, occurs this passage : "In brief, ours is both historically and constitutionally, a free church in the bosom of a free people — a republic within a republic. It is identified at once, with all that is glorious in the history of the country, and with all that is far more exceedingly glorious in the hopes of another and better country, even an heavenly. For this reason it has a precise adaptation to the work of spreading the gospel throughout the land. It is in sympathy with the common people, with all their patriotic sentiments, their passionate love of liberty, their most cherished institutions. Our missionary on the most dis- tant frontier, or in the remote wilderness, where a few hardy settlers are just letting in the sun upon the soil, may capti- vate at once their understanding and republican sympathies, by laying open the principles of our ecclesiastical policy ; thus demonstrating that Preshyterianism, though so long maligned, is hut another name for truth and liberty.^' These sentences are found in the midst of an eloquent dis- quisition on the sympathy of Presbyterianism, in past times, with civil and religious liberty. It is true of every form of Presbyterianism, except that represented by the two General Assemblies of this country, that it is the fast friend of the largest liberty. It is true that it was in the days of the 186 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF Westminster Assembly, and in the time of the American Revolution, " in sympathy with the people's passionate love of liberty." It is one of the glories of Presbyterianism, that it has in past times been the foe of tyranny, and the stern advocate of the rights of man. In the mouth of an old Cove- nanter, in the days of Cromwell, or in the mouth of any of their legitimata descendants, in this day, the language of Dr. Humphrey would be appropriate. But in the mouth of their author, and before the Assembly he was addressing, they are words of canting hypocrisy. Look at it. The speaker himself, if we are not mistaken, is an Eastern man by birth and education, now a slaveholder in Louisville, Ky. The Assembly to which he was speaking, has adopted as her deliberate testimony, that she originally organized, and has since continued the bond of union on the conceded principle that domestic slavery, in the circumstances in which it exists in the southern portion of this country, is no bar to Christian communion. They affirm, moreover, that among the duties enjoined by Christ and his apostles upon slave- holders, that of emancipation is not enumerated ; and that for them to pronounce the holding of slaves a heinous sin, demanding the discipline of the Church, would be virtually to dissolve their Assembly, and abandon the organization under which by the Divine blessing they have so long pros- pered. The practice of the church, taking the testimony of their own Synods, and Presbyteries and churches as evidence, is even worse than this declaration of sentiment. About eighty thousand immortal beings are held by her ministers and members in a state of bondage, the most absolute and unmitigated that exists on the face of the globe. They are without legal protection for a single right, and completely subject to the irresponsible will of their owners, however cruel and capricious that will may be. Their treatment in this condition by members and ministers of the Presbyterian Church is often infernally cruel. Take a few items of testi- mony. Says the 0. S. Synod, of Kentucky : " Cases occur in our own denomination in lohich professors of the religion of mercy sell tlie mother from Tier children^ and. send her into mer- ciless and retur)dess exile, and yet discipline rarely follows^ The Rev. Francis Hawley, pastor of a Baptist Church in Cole- brook, Litchfield County, Connecticut, resided fourteen years in North and South Carolina. His standing and character may be judged from the fact that the Baptist State Conven- tion of North Carolina, appointed him a few years since their REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 187 general agent to visit the Baptist churches within their bounds, and to secure theii' co-operation in the objects of the Convention. In the course of a narrative, published under his own signature, he relates this incident : " I will now give a few facts showing the workings of the system. Some years since a Presbyterian minister moved from North Carolina to Georgia. He had a negro man of an uncommon mind. For some cause, I know not what, this master whipped him most unmercifully. He next nearly drow/ied him ; he then put him in (he fence. This is done by lifting up the corner of a ' worm ' fence, and then putting the feet through. The rails serve as stocks. He kept him there some time, how long I was not informed, but the poor slave died in a few days ; and if I was rightly informed, nothing was done about it, either in Church or State. After some time he moved back to North Carolina, and is now a member of Presbytery. I have heard him preach, and have been in the pulpit with him. May God forgive me ! " The same witness relates the following : " One of my neighbors sold a speculator a negro boy about fourteen years old. It was more than his poor mother could bear. Her reason fled, and she became a perfect maniac, and had to be kept in close confinement. She would occasionally get out and run off to the neighbors. On one of these occa- sions she came to my house. She was, indeed, a pitiable object. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and her frame shaking with agony, she would cry out, ' Dont you hear him, they are whipping him now, and he is calling for me.' This neighbor of mine, who tore the boy away from his poor mother, and thus broke her heart, was a member of the Pres- byterian Church.' ' The Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, embracing all the clergy of those States, give this testimony : " Those only who have the management of servants know what the hardening effect of it is upon their own feelings toward them. There is no necessity to dwell on this point, as all owners and managers fully understand it. He who com- mences to manage them with tenderness and with a willing- ness to favor them in every way, must be watchful, otherwise he will settle down in indifference, if not severity. " We add but one other item, from a volume of the same sort in our possession, all of the most unquestionable character. The Rev. Charles S. Renshaw, of Quincy, Illinois, formerly a 188 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF resident of Kentucky, testifies as follows, in speaking of the Presbyterian minister and church where he resided : " The minister and all the church-members held slaves. Some were treated kindly — others harshly. There was not a shade of difference between their slaves and those of their infidel neighbors, either in their physical, intellectual or moral state; in some cases they would suffer in the com- parison. '' In the kitchen of the minister of the church a slave was living in open adultery with a slave woman who was a member of the church, with an 'assured hope' of heaven, while the man's wife was on the minister's farm in Fayette County. The minister had to bring a cook down from his farm to the place in which he was preaching. The choice was between the wife of the man and this church-member. He left the xoife and brought the church-member to the adulterer's bed." We present these as mere specimens of the actual condition of the slave. These facts exhibits his treatment by Presbyte- rians in the South — the ministers, and elders, and members of that church which Dr. Humphrey boasts is in sympathy with the people's passionatejove of liberty ! We present one other fact illustrative of the spirit of the General Assembly itself. A member of the Assembly of 1849, which sat in Pittsburg, relates the following : " There is a fact that occurred in connection with the Assembly of 1849, which sat in the city of Pittsburg, that is worthy of notice. In the providence of God, a poor African female slave presented herself at the door of the Assembly, with a paper certified by a number of respectable ministers, begging some pecuniary aid to help her to purchase herself, her husband and her children, who were all owned by a master in Virginia. I, being a member of the Assembly, endeavored to do what I was able for her by my own contri- butions, and by circulating her paper. Among other means the thought occurred to me that it might do good to have her papers read before the Assembly ; and, accordingly, I sug- gested it to a number of the members and the moderator, but they all disapproved of the suggestion, and her papers were not read." Here, a poor suppliant, begging the means to secure herself and family from this worse than Algerine bondage, is denied even a hearing. Jesus Christ always received kindly and listened tenderly to the petition of the very poorest. Yet this General Assembly, boasting through Dr. Humphrey of REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 189 its devotion to freedom and justice, turns coldly away from the humble petition of a broken-hearted mother. But to exhibit the full effrontery of this vain boasting, we present another extract from the sermon of Dr. Humphrey. Among the objects of home missions, he mentions these very outraged victims of wrong. Strange that a sense of shame did not crimson his brow and choke his utterance. In the course of his remarks on the subject, this passage occurs: " They are the poor of the land, and to the poor the gospel is preached. ' For I am a debtor ' said the apostle, ' both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and unwise.' Further, they are accessible to us. We cross no sea or moun- tain to reach them ; we acquire no barbarous jargon ; we visit no inhospitable shore to bear to them the unspeakable riches of Christ. They are here ; they are all around us ; they speak our language : they cultivate our fields ; they sit with us in the house of (rod ; they wait in our houses ; they come even into our bedchambers. T honsands of them are under service to the comviunicants or worshipers in our congregations^ and our ministers may have access as easy to the servant as to their masters." Here is the admission from this boaster of Presbyterian devotion to freedom, that " thousands of immortal human beings are under sei'vice to the communicants or worshipers in their congregations." The nature of this service is exhib- ited in the extracts already given, and in thousands of simi- lar facts in our possession. The whole power of the Assembly is wielded to sustain the system that licenses and perpetuates these oppressions and outrages on the defenseless poor. The oppressors are taken by thousands to the communion tabic, and their Christian (!) character indorsed. Northern minis- ters, and many of them abolitionists, sit down with them to partake of the symbols of the Saviour's passion, and thus lend their influence and character to uphold the wrong. And then doughface and slaveholder together, go to the hall of the General Assembly to listen with self-complacent pride to the praises of Presbyterian devotion to liberty. Sound Doctrine. The New Haven Register has a report of the speeches at the Union meeting held in New Haven. Among the addresses 190 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF was one by the Rev. Dr. Taylor, Professor of Didactic Theol- ogy in Yale College, which can not fail to be productive of good. We make extracts from it. " I am happy to be here. I am glad to see the indiiference to party ties, when the great interests of the nation are in issue. Long enough has this subject been trifled with. Long enough have the enemies of law and order had this subject all on their side, and reasoned it all the wrong way. I am, therefore, most ready to express my entire dissent, and unqualified disapprobation of all those attempts to degrade that article in our Constitution, upon which so much has beei said, and to trample on the law, which all Northern men are bound to stand by and support in good faith to the very last. (Cheers.) " I say in good faith ; and I ask if the compact between the Northern and Southern States — independent sovereignties — was not a lawful compact? Had not the North interests at stake to justify them? I will not go into the question whether slavery is a sin. Be it so if you please. Had they not reason, and good reason, for entering into this compact? I will make a supposition : Suppose Kussia and her hordes, combined with Germany, Austria, Prussia, France, and Eng- land, were threatening to conquer and devastate our country, and there is slavery in Spain ; suppose for our own protection and safety, we deem it necessary to enter into an alliance with Spain. Now there are slaves in Spain and Cuba, and if this combination is made for our protection, Spain says some of her slaves will get among our people, and our people will not deliver them up. "War is coming, desolation is coming; it is a sin, if you please, for Spain to have slaves ; may we not lawfully, and for our own safety, enter into such a compact, and agree to de- liver up these slaves. We have not made the slave ; she is independent, and it is made by her own local laws, in the enjoyment of those local rights which she, as an independent sovereign has a right to exercise, so far as we are concerned. Whether she is right so far as her responsibility to the Judge of the earth is concerned, is another question. But, so far as we are concerned, she has a right to make these laws. What ! may I not buy a piece of meat from a butcher, because he is profan,e? May I not make contracts with men whose characters, in some respects, are marred by evil? May I not consult my own safety by numerous acts of a defensive and confederate character, because the men who are eneaged with REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 191 me are not as good as I wish they were ? Is this the princi- ple in neighborhoods? Will it do in the family? Will it do better among nations? What right have we to make laws for the Southern States? I am the friend of slaves; I am sorry for slaves ; I wish them well with all my heart and soul; and as I wish them vpell, I say, cease these agitations. Who are the friends of the slaves at the North ? The agitators of this subject do more to injure the slave and perpetuate their chains at the South, than their true friends can do to termin- ate the evil for half a century. (Cheers.) "As to the higher law principle : You expect me to admit of course, that we are all the subjects of Him who reigns amid the grandeur and glory of eternity, and that when his will is known, we, as mortal beings, are bound to submit. There is no question on that point; here is the point: Is that article in our Constitution contrary to the will of God — con- trary to the law of nature, of nations, and the will of God? Is it so? Is there a shadow of reason for saying it is? I have not been able to discover it. Have I not shown you it is lawful to deliver up, in compliance with their laws, fugi- tive slaves, for the high, the great, the momentous interests of these States? And if it is lawful to do it, is it not in accordance with the Constitution to make a law providing for that result? Is there any law of God against this? Is there any law of God against doing lawful things, which every man must do in the course of his life? I do not so understand it. " Stand, my fellow citizens, by law! stand by the Constitu- tion of our country; that Constitution, which, like the atmos- phere around us, blesses every breath we draw ; we walk, we sleep, we exist every moment under its influence. What would become of us if the Constitution were trampled in the dust? No, sir — as has been said, so say I, with all my heart and soul, if any of my fellow-citizens do not value the Consti- tution enough to defend it, they are not worthy of the bless- ings it gives them. (Cheers.) I say again, let us stand by the Constitution and the law, and as somebody has said, as near as I can remember, ' I would not merely protect it with the shield of honest Ajax, I would protect it also with a wall of brass ; and when this would not serve the purpose of pro- tection, then would I circle it with the living hearts of my countrymen, and in its defense rally, till the last drop of blood were expended in defending the Constitution.' " We take the above from the Presbyterian Advocate, which expresses the conviction that it " can not fail to be productive 192 LIFE A^•D WRITINGS OF of good." It is just such "sound doctrine" as we look for in the Advocate. Its mingled obtuseness and wickedness fit it most admirably for the columns of that journal. It is another melancholy exhibition of the infidelity so rife among the D. Ds. of the popular churches of this country. When such sentiments are put forth by professors of theology, and imbibed by their pupils, alas ! for the churches that are to sit under their ministry. The leading idea of the above extract is, that, on the suppo- sition of slavery being a sin, the North had a right to enter into a compact with the South, to deliver up the escaping slave, and is now both religiously and politically bound to fulfill the bargain " in good faith." Now if it be a sin to hold men in slavery, it must be right for the slave to escape if he can ; and, therefore, it must be a sin to return him to his bondage. Admitting that the slaveholder sins in holding his fellow-man as a chattel. Dr. Taylor contends, that another man does not sin by entering into a contract to help him to do so, if there are what he considers suflBcient inducements for so doing. It may be sin in the principal, but not in the accessory, if said accessory has "interests at stake to justify " him in aiding and abetting. What is this but " doing evil that good may come?" It is sin to hold the slave, but to secure certain '' interests at stake," it is not sin to help the slaveholder to do the wrong. If this regard to " interests " may bleach one vice into a virtue, it may another. If I enter into a contract with another to help him commit murder, and have good reasons for so doing, it is my duty, according to this theory, to carry out my engagement in " good faith." Men have only to conjure up what they may think good rea- sons for forming a compact to commit any crime, and Dr. Taylor's principle justifies them in standing to the bargain. But exclaims the sagacious Dr. " What ! may I not buy a piece of meat from a butcher, because he is profane ? May I not make contracts with men whose characters in some res- pects are marred by evil?" The object of this illustration is to justify a contract with the South to return the fugitive. It, therefore, betrays unpardonable stupidity, or a willful inten- tion to deceive. No one denies the right to buy meat from the profane, or to make contracts with the wicked. But wo do deny the right to make a contract to aid them in their xoickedness. It is not making a contract with slaveholders that the abolitionists condemn, but making a contract to aid them in holding their slaves, which Dr. Taylor admits (or REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 193 does not deny), is sinful. To make his illustration avail anything for his purpose, he ought to show that it would be right to enter into a contract to encourage his profane butcher in his profanity. He ought to show that it is sinless to make contracts with "men whose characters are marred by evil," the stipulations of which bind him to " aid and comfort " them in their evil ways. The reasons which the Dr. alleges for the North entering into a wicked compact to deliver up slaves is purely a fancy sketch. (We say wicked compact, for, in the sense in which it is commonly understood, the article of the Constitution in question is wicked. We deny, however, that it is rightly construed.) But admitting the conditions do exist — that war and desolation are coming on this country, and that the only way that appears to "human view to prevent this is to enter into a compact to do an admitted wrong, we utterly deny the right to do so. To assert the right is only an exhibition of rank infidelity. It is a most insulting distrust of God. What does it amount to? Plainly this: that God can not preserve a nation from destruction and the ravages of war, except they enter into compact with another nation to do an acknowledged wrong. This doctrine, coming from an infidel politician, might not surprise us, but coming from a professed believer in a superintending and omnipotent Providence, its infidelity is astounding. God is so straitened (that is the idea) for means to accomplish his ends, that he can, in a given case, preserve a nation from war and desolation only by its entering into a bargain with another nation to aid in doing an admitted crime. What course would a simple Christian faith dictate in such circumstances? A prudent use of all lawful means of defense, and then a committal of the whole case to that " God who presides over the destinies of nations." All such crooked expedients as the one lauded by Dr. Taylor are exhibitions of the grossest form of practical unbelief. May God save the country from the prevalence of such teachings. An Accommodating D. D. There is, in Holidaysburg, in this State, a certain doctor of Divinity named McKinney, who has recently enlightened the world with a sermon entitled, " The Union Preserved, or the 17 194 LIFE AND WBITINGS OF Law-abiding Christian." The way this doctor in Israel blows hot and cold must rejoice the hearts of that very large class of modern Rabbis who are found on all sides of moral ques- tions at once. Speaking of the Fugitive Bill, he discourses as follows : " There is another view of this subject which may be pre- sented for a moment. A law may be neither unconstitutional nor immoral, and still it may be odious. It may enjoin something repulsive to the feelings, and which a man would not perform, though at the risk of great personal suffering to result from his refusal. Such a law, if esteemed needless, he would naturally and strongly desire to have erased from the statute book. The thought of its existence is painful, and from its execution his soul revolts. " And such, with some minds, is the Fugitive Slave Law. They regard it as hard — very hard toward a fellow-being — as discordant to the great law of love, and severely oppressive to the unfortunate. The poor negro is a slave /rom no fault of his oivn. He has a human soul, with human aspirations. He is bound down. The chain is galling. He pants for liberty. He has heard of a land of freedom — an asylum — a lap of plenty, where the poor of all lands find a home — a refuge for the oppressed — a rest for the weary — a land where the funda- mental principles are freedom, equality, protection, ' life, lib- erty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Hope lights up his soul. He bursts his bonds, and flies thither. The fugitive is in our midst, weary, famished, seeking safety, and still pursued. Shall we stop his progress? Shall we deny his fainting soul a morsel of food? Shall we seize him, and bind him with thongs, and with irons, and force him back to remediless servitude, to agony, and despair, and death? And shall these hands — at man's bidding — touch the fugitive? Shall they do the foul deed ? No : never — never — never ! No : my brother, though your face is strange, and your body dark ; yet that face bears the lineaments of man, and that body encases an immortal spirit, and that bondage was for no crime of yours. Here is food, and there is the way. " But his master is speedily at the door, also. Well, here is bread for the master ; and there is the same way by which the servant passed. The flying slave plead the claims of humanity. The pursuing master has the protection of legal enactments. Each departs from me refreshed, and with his limbs unfettered. And for each there is the same path with- out an obstacle." REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 195 Food for the slave, and food for the master alike ! An open way for both. Both leave his hospitable threshold equally refreshed. Liberty and slavery share alike in his sympathies. The fugitive seeking the priceless boon of free- dom, and the slave-catcher striving to rob him of it, and to thrust him back to the horrors of slavery, are alike welcome under the hospitable roof of Dr. McKinney. To both he points the way, and stands by to see the race, like the woman watching the fight between the bear and her husband, not caring a fig which beats. " Good Lord, good Devil." What's the use to take sides in a controversy between slavery and freedom? A world of responsibility and trouble is avoided by treating both parties in the contest alike. This "aid and comfort" to the man-catcher, in the circum- stances supposed by this impartial D. D., will be entirely gratuitous. The fugitive law (so called) does not demand it. It is not stipulated in the bond. That "commands good citizens " to help catch the runaway, when summoned by the marshal, but not feed the kidnapper, or show him the way. When professed teachers of religion are thus indifferent as between right and wrong — when they accord equal favor to justice and injustice — to the authority of God and the Devil, what can be expected of those under their instruction? When such teachers are rife in the land, it is not strange that the depravation of public morals should be rapid and alarming. " The Spirit of Abolitionism." The *SV. Louis Presbyterian commenting on the resolution of the Home Missionary Society, " that in the disbursement of the funds committed to their trust, the Committee will not grant aid to churches containg slaveholding members, unless evidence be furnished that the relation is such as in the judg- ment of the Committee, is justifiable, for the time being, in the peculiar circumstances in which it exists," remarks : " We see in this resolution the true spirit of abolitionism. The Bible is no rule of faith and practice for its advocates; and the good of slaves is no part of its aim. All admit that the apostles of Christ preached without hesitation to just such churches as the Committee refuse to send the gospel to ; and all admit, tliat the very best way of ameliorating the condition 196 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF of slaves, and of securing their freedom, is to preach the gos- pel both to masters and slaves. If abolitionism could prevail generally, among ministers, the gospel would be wholly removed from the slaveholding States ; and the condition of the slaves would become unspeakably worse than it has ever been. Practically there are no enemies to the slaves whom they have so much reason to dread, as the men who would take from them the light and hopes of the gospel, and leave them in the hands of men wholly destitute of its beneficent influence." It would be hard to express more untruths in as many words. There are five sentences in the above extract, and there are five distinct falsehoods. The second sentence con- tains two: "The Bible is no rule for its advocates, and the good of slaves is no part of its aim." The Bible is the rule of the class of abolitionists referred to, and the good of slaves is a main part of their aim. The declaration that " all admit that the apostles preached without hesitation to just such churches as the committee refuse to aid," is a stupendous falsehood. "All admit" no such thing. There is not an impartial Christian in the land, who has thoroughly investi- gated the subject, that admits that the apostles ever preached to churches that received habitual and unrepentant slave- holders. There is not one jot or tittle of evidence to show that they did, but a mass of overwhelming evidence to prove they did not. The declaration, that if abolitionism could prevail the gospel would be taken from the slave States, is utterly false, and Dr. Bice knows it. He has lived in Ken- tucky and knows that the abolitionists have been preaching the gospel there, amid persecution and reproach, for years. He knows moreover, that they have tried earnestly to intro- duce the gospel into North Carolina and other slaveholding States, and that they have endured all manner of persecution in the effort. All that the Christian antislavery men of this country have opposed in this matter, is the preaching to slaves and masters of that false and spurious gospel which teaches that the Bible sanctions slavery. They regard such preaching as a libel on Christianity, and an unmitigated curse to master and slave. But they have done what they could to send the pure gospel of Jesus to the South. The work to which Christ declares he was specially anointed was " to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the cap- tives, and to set at liberty them that are bruised." This true REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 197 and loving gospel the abolitionists would preach all over the South, were it not that infidels, like Dr. Rice, in the church, and ruffians in the world, combine to drive their missionaries away. Injustice to the Dead. A work has been recently published by the Rev. Joseph Smith, D. D., giving a history of the rise and growth of the Presbyterian churches of Western Pennsylvania. This work has been made the text of a long article in the St. Louis Presbyterian on the same subject. After sketching the lives and labors of the prominent ministers of that period, the writer in the St. Louis paper remarks that " several character- istics of the times and the men who founded the Presbyterian Church in Western Pennsylvania, deserve bright notice." The first of these " characteristics " was the abundance of the labors of the ministers of that period. The second charac- teristic, which we are told " deserves bright notice," we give in the words of the writer, and of Dr. Smith, whom he quotes : " 2. But what will doubtless startle a class of good people, is the fact that most of the early ministers in Western Penn- sylvania were slaveholders ! We let their historian tell the story. (Page 274.) " ' The plain, frugal habits of the times did not impose upon the ministers then the necessity of any thing further than the cheapest furniture and the plainest style of living. Most of them assisted in much of the work that was done on their farms. With but one or two exceptions they owned colored servants, both male and female, who were carefully instructed and kindly treated. Most of these servants were members of the church. This statement may surprise some readers, and, if they are abolitionists, will be rather an unwelcome piece of information, but it was truly so. At least six of the early ministers, and almost all their elders, were slaveholders. We never heard that their consciences were disturbed on the subject. They provided well for their servants, and those born after 1780, were, in due time, entitled to the benefit of the act passed that year by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, 'for the gradual abolition of slavery.' " Now, why do not Mr. Smith and his annotator tell the 198 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF whole story? Why do they not tell iis that these same min- isters, whose memories they venerate, were also whisky makers and whisky drinkers ? Such was really the fact. Almost every farm in Western Pennsylvania had at that time a distillery, and the use of whisky was universal. Preacher and layman, saint and sinner, alike used it habitually. Drunkenness was common, and even the ministers sometimes drank to the verge of intoxication. Western Pennsylvania was the seat of the famous " Whisky Insurrection." This Insurrection was only quelled by the United States Govern- ment marching an army cf fifteen thousand men to the scene of the rebellion, and not by the minister's reasoning, in imi- tation of Paul, of '■'■temperance^ righteousness and a judgment to come." These pioneer ministers had no penchant for such "reasoning" so far as "temperance" was concerned, for authentic legends tell us that some of them dearly loved the " good creature." This the historian might have recorded with as much pro- priety as the fact that these men were slaveholders. And if their example proves any thing for slavery, it proves as much, or more, for whisky guzzling. But it did not suit Dr. Smith's purpose to tell the whole truth. Whisky drinking and vulgarity are now regarded as rather low and disreputable vices. But slavery is the corner stone of our "Republican Institutions," and of our large ecclesiastical organizations. It has been pronounced by the Assembly of the 0. S. Presbyterian Church, to be the bond of their union — the very cement that holds the stones of their Zion together ; for they declare in so many words that to put it out of their church "would be to dissolve their organization." Moreover, unless common fame does Dr. Smith outrageous injustice, his own fingers have handled the price of the bones and souls and unpaid toil of some of his fellow-men. Hence the example of the fathers of the Pres- byterian Church in Western Pennsylvania is quoted in favor of the practice of slaveholding. This " peculiar institution " is covered with the shining mantle of the real or supposed piety of these venerable men, and thus commended to our admiration, in order that their sons in this day may justify themselves for their complicity in this horrible system. This conduct of Dr. Smith is a foul injustice to the dead. They lived in a period of profound ignorance, or of utter thoughtlessness in regard to the evils of slavery and drunk- enness, apd at a, timp when the refinejnenta and amenities of REV. JOSEPH GORDON. 199 our present social life were utterly ignored. " The times of this ignorance," we would charitably hope, " God winked at." Their education and the spirit of the times in which they lived, may palliate, if they will not entirely excuse in these men what would be utterly intolerable in their descendants. But to tear oiF this mantle, which that charity which covers a multitude of sins, would throw over these dark spots in their lives, and hold up their deformities to the gaze of posterity, is a work which does no credit to the head or heart of Dr. Smith. The time is not far distant when the fact that they were slaveholders will be as carefully concealed as the fact that they made and drank whisky. But to hold up their example as a barrier to that tremendous tide of opposition to slavery now setting in, is dishonorable alike to the living and the dead. Slavery in the Old School General Assembly. The vexed question was brought before this body by the Congregational delegate from Maine. The moderator of the Assembly responded, and the reporters placed him in a false position. The following is his explanation : " The moderator (Eev. Francis McFarland, D. D., of the Presbytery of Lexington, Va.,) said: I beg to be indulged in a few remarks upon a subject in which I am peculiarly interested. Last evening I was greatly surprised to find in the Commercial Advertiser of this city a report of my remarks made yesterday in response to the delegate from Maine, in which I am made to say : ' As to slavery, Sir, I never heard remarks upon the evils of the system which I could not sub- scribe to.' [Laughter.] The Assembly will bear witness that I never uttered such a sentence. Had I uttered such a sentence the Assembly would have taken me out of this chair. Had I been considered capable of uttering such a sentence the Assembly would never have placed me in this chair. If it were believed that any minister had uttered this sentiment it would destroy his influence in the South " " Dr. Prime. — And in the North, too, Sir." Dr. McFarland also published a card in the Commercial Advertiser correcting the blunder of the reporters. Alluding to the above sentiment which they had put in his mouth, he says : 200 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF " The moderator never uttered such a sentiment — it would constitute him an abolitionist of the first class, from the principles of whom he utterly dissents. He expressed no opinion of his own, but said ' that he was extensively acquainted in the Southern States, and that he never met with man or woman who did not admit that slavery was an evil, till the Abolition controversy drove them in self-defense to take different ground.' " Can pro-slavery truckling go beyond this? Had the mod- erator been capable of assenting to remarks on the evils of slavery he would have been taken out of the moderator's chair. Had he been considered capable of uttering a convic- tion that slavery is an evil, he would never have been placed in that chair. To admit that slavery is an evil is a bar to all promotion in the Old School General Assembly. This state- ment is made from the moderator's chair, and so far as appears, not a tongue is lifted in dissent to the disgraceful statement. But then it is consistent with the position of that Assembly since 1845. They then declared slavery to be their corner- stone and bond of union, and, of course, no one should be permitted to breathe one syllable of opposition to the pecu- liar institution. To doubt its Divine origin and holy charac- ter is to strike at the foundation of the General Assembly ; and if a man, capable of such treason to slavery, should, by mistake, get into the moderator's chair, he must expect so soon as the mistake is discovered, to be dragged out in double quick time ! The Old School General Assembly is becoming more and more besotted in its devotion to slavery, year by year. It is literally " drunk with the wine of the wrath of the fornication " of this great American harlot. How much longer will Christian people adhere to such a reprobate body? The statement which Dr. McFarland did make, though very old and stale, is very peculiar and intensely foolish. What he did say was, that he never met a man or woman in the South, " who did not admit that slavery was an evil, till the abolition controversy drove them, in self-defense, to take dif- ferent ground." That is, they admitted that slavery was an evil until the abolitionists of the North arose and agreed with them in that admission, and urged them to put the admitted evil away! Then, in self-defense, they changed ground, ate their own words, stoutly denied that slavery was an evil at all, and began to swear by it as a household god ! And this state- ment is solemnly put forth before a grave assembly of doctors of divinity and others, apparently without a suspicion that it REV. JOSEPH