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 THE 
 
 SACRED SCRIPTURES 
 
 ft 
 
 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY: 
 
 AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered at Eastern, Pennsylvania, July 28, 1851. 
 
 ^> 
 
 Rev. GEORGE BURRO WES, 
 
 PB0FES8OR OF LANGUAGES IN LAFAYETTE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED Br THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 
 
 Jpljilabelpljia : 
 
 WM. S. MARTIEN, 144 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 1851. 
 
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THE 
 
 SACRED SCRIPTURES 
 
 AND 
 
 PAGAN MYTHOLOGY: 
 
 AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered at Easton, Pennsylvania, July 23, 1851. 
 
 Rev. GEORGEBURROWES 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES IN LAFAYETTE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 
 
 JpI)ilaMpl)ict: 
 
 WM. S. MARTIEN, 144 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 1851. 
 

A D D E E S S . 
 
 Persons of piety, admitting the importance of classical pur- 
 suits, fail not unfrequently to notice the bearing had on each 
 other by the religious systems, and by the literature of Chris- 
 tianity and paganism. The present seems a fit time for 
 inquiring, what place the Sacred Scriptures should hold among 
 classical studies — what advantage is derived from a knowledge 
 of pagan mythology, especially by the Christian minister. The 
 fact seems now not a little surprising that, for so many ages, 
 man should have fallen into such errors concerning the solar 
 system and the starry heavens, satisfied, even after the true 
 theory had been suggested by the sage of Crotona, to dream, 
 among other fancies more astray from truth, that our earth is 
 the centre of the revolutions of all worlds. Nor is the day dis- 
 tant when there will be greater wonder that the word of God 
 could ever have been to such an extent crowded from courses of 
 education — when this volume will be universally received as the 
 centre of every course of training, literary or otherwise, for the 
 young ; and all other volumes, all other studies, however impor- 
 tant, will be viewed as secondaries, revolving in established 
 tracks around this central sun. The right-hearted classical 
 scholar will feel the Bible furnishes the only clew for thread- 
 ing the labyrinth of heathen antiquity, and discovering the 
 truth hid in the beautiful fictions of mythology ; the intelligent 
 student of the Scriptures will be sensible of the importance of 
 acquaintance with those works of genius, for disciplining the 
 mind and forming the taste — still further for enabling him to 
 understand the system of error and idolatry from which the 
 Christian religion was intended to give us deliverance by 
 counteracting its influence and accomplishing its overthrow. 
 The inquiries here suggested we shall be able to answer by 
 
calling to mind whence sprung the peculiar doctrines, cere- 
 monies, and legends prevailing in the pagan world. Far indeed 
 are those idolatrous systems, with their incongruous mixture of 
 beauties and abominations, from taking their peculiar develop- 
 ment without the action of some cause and controling laws. 
 There is a marvellous likeness among the various theological 
 notions of pagan nations, in different ages, no less than in 
 different countries — the present worship of idolatrous India 
 showing features kindred to those of ancient heathendom, and 
 proving that both sprung, as certainly as did those of Greece 
 and Rome, from a common origin, under the action of common 
 principles in the corrupt nature of man. 
 
 Formed for studying the character of God, and for his wor- 
 ship, the soul when broken off from this by sin, must have 
 something to love and worship in place of the Creator. There 
 is in the heart a natural propensity to cherish the memory 
 of benefactors; and when not controlled by grace, the mind 
 even in Christian lands, hoards with almost idolatrous reve- 
 rence the remembrance of loved ones numbered with the 
 dead. There are countries where the principle of the house- 
 hold gods of the ancients, their Lares and Penates, still 
 prevails, and the memory of deceased ancestors is cherished 
 by religious festivals and pious duties. Strong as is this 
 principle by nature, it acts with far more vigour when those 
 parents have been distinguished actors in events of great 
 importance and have laid the foundation of eminent blessings 
 for posterity. Now, while sin keeps up in the soul an inve- 
 terate tendency to fall away from God, this feeling prompts 
 the mind, thus sinking into the abyss of guilt and darkness, 
 to cling with a reverence soon running into worship, to 
 those who, while infinitely inferior to God, are superior to 
 us by having been the means of giving us being. On them, 
 is gradually lavished the worship due to Jehovah. We can 
 hardly conceive with what power this propensity must have ope- 
 rated during the first ages of the world, in reference to those 
 ancestors who had shared in the expulsion from Eden, and in 
 
the salvation of mankind at the flood. Raising their forefathers 
 to the rank of venerated beings of a higher sphere, and then to 
 the grade of deified heroes, the soul with grasp broken loose 
 from the true God, gathered the tendrils of its thoughts and 
 affections around these, incorporating with the purity of the 
 original truth the suggestions arising from time to time from 
 the deepening corruptions of the heart. 
 
 When man fell, and promise was given of restoration by 
 a Redeemer, there was a necessity for a new way of approach- 
 ing God, and for a mode of worship different from that had 
 by our first parents worshipping in Eden. This new way 
 then, showing the first germ of what was afterwards fully 
 unfolded in Jesus Christ, had its ritual and ceremonies, all 
 suited to shadow forth in an incipient state the truths after- 
 wards incorporated in the Levitical dipensation, and reaching 
 a perfect development in the "last days" of the gospel. 
 The different nations of the world, diverging from the parent 
 stock of a single family, carried with them the knowledge of 
 this primitive patriarchal worship; and as generation after 
 generation departed from the true faith, their religion would 
 take the form of a system combining a mixture of truth 
 and error, wherein traces would appear more and more faint 
 with each passing age, of the truths and ceremonies of the 
 worship of the true God, blended with such errors as 
 spring from raising men to the rank of beings claiming 
 divine reverence, and incorporating with the worship of these 
 the worship of the elements and other works of the one living 
 Creator. The aboriginal gods of the pagans were deified mor- 
 tals. According to Hesiod,* 
 
 When o'er those blessed ones of the golden age, 
 Gathered death's evening shades, their souls made free 
 Demons became, still hovering o'er the world, 
 Kindly disposed, from ill defending, guards 
 Of mortals frail, and with the kingly power 
 Of granting wealth, upholding righteous laws. 
 
 Without mentioning Cicero, Plutarch, and Augustine, we 
 find the most ancient writer after Moses, the Phoenician known 
 
 * Op. et Die. 107. 
 
6 
 
 through his translator. Philo, advancing the same opinion. 
 Such being the fact, the early gods will be found those who 
 flourished in the two golden ages of the pagan mythology, 
 periods agreeing with the first creation of our race, and with 
 the time immediately after the deluge — the same persons 
 deified of whom we have the true account, separated from 
 all fable, only in the Scriptures. The leading deities were 
 the patriarchs with their three sons; and from these, not 
 from any idea had of the doctrine of the Trinity, came the 
 famous triads of the heathen. The nature of their festivals 
 and sacrifices shows more clearly than the testimony of ancient 
 writers the sameness of a deity among pagan nations. The 
 names Phoebus, Serapis, Osiris, Typhon, Mithras, Amnion, 
 Adonis, Bacchus, Dionysus, Liber, Dis, Pluto, Pan, Zeus, 
 Jupiter, are different names of the same deity. 
 
 A favourite emblem through which God has manifested his 
 character to man, is fire. The pillar of fire was the centre 
 of the Mosaic ritual and the Jewish Theocracy. Tracing it 
 back to the early ages of the patriarchal church, we find its 
 first manifestation in the flaming sword of Eden. This, with 
 the cherubim, sacrifices, and other things afterwards incor- 
 porated with additional rites in the Levitical services, was 
 one of the appointments of God, when giving our race a new 
 form of worship under the plan of redemption. "When the 
 descendants of Adam, "going out from the presence of the 
 Lord, set up a worship of their own by adulterating with 
 their own errors the true system in which they had been 
 reared, they would naturally seek for something which might 
 hold in their idolatry the place held in the true religion by 
 the Shechinah. This the sun most nearly resembled, and 
 furnished, therefore, a not inappropriate substitute. Hence 
 began the worship of the heavenly bodies. The members of 
 the patriarchal church, equally with the Jews in later ages, 
 felt that God dwelt in the pillar of fire; and these apostates 
 naturally located their deified ancestors in the sun and other 
 heavenly bodies, as their place of eternal abode. In this 
 
mode did sacrifices, and those strange symbolical figures, 
 corruptions of the cherubim, with other rites and legends, 
 strange distortions of Scripture facts, gain prevalence through- 
 out the heathen world. Paganism is patriarchism in caricature 
 or masquerade. All the religions of heathenism are adultera- 
 tions of the truths of revelation with the errors of man's 
 sinful heart — of the truths which were first given to mankind 
 during the patriarchal church and afterwards committed to 
 writing in the Levitical and Christian dispensations. 
 
 Now it has been settled by the practice of the most polished 
 Christian nations for ages, that the study of pagan literature 
 should constitute an important part of a finished education. 
 The necessity, the grounds for this, we need not now examine. 
 No argument is necessary for showing the importance of an 
 acquaintance with the poetry, the history, the eloquence, the 
 philosophy of Greece and Rome. He who controls the des- 
 tinies of man, made the Jews the depositaries of the moral 
 and religious instructions for saving our race. Those nations 
 he used as instruments for revealing the truths intended for 
 training and polishing the intellect; to the latter we go for 
 cultivating the heart, to the former for training the mind. 
 The literature of these different nations should not be looked 
 upon as antagonistic, one of which should be studied, and 
 the other neglected ; but as parts of the one system appointed 
 by the Creator for training man to be entirely a man, for 
 developing his intellect and his heart, and thus bringing forth 
 the most perfect specimen of manhood. Neither the most 
 cultivated pagan nor the noblest Jew could furnish the finest 
 development of human nature; one wanted the action of an 
 element enjoyed by the other alone; and not till man possesses 
 the advantages had from both these channels of learning, 
 does humanity reach its noblest elevation — such as could 
 never be reached in heathenism, such as was never known 
 under Judaism alone, such as is beheld in the son of Israel 
 who enjoyed the benefits springing from a knowledge of clas- 
 sical literature, the Apostle Paul. 
 
But Grecian antiquity, and this is the parent of Roman 
 antiquity, cannot be understood without acquaintance "with 
 Grecian religion. "It begins," says Grote, "with gods, and 
 it ends with historical men ; the former being recognized not 
 simply as gods, but as primitive ancestors, and connected 
 with the latter by a long mythical genealogy, partly heroic 
 and partly human." For wise reasons those classical trea- 
 sures are found imbedded in strata of religious errors, wherein 
 remains not a single discernible remnant of truth concerning 
 the living God. So perfectly is this the case, that a step 
 cannot be taken without the necessity of separating truth 
 from error. Herein the mind has exercise from earliest 
 years in that which is so essential and unavoidable a duty 
 through life, the sifting of truth from error. With Milton 
 " I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised 
 and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adver- 
 sary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland 
 is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we 
 bring not innocence into the world; we bring impurity much 
 rather ; that which purines us is trial, and trial is by what is 
 contrary; which was the reason why our sage and serious 
 poet Spencer — whom I dare be known to think a better 
 teacher than Scotus or Aquinas — describing true temperance 
 under the person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer 
 through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly 
 bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain. The 
 knowledge and survey of vice is in this world necessary to 
 the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error 
 to the confirmation of truth." 
 
 How must an understanding be got of this pagan religion ? 
 Originating in the way already shown, this corrupt theology 
 cannot be thoroughly understood without the Holy Scriptures. 
 Those various systems as formerly existing in Chaldea, Egypt, 
 Syria, Greece, and Rome, as now existing in India, have all 
 a likeness, showing that they sprung from a common source, 
 and hardly differing more than the races of men descended 
 
9 
 
 from the two exiles of Eden. The curious mind, anxious for 
 a knowledge of the theological systems which affected so 
 deeply the intellectual and political condition of the States 
 of antiquity, is not satisfied with the literature and fictions 
 of their mythology, however entertaining and beautiful, but 
 seeks to know how those theories were formed, whence they 
 sprung. Feeling those fables have been woven by the imagi- 
 nation, he is aware the imagination cannot originate new 
 forms or beings, can do nothing more than bring into new 
 combinations ideas already acquired, and hence must have 
 had some materials wherewith to start and on which to work. 
 That gorgeous mass of absurdity, error, and death, was for 
 ages accumulating and taking its present form; the starting 
 point was the time when our race apostatized from God, and 
 began to form for themselves a religion. This period is known 
 to us only through the Scriptures. They give, free from all 
 error, from all drapery of fancy, pure, simple, and beautiful 
 as a statue of Parian marble, the truths of religion from 
 which man fell, and the facts connected with the personages 
 whom the darkening mind of man first raised to the pedestal 
 from which he had dethroned the true God. The classical 
 student finds himself in a region of the dead, surrounded with 
 wonders, with mysteries, and with beauties — with mythological 
 personages named divinities, crowding around like mummies 
 in the receptacles of Egypt's dead: — he feels these things, 
 however strange their appearance as embalmed in numerous 
 folds of allegory, were once living beings; he would be 
 acquainted with their origin and history. All is darkness and 
 confusion, until the Scriptures come and set before him those 
 beings unwrapped, separated from all adhesion of error, in the 
 simplicity of their original life. The hieroglyphics every 
 where written on this pantheon, the Bible alone enables him 
 to decipher. Like the regions to which JEneas was descending, 
 where gloom and unearthly sights and sounds were commingled 
 with fields of the blessed and the shades of the glorious dead, 
 to the secrets of which this pious hero could not penetrate 
 
10 
 
 without a bough broken from a sacred tree — the domains of 
 pagan mythology are diversified realms of ignorance, terror, 
 and death, "wherein expand before the imagination scenes more 
 beauteous than the Elysian fields, but not capable of being seen 
 with satisfaction and safety without the mysterious branch 
 which can be plucked only from a single sacred tree on earth, 
 that tree the Sacred Scriptures. In this no less than every 
 other exploration among the ruins of sin on earth, the divine 
 word alone is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path. 
 In studying the idolatry of the world, 
 
 " Through many a dark and dreary vale 
 We pass, and many a region dolorous, 
 O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, 
 Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death 
 Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds 
 Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, 
 Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras dire;" — 
 
 with the wise men of the east ending their wanderings with 
 gold and frankincense offered at the feet of Jesus, in all these 
 searches for truth the light of revelation is our guiding star. 
 
 The philosophy of mythology cannot be satisfactorily touched 
 without the Scriptures. The food, the pabulum of the mind is 
 truth. There is a pleasure in studying the pagan theology 
 as a fact in the history of error; there is additional satisfaction 
 and instruction in reaching the truth overlaid by this mass of 
 error. With what anxiety had search been made for the age, 
 the builders, the design of the pyramids. How eagerly was the 
 stone studied and prized which gave the clew to the hieroglyphics 
 of Egypt. He who would give himself to the study of those 
 emblems, and throw away the knowledge furnished by the 
 key, would be considered as wanting sound mind. Here is 
 the remarkable structure of error which, under the name of 
 paganism, has existed down to the present time over the largest 
 portion of mankind — which is deeply interwoven with the 
 politics and literature of the classic nations that have had such 
 influence on the whole civilized world ; and what shall be said 
 of studying this system without applying the light thrown 
 thereon by the Scriptures ? 
 
 
11 
 
 Man was formed for the glory of God by pursuing truth, 
 keeping his ways, and, with enlightened love, enjoying what 
 is beauteous in the works of the Creator. Before him was 
 thrown open the universe with its realms of beauty, and 
 truth expanding into what might be called immensity, adapted 
 to the faculties then existing, and thereafter developing in the 
 soul for receiving pleasure from the contemplation and showing 
 forth Jehovah's praise. By sin, our race was cut off from these 
 numberless springs of enjoyment, and confined to the gloom 
 and error of this dark earth, our prison, with few rays of light 
 and beauty, save the gleams occasionally caught through the 
 bars of our dungeon. The living world of angels, spiritual 
 beings, and material wonders, lies hid from view by walls 
 impassible. Having sunk to this confinement, with all the 
 faculties of our first creation, we have remaining in the soul 
 the thirst for truth, and a thirst no less strong for what is 
 beautiful. Reason feeds on truth; the imagination feeds on 
 what is beautiful in truth, however variously expressed in 
 the works of God. Had we never sinned — enjoying the free- 
 dom of the universe, privileged and welcomed every where, 
 we would have gratified this power to the utmost by the 
 boundless diversity of truth, beauty, and glory, shown in the 
 manifestations of the Godhead. Cast down, however, from 
 our first estate, with mind enfeebled, but faculties unchanged, 
 in lack of aliment of which the soul has been deprived by 
 sin, we grope amid the darkness of our prison in search of 
 what is true and beautiful for satisfying the craving of these 
 powers — a craving never ceasing, never satiated, the purest, 
 strongest desire of our nature, lying as the main-spring of 
 the machinery of our being, so intense as to receive with 
 gladness the dreams of fancy, when the massive truths of 
 God's substantial wisdom is withheld. What are the creations 
 of poetry but efforts for satisfying these faculties with truth 
 invested in beauty? Sin has shut us out from worlds of glory, 
 and has stripped this world of much original splendour. 
 Poetry, the fine arts, try to supply the want, to create new 
 
12 
 
 worlds, to invest scenes, persons, doings here, with attractive- 
 ness and beauty greater than seen in nature. 
 
 When left for ages to grope around the walls of his prison, 
 man lingered restless and unsatisfied with the creations of 
 genius, with the deductions of philosophy, God made a new 
 revelation in the person of his Son, and embodied in the Scrip- 
 tures truths designed to prepare us for leaving this dungeon, 
 and mingling freely with the worlds from which we are excluded. 
 In heaven the soul will enjoy the same truths, save in greater 
 richness, which were the joy of Eden, which are now the 
 delight of the sanctified spirit. Here, in the word of God, are 
 those truths from which the mind and imagination of man 
 diverged in wandering into the wilderness of pagan error ; here 
 are the truths in a dawning state with which the soul will be 
 delighted in the sinless heavens and earth of the future. 
 Hence in the Scriptures does the heart exult to find in pure 
 and heavenly substance, all that was ever dreamed of by sage 
 and poet in the ages of Greece and Rome. Like the gorgeous 
 scenes in those interesting dissolving views, their fictions have 
 faded into a landscape filled with the reality of truths and 
 visions belonging to another world. 
 
 " The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 The fair humanities of old religion, 
 The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 
 That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, 
 Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
 Or chasms and watery depths ; all these have vanished, 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason :" 
 
 they have given place to the revelations of the Scriptures, and 
 disappeared with the oracle of Apollo, that withdrew dumb on 
 the coming of Jesus. Here, are found in fact what there 
 existed only in fiction. Here are revealed the golden fruits of 
 the Hesperides growing on the tree of life in the midst of the 
 paradise of God. Here are divulged in far off realms of a 
 better world, islands of the blessed more lovely than the 
 fabled bowers of Atlantis. Here, instead of the shadowy 
 wood-nymphs, we are met by the dazzling hosts seen at 
 Mahanaim, the innumerable company of angels. The dream 
 
13 
 
 of an Apollo exiled from the skies, sojourning on earth in 
 human form, is lost in the splendour of the Godhead dwelling 
 in Him who wept on Olivet, who died on Calvary. Here we 
 come to more than Delphi's shades, to the living oracles Avhere 
 the humblest soul, made a priest to God, has inspiration from 
 the spirit of holiness, and drinks of purer than Castalian dews. 
 Here is heard a harp transcending that of Orpheus, sweetly 
 charming hearts petrified by sin, and drawing them entranced 
 with holy affection around the footsteps of Jesus. The mind 
 absorbed in the agonies of Prometheus Bound, finds the mag- 
 nificent reality in Him, who, drawing from heaven the fires of 
 the Holy Spirit for giving our race a new life and divine wis- 
 dom, was chained to the agonies of the cross and bore our sins 
 in his own body on the tree. The prevalence of the mysteries 
 in the religion of heathenism, shows the natural craving of the 
 mind for something which those services sought, however 
 poorly, to supply. Here, this want, like every other, is met by 
 the revelation made to the soul of the mysteries of godliness, 
 where the hierophant is the Holy Ghost, and the light breaking 
 on us is not the gleam flashing through the gloom of the terrors 
 seen at Eleusis, but the day-spring of the splendour sleeping on 
 the heavenly hills. Hence did Eusebius say with truth, " The 
 Hebrew nation alone enjoyed the privilege of the highest grade 
 of initiation into the mysteries of the knowledge of God the 
 Creator of all things, and of being instructed in the practice 
 of true piety towards Him." And to our revelation from 
 heaven may be applied the spirit of the words of the great 
 tragic poet of Athens : 
 
 Happy is he whose reverential soul 
 These greater mysteries unfolded sees, 
 And through initiation fills his life 
 With sacred services of piety. * 
 
 The full advantage springing from classical studies cannot 
 be had without the Scriptures to ripen the views, and control 
 the habits thus obtained. Therein is a verging towards truth 
 which the wise men of the heathen sought, but never found. 
 
 • Euripides, Bac. 73. 
 
14 
 
 "What Plato vainly endeavoured to unfold to his disciples on 
 the promontory of Sunium, was made known to mankind by 
 the great Teacher, whose discourse was heard with wonder on 
 the Mount of Beatitudes. The truths of Scripture are the new 
 continent in the domains of knowledge which the philosophers 
 of antiquity, less successful than Columbus, were never able to 
 find. The word of God has put us in possession of that which 
 the greatest minds sought fruitlessly for ages. He who would 
 confine his attention to classical literature without an effort or 
 wish for adding thereto the wealth derivable from the Scrip- 
 tures, is injuring his own interests in a way more foolish than 
 the Chinese, who prefer the intellectual and material products 
 of the Celestial Empire as more valuable by themselves than 
 when are added thereto the wealth and learning flowing from 
 the commerce of the world. If the truths of revelation were 
 not discovered by the mind without divine aid, how mistaken to 
 think we can start where they stop and add to them new dis- 
 coveries of truths. Unsettled by the intoxication of a false 
 philosophy, too many lose sight of the real nature of revelation, 
 and use its truths as starting points for the mind in new specu- 
 lations. They use the Scriptures as the tree of life was used 
 by Satan when perching him there, not for its fruits, but for a 
 vantage-ground in obtaining a better view; they climb far as 
 these truths will lift, as to the tops of promontories whence to 
 take their flight, like Daedalus with his waxen wings, over 
 unknown seas. Divine truth made alive by the fires of the 
 Spirit, sobers and refines while enlivening literature. It is the 
 element which is needed for bringing out fully the beauty .and 
 benefit from profane literature, the flower, the fruit, the full 
 development of that which lies wrapped in its bud, in the 
 writings of pagan antiquity. To these bounds the mind is per- 
 mitted to go in metaphysical and moral investigations. Every 
 attempt at discovery beyond what is here revealed, by effort of 
 philosophy, falsely so called, ends in airy nothings, or in 
 finding realms as valueless as the Antarctic continent. The 
 corrective of the pride of intellect showing itself in foolish 
 
speculations, is the study of classical literature in union with 
 the study of the Scriptures by head and heart combined. A 
 mind thus trained, made steady and clarified by heavenly truth 
 penetrating all our powers, not like the beams of the wintry sun 
 on aicicles, but like the warmth of summer striking deep to the 
 roots of vegetable life, can never be taken captive by transcen- 
 dental imaginings, fine theories spun from the brain and thrown 
 out to float in society an intellectual gossamer as flimsy as the 
 threads across our path on an autumnal morning. 
 
 Flushed with vanity and the desire of novelty, the mind will 
 dash into the skies and airy regions where such gross things as 
 solid truth are unknown ; — where clouds, and mists, and dim- 
 ness, and all shadowy things are floating like Ossian's ghosts 
 upon the wind, equally intangible and unsubstantial. When 
 acting on the heart as well as mind, the Scriptures sober 
 reason; and imparting a spirit of enterprise without rashness, 
 make us sensible of the bounds to which genius using with skill 
 the shades of language, may advance in refining the beautiful 
 and investing it with attractive lines. The mind of Milton 
 stored with learning drawn from sacred no less than classical 
 studies, furnishes illustrations hereon in its magnificent crea- 
 tions of statues, and groups, and landscapes of solid literary 
 gold. But unmindful of its just strength, unsteadied by the 
 inspiration drawn from those living oracles, the mind tries to 
 spin out theories for beautifying beauty, for sublimating thoughts 
 more and more highly, till they pass off in gases which no 
 eye can see, no receiver hold. Like a residuum, words are 
 remaining in elemental shape, but are only used by fancy for 
 exhaling sightless things which no alchemy can condense and 
 make noticeable by the senses ; spirits distilled from words the 
 native strength of which has been destroyed by fermentation, 
 empty ghosts of soulless epithets, the gaseous fumes of shadows, 
 which are gravely set out in highly wrought jars and labelled 
 by the inventor's hand — Wisdom etherealized — Quintessence of 
 fancy — Proto-sublimate of thought. This wisdom claiming to 
 transcend all other, even the wisdom of God, may, with the tern- 
 
16 
 
 per of the king of Babylon prostituting the golden vessels of the 
 sanctuary, use sacrilegiously the truths of Scripture, and look 
 with contemptuous self-complacency on those feeling honour 
 and safety in resting on the rock of revelation ; yet on its fore- 
 head the boding hand seen by Belshazzar has written with the 
 pen of inspiration, "Philosophy and vain deceit." 
 
 In considering the value of classical studies to the Christian 
 and the minister, we shall dwell on their importance no further 
 than as seen in a theological point of view. There are persons 
 who think the time well nigh thrown away which is given to 
 these pursuits, deeming nothing valuable to a preacher which 
 does not bear directly on the forming of an exhortation or the 
 delivery of a sermon. The need of habits of discrimination, 
 reasoning, and correct logical thinking ; of using precise, pure, 
 and persuasive language no one can pretend to gainsay. But 
 whence must come the ideas, the materials to be worked up in 
 this logical process and imbedded in this convincing language ? 
 The fountain that beautifies a landscape and feeds the life of 
 persons and things with its waters, is the mere outburst of 
 unseen streams converging to that point from different quarters 
 under ground and fed from many sources ; the tree refreshing 
 with its shade and sustaining by its fruits, spreads abroad its 
 roots and supplies the boughs from which the fruit is gathered, 
 with nourishment from sources unnoticed and unheeded. 
 How foolish to pretend that in either case nothing is important 
 but what is seen, the outbursting waters, the ripened fruit, to 
 the exclusion of all those hidden springs without which there 
 could be no gushing fountain, no fruit-laden boughs. The 
 mouth of the righteous man is a well of life; the words 
 of a man's mouth are as deep waters, and the well-spring 
 of wisdom as a flowing brook; he whose delight is in the 
 law of the Lord, shall be as a tree planted by the rivers 
 of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. The 
 instructions of the preacher of the gospel, must be the con- 
 centrating and outpouring of wisdom drawn through the chan- 
 nels of various studies pursued apart from the eye of the 
 
17 
 
 world ; and the man who opens into his soul moyt of these 
 channels will be, in the fullest sense, in the garden of the Lord, 
 "a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon." Not 
 only must the dew of the Holy Spirit rest on his branch, his 
 root must be spread out by the waters of varied learning: then 
 will he find his glory fresh in him and his bow renewed in his 
 hand ; then will men give ear and wait for him as the rain, and 
 open their mouths wide as for the latter rain. The prince of 
 orators teaches that the eloquence of an orator should be a pre* 
 cious extract elaborated by the mind, from a combination as 
 far as possible of all kinds of learning; and the greater the 
 compass of his knowledge, the more animating and vigorous his 
 powers of persuasion. Much more is this true of him whose 
 duty is to plead with men for their salvation. Paul, Augus- 
 tine, Chrysostom, and Chalmers were men whose pleadings for 
 Christ laid all things under contribution. Their public minis- 
 trations have become the admiration of the world, have been 
 thus blessed, because they sowed beside all waters. To the well 
 instructed ambassador of Christ a knowledge of the theological 
 schemes of paganism must ever be essential for many reasons. 
 
 Without this, we cannot understand the evil from which 
 the Christian ^religion was intended to deliver the world. 
 What is the system which is held, preached, loved by us, 
 which is called Christianity? A system of doctrine for 
 regulating our conduct, and effecting our deliverance from 
 sin. But is it confined to individuals? Has it not been 
 intended for the redemption of the world? It is the consti- 
 tution of the kingdom set up by God in opposition to the 
 kingdom of darkness, for bringing all nations into the glorious 
 liberty of the sons of God. It contemplates man, not isolated, 
 but as the member of a great community now lying in guilt, 
 from which is to be drawn by sanctification the host who 
 shall through eternity inhabit the city of the living God. 
 We meditate on the condition hereafter awaiting the Church, 
 as one of holiness, as heaven. But what is the state from 
 which the Church is delivered? That is seen in the world 
 
18 
 
 under the effects of sin. How can we, therefore, know from 
 what the Church has been redeemed, without acquaintance 
 with mankind, not as they are in Christendom, where so 
 many counteracting influences repress guilt, but as they 
 appear in pagan countries, where every restraint is removed 
 and sin brings forth fruit with more than tropical luxuriance. 
 In classical literature is given a picture of the state of the 
 world in the most cultivated nations at the time of Christ. 
 Herein is laid open the philosophy, the history, the poetry, 
 the morality, the worship of mankind, under the best aspect, at 
 the juncture when God sent forth his Son. 
 
 Equally necessary is the information thus derived for show- 
 ing how deeply mankind needed a divine revelation. This 
 is an essential point in the argument on the evidences of 
 Christianity. Paganism is revealed in the classic authors in 
 its best development and most attractive attire, yet withal 
 in the greatest moral deformity. As an exhibition of the 
 stage at which man had arrived in his unaided efforts after 
 a religion, it shows the hopelessness of human attempts to 
 abate the tide of evils let in by sin on our fallen world. 
 Therein the teachings and practices of the gospel are seen 
 in advance of the condition of the world ; aijd the point is 
 laid open to which the mind had been able to rise in philoso- 
 phy and religion without the aid of revelation. 
 
 Idolatry is the besetting sin of mankind. Far from being 
 an outcast from Christian lands, it dwells here under another 
 guise — casting aside the grossness of the garb worn among 
 the heathen, and assuming one less repulsive by being modi- 
 fied and adapted to the habits of those with whom it sojourns. 
 As idolatry sprung from the corruptions of human nature, 
 and was the caricature first of Patriarchism, afterwards of 
 Judaism, we must expect that under Christianity there would 
 be the same unhallowed propensities of the heart at work, and 
 there would arise a form of idolatry exhibiting a combination 
 of Christianity with pagan errors, that in this would appear 
 the operation of the old propensity for worshipping ancestors 
 
19 
 
 and benefactors. Is this not so? Whence came the worship 
 of the mother -of Christ? — the worship of men canonized, the 
 demons of Christian idolatry ? How can the ministry be safely 
 ignorant of the perfect form of that error which has ever been 
 the besetting sin of the Jewish and the Christian Church? 
 This is a vital point in theology, to be guarded by the sentinels 
 of Zion with sleepless care. It is in the Church, in our strug- 
 gle with the powers of darkness, what military men would call 
 the key of our position. Hence, when the enemy was able to 
 enter the camp of the saints, and seizing this point, intrench 
 himself on the hills of Papal Rome, what havoc did he make 
 of the Church ; and what vigour is he able even yet to infuse 
 into his attacks on spiritual religion. The struggle of grace 
 in the heart is a continual struggle with this idolatrous ten- 
 dency. Thus in the Church — thus in the world. How soon 
 after Christ began the germination of the principles afterwards 
 ripened into the Church of Rome; and how strong the ten- 
 dency even yet in that direction. Idolatry is the religion of 
 man as fallen. Christianity is the corrective, the antagonist 
 power. It was introduced as the enemy of sin with its reli- 
 gion, idolatry. On every point, the two are irreconcilable. 
 Between them there can be no fellowship : Christ is the head of 
 the one ; Belial the head of the other. Between these antago- 
 nist kingdoms, there is, and ever must be, a deadly struggle 
 in every heart, no less than in the world. 
 
 Now, to neglect a knowledge of pagan idolatry, is for the 
 soldier of Christ to disregard his adversary, and the arms, the 
 tactics needed for success in the conflict. Napoleon said 
 that nothing is to be neglected in war. The one thing over- 
 looked may be the one thing needful for victory. Foreign 
 missionaries have been made sensible of the importance of 
 acquaintance with this subject. Henry Martyn found subtle 
 adversaries in the Mohammedans; and the priests of paganism, 
 however absurd their system to us, have artifice in its defence, 
 and must be put to silence, not by contempt or ridicule, but by 
 lawful argument and conclusive reasoning. The portraiture of 
 
20 
 
 Rhesus by Euripides is true to nature. Coming to the Trojan 
 camp, unacquainted with the enemy, he thought of nothing but 
 victory; was ready to censure the delay in ending the war; 
 and boasted how he would punish the audacious foe; yet, 
 before the morrow's dawn, that enemy had been his destruc- 
 tion. Thus in defending the strong holds of the Church, in 
 contending for the truth, those who feel there is no danger, 
 who despise their antagonist, who neglect the exercises and 
 armour needed for keeping in constant preparation for the foe, 
 may be to the cause they love the most dangerous enemies. 
 
 There have been attacks made on Christianity, which cannot 
 be resisted without a knowledge of pagan idolatry. It has 
 been boldly maintained by array of learning and argument, 
 that the institutions of Judaism were borrowed by Moses to a 
 great extent from the Egyptians. If this be so, two results 
 follow: Many important features of Christianity having come 
 from Judaism, which is alleged to have borrowed from pagan- 
 ism, the Christian system is one not of pure revelation, but 
 derived partly from the corrupt imaginings of man. Again, if 
 Judaism borrowed from paganism, Christianity may do the 
 same ; and hence any ceremonies brought into the Church from 
 the same source, are perfectly unexceptionable. This would 
 unsettle our whole ground of confidence ; for who will tell what 
 has been thus borrowed, what not Some of its most important 
 truths and observances may have been thus derived ; and how, 
 therefore, can we know that by following this system we may 
 please God. This is no unimportant question. It lies at the 
 root of our faith. A proper acquaintance with pagan idolatry, 
 shows the fallacy of this elaim, demonstrates the dependence of 
 paganism on revelation, and destroys at once all necessity for 
 such volumes as those of Witsius and Spencer. 
 
 The history of error is interesting and important. This 
 makes us acquainted with the phenomena of the intellectual 
 and moral world, and furnishes the facts on which to build a 
 sound philosophy. Profane history, including particularly 
 idolatrous religions, is part of the history of the Church, not 
 
21 
 
 the less truly because not generally so considered. The record 
 of the different sects broken off from the true faith is every 
 where thus viewed ; yet the various divisions of paganism are 
 sects that have separated from the people of God at a period 
 more remote and are further gone in error. The difference 
 between them and other errorists, is their retaining less of the 
 truth, and having this trifle almost lost by transfusion in a 
 greater mass of corruption. They show religious error in a 
 state of more advanced development and maturity. The his- 
 tory of the nature and progress of idolatry in its principles 
 and practices, in its views of God, and in the effect of those 
 views on man, is one of the most important disclosures made 
 and making in this world, and of absorbing interest to beings 
 of an unfallen condition and higher sphere. In other worlds, 
 themselves at present and ourselves hereafter may see more 
 glorious displays of the laws of nature ; but in no other world 
 perhaps can they study the nature of sin as shown in the 
 mournful facts here developed by the fall, and see the import- 
 ance of observing rigidly the moral laws established for con- 
 troling the spiritual creation. And after these ravages of sin 
 have been suppressed, the history of the workings of sin on 
 earth will ever be read with the deepest interest and instruction 
 by the inmates of heaven. With an interest infinitely surpass- 
 ing that with which we listen to a person who has come safe 
 through a dreadful pestilence, a momentous battle, a bloody 
 revolution, will unfallen beings love to gather around the 
 redeemed, and learn what they have here known, seen, felt of 
 the revolting character of sin. In this view it matters not 
 that so much of classical literature is fiction. Those very 
 fictions are facts developed by the working of error in the 
 human mind. And "the tale of Troy divine," even though 
 unreal, a poetic fiction, is nevertheless a true picture of a 
 condition of mankind in that heroic age. Fiction may embody 
 and present principles with as much power and reality as can 
 be done by facts. The statements of classic poetry may be 
 unreal, yet the condition therein portrayed of human society 
 
22 
 
 and of the heart of man in apostacy from God, is rigidly true ; 
 for a fundamental principle of the poet "was to copy nature. 
 In that view the poetry, tragedies, comedies, satires, philo- 
 sophy, mythology, every fragment of pagan antiquity becomes 
 valuable and precious as materials for the history of the 
 depravity of the mind broken loose from the restraints imposed 
 by the true knowledge of God. Were it not for the little got 
 on this subject in their collegiate course, how many would be 
 perfectly ignorant of the state of man without religion, and of 
 the condition to which loss of the Scriptures would reduce even 
 the most enlightened community. The wisdom clearly seen 
 in all the arrangements of creation, seems to have ordained 
 that the studies necessary for training the intellectual powers 
 should be so blended with the heathen religions, that a good 
 Christian education cannot be got without learning the con- 
 dition of error, immorality, and abomination into which a 
 departure from revealed truth inevitably leads. 
 
 Moreover, acquaintance with heathenism is necessary for 
 understanding the nature of the foundation on which Chris- 
 tianity rests. Man is prompted and bound by duty to look 
 into the laws and arrangements of God in the scheme of 
 redemption, no less than in creation. Through sin, limits have 
 been set on every side to our knowledge ; yet while giving us 
 facts and truths in revelation, God left something to be done 
 by us in following out those truths so far as sober reason, 
 enlightened by the Holy Spirit, may lead. A disposition to 
 clear away as far as possible the rubbish around the tower of 
 salvation and look into the character of its foundation, is a 
 different thing from the pride which would bring revelation to 
 the test of reason. The Christian system has not been the 
 growth of an age. Its corner-stone was laid in the first pro- 
 mise at the gate of Eden; the foundation was carried up 
 during the Patriarchal and Levitical dispensations ; the finish 
 was put to the structure when among men appeared the Son of 
 God. Days and months of labour were required for rearing 
 the lofty pillar to the memory of Washington in Baltimore, 
 
23 
 
 that the whole might be crowned with the statue on its summit : 
 Christ is to the structure of revelation, what that statue is to 
 the monument; and while without him revelation would be 
 without its essential crown, the intelligent admirer and lover of 
 Jesus will delight to scan the whole fabric and examine reve- 
 rently the massive foundation on which rests this glorious 
 manifestation of God in the person of his Son. 
 
 But this foundation was laid amidst heathen idolatry. A 
 beginning had been made, but the work seemed at a stand, and 
 almost obscured, when a new start was given by the calling of 
 Abraham, and the structure was carried on surrounded by the 
 abominations of Egypt. The New Testament is founded on 
 the Old, and cannot be understood without a knowledge of the 
 latter. Nor can a thorough acquaintance be had with the Old 
 Testament without an exploration of the soil in which its 
 basis was laid, the religious systems, the idolatry of this 
 apostate world. The kind of foundation laid for any edi- 
 fice must depend on the character of the position, and be 
 different in different places. Thus the genius of the Mosaic 
 economy cannot be fully understood without viewing it in 
 connection with the surrounding idolatry. Egypt was then 
 the best representative of heathenism, powerful in wealth, in 
 arms, in civilization, and in refinement of its false religion. 
 There, was the kingdom of God as an organized community, 
 brought for the first time into collision with the kingdom of 
 darkness, and the conflict begun which shall close only with 
 the end of the world. Not without being studied in connexion 
 with the idolatry then and thereafter girdling them, can the 
 reasons for many things embodied in the Jewish ritual be pro- 
 perly comprehended. 
 
 The same is true concerning the structure of Christianity. 
 Its foundation in the Mosaic economy and its perfection in 
 the gospel were both built, like the second temple, in the 
 midst of enemies, where it was necessary to work with the 
 trowel in one hand and the sword in the other. Both came 
 into action opposed to the most powerful combinations of idola- 
 
24 
 
 try ever existing, those of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome. 
 These must be known for understanding and appreciating the 
 character of the Christian religion. The wisdom and genius 
 shown in the Eddystone light-house cannot be known without 
 viewing the element amid which it is placed and the fury of 
 the surges it has to withstand. The Church "the pillar and 
 ground of the truth," towers amid the flood of ungodliness 
 bursting over the world, its foundation on the Rock of ages, on 
 its top burning the undecaying light of divine truth for guiding 
 and saving from destruction the tempest-beaten souls of our 
 wrecked and benighted race. The wisdom of its structure 
 and the strength by which it has withstood so many fearful 
 commotions, such terrific storms, cannot be known without 
 studying the elements amid which it stands and with which it 
 was formed to contend. 
 
 To the Christian, especially him who is entrusted with the 
 defence and exposition of the truth, there is, therefore, neces- 
 sity for acquaintance with pagan idolatry. So important has 
 this been deemed by God, that he has so arranged things in 
 his providence, as to make it impossible for us to study the 
 models given by him of intellectual excellence^ and pass 
 through the discipline of a thorough education, without getting 
 some knowledge of this subject. The divorcing of classical 
 studies from the study of the Scriptures is neither desirable nor 
 possible. Like Egypt, Sabsea, Lebanon, and Tyre furnishing 
 materials and gold for God's house as set up in the wilderness 
 and afterwards established on Mount Moriah, in whose inmost 
 shrine were hid the tables of the written law — profane litera- 
 ture, uninspired learning, science, pagan idolatry, must be laid 
 under contribution in rearing the fabric of a finished Christian 
 education, and all these materials be built into a structure 
 wherein the truths of the Scriptures must be enshrined. 
 

 ; >■ — *o 
 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 OSUYEESO IN" IS.?. 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CI 
 
 ~<=^r- 
 
 S 
 
 OF EiSTOll PI, 
 
 bs iac dat oi 
 
 TEH ANNUA*, THANKSGIVING, 
 
 NoVC-lubc'l' -7, 1851; 
 
 Rev, GEORGE BURUOWES, 
 
 rRorrtsoR op utreuAflM is lafatettk ooujbhr. 
 
 rUBLISBED IiT REQVEST OV THE CONBRJBGATIOJST. 
 
 EASTOX, PENN'A: 
 
 TKIXIEn AT THE EASTOX SENTINSL JOB OniCI, 
 
 1852. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THK 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF E1ST0N, PL, 
 
 ON THE DAT OP 
 
 THE ANNUAL THANKSGIVING, 
 
 November 27, 1851. 
 
 BT THE 
 
 Rev, GEORGE BURROWES, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LANGUAGES IN LAFATETTE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BT REQUEST OF THE CONGREGATION. 
 
 EASTON, PENN'A: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE EASTON SENTINEL JOB OFFICE. 
 
 1852. 
 
I<) 
 
 Deut. 8 : 10.-^- When thou hast eaten and art full, then shalt thou bless the Lord 
 thy God for the good land tohich He hath given thee. 
 
 As we come together in the house of God, this morning, we have reason to 
 "" enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, be 
 thankful unto Him and bless His name." The changes of another year have 
 ■passed over us; the beauties of spring, the attractive secnes of summer, the 
 mellow hues of fruitful autumn have given place to each other in sucession 
 and to the cheerless landscape of winter ; while amid this general decay and 
 desolation in nature, our blessings and enjoyments have stood unchanged. 
 How few of our mercies have been withdrawn ; how many good gifts of a 
 kind Providence are still clustering around our way. True, there are hopes 
 which have not been realized, anticipations that have failed ; there are fire- 
 sides at which some well loved presence of former gatherings will not be found ; 
 there are sorrows which have thrown their gloom on the heart; but as individ- 
 uals and as a community we still find the cup of our blessings running ove - 
 and the good Shepherd yet leading us beside the still waters of the purest 
 earthly enjoyments in the green pastures of this goodly land of freedom's 
 home. The lines have indeed fallen unto us in pleasant places ; we have a 
 goodly heritage. With our land we are satisfied. We have no craving for a 
 better country ; we know there is on earth no better country. We feel 
 that ours is truly a land of promise ; that our eyes see, and our ears hear, and 
 our hearts feel what the great and good, the martyrs in the cause of human 
 rights, have desired but never been permitted to behold. In the midst of 
 this profusion of blessings, let us then give heed to the admonition, " Wher 
 thou hast eaten and art full, then shalt thou bless the Lord thy God for the 
 good land which He hath given thee." 
 
 But what makes this so good a land ? so rich, so happy, so desirable a 
 country? Is it the extent and character of the regions embraced within the 
 limits owning our laws? Our territory and our institutions surpass those of 
 the boasted republics of antiquity. Attica, from which spread abroad the 
 Athenian power, was a promontory by no means fertile ; little more than fifty 
 miles in length ; with an area of seven hundred square miles and a population 
 ,of five hundred and twenty thousand, of whom four hundred thousand were 
 
• laves. One-third of the grain consumed was imported. Their chief food 
 was bread, meat, fish, cheese with some of the more common garden vegeta- 
 bles ; these with wine, milk, and honey formed nearly the whole range of their 
 diet. Tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, spices, spirits, beer, butter, rice, potatoes, 
 oranges, tobacco, oats, and rye were not known nor cultivated in Caeece or. 
 Italy. 
 
 The Roman empire contained about one million six hundred thousand square, 
 miles, while our territory is of an area double this extent. The city of Jlome 
 was in circuit about thirteen miles, with a population of two millions three, 
 hundred thousand, of whom nearly one million were slaves. -As agriculture 
 was much neglected in Italy, most of their grain was imported, and Egypt 
 alone furnished annually in the time of Augustus nearly live millions of bush- 
 els, a sufficiency for only a third of the year. While immense wealth was 
 possessed by a few, the lower classes of free citizens were supported in great 
 measure by the largesses of the emperor ; the law of debtor and cred-tor was 
 bo severe as to give their Shylocks, under certain circumstances, literally the 
 pound of flesh ; there w r ere but four thousand persons worth more than fifteen 
 thousand dollars ; and only two cities that could furnish five hundred citizens 
 passing that sum. Their common schools, where the mass of the people got 
 their whole education, taught noth'ng bes'des reading and arithmetic; they 
 were without newspapers, without post-offices, without public lines of travel ; 
 and such was the state of things, that with all the show of power, the destruc- 
 tion of the legions under Varus in Germany though numbering onlr fourteen 
 thousand infantry, shook the empire to the centre, fiHed the imperial city with 
 terror, and drove the emperor to distraction. The navy of the United States 
 could annihilate all the fleets ever possessed by these ancient republics. 
 
 In contrast with them, how superior are the endowments of this country on 
 all points affecting the true power and glory of nations. Stretching along the 
 Atlantic sea-board through more than twenty degrees of latitude, oar te\ itory 
 expands westward to the Pacific ocean nearly four thousand miles, embracing 
 variety unparelled of climate, resources, scenery and soil ; on our northern 
 boarder are the hardy animals of colder latitudes; on our southern boundaries 
 cluster the riches of tropical climes; between these age the agricultural re- 
 sources of temperate zones, inexaustible mineral treasures, and tracts richer 
 than the Indies in gold. Are these the gifts of a kind Providence which make 
 this so desirable a country? Nay, he has given us nobler blessings than even 
 these. Every intelligent patriot feels, — how invaluable soever these things, 
 these are not our country. There are on earth, landscapes as beautiful, val- 
 lies as fertile, as balmy airs, and as sunny skies, where the unhappy millions 
 are turning with breaking hearts, and broken spirits, and tearful eyes towards 
 
 
this as the land of their hopes, their- desires, their rest. While deeply thank* 
 fnl for all the natural advantages lavished in profusion on our territory, each 
 one of us feels, — Our institutions these, these are my country. Their institu- 
 tions it was that gave the glory to Greece, to Home, to Palestine ; these are 
 now the glory of England; these are in our own country the centre of the 
 affections of every true American heart. 
 
 These institutions ave no ephemeral shoot; they are the growth of ages. — • 
 Every thing great and valuable takes time to mature ; and principles like those 
 of our own government, which have attained their power by a gradual devel- 
 opment running through generations, may give well grounded hope of with- 
 standing threatening dangers and prolonging their influence far into the future 
 for blessings to millions yet unborn. The survey which reveals the origin and 
 excellence of our institutons, opens at the same time in the heart a reasonable 
 and unfaltering assurance of the stability and perpetuity of our Union. The 
 constitution and confederation of these states has a far earlier origin than the 
 date of the stamp-act or the battle of Lexington. How much time and labor 
 were spent in the forests of Lebanon and in the quarries of Pentelicus in pre- 
 paring the materials for the temple of Solomon and the Parthenon: thus this 
 glorious fabric of civil and religious liberty had been in progress for ages be- 
 fore it rose on the view of the world, like the temple of Diana at Ephesua 
 receiving contributions from various nations, — like the second temple of the 
 Jews carried forward amid difficulties and discouragements, when the builders 
 were often obliged to work with the trowel in one hand and the sword in the 
 other. All the foregoing changes and revolutions of the world have been 
 made to bear on the foundation of the American republic. Its corner-stone 
 is the word of God. This was laid when the scriptures were deposited on 
 earth by the hands of God manifest in the flesh, while over it the morning 
 stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 
 
 At the Preformation the work took a fresh start. The- stuggle went forward 
 in England for a long time before transferred to this continent. The contest 
 was the same ; the theatre of it was changed. The American Revolution was 
 but the winding up of the conflict which had brought Charles I. to the scaf- 
 fold. The battle was for civil and religious liberty; it was fought not for 
 England and America alone, but for the benefit of mankind. Civil liberty 
 cannot be kept from following in the tread of religious freedom. The Ptefor- 
 mation was the setting free of the human mind and conscience. Hence these 
 countries have made the greatest advances in true liberty, where the principles 
 of the Reformation have operated with least hinderance. England had the 
 honor of being chosen by Providence as the citidel of the reformed faith and 
 refuge of His persecuted saints from aJl parts of Europe. When the govern- 
 
Orients of France and Spain formed with the countenance of the Pope th« 
 famous Catholic League for exterminating Protestantism, unsatisfied by the 
 atrocites inflicted on the saints caught before escaping from their country, 
 those tyrants were at great trouble and expense for arresting them in their 
 retreats among foreign nations. Afraid to make these attempts on the free 
 soil of England, these rulers demanded that their Protestant exiles should be 
 delivered up as criminals escaped from justice. To the honor of England 
 those demands were refused. Creat offence was thereby given ; and this was 
 one of the reasons alleged in the papal bull for excommunicating Elizabeth. 
 With chagrin deepened by disappointed vengeance and in fulfilment of the 
 vow devoting his life to the extirpation of heresy, the king of Spain deter- 
 mined to subdue England, and for this purpose prepared the great Armada. 
 France too was drunk with the blood of the saints on other occasions than 
 St. Bartholomew's, These different countries were thereafter to be rewarded, 
 — the one for giving more than a cup of cold water to deciples of Jesus, 
 the other for sheding without stint or mercy the blood of the suffering fol- 
 lowers of Christ. Had they come from the lips of a prophet the words of 
 John Knox could not have more perfectly foreboded the truth, when on hear- 
 ing of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, in a sermon shortly before his death, 
 he desired the French ambassador to tell his master that sentence was pro- 
 nounced against him in heaven, that the Divine vengeance would never depart 
 from his house, and none proceeding from his loins should enjoy his kingdom 
 in peace, unless repentence prevented the Divine judgments. Here is found 
 the key to the different and remarkable dealings of God with those nations 
 since that period. During the wars of the French Revolution, no countries 
 suffered more than France and Spain, none suffered less than England. While 
 they were bleeding at every pore, England enjoyed a remarkable protection. 
 The sons of the sires who had destroyed the Spanish Armada, annihilated the 
 combined navies of France and Spain at Aboukir and Trafalgar. The only 
 country in Europe on which the armies of revolutionary France did not set 
 foot was England ; the only important capital they did not enter was London. 
 Egypt was taken from them by capitulation to the English. The first fort- 
 resses wrested from the empire of Napoleon, were Ciudad, Rodrigo and Ba- 
 dajoz, stormed by the English. The first overthrow of the imperial armies in 
 a fair field, was by Wellington at Salamanca. The soil of that France which 
 had been the terror of Europe, was first invaded by Wellington advancing 
 from the Pyrenees. The army which put an end to that war of five and 
 twenty years, by crushing the power of Napoleon, was the English army at 
 Waterloo. On no one thing was the heart of the French emperor more anx- 
 iously set than on humbling England ; yet he was not able to inflict a single 
 
great overthrow ou Britain during the whole of the conflict, and at its' clbs9 
 had the humiliation of seeing his capital occupied by her army, himself a 
 captivo in her hands, and France owing at some future day to her magnanim- 
 ity the possession of his idolized remains. This remarkable protection was 
 extended to England because she had been the depository of those principles 
 of Protestantism and liberty which having been there first nurtured, were 
 transplanted to receive their full development in this western world. France 
 and Spain were ahead of her in laying the foundation of empire in Canada, 
 Florida, Louisiana, and Mexico, as well as in the East Indies ; but of all these 
 they have been deprived by a race inheriting the blood of Britain, and carry- 
 ing with them her Protestant religion and better laws. After the banishment 
 of Napoleon to St. Helena, a remnant of his Old Guard numbering about two 
 hundred men, formed a military colony in Texas for eventually revolution- 
 izing and subjugating Mexico. Providence, however, frowned on the enter- 
 prise and soon dispersed them, reserving for our countrymen the honor of 
 overspreading the same territory thirty years later with republican institu- 
 tions, and of dictating peace in the Mexican capital. The same Providence 
 which watched over those principles with such care in Britain, from the Ar- 
 mada down to Waterloo, has guarded them with equal care on our own soil ; 
 and has thus given us from the past, an assurance of Divine protection for the 
 future. By England, we mean the people of the three divisions of the United 
 Kingdom ; a Protestant Irishman was the leader of her Protestant armies to 
 victory ; the Scotch and Irish regiments never faltered in the hour of danger . • 
 and in the fiercest of the conflict at Waterloo, the swords of the Life Guards 
 blazed not farther in advance than those of the Inniskillens and Scotch 
 Greys. 
 
 The principles of liberty thus protected by Providence in England and de- 
 veloping gradually amid the conflicts of her civil commotions, her parliaments, 
 and her courts of law, grew with fresh vigor when transferred to this soil, and 
 soon ripened into our present glorious government. To this, all foregoing ages 
 and revolutions have been made to contribute ; — Judea her inspired wisdom 
 and outline features of a model republic ; Greece her elegant literature ; Piome 
 her civilization and laws ; England her free institutions ; Christianity its con- 
 servative and controlling power. Like the celebrated Corinthian brass reputed 
 as formed from a fusion of various metals and thereby making a compound 
 more precious than even gold, — the fusion of these principles thus drawn from 
 all times and ages, has produced a fabric of civil government better adapted 
 to the wants of the world at large, more precious, than even the civil polity 
 of the Jewish theocracy. 
 
 We thus eee our institutions are founded on the scriptures and religious 
 
principle. The Christian religion first taught the world sympathy with the 
 masses. Unlike the religion, the philosophy, and the legislation of antiquity, 
 which were for the initiated, the noble few, — this is fitted for meeting the 
 wants of the down-trodden and neglected multitude who have beer too gener- 
 ally governed as though made for the ambition of those in power. Christian- 
 ity is in its nature essentially democratic. It teaches that "all hVen were 
 created free and equal ;•" auc' proclaimed from the first in the midst of proud 
 philosophic Athens, "God that made Lhe world hath made of one blood all 
 nations of men." Acts, 17: 26. Says Tholuck, "The cultivated heathen 
 were offerided at Christianity precisely for this reason, that the higher classes 
 could no loriger have precedence of the common people;'' the testimony of 
 Montesquieu* is, " Christianity is a stranger to despotic power;'' atd in the 
 words of D'e Tocqtieville, " The religion which declares that all are equal in 
 the sight of God, will lot refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in 
 the eye of the Jaw. Religion is the companion of liberty in all its battles and 
 all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims." 
 "Christianity," says De Witt Clinton, "is in its essence, its doctrines, and 
 its forms republican.'' Tt is adapted to the comprehension of the neopl'e ; to 
 make the ieople happy, and to make them happy, not by making them slaves, 
 but by bettering their conditior and making them free. It is as precisely 
 adapted to itndermine and destroy tyranny as light is fitted to displace dark- 
 ness; and in' the same way, not by overthrowing despotisms as Sodom: was 
 destroyed by a tempest of fire from heaven, but by rising on their deeds of 
 darkness 'ike the morning dawn imperceptibly ieavening the whole heaven with 
 its glow and going on brightening unto the perfect day. It began among the 
 poor. Its author was one of the common people. .Among these was he pop- 
 ular; not many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble believed on him. 
 It was the common people who heard him gladly. Mark, 12- 37. In an- 
 nouncing his commission, he said, "Jehovah hath annointed me to preach 
 glad tidings to the poor:" and as proof of the divinity of his mission, he ap- 
 pealed to the fact that not only were the dead raised, but the poor had the 
 gospel preached to them. Matt. 11 : 5. It is adapted to make the common 
 people capable of governing themselves. A republican form of government 
 is undesirable for a degraded and vicious population ; for a people possessing 
 due intelligence and moral principle, it is the best possible. Christianity 
 makes men able to rule themselves by substituting instead of the terror of 
 standing armies an enlightened intellect and conscience, with the fear of God. 
 By men influenced with this fear was our country originally settled and the 
 fundamental principles of our government laid. They came to these shores 
 for enjoying the religious freedom which the Reformation taught was their 
 
right, but which they were made to feel could not be found in Europe. Hither 
 they fled, not in search of gold, not through ambition of conquest or of found- 
 ing an empire, but for socking an asylum for the undisturbed worship of God. 
 Still does the unchangable King of nations act on the principle, " Them that 
 honor me, I will honor." 2 Sam. 2: 30. To them was that principle ap- 
 plied. Aiming only at the honor of God by a spiritual worship and service, 
 he conferred on them the honor of being the founders of this home of freedom 
 and refuge for the oppressed. How different the asylum they here opened, 
 from the asylum opened by Romulus. The latter was for screening the vicious 
 and desperate from the just penalty of their crimes ; the former was for shel- 
 tering from persecution for conscience sake those of whom the world was not 
 worthy. Here was collected, instead of a band of outlaws, the best blood of 
 Britain and France, in the outcast Huguenots and Puritans. Pure religion 
 was the pillar of fire and cloud, — unseen indeed to the eye of sense but 
 brightly visible to their eye of faith,— Which went befor tin their pas- 
 
 sage through the sea and into the wilderness, 
 faith alone, by the free act of the soul without subji cl 
 
 ecclesiastical noble, was the basis of their religion ; and that religion was the 
 corner-stone of their civil polity. 
 
 The advances of countries in liberty have been in proportion to the prev- 
 alence of the Bible and the influence of the Bible among the masses. Wo 
 speak not of countries nominally christian : they may be so without being 
 under the power of the scriptures. And of all tyrannies that is the worst 
 which throws out from the christian system everything not subserving its en- 
 slaving aim, and putting what remains, in alliance with human policy, subjects 
 the man to a despotism which clutches with a deadly grip his conscience. 
 Not christian countries but Bible countries are and ever must be free. For 
 this reason was Judea far, very far ahead of the nations of antiquity in free- 
 dom ; and the only two free governments on earth at the present time are the 
 United States and England, where the population is something more than 
 merely overshadowed by the name of Christianity, — where they are leavened 
 by an influence from the word of God carried into almost every family, enforced 
 from innumerable pulpits, and brought home with effective power to multi- 
 tudes of hearts by the Holy Spirit. Those hearts are the hope, the salvation 
 of our country. The light of the world, the salt of the earth, they are equally 
 the centres from which are diffused the influences for counteracting the dark- 
 ness and corruption under which, like all other republics, ours must fall. Not 
 on the noisy, bustling politician, not on the man with protestations of patriot- 
 ism continually on his lips but with ambition and office in his heart, not on 
 those whose devotion to politics absorbs all other feelings, and who would 
 
10 
 
 with sincerity of heart, though with mistaken judgment, substitute a licen- 
 tious socialism for the living purity of religion ; — not on these, bub on the 
 unobtrusive friends of Jesus Christ, those who have taken up and are perpet- 
 uating in our midst the principles of the Puritans, the distributors of Bibles- 
 and tracts, the colporteurs, the sabbath-school teachers, the christian congrega- 
 tions, the pulpits of our land, — on these rest the hopes for the perpetuity of 
 our institutions and empire. Their influence is not the less effective, not the 
 less felt, because unassuming and unnoticed.. 
 
 '" Stillest streams 
 Oft water fairest meadows. The proud world 
 That as she sweeps him with her whistling silks 
 Scarce deigns to notice him, or if she see 
 Deems him a cipher in the works of God, 
 Receives advantage from his noiseless hours 
 Of which she little dreams. Terhaps she owes 
 Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring 
 And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes. 
 He serves his country; recompenses well 
 The state beneath the shadow of whose vine 
 He sits secure, and in the scale of life 
 Holds no ignoble, though a slighted place, 
 The man whose virtues are more felt than seen. 
 Must drop indeed the hope of public praise ; 
 Hut he can boast what few that win it can, 
 That if his country stand not by his skill. 
 At least bis follies have not wrought her fall." 
 
 Moreover, let us reflect that our institutions have been founded by good men 
 and bought with precious blood. 
 
 '• None 
 But such as are good men can give good things." 
 
 The recollection of the virtues, sacrifices, and sufferings of those who bled 
 in our cause, feeds and keeps pure the flame of patriotic feeling; and when 
 these cease to be cherished, devotion to our country will decline and our na- 
 tional glory perish. In dwelling on their deeds, we have not the pain of seeing 
 the men base while the exploits are striking ; we view with admiration noble 
 ends attained by noble means and by noble spirits. There is to every gener- 
 ous heart pleasure in acknowledging an obligation ; and the depth of the 
 pleasure will be in proportion to the greatness of the benefit conferred. Who 
 does not feel happy in thinking of the men of our Revolvtion and acknowledg. 
 ing their worth? There is in this a three fold satisfaction, — the pleasure just 
 noticed, that which springs from surveying the excellence of moral sublimity, 
 and that arising from the knowledge that both these are combined in those 
 whom we call ours. The men of ' 7G are as superior to those of other ages as 
 are their principles and institutions. They were men actuated not by ambi- 
 
ll 
 
 lion, not by pride, not by passion, but by principle. Notwithstanding their 
 many grievances, — compared with the oppressed multitudes then in France, 
 they enjoyed a kind and lenient rule from the mother country. The tax which 
 Toused them to resistance was a trifling matter ; it was against the principle 
 therein involved, that they took up arms. Hence throughout the struggle the 
 absence of treachery, fanaticism, and criminal ambition. Among them was 
 found but a single traitor. The great names of antiquity grow dim under the 
 superior lustre of the presence of these worthies. Miltiades the conqueror of 
 .Marathon, Them istocles the hero of Salamis, Pausanias who led the Grecian 
 host at Platea, — these were patriots after the type of Benedict Arnold. Among 
 the actors of the French Revolution, among the marshals of the Empire, there 
 was hardly a man possessing anything deserving the name of principle, ex- 
 cept Macdonald ; and this he owed to his Scotch blood. 
 
 While others rouse the public mind by appealing to the love of glory, there 
 is present in the Anglo-Saxon race a predominating sense of duty. "Words- 
 worth's noble ode to duty is the expression in fitting poetry, of a national 
 characteristic. The heart of the French soldier might be stirred by the 
 •appeal of Napoleon to the forty centuries beholding from the tops of the Pyr- 
 amids their actions ; nothing could be better fitted to inflame the enthusiasm 
 of those sprung from the same stock with ourselves, than the last memorable 
 signal of Nelson, — England expects every man to do his duty. The patriots 
 of the Revolution had the same blood in their veins ; and from the time the 
 sword was drawn till it was returned to the scabbard in triumph, through 
 adverse and prosperous fourtune, in hours of brightness and gloom, they never 
 swerved from their principles, never forgot that posterity, that the world, that 
 future agos were with anxious interest expecting them to do their duty. How 
 nobly that duty was done, we are allowed this day to see and feel. With them, 
 self held a secondary place. It was the expression not of the sentiments of 
 an individual, but of the feelings of the army, of the time, when a patriot 
 raised from the field where he had fallen, said, " I die as I have always wished 
 to die, the death of a soldier contending for the rights of man." There was 
 never such an army, such a corps of officers as those associated with Wash- 
 ington. Doubtless there have been men as brave. The bald quality of courage 
 is, however, a very common endowment among men, and found nowhere in 
 greater perfection than in bosoms where every virtuous and generous feeling 
 has been petrified. In their excellence, bravery was a secondary ingredient. 
 It was bravery amid such a glorious cluster of moral qualities, that constituted 
 their worth. 
 
 Was I right in saying there never was such an army and with such officers? 
 Nay, history tells of one, the army of Cromwell. The two were armies of 
 
12 
 
 different ages indeed and countries, but belonging to the same great cause. 
 They fought for the same principles, only at different periods of the same rev- 
 olution. The American Revolution was the closing scene of the struggle which 
 was in progress in England two centuries ago. Never had a cause such ad- 
 vocates, defenders, and leaders, whether in Parliament or Congress, in command 
 or in the ranks, in the cabinet or in the field. To John Milton was committed 
 the sacred trust of pleading this cause in the presence of Europe and of pos- 
 terity. And nobly has the trust been fulfilled. To this task, then so unpop- 
 ular, this venerable man hoary with pious virtues and overshadowed with a 
 halo of literary fame pure as that gathered over the shepherds of Bethlehem, 
 brought a genius great in native vigor as that of Homer, but laden with intel- 
 lectual riches Homer never knew. With arguments grand and faultless as 
 his own magnificent prose, has he placed beyond all controversy the right of 
 the people to call to account tyrant kings, the liberty of the press, and other 
 points now universally received as axioms of freedom. Hampden, a man 
 " to whom the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel or furnishes a par- 
 allel in Washington alone," was the parliamentary leader of this movement. 
 Its soldiers were Cromwell and Washington, — that Cromwell over whose 
 memory political hatred and kingly debauchees threw so black a veil, but to 
 whose fame posterity is now beginning to do full though tardy justice, — the 
 only man who ever retained amid the same political power so pure and fer- 
 vent a piety, — the man " without whom liberty would have been lost not only 
 to England but to Europe."-' 
 
 A like spirit actuated the leaders, the deliberative assemblies, and the people 
 in both contests. The words of Milton concerning his own country at that 
 crisis, might be considered a discription of our own: " What nation or state 
 ever obtained liberty by more successful or more valorous exertion? For for- 
 titude is seen resplendent, not only in the field of battle and amid the clash of 
 arms, but displays its energy under every difficulty and against every assail- 
 ant. During the mighty struggle, no anarchy, no licentiouness was seen ; no 
 illusions of glory, no extravagant emulation of the ancients inflamed them 
 with a thirst for ideal liberty ; but the rectitude of their lives and the sobriety 
 of their habits taught them the only true and safe road to real liberty ; and 
 they took up arms only to defend the sanctity of the laws and the rights of 
 conscience. Relying on the divine assistance, they used every honorable ex- 
 ertion to break the yoke of slavery." The scene is sublime when this blind 
 old man having with the power of his logic, his burning thoughts and glow- 
 ing words completely crushed his antagonists and thereby scattered forever 
 the spell hanging around the name of king, looks forward to coming ages with 
 
 *Merle D-'Aulugno. 
 
13 
 
 the eye of a prophet, and exclaims, " Surrounded by congregated multitudes, 
 I now imagine that I behold the nations of the earth recovering that liberty 
 which they so long had lost : and that the people of this island are transplant- 
 ing to other countries a plant of nunc beneficial qualities and more noble 
 growth than that which Triptolemus is reported to have carried from region 
 to region ; that they are disseminating the blessings of civilization and free- 
 dom among cities, kingdoms, and nations." In closing this second defence of 
 the people of England, he says, " If after such a display of courage and vigor, 
 you basely relinquish the path of virtue, if you do anything unworthy of 
 yourselves, posterity 'will sit in judgment on your conduct. They will see 
 that the foundations were well laid ; but with deep emotions of concern will 
 they regret, that those were wanting who might have completed the structure." 
 Those were not wanting who might complete the structure. They were raised 
 up in what was then this distant western wilderness. What had been so glo- 
 riously begun by Milton, Hampden, and Cromwell, was taken up and even 
 more gloriously finished by Washington and his compeers. 
 
 The name of Washington already belongs to the world. Among the con- 
 stellations of illustrious characters of the past, he shines as the morning star 
 amid the stars of heaven, and like this glorious light, the harbinger an- 
 nouncing that the day of freedom is breaking and the shadows of despotism 
 are fleeing away. English toryism admits that " Modern history has not so 
 spotless a character to commemorate, that it is the highest glory of England 
 to have given birth, even amid transatlantic wilds, to such a man." His 
 character approaches as near as human infirmity will admit, a perfect model 
 of the great and good. It is like one of those finished pieces of statuary 
 which would not at first strike the vulgar gaze so strongly as many a piece of 
 meaner workmanship combining some fiue strokes of art with many defor- 
 mities. This appears most beautiful on a close examination and to a correct 
 critical eye. 
 
 " One shade the more, one ray the less, 
 Had half impaired its nameless grace." 
 
 No observer however acute and fastidious can | oint out any defect in this 
 development of human greatness. Where do w Id grandeur so chastened 
 
 by humility ; patriotism, by self-renunciation . i . \ fame, by humanity* 
 
 and worldly glory, by piety. He was brave without rashness ; firm without 
 cruelty ; patriotic without ambition ; and pious without reproach. To depre- 
 ciate the talents while admitting the goodness of Washington, does no injury 
 save to the detractor. One of the greatest minds of England pronounces him 
 " the greatest man of our own or of any age." Guizot says, " He did tho two 
 greatest things whichjn politics man can have the privilege of attempting. 
 
H 
 
 He maintained by peace that independence of his country which he acquired 
 by war. He founded a free government in the name of the principles of order 
 and by reestablishing their sway." No commander ever achieved so much 
 for mankind with such slender means and so small an amount of human suf- 
 fering. He was never at the head of hundreds of thousands of men, yet his 
 military operations though on so limited a scale, compared with the campaigns 
 of the old world, show nevertheless very great ability. " The statue of Her- 
 cules cast by Lysippus, though only a foot high, expressed the muscles and 
 bones of the hero more grandly than the colossal figures of other artists." 
 
 His greatness appears no less in what he did not than in what be actually 
 performed. Peace has its triumphs as well as war. No fields of battle can 
 be invested with such grandeur as the two simple closing scenes of his mili. 
 tary life. The parting of Napoleon with the relic of the old guard at Fon- 
 tainebleau has more theatrical show but less sublimity, than the affecting 
 farewell of Washington with his officers at Frances' hotel in New York, when 
 amid tears from those who had never faltered in the darkest hours, and with 
 his own emotions too strong for concealment, he said, " With a heart full of 
 love and gratitude I now take my leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your 
 latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been 
 glorious and honorable." In keeping with this was the resigning of his com- 
 mission to Congress, a scene grand in its simplicity, which as meeting us in 
 the rotunda of the Capitol no American heart can contemplate without tears. 
 
 " Such graves as bis are pilgrim shrines, 
 
 Shrines to no age or creed confined, 
 The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
 
 The Meccas of the mind." 
 
 What though in our country we have no work like the Parthenon, and the 
 statue of Minerva or of Jupiter Olympius? We can take the stranger into a 
 nobler fabric, the temple of constitutional freedom, and point him to the in- 
 carnation of more than the wisdom of Minerva, than the grandeur of the 
 Olympian Jupiter — Washington. And those grouped around him as associates 
 whether in the duties of civil or military life, present a bearing and elevation 
 of character worthy of the majesty of the cenral figure in that glorious group. 
 'On every occasion like this, let those good men be held in affectionate remem- 
 brance. When an enemy in command of a British frigate moving up the 
 Potomac to bombard our Capital during the last war, could, on passing Mount 
 Vernon, lower his topsails in reverence for the illustrious dead ; — let us with 
 deep thankfulness to Heaven, turn aside with our children, and confirm our 
 love of country while dropping a tear at his venerated grave. 
 
 Again, — let us remember these institutions and this territory have been 
 given us in trust for the good of the world. Benefit confers obligation ; and 
 
15 
 
 the principle, " None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself," 
 is equally true of nations. After securing its own happiness, every nation is 
 bound to advance, according to the dictates of wisdom and prudence, the gen- 
 eral happiness of the world. Other empires have had their mission : the 
 United States have been raised up for guarding and extending the blessings 
 of liberty to the oppressed and enslaved of the world. Hence the extent of 
 territory entrusted to us and the remarkable manner in which this territory 
 was held in reserve by Providence till the fulness of time had come. As all 
 men are not fit for republicanism, — instead of setting up this form of govern- 
 ment amid the volcanic elements slumbering in the populations of Europe, 
 to be overthrown as in France and become a derision to mankind, — God has 
 reared a republic here by drawing hither the best blood of the old world who 
 were capable of founding and giving it stability: thi3 done, He seems to say to 
 the down-trodden of every people and clime, Yonder may you find a refuge 
 from tyranny and enjoy the most perfect freedom possible on earth. "Whose 
 heart does not warm at the thought that we have been able even now to wel- 
 come to our shores the Hungarian exiles, and send one of the finest models of 
 a steam frigate to bring their leader in triumph from under the very batteries 
 of European despotism, for receiving here more than a kingly welcome. No 
 wonder that when he came on the deck over which floated the stripes and 
 stars, and saw around him the batteries of the American navy manned by 
 stout hearts and strong arms ready to defend freedom as personified in him 
 her persecuted son, he should have paused with emotion and found utterance 
 choked with tears. 
 
 Contrast this country as the asylum of liberty, with Russia as the champion 
 of despotism, and think which holds the more enviable position. The ancients 
 looked with interest for the rising of a constellation reputed to have the power 
 of hushing the tempest and tranquilizing the sea: over the turbulent waves 
 of popular commotion and the angry tide of tyranny, that constellation has 
 arisen ; it burns in our national stars which seem to have been given not 
 without design for our emblem as the beacon of the world. On seeing those 
 stars, many rejoice with exceeding great joy. Going up with a steady rise, 
 they have yet dropped no one from their number, "We have not the pain of 
 searching there for some lost Pleiad ; we see the beauty of the group steadily 
 increased by new stars in succession breaking on the view. Our country is 
 the cynosure of the oppressed of the world. And we feel assurance it will 
 continue to go upward with a steady rise, not like those southern constella- 
 tions a little while above the horizon, then going down in continued gloom ; 
 but like the pole star, never to set; or like the morning star, the forerunner 
 of that dawn of coming glory to which prophecy has so long pointed, when 
 
16 
 
 darkness, oppression, and tyranny shall find no shadow of death where to 
 hide themselves, and the divine light of heavenly truth which has made us 
 free, shall throw its rosy mantle over all lands, and people, and tongues. My 
 country, 
 
 " I love thee, — when I see thee stand, 
 The hope of every other land : 
 A sea-mark in the tide of time, 
 Rearing to heaven thy hrow sublime. 
 
 "I love thee, — next to heaven above, 
 Land of my fathers'! thee I love ; 
 And rail thy slanderers as they will, 
 With all thy faults, I love the still." 
 
 Over the formation and development of these institutions, a kind providence 
 has hitherto watched with guardian care. He who from heaven protected 
 these things in the tender germ, amid the bloodshed of Europe, and when 
 borne by the tempest to this unbroken wilderness ; — who raised up such men 
 in the hour of trial ; — who interfered so manifestly, almost miraculously, in 
 our struggle for independence ; who guided our armies in the field and our 
 representatives in their deliberations ; — He is continuing to protect us, and 
 during the past 3 r ear, has shown his love by confirming amid threatening dan- 
 gers the perpetuity of the union, and turning the counsels of its enemies into 
 foolishness. That the integrity of the Union shall be threatened, must be 
 expected ; that all such efforts will be frustrated, the past gives us good rea- 
 son to hope. Institutions which like these have been the growth of ages, — 
 which have their basis i truths taught in the scriptures, — which have 
 
 been given in trust for the benefit of the world, — which have been so clearly 
 guarded by a divine hand, — are not doomed to speedy overthrow or decay. 
 Let the friends of the Union be true to their charge and to heaven, and all 
 will be well. Civil government is at best a compromise ; our Union was 
 founded by compromise, and only by measures of compromise can it be upheld 
 Any act for dissolving the Union is more than ordinary treason. It is treason 
 against the interest of liberty and humanity throughout the world and in fu- 
 ture ages. 
 
 Fanaticism is a thing of one idea, at the mercy of blind and impetuous pas- 
 sions: patriotism is a spirit of enlarged views and generous sentiments, ever 
 happy to sacrifice private interests and preferences for the public good. This 
 looks to the welfare and success, not of its own little society, or sect, or neigh- 
 borhood, but to the welfare of the country as a whole. The true patriot is 
 the man who loves his whole country. To this he is willing to sacrifice his 
 private feelings and gain, his hopes of political preferment, and even his life. 
 He uses his best exertions for obtaining the enactment of the most salutary 
 
17 
 
 laws ; but when laws are passed not according to his mind, he bows to their 
 supremacy until able to obtain by constitutional means their repeal ; or fail* 
 ing in this, continues to stand manfully by his country, and discountenance 
 under all circumstances, even the appearance of resistance to the constituted 
 authorites. He will not forsake the ship of state and leap into the sea, do 
 what injury he can to the vessel, strive to break it into fragments, or to fire 
 the magazine, because it may not be steered or worked entirely according to 
 his fancy, or because he cannot have regulations repealed that were in forco 
 when he came on board ; but feeling his interest indentified with the safety of 
 the whole, he will acquiesce in the will of the majority, and leave the direc- 
 tion of affairs in the hands where it has been entrusted. His is the sentiment 
 of Decatur, " Our country, may she always be right ; but right or wrong, our 
 country." May this principle ever be ours. No one sect, no one society, no 
 one state, constitutes our country. The assemblage of all these forms the na- 
 tion ; and hence the design of the government is to consult the interest, not 
 of any one of these as dissevered from the others, but of the whole so far as 
 that interest can be promoted by such compromises according to the constitu- 
 tion as may benefit them thus in union. Far be it from us to be so influenced 
 by selfishness and fanaticism, as to allow a wrong, or even an oppressive act 
 to turn us against our country. In such a spirit, there is more of the temper 
 of Arnold than of those faithful with Washington. "When our country may 
 seem to err, we will stand by her with greater faithfulness, and use efforts the 
 more strenuous for correcting by legal means the error, — bowing with sub- 
 mission to the supremacy of the laws, and making ours the principle, Our 
 country, our whole country, and nothing but our whole country. 
 
j\ III f in ana I 
 
 EDWARD A. WHARTON: 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN THE P.RAINERD CHURCH, EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA. 
 On Sabbath Evening, September 24, 1S54. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev GEORGE BURROWES, D. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN LAFAVKTTE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 WILLIAM S. MARTIEN. 
 
 1854. 
 
 rilj) 
 
 < Gr-l= _■==; fj£) 
 

 
J fUcmonal 
 
 OP 
 
 3 
 
 EDWARD A. WHARTON: 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN THE BRAINERD CHURCH, EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 On Sabbath Evening, September 24, 1854. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. GEORGE BURROWES, D. D. 
 
 l'l;ul'l>snl; IN LAFAYETTE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 WILLIAM S. MAR TIEN 
 
 1854. 
 
Washington Hall, September 25th, 1854. 
 Rev. George Burrowes, B. B. 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir: — At a meeting of the Washington Literary Society, held this afternoon. 
 
 it was unanimously 
 
 Resolved, "That a Committee of three he appointed, for the purpose of returning the 
 
 thanks of the Society to the Rev. George Burrowes, B. B., for the truly eloquent and impressive 
 
 discourse delivered hy him, relative to the death of our much esteemed fellow member, Edward 
 
 A. Wharton, in the Brainerd Church, on Sabbath evening, the 24th inst., and to request a 
 
 copy of the same for publication." 
 
 The undersigned, in accordance with the grateful task assigned them, beg leave to comply 
 
 with the foregoing resolution, and to express the hope that you will see fit to comply therewith. 
 
 as they are well satisfied that its publication will tend to deepen the impression created by 
 
 this dispensation of an All-wise Providence. 
 
 With sentiments of high respect, 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 WILLIAM M. ALLISON, ' 
 
 JOHN M. SULLIVAN, 
 
 JOHN C. WILHELM, 
 
 Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., September 26th, 1854. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 I am happy to find that my estimation of the character of our lamented friend, Mr. 
 
 Wharton, meets with your approbation ; and as you think the publication of the sermon will 
 
 do good, I place it at your disposal. 
 
 With my kindest regards for the members of your Society, I am, 
 
 Very truly, your Friend, 
 
 GEORGE BURROWES. 
 
 Messrs. W. M. Allison, 
 
 John M. Sullivan, y Committee. 
 
 J. C. Wllhelm, 
 

MEMORIAL. 
 
 WE ALL DO FADE AS A LEAF.— Isaiah lxiv. G. 
 
 How precious is the sympathy of friends in sorrow. Even 
 when they cannot relieve our distress, and the cause of our 
 anguish is too deep for any words of theirs to reach, the silent 
 pressure of the hand, and the tear gathered in the compassion- 
 ate eye, telling what language cannot express, goes with a 
 soothing blessedness to the depths of the heart, and sheds an 
 oil of gladness through the wounded spirit. But even here it 
 is more blessed to give than to receive. Great as is the 
 happiness of feeling sympathy extended to us in sorrow, it is 
 a greater blessedness to possess a sympathizing heart, and be 
 permitted to have these emotions drawn into deep and health- 
 ful action — to go to the disconsolate and make them feel we 
 enter into their sorrows — to sit beside the weeping, and drop 
 with them a tear. The heartless world may say it is unmanly 
 to weep ; religion teaches it is godlike to feel the tenderness 
 of Him who mingled with the sisters of Lazarus his tears. 
 
 "For to the heart that ever felt the sting 
 Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing." 
 
 This sympathy with distress is one of the features of the 
 divine image in the soul, obliterated by sin, but restored by 
 
 2 
 
grace; so that he who grows most in holiness has the deepest 
 feeling for the distresses of others, and a happiness in fulfilling 
 the command, "Weep with those that weep." Such is even 
 unsanctified human nature, that common suffering begets sym- 
 pathy, and creates a bond of union strong in proportion to the 
 distress. But when this divine affection has been revived and 
 made tender by the Holy Spirit, and we see as sinners, our 
 common ruin, and feel our common woe, we are drawn more 
 closely together by this delicate, but powerful bond; when 
 crucified to the world, we sympathize most tenderly with those 
 enduring its tribulations, knowing that we too are the bonds- 
 men of grief, that the sympathy we extend to others, we too 
 shall need in return, for " we all do fade as a leaf, and our 
 iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." 
 
 In this passage, the prophet, as it were, viewing Israel, the 
 Church, in a state of desolation, where all seemed lost in the 
 ruins of their country, as immediately before the birth of 
 Christ, prays that God would come down to deliver his people 
 and revive his work. (v. 1.) — He is encouraged by considering, 
 1. That it was easy for God so to do, even to make the 
 mountains melt at his presence, (v. 1,) the greatest obstacles 
 to vanish. 2. That this would honour the name of God among 
 the heathen, (v.. 2.) 3. He had done great things for them in 
 times past, (v. 3.) 4. None but God can know what blessedness 
 he has prepared for his people; therefore, none but he can 
 work out for them that blessedness, and none can prevent him 
 from perfecting the salvation of his saints, (v. 4.) 5. He is 
 always ready to meet every one who works righteousness, who 
 conforms to the conditions of his plan of salvation, (v. 5.) 
 There is then an acknowledgment that whatever God may 
 
 
thus do, must be done as a favour, because we are all sinners, 
 (v. 6.) "We are all as an unclean thing," defiled like the leper, 
 — our spiritual constitution is diseased. As the result of this, 
 our actions, even the best of them, our righteousnesses, our 
 excellences and good deeds, "are as filthy rags." In conse- 
 quence of this depravity of heart, " we all do fade as a leaf;" 
 sin brings forth the bitter fruits of death in all our powers, 
 and imparts to our nature the sickly, decaying character of the 
 fading leaf. This native depravity is universal — " we all do 
 fade as a leaf." And like the falling leaves of autumn swept 
 along by the eddying blasts of the storm, as the successive 
 generations of men wither and fall, our iniquities, gathered 
 into tempests, are sweeping us away. The contemplation of 
 our frailty and decay is painful, yet necessary, salutary, and 
 wise. The prophet mentions it for calling attention to God as 
 the only deliverer, and exciting a trust in his redeeming power. 
 Smitten by the distressing dispensation which has now brought 
 us together, let us receive the wisdom it was designed to 
 impress, and gather more closely to Him who is the fountain 
 of life, and can make us, in our decaying state, like a tree 
 planted by rills of water, whose leaf shall not wither. 
 
 A truth so important as that of our frailty, has been set 
 before us in many points of view by the Author of our being. 
 The condition of the whole world was affected by the fall of 
 man. Then the habitation was changed so as to harmonize 
 with the character of its sinful occupant under sentence of 
 death; and this harmony is visible in its blighted loveliness, 
 its fading beauty, its decaying flowers, and withering leaf. 
 These are living memorials of our guilt and decay. And 
 when the Scriptures take up these comparisons from natural 
 
objects; when they tell us that our "life is even a vapour 
 that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away," 
 James iv. 14 ; that man " cometh forth like a flower, and is 
 cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not," 
 Job xiv. 2; that "we all do fade as a leaf;" — they are not 
 using illustrations at random, but are interpreting the lan- 
 guage of nature, and giving us the meaning wrapped up by 
 the Creator in those beautiful symbols. Creation is beheld 
 in its true light, not by the man who goes abroad like the 
 brutes, and sees in all things nothing more than a prepara- 
 tion for meeting the mere animal wants of man ; nor even 
 by him who traces out the philosophical relations of things; 
 but by the man who in addition to both these classes of 
 designs, sees in all things that highest kind of knowledge, 
 moral truth for the instruction of spiritual beings. " Man 
 shall not live by bread alone." The fruit got from the tree 
 whose leaf may be referred to in the text, or from the har- 
 vest whose grain is pointed out by Paul as the symbol of 
 the resurrection, is not the only thing for supporting our 
 life. Truth is equally necessary for supporting our spiritual 
 nature. And hence the tree, while supplying fruit for the 
 body, shade to protect, and fragrance to refresh us, is formed 
 so as to convey to us, among other truths, the lesson written 
 in this scripture. A lesson so natural has not escaped the 
 eye of unaided reason. Homer says, 
 
 "Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; 
 
 Another race the following spring supplies ; 
 
 They fall successive, and successive rise: 
 
 So generations in their course decay." 
 
 Some one has said, "flowers are the alphabet of angels, 
 
9 
 
 whereby they write on hills and dales mysterious truths." 
 We would rather say, the truths of revelation and of nature 
 form pages like the illuminated volumes of the dark ages, 
 wherein great skill and labour were bestowed in filling the 
 margin with devices and emblems of various colouring and 
 forms, illustrating and harmonizing with the text: and in 
 the rich scroll which the hand of God the Creator has 
 unrolled before us, written full, not of lamentations, and 
 mourning, and woe, but of the words of eternal life — the 
 sacred Scriptures are the text, and the various beauties of 
 creation — Spring, with its landscape of flowers ; Summer, with 
 its golden harvests; the mellow shades and fading hues of 
 Autumn ; "Winter, with its gloomy desolation ; the wavy mar- 
 gin of the deep blue ocean; the clouds that gather round 
 the setting sun; the constellations of the evening sky; — all, 
 all are but the illuminated embellishments of this volume of 
 revealed truth, gathering new beauty and instructiveness 
 around every word and every letter, beyond all power of 
 imitation by human genius and human skill. Nature with- 
 out revelation, presents a more pitiable blank than those 
 illuminated manuscripts with all the embellishments left but 
 the writing withdrawn. It is often remarked, that doubtless 
 every weed, however noxious, contains medicinal properties, 
 could they only be known. We may feel that every created 
 thing, every circumstance, has embodied in it by the Creator 
 some important truth, could it only be discovered. Enlarge- 
 ment of our powers of vision by the microscope, enables us 
 to see excpiisite beauties in things so trifling as to be over- 
 looked by the unaided eye; an increase in our powers of 
 spiritual apprehension would cause us to see truth in things 
 
10 
 
 now neglected, and love in dealings now viewed with pain; 
 to see that not only the decay of nature, but that adversity, 
 with its woes, 
 
 "Though like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in its head; 
 Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 God has himself revealed to us the lesson written on the 
 fading leaf. 
 
 1. The beauty and vigour of man decay. The influence 
 of beauty over the human heart has ever been great, and 
 even now has lost none of its power. It is an element of 
 perfection. Where there is perfect holiness, there must be 
 perfect beauty. All deformity and disease of body has 
 sprung from prior deformity and disease of soul. Hence 
 the Scriptures speak of the beauty of holiness; and the 
 Redeemer shall beautify the meek with salvation. In the 
 absence of moral worth, physical beauty is a hateful thing. 
 As age sobers our wisdom, we place less value on mere 
 beauty of face and form ; we dwell rather on the more 
 attractive graces of the heart. These stand unchanged by 
 time ; they become more beauteous with the advance of 
 age; sorrow, sickness, bereavement, the tribulations of earth, 
 develope their hidden beauty, and draw forth their hidden 
 power. Never do they shine with such attractive lustre as 
 in the dying saint, when the last remains of mortality are 
 crumbling around him, and his liberated soul is just on the 
 wing for heaven. But what is more fading than the beauty 
 which the world so much covet and admire? The youth 
 
11 
 
 Narcissus of the ancient fable, enamoured with his own charms, 
 tired not with the contemplation of himself in the clear 
 waters of a fountain, and pined away as he gazed. The 
 reality of this is everywhere visible. And this strange 
 weakness does not depend on the possession of beauty. 
 Never was there a form, however ugly, which did not think 
 itself beautiful; never a mind so weak, a soul so mean, as 
 not to be proud of some imaginary endowment. Multitudes 
 who would blush to acknowledge it, live in the constant 
 cultivation of this self-love and self-worship, never tired with 
 contemplating their own form in a glass, using every means 
 art and wealth can furnish to heighten their charms, to con- 
 ceal their blemishes, and to draw around them worshippers 
 at this shrine of their own idolatry — self — who may offer 
 there the incense of flattery and praise. What sums are 
 squandered in this pitiable folly. In the very gratification 
 of this pride, its freshness is fading away. The young per- 
 son who now prides himself or herself on being the centre 
 of all eyes, sacrificing thousands to dress and fashion, nothing 
 for benevolence and piety, shall soon, even if life is spared, 
 find the paleness of old age on the cheek, and its wrinkles 
 on the brow; and even the good looks, of which she is so 
 vain, are beginning, in the very spring-time of life, to fade 
 as a leaf. "Verily every man, at his best state, is alto- 
 gether vanity. Selah. Thou makest his beauty to consume 
 away like a moth. They dwell in houses of clay; their 
 foundation is in the dust; they are crushed before the moth. 
 Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away." 
 
 2. Our prospects fade like the leaf. In youth our sanguine 
 feelings and the flattery of self-love people the future with 
 
12 
 
 bright creations, and lead us to feel that the disquietudes of the 
 present will be left with the past, that the discomforts of youth 
 will be lost amid the pleasures of manhood, that the distrac- 
 tions of middle life will be forgotten in the tranquillity of a 
 retired old age; nothing but happiness enters into our calcula- 
 tion, and our life is to be one from which the ordinary ills of 
 humanity are to be excluded. One of the lessons we have to 
 learn, is that these prospects are deceptive. They too, like 
 everything earthly, do fade as the leaf. " Come now, ye that 
 say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and 
 continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain : 
 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what 
 is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little 
 time, and then vanisheth away." Jas. iv. 14. The success 
 you expect in business, may prove but disaster ; your antici- 
 pated wealth be set aside by bankruptcy ; health now the most 
 robust, may unexpectedly fail; friends fall around you as the 
 fading summer leaf; the husband of your love, the wife of 
 your bosom, from whose affection you are expecting so much 
 happiness, may prove your greatest earthly sorrow, and your 
 heaviest earthly scourge ; the children by whom you are 
 hoping old age to be made happy, may bring down your grey 
 hairs in sorrow to the grave ; your son of brightest promise 
 may live long enough to raise your expectations and blast 
 them by death on the threshold of a promising manhood; your 
 purposes of repentance will be lost amid the temptations and 
 business of coming years, and your death-bed be a death- 
 bed of gloom ; ere the spring of youth is closed, " your way of 
 life may be fallen into the sear and yellow leaf;" and your 
 career, now opening bright as the cloudless summer morning, 
 
13 
 
 will close in hopeless impenitence, under the displeasure of 
 heaven, like the sun of that day of promise, going down amid 
 clouds, and tempests, and lightning, and thunder, and gloom. 
 
 3. Our pleasures fade as the leaf. In the first freshness of 
 enjoyment, there is a lively delight in earthly pleasures. But 
 soon they begin to satiate, and we find at last, that the same 
 principle of decay pervades them all. While the trees of earth- 
 ly enjoyment, in such various kinds, are scattered along our 
 way with fruits so tempting in the distance, they are no sooner 
 plucked than they begin to wither, and lose their freshness 
 before they reach our lips. Has anything heretofore desired, 
 met your expectations? Never yet have you found at any 
 party, on any card-table, at any ball, at any opera, in any 
 theatre, at any fashionable gathering, in the splendour of any 
 magnificent dress, in any promenade among the showy and the 
 gay, that for which you were seeking. All these things, like 
 the sensitive plant, withered at your approach, were found 
 faded in your grasp, and you turned from them with wonder 
 and sadness at your disappointment. In later life, often before 
 middle-life, the man of pleasure, the devotee of fashion, the 
 youth who has courted dissipation, the female whose life has 
 been exhausted in studying to set off her charms and win 
 admirers, find themselves with those old desires made rigid and 
 insatiable by habit, and the means of pleasure from their grati- 
 fication proportionally abated; the powers blunted by over- 
 gratification, cease to receive their indulgence with so high a 
 zest; and around, valueless and almost unheeded, faded plea- 
 sures are gathering and falling like withered leaves. We stand 
 on the shady bank of a stream, as the yellow leaves are falling 
 on its waters, placid beneath the rich sunlight of an autumn 
 3 
 
14 
 
 sky, and see them float noiselessly away; so do our faded 
 pleasures fall around us on the stream of time, and are soon 
 borne beyond the reach of memory to sink in the ocean of 
 oblivion. 
 
 4. Our mental powers do fade as the leaf. A life of 
 impenitence is a continual wasting away of the spiritual powers 
 of man. The intellectual faculties may often burn with great 
 brilliancy, but in the absence of the fear of God, this very 
 vigour gives a beauty like the hectic flush on the cheek of the 
 consumptive, consuming the vitality of the system, while excit- 
 ing the admiration of those around. Education and culture may 
 counteract, to some extent, this decay; but the seeds of death 
 are there; even if the man do not waste away his powers 
 prematurely by the corroding effects of dissipation, he will find 
 them failing under the withering blight of sickness, or the 
 gathering frosts of age. And when we look at cases like the 
 greatest of English statesmen, William Pitt, a wreck in the 
 prime of manhood; or Robert Hall, with his magnificent mind 
 and matchless eloquence, a maniac in the vigour of his days ; 
 or Robert Southey, standing in the proudest position among 
 literary men, with the mind that had charmed nations, sinking 
 into the imbecility of a second childhood; we are made to feel 
 that even in the possession of the highest intellectual powers, 
 there is nothing beyond the reach of decay ; for even these do 
 fade as a leaf. 
 
 And what on earth does not wither and decay? Its pomp 
 and power, its kingdoms and crowns, its pyramids and palaces, 
 its noble cities with their gates of brass, its trophies and 
 mausoleums of kingly marble, all, all fading and crumbling to 
 dust. 
 
15 
 
 " All flesh is grass, and all. its glory fades 
 Like the fair flower dishevel'd in the wind; 
 Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream ; 
 The man we celebrate must find a tomb, 
 And we that worship him, ignoble graves. 
 Nothing is proof against the general curse 
 Of vanity, that seizes all below. 
 The only amaranthine flower on earth 
 Is virtue, the only lasting treasure, truth. 
 But what is truth?" 
 
 The Son of God, the eternal Word, Jesus of Nazareth, says, 
 "I am the way and the truth." Among the hills and valleys 
 of our earth, filled with ruins and death, that voice is still 
 moving in animating reverberations, which was first heard over 
 the grave of Lazarus, "I am the resurrection and the life: he 
 that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." 
 In this day there is a fountain opened — to the house of David 
 and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem only? nay, to the whole 
 world — for sin and for uncleanness. And from heaven the 
 invitation comes — and they are the last words that heaven has 
 spoken to earth, or that heaven will speak to earth, before the 
 judgment — " Whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
 freely." Rev. xxii. 17. "And the blood of Jesus Christ his 
 Son cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John i. 7. "Though your 
 sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be 
 red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isa. i. 18. Here, 
 your fading beauty may be restored ; here, your wasting vigour 
 renewed. While the weary invalid betakes himself to the 
 waters of some celebrated medicinal spring, or to the reviving 
 air of the summer ocean and the refreshing plunge of its 
 cooling waves; the fainting soul, burdened with guilt, comes 
 
1(3 
 
 here, to a fountain of power more healing than Siloa's brook or 
 Bethesda's pool, and rises with his whole spiritual nature 
 renewed, in a freshness of beauty beyond that of Naaman at 
 the waters of Jordan, from his baptism in the waves of that 
 ocean of love and grace, and heavenly breezes of the Holy 
 Spirit, to which Jesus has opened a new and living way. 
 "Whence we also look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; 
 who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like 
 unto his glorious body." Phil. iii. 21. "According to his 
 promise, we look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. iii. 13. "Beloved, now are 
 we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall 
 be ; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like 
 him; for we shall see him as he is." 1 John iii. 2. 
 
 Like the leaf which came forth with the opening spring, 
 our beloved young friend was with us then in all the vigour 
 and promise of youth; but now, alas, he is faded and fallen, 
 like the leaf that is withered and rustling by his grave. In 
 this dispensation, which has filled so many hearts with sor- 
 row and so many eyes with tears, let us have the melancholy 
 pleasure of gathering up the remembrance of his virtues, 
 and open our hearts to the instruction his early removal 
 was intended to impress. 
 
 Edward A. Wharton, son of Col. S. S. Wharton, was 
 born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, January 14th, 1835. He 
 was the son of pious parents. His studies, preparatory to 
 entering college, were pursued at the Milnwood Academy, 
 under the care of the Rev. J. Y. McGinnis. In a revival 
 of religion at that institution in 1851, he became a subject 
 of redeeming grace, and connected himself with the Presby- 
 
terian Church. He entered the Freshman Class of this 
 college in March, 1852, and continued his studies without 
 interruption, and in the best of health, until the 26th of last 
 May, when he was confined with a lingering fever. After 
 weeks of tedious suffering, he fell asleep in Jesus, on Monday, 
 August 7th, in the twentieth year of his age. 
 
 It is not the lives of men most distinguished by startling 
 adventures that are of most value to the world at large as 
 examples. The life of Caesar, or Hannibal, or Bonaparte, is 
 of no importance to us as a model in the pursuit of integrity, 
 virtue, and piety. We may be interested in the startling 
 events of their career; but they moved in a sphere so very 
 different from ours, that we can hardly draw from them a 
 single lesson of practical wisdom applicable to our own con- 
 dition. The brief pilgrimage of our departed friend, though 
 marked by no variety of romantic incidents, furnishes more 
 real wisdom for the young before me, than all the biographies 
 of all the Caesars. He lived the life that we are living; 
 and what he was in many respects, we may well desire to 
 become. 
 
 He was remarkable for deference to parental authority. 
 Among the elements forming the basis of a life useful and 
 happy in its intercourse with men, the wise man lays down, 
 in the first chapter of Proverbs, three things, as the first 
 principles of human conduct. They are the fear of God, 
 obedience to parents, and the avoiding of bad company. In 
 all these things, our young friend was eminent. From 
 infancy he had always been a blameless boy. He never 
 manifested a disposition to take the reins of authority from 
 the hands of his parent. It was his pleasure to fulfil every 
 
18 
 
 parental injunction, and anticipate every parental desire. 
 How many of you are there of whom your parent can say, 
 as his father said of him, "I never knew him to disobey me." 
 In these times, when disregard of parental authority is one 
 of the crying evils of our land, and the happiness of so 
 many families is embittered by the unfeeling conduct of chil- 
 dren, it is refreshing to pause and contemplate an example 
 like his. Disobedience ever meets with retribution ; such 
 conduct as his receives its reward. Herodotus mentions a 
 Grecian priestess who had to be conveyed to the temple at 
 some distance from Argos, to officiate at a sacred festival; 
 and as the oxen were not at hand, her two sons drew the 
 chariot in their stead, as an act of filial piety. She prayed 
 the goddess to bestow on them the richest reward possible 
 for mortals; and in answer to her prayer, her sons lying 
 down to rest in the temple, fell into a sleep from which 
 they never awoke. After a youth adorned with filial love 
 and duty, our friend has fallen asleep in Jesus, in the vesti- 
 bule of that heavenly temple, "whose portal we call death." 
 As might be expected, this reverence towards parents, the 
 neglect of which is the root of every vice, was in his case 
 connected with great amiability of character. He often 
 reminded me of the young man of whom it is written, " Then 
 Jesus beholding him, loved him." Mark x. 21. He was not 
 one of those captious, complaining spirits, who, being all ajar 
 themselves, keep all persons and things around them in a 
 state of disorder and unhappiness ; whose first natural impulse 
 is to contradict and oppose; and whose better feelings, when 
 they have any, are a later and secondary growth. There 
 was no jaundiced humour in his eye; it was limpid with 
 
19 
 
 kindness, and threw over everything the line of benevolence 
 and love. Just as a fretful disposition at home, and inso- 
 lence towards parents, prepares for peevishness to strangers, 
 and arrogance abroad, so his filial goodness brought forth 
 the fruits of gentleness and kindness in society. His asso- 
 ciates loved him, as they felt the strength of this amiability 
 based on principle; strangers were attracted by his bearing; 
 children gathered around him with gladness, and said they 
 loved him because he noticed them so kindly, and always 
 took their part. And it was the beauty of this trait, that 
 it was not a mere negative thing, but in alliance with great 
 energy of character and purpose, when roused by a sufficient 
 cause. While even too many young persons are like Nabal, 
 who was such a son of Belial that a man could not speak to 
 him ; and to no persons greater churls than to their parents ; 
 he had a temper of remarkable evenness and loveliness, and 
 when roused, still under perfect control. 
 
 He possessed by nature, in a very high degree, feelings of 
 delicacy and honour. Some persons seem born gentlemen ; 
 others are natural churls. His inherent bias was towards what 
 is noble and gentlemanly. No one acquainted with him would 
 have suspected him of any unhandsome conduct. He could 
 not have done a dishonourable deed had he tried. Anything 
 deceptive, trickish, or mean, was the object of his scorn. His 
 aims were honourable; his means were pure. He felt that the 
 most elevated code of honour is that which is built on the 
 principle, " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 unto you, do ye even so to them." This had with him its 
 attending delicacy for the feelings of others. So habitual was 
 this, that in no situation was it forgotten. He was never so ill 
 
20 
 
 as to overlook the little civilities of life to those who attended 
 him in his sickness. Shortly before his death, when friends 
 were standing around his bed weeping, as he had just recovered 
 from one of those paroxysms which appeared death in all its 
 terrors, unconscious of the struggle through which he had 
 passed, his eye rested on a lady who was standing by his bed- 
 side, and ministering to his wants ; and with a delicacy which, 
 under the circumstances, was deeply affecting, he expressed his 
 fears that she would be wearied with her efforts. This native 
 feeling was refined by education and christian principle. He 
 was careful of the feelings of others. Though possessing a 
 playful wit, that could be made to tell with effect, he kept it 
 under control, and avoided wounding the sensibility of his asso- 
 ciates. 
 
 He was a young man of great purity of heart. Perhaps he 
 had this trait in as full a degree, by nature, as ever falls to the 
 lot of our fallen humanity. There was something in his very 
 complexion and appearance, a fineness, as it were, in the earth 
 of which his body was formed, that seemed to harmonize with 
 this inward purity. Intemperance, with gaming and the kin- 
 dred rabble-rout of youthful vices — who would ever think of 
 naming them in connection with Edward A. Wharton ? Those 
 who have seen him in situations peculiarly adapted to put his 
 principles to the test, can answer, that with him no coarse and 
 ribald jest, no word calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of 
 delicacy, no perversion of Scripture to create merriment, ever 
 found favour. His conduct fulfilled the ideas of Isaac Walton : 
 "Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of 
 virtue. That man is not to me a good companion ; for most of 
 his conceits were either Scripture-jests or lascivious-jests; for 
 
21 
 
 which I count no man witty ; for the devil will help a man that 
 way inclined, to the first; and his own corrupt nature, which 
 he always carries with him, to the latter. A companion that is 
 cheerful, and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is 
 worth gold." Such a companion was the deceased to those 
 who enjoyed his friendship. "Blessed are the pure in heart, 
 for they shall see G-ed." 
 
 He was remarkable for his modesty. This beautiful trait 
 threw over his other endowments a delightful charm. Free 
 from the mawkishness which under the name of modesty seeks 
 to disguise a sickly vanity or pride, and which, when shrinking 
 from public duty or society, does so only because fearing its 
 success may not be commensurate with its ambitious desires — 
 he was equally free from the presumption which is so offensive, 
 and often shows itself with such repulsiveness in the young. 
 He knew the place that belongs to youth, and under the 
 control of that strong good sense which seemed in him almost 
 an instinct, he quietly fulfilled the duties, and met all the 
 requirements of his position, without assumption or neglect. 
 His judgments were sober and sensible ; there was a steadiness 
 and dignity in his bearing beyond his years. Yet he deferred 
 with becoming delicacy to the wisdom of the more experienced, 
 and felt that the place of youth is to learn, not to lead. He 
 was free from a fault very common, an over-estimate of himself 
 and his powers. He conformed to the command, "Not to 
 think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to 
 think soberly." Had he possessed some of the self-confidence 
 of which some young persons have such an overflowing supply, 
 it might have been to his advantage. His great modesty 
 sometimes led to a distrust of himself, and thereby to a failure 
 4 
 
22 
 
 to bring out fully his powers. Possessing a noble form, which 
 might have been singled out among a multitude as one of the 
 finest specimens of health and manly beauty, he never showed 
 by his bearing or actions that he was aware of anything about 
 him likely to draw attention or admiration. Others might 
 possess talents marked by more brilliancy ; few have such a 
 combination of valuable endowments, fitted to carry them 
 through life with confidence, usefulness, affection, and success. 
 
 His patience under suffering was worthy of admiration. 
 Those young persons who are impatient of the least disappoint- 
 ment in realizing their coveted pleasures ; who seem to think 
 all nature should stand or fly at their nod; and who, when 
 thwarted in anything, show on a smaller scale the same spirit 
 which led Xerxes to scourge the Hellespont and try to fetter 
 the waves — might have learned a wholesome lesson had they 
 been with him in his closing days. With the best of health 
 and life opening before him with flattering promises of wealth, 
 respectability, and ease, he felt the chill dews blighting his 
 hopes, he saw those pleasing prospects fade, and bowed to the 
 allotment without a murmur or complaint. And when, on our 
 national anniversary, he was propped up in bed that his sunken 
 eye might look down on the festivities in the town below; and 
 when, on the evening of the Junior exhibition, his companions 
 were going to the public gathering, and though he had been 
 selected by his society as one of the orators, he was left behind 
 with but a friend or two in the chamber of sickness ; and when, 
 on the morning of commencement, as we gathered at prayers 
 for the last time during the session, all of us were heavy with 
 sorrow, and some of us were bathed in tears, and he, instead of 
 leaving with you to meet the open arms and affectionate hearts 
 
23 
 
 of home, had on that very day, his parent brought to his bed- 
 side to watch the dying moments of a loved and promising son ; 
 in the midst of all, those of us who were with him continually 
 never heard from him a word of impatience or a repining 
 breath. Amid the general gloom, there was shining yet 
 brighter and brighter in his sick room, "the ornament of a 
 meek and quiet spirit." 
 
 He was a Christian. In his character, this was the crown 
 of pure gold on the head, amid so many attractive virtues. 
 He had been more than three years a member of the church, 
 and during that time, had maintained the walk of a consist- 
 ent Christian. The religious exercises of persons take a 
 colouring from their natural disposition; and his piety was 
 marked by the same modesty, calmness, good sense, and con- 
 sistency, which had from early childhood distinguished his 
 conduct. During his illness, his heart rested with calmness 
 and confidence on the Saviour who had loved him so well. 
 And when, on reviving from a sinking state which we all 
 all thought death, a lady at his bedside asked him if he still 
 felt Jesus precious, none present will forget the heavenly 
 mildness and beauty with which he expressed his assurance 
 of the preciousness and presence of the Good Shepherd with 
 him even there, far down amid the chills and gloom of the 
 valley of the shadow of death. None of us thought, until a 
 few days before his death, that his end was nigh; to himself 
 it was unexpected. Yet the midnight cry found him ready ; 
 and leaving behind the toils, the temptations, the sorrows of 
 suffering humanity, he passed away, amid the quiet of a 
 summer noon, to the sabbatical repose that remaineth for 
 the people of God. In the evening of that day, sympathizing 
 
24 
 
 friends gathered in the college chapel around his form, yet 
 beautiful in death, mingling their tears with those of the 
 weeping father and brother, in the services of religion, yet 
 sorrowing not as those that have no hope. A few weeks 
 before, one had been there in all the vigour of youth and 
 buoyancy of hope; but now where was he? 
 
 "He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know, 
 At first sight, if the bird be flown; 
 But what fair field or grove he sings in now, 
 That is to him unknown." 
 
 could there be a doubt where he was gone ? No — no. 
 
 "There, in the twilight cold and grey, 
 Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
 And from the sky serene and far, 
 A voice fell like a falling star — 
 
 Excelsior! With Jesus!" 
 
 There is somewhere an oriental apologue, that a gardener 
 was entrusted by his Lord with the cultivation among others 
 of one flower of remarkable beauty and value, which he 
 watched with special affection and unwearying care. One 
 morning he missed it in his walk, and was deeply grieved. 
 He was told the owner had taken it; and he was silent. 
 
 Did time permit, I would speak of those young friends 
 who so kindly and faithfully ministered to his wants through 
 a lingering illness. You did well. You shall not lose your 
 reward. " With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured 
 to you again." When your season of suffering comes, and 
 the hands which held the sinking head and wet the fevered 
 lips of this dying child of God, are cold and nerveless in 
 
25 
 
 approaching death, Jesus will gather around you those who 
 will attend you with equal faithfulness. ''Whosoever shall 
 give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold 
 water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, 
 he shall in no wise lose his reward." Matt. x. 41. 
 
 My young friends, can I say anything that will add to 
 the appeal which this touching dispensation makes to you 
 as sinners needing repentance? There are times when it 
 seems the part of wisdom to pause in silence and hearken 
 to the voice of God. I can add nothing to the impressive- 
 ness of the tones here spoken to your hearts. What more 
 can be done for bringing you to repentance? To the warn- 
 ings and invitations of anxious instructors, and prayerful 
 fathers, and loving mothers, He who wills not that any 
 should perish, has added this last appeal. " Remember now 
 thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days 
 come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I 
 have no pleasure in them." Eccl. xii. 1. 
 
TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT. 
 
 At a meeting of the Washington Literary Society, on Tuesday, 
 September 8, 1854, the following preamble and resolutions were 
 unanimously adopted : 
 
 Whereas, In the inscrutable dispensations of his providence, Al- 
 mighty God has been pleased to remove from among us our beloved 
 fellow member, Edward A. Wharton, of Huntingdon, Pa., there- 
 fore, 
 
 Resolved, That in his death the Washington Literary Society has 
 lost one of its most valuable members, whose pride it was to maintain 
 her interests and preserve her good name; truth a steadfast defender; 
 justice an advocate; honour a guardian; friendship an ornament; 
 filial piety and fraternal love one of their most exemplary representa- 
 tives. 
 
 Resolved, That from our connection with him as fellow members of 
 the same Society, classmates and companions, during the last two and 
 a half years, we have witnessed that his life was one of exalted princi- 
 ple: with "wisdom, friendship, and virtue," for his motto, he took 
 for his guide the truth of the gospel: confiding in Him to whose 
 mercy he trusted, and at whose altar he had registered his vows, he 
 endured a tedious illness with Christian patience, with pious thank- 
 fulness for the attentions of kind and sympathizing friends, and with 
 calm submission to the will of Him who doeth all things well. 
 
 Resolved, That we tender our expressions of deep condolence to the 
 bereaved father and brother, and other surviving friends; and cherish 
 a melancholy satisfaction in sympathizing with them in their irrepara- 
 ble loss. 
 
 Resolved, That copies of these resolutions be transmitted to the 
 friends of the deceased, and be published in the Presbyterian, Pres- 
 byterian Banner, and in the papers of Ikston and Huntingdon. 
 
 H. D. T. Kerr, ^ 
 Vv r M. M. Allison, V Committee. 
 John M. Sullivan, J 
 
TRIBUTE OF RESPECT. 
 
 At a meeting of the students of Lafayette College, held September 
 9th, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted : 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased an All-wise Providence to remove from 
 our midst an esteemed friend and fellow student, Edward A. Whar- 
 ton, therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That by his removal we have sustained the loss of one, 
 who by his generous and honourable bearing, gentlemanly demeanour, 
 friendly conduct, virtuous habits, and amiable disposition, had en- 
 deared himself to us all as a classmate and companion. 
 
 Resolved, That from our association with the deceased during his 
 connection with College, we feel a saddened pleasure in thus being 
 able to tender our sympathies and condolence to the family and 
 friends in this their melancholy bereavement. 
 
 Resolved, That the dispensation which has struck down so unex- 
 pectedly one who was in the enjoyment of robust health, and gave 
 promise of a vigorous and noble manhood, calls on us to feel the 
 extreme uncertainty of life, and in the days of youthful hope, to 
 remember the Creator and Redeemer to whom he had consecrated 
 himself in earlier years. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the bereaved 
 family and friends, and that they be forwarded for publication in the 
 Huntingdon and Easton papers, Presbyterian, and Banner. 
 
 Wm. M. Allison, Chairman. 
 
 C. M. Andrews, 
 
 R. P. Allen, 
 
 Wm. Chandler, y Committee. 
 
 H. D. T. Kerr, 
 
 J. M. Salmon, 
 
 / 
 
$o my M$ttv'$ {gtatfctrltjtf tflulrtvcn: 
 
 "There thou shalt walk in soft, white light, 
 With kings and priests abroad ; 
 And thou shalt summer high in bliss, 
 Upon the hills of God." 
 
 Pied, on Saturday, June fith, 1S68, at Easton, Pa., Mrs. 
 Clara A. Shadwell, wife of Mr. S. Leigh Rodenbougb, aged 
 thirty-seven years. The deceased was born in Manchester, 
 England. She was one of nine daughters of the late Geo. 
 Shadwell, Esq., and received her education at the seminary 
 of Mrs. Thompson, at Bowden, Cheshire, where she remained 
 until the family came to the United States. A guardian 
 Providence, taking her by the hand in early womanhood, led 
 her by a way she knew not, to find in this land of strangers 
 a wide circle of loving friends, a happy home, a devoted hus- 
 band, a redeeming Saviour, and a pathway of sanctified suf- 
 fering, which lead to heaven through an early grave. With 
 one of the best physical constitutions that ever falls to the 
 lot of even an English woman, she seemed in youth to give 
 the best hopes of long life ; but He who had chosen her as 
 His peculiar treasure, in winning her from the world to Him- 
 self, touched her perfect health with incipient blight about 
 the time when the Holy Spirit began to develop in her soul 
 the germ of an Eternal life. In drawing her to Himself, the 
 Redeemer seemed to sa}-, "I have chosen thee in the fur- 
 nace of affliction." — Isa. xlviii. 10. 
 
 Though piously educated, and with a heart tenderly affected 
 towards religion at times from early youth, the impression 
 which led her to consecrate herself to Jesus, was made while 
 listening to an address to the impenitent on a sacramental 
 occasion by the Ilev. Dr. McPhail. She had seen more than 
 enough of the emptiness and folly of the world. She resolved 
 to follow henceforth her redeeming Lord; and she received 
 evidence of discipleship and of His tender love, in being 
 constrained by Him to go forth in His footsteps bearing a 
 heavy cross. Crucifixion to the world is at best a painful 
 process. In her case it was attended with years of keen, 
 often of agonizing, suffering, increasing in intenseness to the 
 last. During a long experience in the pastoral office, the 
 writer never witnessed a case of affliction more clearly sane- 
 
tided, of suffering more protracted and intense, borne with 
 a more quiet, uncomplaining submission to the will of Him 
 who loves whom He chastens. 
 
 To those whose intimate relations enabled them to watch 
 the progress of her hidden life, the development of her spi- 
 ritual growth was interesting, beautiful, and attractive. 
 There was much to bind her to earth. One by one those 
 ties were loosened by the power of love to Jesus ; until at 
 last that deepest of agonies the yearning of the mother's 
 heart in separating from her children, was hushed into quiet- 
 ness by the power of confidence in her beloved Lord. Like 
 the Captain of our salvation, on whom her anxious, trusting 
 eye did so calmly rest, she "was made perfect through suffer- 
 ings." Her growth in grace was manifested not in the ani- 
 mation of a soul mounting up with the brightness of the 
 eagle's eye and the vigor of the eagle's wing ; but in sitting 
 at the feet of Jesus, like Mary, in humble docility and sub- 
 mission, and in growing in "the meekness and gentleness of 
 Christ," while receiving "the ornament of a meek and quiet 
 spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price." 
 
 During the many months of her constant suffering, the 
 groans of her agonizing spirit were frequently heard; a mur- 
 mur never fell from her rips. At such times, in reply to the 
 words, "He doth not afflict willingly," she would saA*, "Oh no, 
 no. My cross is very heav} r ; but it is needful for me. Oh 
 how much lighter than I deserve. Jesus, give me strength 
 to bear it." That beautiful poetry, "The Changed Cross," 
 was specially genial to her heart. She read, and reread it ; 
 and kept the little volume under her pillow. It was found 
 under her pillow after her death. The last two verses ex- 
 pressed her patient acquiescence in the divine will: — • 
 
 "And as I bent, my burden to sustain, 
 I recognized my own old cross again. 
 But oh ! how different did it seem to be 
 Now I had learned its precionsness to see ! 
 No longer could I unbelieving say, 
 Perhaps another is a better way. 
 Ah no ! henceforth my own desire shall be, 
 That He who knows me best shall choose for me ; 
 And so, whate'er his love sees good to send 
 I '11 trust it 's best, because He knows the end." 
 
 jSIearlj- four months before her death, after a paroxysm of 
 agony which those around her supposed was death, she said 
 
that in the midst of the struggle she felt as though, had she 
 been able, she would have found relief for her feelings in 
 singing the words — 
 
 "Why should I shrink at pain or woe ; 
 Or feel at death dismay ? 
 I've Canaan's goodly land in view, 
 And realms of endless day." 
 
 And it was not a little touching to hear her in the evening 
 of the same terrible day, sing those words of submission and 
 triumphant hope. Seldom has there fallen to the lot of wo- 
 man a voice more sweetly musical than hers; and often during 
 the last months of her earthly sojourn, has the heart been 
 touched and tears brought to the eye by hearing from her 
 room of suffering that plaintive voice, more beautifully mu- 
 sical through sorrow, giving utterance to her love, and trust, 
 and hope, in singing such hymns as "Nearer, my God, to 
 Thee," "One sweetly solemn thought," "Guide me, O thou 
 great Jehovah," " How firm a foundation, ye saints of the 
 Lord." On the Sabbath before her death she sat, for the first 
 time in many months, at dinner with her family; and on 
 retiring she was led into the parlor, and, seated at the piano 
 for the last time, played and sung with her children, " Shall 
 we gather at the river?" while some present were thinking 
 that even then her feet were feeling the chill of that sullen 
 river's cold plashing waves. Her duties as a woman, a wife, 
 and a mother were tenderly and faithfully discharged. Her 
 children were kept steadily under a discipline gentle, affec- 
 tionate, and firm, which formed the habit of obedience with- 
 out gainsaying, yet drew them to her with a confidential love 
 seldom ecpialled between mother and child. During even con- 
 finement to her bed, her children were gathered morning af- 
 ter morning by her bedside, that she might read with them 
 the Scriptures, and pray with them. On one occasion, when 
 they were thus gathered, the mother, exhausted with debility 
 and previous pain, fell asleep with the open Bible before her, 
 while the children presented a touching sight, as sitting in 
 silence for her to awake and lead their little worship, from 
 whose affection and teachings they were so soon to be severed 
 by death. 
 
 This discipline of suffering had, through sanctif3dng grace, 
 prepared her to triumph in the last conflict. During four and 
 twenty hours before death, her suffering was extreme; but 
 
reason Avas unclouded and faith triumphant to the last. Not 
 long- before her dissolution, she was asked if she still felt 
 Jesus precious ; she replied, "Oh yes, precious — precious. He 
 is my only trust ; His blood cleanses from all sin. I am go- 
 ing home. Jesus is with me." Again she said, "All 's well ; 
 all 's well." Then she repeated, " Yea, though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil : for 
 Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." 
 Again, "All 's peace — peace — peace. I am passing through 
 the dark valley; but it is not dark. It is light — light; Jesus 
 is with me." One present then said, "I see nothing here but 
 victory. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." She then raised both hands and 
 said, "Victory! Victory!" 
 
 Her children were brought in ; and with a calmness which 
 showed she was the most unmoved of all the weeping com- 
 pan} 7 around her, she addressed to each of them a word of 
 counsel; pointed them to Jesus; and with a mother's bless- 
 ing, bade them a last adieu. After this, while lying calm and 
 composed, her eyes were noticed to open wide and brighten 
 up, while a smile gathered on her countenance as though she 
 was gazing with delight on some new and unusual appear- 
 ance. Some who witnessed this, looked on with holy trepi- 
 dation and reverence, thinking, Is she too catching a glimpse 
 of those shining ones who are ministering spirits to the heirs 
 of salvation, and have come to cany her, like one of old, to 
 the bosom of Jesus ? 
 
 And thus she died. The grave was despoiled of its terrors; 
 death of its sting. The friends who had been permitted to 
 watch for months and years the progress of her bodil}- decay 
 and the development of her spiritual life, while they kneeled 
 around the fallen walls of the earthly tenement from which 
 the spirit had gone amid its escort of angels to glory, could 
 not do otherwise than pour out their hearts in thankful love 
 to Him whose redeeming grace had given her the victory ; 
 and had given the stricken and weeping ones yet lingering 
 on earth, such grounds for feeling through all future loneli- 
 ness and tears, that "The memory of the just is blessed;" 
 and that "after she had patiently endured, she obtained the 
 promise," fulfilled in all its glory by her redeeming Lord, 
 "They shall walk with me in white; for the}' are worthy." 
 
BURROWES' COMMENTARY 
 
 SONG OF SOLOMON 
 
 "It is little to say that it is the best commentary on 'The 
 Song : it is one of the best commentaries on an Old Testament 
 book which it has ever been my happiness to peruse. For I 
 have seldom found one which so delightfully combiues scholar- 
 ship and sound judgment with the devotional spirit, or one in 
 which the results of much reading are so gracefully interwoven 
 with the author's independent thinking. The book is espe- 
 cially valuable as a specimen of a kind of commentary much 
 wanted in the present day — bringing out, as it does, the poeti- 
 cal charms of the inspired writer, and so commending the 
 study to men of literary tastes. Almost the very day that I 
 received your volume, a gentleman consulted me about a friend 
 of his who had been sceptical, but who had now got the length 
 of believing in the Bible as a divine revelation generally, but 
 who still stumbled at the Song of Solomon. I advised him to 
 go at once and get your book, which he said he would. I 
 do not know that I shall ever hear the result, but I suspect 
 there are not a few to whom, in the same way, this work will 
 be a word in season." — Rev. James Hamilton, D.D., Regent's 
 Square, London, Author of " Life in Earnest, 7 ' fyc. 
 
 '•The cdmmenlary of Professor Burrowes on the Song of 
 Solomon is a gift to the Christian community of eminent value. 
 
2 
 
 and contains the rich results of a long-continued investigation 
 of this remarkable portion of the Scriptures. Without en- , 
 cumbering the work with a parade of learning, he has, never- 
 theless, succeeded in presenting all the valuable points of ripe 
 scholarship as well as of a devout study of the Word of God. 
 The purity of taste and varied learning of the eminent author 
 are conspicuous alike in the body of the work and in the ad- 
 mirable selection of matter presented in the notes. The reader, 
 guided by such an expounder of the Scriptures, will continu- 
 ally find new beauties in the Song; and will, above all.be 
 greatly edified, and taught to value the privileges of the true 
 believer, by the practical observations found on every page. 
 This mode of explaining and applying the various portions of 
 the Song really shows it to be what he terms it in the intro- 
 duction, 'the Manual of the Advanced Christian.' The work 
 is worthy of the highest commendation." — Rev. C. F. Schaeffer, 
 D. V., Professor in the Lutheran Theological Seminary, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 " I am delighted with your commentary on several accounts. 
 It nourishes both the intellect and the heart. When I wish 
 to get very near to my Saviour, and have my love to Him 
 kindled up afresh or fanned into a flame, I can get on my 
 knees in private with your precious volume before me, and feel 
 greatly aided in effecting this end. You must yourself have 
 derived great spiritual benefit in writing this work, obliged as 
 you were to think and speak so much of the Beloved." — Rev. 
 J. M. Olmstead, Author of " Noah and his Times," §-c\ 
 
 " You have executed a very difficult and delicate task with 
 skill and judgment. I think the book will serve to bring that 
 portion of the Word of God more into the course of practical 
 readiug of pious people, and enable them to enter into its 
 spirit. There is doubtless a great falling off in the devotional 
 exercises of Christians of our day, as compared with those of 
 some other periods of the church. We have so many socie- 
 ties and so much outdoor life, that the work of the closet, 
 
and communion with God, and devout pondering of His Word, 
 are often sadly neglected. Your work is adapted to counter- 
 act this evil ; and I hope you will have the satisfaction of find- 
 ing that it has ministered to the greater spirituality of the 
 church." — Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D., Princeton. 
 
 " This is the most readable and satisfactory commentary 
 on the Canticles we have ever seen. The work contains a 
 copious introduction, a new and elegant translation, an analy- 
 sis of the Song, and a rich and lucid commentary, maintaining 
 in an eminent degree the pure evangelical spirit of the book. 
 The author, in this work, has done a great service to the 
 church, in rendering more instructive and attractive a very 
 precious portion of God's word, which has been but too little 
 read and appreciated by the general reader of the Bible. He 
 has made a most valuable contribution to Biblical literature, 
 and produced a work which will be read with pleasure and 
 profit by coming generations." — The Presbyter, Cincinnati, 
 Ohio. 
 
 " An attractive work externally, and internally, and intrin- 
 sically. With this author for our guide, the Song of Solomon 
 becomes one of the most spiritual and edifying books of the 
 whole inspired canon." — The Congregational Herald. 
 
 " The author of this volume has rendered the cause of re- 
 ligion and the Christian world important service. The volume 
 all through breathes the spirit of no ordinary piety. While 
 it is learned and critical, it at the same time glows with devo- 
 tion to ' the Lord of life and glory.' We have not of late met 
 with a book in which we have been so much interested." — The 
 Christian Times. 
 
 "This book of Dr. Burrowes is the most satisfactory exposi- 
 tion and elucidation of the Song we have ever seen. He finds 
 in it the highest and best of spiritual truth, nor are his reasons 
 far-fetched or unnatural. The introduction alone, jn which he 
 
shows the progressivencss of the Christian's ability to under- 
 stand the Holy Scriptures, and adduces this as ever new and 
 •ever growing evidence of the truth of the Bible, is worth 
 more than the price of the book. We advise ministers to 
 study the Song of Solomon in the light of this exposition." — 
 Zion's Herald. 
 
 "The loftier the reader's views are of Christ, the deeper his 
 insight into the work of redemption, the more exalted, full, and 
 joy-inspiring his appreciation of the beauty and bliss of that 
 conformity to Christ and enjoyment of his favor to which the 
 ransomed are to be advanced at their resurrection and admis- 
 sion to his eternal kingdom, the greater will be the ease with 
 which he will enter into the teachings and spirit of this vol- 
 ume, and the higher the satisfaction he will derive from it." — 
 Lord's Theological and Literary Review. 
 
IMPRESSIONS 
 
 DE. WADSWORTH 
 
 A PREACHER. 
 
 ^l CLERGYMAN 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 TOWNE & BACON, EXCELSIOR PRINTING OFFICE 
 1863. 
 
<^">2-— 
 
 JL- /I'd? * f^^f H^ /%>■ 9l7^d<l llr-flnjhi cCu^Ji 
 COvdli Ih^. fyt. py^C- fcr-Cu, 0ui/}- ■&Y-C-t&*?0<?Ky i^0U* - 
 
 
 J 
 
IMPRESS 
 
 occ. sep mo 
 
 THEOLQGN 
 
 
 DE. WADSWOKTH 
 
 A PREACHER. 
 
 A CLERGYMAN" 
 
 (ASiA/d-zsi^J t 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 TOWNE & BACON, PRINTERS 
 
 1863. 
 
DR. WADSWORTII AS A PREACHER, 
 
 The labors of Dr. Wacls worth on the Pacific Coast 
 have been attended with all the encouragement that 
 could be desired by his friends. His church is crowded. 
 Many persons are known to look forward with great 
 pleasure during the business of the week, to the coming 
 of the Sabbath, that they may again have the happiness 
 of sitting under his preaching. A man of business and 
 means, has come down regularly on Saturday afternoon 
 in the steamer from a place one hundred and twenty 
 miles distant, for no other purpose than to attend his 
 church ; and he says that such are the pleasure and 
 benefit thus derived, he will gladly continue to do this, 
 unless able to arrange his business and make San Fran- 
 cisco his home. 
 
 Those only who hear Dr. Wadsworth continuously, 
 can have any just idea of his power as a preacher. His 
 excellence grows on you by acquaintance. Forming, as 
 is natural, an idea of his preaching from his reputation, 
 persons who have never heard him, do not always find 
 
him, on the first impression, the kind of preacher they 
 had expected. Works and things bearing the impress 
 of genius, whether in poetry, architecture, or painting, 
 disappoint us on first observation. Time is needed for 
 disclosing their depth of idea and elaboration of finish. 
 We are disappointed ; and our first impulse is to sup- 
 pose they do not harmonize with our anticipations 
 because falling below our level ; the true reason is 
 found in their rising above our standard. The same is 
 true of a mind of elevated piety and genius in the pul- 
 pit. Strangers are consequently sometimes disappointed 
 on a first casual hearing of Dr. Wadsworth. As time 
 rolls by, the constant hearer loses sight of any thing at 
 first viewed as a peculiarity, and marvels at the man- 
 ner in which he brings from his treasure things new 
 and old. 
 
 The prominent and most striking feature, is the tone 
 of deep, earnest, simple-hearted piety that pervades all 
 his ministrations. You cannot avoid the feeling, that 
 he has begun his theological education by studying 
 experimentally, at the feet of Jesus, under the teaching 
 of the Holy Spirit, the truth, " Whosoever shall not 
 receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no 
 wise enter therein." — Luke 18 : 17. Those who have 
 come expecting to meet literary splendor first and 
 prominent, are disappointed by encountering on the 
 threshold the simplicity and unction of the spirit of 
 Jesus. They are ready to turn away disappointed, as 
 this is not what they anticipated ; yet in the unexpected 
 
 
simplicity of this beauty, they find their attention 
 arrested ; and as they pause and gaze, they feel their 
 incipient interest deepening into admiration. They find 
 themselves listening not to a dreamer who is weaving 
 poetical fancies, abstract metaphysical lucubrations spun 
 from material drawn from God's word, into a drapery of 
 vanity for adorning himself with its folds, but to the 
 voice of the Spirit dwelling in the shrine of this spiritual 
 temple and making the preacher " speak as the oracles 
 of God." You feel that behind all he says there must 
 be lying years of conflict and agony, of trials and sor- 
 rows, of deep gloom and despondency, of strong cries 
 and tears, of heavenly fellowship and confidential friend- 
 ship with God, of transforming views of the glory of 
 Christ and homesickness to be away with Jesus : All 
 this blended with deep study and meditation on the 
 Scriptures, and assimilated by the fires of the Holy 
 Spirit into a homogeneous mass with the living truth 
 gathered from the word of God, finds utterance through 
 the molding control of a brilliant, original, powerful 
 mind, of a soul whose lips have been touched with a 
 coal from Isaiah's hallowed fire. Literature with its 
 riches and culture is laid under heavy requisition, yet 
 kept in the proper place, as the servant of the sanctuary 
 — not as the divinity enthroned in its shrine. The orna- 
 ments of his style, are not a painted rhetorical confec- 
 tionery hanging like the appendages to a Christmas- 
 tree, but the spring blossoms and autumn fruits cluster- 
 ing on a tree planted by the waters of life. 
 
6 
 
 No preacher shows a deeper, more tender love for the 
 Lord Jesus. In fullness and tenderness it is remarka- 
 ble, " passing the love of women." This affection for the 
 Redeemer gives a tinge to his whole style, and a tone to 
 all his utterances. The intonations of his voice have a 
 musical plaintiveness in harmony with the feelings of 
 his heart. His prayers are remarkable. They are the 
 natural outpouring of these blended emotions, truths, 
 experiences, spiritual conflicts, and love to Jesus, gath- 
 ered in his deepest soul. As a consequence, they are 
 intensely devotional, going with subduing power to the 
 heart, and melting down the feelings of the audience 
 into a readiness for receiving the mingled instruction 
 and pathos that follow. Brilliant as are his sermons in 
 thought and language, they have in greater degree this 
 unction of deep, tender, humble-hearted love to Jesus. 
 They are golden urns filled with the sacred "beaten 
 oil" of the sanctuary. They are like the golden vessels 
 of the temple — not, as is too often the case, filled with 
 the sparkling but intoxicating distillations at Belshaz- 
 zar's feast — but filled to the brim, by the word of Him 
 who was present at Cana of Galilee, with that love 
 which is better than wine, and with that grace which is 
 the fruit of the Spirit. While from his discourses, bril- 
 liant thoughts fly off in all directions, like the scintilla- 
 tions from the red-hot iron when struck on the anvil ; 
 like those scintillations too, these thoughts are ablaze 
 with the baptism of heavenly fire. When the hostile 
 forces before Troy, as represented by Homer, stood gaz- 
 
 
ing in wonder at the falling star which came clown from 
 heaven at mid-day with a trail of sparkling brilliancy, 
 the great beauty of the blazing meteor was not so much 
 in the attractive light, as in the goddess around whose 
 presence was thrown the drapery of that light; those 
 who saw only the falling star, felt it beautiful ; those 
 who saw the divine messenger, the embodiment of heav- 
 enly wisdom, within that star, saw a deeper beauty, and 
 felt a deeper joy. Thus, while these discourses pass 
 before the fixed gaze of the soul, luminous with the 
 splendor of brilliant thoughts and literary beauty, the 
 penetrating eye of the believing heart feels their greater 
 attractiveness is in the divine presence which this bril- 
 liancy embodies, the glowing manifestation there made 
 of a living and glorified Redeemer. Brilliant thoughts 
 are tesselated in his sermons, like the precious stones 
 in the attire of the high priest ; yet like the urim and 
 thummim among the stones of the breast-plate — the 
 light, and love, and presence of Jesus, throw over all 
 a brilliancy from heaven. 
 
 Stronger than every other attraction, is the unction 
 with which he preaches Jesus. His sermons are redo- 
 lent with the fragrance of that name which is as oint- 
 ment poured forth. They are full of Jesus and of 
 heaven. They are exuberant in distillations of richer 
 than (lilead's balm, from Him who binds up the broken- 
 hearted, and comforts those who mourn. The sorrowing 
 here find sympathy from contact with the truth of a 
 sympathizing Saviour. He preaches consolation like a 
 
man who knows how to succor others, because he has 
 himself been compassed with suffering. His pathos 
 goes to the very core of the heart. The feelings are 
 gently, unconsciously raised to a degree where the ten- 
 sion, however delightful, often becomes painful ; and the 
 spell on the heart breaks in a luxury of tears. No man 
 has greater power in so soothing the wounded heart and 
 presenting the attractiveness of heaven blended with 
 the glory of Jesus as to make the sinking spirit feel 
 resigned under its heaviest burden, and look up with 
 more than gladness from amid earthly toil and anguish, 
 to the peacefulness of its final rest. Coming from the 
 lips of one who has been made to " ride on the high 
 places of the earth and drink the pure blood of the 
 grape " beyond Jordan, his sermons are powerful in loos- 
 ening the heart from earth, and in turning it with the 
 eye of a home-sick soul, to its rest on the unseen hills 
 with Jesus. The spirit yearns for the wings of immor- 
 tality, as he portrays the attractiveness of heaven, and 
 makes us feel, 
 
 " There thou shalt walk in soft bright light, with kings and priests abroad, 
 And thou shalt summer high in bliss, upon the hills of God." 
 
 With all his sympathy with sorrow, there is mingled 
 the brightness of joy and hope. He turns toward the 
 wretched the bright side of the cloud. In all his minis- 
 trations, he keeps blazing in the front the principle that 
 concerning Jesus — 
 
 " There should not be a shadow of gloom 
 In aught that reminds us of Thee." 
 
9 
 
 He makes religion synonymous with cheerfulness and 
 consolation. Those who come to church only to gratify 
 a literary taste, to gaze merely on the polished stones 
 and carved work of the sanctuary, will find abundant 
 beauties for their gratification. Those that come with 
 the feelings of the Greeks to the temple, who said to 
 Philip, " Sir, we would see Jesus," (John 12 : 21,) will 
 find themselves " abundantly satisfied with the fatness 
 of God's house and be made to drink of the river of his 
 pleasures." He loads the altar at which he ministers, 
 not with chaplets and wild flowers gathered in Delphian 
 vales and groves of Academus, but with clusters gath- 
 ered in a richer than Eshcol, and with fruits from that 
 tree which is for the healing of the nations. 
 
 As might be expected, this could not be done without 
 giving the marrow of the Gospel. By the words " mar- 
 row of modern divinity," some persons seem to under- 
 stand something different from the living principle of 
 the Gospel fresh from its original springs. From the 
 peculiar constitution of their minds" and the character of 
 their religion, coldly intellectual, with barely emotion 
 enough to give any symptom of life, they crave an 
 exhibition of Scripture which is set up in the cold form 
 of a metaphysical skeleton, where the truth can be 
 scanned as an exercise in logic or polemics, and the 
 whole religious duty of man becomes a calm mental 
 exercise, without trenching on the feelings and without 
 going beyond the mere moralities of the world. By 
 " the marrow of divinity " such persons seem to under- 
 
10 
 
 stand the dry bones of divinity unbroken — the truth 
 set up in a shape that puts it beyond the power of the 
 hungry to get therefrom any nutriment. Such is the 
 character of many a so-called doctrinal sermon — cold, 
 hard, unattractive, repulsive, indigestible, incomestible. 
 If by " the marrow of modern divinity " is meant, as 
 some persons seem to mean, the dry bones of " Original 
 Sin," " Decrees," and kindred topics, set before a congre- 
 gation in such a way that they can only try the teeth 
 of their formality and orthodoxy on them, like a clog 
 gnawing a bone, and without getting from them any 
 more nourishment ; — then, those do not get it, who wait 
 on Dr. Wadsworth. But if breaking the dry bones of 
 Scripture texts and extracting from them the finest 
 marrow, the quintessence of heavenly truth, and setting 
 it before a people in such a way that their souls are 
 " satisfied with marrow and fatness ;" — if this is giving 
 the marrow of divinity, then does Dr. Wadsworth give 
 it to perfection. He excels in giving the marrow of the 
 Scriptures. Passages out of the way and unnoticed, 
 passages lying in the common track but passed neg- 
 lected as hard, dry, and containing apparently nothing, 
 he will gather up, and from them will extract delicious 
 nutriment for the soul hungering and thirsting for 
 righteousness. He finds the hidden manna in abundance 
 where others do not suspect even its existence. Where 
 other men would pass without casting even a glance at 
 portions of Scripture deemed useless and dead as the 
 body of the slain lion, he, like Samson, a turning aside 
 
11 
 
 to see the carcase," finds these dead ceremonies of an 
 abrogated dispensation and antiquated facts of a bygone 
 age, swarming with truths rich and living, from which 
 he brings forth to those who gather to these feasts of 
 the soul, that which is " sweet to the taste, sweeter than 
 honey and the honey-comb." He goes through the less 
 trodden and out-of-the-way portions of the Scriptures, 
 and with the instinct of genius guided by the inner light 
 of the Holy Spirit, gathers gems and gold by others 
 often passed unnoticed. Among the cliffs, and crags, 
 and ravines of revelation, he notices and touches, under 
 this same guidance, one and another jet of truth, which 
 like gas brought in contact with flame, while escaping in 
 the darkness, needed only to be touched by the fire of 
 love from a brilliant mind, to blaze " like a torch of fire 
 in a sheaf." 
 
 With a mind of high originality and an imagination 
 of great brilliancy, Dr. Wadsworth is free from every- 
 thing visionary and unreal. All is sobered by deep 
 penetration and sound common sense He possesses in 
 an eminent degree the power of seeing Scripture in its 
 relations to the circumstances and wants of those to 
 whom he ministers. Some persons will receive from a 
 hint an impulse that will give them a start and open 
 before them a whole domain of unnoticed truth, while 
 others will stumble over the same suggestion without 
 getting a single new idea. From meager data a high 
 mathematical intellect will evolve, by the aid of the cal- 
 culus, valuable and surprising results, while others will 
 
12 
 
 be at fault over a simple problem in algebra. The 
 superior mind shows its superiority in working out 
 important consequences from slender premises present- 
 ing to others only an impracticable puzzle. It is thus 
 in handling the Scriptures. They are germs for the 
 preacher to unfold according to the laws of the human 
 mind and of a sanctified holiness. A strong mind filled 
 with the Holy Spirit will evolve much from portions 
 which others will handle without any important practi- 
 cal results. Dr. Wadsworth sees with remarkable pene- 
 tration, not only what a passage was intended to teach 
 in its primary application to those who first heard it, 
 but what it was intended to teach us. He has the fac- 
 ulty of elaborating from the Scriptures their practical 
 element, as bearing on pjresent things. He is eminently 
 a practical preacher. He does not give long skeleton- 
 sermons, as dry as " Ridgley's Divinity," with what is 
 called "a practical application" at the end, as if the doc- 
 trinal and the practical were to be kept asunder, 
 although the great Author of truth and duty forbid such 
 a divorce, when he at first published between them the 
 bans. A striking feature of his sermons is the manner 
 in which he blends the doctrinal and practical, causing 
 doctrine, when not visible in its naked form, to furnish 
 the bone and muscle of the discourses which he sets 
 before us in the freshness of the flesh and beauty of 
 practical life. In reading Shakspeare you do not see 
 the naked frame of a system of metaphysics ; }-et was 
 Shakspeare the greatest of metaphysicians. He gives 
 
13 
 
 us these profound abstractions in the guise of living 
 things. And thus Christian doctrine stands before us in 
 these discourses, embodied in practical duties, and in the 
 attractive beauty of real life. Truth is presented not in 
 an abstract, hard, indigestible shape, which the heart 
 cannot assimilate; in theological essays deep and "clear, 
 but how cold ;" — we receive " the pure milk, the pure 
 cream, of the word." Even in his sermons professedly 
 doctrinal, we find this singular and peculiar charm. 
 When leaving the church after having heard discourses 
 on the abstract points of our faith, persons familiar from 
 childhood with the instructions of the best pulpits in 
 the large cities of the East, have remarked that such 
 topics, when heretofore treated, had always been set 
 forth in so dry and unattractive a manner as to seem 
 incapable of being invested with the beauty and interest 
 thrown around them by Dr. Wadsworth. His state- 
 ments of doctrine are discriminating and clear; and 
 casting aside arguments weak or used merely to show 
 the writer's acuteness, he selects the few fitted to strike 
 the minds and hearts of his own audience, and drives 
 them home with the effectiveness of " nails fastened in 
 a sure place." His doctrinal sermons are not metaphys- 
 ical intangibilities fitted for the theological tomes or the 
 polemical congregations of two hundred years ago, but 
 living nourishment adapted to the existing state of 
 things among the flock of his own fold. 
 
 No preaching can be popular without being practical. 
 His preaching is eminently practical. It shows great 
 
14 
 
 shrewdness and penetration into the heart and into the 
 motives operating in daily life. It owes not its interest 
 to startling novelties ; it does not draw its power from 
 oratorical elocution. It is not rhetorical ; it is not flow- 
 ery ; it is not metaphysical. It is not addressed to 
 some particular fancy or idiosyncrasy of the day. You 
 cannot detect in him any shade of resemblance to the 
 features of the family of sensation-preachers. He has 
 nothing in common with them. The very appearance 
 of the man in the pulpit shows his abhorrence of clap- 
 trap and cant. You see that self is left in the back- 
 ground. His case is a fulfillment of the promise, " He 
 that shall humble himself, shall be exalted." — Matt. 
 23 : 12. He shrinks from public notoriety, public 
 demonstrations, and public applause. He possesses 
 eminently, so much so that it is a deficiency in his char- 
 acter, the very unusual disposition to undervalue himself 
 and his productions. He cannot understand how he 
 could ever be viewed as a preacher of mark and power. 
 The crowds that have ever hung around his ministry, 
 are to him alone a mystery. After sermons under which 
 all hearts in a crowded congregation are melted down, 
 and recover from their breathless and even painful 
 attention with admiration and tears, he alone will sit 
 down overcome with a sense of failure and of little 
 worth in so magnificent an effort. Nor is this feeling of 
 personal shortcoming and unworthiness a mere pretense, 
 a maneuver for drawing forth expressions of admiration. 
 It is a deep, honest conviction, resulting from a consti- 
 
15 
 
 tutional peculiarity that can never be removed. A 
 humility so unfeigned, allied with so much greatness, 
 and mellowed, no less than deepened, by divine grace, 
 throws a great charm around the character, and gives 
 an attractiveness seldom met in such a world. 
 
 Thus ignoring self and feeling his dependence on 
 God, he seems to make it his aim to discard everything 
 likely to interfere with his doing good to the souls of 
 his hearers. He weaves no chaplets of flowers around 
 the sword of the Spirit. Not a superfluous rhetorical 
 ornament can be found in his discourses. He does not, 
 while the children are asking for bread, give them a 
 stone. He strives to do good to the whole soul of man 
 as a sinner in danger of perishing. I have never heard 
 more direct, more pungent, more powerful appeals than 
 some of his, to the impenitent. He presents the truth 
 so as to interest and benefit the weakest, while he 
 instructs and makes the strongest marvel. The hum- 
 blest Christian, with hands hardened and cheek furrowed 
 by toil, may be seen side by side with the man of pro- 
 fessional culture and wealthy ease, both listening with 
 equal interest and both equally bathed in tears. His 
 argumentation is peculiar, close, compact, and strong; 
 not with a long concatenation of ideas wearying the 
 mind to keep in hand the whole train of thought from 
 first to last, but with a powerful condensation, till it 
 glows like a diamond, and is grasped as easily as our 
 vision grasps a star, — so comprehensive as to satisfy the 
 mind of widest grasp, and so compact as to be received 
 
16 
 
 by the humble intellect without an effort. Some of his 
 statements of controverted points are, in the compass of 
 a single sentence, more convincing than many a labored 
 argument. Such is the condensation that you have not 
 time to cavil and sift the premises, before your judg- 
 ment is forced, much as in the case of self-evident 
 truths, to admit the conclusion. It presents a remarka- 
 ble combination of simplicity, condensation, clearness, 
 and strength. Even when — 
 
 " In thoughts more elevate, he reasons high 
 Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate," 
 
 you are not " in wandering mazes lost ;" but can always 
 — which cannot often be said on this subject — carry 
 away something satisfactory and clear. 
 
 Allied with this, is a polished wit and effective sar- 
 casm. Never have we seen these things used with such 
 propriety in the pulpit. In these things, Addison was 
 not more polished, nor in better taste. The most rigid 
 decorum and the most sensitive piety, so far from find- 
 ing anything to condemn, must cheerfully say that Dr. 
 Wadsworth employs these weapons wisely and effec- 
 tively on the side of religion, in the house of God. They 
 are delicate and dangerous things, seldom to be trusted 
 in the hands of human frailty at the sacred altar. He 
 uses them only at intervals, but with such propriety and 
 sweeping power, that their appearance is hailed with 
 delight by the meekest and most devout spirit. Objec- 
 tions to the Scriptures, which have seemed strong, and 
 
17 
 
 around which some men would go again and again in 
 labored argument, his wit demolishes at a blow. His 
 sarcasm, delicate and subtle, with the finest edge of 
 irony and in the best taste, is withering and overpower- 
 ing. Like lightning from a clear sky, when least ex- 
 pected there is a flash and a smash ; and nothing remains 
 but the ashes of the empty structure infidelity had so 
 proudly reared. The counter-blow is so truly aimed 
 and so effective that you cannot repress a smile at the 
 pitiable plight of the foe who lies dismantled at his feet. 
 Sometimes, in passing, he makes a thrust at some of the 
 empty fooleries of the day which loom up in such 
 gigantic proportions, and they shrivel under the touch 
 of his sarcasm, like the colossal genius under the wand 
 of the magician in the oriental tale. His wit is truly a 
 polished shaft worthy of being laid up among the furni- 
 ture of the sanctuary and of being employed in its 
 defense. No armor in which infidelity encases itself, is 
 of such proof as to prevent these fiery arrows from 
 piercing " between the joints of the harness." 
 
 On hearing some persons speak of Dr. Wadsworth's 
 delivery, we have been reminded of the complaints 
 made by the dull martinets beaten by Bonaparte in 
 Italy, when they maintained that although the young 
 general uniformly defeated them with such overwhelm- 
 ing results, he should be stripped of his epaulettes 
 because his maneuvers were so totally contrary to the 
 old rules and their own expectations. They could not 
 understand how genius could reach such splendid results 
 2 
 
18 
 
 by means and modes not familiar to their own plodding 
 brains. Judged rigidly by the rules of elocution, his 
 delivery, like that of Demosthenes, may show points 
 where many a prosy speaker would be less faultless. 
 Yet we feel sorry for those who are ready to cavil at 
 anything in efforts where the general results are so 
 good and so grand. With us, the disposition to criticise 
 is lost in the impulse to admire and feel grateful. We 
 leave willingly to those who can stoop to it, the little- 
 ness of carping and caviling at unessential things, amid 
 so much that is great and good. They may, if they 
 choose, find fault with the diamond because there is a 
 trifling speck : we are more than willing to take it as it 
 is, with thankfulness for the great beauty and treasure 
 it contains. Whatever may be said of his action, it is 
 soon felt to be part and parcel of his thoughts and emo- 
 tions, the spontaneous outgushing of his deep feelings, 
 carrying with its intense earnestness and transparent 
 simplicity a touching power on the heart that no studied 
 precision, however faultless, could equal ; and which no 
 hearer who enjoys the luxury of the spell produced by 
 the speaker's blended peculiarities and endowments, 
 would wish to see meddled with or changed. We would 
 have nothing different, lest the magic spell be broken. 
 While persons whose mind would be startled in affright 
 at the apparition of an original idea, and could no more 
 control a strong conception than could Pha3ton control 
 the coursers of the sun, would spend their little strength 
 on little things incapable of producing even little results, 
 
19 
 
 he, with perfect ease, evokes deep thoughts and brilliant 
 ideas in the gorgeous drapery of an ideal world of his 
 own creation, and as powerfully as Prospero in " The 
 Tempest," controls them at his will. We care not how 
 the magician waves his wand, whether gracefully or 
 ungracefully, if he will but people the air around us 
 with this crowd of brilliant imaginings fresh from the 
 world of thought, and make them pass with all their 
 splendor and power in this whirlwind of feeling over 
 the soul. We have repeatedly seen a crowded audience 
 under the power of this peculiar eloquence, when to 
 them could be applied the words of the great magician 
 to those under his potent spell, in " The Tempest :" 
 
 " There stand, 
 For you are spell-stopped. 
 Mine eyes, even sociable to the shew of thine, 
 Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace, 
 And as the morning steals upon the night, 
 Melting the darkness, so their rising senses 
 Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle 
 Their clearer reason." 
 
 None but a great orator could produce on such congre- 
 gations, for years in succession, the effects so uniformly 
 produced by Dr. Wadsworth. Nor could the same 
 effects be produced even by his own burning words, 
 through any other delivery than his own. The attempt 
 to superinduce any other delivery on his thoughts and 
 style, would be as incongruous as covering the neck and 
 hands of Jacob with goat-skins — " the voice is the voice 
 of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." More- 
 over he does not take off the edge of his eloquent 
 
20 
 
 thoughts and appeals by dwelling too long on thein. 
 You never weary under a tedious elaboration. You are 
 not kept looking at the glass till the foam and sparkle 
 have gone, and the wine grows vapid. He fulfills the 
 requirements of the highest criticism — " Oratory, like 
 the drama, abhors lengthiness ; like the drama, it must 
 keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysi- 
 cal soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or 
 distract the effect which should be produced on the 
 audience, become blemishes." 
 
 His treatment of Scripture is, throughout, original 
 and exhaustive. A lawyer remarked that he had been 
 in the habit, when a text is announced, of forming some 
 idea in his mind, what might be the outline of the fol- 
 lowing discourse ; but that in reference to Dr. Wads- 
 worth's treatment, he was always far astray in his con- 
 jecture. Bold and original, brilliant and suggestive, not 
 only scattering original ideas with profusion, but throw- 
 ing around familiar ideas a drapery so new as to make 
 us often fail at first glance to recognize an old acquaint- 
 ance, — he is nevertheless free from what is erratic, erro- 
 neous, and startling. No coquetting with false philosophy, 
 no fool-hardy venturing on the precipices of error, no 
 vamping up of exploded follies for gaining a name for 
 originality and independence, unsettles your confidence 
 and enjoyment. The impression made by portions of 
 some of his sermons reminds you of a scene in winter, 
 when trees and shrubbery coated with icicles are bril- 
 liant from the morning sun ; or of a landscape in the 
 
21 
 
 colors thrown over it when viewed through a prism ; — 
 jet amid all this beauty, you recognize the headlands 
 and lineaments of the solid ground of Scripture truth 
 and real life. His imagination uses its resources only 
 for making the truth impressive and attractive. You 
 never find philosophical or theological errors smuggled 
 in under so much that is beautiful. You are not under 
 the painful necessity of picking off worms and creeping- 
 things from amid the leaves, and flowers, and fruit over- 
 filling the vase he places on your altar. He has cour- 
 age and sober sense enough to be evangelical, to hold 
 to the sound old truth, without regard to the fashiona- 
 ble sneers from " philosophy and vain deceit." The 
 unction from the Holy One has so sobered his soul, that 
 no effect is produced by the bewildering sorceries of 
 modern rationalism. He leaves to other minds the 
 ambition of rummaging in the labyrinths of a false phi- 
 losophy for the mummies of old errors of bygone ages, 
 and then parading them before the world as grand dis- 
 coveries of original truth. A fine imagination, led astray 
 by the ignis fattens of a false philosophy, without the 
 steadying power of true religion in the heart, will give 
 utterance to such things as come into the world in vol- 
 umes tinged with the transcendental rationalism of the 
 day ; a fine imagination, imbued with the influences of 
 the Holy Spirit, will produce such sentiments and such 
 instruction as crowd the discourses of Dr. Wadsworth. 
 So full is his mind of original suggestions, so numerous 
 are the fresh and unusual relations of sound Scripture 
 
22 
 
 truth disclosed to his meditative soul, that he can afford 
 to leave to weaker minds and less spiritual hearts the 
 folly of seeking the reputation of deep thinkers, by 
 bringing into the pulpit divine truth bedizened with 
 metaphysical speculations and far-fetched foolishness, in 
 grotesque and painful masquerade. He preaches Jesus 
 fully, as the doctrine of Jesus is embodied in the stand- 
 ards of his own Church. There is no slurring of any 
 doctrine because unpopular or unpalatable. The bold- 
 ness of thought and imagination, which would carry off 
 some minds with an eagle's flight into the regions of 
 speculation nnd error, is with him so sobered by true 
 godliness as to keep him steady in the old paths trod by 
 prophets and apostles. 
 
 He is particularly happy in expanding Scripture, in 
 catching the true meaning and carrying out what the 
 Holy Spirit would thereby indicate. He is eminently 
 suggestive. He gives as the result of his elaborations 
 not only new thoughts fully developed, but new ideas, 
 involving and suggesting trains of thought for us to fol- 
 low out in future hours. He has eminently the poetic 
 constitution of mind which is necessary for grasping and 
 unraveling the figurative language of Scripture, and 
 evolving the varied truths hid in the involutions of its 
 rich and beauteous folds. He seems the minister of a 
 better than the old Jewish sanctuary, opening before 
 you the vail of purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, 
 while shaking pearls and gems from its folds. The met- 
 aphors, the shadows, the figurative language of the 
 
23 
 
 Scriptures, appear in newness of life under the light he 
 gathers around them. As he opens up a passage, per- 
 haps a single clause only, from some historical narrative, 
 you wonder there is so much in it ; and so simple, yet 
 so suggestive does it seem, so clear and so adapted to 
 the wants of your heart — the wonder is you never before 
 saw it in such a light. Like the persons surprised in 
 the depth of the forest with beautiful music, in Milton's 
 " Comus " — around you, in places of Scripture where 
 you are least expecting it, 
 
 " Sweetly do soft and solemn-breathing thoughts 
 Steal like a steam of rich distilled perfumes." 
 
 It is like breaking the seal on Mary's box of perfume — 
 the whole house is rilled with the fragrance. 
 
 A prominent trait in the character of Dr. Wadsworth 
 is his exemplification of the command, " Follow peace 
 with all men." — Heb. 12 : 14. His nature shrinks from 
 controversy and strife. No man can strive more care- 
 fully to fulfill the words, "As much as lieth in you live 
 peaceably with all men." — Rom. 12: 18. And the 
 beauty of this trait consists in its being found in his 
 character in alliance with an adherence to sound doc- 
 trine which nothing can shake, with a calmness which 
 knows no fear, and with a firmness which nothing can 
 control. 
 
 Those who have sat longest under his ministry will 
 feel that the efforts of Dr. Wadsworth are among the 
 remarkable pulpit-ministrations of the day. In general 
 
24 
 
 characteristics they bear a resemblance to those of the 
 Rev. Henry Melvill, of London. The character and 
 endowments of her sons constitute the wealth of the 
 Church ; and it is only by recording the impressions of 
 individuals, that the fleeting realities which manifest 
 character, can be arrested and embalmed for the treasure 
 of future times. 
 
New Castle, June 27, 1807. 
 
 My Deak Mrs. Kerr: 
 
 I would beg to express to you mj- thanks for the memorial 
 of your sainted Mother in heaven. Though I had the melan- 
 choly pleasure of hearing it when delivered, I will prize it as a 
 remembrancer of one whom I reverenced and loved. Dr. Spots- 
 wood's sketch of her character is beautiful, just, and finished ; 
 and a touching expression of the affection cherished by the good 
 pastor towards his flock, which, when thus hallowed and mellowed 
 by years, becomes one of the most precious earthly rewards and 
 consolations gathered amid the discouragements and trials of a 
 life of pastoral toil. The getting-up of the whole thing is perfect. 
 No urn ever placed by Roman affection on a parent's tomb was 
 so beautiful and touching an offering of filial love. 
 
 I have never known an old age and a death in which all things 
 combined so harmoniously, as in the case of your mother, to call 
 for unmingled thankfulness and praise. There, truly, death was 
 swallowed up in victory. When youth is struck down in its 
 promise, or womanhood in its prime, and around are strewn the 
 wreck of disappointed hopes, purposes unaccomplished, and 
 duties unfinished, we contemplate the wreck with sadness, even 
 though the grave be despoiled of its victory, and death of its 
 sting. But, here, every end of life had been accomplished, every 
 purpose fulfilled, every duty done. To her had been pre-eminent- 
 ly fulfilled the prayer, " The Lord will perfect that which con- 
 cerneth me." Longer than Israel in the wilderness had she 
 followed God fully along the entire road of the heavenward 
 pilgrimage. Every earthly relation of the true woman had she 
 sustained, and its duties discharged with a quietness and energy 
 grace only can give ; and with a gentleness and completeness 
 
which in this world of weakness is seldom equalled, never sur- 
 passed. Her natural disposition seemed to he moulded as a 
 medium for a special manifestation of the gentleness and loveliness 
 of the grace of Jesus. Even the earthly investment of her soul 
 seemed assimilated to the fineness and delicacy of the nature 
 dwelling within. And when these natural endowments were 
 enlivened, purified, and ennobled by the grace of the Holy Spirit, 
 they bodied forth a character of unusual attractive loveliness — 
 
 The mould 
 Of earth was so transparent, that the flame 
 Of God's blest Spirit burning on her heart, 
 Shone softly luminous on all around. 
 
 In her life was embodied eminently "the meekness and gentleness 
 of Christ. ' ' On no female heart ever rested more beautifully ' ' the 
 ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." No human eye gazing 
 on any coronet of queenly majesty and beauty, ever had such 
 pleasure as that experienced by those who beheld set in her soul 
 the purer, richer gems of "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, faith, meekness." Gal. v. 22. No human character 
 was ever more sweetly "Pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be 
 entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and 
 without hypocrisy." James iii. 17. Never have I felt, more fully 
 than in contemplating her later years, the attractiveness of the 
 promise, "They shall walk with me in white ; for they are wor- 
 thy." Rev. iii. 4. 
 
 All whose happiness was to know her, felt the preciousness of 
 her example, of her influence, and of her friendship. Her pastor 
 has testified to her singular excellence as an ornament of the 
 religion of Jesus. Her friends will henceforth feel heaven more 
 attractive, since there they shall be permitted to renew the 
 severed attachments of earth, and find undying companionship 
 with the spirits of the just made perfect, among whom she will 
 rise before their memories and their hearts as a bright peculiar 
 star amid those morning stars of light and love. The beauty of 
 
her character consisted in her being every whit a woman, and 
 in moving in woman's own peculiar sphere. As a true woman, 
 all her endowments of nature and of grace shone forth with 
 greatest beauty in that truest sphere of woman, her home. " Her 
 children did indeed rise up and call her blessed." Tins fallen 
 world has surely never seen a home more beautiful than that in 
 which for so many years, amid the deepening shades of old age, 
 she. like that brightest star of the Northern Crown of the autumnal 
 sky. among the lesser stars of that brilliant constellation, was the 
 central point of attraction and love among her children and 
 children's children. Those who were privileged to witness the 
 affection, the duty, the devotion of that sacred circle, feel that to 
 witness this was a joy seldom found on earth; and those per- 
 mitted to gather, as one of them, with her at the feet of Jesus 
 in prayer in that sacred chamber, feel this was a privilege seldom 
 equalled on this side of heaven. 
 
 Thus compassed with those who loved her better than they 
 loved their own soul ; amid the affection and devotion of daugh- 
 ters ; the fond love and duty of sons ; with the tender affection 
 and revering hearts of children's children ; did she, leaning on 
 the arm of her Beloved and her Friend, go up from this wilder- 
 ness towards the green pastures and living fountains of waters 
 of the heavenly Canaan. Her end was according to her works. 
 Her hope was calm, sweet, and buoyant in the confidence of a 
 child-like trust. She did herein fulfil the words of Jesus, and 
 •'receive the kingdom of God as a little child." How calmly 
 sweet the confidence with which, amid the very shades of death, 
 she whispered, " I have no hope but in the merits of the blood 
 of Jesus. " Surrounded with everything to make earth attractive, 
 among which the things supplied by wealth were seen, however 
 desirable, to be O how little in comparison with the blessings 
 lavished on her from the wealth of the affections of so many 
 loving hearts — she went up to the mountain to die, not alone 
 like Moses, but to meet her Lord iu His glory ou the mount of 
 
transfiguration ; and on that mount to meet under the excellent 
 glory those who were dearer to her than Moses and Elijah, her 
 husband and sons among the saints in light. 
 
 There, as she had thus gone up followed by her weeping child- 
 ren on earth, and stood before her Redeemer in glory, meeting 
 there her loved ones gone before, she might truly say, "Lord, 
 here am I and the children whom thou hast given me." And 
 how sweetly and gently did she fade away into glory. As I have 
 seen the moon on a clear winter's morning in her delicate silvery 
 brightness, walking together with the morning star on the verge 
 of the brightening dawn, till at length lost from view amid the 
 full light of day — so did she seem, in the pure, clear beauty of 
 holiness to walk with Jesus, "the bright morning star," above 
 this earth, on the verge of the brightening dawn of heaven, till 
 at last disappearing from human view, as o'er her released spirit 
 did the day break and the shadows flee away. With her, God's 
 dealings w r ere, indeed, a dispensation of love. As with Christiana, 
 in Bunyan's Pilgrim, at the time of her departure, "The token 
 was an arrow with a point sharpened with love." And as with 
 weeping friends I came back from her grave, I felt I could say of 
 her as Bunyan says of Christiana : "She entered in at the gate 
 with all the ceremonies of joy that her husband had entered with 
 before her. At her departure, the children wept, but Mr. Great- 
 heart and Mr. Valiant played upon the well-tuned cymbal and 
 harp for joy." 
 
 You will excuse this long letter ; and allow me to say, in con- 
 clusion, "Whose faith follow." With my kindest regards and 
 prayers, my dear Mrs. Kerr, for you and for all whom you love, 
 believe me, as ever, 
 
 Very truly yours in the Lord Jesus, 
 
 GEO. BURROWES. 
 
 Mrs. Ann C. Kerr. 
 
A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL 
 
 JAMES COTTPER, M. D., 
 
 AT NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE, 
 
 On Thursday, August 17, 1865. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BURROWES, D. D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 COLLINS, PRINTER, 105 JAYNE STREET. 
 
 1865. 
 

 nk-C, SEP 1880 
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 Caught up into Paradise. — II. Corinthians 12: 4. 
 
 Friends, brethren and companions in tribulation, and 
 in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ — As we 
 have here gathered to walk with a dearly beloved 
 friend, far as human footsteps are permitted to go, down 
 into the valley of the shadow of death, and there bid 
 him, so far as relates to earth, a final adieu ; let us lift 
 our eyes, red with weeping, away from the dark shadows 
 and chill dews of the grave in which he disappears from 
 view, and look upwards to that world of glory into 
 which he has already emerged to " shine as a star and 
 as the brightness of the firmament forever and ever." 
 As we stand here weeping, we hear a voice, not in- 
 deed like that addressed to the disciples gazing after 
 "Jesus our elder brother, the first begotten from the 
 dead," as he was ascending to his father and our father, 
 to his God and our God; but a voice like the great 
 voice heard from heaven in the apocalyptic vision, say- 
 ing to our weeping spirits — " Caught up into Paradise." 
 
 He has been caught up into heaven as a distinct 
 place. St. Paul says that himself was caught up into 
 heaven. But for guarding against the error of looking 
 on heaven as a state merely, and not a place, he repeats 
 
that he was caught up into Paradise — into heaven as 
 distinctly a locality as Eden was a locality on earth. It 
 is the same place of which Jesus spake to the penitent 
 on the cross, " Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou 
 be with me in Paradise." Luke 23 : 43. It is called 
 paradise for showing that the souls of departed saints 
 are in a place where they enjoy a perfection of blessed- 
 ness and a manifestation of the glory and presence of 
 God, which can find its only representation to human 
 minds in the paradise where our first parents dwelt, 
 before the entrance of sin, under the cloud of light, the 
 brightness of the Father's glory. 
 
 The saints are caught up to this glory. They go up 
 to this place as the prophet went up in the chariot and 
 horses of fire. We lose much by thinking these facts 
 of the Scriptures are miraculous and can never be re- 
 peated now. The material form of the thing may never 
 be repeated to mortal eyes; but the spiritual truth that 
 material fact was intended to teach, may be, and must 
 be, constantly repeated. The types have ceased; the 
 divine truth embodied in those types lives and abides 
 forever in the history and experience of the saints in 
 every age. The fact of the translation of Elijah, like 
 the types, is a representation to the human senses, of a 
 glorious truth which is realized in the death of every 
 believer. The soul of every dying saint finds waiting 
 for his conveyance to Paradise that which is to the dis- 
 embodied soul what the chariot of fire was to the body 
 of the ascending prophet. How generally in thinking 
 of death, are we apt to feel with the servant of the pro- 
 phet, "Alas, my master! how shall we do 1 ?" But when 
 
the Lord opens our eyes at death, we shall be as when 
 " the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and he 
 saw: and, behold, the mountain full of horses and 
 chariots of fire round about Elisha." 2 Ki. 6: 11. The 
 ministry of angels runs through the whole of the Scrip- 
 tures. The angels were with Jesus from Bethlehem to 
 Gethsemane and his resurrection. The beggar died 
 and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. 
 "The angel of the Lord — the angelic soldiery of the 
 living God — encampeth round about them that fear 
 him; and delivereth them." Ps. 34 : 7. 
 
 Now, therefore, the death of the saints is no accident. 
 They are sent for, caught up. There has been no night 
 when there has not been a guard of angels around this 
 christian home. But could our eyes have been opened 
 on the night before the last Sabbath, we must have 
 seen, not a falling star, but the chariot and horses of 
 fire falling from heaven and stopping at this threshold. 
 In addition to the ordinary picket guard of angels 
 stationed here, we would have seen a battalion of this 
 soldiery of heaven in their armor of light, the escort 
 ordinarily detailed for a prince of the kingdom, waiting 
 for the coming out of this heir of heaven, this king and 
 priest unto God, from the walls of this earthly house of 
 his tabernacle. There stood they waiting in quietness, 
 when, faithful as a good servant in duty to the last, he 
 came in wearied from his last professional call, and 
 closed the duties of a laborious life, as a priest of his 
 household by the evening sacrifice of prayer at the 
 altar of his loved and peaceful home. There stood that 
 escort of angels waiting; there stood Jesus; but the 
 
eyes of our friend, like the eyes of the disciples of old, 
 were holden that he should not see them. The words 
 describing the prophet J s translation are well nigh a 
 description of his own. With friends beloved he 
 talked almost to the last. "And it came to pass as 
 they still went on and talked, that, behold, a chariot of 
 fire and horses of fire, and parted them asunder; and 
 he went up into heaven." 2 Ki. 2:11. Calm in the 
 blessed peace of his father's God, he laid his weary 
 head on his pillow; but ere sleep had sealed his senses, 
 — unheard by mortal ears, a trumpet blown . by angel 
 lips sounded at his door. Like a good soldier sleeping 
 on his armor, he knew the sound and sprang to meet 
 the summons. But this time the master had called not 
 to a midnight pilgrimage of mercy to some sick-bed of 
 the poor; but to enter as a prince and conqueror the 
 chariot of fire; to be caught up into paradise; to meet 
 the blessing, "Well done, good and faithful servant; 
 enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Matt. 25 : 23. 
 When the Sabbath dawned — 
 
 " There, in the twilight cold and gray, 
 Lifeless, calm as in sleep, he lay ; 
 But from the sky serene and far, 
 A voice came like a falling star — 
 Excelsior !" with Jesus ! 
 
 Thus caught up into Paradise, he is present with Jesus. 
 Absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. 
 We are thus caught up in order that we may be with 
 Jesus. For such the prayer is offered in heaven — 
 "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given 
 me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my 
 
glory." Jno. 17 : 24. The road of light along which 
 that escort around this chariot of fire passed away to 
 heaven, was, 
 
 "The way the holy prophets went, 
 The road that leads from banishment, 
 The King's highway of holiness." 
 
 It was the same highway travelled by Jesus with the 
 penitent thief from Calvary ; the same travelled in 
 every age by apostles and saints; the same along 
 which nearly six and twenty years ago, his own father 
 in whose footsteps this beloved son followed so faith- 
 fully to the last, passed away to glory. It was that 
 new* and living way opened for us into the holiest by 
 the blood of Jesus ; the highway, " The way of holiness," 
 along which "the ransomed of the Lord shall return and 
 come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
 heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away." 
 
 Thus caught up to Jesus in paradise, they are in per- 
 fect blessedness. "Thou wilt show me the path of life: 
 in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand 
 there are pleasures for evermore." Ps. 16 : 11. If some 
 traveller returned from the ends of the earth should 
 bring word that the old original Paradise in Eden had 
 been discovered, how thrilling would be the tidings. 
 Better still, if a path of light were found by which it 
 could be reached on some green isle of a tropic summer 
 sea, and we could enter its gates no longer guarded by 
 cherubim and flaming sword, there to enjoy a heritage, 
 a home on its evergreen meadows, its sunny hills, and 
 gather with our own hands the living fruits of an im- 
 
mortal health and undying youth from the boughs of 
 the tree of life. And if we had a friend so happy as to 
 reach that heritage, would we, could we, ever be so self- 
 ish as to wish him to leave it and return to the cold 
 realities and withering sorrows of this outer world 1 No : 
 no. • Never : never. But the same heavenly herald that 
 came with the summons for our departed friend, has left 
 for our consolation these words written by the finger of 
 God — "To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of 
 the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of 
 God." Rev. 2 : 7. Whatever may be the precise state 
 of things in heaven, it is enough for us to know that 
 the departed saints are enjoying a blessedness transcend- 
 ing that of the paradise in Eden, and which can be best 
 illustrated by the joys of that earthly paradise. 
 
 Being caught up to be thus with Jesus, they there 
 abide with Him, like the penitent thief from the cross, 
 and return with their King to receive their bodies again 
 in the resurrection. Enoch was translated for showing 
 that the bodies no less than the souls of men shall reach 
 heaven. To this testimony in the patriarchal age, was 
 added that of the translation of Elijah under the Mosaic 
 dispensation. Under the gospel, for continuing unbroken 
 the line of testimony, through the different dispensations, 
 to this crowning truth of our redemption, St. Paul was 
 caught up into Paradise for seeing that the bodies of 
 the redeemed reach heaven ; that the body of Jesus is 
 there, and the bodies of the translated few as the first 
 fruits of redemption completed. From this personal 
 view, he was able to speak with even greater confidence 
 in the triumphant testimony he bears in the fifteenth 
 
chapter of First Corinthians to the truth of the resur- 
 rection from the dead. Nature did not first teach this 
 truth; but nature is full of utterances and characters 
 which this truth alone enables us to interpret. To the 
 resurrection of the body are we pointed every morning 
 on awaking from sleep. Even amid the gloom of 
 heathenism, reason saw the analogy between death and 
 sleep. Homer says — 
 
 " She speeds to Leranos o'er the rolling deep, 
 And seeks the cave of Death's half-brother, Sleep." 
 
 How beautiful the confirmation of this doctrine, by the 
 spring whose thousand voices proclaim from every hill- 
 top, and from every valley, and from every cloud in 
 rainbow hues, "Thy brother shall rise again;" by the 
 flowers, themselves raised by almighty power from the 
 dead, whose breath of fragrance repeats, and whose tiny 
 bells ring out in silver-peals pure as those in Paradise, 
 the utterance first heard on Judea's hills, " I am the 
 resurrection and the life." These sweet-toned heralds, 
 angels in the material drapery of earth, does the 
 redeeming creator send forth year by year into every 
 flowery valley and every blossoming tree to confirm to 
 us by their analogical testimony this glorious truth, 
 disclosed to us by revelation, demonstrated by the logic 
 of St. Paul an eye-witness to its reality in Paradise, 
 and overwhelmingly confirmed to us by example in the 
 resurrection of Jesus from the dead. O this cold clay, 
 this is not the last of our loved and cherished friend. 
 This mouldering dust is but the germinal elements 
 from which shall spring at the word of Him who 
 brought the brother of Mary and Martha from the dead, 
 
10 
 
 a glorious body like unto the body borne by Jesus in 
 glory, in the midst of the throne, crowned with many 
 crowns, the last and richest of them all his crown of 
 triumph over death and the grave. By the arm of 
 Jesus has the soul of this departed saint been caught 
 up from the toils, and weariness, and infirmities, and 
 cares, and sorrows of earth, to the bosom of Jesus, a 
 star on the breast of that kingly conqueror, there to 
 await the return of Jesus to earth for completing our 
 redemption by the resurrection of our bodies from the 
 grave. 
 
 Who then can misunderstand me when I say, that 
 amid our tears we have ground for rejoicing. We 
 bless our father's God for such a gift as that of our 
 departed friend, in whom was embodied such loveliness, 
 such excellence, such usefulness. Instead of murmur- 
 ing now at the recall of this precious legacy, we thank 
 the Father of mercies that it was so long continued. 
 We pour out our souls in thankfulness amid our tears, 
 for the grace of the Holy Spirit who made this good 
 man what he was; and made us so long partakers of 
 the benefits of his labors, the riches of his example, and 
 the preciousness of his friendship. Why should I 
 here, amid the friends of his childhood; among those 
 who for more than forty years have been witnesses of 
 his daily professional life; among those who during 
 nearly a quarter of a century, must have so often 
 thought of Enoch, as you beheld his quiet and consistent 
 walk with God ; — why should I, in such a gathering, 
 stop to dwell on his character'? To those who had not 
 the happiness to know him, the words of truth and 
 
11 
 
 affection might seem overdrawn ; while to those who 
 have so long felt the power of his goodness and love, 
 the same words may seem tame and below the truth. 
 Under the effects of a blow so sudden and stunning, the 
 heart and hand of friendship fail in such an office. 
 
 He possessed all the elements which nature and cul- 
 tivation combine to blend in the man of gentleness and 
 refinement. He was a man of the most delicate sensi- 
 bility, the most scrupulous justice, and the most refined 
 sense of honor. So exquisitely was his nature attem- 
 pered to all that is pure, and lovely, and honorable, and 
 of good report, that he shrank from the very shadow of 
 wrong, from the very breath of untruth; and this deli- 
 cacy of sensibility, while making him a man of pure 
 elevation and the finest character, was the cause of 
 much suffering in a world of such rough antagonism 
 and unscrupulous policy. Judging others with justice 
 and gentleness, he felt proportionally the ungenerous 
 judgments of natures of a rougher and more selfish 
 mould. His whole standard of duty and honor was not 
 indeed too high for justice and truth, but too high for 
 the peace of a sensitive nature in such a callous world. 
 He embraced in the word honor, not merely the few 
 ragged elementary principles adopted by the irreligious 
 world into their code ; but gathering up these as simple 
 primary elements, he blended them with the full 
 finished teaching and morality of the honor that cometh 
 from God. His was an honor refined and exalted by 
 the truth and spirit of holiness. His conscience was 
 sensitive to the most delicate shades of right and wrong; 
 equally keen in its discriminations and judgments; 
 
12 
 
 gently firm and unsparing of self in its decisions ; and 
 inflexibly unyielding in carrying out its determinations. 
 No task-master's eye, no stimulus from public sentiment, 
 no goading from personal pride and vanity, was ever 
 needed for keeping him faithful to duty. In him, con- 
 science sensitive, refined, and enlightened, had control 
 supreme. And thus instructed, his conscience embraced 
 in its grasp, judged, and urged to the performance of, 
 the whole compass of duties incumbent on the well 
 balanced man. This inward moral power guiding, con- 
 trolling, and prompting, made him a man of public spirit 
 in all things relating to the good of his neighborhood 
 and his native State; made him a pure, right-minded, 
 unswerving patriot; and kept in healthful, judicious, 
 vigorous exercise his large natural benevolence, which 
 with a conscience less clear and penetrating in its 
 apprehensions, and less strong in its controlling power, 
 must have made him a man of immeasurably fewer and 
 less valuable works of charity and mercy. He had a 
 natural love for benevolence from the pleasure enjoyed 
 in its exercise. He never sent the needy empty away, 
 even when self-sacrificing effort was necessary for their 
 relief. 
 
 His christian character followed the law of our being 
 in taking its coloring from the peculiarities of his natu- 
 ral disposition. In him, nature, education, and culture 
 had laid a noble foundation for the development of 
 grace. Two and twenty years ago, the Holy Spirit 
 made him feel that he needed more than his spotless 
 morality and blameless life to fit him for Heaven. He 
 had hitherto been to his friends a living commentary 
 
13 
 
 on the young man whom Jesus loved, though con- 
 strained to say to him, " One thing thou lackest." He 
 hearkened to this divine utterance in his soul; and 
 instead of turning away sorrowful, took up his cross 
 and followed his Lord. He kept back no part of the 
 price; he brought his all and laid it at the feet of Jesus. 
 On a character of such moral excellence, the hand of 
 his Redeemer placed the gift of holiness through atoning 
 blood, as "a crown of pure gold on his head." In lay- 
 ing the foundations of his religious life, he digged deep, 
 and built upon the rock of ages. Quiet, calm, and con- 
 scientious, with his heart broken by the sense of sin, 
 and his eye filled with contrition's tear, as we were 
 thrown together as friends, he took my hand and asked 
 me of Jesus. The scene is still fresh in my memory, 
 as though it were yesterday. I never expect to meet a 
 case of repenting manhood, more interesting and beau- 
 tiful. While thus he inquired, there was not the earth- 
 quake, not the fire; it was the still small voice; and 
 when he heard, like the prophet veiling himself with his 
 mantle, he covered his face in contrition at his Saviour's 
 feet, and felt spoken to his soul the words, "Thy sins 
 are forgiven thee." Thus in Christ Jesus, he was a 
 new creature. All the native excellences of his charac- 
 ter were refined and beautified by Heavenly grace ; like 
 a transparency or alabaster vase lighted up within, his 
 soul showed its former features invested with new love- 
 liness. 
 
 He held the faith " in simplicity and Godly sincerity." 
 He was "an Israelite in whom there was no guile." 
 Well balanced as were his powers, he showed the effect 
 
 
14 
 
 of pious parents and pious education in the clearness, 
 harmony, and consistency of his views of religious truth 
 and duty. He was not a pious monstrosity with a 
 religious affection or two of gigantic development on a 
 spiritual constitution otherwise shrivelled and dwarfed. 
 He was a symmetrical christian. He was of meek and 
 lowly mind; a man of steady and consistent religious 
 principle. He was not a man who talked much of his 
 religious affections, though delighting to sit humbly as 
 a learner at the feet of those having a deeper spiritual 
 experience. He was not emotional and demonstrative 
 in words. His religious affections, deep and earnest, 
 were shown rather by calm, quiet action, by embodying 
 in duty the principle, "If ye love me, keep my com- 
 mandments." Jno. 14: 15. He was not above the 
 frailties of humanity. He was a man of like passions 
 with ourselves. He had to struggle with the infirmities 
 of nature within, and the trials — fiery trials to a nature 
 so sensitive as his — to which the child of God is subject 
 from without. He knew from bitter experience, what 
 it meant by crucifixion to the world. Yet few christians 
 have passed through this fiery process, and found so 
 seldom as he, the weakness of nature to give way. In 
 the words of Great-heart, in the Pilgrim's Progress — 
 " We will leave the good man, he is at rest, he also had 
 a brave victory over his enemy: let Him grant that 
 dwelleth above, that we fare not worse when we come 
 to be tried, than he." 
 
 Shrinking instinctively from seeming to be what he 
 was not in reality, and coming to the duties of religion 
 with his natural conscientiousness made more sensitive 
 
15 
 
 by divine grace, he strove to walk in all the command- 
 ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. He would 
 assume no responsibility which careful examination and 
 prayer did not satisfy him he was capable of performing 
 up to the requirements of his own elevated standard. 
 The fact of his undertaking any duty was a guarantee 
 it would be faithfully performed. He embraced in his 
 feelings, efforts, and charities, all the benevolent opera- 
 tions of the church; and gave to them liberally accord- 
 ing to his means. He was ready not only for every good 
 work, but for devising liberal things. He was given to 
 hospitality; and made the ministers of Jesus feel his 
 house a home. He consecrated a due portion of his 
 income to the Lord. No one thing lay nearer to his 
 heart than that apostolic test of healthful piety, the 
 cause of missions. He had hardly a purer earthly hap- 
 piness than in adding to his information and increasing 
 his interest in this apostolic work, by the grand testi- 
 monials borne thereto by one who had taken advantage 
 of his position as a public man to know the whole 
 truth from personal observation in heathen lands, to 
 vindicate this cause at home, and to encourage its 
 missionaries abroad; one whom he loved and mourned 
 as a brother ; from whom death separated him only a 
 few short weeks; one whose memory we all love to 
 cherish and honor; who must ever stand among the 
 noblest of our patriots, among the foremost of our great 
 naval commanders, among the purest and most accom- 
 plished of our public men — best of all, a true and hum- 
 ble christian — the gallant, the great, the good Dupont. 
 Attached to his own church by preference, convic- 
 
16 
 
 tion, and education, with the liberality inseparable 
 from all elevated and noble souls taught by the Spirit 
 of God, he was glad to feel that the members of the 
 true invisible fold of Christ are not confined to his own 
 denomination, and hail as brother all, wherever found, 
 in whom he could trace the features of his adored Lord. 
 Intelligence, steadiness; consistency, liberality — all fused 
 and enlivened by love to Jesus — were prominent in his 
 christian life. Some persons have a piety — like the 
 mountain torrent, at times overflowing from the passing 
 shower, more frequently dry, dusty, desolate — now, 
 sweeping and fiery in the denunciations of their dis- 
 tempered zeal; now, fallen away even behind the 
 moralities of the world. His piety was "the still 
 stream that waters fairest meadows," constant, gentle, 
 full, fed from perennial springs beyond the reach of 
 earth's surrounding droughts, "the Holy Spirit within 
 his soul as a fountain of water springing up into eternal 
 life." His piety was not like the empty flashes on a 
 summer evening from the bosom of a cloud otherwise 
 habitually in gloom. It was the vestal flame of old, 
 kindled from heaven, faithfully tended, and ever burn- 
 ing constant, steady, and pure. Thus calm and clear 
 did the current of his affections flow on deepening 
 toward Heaven, until at last, when over his soul did 
 the day break and the shadows flee away, his peace was 
 found as a river and his righteousness as the waves of 
 the sea. To the last did the love of Jesus leaven and 
 quicken all his duties; to the last, was he "not slothful 
 in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Rom. 
 12: 11. His last return from duty was less than two 
 
17 
 
 hours before he was caught up into Paradise. "Blessed 
 is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh, shall 
 find so doing." Matt. 24: 46. 
 
 " Servant of God, well done ! 
 Rest from thy loved employ : 
 The battle fought, the victory won. 
 Enter thy Master's joy. 
 
 " The cry at midnight came ; 
 He started up to hear : 
 A mortal arrow pierced his frame ; 
 He fell, but felt no fear. 
 
 " His spirit with a bound, 
 Left its encumbering clay : 
 His tent, at sunrise, on the ground 
 A darkened ruin lay." 
 
 I have not time to do more than allude to him as a 
 physician. None but a person of piety and a physician 
 can do justice to his professional character. He was 
 an active practitioner of medicine for more than one 
 and forty years. He possessed the finest endowments 
 for the profession which he adorned. His natural deli- 
 cacy, his almost womanly modesty, his gentleness, his 
 soothing voice, even his noiseless footstep, his delicate 
 touch of the pulse; his quiet, earnest sympathy; his 
 quick, instinctive, discriminating apprehension of dis- 
 ease from its earliest, slightest indications; his gentle 
 tact in getting, without annoyance to the delicacy of the 
 patient, the needed knowledge of symptoms and ailment; 
 his cool, correct conclusions drawn from this knowledge 
 often insufficient and perplexing — all pointed him out 
 as a man rarely fitted for the sick-room and its ministra- 
 tions of mercy. Other physicians who may possess a 
 2 
 
18 
 
 measure of these endowments, are seldom found with 
 that which in him gave all these things their crowning 
 worth, and imparted to his qualifications an excellence 
 seldom seen, the presence of that Spirit of "wisdom 
 which is from above, pure, peaceable, gentle, full of 
 mercy." James 3 : 17. He was an ornament to the 
 medical profession; he was an ornament to the christian 
 church. He was a physician of high and rare endow- 
 ments refined and elevated by true religion. Such men 
 ennoble our humanity amid all its common frailties; 
 and in their character, mankind may feel an honorable 
 pride. 
 
 He took a deep interest and pride in all that affected 
 the honor and advancement of his profession. He was 
 a member of the Convention which formed the National 
 Medical Association ; was chairman of the committee on 
 medical education; and continued a member of the 
 Association, useful and diligent, till his death. He 
 had by nature and by culture the qualifications which, 
 in a field where his talents could have had wider scope, 
 would have placed him among the most prominent men 
 of his calling. Few men combine, as did himself, the 
 high qualities of the refined gentleman, the cultivated 
 physician, and the humble christian. In his case, the 
 prophet was not without honor in his own country. 
 Let the households saved from bereavement; the pain 
 alleviated, the sorrow assuaged, the precious lives saved 
 from death, by his skill; the many poor on whom his 
 labors were lavished without money and without price; 
 the consternation felt in this community at the tidings 
 of his death — let these things tell his skill, his faithful- 
 
19 
 
 ness, his worth as a physician. When his skill failed 
 in arresting disease, what other member of his profes- 
 sion succeeded'? He not only attended with conscien- 
 tious faithfulness, but studied with sleepless interest, 
 doubtful and difficult cases. He was a model man; he 
 was a model physician; he was a model christian. The 
 band of professional brethren here gathered around him 
 to carry him gently to his last resting-place, in heart- 
 felt sorrow; the christian friends come from distant 
 homes to follow him, in the silence of grief, to his sud- 
 den tomb; the poor and the aged who come with weep- 
 ing eyes and tottering steps to take a last look of the 
 loved and honored dead — these show the hold he has 
 taken on those who knew him and were capable of 
 appreciating his worth. 
 
 "When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, 
 
 Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, 
 Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load 
 
 Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever. 
 Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavor, 
 
 Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod ; 
 But where Faith pointed with her golden rod. 
 
 Followed thee up to joy and bliss forever. 
 Love led them on, and Faith which knew them best, 
 
 Thy handmaids, clothed them o'er with purple beams 
 And azure wings, that up they flew thus dressed, 
 
 And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes 
 Before the Judge, who thenceforth bade thee rest, 
 
 And drink thy fill of pure, immortal streams." 
 
 Here, as the last words, may private feeling so far 
 find utterance, as to thank our Father in heaven, that 
 one who enjoyed, during nearly a quarter of a century, 
 his confidence and friendship, has been brought by an 
 
20 
 
 unseen hand, on a pilgrimage from the ends of the 
 earth, to bear this testimony of truth, and lay this 
 broken chain, this wreath of affection, wet with many 
 tears, on his grave. 
 
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