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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
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Prejudiced Inquiries 
 
 BEING THE BACK-WOODS LECTURES 
 FOR THE YEAR 1884 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 E. J. MORRIS 
 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 %\i f nicherbotket |)resa 
 
 1886 
 
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 2- ^33 
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 E. J. MORRIS 
 
 1886 
 
 Press of 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURES PAGE 
 
 Introduction v 
 
 I. Progress i 
 
 II. Patriotism 18 
 
 III. Party Politics 48 
 
 IV. How to Help the Poor .... 69 
 V. Is there any Help for the Rich? . . 84 
 
 VI. Love, Marriage, and Divorce . . . 103 
 
 VII. The Uses of Learning .... 117 
 
 VIII. History 148 
 
 IX. Philosophy 172 
 
 X. Free Thinking ...... 204 
 
 XL Hobbies 238 
 
 XII. Authorship 270 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THESE lectures were delivered extempora- 
 neously previous to September, 1884. They 
 were written out afterwards at the suggestion 
 of Dr. Elisha Mulford. He never read any of 
 them, however ; and their piecemeal method 
 and homely style would not have commended 
 themselves to his mind. " I must criticise them 
 very severely," he said to me last summer (1885), 
 while glancing over those which were already 
 written out. In September he was seriously 
 indisposed, and his eyesight was failing. " I 
 am sorry," he said, " that you did not let me 
 take your lectures home with me in the sum- 
 mer ; I could have examined them thoroughly 
 then." " But it will be much better for you to 
 go through them," I replied, " after I have 
 done with them. I will send them to you about 
 Christmas-time or sooner." He smiled pen- 
 sively, and after a moment's thought, answered : 
 " I will tell you what to do. When you are 
 
vi Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 ready, send your papers to my friend, . 
 
 He can give you any directions which you may 
 require as well as I could." I cared nothing 
 about the " papers " or the " directions " then, 
 for I realized all at once, what I had not 
 dreamt of before, that Dr. Mulford was quietly 
 saying good-bye to me, and turning to go the 
 way whence he should not return. I know not 
 what I said. I only know that I remonstrated 
 helplessly, like the rash disciple who rebuked 
 his Master saying : " Be it far from thee, Lord ; 
 this shall not be unto thee." But my friend 
 was not deceived. He died at Cambridge, 
 December 9th, aged fifty-one. 
 
 To those who have known him intimately 
 the loss would be irreparable if it were really 
 possible to lose him at all. But death had no 
 power to take him from us. While he lived he 
 came nearer and was more unto us than other 
 men ; and now being dead, he still lives on and 
 is present with us as much as ever. Mere affec- 
 tion would, no doubt, with its usual license, say 
 something like this, for Dr. Mulford was a man 
 very greatly beloved. With him, both in bright 
 days of actual intercourse and through long 
 years of tried acquaintance, the highest dream 
 
Introduction. vii 
 
 of friendship could be translated, and for many 
 was translated, into actual fact. But he was 
 more than a friend. Great as his qualities were, 
 they were greatest in that they pointed un- 
 ceasingly above and beyond himself ; and he 
 abides with us to the end, not chiefly as the 
 charming companion and the most tender and 
 devoted of friends, though he was all that, but 
 as a clear-voiced interpreter of human life, and 
 a witness of unusual weight to the truth and 
 substance of things not seen. His witness to 
 these things was his life, the very ground of all 
 his thought, of all his conversation, of all his 
 work. He literally lived and moved and had 
 his being consciously amidst the great spiritual 
 verities of which most of us catch but faint and 
 occasional glimpses : and when he spoke of 
 divine things, it was as if one heard the sera- 
 phim, which stand before the throne crying, 
 Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which 
 was, and is, and is to come ; so strong was 
 the impression of reality, of actual vision, of 
 undoubting, unmistaking, perfect worship. He 
 did not cling to truth nervously and with diffi- 
 culty as so many of us do ; he rested and lived 
 in it with immovable confidence and gladness ; 
 
viii Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 and the truth he rested in was not any private 
 opinion of his own, but the common Christian 
 faith. The insertion of the Nicene Creed, with 
 the dates, A.D. 381-1881, at the close of his 
 work on theology, was not a light or fanciful 
 after-thought. He was greatly impressed during 
 the preparation of that work by the closeness 
 with which his own reflection on the facts of 
 experience and the world's history followed 
 spontaneously the lines laid down in the great 
 creed fifteen hundred years ago. It is true 
 that he thought very highly of some writers 
 whose thought is often represented as subver- 
 sive of the old creed and of the Christian faith. 
 But he criticised his most favorite authors 
 freely, and took pains to make it understood 
 that what he accepted was accepted with a 
 distinct Christian interpretation. 
 
 Of Hegel, for instance, he writes, in his arti- 
 cle on F. D. Maurice, in Scribners 'Monthly, for 
 September, 1872: "I believe that Hegel may 
 himself be taken at his word, and instead of 
 being a pantheist or panlogist, or whatever the 
 last word may be which is invented to define 
 his position, he has sought the reconciliation of 
 thought with Christian truth and life." But 
 
Introduction. ix 
 
 Hegel, though to be taken at his word as a 
 Christian thinker, is not beyond criticism either 
 in his philosophy or in his theology. In the 
 same article on Maurice, we read : " The theolo- 
 gy of Maurice, more profound than that of 
 Hegel, is more consistent also with that which 
 is true in the philosophy of Hegel." This atti- 
 tude towards Hegel, friendly, candid, deferen- 
 tial, yet perfectly independent, is a fair sample 
 of Dr. Mulford's admirable bearing towards all 
 writers, and, I may add, towards all men, with 
 whom he had any thing to do. He looked for 
 truth in sincere good faith everywhere, and 
 made ample and glad acknowledgments wher- 
 ever he found it. The truth he found was 
 rarely as full as the truth of which he was 
 already in sure possession : but his sympathy 
 with all earnest thought in every field of in- 
 quiry, and his eager rejoicing in all discovery 
 and recognition of actual truth however partial, 
 invest his statement of the truth which filled 
 and satisfied his own mind with peculiar interest 
 and significance. This statement is to be found 
 in his published works : — " The Nation : The 
 Foundations of Civil Order and Political Life 
 in the United States " ; and " The Republic 
 
x Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 of God. An Institute of Theology " ; works 
 which for seriousness and sustained elevation of 
 thought, as well as for breadth and firmness 
 of view and wealth of sympathy with whatso- 
 ever things are true and honest, will probably 
 remain long unsurpassed in our literature. My 
 own indebtedness to them, and especially to 
 " The Nation," is very great ; and my indebt- 
 edness to happy years of intimate communion 
 with the author in the peaceful, beautiful 
 " backwoods " is simply inexpressible. The 
 lofty faith which nothing moved, the rare 
 dignity never lowered for a moment but al- 
 ways clothed with humility, the active kindli- 
 ness towards all men, the eager spiritual in- 
 telligence (" gladly wolde he lerne and gladly 
 teche "), the high rejoicing in the truth and in 
 all the work of God upon the earth, the all- 
 pervading, ever-abiding sense of the divine 
 presence in the common life and relations 
 of men, and the thousand graces which I be- 
 held in him so constantly, denoted a man the 
 like of whom one must wonder if he meets 
 once in a lifetime, and, having met, one must 
 ever desire to be endowed with a double por- 
 tion of his spirit. Haec est benedictio qua bene- 
 
Introduction. 
 
 XI 
 
 dixit Dominus Isaac, ut habitaret ad puteum 
 visionis. Intelligentibus grandis est ista benc- 
 dictio. Utinam et Dominus mihi donet hanc 
 benedictionem, ut habitare merear ad puteum 
 visionis. 
 
PREJUDICED INQUIRIES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 It is provided that the lectures of this course 
 shall be mostly about common things. There- 
 fore, in order to make a right start in that 
 respect, I have chosen, for the subject of the 
 first lecture, what seems to be the commonest 
 of all things in our time, namely, Progress. In 
 order to stand sufficiently apart from my sub- 
 ject to view it from outside, and to talk about 
 Progress without the bewildering distraction of 
 any effort to be progressive, I shall employ, if 
 you will permit me, a wholly antiquated method 
 of discussion. I shall attach myself, like a 
 Sophist, to the very word, Progress, and allow 
 it to carry me whithersoever it will. Such a 
 method is entirely untrustworthy, of course, 
 but it may prove not altogether unfruitful : 
 and, for the validity of my conclusions, if I ar- 
 
2 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 rive at any, I shall trust much more to your 
 assenting common-sense than to the soundness 
 of my method. 
 
 First, then, it would seem that Progress is 
 movement. This may account for the bitter 
 opposition of many people to all Progress. 
 Progress is movement, and they have no desire 
 to move or to be moved. They now, perhaps, 
 occupy the easiest seats in the warmest corners, 
 and if they move it must be towards the door ; 
 or, perhaps, they are already on the top of the 
 hill of power and glory, and any movement 
 must be towards the plains and the valleys, 
 where luckless men are waging a doubtful battle 
 with want and woe. If it be true that His 
 Holiness the Pope, and the House of Lords, 
 and, in our own country, the millionaires and 
 the members of Congress are enemies of Prog- 
 ress, the reason, probably, is this very truth, 
 that Progress is movement ; for any movement 
 would have to be almost miraculously adjusted 
 in order to put them in more flattering circum- 
 stances, or even to leave them as well off as 
 they are. But, apart from all selfish bias, if 
 Progress is always movement, must it not some- 
 times be an unmixed evil ? Should there not 
 
Progress. 3 
 
 be some places and conditions where, at least 
 for a season, men may say: " It is good for us 
 to be here; let us build tabernacles"? If 
 Progress be an aimless movement, or aimless so 
 far as we can see, why should we admire and 
 laud it, or concern ourselves about it at all ? 
 On the other hand, if it be a movement with a 
 distinct and intelligible aim, a movement tow- 
 ard a fixed goal or resting-place, then movement 
 is for the sake of rest, — Progress is for the sake 
 of something better than itself. When the goal 
 is reached the movement should cease ; and if 
 it be clear that the goal never can be reached, 
 is it not clear also that movement is a mistake, 
 and that a wise passiveness, in the grateful 
 shade of the nearest beech-tree, is better than 
 the endless, hopeless toils of Sisyphus and 
 Tantalus ? Or, finally, may not rest, the de- 
 sired goal, be approachable, though not quite 
 attainable ? And may not Progress be a per- 
 petual movement towards rest, that is, towards 
 no movement at all ; so that, though all Prog- 
 ress be movement, yet the movement must 
 grow less and less as the Progress increases ? 
 If this brilliant view of the matter be accepted 
 the good people who were supposed to dislike 
 
4 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 Progress, because Progress was movement, will 
 have reason to like it exceedingly, because it is 
 a movement which tends to retard and abolish 
 itself. The Supreme Pontiff and the House of 
 Lords will have inducements to place them- 
 selves at the head of the Progress of the world, 
 and the fiery spirits who live by violent perpet- 
 ual motion will be consigned to desperate ob- 
 struction as their last hope. 
 
 But we are hobbling ludicrously on one leg, 
 leaving several promising limbs untried. Prog- 
 ress is not mere movement, but movement 
 forward. This restriction may attract some 
 who could see no gain or glory in simple move- 
 ment. But I fear it will repel more than it will 
 attract. If Progress were simply movement, its 
 adherents, in spite of speculative and practical 
 difficulties, would be innumerable ; and when 
 some of them lapsed into momentary rest, the 
 others could keep things going. Most people 
 like a good deal of movement, but very few 
 like to move for any length of time steadily in 
 one direction. The majority, perhaps, like to 
 flit to and fro, in short, easy flights, at their 
 own sweet will, like bees " among fresh dews 
 and flowers." Many prefer a more fixed and 
 
Progress. 5 
 
 limited movement, a rocking, teetering move- 
 ment, up and down, back and forth, on some 
 happy pivot that forbids all thought of Prog- 
 ress. Others, again, scorning such ease, hasten 
 eagerly on and on in circles, or in arcs of circles 
 to be completed and repeated by later gener- 
 ations. 
 
 This circular motion seems to be strongly 
 countenanced by Nature herself ; her days and 
 years, and many of her other arrangements be- 
 ing, apparently, ready-made circles for us to 
 move round and round in all our life. More 
 closely observed, however, Nature's arrange- 
 ments are not strictly circular. The end of the 
 day or of the year does not bring things back 
 where they were at the beginning. The begin- 
 ning and the end are not in the same plane. 
 The dreary monotony of moving forward is 
 broken by the graceful windings of the appar- 
 ent circles ; but there is no turning round and 
 round in the same ruts. Nature is earnest and 
 tender at once. She humors her children with 
 daily and yearly rounds, but expects them, all 
 the while, to make an onward advance, as the 
 moon is made to go forward along the earth's 
 orbit while amusing herself by turning on her 
 
6 Prejttdiced Inquiries. 
 
 own axis and wheeling round and round the 
 earth. Nature's human children, however, are 
 very wayward, and they take an ell when she 
 gives them an inch. Our fashionable circular 
 movements, in Society, in Politics, in Theology, 
 and in all things, too often leave out Nature's 
 onward advance, and end where they begin ; 
 and sometimes they even deviate from the cir- 
 cle on the wrong side, like the eventful circum- 
 bendibus of Tony Lumpkin, which began at 
 the house and ended in the horse-pond at the 
 bottom of the garden. 
 
 A curious question arises here, which I must 
 hand over, for its full solution, to platforms and 
 chairs where profound and impartial thinking 
 is done. Progress is movement forward ; which 
 way is forward ? As to the movements of 
 bodies in space, we can fix upon any direction 
 we please — north or south, up the stream or 
 down the stream — and call persistent move- 
 ment that way movement forward. Is it so 
 with regard to the life of mankind ? Is 
 human Progress merely a departure from our 
 present ground towards new lands in any 
 direction whatever? Or must it be in a 
 fixed, pre-determined direction, and towards 
 
Progress. y 
 
 a fore-ordained goal ? If the direction is fixed, 
 can it be ascertained and pointed out ? Can 
 we look forward along the path and know 
 whither we are going ? Or are we to travel 
 forward as the bird Merops flies to heaven, tail 
 foremost, guided and borne along by some dark 
 force which constrains our energies but will 
 hold no communion with our minds ? The 
 loudest heralds of progress tell us but little dis- 
 tinctly of the character of the coming time or 
 of the coming man ; and they are growing more 
 reticent and mysterious day by day. Some 
 time ago we were strongly encouraged to hope 
 that we were to be stronger and shrewder ani- 
 mals at least ; but of late some of the oracles 
 have cast misgiving and ominous conjecture 
 even upon this humble point. Are our proph- 
 ets and our leaders really in the dark ? And is 
 human Progress, with all its " awful ceremony 
 and trumpet's sound," a grand, unfailing, unde- 
 viating, jubilant rush, nobody knows whither? 
 If the line of our advance maybe known, which 
 way does it lie ? Are we to go, with joy and 
 gladness, towards what our hearts are longing 
 for, or are we to be marched in chains towards 
 the inane, or even towards that which may 
 
8 Prejudiced Inquiries. . 
 
 utterly appall us ? Is our progress to be tow- 
 ards the good, the desire of all the earth, or only 
 towards the barely true, which may, perhaps, be 
 more desolate and forlorn than Siberia ? And 
 if the true be not as good as we had hoped, if 
 our fathers and ourselves have exaggerated the 
 dignity and capacity of our nature and the 
 glory and preciousness of truth, is it Progress 
 to get at the bottom facts and live down to 
 them, or is it not moving forward to tread 
 on such truth and such nature, and still seek to 
 scale the old heavens ? Is not the unavailing 
 strife of Prometheus, or of the vulgarest fanatic 
 an advance on submission or devotion to truth 
 and nature, if truth and nature demand the im- 
 molation, and besmear themselves with the 
 blood of our noblest life ? Should we not come 
 as heroes to our gory bed, if not to glorious 
 victory ? This is ranting, screaming blasphemy 
 against truth and nature ; but it will prevail 
 unless the ways of truth and nature can be 
 justified to men. 
 
 While not forgetting that the exact determi- 
 nation of the forward path must be left for 
 other hands, it cannot be too much for me to 
 say that the path forward from the present time 
 
Progress. 9 
 
 must be a continuation, in a direct line, of the 
 path by which our race has advanced to its 
 present position. If past gains are sacrificed 
 as we go on, our path runs zig-zag if not per- 
 sistently backward. I may add that the path 
 forward must not lead to a ditch from which it 
 cannot emerge, or to a dead wall which it can- 
 not pass. It must lie in a direction where there 
 is endless room ahead ; otherwise Progress would 
 deny itself, and actually limit the advance of 
 mankind, as, in fact, some of the varieties of so- 
 called Progress undoubtedly do. 
 
 But Progress indicates, not only its own direc- 
 tion, but also its manner, and almost its rate of 
 advance. It is not only movement forward, but 
 movement forward step by step ; and the steps 
 are the steps of a man. This is frequently 
 lost sight of, and it is assumed continually that 
 the more rapidly any one advances the more 
 Progress he makes. Nothing could be more 
 erroneous. Many people move forward too 
 swiftly to make any Progress at all. They find 
 themselves suddenly at new and strange points, 
 as Philip was found at Azotus ; but the way 
 they came they know not. Mysterious move- 
 ments have been made, but human steps have 
 
io Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 not been taken. It all has to be done over 
 again. In real Progress every step must be 
 taken by itself and for its own sake. Progress is 
 not only an advance to good things to come, but 
 an advance through good things that now are ; 
 and none of these should be missed or slighted. 
 The far-off end, perhaps, is the main thing ; 
 but it is not all. Every step has a separate 
 worth and dignity, and is itself an end, as well 
 as a step to a remoter end. This, well consid- 
 ered, will help to reconcile us to progress. It 
 takes the goad of Io from our flesh, and the 
 burning marl from under our feet. It gives us 
 some stable being in the endless process of be- 
 coming, and rescues us from the woful predica- 
 ment of those who are always becoming, and 
 yet, after all, are not even becoming, but only 
 perpetually going to become. 
 
 Do not hurry us too much, then, in Church 
 or State, or in the open, common world. Let 
 us loiter a little. We know that we have a long 
 way to go ; but we know also that we cannot 
 make the journey in one day. We can take but 
 a single step at a time ; but every step we take 
 is a real portion of the long way before us. We 
 would not plead for the sluggish immobility 
 
Progress. 1 1 
 
 that will not advance at all ; but neither will we 
 bow down to the clattering idol which makes 
 mankind dizzy, and turns the landscape into a 
 chronic earthquake, and knows not what it 
 wants, or, rather, wants nothing that it comes 
 to, but always what is far beyond. 
 
 Finally, stepping forward is a movement for- 
 ward of the whole man. The feet do the 
 actual stepping, to be sure ; but, if they keep it 
 up,' the whole man must go along with them. 
 Men may step forward with various gaits and 
 postures. Some go with their heads bent 
 eagerly forward. Others, stiffly holding back 
 their heads, let their feet do the pioneering. In 
 a dark room, or in the underwood of a forest, 
 the hands go first ; and, in a dense crowd, per- 
 haps, the shoulders. But, in all cases, the whole 
 man goes at last. So, in human Progress, natu- 
 ral diversities of gifts, and necessary division of 
 labor, may, in different individuals and commu- 
 nities, give the lead to different qualities and 
 powers ; but neither diversities of gifts, nor 
 division of labor, nor any fashion of the 
 hour, should be allowed to tear human nature 
 limb from limb, and send a fragment forward, 
 and call it Progress. This is very commonly 
 
1 2 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 done, however, and men are often supposed to 
 be making great Progress when only a piece of 
 them is in motion, or, perchance, even a piece 
 of their surroundings, — their coat-tails, perhaps, 
 flapping in the wind before them. 
 
 A man's clothing should, of course, go for- 
 ward with him as long as he needs clothing. 
 But it sometimes seems as if most of the 
 extraordinary movement of the present day 
 were in our clothes, — in our environment, 
 and not in ourselves. It is well that our 
 environment should improve ; that the earth 
 should yield her increase, and give up her 
 secrets for the service of man. In the olden 
 time Nature seemed to deal too penuriously 
 with her noblest sons. Abraham, in a tent, or 
 on a donkey, was, perhaps, not worthily 
 equipped. Julius Caesar possibly deserved bet- 
 ter accommodation than his flimsy row-boat 
 and his lumbering coach. But now our accom- 
 modation puts most of us to shame. What 
 worthy use can we make of the subtle and 
 mighty machinery at our disposal ? The tent 
 and the donkey, the row-boat and the lumber- 
 ing coach would be less disproportioned to our 
 actual purposes and performances. But the 
 
Progress. 1 3 
 
 resources of the material world are only begin- 
 ning to be revealed ; greater wonders are yet 
 to appear, and the earth is to become still more 
 emphatically a new earth. One would wish to 
 be able to rejoice freely in these marvellous de- 
 velopments. But we cannot wish to see our 
 own family made ridiculous by their dwelling- 
 place and their equipage, and there is some 
 danger that it will come to that ; for, unless 
 man in the new earth becomes himself a new 
 creation, he will be reduced to a mere attendant 
 to set forth the wonders of the world, instead 
 of being the master of the house, to possess 
 and use worthily all that it contains. 
 
 When there is decided movement in the man 
 himself, and not in his environment merely, 
 still the movement is frequently local or spo- 
 radic, and fails to carry the whole man forward. 
 Sometimes the advance is in the flesh, and then 
 we have high physical culture, which is an 
 excellent thing as a basis for something further, 
 but which, found alone, turns men and women 
 out to pasture with Nebuchadnezzar, and makes 
 one long for the appearance of horns and hoofs 
 to complete the transformation and to eliminate 
 the monstrosity. This imperial degree is seldom 
 
1 4 Prejudiced Inq^riries. 
 
 reached : but there are plenty of dainty epi- 
 cureans and coddling valetudinarians, as well as 
 of the robuster horde of athletes who come 
 wonderfully near to it. 
 
 With others the advance is in the intellect. 
 The intellect is surely noble, and every step in 
 advance removes it further from the beast of 
 the field. Yet the solitary advance of the in- 
 tellect, as well as of the flesh, may deform and 
 degrade human nature. Human nature has 
 social affections and moral principles and 
 spiritual aspirations, and if the intellect absorbs 
 all the inner life our nature is dismantled, and 
 man becomes a monstrous Polyphemus, with 
 his glaring solitary eye as his sole addition to 
 his brutish nature, and with his brutish nature 
 as all that his prodigious eye can serve. 
 
 Not even the highest life of man, the life of 
 the spirit, should be cultivated alone. There 
 are eminently spiritual people who are so 
 ghostly thin in other ways that we can feelingly 
 pray that they may prosper in other respects 
 even as their souls prosper. And when we 
 look forward to the great future of man, we 
 cannot be satisfied without believing, at what- 
 ever risk of confusion and extravagance, in the 
 
Progress. 1 5 
 
 rising of a body by which our natural com- 
 munication with the universe may, in some 
 way, be maintained. Progress, then, is the 
 movement forward of the whole man, not with- 
 out much awkwardness and clumsiness perhaps, 
 but certainly without dismemberment. 
 
 But the whole man is not the individual man 
 only. Unus homo nullus homo. The individ- 
 ual is neither the beginning nor the end. We 
 are members of a body, of the body, and for 
 the body. And the body is very large. We 
 all know that it is as large as the family. Every 
 one understands that he cannot make real pro- 
 gress at the expense of his wife and children ; 
 that he must live for them ; that it is better for 
 him to creep and take them along than to run 
 and leave them behind. There are times when 
 we are made to feel that the body is larger 
 than the family ; that it includes the neighbor- 
 hood and the state ; that no advance of ours is 
 secure unless it be the advance of our whole 
 people ; that, for the sake of the advance of our 
 people, we must sacrifice any apparent interest 
 of our own, and find our own real gain in the 
 gain of our country. The whole lesson is not 
 mastered even then. We must learn that the 
 
1 6 Prejtidiced Inquiries. 
 
 body is mankind, including the Negroes, and 
 the Chinese, and all, and that there is no Pro- 
 gress for us without them. The right foot may 
 go first; but it cannot go beyond a certain 
 fixed point unless the left be allowed and made 
 to follow. Mankind is large, and somewhat 
 loosely put together ; but it does hang together 
 in the end : and, in the long run, it moveth all 
 together, if it move at all. The overthrow of 
 empires, the breaking up of civilizations, and 
 the rejection of chosen peoples are not stupen- 
 dous accidents and dire calamities merely. 
 Neither are they inevitable necessities of na- 
 ture or of unreasoning fate. They are intelli- 
 gent and righteous assertions of the fixed de- 
 cree that the part without the whole shall not 
 be made perfect. They are always ultimately 
 in the interest of the masses of the nations, and 
 when these are brought up, the old leaders, if 
 they will, may be restored, and may resume 
 their advance. 
 
 It will hence appear that there is, perhaps, 
 more to be done for Progress in the rear than 
 in the van ; more by the humble and meek than 
 by the bold and brave : and that there may be 
 the very best work done for the Progress of a 
 
Progress. i y 
 
 nation or of the world where there is hardly a 
 trace of what are frequently deemed the proper 
 signs of Progress ; while, on the other hand, the 
 brilliant feats of flying columns may be thrown 
 utterly away, because the main body is forgot- 
 ten and left too far behind. 
 
 I should have discoursed of a common thing, 
 — of the commonest thing of all in our time. 
 If the sophistical method which I have followed 
 has betrayed me into discoursing of what is not 
 at all common, I abjure the method, and shall 
 not use it again in this whole course of lectures. 
 But if, this time, aught worthy has oozed out 
 of sophistry, disdain it not. " Cymer berl o enau 
 llyffant." 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 PATRIOTISM seems to be distinguished above 
 most other virtues in that it is, confessedly, a 
 virtue of the highest rank and lustre, and yet a 
 virtue bearing no reproach among men, but 
 universally honored, and thriving under the 
 most diverse and opposite conditions. Ancient 
 Paganism and modern Christianity are much 
 the same to it ; and, among the patriots of 
 Christendom, confessors and saints stand side 
 by side with men who are violent, and intem- 
 perate, and licentious, and profane, and frivo- 
 lous in all things except their country's cause. 
 While every other virtuous path is narrow and 
 steep, Patriotism seems to be a broad road on 
 the level of all the world. It may, with good 
 reason, be called " the last resource of a scoun- 
 drel," seeing that here the scoundrel may be in 
 good company, and may do good service, 
 though reprobate on every other ground. 
 
 18 
 
Patriotism. 1 9 
 
 There are those who even think that earnest, 
 consistent Christians are less patriotic than 
 their more worldly fellow-citizens. Their eyes 
 and their thoughts are in eternity, it is said, 
 and the whole world that now is they deem a 
 mere stepping-stone to the infinite future on 
 which they are hasting to embark. They are 
 possessed with a love, beside w'hich the most 
 sacred earthly affections seem flat and stale, 
 and for which they are ever ready to forget 
 their own people and their father's house. 
 Their faith leads them directly to overlook 
 distinctions of race and country, and, in what 
 remains to them of worldly life, to merge love 
 of country in universal benevolence ; while 
 their quickened consciences are so sensitive 
 and so imperious that their aims and their 
 scruples would block all practical business, if 
 they could be brought to interest themselves 
 in it. There are, however, in every Christian 
 land, plenty of people who have not Christian 
 faith or virtue enough to spoil their Patriotism ; 
 and perhaps they are reserved in impenitence 
 and unbelief for this very purpose, that they 
 may be alive to the wants, and patiently de- 
 voted to the drudging service, of their country. 
 
20 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 If it be so, probably this will make matters 
 right for them at the last. 
 
 But though Patriotism is a broad road, there 
 are probably other things beside Christian 
 faith which may hamper our progress in it ; 
 and if a thorough sifting took place, the crowd- 
 ed ranks of patriots might lose some plausible 
 figures. But who is authorized to do the sift- 
 ing ? And what effective tests could be ap- 
 plied ? In the direst scenes of war, we may 
 seek our own ends of ambition and vanity — 
 under our country's banner ; and in peace, the 
 same sacred symbol may help us to dispel ennui 
 and kill time, if not to put money in our 
 pockets and to cover ourselves with glory. 
 Our country's good nature is boundless, and 
 will shield us in any amount of illusory swag- 
 gering. Lest we should owe our sweet sense 
 of Patriotic zeal and loyalty to this indulgent, 
 but unflattering tenderness of our great Mother, 
 we must search ourselves sharply ; but before 
 we can do so, we must know what we are talk- 
 ing about. 
 
 What is Patriotism, then? It is easy to reply 
 that patriotism is the love of one's country. 
 But where and what is our country that we 
 
Patriotism. 2 1 
 
 may love it ? Is it the land in which we live 
 that we are to love ? And must we love all of 
 it, and spread out our affections over the great 
 prairies, and the Rocky Mountains, and Texas, 
 and all? If not, how much of the land must we 
 love ? Will it do to love only our own little 
 homesteads, and let the whole population, by 
 combined affection, make up a complete love 
 of the country, — that is, of the settled parts of 
 the country, leaving the unclaimed wastes to 
 wait for love until they are brought under cul- 
 tivation? But if every Patriot must love the 
 whole land, must he know it before he loves 
 it ? Or can he love it just as well without know- 
 ing any thing about it ? If the lover must know 
 the beloved, what a pilgrimage awaits those 
 who would be American Patriots ! They must 
 start out early, and they must not salute any 
 one by the way. They must not rest, summer 
 or winter, and they must not grow listless and 
 sleepy on their journey. They must resolutely 
 love every place they come to ; and they must 
 not dismiss the day's love when the day is over, 
 but carry every acquisition forward to make up 
 the grand whole. Thus, for homeless, useless 
 vagabonds, Patriotism may perhaps be possible 
 
2 2 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 for a brief, brief season at the weary close of 
 life ; but the tillers of the soil, and other indus- 
 trious citizens, whom we have been accustomed 
 to regard as the heart and core of our popula- 
 tion, can never hope to love their country at all. 
 If, aghast at this prospect, we decide that 
 the land may be loved unexplored and un- 
 known, what kind of love can that be ? It 
 surely cannot be love of the land for its own 
 sake. It must be love trickling down, from 
 some more direct object, to the land as con- 
 nected with that object, like the precious oint- 
 ment upon the head, that ran down upon the 
 beard, — that went down to the skirts of the 
 garments. The land, then, is not the country 
 we love : the land is loved for the country's 
 sake. The land may be, to a great extent, 
 unknown ; but we can illumine its unknown 
 regions with the familiar glory of the country. 
 Any known and happy features of the land are 
 freely mingled with the renown of the country, 
 as in the exuberant lines, — 
 
 ' ' This royal throne of kings, this sceptr'd isle, 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 
 This fortress, built by Nature for herself, 
 
Patriotism. 2 3 
 
 Against infection, and the hand of war ; 
 This happy breed of men, this little world, 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 
 This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ! " 
 
 But happy features in the land are not at all 
 requisite. All natural features can be glorified 
 alike. The precious ointment will go down to 
 the skirts of the garments, irrespective of their 
 stuff or their style. A land of vines, and fig- 
 trees, and pomegranates, or a land of brown 
 heath ; the grateful shelter of deep valleys, and 
 the smile of flowery dales ; or the naked cliffs 
 that lift you to the storm ; — it is all one : you 
 love the land, whatsoever it be, for the sake of 
 the dear love you bear your country. 
 
 But what is the country ? Is it the People, 
 — Americans born in the land, and immigrants 
 of all tribes and tongues, as soon as they re- 
 ceive their naturalization papers ? It is clear 
 that for these unknown myriads, for their own 
 sake, we can have no other love than the good- 
 will which we owe to all men. And if the 
 people were the country, there would be a 
 distinct country for every generation to love. 
 We could not love the country which Wash- 
 
24 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 ington loved, or the country which another 
 Washington may love in the fortieth century. 
 Furthermore, there are a few American citizens, 
 of our own time, whom we know very well, but 
 whom we cannot love or honor for their own 
 sake. •They have an indefeasible claim to our 
 indignation and scorn. There are others, of 
 whom we cannot speak so harshly, but whom, 
 nevertheless, we should be willing to see bar- 
 tered for average Hottentots, at the rate of 
 more than a dozen of our countrymen for one 
 African. Is this treason ? Are these men in- 
 tegral portions of the country which demands 
 our highest love and devotion ? And is our 
 love for our country, demand what you will, 
 practically to depend on the character of our 
 countrymen ? The character of our country- 
 men is high and low, without limit. Are we to 
 attribute all to our country, and clothe her in 
 motley, and love or hate, revere or pity, accord- 
 ing to the spot we happen to look on? Or 
 must we ascertain the character of the majority, 
 or the average character, and govern our vari- 
 able patriotism by the rise and fall of that ? 
 Patriotism will scarcely be possible on such 
 terms ; and the terms need only to be stated 
 
Patriotism. 2 5 
 
 in order to be repudiated. As our hearts re- 
 fuse to think of our country as mere territory, 
 straggling over hill and dale for three thousand 
 miles, and patched here and there from time to 
 time ; as they refuse to think of it as being 
 born and buried piecemeal, from generation to 
 generation ; as they insist that our country is 
 one, whether the States be thirteen or fifty, and 
 whether the people be five or fifty millions ; 
 that it is one for the fathers and for us all and 
 for those who shall come after us ; so they in- 
 sist, with equal emphasis, that our country, 
 being one, has character, a character not to 
 be compromised by the baseness of unworthy 
 citizens, on the one hand, and on the other, 
 not to be measured by the excellence of the 
 very noblest. Our country was before us ; and 
 her character is the law and guide of ours, not 
 its result. The fervid maxim, " My country, 
 right or wrong," is over-officious, and steers 
 straight for chaos. Our country is right, and 
 not wrong. Whatever is wrong has neither part 
 nor lot with her, but is arrayed with the fatal 
 powers with which she must ever battle. Deny 
 this, and patriotism is discrowned, and becomes 
 a babbling and savage idiot : admit it, and all 
 
2 6 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 love and service and sacrifice are our coun- 
 try's due. She will rejoice with us and bless 
 us if we loyally render them unto her : and if 
 her children forsake her, to follow their abom- 
 inations, she may sit on the ground, and mourn 
 for them, in darkness and desolation ; but her 
 purity is not sullied, and her great hope re- 
 mains sure. Through her tears she looks forth 
 for the coming day. 
 
 But let us pause, and consider whether this 
 rhapsodical argument has not left us without 
 a country at all. Our country is not the land, 
 — not all the people, — and not choice spirits 
 among the people. Is it a shadow, then ? Is 
 it a glorious, gracious phantom, or only a won- 
 der-working name ? Shall we love, and honor, 
 and live and die for an inflated figure of speech ? 
 Suppose it is proved that Patriotism is not rea- 
 sonable or possible if our country be no other 
 than the land, or the population ; why may we 
 not accept the conclusion, and give it full 
 sweep, and say that Patriotism, with its pos- 
 ing, and its preaching, and all its hysterics, is 
 not reasonable at all ; and that the proper thing 
 for all men to do is to live, in general, as serene 
 citizens of the world, and, when their interests 
 
Patriotism. 2 7 
 
 are menaced, to make the best temporary com- 
 binations they can, and bargain or fight their 
 cause through, and say as little about it as 
 possible ? 
 
 This may be the proper and reasonable thing 
 to do : but it is doubtful whether it has ever 
 been fairly tried, or ever will be. Men are 
 rolled up, or pounded together, into patriotic 
 nations, before they know it, and without be- 
 ing consulted. Nations are not born of the 
 will of man. They are made in secret, and 
 forced to the birth with infinite travail. And 
 as their unity is originated, so it is maintained, 
 less by their voluntary adhesion than by an 
 inner, deeper life, " whose fountain who shall 
 tell?" We have found this true in our own 
 country ; and we have another familiar and 
 most impressive instance of it in the making 
 and preserving of England. Early English his- 
 tory has been described as mere battles of kites 
 and crows. But those very kites and crows 
 were already under a law which made them, 
 in their bloodiest conflicts, the founders of a 
 great united kingdom. Saxon and Norman 
 and Dane, while seeking separate, selfish ends, 
 fought for the common country that was to be. 
 
28 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 Scotland and Wales were long irreconcilable. 
 But all their brave resistance was but the will 
 of man setting itself against his deeper life. 
 Their true country, though they could not 
 then perceive it, was the country which they 
 cursed night and day, and against which they 
 struggled and plotted for centuries. At last, 
 the yoke of England is not needed on their 
 necks, because the conquering life of England 
 is supreme in their hearts. England's past, 
 they know not how, has become their own ; 
 and England's future is their birthright. They 
 still love their mountain homes, and they cher- 
 ish the memory of their fathers ; they have 
 local and provincial aims, of course, which they 
 will seek persistently : but the Celts and Teu- 
 tons of Britain have nevertheless become one 
 people, loving and serving one common coun- 
 try. Of the Celts of Ireland, history is not yet 
 ready to speak definitely. They certainly are 
 much to England, many of them being among 
 her foremost sons, in war and peace, all over 
 the empire. To take away all that is Irish from 
 England would be more than cutting off the 
 right hand or plucking out the right eye. Eng- 
 land also certainly is, and must continue to be, 
 
Patriotism. 29 
 
 in many ways, very much to Ireland. But 
 large numbers of the Irish people of to-day 
 are as hostile to the English connection, and 
 as determined to get rid of it, as the followers 
 of Wallace and Bruce and Llewelyn ever were. 
 It is vain to conjecture now what the end of 
 their struggle may be. Ireland may gain her 
 independence, and found a strong state, or even 
 a great empire of her own. But there are wise 
 historians who would consider such a thing 
 impossible without a complete change in the 
 Celtic nature. 
 
 The following, from Mommsen (" Rome," Bk. 
 II., Chap, iv.), will give some of the grounds of 
 their judgment : " With various solid qualities 
 and still more that were brilliant, it (the Celtic 
 race) was deficient in those deeper moral and 
 political qualifications which lie at the root of 
 all that is good and great in human develop- 
 ment. . . . Their political constitution was 
 imperfect. Not only was the national unity 
 recognized but feebly as a bond of connec- 
 tion — as is, in fact, the case with all nations 
 at first, — but the individual communities were 
 deficient in unanimity and steady control, in 
 earnest public spirit and consistency of aim. 
 
30 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 The only organization for which they were 
 fitted was a military one, where the bonds of 
 discipline relieved the individual from the 
 troublesome task of self-control. ' The promi- 
 nent qualities of the Celtic race,' says their 
 historian Thierry ' were personal bravery, in 
 which they excelled all nations ; an open, im- 
 petuous temperament, accessible to every im- 
 pression ; much intelligence, but at the same 
 time an extreme volatility, want of persever- 
 ance, aversion to discipline and order, ostenta- 
 tion and perpetual discord — the result of bound- 
 less vanity.' Cato the Elder more briefly de- 
 scribes them, nearly to the same effect : ' The 
 Celts devote themselves mainly to two things — 
 fighting and esprit ' {rem militarem et argute 
 loqui). Such qualities — those of good soldiers 
 but of bad citizens — explain the historical 
 fact, that the Celts have shaken all states and 
 have founded none. Everywhere we find 
 them ready to rove, or, in other words, to 
 march ; . . . following the profession of 
 arms . . . with such success that even the 
 Roman historian Sallust acknowledges that the 
 Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in 
 feats of arms. They were the true soldiers of 
 
Patriotism. 3 1 
 
 fortune of antiquity. . . . But all their 
 enterprises melted away like snow in spring ; 
 and nowhere did they create a great state or 
 develop a distinctive culture of their own." 
 Thirlwall, reviewing the history of the Irish 
 people in particular, describes them as " a peo- 
 ple richly gifted with many noble qualities of 
 mind and heart ; singularly deficient indeed in 
 the faculty and the spirit of political and ec- 
 clesiastical organization, neither comprehending 
 its conditions, nor appreciating its advantages." 
 If the Irish people, then, will ever found a 
 strong independent state, they will surprise 
 the historians and confound the prophets ; 
 they will do a new and unexpected thing in 
 history ; they will make the shadow return 
 backward in the dial ; but if, at some remote 
 day, when their greatest grievances are re- 
 dressed and forgotten, they yet cheerfully and 
 proudly take their place (a high place indeed 
 they would take) as members of the great, 
 united British people, they will do only what 
 their brethren have already done with great 
 advantage after centuries of bitter resistance, 
 and what should excite no surprise at all, such 
 is the violence with which nations are formed. 
 
32 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 and with which Patriotism invades the hearts 
 of men. 
 
 And as men are thus forcibly brought under 
 the sway of a great national life where it ex- 
 ists, so, where national life is feeble, and even 
 where it may seem entirely lacking, where men 
 shun their fellows and fortify themselves in 
 surly fastnesses, or wander over wild deserts, 
 destitute of political ties and common tradi- 
 tions, without fathers, without oracles, without 
 glory, even there they will not defend the 
 ground they stand on, or hold the bread they 
 eat, for their own bare advantage ; they will 
 not hunt the wild beast in the land, they will 
 not kill the boar and the lion, for mere sport 
 or mere security ; they will not commit rapine 
 and murder solely from brutish greed, or dia- 
 bolical malignity. They have greed enough ; 
 they have malignity enough ; and they give 
 large play to all fierce passions ; but, in their 
 dark spirits, with mixed humility and pride, 
 they give tithes of all to an unseen, dimly felt 
 country of their own. Great nations have 
 mewed their mighty youth in impenetrable 
 sanctuaries nourished by such rude offerings. 
 
 Nor are gentler natures, in such situations. 
 
Patriotism. 33 
 
 left without a country to love, or without means 
 to serve it. Rather, perhaps, they know their 
 country best, and serve it best. Like Abraham, 
 who sojourned in the land of promise as in a 
 strange country, but already possessed it by 
 faith, and, darting his believing eye through 
 centuries of eventful development, saw the 
 blessed end and fulfilment of his country's life, 
 and rejoiced; — the greatest instance we have of 
 the unity of national life to the Patriot, and of 
 the profound and unfactitious character of 
 Patriotism itself ; like him, doubtless, many 
 others, amidst the desolations of the earth, 
 have communed with the unseen, and have 
 beheld and loved their country in victorious 
 hope, and have given it not tithings of what 
 was offered to lust and violence, but a pure and 
 entire life. Let a country so beheld and loved 
 not be accounted unreal. For every true 
 Patriot his country is, in a measure, as for these 
 it is altogether, a land of promise : and the 
 highest Patriotism is ever that which makes the 
 most of the promise. 
 
 It seems fated, then, that the elevated Pa- 
 triotism, which will break forth into singing 
 and flow in rivers of blood for no merely sordid 
 
34 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 end, shall exist, chiefly in the most civilized 
 nations, but also in the most uncivilized, as a 
 blind instinct in the baser souls, but in the 
 nobler as a spiritual faith. As it apparently 
 must exist, and as human history owes so much 
 of its coherence and dignity to its presence, we 
 may assume that there is reason in it though 
 we did not put it there, and it may be worth 
 our while to consider what the great Patriotic 
 nations have thought of the ground of their own 
 Patriotism. They had no distrust of faith and 
 piety. They regarded their national life not 
 only as under divine protection and guidance, 
 but as existing by divine appointment to fulfil 
 the will of heaven. In ancient times this faith 
 was often mixed with the most puerile super- 
 stition ; but it prevailed in all the greatest na- 
 tions, and it was expressed with all varying 
 degrees of clearness and strength, culminating 
 in the prophets of Israel. Modern nations, 
 as they have been eminently Patriotic, and 
 especially as they have reached serious crises in 
 their history, have borne witness to the same 
 conviction, and those who have been called to 
 pilot nations in extremities have been at once 
 awed and sustained by new disclosures of this 
 faith within them. 
 
Patriotism. 35 
 
 Such has been the ground of Patriotism, 
 most manifest where Patriotism has been most 
 signal. Men have loved their country because 
 their country is of God, and is charged with 
 interests more sacred than life itself. Such a 
 ground justifies the most exalted Patriotism, 
 and might, if we had a faculty for defining, at 
 last afford us a definition of our country com- 
 patible with Patriotism. We shall, however, 
 omit the definition, and simply insist that the 
 essential and constitutive element in our coun- 
 try is not territory, or race, or political forms, 
 but the providential presence of God, binding 
 us together as one people, to work out his 
 purposes on the earth. 
 
 If it is this that gives men a country to love 
 and serve, we surely have one, and a country 
 in the dewy morn of its life, with its mission 
 almost wholly before it. When the body has 
 served its purpose, the life that has held it to- 
 gether releases it. When a nation has done its 
 work, the indwelling spirit relaxes its national 
 hold upon its members, and leaves them free to 
 be drawn by the same spirit to new centres for 
 other service. In the later stages of national 
 life, when the end is assured or lost, Patriotism 
 
3 6 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 is naturally enfeebled and can barely support 
 its waning strength by the traditions of the 
 past. But in its youth a nation is richly 
 equipped for its long career, and in its early 
 advance, its Patriotism, instead of wasting away, 
 abounds more and more. Americans every- 
 where appear to feel that they owe more love 
 to their country than men of other nations owe 
 to theirs. They can hardly be naturalized else- 
 where on the face of the earth, while foreigners, 
 of all races, stretch out their hands unto us be- 
 fore they reach our shores, and are one with us 
 immediately. 
 
 Some of this abundance of apparent Patriot- 
 ism, however, may be entirely spurious. It may 
 be gigantic egotism annexing the continent and 
 the future. It may be the gross earth spirit 
 exulting in plains richer than those of Sodom. 
 Some of it also may be true Patriotism, magni- 
 fied and animated by the levity and inexperi- 
 ence, rather than by the divine freshness, of 
 youth. How shall we try our spirits, and what 
 shall we do, that our Patriotism may be genuine 
 and unadulterated as well as conspicuous? 
 
 First of all, we must love, as children, in a 
 humble, reverent, teachable spirit. Our Patriots 
 
Patriotism. 3 7 
 
 are in too much hurry to be patrons and bene- 
 factors of their country. The first thing they 
 generally propose to do is to carry their country 
 on their backs. Then they will feed her with a 
 spoon, and wash and comb her, and teach her 
 the rudiments of philosophy. But our country 
 is the mother of us all ; and our Patriotism 
 should at first incline us, not to give, but to re- 
 ceive. What good can come of Patriotism, if 
 the Patriot is, from the start, superior to his 
 country ? Who is there to receive any benefits 
 if infant Patriotism proceeds at once to confer 
 benefits? Young Patriots of America, restrain 
 your premature beneficence. Lie still awhile 
 in your mother's bosom. Let her breathe upon 
 you and bless you. Let her tell you the story 
 of her nativity, and of the treasures which pil- 
 grims from afar offered at her birth. Let her 
 tell you the deeds of her ancestry and of her 
 kindred beyond the sea. Learn if she herself 
 has done aught besides clearing the forest and 
 building her railroads and her cities, and if she 
 has any hope and purpose, besides increasing her 
 wealth and luxury, in the longcenturies to come. 
 Gaze not too intently on her rich and ample gar- 
 ments ; be not dazzled by her Babylonish mag- 
 
3 8 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 nificence ; lift up your eyes and behold her face, 
 and see if that be Babylonish too, or if it be a 
 human face, expressing with its strength and 
 its dominion, also the humility and rapt devo- 
 tion of a servant of the Lord, going forth to 
 bless the ages. Give yourselves time and op- 
 portunity to know your country's place in the 
 world ; to know her history and the Power 
 which has guided her history, and is at work, 
 beneath all surface movements, shaping her 
 ends to-day. Turn aside to see the great 
 sight, and to learn the deep secret of your 
 country's life. So will your country be to you 
 a true home and a rich inheritance, not a mere 
 corn-field and sleeping-cot : and so will you be- 
 come possessed by the spirit of your country ; 
 and when, in due time, mature day and ripe 
 occasion shall call you to the active service of 
 your country, you will render, not the fussy, 
 irrelevant services, in which so many Patriots 
 wear themselves out in vain, killing, over and 
 over, noble Percys who have been slain long 
 ago, but real, substantial services, adapted to 
 our actual situation, which is novel and unique 
 among the nations. With much that the Patriots 
 of other lands are laboring at, we have little 
 
Patriotism. 30 
 
 occasion to busy ourselves. They are occupied 
 with national security and independence, with 
 popular self-government, and with religious 
 liberty ; all of which have come to us freely 
 from our forefathers, who won them for us in 
 the field and at the block and the stake. But 
 did they fight our battles, and suffer martyrdom 
 for us, that we might abandon ourselves unre- 
 servedly to ignoble ease, or scarcely less ignoble 
 toil,— toil to gratify the lust of the flesh, and the 
 lust of the eye, and the pride of life ? It would 
 have been better to have left us to fight our own 
 battles, and to suffer our own martyrdoms, than 
 to have consigned us to such ignominy. But 
 they fought and suffered for us, that we might 
 push forward and win more conclusive victories 
 for ourselves. And how shall we do that? 
 How, indeed, but by using what was so nobly 
 won for us, and what many other nations so 
 earnestly desire! Independence, the right of 
 self-government, and religious liberty, are not 
 mere ''privative mercies" to be thankful for 
 when one happens to think of them, like freedom 
 from gout or cancer; they are not final achieve- 
 ments which have no further use but to be 
 glorified in speech and in song ; they are com- 
 
40 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 manding powers, looking to the future ; they 
 are trumpet-calls to present duty. The Patriot- 
 ism of former times was tested and exercised in 
 winning them ; our own Patriotism has its 
 noblest exercise in the thoughtful, faithful use 
 of them. What £lory is there in possessing the 
 right of self-government if we govern ourselves 
 as capriciously as a tyrant or a lunatic might 
 govern us ; or if, satisfied with the conscious- 
 ness of power, we leave our authority in abey- 
 ance, to see what happiness may come to us 
 from the four winds ? If justice falls in our 
 streets; if injury and outrage lift up their 
 heads within our borders unrebuked ; if hideous 
 social anomalies besot our land; if honored 
 citizens grow rich by dealing out death and 
 madness and pauperism and crime at our doors ; 
 if our princes are brigands, and if shameful pol- 
 lutions should creep into the chambers of our 
 kings ; shall we say, with good-natured pride, 
 that, at least, all this is not fastened upon us 
 by hereditary absolutism, but takes place with 
 our own free and full consent ? Will not self- 
 government, then, become a byword and a re- 
 proach? When abuses prevail by the whims 
 and insolence of tyrants, they may foster the 
 
Patriotism. 4 1 
 
 noblest spirit among the people; when they 
 prevail through the connivance of the sovereign 
 people themselves, what can they foster but 
 degradation ? Verily, self-government is not a 
 talent to be laid in a napkin ; it is valueless, it is 
 perilous except when worthily exercised. 
 
 We must fight our battles, then, at the con- 
 vention, and at the polls, if not more valiantly, 
 at least more seriously and more faithfully, 
 more like men who follow one high purpose 
 steadily to the end. The fatuous charges of 
 light brigades, going off wantonly at a sudden 
 notion of their own or of some gallant captain, 
 or even at a winged word from disorderly strag- 
 glers, are as unprofitable as the heavy firing of 
 strong, well-handled battalions which fight 
 steadily but have made a covenant not to hit 
 the enemy. 
 
 But what is it that we are to achieve at the 
 convention, and at the polls? Is it to see that 
 none but good, honest men get to places of 
 trust and power ? Then, what if we are not 
 good, honest men ourselves ? Shall crows be 
 squeamish about color? What if the people to 
 be represented be not good, honest people ? 
 Can the convention or the polls, bring a clean 
 
42 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 thing out of an unclean ? When the upper 
 pond is full it is easy to get water into the mill- 
 race and on the wheel ; but when the pond is 
 low, there will be a world of trouble. If the 
 country is full of high-minded, securely based 
 integrity, it ought to be very easy to get some 
 of it into the public service ; but if lofty, stead- 
 fast character is rare throughout the land, our 
 popular elections will bear witness to its rarity 
 in spite of our utmost vigilance. 
 
 Herein it is manifest that we may not pick 
 and choose among the dearly won treasures of 
 our national inheritance. We cannot exercise 
 self-government, though the right has been pur- 
 chased for us, unless we also use the accompany- 
 ing right of religious liberty. Religious liberty 
 is, indeed, an earlier and a more essential ele- 
 ment of our American life than even self-gov- 
 ernment ; and we should imperil our well-being 
 and our work in the world less by becoming a 
 political dependency of Great Britain again, 
 unspeakably monstrous as that would be, than 
 by sacrificing our religious liberty, the first and 
 distinctive achievement of the founders of our 
 country. But we may sacrifice our religious 
 liberty without returning to star-chambers and 
 
Patriotism. 43 
 
 thumb-screws. Hide it in the earth ; overlay 
 it with worldly business and pleasure ; and it is 
 sacrificed more completely than if you surren- 
 dered it formally to the Pope. Nay, parade 
 and magnify it, yet make it subservient to 
 trivial, self-complacent speculation, and to every 
 idle, erratic impulse ; and it is worse than sac- 
 rificed, — it is pressed into the service of false 
 gods, the gods that rise out of the earth, — gods 
 which it is our vocation not to serve but to 
 vanquish. Religious liberty came into the 
 world, so late, not to smooth the path of the 
 irreligious spirit, in thought or life, but to open 
 a n~w world of power to Christian faith and 
 love. When this new world is recognised and 
 fairly occupied by our people at large, self- 
 government will be seen in its glory. The 
 upper pond will be full. 
 
 " We are betrayed, then," the profaner 
 among you will say : " Our country is turned 
 into a church ; Patriotism involves sanctifica- 
 tion ; we are sold to the saints, after all the 
 pretence of a broad road." Yet, the road is 
 broad ; and it would not be safe to commit the 
 country to the churches as they exist at the 
 present day. They would dilute its natural 
 
44 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 life. Eminent and indispensable services are 
 rendered to the country by men who are them- 
 selves at war with the Divinity which shapes the 
 country's higher ends. But this state of things, 
 though much less objectionable than some 
 others that can be conceived, is neither neces- 
 sary nor glorious: and Americans should be 
 the last of all men to rest contented with it. We 
 in this country have asserted strongly that, 
 though there must be division of labor and di- 
 versity of condition among our people, yet there 
 need not be and shall not be a fixed partition 
 of the nation into head and tail, into honorable 
 citizens to bear rule and to enjoy liberal culture, 
 and outcast Helots to be hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water for the benefit of the superior 
 class. This has been a notable proclamation in 
 the ears of mankind ; and to make it good is a 
 large part of our mission in the world. But do 
 we make it good, shall we ever make it good, 
 will it not become the saddest disappointment 
 in the book of time if a large part of our peo- 
 ple are always to serve their country in the iron 
 bands of short-sighted impulse or passion, with- 
 out any conscious communion with the foun- 
 tain of their country's life, and without any 
 
Patriotism. 45 
 
 regard to the ultimate ends of their country's 
 existence ? Are Patriots who so serve, what- 
 ever their natural gifts, and whatever their con- 
 tribution to the public good, other than Helots, 
 toiling for a state in which they have no free 
 citizenship? They may be brave, generous, 
 well-fed, uncomplaining Helots; they may take 
 pride and delight in their tasks ; but Helots 
 they are still, and bondsmen, if, while drudging 
 merrily for grog and pottage, they are always 
 to be used by the Supreme Ruler for higher 
 national ends which are in no wise their own. 
 
 But they are not always to be so used. The 
 procession of history, and the manifest counsels 
 of God therein working, demand that the peo- 
 ple of this country, called to the leadership and 
 service of mankind, and furnished at the start 
 with every outward advantage and every spirit- 
 ual preparation, shall attain to the inner free- 
 dom which consists in the apprehension and 
 voluntary fulfilment of their highest life. If 
 they attain not to this, which is in the direct 
 line of all their previous history, what advance 
 is there for them to make ? How shall they 
 avoid falling away backward? Why are they 
 here at all ? Has the God of Nations brought 
 
46 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 his long-prepared purpose to the birth, and will 
 He not cause to bring forth? Undoubtedly, 
 the American people, when they have got over 
 the intoxication produced by the brilliant ex- 
 pansion of their material life and by the novelty 
 of their position in the world, will revert in 
 earnest to the true path of their advance, and 
 become a holy nation ; not a nation of spiritual 
 pedants who will give the world away and serve 
 the Lord in a vacuum, but a nation of men to 
 whom the world and all its work will seem more 
 worthy than ever of their noblest energies, be- 
 cause, for them, the kingdoms of this world 
 will have become the kingdoms of their Lord, 
 and of His Christ ; and the work, in which in- 
 stinct prompted and guided them before, will 
 have become a reasonable service, in which they 
 are called to be workers together with the 
 Shepherd and Father of all the nations. 
 
 When that time comes, what a country will 
 ours be ! What a new light in the firmament 
 of history ! The stars of the East will never 
 grow dim ; but, for future ages, the gracious light 
 of the West will make the heavens new. What 
 a country will ours be, did I say ? Nay, that 
 very country, which coming ages will bless, is 
 
Patriotism. 47 
 
 ours now. That, and no other, was the coun- 
 try which our fathers loved. For that they 
 fought, in open war, and in the secret, per- 
 petual war which is called peace. That coun- 
 try is our country to-day ; and the faithful love 
 of it is true Patriotism. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 PARTY POLITICS. 
 
 SEEING that we are called to full citizenship 
 in a country whose early childhood overtops 
 the seasoned maturity of many giant nations 
 of the past and present time, and whose own 
 maturity, yet very far off, is to wear a glory 
 and wield a power which might well astonish 
 the world that now is, it would argue a mon- 
 strous unworthiness in us if we were a people 
 indifferent to Politics. It would argue an un- 
 worthiness still more shameful if we were to 
 make our Politics a mere arena for covetous- 
 ness and vanity to display their egregious 
 capabilities. Our Politics should be conducted 
 eagerly and enthusiastically by the people at 
 large ; but the universal motive should be none 
 other than a generous zeal for the right direc- 
 tion of our national energies, through all their 
 various operations, to their legitimate and 
 necessary ends. Yet this zeal, this enthusiasm, 
 
 4 8 
 
Party Politics. 49 
 
 must not hope to accomplish its object by 
 brooding and moaning over Politics in the ab- 
 stract. It must come down to every-day work ; 
 it must canvass the state and the country ; it 
 must master the burdensome details of Party 
 Politics. For let it not be supposed that prac- 
 tical Politics, in a free country, can ever be any 
 thing but Party Politics. 
 
 The Presidential campaign (1884), already 
 fairly opened, and the presence of worthy rep- 
 resentatives of all the Political Parties known in 
 these parts, invite us to the agitation of Party 
 questions at once. For the sake of perfect 
 order, if you will allow me, I will be all the 
 different Parties myself ; and, for one brief 
 hour, you shall be the calm, judicial American 
 people, freed from Party ties, and undisturbed 
 by any remnant of faction. While you enjoy 
 such enviable dignity and repose, I must be 
 hurried perilously through the tumultuous pas- 
 sions of our national strife. I devoutly hope 
 that, when I have gone through my transfor- 
 mations, I may at last be myself again, if not 
 something better. 
 
 And, now, how many am I to be ? The 
 Political Parties of a country may, generally, be 
 
50 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 classified roughly under three heads : the Party 
 in power, the great Party in opposition, and the 
 various juvenile or infant Parties, whose power 
 and fame are yet to come. For completeness, 
 we might add a fourth class, including the 
 superannuated and the dying ; but I am not 
 aware that we have any Parties so far gone as 
 that ; and I trust that, in my transmigrations, 
 I shall not be overtaken, in any Party, by the 
 throes of its dissolution. 
 
 For reasons which I need not mention, I 
 shall appear first in our great opposition Party ; 
 and let it be understood, all through, that I am 
 so identified with the Party of the hour as to 
 be entitled to make a free use of the first per- 
 son plural, and to speak from the heart of 
 the Party ; not from a mere advocate's table 
 outside. 
 
 Now, then, I am a Democrat to the back- 
 bone. Hurrah for Jefferson, and for everybody 
 on our side, dead or alive! At the outset, let 
 me remind you that our Party has been called 
 friend by the American people, and has borne 
 the highest honors of the country for years and 
 years ; that many of the greatest names in 
 American history are on our side ; that multi- 
 
Party Politics. 5i 
 
 tudes of the ablest and best men of to-day, as 
 of former generations, are ours, throughout the 
 country, as well as in our own enlightened town ; 
 and that we have as deep an interest and as 
 heavy a stake in the prosperity of the country 
 as any others whatsoever. It is the land of 
 our fathers, and it is to be the land of our 
 children's children for ever. Remembering all 
 this, and our numbers, the scornful attitude 
 of Republicans towards us seems utterly unjus- 
 tifiable. They talk as if we had no right at all 
 even to ask for the suffrages of the people. 
 But if our title is to be disputed, it must be 
 by a wholesale proscription of American citi- 
 zens. It will be said, of course, that we for- 
 feited the confidence of the people by our con- 
 duct in the events of the last twenty-five years ; 
 but the reply is obvious, that our conduct was 
 a historical necessity, and that we were sacri- 
 ficed, in the regular course of things, to elicit 
 the true and decisive meaning of the Constitu- 
 tion, and of the people. And if we cannot pre- 
 tend that the selection of the victim was alto- 
 gether as arbitrary as at Aulis, it is our privi- 
 lege and duty to confess our share of human 
 fallibility, and to profit by the logic of events. 
 
52 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 We have been thinking deeply of late, and we 
 have made up our minds to accept accom- 
 plished facts. We are willing, if need be, to 
 wear a little sackcloth and ashes for the past. 
 But, after all, the past is past, and the Ameri- 
 can people of to-day are not in any antiquarian 
 mood. They are interested in the present, and 
 the spell of the future is upon them. What 
 they want is, not a pack of self-admiring Nes- 
 tors, to prattle about ancient exploits, but 
 plain, simple, honest men, to work their pres- 
 ent will, and to realize their hopes in the time 
 to come ; and here we are at their service. We 
 think that we are needed for a long period ; 
 we are certain that we are sorely needed for a 
 little while. The nation has placed unex- 
 ampled confidence in its present servants, and 
 the confidence of the people has been flagrant- 
 ly abused. What scandals have we not had in 
 the highest places? What merchandise has 
 been made of public trusts ! A long lease of 
 power has made the Republicans reckless and 
 uncontrollable. You have shaken the rod at 
 them a number of times, but the darling pets 
 have smiled archly at the rod, and proceeded 
 with their frolics. If you will correct them 
 
Party Politics. 53 
 
 soundly by putting us in power at the next 
 election, all their pristine virtue will return to 
 them, and we shall make such a determined ef- 
 fort to be good that, to get ahead of us, they 
 will have to sit up nights to study morality and 
 honor, and there will be such noble rivalry in 
 Political efficiency and purity as will withdraw 
 public attention from the walking-matches and 
 the prize-fights, and lure the very children 
 from the skating-rinks to behold the spectacle. 
 And so, worthy fellow-citizens, in giving us a 
 lift this time, you will reform your government, 
 and bless the souls of your old friends, our ene- 
 mies, and give the whole world a jog forward 
 in high morals. 
 
 There is much more that I might say for our 
 side if I had time to remain on our side. But 
 the fleeting hour summons me, now a sturdy 
 Democrat, to pass the deep abyss ; and here I 
 am, without further ado, a Republican of the 
 Republicans. As Republicans, we have no de- 
 sire to proscribe American citizens ; no desire, 
 on personal grounds, to keep out of power the 
 very persons who are known as Democrats. Our 
 distrust of them, our opposition to them, has 
 been rational and patriotic, not malicious or 
 
54 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 selfish. The Democrats, within this genera- 
 tion, allowed themselves to be beguiled, it 
 makes little difference how, into the most un- 
 hallowed and murderous rebellion that the 
 world ever saw. Some people will think it 
 malignant and unwise to say so. But it is his- 
 tory ; and surely no apology is needed for read- 
 ing history aloud, though it be our own history, 
 and nearly the most recent as well as the most 
 weighty history that we have. We are at great 
 pains to dig and delve for the obscurest facts 
 about ancient and remote nations ; and when 
 we have found any facts, we pore over them 
 without end to see if there be any light in 
 them. Now, with our deep historical studies 
 among far-away peoples and times, how stulti- 
 fied we should be if, in order to heal the hurt 
 of the daughter of our people very slightly in- 
 deed, we consented to say nothing, or to say 
 less than the blazing truth, to one another and 
 to our children, about the most memorable 
 years of our own history ! Great nations must 
 feed on their own history ; and we could never 
 make any progress by forgetting the great re- 
 bellion. It must never, and will never be for- 
 gotten. It is an unspeakable satisfaction, 
 
Party Politics, 55 
 
 therefore, to have our brethren who erred 
 so fatally, at last come and tell us that they 
 have profited by the logic of events, and ac- 
 cepted accomplished facts. Now, there need 
 be no bitterness between us for remembering 
 tha war. We can go over the terrible story to- 
 gether, and see, with profound thankfulness on 
 both sides, how fruitful the logic of events has 
 been, how pregnant the accomplished facts are, 
 and what a happy regeneration the Democratic 
 Party has experienced to enable it to accept so 
 much. Far from opposing the Democrats in- 
 discriminately, I will here plead their cause, 
 and gladly call attention to the significance of 
 the step which they have taken, towards re- 
 gaining the confidence of the nation, by ac- 
 cepting accomplished facts. For lack of time, 
 I can only touch on one of the facts. The war 
 emancipated the Negroes, and invested them 
 with the sacred rights, not only of human 
 nature, but also of free and full citizens of this 
 Republic. The Democrats, be it known here- 
 with, have, happily, accepted this immense fact. 
 Henceforth, perish the growling in the Repub- 
 lican camp about the solid South. Everybody 
 in the South has the full rights of a free citizen. 
 
56 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 If the South be solid, then, it is solid, not 
 through the lawless violence of a dominant 
 class (for there is no lawless violence, and 
 there is no dominant class), but through a 
 most happy and almost miraculous unity of 
 sentiment among the whole population, black 
 and white. Behold, how good and how pleas- 
 ant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
 unity ! The spectacle is touching in our land 
 of difference and strife. It is almost enough to 
 make the divided North vote solidly with the 
 South out of pure admiration. Let the Demo- 
 cratic Party have full credit for accepting ac- 
 complished facts. It is a very great step for 
 them to have taken. It fairly entitles them to 
 show their faces once more among other candi- 
 dates, and to present whatever claims they may 
 have for public favor. But if it is itself pre- 
 sented as a plea for advancement, it must stand 
 thus : " We are very sorry that we attempted 
 to cut the nation's throat. It was wickedly 
 done. We were also natural bunglers to think 
 of such a thing. We admit further that it is 
 wrong, at the present day, to violate the laws, 
 and to trample upon the Constitution. There- 
 fore, let us rule over you." 
 
Party Politics. 57 
 
 But the Democratic Party has other pleas, 
 beside its victorious disposal of war issues by 
 accepting accomplished facts. It is the Party 
 of great reforms. Just what reforms future 
 years may disclose ; — perhaps civil-service re- 
 forms ; perhaps even financial reforms, who 
 knows ? Failing utterly to perceive what re- 
 forms, acceptable to the nation, the adherents 
 of the Grand Old Party are either seriously dis- 
 posed to attempt or in a position to carry out, 
 we must put our hands upon our mouths in 
 dumb expectancy, just as we should do if they 
 promised to reform the weather or the laws of 
 motion. 
 
 We must, however, take some notice of their 
 last and greatest plea — the plea for acceptance 
 as deliverers of the nation from the incapacity 
 and corruption of the Republicans. The 
 charges brought against us are very serious ; 
 and, if our country accused us, few among us 
 perhaps, would expect to be altogether justi- 
 fied. Our country has the right to ask so 
 much, and the service is so glorious, that, be- 
 fore the high tribunal, we would fain cry: 
 Enter not into judgment with thy servants. 
 But when we consider who our accusers are, 
 
5 8 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 and what it is that stirs their wrath and their 
 zeal, we can confidently defend ourselves 
 against them ; and the true service of our 
 country requires us to do so. We are strength- 
 ened in our defence also by recollecting that 
 the work of the nation is the work of many 
 centuries, and that it is not given to any one 
 generation to do more than an inconsiderable 
 part of it. But unto us, though unworthy 
 enough, it has been given to do as much for 
 our country in a generation as was ever done 
 for any country in the same length of time 
 since human history began. With all our 
 faults, we are fresh from a series of services 
 which saved our country, first from ruin, and 
 afterwards from dishonor; and those services 
 were, one and all, made necessary, and then 
 resisted to the utmost, by the hardy reformers 
 who are now ready to take charge of the na- 
 tion. Every thing has not been done. But, 
 allowing for resistance and friction, fair work 
 has been done in past years ; and now we are 
 ready for the work that is still before us. 
 
 Suppose, however, that we had done very 
 much less, and that we were in every way 
 very much worse than we are, what is the 
 
Party Politics. 59 
 
 value of this proposed policy of removing the 
 faulty before you have something better to 
 take its place ? The exact value of the policy 
 depends on the circumstances in each particu- 
 lar case. But the variations in circumstances, 
 and in the value of the policy, may be compre- 
 hended under a few general heads. 
 
 The two rival Parties may be equally faulty. 
 In that case, the policy may be described as 
 the see-saw policy. You are entitled to come 
 in this time, because we are at fault ; next time, 
 we shall be entitled to a restoration, because you 
 are as much at fault as we were. The value of 
 continuity and settled order is not considered. 
 The parties who work by this rule consider 
 nothing seriously. They are playing — playing 
 see-saw. 
 
 But it is hard to measure or weigh the faults 
 of rival Parties sometimes ; and the result of 
 careful comparison is only doubt. You cannot 
 say positively that you have something better 
 to replace the old ; but you can try a change ; 
 and if you do, the stars in their courses may 
 take a notion to fight for you ; at least, you 
 may escape with your life. In this case the 
 proper name of the policy is the toss-up pol- 
 
60 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 icy. It is not quite as safe as the gentle, child- 
 ish see-saw ; but it is an attractive policy for 
 hot, eager heads. It appeals powerfully to the 
 imagination, and seems to be the cheapest way 
 in the world to national prosperity and great- 
 ness. 
 
 There is one other case. Of the two rival 
 Parties, the one in power may be, on the whole, 
 the less faulty. But it has been in power so 
 long, and its particular faults are so irritating, 
 and it is so possible that a few reverses might 
 do it good, that the faulty Party is cast out, not 
 only without any immediate prospect of being 
 replaced by a better, but with a sad certainty 
 that, for a while at least, things will be not bet- 
 ter, but worse. I have not heard any short 
 name for the policy in this form, and I must 
 fall back upon circumlocution, and call it the 
 policy of jumping out of the pan into the fire 
 to teach the old pan a lesson. 
 
 The policy, in all its forms, affects this educa- 
 tional zeal. When no other good result is in 
 sight, it loves to comfort itself with the thought 
 that, at least, the rejected Party will be taught 
 a lesson. This educational idea, I believe, is 
 the main reliance of the Democrats in these 
 
Party Politics. 61 
 
 dark days. They hope that you will turn us 
 out for our sins, to teach us a lesson ; and (O 
 the feather-brained reasoning of human hopes !) 
 they hope that you will put them in, with all 
 their sins upon them. That would teach them 
 all the worst lessons of the dime novels. And 
 shall this great nation show partiality, and give 
 one naughty party a high education at the ex- 
 pense of hopelessly confusing the few remnants 
 of moral sense that are still left to the other ? 
 If teaching a lesson is the object of elections, 
 let the lesson be the wholesome one, that there 
 is to be no gambling in the exercise of the peo- 
 ple's sovereignty; that it will be all in vain for 
 loafers to stand round, waiting for a moment of 
 weak impatience in the popular mind ; that the 
 way to advancement is to deserve it ; and that 
 a low degree of merit is always to be preferred 
 before one lower still. 
 
 But my Republican moments are numbered. 
 In addition to the old Parties, we have an in- 
 teresting group of infant Parties, newly born, 
 and of Parties in embryo, getting ready to be 
 born. We cannot stop to count them now, not 
 to speak of dwelling upon their individual feat- 
 ures. Suffice it that I identify myself with 
 
62 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 their general condition, and speak for all the 
 infant Parties together, whether they be born 
 or unborn. 
 
 Now, then, for better or for worse, I am with 
 them, and of them. We would say respect- 
 fully that no one need despise our extreme 
 youth. Infant Parties are always in order, pro- 
 vided only that they be lawfully begotten, and 
 of sane, healthy parentage. Time, which wastes 
 all mortal things, will wear out the toughest 
 Political Parties. Our two great Parties have 
 long been anticipating each other's funeral. 
 They have been over-hasty and too ill-natured 
 in their anticipations, perhaps. But they are 
 both right in the main. They shall, each of 
 them, certainly have a funeral. They have done 
 good work in their tjme ; but they have not ex- 
 hausted the possibilities of our political life, and 
 they will not do so. They shall sleep with their 
 fathers. Let them work while it is day, and 
 learn to use gentleness towards those who must 
 rise after them. Yet, we plead for no indul- 
 gence, and we base no great expectations for 
 ourselves on the natural necessity for a youth- 
 ful life to succeed the old. There must be new 
 crops next year ; but the bitter winds will not 
 
Party Politics, St, 
 
 spare the blossoms for all that, and the frost 
 and the mildew will come in their time. Infants 
 there must always be, or the human race will 
 perish ; but there will always be a heavy infant 
 mortality, and those must survive who can. In- 
 fant Parties in Politics have no exemption from 
 this law. We look for more rudeness than ten- 
 derness. We shall doubtless be exposed on 
 the cold heights to perish. We shall be glad if 
 we can suck the she-wolf, and make friends with 
 the ravens and the woodpecker. But, after all, 
 the beginning of life is more marvellous than its 
 preservation. We are here, and we hope to live 
 to tender unto our glorious country services 
 which she will not reject. Even now, babes and 
 sucklings as we are, we find no difficulty in re- 
 plying to the scorn and derision of the stronger 
 Parties. 
 
 They charge us with utter insignificance be- 
 cause we throw away our votes, as they say. 
 They seem to think that a Political Party is 
 nothing, and has nothing but votes. We think 
 that votes and their immediate efficacy are sec- 
 ondary, and we are disposed to ask, What is a 
 Party profited if it gain all that can be gained 
 by votes and lose its own soul,— its moral pur- 
 
64 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 pose and energy? If we do throw away our 
 votes, we are still as rich as Alexander was 
 after he had given away his treasures. Like 
 him, we have our hopes left ; and our hopes — 
 being neither selfish nor baseless hopes — are in 
 no way inferior to his. But how is it made out 
 that we do throw our votes away? Where is 
 away? Is it in the infinite void beyond the 
 bounds of political causes and effects? or is it 
 only just outside the very narrow question, 
 whether this campaign shall yield its laurels 
 and its spoils to the naked and the hungry, or 
 to the over-decorated and over-pampered ? We 
 may surely withdraw our votes from this con- 
 test, and place them where their effects will not 
 be grateful to from-hand-to-mouth jobbers with- 
 out throwing them away. We may employ 
 them with open eyes and with astute political 
 calculation, not to prop up falling towers, but 
 to lay deep and strong foundations for the time 
 to come. We are taunted also with our rash 
 impatience, and our ideas are declared abortive 
 and impractical. We are gently persuaded to 
 admire the slow, hesitating, stumbling meth- 
 ods, which, it is said, follow the true law of all 
 secure advance in Politics, and we are solemnly 
 
Party Politics. 65 
 
 warned that in our mad disdain of gentle, fair 
 wind, we are invoking the fearful hurricane, or 
 perhaps even untying the fateful bag and let- 
 ting out the whole nest of boisterous demons: 
 
 Una Eurusque Notusqut ruunt creberque procellis 
 Africus. 
 
 But we are not apt pupils. The piercing 
 notes of warning only fill us with the sad re- 
 flection that our Popular Parties — judged from 
 a rational stand-point — are no longer young 
 or vigorous, but are already entering upon 
 the days when they shall be afraid of that 
 which is high, and fears shall be in the way, 
 and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and de- 
 sire shall fail. We know not where it is writ- 
 ten that nations are to fulfil their mission by a 
 subdued attendance on fate. We are sure that 
 our own people have not voyaged thus far, in- 
 voking only the winds that breathe soft and 
 murmur music. We are sure also that wide 
 and stormy oceans still part us from the fair 
 havens for which our fathers set out, and we 
 would wish to hasten onward, even if we knew 
 that we must endure far worse evils than were 
 appointed unto them. Our true national life 
 
66 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 consists — not in peace and safety, but in fulfil- 
 ling the highest ends of life at whatever cost : 
 and, until those ends are worthily fulfilled, the 
 charge of rashness is not more serious than the 
 obvious counter-charge of indolence and unhe- 
 roic over-caution. 
 
 But the most serious of all charges against us 
 is that we are not honest ; that we have no 
 respect for vested interests and the rights of 
 property. Perhaps this charge has a slight 
 basis of truth. A young gentleman of leisure, 
 the other day, bought a number of patent 
 traps, very costly and very effective. He was 
 so pleased and so excited over his new toy that 
 he forgot his neighbor, and his neighbor's ox, 
 and his ass, and set his traps in all manner of 
 open places. Within an hour the neighbor's 
 beautiful greyhound was caught, and maimed 
 for life. The neighbor himself was near by, 
 and he soon released the dog and smashed the 
 trap. The young gentleman from the other 
 side of the field, witnessed the pitiless Vandal- 
 ism, and came up, hot and panting, and mut- 
 tered something about that trap being worth 
 twenty-five dollars. The neighbor was examin- 
 ing his dog's broken leg, and did not look up, 
 
Party Politics. 67 
 
 but answered, a little too profanely, " Damn 
 your dollars ! " 
 
 We are free to confess that we do not greatly 
 respect the rights of traps in public places ; and 
 that we are quite unscrupulous enough, and 
 wellnigh profane enough, to damn all the dol- 
 lars invested in them, though they should 
 mount up high among the millions. Beyond 
 this, our ideas about property are quite hum- 
 drum. We have families to provide for ; and 
 we wish to see our children and our children's 
 children inherit the earth in peace. 
 
 My hour is up ; and I summon you all to 
 your places to continue the debate and to bring 
 it to an issue. I can hardly expect your thanks 
 for my exertions on your behalf, for I cannot 
 flatter myself that I have made your way plain 
 before you. I may even have helped to darken 
 counsel, and to drive lame, faltering minds to 
 despair of any assured Patriotic Policy, and to 
 relinquish themselves, in their desperation, to 
 mere Party discipline, or to the flickering light 
 of melancholy personal hobbies. There never 
 was less occasion, however, than at the present 
 hour to despair of the Republic ; and there 
 never was a fairer opportunity for a citizen. 
 
68 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 whose eye is single and whose heart is true, to 
 serve his country. A cursory glance at all 
 Parties, a frank recognition of the good and evil 
 in them all, may confuse the weak, and will not 
 suffice to guide the strong, but may be very 
 necessary to awaken a sense of the seriousness 
 of the situation, and to call forth a fresh, crea- 
 tive devotion in those who are rising to serve 
 their country. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 HOW TO HELP THE POOR. 
 
 As long as we think that the only help for 
 the poor is that they should cease to be poor, 
 this problem will be insoluble. And as long as 
 we think that we can help the poor as a grace- 
 ful amusement, without making a real, living 
 sacrifice for their sake, we imagine a vain thing. 
 On the other hand, as surely as we shall have 
 the poor with us always, so surely we may do 
 them good when we will. The way to help the 
 poor is not by any means so unsearchable as it 
 is often made out to be. To hear many talk, 
 one might suppose that in this matter the con- 
 fident, capable old saying, " Where there is a 
 will there is a way," breaks down utterly. But 
 believe it not. The real difficulty here is about 
 the will, and not about the way at all. The 
 first thing to be done is to remove the stigma 
 from honest poverty. There is " for honest 
 poverty that hangs his head and a' that," and 
 
 69 
 
Jo Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 then every thing goes wrong. The honest poor 
 who will not recognize any such reproach in 
 their poverty ordinarily do well enough, and 
 they are often among the happiest and worthiest 
 inhabitants of the world. Socrates, buying his 
 four measures of wheat flour for an obol, get- 
 ting the best spring water for nothing, and 
 walking the streets of Athens with bare feet, 
 was as comfortable and as noble as Pericles. 
 Paul, with food and raiment (often not of the 
 best), was, with good reason, more contented 
 than Agrippa or Nero. There are millions of 
 poor people in the world to-day with less genius 
 than Paul or Socrates, to be sure, but with no 
 less content or dignity. Most of the actual 
 happiness of the world, and most of its real 
 dignity are in the homes of the poor. How 
 shall we help such people ? Fiddlesticks ! How 
 shall they help us ? We should help one an- 
 other, of course, but we meet on equal terms, 
 and the duties and courtesies of our common 
 life are plain enough to those who will see. 
 The serious problem is with regard to those 
 poor people who find in their poverty a crush- 
 ing degradation. They need mainly, not silver 
 and gold, but clear eyes and understanding 
 
How to Help the Poor. 71 
 
 hearts, that they may seek their proper wealth 
 in rightmindedness and right relations to their 
 fellow-men and to God above. If we can help 
 them to this princely state, our main task is 
 done. 
 
 But how shall we attempt it ? We can 
 preach, and quote poetry, and cite great exam- 
 ples from antiquity, and look in upon the poor 
 like beings from another sphere, clothed in a 
 radiant cloud of smiles and wise counsel ; all 
 this we can do without seriously interfering 
 with our own separate and sumptuous living. 
 But if our hearts are set upon doing the work 
 thoroughly rather than upon doing it easily and 
 cheaply, perhaps the surest and readiest way is 
 to live among the poor ourselves, to set aside 
 every badge of distinction, and be contented 
 with the life which they must live, and practi- 
 cally demonstrate its potential beauty and 
 nobleness. All rich people will not do this, for 
 all the rich are not consumed with a burning 
 desire to help the poor. But we who aspire to 
 be champions of the poor, if we are rich, can 
 easily, for their sake, become poor. We have 
 had examples enough and to spare of men who 
 have risen from lowly cabins to palatial man- 
 
T* Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 sions. Now we want some examples of men 
 who, not through disaster or intemperance, but 
 for the love of their fellows, have come from 
 the princely mansions to the poor man's tene- 
 ment and its plain living. We do not want a 
 new order of mendicant friars, living outside of 
 all human relationships. Nor do we want 
 Diogenes and his tub, not to speak of streets 
 and cities of tubs. But we do want happy mul- 
 titudes of the most prosperous families of the 
 land to cultivate all the fairest flowers and the 
 noblest fruit of life, without the pomps and 
 luxuries which separate man from man and 
 place stumbling-blocks in the way of the faint- 
 hearted poor. 
 
 If it be said that this is asking too much, 
 that it is asking the sacrifice of civilization, the 
 poor will mark the word, and the doom which 
 it implies. Nevertheless, let them who think 
 so, by all means, save civilization. Let them 
 reserve the magnificence and the luxury which 
 constitute the long result of time, and which 
 bear onward to their fulfilment the aspirations 
 and pious hopes of mankind. But, inasmuch 
 as they are called to be guardians and stewards 
 of this priceless treasure, let them, at least, 
 
How to Help the Poor. 73 
 
 hold and administer it, not for their own pri- 
 vate comfort, which would be the most nefari- 
 ous sacrilege, but for the benefit of mankind, 
 through whose labors and sufferings, and for 
 whose sake, it has been won. Let them give 
 the full benefit of this great good to as many 
 as possible. Let them take pains especially to 
 give it lavishly to the poor, to reward their 
 honorable toil, and to embellish their bare and 
 much-enduring lives. Let them welcome the 
 poor with distinguished honor to their hearts 
 and homes, as the guardians of the baggage 
 should welcome their dusty and blood-stained 
 comrades returning from the fight. In the in- 
 tervals of leisure between stately duties, let 
 them go, without lofty airs or condescension, 
 to the dwellings of the poor, to seek, as well as 
 to give, profitable society and inspiring friend- 
 ships. Let them, thence, gladly, if nature and 
 Sacred Providence so direct, accept wives for 
 their choicest sons ; nor hesitate, under the 
 like favoring auspices, to conduct thither, with 
 blessings and fair hopes, their tenderest and 
 loveliest daughters. If they cannot do even 
 this, if they cannot fully and unreservedly rec- 
 ognize the humanity of the poor and the broth- 
 
74 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 erhood of men, let them cease to insult the 
 poor with their idle prattle about helping them. 
 Let them go away to their heathenish feasts 
 and splendors, and make the most they can of 
 their rubbishy civilization. When they have 
 shut their doors and made fast their gates, let 
 them court a strong delusion, lest they should 
 see that they have immured themselves in a 
 cavern and shut their fellows out in the sweet 
 air and sunlight of the boundless world. 
 
 It is a common complaint that it is all but 
 impossible to give alms to the poor — that is, to 
 do them any gratuitous service, without de- 
 moralizing them and doing them more harm 
 than good. That is a very happy thought for 
 the avaricious rich. It pleads piously for the 
 smile of heaven upon their stinginess and upon 
 their selfish prodigality. Why should not 
 wealth be hoarded or squandered at one's will, 
 seeing that it would only do harm if applied to 
 the relief of the needy? The condemnation lies 
 in the fact that those who thus tenderly spare 
 the poor do not spare their own sons and 
 daughters, or their nearest friends, to whom 
 they give gifts and render gratuitous services 
 profusely and without misgiving. Are the 
 
How to Help the Poor. 75 
 
 poor constituted so differently from one's kith 
 and kin, or from one's intimate friends ? The 
 whole pith of the matter lies here. You can- 
 not throw alms to the poor as you might throw 
 bones to a dog, or garbage to swine. That will 
 demoralize them, if they are already demoral- 
 ized enough to accept such churlish relief. 
 And it will demoralize those who give even 
 more than those who receive, confirming them 
 in the crazy notion that they are as gods in 
 benevolence and station. But to say that it is 
 not safe for a man to help his brother-man in 
 his need, even to the extent of giving bread to 
 the hungry and clothing to the naked, is shame- 
 ful and false, and a libel against the mercy of 
 ages. What would the world and mankind be 
 if it were true ? If you are afraid to give alms, 
 come nearer to those who are in need. Be 
 their neighbors ; be their friends ; be their 
 kinsmen, if less will not answer ; and you can 
 then give, with perfect safety, all that you can 
 spare. There is hardly a limit to the possibility 
 of giving beneficially to the poor, if we give in 
 genuine human kindness. The friendship that 
 goes with the gift makes it twice and thrice 
 blessed. 
 
76 Prejudiced Inquiries: 
 
 We often take the love out of charity, and 
 the mercy out of alms, and the good-will out of 
 benevolence, to such an extent that nothing is 
 left but the carcasses and the names ; and, then, 
 the names and carcasses alike stink, and defile 
 all that they touch. But the defilement is 
 owing not to the nature or the amount of the 
 gifts, but to the insulting brutality of the givers. 
 Man is made to be dependent on his fellows ; 
 and all of us owe life and its highest blessings 
 to charities, and alms, and benevolence. What 
 else do we receive at our homes ? What else 
 do we receive through the normal institutions 
 of our social life ? Wealthy students of Yale 
 and Harvard are charity scholars. The readers 
 at the Astor Library are recipients of alms as 
 truly as the inmates of a foundling hospital. 
 But gifts made to the public at large are gifts 
 to the body by a member, or gifts to the family 
 from within ; and they are safe and sacred, and 
 excite no suspicion or fear. The wealthy can 
 give us parks, and gardens, and museums, and 
 libraries, and colleges, to their hearts' content. 
 They can improve the sanitary condition of our 
 cities, and enjoy better health with us. They 
 can do all they desire to further our mental 
 
How to Help the Poor. yy 
 
 cultivation and our social intercourse ; and we 
 shall not be demoralized by their kindness any- 
 more than by a gleam of sunshine on a lowery 
 day. Does not this fact point out one way to 
 do very much for the poor ? Give more to the 
 poor by giving more to the public ; and add to 
 the value of the gift by partaking of it. Make 
 your city, or your town, more habitable, more 
 home-like throughout its bounds, and enjoy 
 the full freedom of it yourselves. We wonder 
 at the noble gifts which have been made to 
 some of our communities. The proper wonder 
 is that they are not increased a hundred-fold in 
 number, and variety, and efficiency ; that peo- 
 ple will go on hiding themselves from their own 
 flesh, and sinking treasure in pitiful private 
 shows, maintained with difficulty, and yielding 
 little satisfaction, instead of resting in modest 
 dwellings, and making the city, or the country, 
 the true home to be provided for, and the pop- 
 ulation the friends and kindred with whom to 
 live and rejoice. Even the oldest and best 
 public institutions that we have, the Christian 
 churches, seem, from some points of view, to 
 be still in their awkward and idle nonage. 
 Think only of their spacious, comfortable build- 
 
78 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 ings, put up in the midst of the people and for 
 the people, expensively furnished and expen- 
 sively officered, and then shut up all the week, 
 like an old maid's parlor, and, when at last they 
 are opened for a little while, opened stiffly and 
 solemnly, with little wise or hearty effort to 
 bring in, and refresh with genuine hospitality, 
 the whole mixed multitude ; while the opposi- 
 tion houses, hard by, served by a devoted force 
 who shrink from no menial drudgery, are open 
 all the week, early and late, offering to every 
 passer by a covert from the heat and from 
 storm and rain, with free lunches, and free con- 
 certs, and free Parliaments, and whatever else 
 may lure the unready wayfarer to the main 
 point. It is true that the churches aim at a 
 much higher object than the temporal relief 
 and comfort of the people. But their hour 
 does not seem to have come to answer their 
 higher end with the masses of our population ; 
 and perhaps it will not come until they, like 
 Him whom they call their Head, recognize the 
 common life of common men as worthy of all 
 loving care on the way to greater things. Per- 
 haps the beginning of miracles for the modern 
 churches will be like the old beginning at Cana 
 
How to Help the Poor. jg 
 
 of Galilee. At any rate, there is a great oppor- 
 tunity always open to help the poor, without 
 risks, by helping ourselves and the whole com- 
 munity together. 
 
 But it is plain that there will be many cases 
 which can never be reached unless they are 
 sought out individually. There are withered 
 limbs which are not affected by the renewed 
 life and health of the body. Yet it is of no use 
 to doctor them from without as separate beings. 
 The body must claim them, and, in worst ex- 
 tremities, hold the great bidding always valid, 
 
 " Stretch forth thy hand ! " We may individ- 
 ually wield this high prerogative of mankind, 
 and, in the name of the race and its head, claim 
 and restore our outcast flesh and blood ; and we 
 shall be entitled to deal out our bread, as we 
 shall find need, to those whom we have thus 
 fully recognized as of our own household. We 
 shall also be properly qualified to deal as wisely 
 as possible, by way of correction, with the 
 hardest reprobates, who will not be found more 
 numerous or more incorrigible among the poor 
 than among the rich. 
 
 This is very fine ;— honor, love, kindred, to 
 all, and, if necessary, bread and butter also. 
 
80 Prejudiced Injuiries, 
 
 Is our poorer population, then, to become an 
 idle, helpless crowd, and to demand its partem 
 et circenses from others? By no means. The 
 encouragement of industry and thrift is to be a 
 main point in our dealings with the poor. But 
 industry and thrift cannot be encouraged to 
 any purpose by us as long as we, in our hearts, 
 loathe them. In a divided, Plutocratic state of 
 society, hard labor for subsistence, and the res 
 angusta domi involved in the poor man's thrift, 
 say what you will, are servile badges of a low 
 degree. If they are not, why should we shrink 
 from them and anxiously keep them on the other 
 side of a firm partition wall ? If they are, or if 
 we compel the feeble-minded among the poor 
 to feel that they are, how, except on the lowest 
 grounds, are we going to encourage them ? 
 Give unto the poor real citizenship and full 
 brotherhood to start with. Do not ask them 
 to obtain their freedom or to purchase civiliza- 
 tion with a great sum ; acknowledge unre- 
 servedly that they are born free. Honor their 
 commonest toil and their plainest living, not as 
 necessary evils, but as becoming forms of the 
 severe luxury of doing good. Proud men can 
 perform the meanest tasks and put up with the 
 
How to Help the Poor. 81 
 
 hardest fare and the simplest lodging in a regi- 
 ment on duty, or in a Polar expedition, because 
 they labor and endure, not as wretched pariahs 
 bearing their own intolerable burdens, but as 
 heroes in a noble cause, with their country's 
 love and honor to back them. Why should not 
 our laboring and suffering poor be deemed 
 worthy of equal love and honor ? And why 
 would not such love and honor animate and 
 strengthen them as well as the others ? If it 
 be said that soldiers and explorers are sustained 
 in their hardships, not so much by the dignity 
 of their employment and the sympathy of their 
 countrymen as by the prospect of rest and re- 
 wards when their labors are over, may we not 
 ask if the poor, then, have no prospect of rest, 
 and no hope of recompense ? The poor once 
 had glad tidings proclaimed unto them which 
 made their poverty sink out of their thoughts. 
 They had a future opened before them which 
 made them more than content, if need be, that 
 all this world should be, for them, not a home 
 to live and take comfort in, but a hospital in 
 which to suffer and to die. Have the poor 
 really cast away their great hope? Has this 
 world become their all in all, and its fleeting 
 
82 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 joys and corruptible crowns their only con- 
 ceivable rewards ? If so., what we should do 
 for the poor, before and above every thing 
 else, is to restore the Gospel to them. But can 
 we do that athwart the partition wall? Can 
 Dives give the Gospel to Lazarus ? Can Dives 
 know any thing of the power and hope of the 
 Gospel himself without being immediately 
 placed in entirly new relations to Lazarus ? 
 
 Had we not better stop ? Is it not plain that 
 the system of relief suggested here is too fanati- 
 cal to be thought of ; and that, unless there be 
 another and a more reasonable deliverance pos- 
 sible, the outlook for the poor is simply dismal ? 
 But what is the good of howling ? Be unprofit- 
 able humbly and quietly. The poor know how 
 to suffer. They have suffered from the begin- 
 ning of the world. They have borne active 
 oppression and cruelty as well as neglect. They 
 will still endure what must come. Many of 
 them will conquer their strong enemy, and find 
 rarest spoils hidden in the bare camp of poverty 
 itself. These, while still poor themselves, will 
 know how to help and comfort their weaker 
 brethren. 
 
 There will also be some of the rich and 
 
How to Help the Poor. 83 
 
 prosperous who will do all that I have sug- 
 gested, and much more. It is an experiment 
 which any one can try without waiting for 
 slow-footed public opinion, or for skittish, 
 balky, blundering legislation, and without even 
 a wish to confiscate other people's property. 
 One man cannot, perhaps, help all the poor of 
 the land, but what one man might do, in and 
 through his own neighborhood, defies calcula- 
 tion. And amidst the various ways open for 
 prosperous people to employ their time, and 
 money, and thought, and energy, how many 
 are.there more sane, more worthy, more blessed, 
 than to befriend the poor, even were the pros- 
 pect of practical results far more limited and 
 uncertain than it is ? 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 IS THERE ANY HELP FOR THE RICH ? 
 
 The desolate cry of the outcast has caught 
 the ear of our time ; and we have all learned to 
 sigh and speculate over the sufferings of the 
 poor, whether there be any help in us or not. 
 But amidst all this tender and anxious con- 
 sideration for the poor, who ever lays to heart 
 the burdens and sore miseries of the rich ? We 
 ply the wealthy with silly congratulations, 
 which cruelly mock their secret woes. We 
 fasten heavy responsibilities upon them, and 
 we cover them with reproaches when they fail 
 to meet our expectations. Weakly misled by 
 their high station and their gay trappings, we 
 sometimes even envy them, never dreaming 
 that they are chained on their lofty peaks, and 
 that there are vultures in those airy regions 
 which forever fret and devour their hearts. 
 The rich deserve pity rather than envy. They 
 need sympathy and aid much more than stripes 
 
 84 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich f 85 
 
 and execration. It may be well, in the over- 
 crowded countries of the Old World, where the 
 masses of the people are poor and must always 
 remain poor, to make the condition of the poor 
 the crying, absorbing question of the time. But 
 our country is emphatically a rich country. 
 Very large masses of our people are already 
 rich ; and still larger masses are facing that 
 way, with more or less hope of eventual suc- 
 cess. It is ridiculous for us to waste much 
 time discussing the condition of the poor. For 
 us, if we are anywhere near our right minds, 
 that is a very simple question. The great 
 question, fraught with difficulty and mo- 
 mentous issues, for us, is the condition and 
 character of the rich, and the best means, if 
 any effectual means there be, to help that large 
 and ever^increasing class of our countrymen. 
 
 No class of people could well be afflicted at 
 once with a greater variety of evils than the 
 rich actually suffer. The name of their tor- 
 ment is Legion ; and there is something ex- 
 quisitely diabolical in the subtle art with which 
 the softest luxury and the stateliest pomp are 
 made the ministers of Titanic aches and dis- 
 gusts. 
 
8 6 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 It may seem ridiculous, but it is perfectly 
 true, that one of the commonest afflictions of 
 the rich is poverty ; not poverty in any figura- 
 tive sense, but an actual, distressing want of 
 money, in the midst of princely revenues. 
 Riches cannot be applied to provide for real 
 necessities in the natural order and measure of 
 urgency. The rich live in a world of their 
 own, in which the common-sense of the poor is 
 out of place. If the natural reason, which the 
 poor must live by, were allowed to govern the 
 rich, there would be no need of riches ; and it 
 is doubtful whether the Institution of Wealth 
 could endure a single generation. The rich 
 must live, not with common-sense, but with 
 the proper and peculiar sense of their order ; 
 and that, generally, imposes upon them a scale 
 of expenditure ascending freely with their pros- 
 perity, and maintaining itself against all odds 
 as long as possible when reverses come. It 
 follows, that the rich can never be rich enough ; 
 that there is the same need of accumulation at 
 the end as at the beginning ; and that when 
 this progress — this law of life in the higher 
 order — is checked and baffled, the agonies of 
 the sufferers must be regarded as much worse 
 
fs there any Help for the Rich ? 87 
 
 than the pangs of hunger and cold among the 
 poor, inasmuch as an attack upon life is at- 
 tended with increasing horror the higher we 
 rise in the scale of being. 
 
 In view of these impressive facts, let the poor 
 learn to think tenderly of the rich ; and, as they 
 have opportunity (and opportunities are not 
 wanting), let them cheerfully lend, or give away, 
 their humble savings to their distressed superi- 
 ors. And if a rich man, goaded by the imperi- 
 ous sense of his order, should be driven to rob 
 and cheat a poor brother, as happens not in- 
 frequently, let the poor man, having faith and 
 chivalry left, take joyfully the spoiling of his 
 goods, and say: « Thy need is greater than 
 mine." 
 
 This necessity of lavish outlay and perpetual 
 accumulation laid upon the rich, is rendered 
 particularly burdensome by the plebeian consti- 
 tution of the world and of human nature. The 
 rich must live in a world of their own, and they 
 must make it themselves ; but as they cannot 
 get rid of the primary elements and wants of 
 humanity in themselves, they must admit into 
 their world the base materials of the common 
 earth, and these base materials are forever be- 
 
88 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 traying their origin and their affinities and their 
 essentially cheap nature. It was primitively ex- 
 pected, and the hope was cherished long, that 
 a tertiiun quid, neither flesh nor spirit, but just 
 exactly what would support and delight the 
 rich and escape the profanation of vulgar use, 
 would be found among the stores of a sagacious 
 and considerate Providence. The ancients 
 searched for it through all lands and seas known 
 unto them. But there was still hope, for there 
 remained vast regions undiscovered. Now the 
 whole round world is explored, and despair is 
 settling upon the most sanguine, Were the Al- 
 mighty a man we should say that he either forgot 
 or spitefully neglected to create what was sure 
 to be wanted. At any rate, what is wanted 
 does not exist, and the rich must spend their 
 money and their labor for that which satisfieth 
 not. They must not only breathe the air and 
 enjoy the sunlight, but also eat the food and 
 wear the raiment of the human race. With all 
 their dear wealth, and with all the will in the 
 world, they can only obtain, substantially, what 
 the commonest people have, — spiced, garnished, 
 coddled, increased, wasted, but in the end the 
 same. 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich f 89 
 
 Many years ago, strangers who wished to 
 visit the monument of the Marquis of Anglesea, 
 on the Menai Straits, had to pass through a 
 little gate, which was watched by a gentle and 
 wise woman, who had studied mankind. Two 
 brothers, wishing to enter, asked how much the 
 toll was, and they were blandly informed that 
 it was sixpence for gentlemen and threepence 
 for common people. One of the brothers, fear- 
 ing that he might never afterwards have so 
 reasonable an opportunity to pass for a gentle- 
 man, paid the sixpence ; the other, daring to 
 accept openly the lot of the common people, 
 paid their lowly toll. Then the gentleman and 
 the commoner, having paid their respective 
 fees, enjoyed precisely the same privileges, 
 unless the gentleman was able to make a higher 
 world for himself on the spot out of his inward 
 exaltation and the homage of the wise woman. 
 Perhaps that was in some respects an extreme 
 case, but it illustrates the truth that the first 
 necessity laid upon the rich is liberal expendi- 
 ture, and that the clear gains from extraordi- 
 nary expenditure must come through reflec- 
 tions and congratulations on the simple fact of 
 the profuse expenditure itself. 
 
90 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 Had the rich been always able, like the 
 brother on the Menai, to make up their sepa- 
 rate world out of extra payments, and reflec- 
 tions and congratulations founded thereupon, 
 and, for the rest, to live like other people, their 
 lot, though preposterously hard even then, would 
 have been much more tolerable than it is. But 
 the Institution would have been too insecure. 
 The world of reflection and congratulation 
 would have been too subtle to attract the 
 masses, and, without attracting the masses, the 
 reflection and the congratulation would have 
 starved to death. Then, the extra payments 
 would have been withheld, and the whole fabric 
 would have melted away forever. To give per- 
 manence to riches, it was indispensable that 
 some palpable object and reward should be se- 
 cured for great expenditures. But the promis- 
 cuous love, and open-handed munificence of 
 Heaven to mankind, made it extremely diffi- 
 cult to find any adequate object and reward. 
 All things necessary for the support and the de- 
 light of life were made cheap and abundant ; and 
 a secret anointing gave unto man dominion and 
 royalty on the bare Common. It was discovered, 
 however, as already intimated, that the plain, 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich ? 91 
 
 wholesome, delightful gifts of Nature could be 
 spiced and garnished and spoiled and wasted, 
 at an enormous expense, and that man could 
 be trained, not only to accept the costly con- 
 coction, but to become so dependent upon it 
 that life itself would seem stale and unprofit- 
 able without it. It was found also that, though 
 man was created active and capable, and with 
 a positive craving for exertion and effective- 
 ness, it is possible to make him a tame, indo- 
 lent, shiftless cripple, dependent upon the 
 sweat of other people's brows for his daily 
 bread and for every convenience of life, and 
 devoted only to baubles and shadows. These 
 possibilities were ugly seams in the fair system 
 of Nature. But what were they left there for? 
 Are we not under an awful necessity to devel- 
 ope the latent evil of the world ? Either men 
 had to remain mere brethren, members of a 
 common family, heirs alike of one inheritance, 
 joint laborers in the same field, and the great 
 birth of riches had to perish in the womb, or 
 ease, and luxury, and vanity, with all their fan- 
 tastic and deadly train, had to be summoned to 
 the rescue. The brave fathers did not shrink 
 from the responsibility, and the dutiful children 
 
92 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 do not hesitate to follow in their footsteps. 
 The Institution is placed on a solid foundation. 
 There are palpable objects and rewards for 
 prodigality. The masses are powerfully at- 
 tracted. The success is complete. 
 
 But neither an awful necessity at the begin- 
 ing, nor complete success in the end, will pro- 
 pitiate the stern sisters. The rich, having 
 saved their order and created their world, must 
 suffer unnatural woes, both from the vengeance 
 of the old creation which they slighted, and 
 from the original disorder in the very elements 
 of their own sphere. All the circumstances of 
 their life are elaborately calculated to give 
 sumptuous pleasure, but they never fail to give 
 poignancy and tragic amplitude to pain, and, 
 at the height of their illusory fascination, they 
 never please like the sweet, simple delights of 
 the poor. Solomon, in all his glory, was not 
 clothed like the lilies of the field ; but the mod- 
 est children of the poor frequently are, and 
 they often sit, with happy parents, at a feast of 
 gods, which the rich could not purchase with 
 mines of gold. And no number of attendants, 
 and no scale of wages, and no ransacking of 
 the world, can ever secure for the rich the per- 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich f 93 
 
 feet service which the poor secure easily and 
 gayly with their own hands. 
 
 This question of service illustrates well the 
 mocking contradiction which runs necessarily 
 through the whole world of the rich. Servants 
 they must have, or the elementary objects of 
 their distinctive life cannot be attained ; but 
 suitable servants they can nowhere find, and in 
 this country least of all. In fact, the proper 
 qualifications of servants for rich people form a 
 combination much rarer than the most com- 
 manding poetic or military genius. The ser- 
 vants should be very capable, very intelligent, 
 very refined, and austerely virtuous ; and yet 
 they must by no means be the superiors of their 
 masters and their mistresses ; that would upset 
 all social propriety. They should be thankful 
 for very small mercies, and they should be com- 
 petent and prompt to render indispensable and 
 exquisite services. They should really be fit 
 for the highest positions, and perfectly con- 
 tented with the lowest. It is clear, from the 
 nature of the case, that there must be trouble ; 
 and there is trouble, widespread and sore. 
 
 It is easy to say that there are plenty of rich 
 people who lead a simple, natural life, and 
 
94 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 know nothing of the racking annoyances here 
 referred to, but know all about plain home 
 comforts and pleasant intercourse with their 
 fellow-men, and the luxury which riches afford, 
 of doing good to others. I am sure that all 
 this is perfectly true ; and I congratulate these 
 simple and beneficent people on their happy 
 escape from a sea of trouble. But, with regard 
 to the matter before us, their escape is entirely 
 irrelevant. They have escaped by deserting 
 their order and abandoning the fundamental 
 principles of the Institution. If they begin in 
 earnest to do good with their property, they 
 cease to be rich men. They confess them- 
 selves to be God's almoners, and debtors to all 
 the world to the full extent of their possessions. 
 If they begin to live a simple, natural life, what 
 is to hinder their going the whole length and 
 living just like ordinary people ? And then, 
 what are their riches good for ? They have 
 taken refuge from the torments of the rich in 
 the simple joys of the poor. If all the rich 
 were to do the same, the order would perish — 
 "to be no more. Sad cure ! " But our question 
 is not whether the rich can abandon their posi- 
 tion, but whether there be any help for them 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich ? 95 
 
 while they maintain it. We have seen that 
 their position involves the necessity of profuse 
 expenditure, and that this involves the necessity 
 of a fantastic, effeminate, and unnatural mode of 
 living; we may add that this again seems to 
 involve an almost entire forsaking of the 
 worthier ends of life. We observe here the 
 same cruel irony which we found elsewhere 
 abusing their lot. For the rich would naturally 
 seem to be a chosen people, released from the 
 heavy yoke of common toil, and endowed with 
 abundant means, that they might make the 
 higher interests of their fellow-men their es- 
 pecial care, and be the leaders of mankind in all 
 the paths of a nobler life. This is what many 
 of them would ardently desire ; and this would 
 seem to be their manifest destiny. But their 
 actual destiny is far other than this. It is to do 
 what in them lies to withdraw the minds and 
 steal the hearts of men from the worthier ends 
 of life, and rivet them with fanatical zeal upon 
 the lower. It is to elevate into factitious dis- 
 tinction the ancillary processes of life, which 
 other people dispatch more becomingly with 
 very little ado. It is to make a serious, oppres- 
 sive, exhausting business of eating and drinking, 
 
g6 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 and being clothed, and being amused, and made 
 comfortable. It is to mind earthly things with 
 supreme devotion. It is, propter vitam vivendi 
 perdere causas. 
 
 It is very true that, in these engrossing op- 
 erations, the rich kindly intend the adorning of 
 human life, and the improvement of society ; 
 and, truly enough, our eating and drinking, and 
 our social intercourse, and all the common occa- 
 sions of life, should be invested with decency, 
 and cheerfulness, and edification ; but these 
 ends are easily attained, with little outlay of 
 time or money, by all classes of people ; and 
 they are utterly defeated and reversed by the 
 unhappy and unmeasured attention bestowed 
 upon them by the rich, to the stunting and 
 crippling of their own lives, and to the great 
 obscuring for many others of the real ends and 
 possibilities of human existence. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, I repeat, that the 
 rich are satisfied with their mean career. Many 
 of them are, naturally, the finest people in the 
 world ; but they are pledged and bound to the 
 cause. They often feel, like Prince Arthur in 
 his prison, that, were they well out of it, and 
 kept sheep, they would be as merry as the day 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich f 97 
 
 is long. The life of men stirs and aspires within 
 them. The real world, with its work and its 
 history, kindles their imagination. The open 
 kingdom of Heaven attracts their souls. But 
 what can they do ? Is it possible to serve God 
 and the Institution ? Or must they, to main- 
 tain their position, lose their own souls ? The 
 poor have the Gospel preached unto them: 
 but, How hardly shall they that have riches 
 enter into the kingdom of God ! is the nearest 
 approach to a Gospel that there is for the rich. 
 It does infinite credit to the undying heroism 
 of mankind that, in spite of all this and very 
 much more that might be added, men are 
 almost universally willing to undertake the 
 burdens of wealth, disdaining the peaceful, 
 honorable, fruitful careers open to them in 
 humble life, as Theseus disdained the easiest 
 and safest way to Athens, desiring rather to 
 encounter robbers and wild beasts as his kins- 
 man, Hercules, had done before him. Heroism 
 is well enough. But heroism, misdirected, may 
 be a public calamity. It seems so in this case. 
 It cannot be that all this self-sacrifice is called 
 for. It cannot be that the world can afford it. 
 There are surely better uses for some of these 
 
gS Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 men and women than making rich people of 
 them. 
 
 I would not venture upon so revolutionary 
 a course as to call in question the necessity of 
 sustaining the great, powerful, perverse Institu- 
 tion ; and in view of obvious facts, I would not 
 cloak or deny our obligation, as a people, to 
 bear a principal part in sustaining it in future. 
 But in consideration of the appalling ruin and 
 humiliation attending its maintenance under 
 the present unscientific, non-intervention sys- 
 tem, I may be permitted to suggest, in the 
 name of humanity, that the burden might be 
 somewhat lightened by comprehensive govern- 
 ment regulation, or, if that be supposed to 
 trench upon liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness, by enlightened local control exercised by 
 the people themselves. I should decline the 
 task of enlightening the people on the matter 
 definitely, however ; because, though I am sat- 
 isfied that the promiscuous multitudes have no 
 business to be rich, I am in some doubt as to 
 which of two classes of men should be entrusted 
 with the whole burden of riches. There are 
 difficult positions in the world beside that of 
 the rich ; positions which must be filled, though 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich ? 99 
 
 it would be vain for average men to attempt to 
 fill them. The world must have poets, for in- 
 stance ; but it would be monstrous folly for 
 every ambitious simpleton to offer himself for 
 the service. The poet must be born for the 
 place ; and he must submit to severe training 
 for his work, and learn in suffering what he is 
 to teach in song. If there is any help for the 
 rich, it must be in being properly qualified for 
 their place. Dives nascitur non fit. That is, 
 you cannot make a rich man of the right sort, 
 by mere gifts of money ; the strong bent of 
 nature must co-operate with assiduous training 
 and fixed habits to mark him out for the place 
 with the authority of a divine call. 
 
 So much is to my mind perfectly clear. But 
 what are the gifts, and what is the training, 
 requisite to constitute a call to riches? I should 
 prefer to answer that none should be allowed 
 to be rich but those who have given ample 
 proofs of entire independence of riches and su- 
 periority to them ; none but those whose eyes 
 are opened to behold wondrous things in the 
 simple gift of life, and in plain human relation- 
 ships and duties and hopes ; none but those 
 whose hearts are fixed forever on the highest 
 
i ob Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 ends of life, and who are content to practise 
 and enjoy, day by day, in all lowliness, the vir- 
 tues and graces of Home, and Country, and 
 Heaven. The best soldiers in a righteous war 
 are those who hate war and love peace. They 
 will fight stoutly to the end, not in brutal, 
 bloody ferocity, which might be cowed by dis- 
 aster, but for the sake of conscience, which 
 cannot change. Just so, would not men who 
 love truth and goodness supremely and despise 
 riches make the very best kind of rich men? 
 They must grow rich, if at all, justly, serenely, 
 and for conscience' sake ; and when they have 
 grown rich they must practise the necessary 
 enormities and brutalities of their position ex- 
 ternally and mechanically, without the consent 
 or sympathy of their minds and hearts. The 
 unnaturalness and wretchedness of their situa- 
 tion will be inconceivable, but they will escape 
 personal degradation, and, suffering as blessed 
 martyrs, they will glut the ravenous maw of 
 riches, and set the rest of mankind free to de- 
 sire and enjoy better things, compelling even 
 those who covet riches to seek first the king- 
 dom of God as the only way to their heart's 
 desire. 
 
Is there any Help for the Rich ? 101 
 
 So would I prefer to answer when asked who 
 are called to be rich. I see but too clearly, 
 however, that the answer of desire may be 
 folly. It is certain that riches could not hurt 
 these men, but is it so certain that they would 
 not hurt riches? Could they ever become 
 rich, or remain rich a single day? Would not 
 riches in their hands be as chaff driven before 
 the wind ? I have supposed them rich only for 
 conscience' sake ; but there 's the rub. Could 
 their conscience ever be enlisted in the service? 
 If this fond project should fail, defeated by the 
 nature of things, the alternative is obvious. 
 We must conclude that the men properly called 
 and prepared to be rich are the men proved, by 
 the fixed setting of their nature and the con- 
 sistent course of their life, to be good for noth- 
 ing else ; men with minds and hearts " villanous 
 low," without natural affection, or generous as- 
 piration ; the off-scourings, the reprobates, the 
 convicts of the race. 
 
 It would be easy to transfer the burdensome 
 wealth of the world into their hands. Let 
 every respectable man use up what comes in 
 his way, and use it only for rational purposes, 
 and the transfer is made. When the transfer 
 
I o 2 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 is completed, thousands will sing anew song of 
 deliverance, and be restored to the human fam- 
 ily. And riches, deprived of the patronage of 
 all men with a spark of nobleness in them, will 
 have as little charm as drunkenness given up to 
 the Helots. 
 
 If it be said that this is not helping the rich, 
 but simply shifting the burden upon new suffer- 
 ers, I reply that the new sufferers are separated 
 from the proper joys and sorrows of mankind, 
 and will suffer little more in riches than in 
 poverty. The torments of riches are developed 
 mainly by the fierce light that beats upon the 
 human heart and conscience, and in the pro- 
 posed victims that light beats upon nether 
 millstones. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 LOVE, MARRIAGE, AND DIVORCE. 
 
 The honored founders of the Backwoods 
 Lectures have made it a standing rule that, at 
 least, one lecture of every course delivered on 
 their foundation shall be on this conglomerate 
 subject — Love, Marriage, and Divorce. I obey 
 the rule with fear and trembling, knowing that 
 all mankind are familiar with these matters and 
 profoundly interested in them, and that the 
 easiest thing in the world for a lecturer to do 
 in the premises is to make a fool of himself, 
 whether by the triteness and insignificance of 
 his remarks, or by floundering attempts to be 
 original in a path beaten smooth by the tread 
 of so many millions. I prefer to expose my- 
 self to ridicule in the directest and cheapest 
 way, by creeping along warily among first 
 principles, and emphasizing once more some of 
 the plainest and most old-fashioned points that 
 wisdom has to offer to the world. 
 
 103 
 
1 04 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 There are, primarily, two different ways of 
 managing these familiar matters, love, marriage, 
 and divorce. They can be left to the blind 
 impulses of our nature, which would generally 
 ensure the entire succession with the least pos- 
 sible delay. Or, if it be deemed shameful that 
 men and women should regulate their mutual 
 relations on the same principles as a herd of 
 cattle, the whole matter can be lifted to a 
 higher plane and submitted to the direction of 
 the human spirit, which would bring about an 
 orderly and rational arrangement. These are 
 the two primary ways of proceeding: the first, 
 according to the flesh ; the second, according 
 to the spirit. We may also mix the two. But 
 on what principle, and in what proportions 
 shall we mix them ? What limits shall be set 
 to the spirit ? And if the spirit is to be at all 
 limited at the instance of the flesh, what is to 
 limit the flesh in its interference ? In practice, 
 there will be mixing of course. The flesh 
 will war against the spirit, and the spirit 
 against the flesh : and the spirit will often 
 be worsted. But in the theoretical treatment 
 of the subject, we may ignore the brute ele- 
 ment. The Backwoods Lectures were not 
 
Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 105 
 
 instituted to confer with flesh and blood. 
 Here, we have simply to consider what our aim 
 and ideal should be — what course the pure 
 spirit of man enjoins. I pretend to no extra- 
 ordinary acquaintance with the mind of the 
 spirit ; but I believe that the spirit speaketh 
 distinctly to the following effect. 
 
 In the first place, it is not absolutely neces- 
 sary, from the individual's point of view, to be 
 divorced, or to be married, or, in the sense here 
 intended, even to love or to be loved. These 
 things, or some of them, are essential to the 
 preservation and well-being of the race upon 
 the earth. But the individual is not charged 
 with the preservation of the race ; and, though 
 he should always minister unto his kind, the 
 whole welfare of his kind is too immense to be 
 his direct object in life. No individual can 
 do every thing that there is to be done for 
 the race ; and no one need embitter and over- 
 whelm his life by self-denying efforts to love 
 and marry, against the grain of nature and cir- 
 cumstance, for the benefit of mankind. The 
 race will not be suffered to become extinct be- 
 fore the time ; and those who are disinclined 
 to love and marry will find other ways to serve 
 their generation. 
 
1 06 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 But perhaps few would feel constrained to 
 love and marry out of pure devotion to the 
 race. Many more probably are in danger of 
 submitting themselves to such constraint 
 through an impression that love and marriage 
 are essential to the completeness of the indi- 
 vidual life. Most individuals, of course, find 
 what completeness they ever attain to through 
 love and marriage, and that holy state is ex- 
 ceedingly beautiful and honorable in all men 
 and women who are called thereto, and who 
 fulfil their calling faithfully. But it must not 
 be forgotten that some of the most perfect 
 lives, both of men and of women, upon all the 
 earth, have been lives in which marriage, and the 
 love which is associated with it, had no place. 
 To many this will seem to be contradiction in 
 terms, and they will infer that I misapply the 
 word perfect to some one-sided, ascetic develop- 
 ment, which may have a commanding strength 
 of its own, but not the symmetrical, genial 
 strength of human nature. But I speak ad- 
 visedly ; and I mean that no grace or perfection 
 is developed in the life of man or woman, 
 through love and marriage, which has not been 
 and may not be developed as highly in virgin 
 
Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 107 
 
 lives. It is not well for man to be alone. It 
 is not well for woman to be alone. But what 
 occasion is there, in our modern life, at least, 
 for either of them to be alone ? They are 
 brought up together, and they converse to- 
 gether every day of their life, and there is 
 nothing to hinder their reaping the full benefit 
 of each other's society. They must observe a 
 certain decorum and a measure of reserve 
 toward one another, it is true ; but that is in- 
 tended and rightly calculated to further and 
 ennoble their intercourse, not to repress and im- 
 poverish it. Men and women to-day in civilized 
 life cannot be alone, and they cannot be with- 
 out opportunities to partake of the highest and 
 best in one another's life. Men, at the very 
 start, may know and enjoy the richest, tender- 
 est fulness of womanhood in their own moth- 
 ers and sisters ; and in their fathers and broth- 
 ers, women have a sovereign command of the 
 noblest strength of manhood. Marriage itself, 
 with the love appropriate to it, is a great mys- 
 tery. Beauty, and desire, and the ecstasy of 
 possession, and the romance of companionship, 
 are mere preliminaries, and they soon pass 
 away, like the tender glory of daybreak or of 
 
108 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 early summer. What then remains, if all has 
 not been in vain, is a perfect realization by two 
 persons, in relation to one another, of the corpo- 
 rate life of humanity, of membership in one 
 another. And this surely is no finality, but a 
 preparation for the realization of the same in 
 relation to the whole race, when there shall be 
 no more marrying or giving in marriage among 
 men, but the whole body of redeemed mankind 
 shall be married as a chaste virgin to Christ, and 
 be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh forever. 
 This is the supreme end of love and marriage. 
 But many shall attain to the end of the great 
 mystery by another path than love and mar- 
 riage on the earth ; and their life, even upon the 
 earth, will have its solace, and its foretaste of 
 the end, in communion with kindred spirits, and 
 in various ministrations to the needy, and most 
 of all, perhaps, in the joy of a blessed offspring. 
 For let it not be supposed that parentage and 
 fruitfulness are matters of mere carnal birth. 
 The Father of his Country, the Father of the 
 Faithful, and a Mother in Israel, are not idle 
 phrases, or legends of the early world. There 
 is the deepest personal significance for men and 
 women of the latest times in the words of 
 
Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 109 
 
 ancient prophecy : " Sing, barren, thou that 
 didst not bear ; break forth into singing, and 
 cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child ; 
 for more are the children of the desolate than 
 the children of the married wife, saith the 
 Lord." Mere birth according to the flesh is a 
 slender tie. It confers little honor or blessing 
 on the parents, and it gives them but a slight 
 and brief hold upon the child whom they cast 
 adrift upon the world. The children that are 
 born are the children of the race, the children 
 of men; and they shall have the joy of fathers 
 and mothers in them who will receive them in 
 the Highest Name, and live the true human 
 life before them, and so assert their essential 
 relationship. 
 
 Thus, the true ends of life, the highest ends 
 and noblest satisfaction even of love and mar- 
 riage, may be fully attained in virgin lives ; so 
 that, from the individual's point of view, love 
 and marriage, however desirable, are not to be 
 deemed necessary. I urge this, not in the in- 
 terest of celibacy, but in the direct interest of 
 love and marriage themselves, to guard them 
 from dishonor and abuse. They are frequently 
 invoked to patch and support dilapidated, im- 
 
no Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 becile lives; and sometimes excellent people, 
 believing it indispensable that they should 
 marry, and having waited long for the true 
 sign from heaven, grow weak in faith, and, at 
 last, desperate, accept spurious loves and 
 false marriages, and make shipwreck of fair ca- 
 reers. The proper safeguard against such mis- 
 takes, and the right preparation for true mar- 
 riage, is to be well grounded on the dignity and 
 sufficiency of the single life. Let none think of 
 love who cannot live nobly without it ; let none 
 presume to marry who cannot stand erect alone. 
 Approach not love as a beggar, or marriage as 
 a dependent ; receive them, if at all, royally, 
 with gifts and dowries. 
 
 The majority of men and women are doubt- 
 less called to love and matrimony. But the 
 true call, when most unmistakable, is not loud 
 and hurried, and is not intended to be heeded, 
 or even to be heard very distinctly, till ripe 
 years and ripe character have been reached. 
 Man is to be created first ; then, perhaps, he 
 may have a help-meet. But the help-meet is 
 not to be his better half, or either half, or any 
 essential part of him. She is not to finish mak- 
 ing him. He should be completed by his Maker 
 
Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 1 1 1 
 
 before he is entrusted with a wife. Likewise, 
 the woman is to be formed, and prepared to be 
 a help-meet for the man, before she assumes that 
 position, or begins to trouble her head or heart 
 about it. The proper work of early years is the 
 creation of man and the formation of woman. 
 Love and marriage are not to be once thought 
 of till these momentous processes are well ad- 
 vanced. Any practical recognition of this un- 
 questionable principle will seem hopeless to 
 some ; and they will ask frantically if the young 
 are to be doomed to solitary confinement, or 
 subjected to Asiatic surveillance, and so forth. 
 But a truce to their injurious thoughts ! The 
 young are far more sinned against than sinning 
 in the matter. They have instincts, not animal, 
 but human, which, unless they are battered 
 down, or stifled and starved, by the perversity 
 and inanity of adult life and society, will go far 
 to secure them against precocious absorption 
 and premature choice in love. The soul of 
 youth is " like a star and dwells apart." Its com- 
 panions, however familiarly known, are known 
 only through the radiance of universal light, and 
 remain enveloped in distinct atmospheres and 
 fixed in separate orbits. To the sacred modesty 
 
1 1 2 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 of the young, bright visions of brave gentlemen 
 and " a world of ladies" are familiar; but the 
 common world of love and marriage does not 
 exist. And when, at last, it does arise before 
 them, they view it with some alarm and impa- 
 tience. They have so many discoveries to make, 
 so many brave adventures to pursue, so many 
 gifts to exercise, so many worlds to occupy, 
 that this, with its peculiar demands upon them, 
 seems almost an impertinence. Of Adonis it 
 was said : " To hunt he loved, to love he 
 laughed to scorn " ; and therein he was a type 
 of unspoiled, healthy youth, disdaining to sac- 
 rifice its opening career and its widening world 
 to what, in immature years, can only be an in- 
 ordinate, all-absorbing passion. 
 
 Do not talk, then, of solitary confinement or 
 of Asiatic surveillance, but cease to grieve and 
 insult the guardian angels which accompany 
 the young into the world. Have done with 
 your assaults upon their natural modesty in 
 the various arrangements of their life which 
 you control, or should control, nor dare to crib 
 and confine them within the narrow bounds of 
 a mean, conventional existence. Aid them in 
 all generous expansion and elevation of their 
 lives, through active converse with nature in 
 
Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 1 1 3 
 
 her various forms, through a large acquaintance 
 with the work of the world they live in, through 
 the discipline and proper exercise of their own 
 varied powers, and, above all, through a living, 
 loyal faith in the Lord and Saviour of men, — a 
 faith issuing in earnest service in the world and 
 in daily and hourly adoration and praise in 
 secret. With their pure and aspiring instincts 
 properly seconded by the sympathy and sup- 
 port of their elders, the young, as a rule, will 
 reach a fair maturity before they are disposed 
 to hearken to the call to love and marriage. 
 
 But when the trying period of youth has 
 been safely passed, and full maturity has come, 
 it is still very easy for the ripe man to make a 
 fool of himself in these matters, and it is truly 
 said that there is no fool like an old fool. Pre- 
 sume not too much, then, on your full age and 
 ripened character. Rush not into the holiday 
 crowd, like the companions of Romulus, to 
 pick a mate for life. If you go forth to pick, 
 by what standard will you make selection? 
 Will you please your fancy merely, or will you 
 seriously choose excellence, whether beauty 
 and grace of person, or weightier qualities of 
 mind and character? If you choose for mere 
 fancy, what good has your maturity done you, 
 
114 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 and what solid happiness can you expect in the 
 long years to come ? If you will choose excel- 
 lence, who are you that you propose, not only 
 to sit in judgment on the flower of all the world, 
 but also to appropriate the very choicest for 
 yourself? Paris suffered unutterable calamities 
 for giving judgment when commanded to do so, 
 and have you the hardihood, unasked, to pro- 
 nounce a judgment, and to make a capture 
 withal that must set all the furies on your 
 track? Nay, I pray you beware. Though of 
 ripe age, let the modesty of youth, awakened 
 into reverence, abide with you still. Go not 
 forth rashly to seek your true yoke-fellow. It 
 were almost better to let your mother and your 
 grandmother go on your behalf, for, though 
 their choice might be even worse than your 
 own, they would save you from being demoral- 
 ized by a distracting pursuit and by fantastic 
 expectations. But neither go forth yourself, 
 nor yet let your good mother or grandmother 
 go on your behalf. Attend to the business of 
 life as in early days. Do the work and enjoy 
 the good of the world in peace. If you desire 
 a help-meet, make worthy preparations for her 
 reception, but seek her not. The Great Crea- 
 tor can bring her to you Himself, even as He 
 
Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 1 1 5 
 
 brought our mother Eve to Adam at the first. 
 If He brings her not, in all your seeking you 
 will find but sorrow. If He brings her, you 
 may sleep and rise night and day, and perform 
 your allotted tasks without care until she comes. 
 Let there be no wilfulness or impatience, then, 
 and no fortuitous gropings, no purblind, pro- 
 fane alliances, no preoccupation of the place 
 which the favor of heaven may deign to fill. 
 At the appointed time divine messengers will 
 bring the prepared partner of your life to your 
 presence. There will be a glad, thankful recog- 
 nition rather than a bold, selfish choice. 
 Having waited in faithful service so long, and 
 having received your love as a gift from heaven 
 at last, you will still set heaven above all else, 
 and your love will be devoted fellow-service 
 rather than idle and separate indulgence. Your 
 love will not be less, but greater and truer for 
 recognizing what must be above it. You may 
 well say to your beloved : " I could not love 
 thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more ", 
 for this firm devotion, rising above your love, 
 will also encompass it round about: and secure 
 it forever. You will marry in the Lord, and 
 though your accomplished Eve be passing fair 
 and please you wondrously, you will hence- 
 
1 1 6 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 forth love her, not because she is fair and 
 pleases you, but because she is your wife, the 
 gift and trust of heaven. 
 
 Thus loving, and thus marrying, you come so 
 near the normal state of family life as it was 
 " from the beginning," that you may disregard 
 the divorce question as an unnatural specula- 
 tion which presupposes a second fall of man. 
 But in cases of spurious love and false mar- 
 riage, there is an inherent divorce already, and 
 Moses must do the best he can, and save what 
 individual and social morality it may be yet 
 possible to save. Only some miserable com- 
 promise will be practicable, unless, indeed, 
 the unhappy parties themselves, after so 
 much folly, will at last be wise. For wisdom 
 has a way of salvation even for them. It is 
 simply to accept the dreary situation nobly ; 
 renouncing all license and illusion for the fu- 
 ture, and expiating accomplished blunders by 
 kindly, patient, faithful devotion to one an- 
 other, in the sight of God, to the end. 
 
 " Happy and wise who consents to redouble his service to 
 
 Laban, 
 So, fulfilling her week, he may add to the elder the 
 
 younger, 
 Not repudiates Leah, but wins the Rachel unto her ! " 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE USES OF LEARNING. 
 
 We have no institutions which command the 
 support and kindle the enthusiasm of all classes 
 of people so readily as the schools of every 
 grade, from the district school to the univer- 
 sity. Every one believes in learning whether 
 he believes in any thing else or not. Other 
 hopes have failed ; other enterprises of great 
 pith and moment have come to nought ; but 
 education is flourishing and advancing with 
 the benedictions of the whole people. It is 
 true that there is occasionally some private 
 disappointment even here. Faust has studied 
 theology and law and medicine and what not ; 
 yet he is worse off at the end than at the be- 
 ginning: and Faust lives wretchedly, without 
 poetic glory, and without any hope of redemp- 
 tion, in every large city and in many a country 
 town on this continent. But Faust is a crank, 
 and his career has no significance for the bril- 
 
 117 
 
1 1 8 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 liant companies of ardent youth who throng 
 our seats of learning, or for the toiling fathers 
 and mothers who labor to support them, and 
 ponder ineffable thoughts in their hearts. 
 
 Some observers, who are not at all affected 
 by occasional instances of total failure among 
 scholars, are perplexed not a little by the mys- 
 terious dissensions of the great dispensers of 
 learning. The masters would have us all 
 learn something certainly, but they cannot 
 agree upon any course to prescribe for us. 
 When we seek direction, and ask for true 
 learning, the answer comes, from doctors great 
 and small, with the confused noise of battle, — 
 " Lo here ! " " Lo there ! " " Ecce in deserto! " 
 " Ecce in penetralibus ! " Perhaps this is all 
 right and arises from the vastness of learning. 
 True learning, probably, is like the infinite ; — 
 you cannot miss it whichever way you go, and 
 all the schools, and all the methods, and all the 
 masters are right. This is the most charitable 
 view, and also the most comfortable. But there 
 are other views, which leer at our comfortable 
 thoughts, and croak sinister suggestions to dis- 
 turb our peace. In the palmiest days of Greek 
 learning, Aristotle declared that his countrymen 
 
The Uses of Learning. 1 1 9 
 
 could not make up their minds as to the ends 
 to be sought in education, and therefore, of 
 course, could not agree about the means to be 
 employed. Can it be that we also, at this late 
 day, and with all our educational zeal and hope- 
 fulness, are divided and perplexed about courses 
 and methods in learning only because, like the 
 old Greeks, we have applied ourselves to the 
 means without determining what the end is to 
 be ? Can it be that our great hopes are founded, 
 not on a distinct contemplation of effective 
 means working triumphantly towards a glori- 
 ous end, but merely on the fact that there is a 
 great deal of vigorous beating about the bush 
 going on, and that some kind of game must 
 surely be started ? I cannot believe that prac- 
 tical Americans could become so excited over 
 hopes so indefinite. I should much sooner be- 
 lieve that our trouble is owing, not to aimless- 
 ness, but to a tropical redundance of aims, 
 all clear, all strong, all striving for supremacy. 
 If this be the case, we must moderate our am- 
 bition. We cannot have every thing under the 
 sun supreme all at once. The attempt can only 
 make our learning an immense, amorphous, over- 
 whelming heap. We must give up the idea of 
 
1 20 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 learning or education as a unity, and rend the 
 schools into independent sects, with single or 
 coherent aims, or we must save the unity of 
 learning by recognizing a supreme end, to 
 which all other ends must be subordinate and 
 subservient. I think we should all at present 
 deprecate a final division and sub-division. At 
 any rate, we ought not to divide until we have 
 examined the uses of learning most commonly 
 regarded, to see if there be not one among them 
 worthy to be exalted above its fellows and ca- 
 pable of retaining them all in its service. 
 
 Learning is frequently sought for the sake of 
 worldly advantage. It is sought because it is 
 supposed to be a good bread-winner and 
 money-maker. It is a known fact that many 
 have risen from abject penury to opulence 
 through learning. And many successful men 
 have commended learning to the young as the 
 surest of all ways that lead on to fortune. As 
 money-making is the main business of mature 
 life, there would be a certain marked congruity 
 in making it also the supreme, avowed end of 
 learning. It would link our earliest days to our 
 latest, and turn the heart of the fathers to the 
 children, and the heart of the children to their 
 
The Uses of Learning. 121 
 
 fathers. It would add professional dignity 
 and a scientific sense of honor to business, and 
 give point and sharp reality to learning. It 
 would make ruthless havoc of some time- 
 honored studies and elegant customs in the 
 schools, no doubt. Greek might have to go, 
 and with it the sweet, perennial fount of 
 poetry, and the strong, patient tortoise that 
 supports, without a groan, the prodigious 
 frame of metaphysics. We might endure all 
 that, to be sure, but sporting and rioting 
 would also have to be conditioned, and fast 
 young men, the flower of the age, would have 
 to be brought to their senses, and the tender 
 grace of academic idling and dawdling would 
 come to a perpetual end. Let it not be sup- 
 posed, however, that the course of study would 
 be slight or narrow, or that the genius loci 
 would be a clown in the new academy. The 
 sphere of the money-maker is the wide world. 
 His sails whiten every sea, and his messengers 
 explore all lands. The material he deals with 
 is the whole wealth of universal nature. He 
 must know the properties and uses of all cre- 
 ated things. He must know the dispositions 
 and manners of men of all tribes and tongues. 
 
122 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 He must condescend to men of low degree, and 
 minister to the poor and the outcast ; but he 
 must also rise above princes and lay them un- 
 der tribute, and cause the proudest aris- 
 tocracies to serve him. He must know how 
 to pick the brains of genius, and how to utilize 
 good and evil. He must watch the tides in 
 the affairs of men, and profit by them, whether 
 they ebb or flow. The alertness, the penetra- 
 tion, the foresight, the breadth and clearness of 
 view, the grasp and decision, the industry, the 
 patience, the urbanity, and other great quali- 
 ties implied in all this, are sufficient to show 
 that an education which made money-making 
 its supreme end would be a most formidable 
 rival of the immense and amorphous system, 
 in the acquisition and command of knowledge, 
 in the training of the intellectual powers, and 
 in the formation of noble manners. 
 
 The fatal inconvenience in recognizing 
 money-making as the supreme end of learning 
 is, not any danger of narrowness or feebleness, 
 but the insanity of the very idea. Money has 
 nothing of the nature of an end about it, and 
 money-making itself needs a worthy end for 
 its own justification. To a certain extent it 
 
The Uses of Learning. 123 
 
 has this in the universal need of sustenance 
 and of the interchange of ministrations among 
 men. But money-making never recognizes an 
 ultimate end. When it reaches its proper goal, 
 it rushes past it, and hurries on and on more 
 furiously than ever, like John Gilpin's horse. 
 If it be said that money-making, though illusory 
 as an end in learning, is effective as a never-fail- 
 ing stimulus, and that this is what we need, 
 that amounts to saying that, if you tie us to 
 the tail of a runaway horse, we may not know 
 exactly where we are going, but we shall cer- 
 tainly go a long way, and go very fast, and 
 have vigorous exercise, and we ought to be 
 satisfied. This is snubbing us in our search 
 for an end in learning ; but we will persevere in 
 our search, and we must turn away sorrow- 
 fully from money-making, versatile, and power- 
 ful, and industrious, and courtly though it be. 
 
 There are those, and they are many, who de- 
 vote themselves earnestly to learning, because 
 they hope thereby to secure for themselves, not 
 silver and gold, in the first instance, at least, 
 but a great and honored place in the thoughts 
 of men ; afterwards, perhaps, incidentally, some 
 little material advantage. Learning they con- 
 
124 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 ceive to be a distinguished ornament — a meri- 
 torious possession, which men will not willingly 
 allow to go unrecognized or unglorified : and, 
 without inquiring into the grounds of orna- 
 ment or of merit, they are willing to cultivate 
 learning, whatever it may cost, for the sake of 
 the glory alone. Some of them see little of 
 the coveted glory in their lifetime. But they 
 are comforted with the thought that slow 
 growth means solidity and permanence; and 
 they die in faith, and give commandment con- 
 cerning their bones, that the "pilgrim gray," 
 whenever he comes, may not fail to find them. 
 The majority, however, of those who study for 
 glory prefer to receive their meed from their 
 own contemporaries, even if it must be of an 
 inferior quality and less enduring. And there 
 are students, male and female, not a few, who 
 wade painfully through a dreary variety of ut- 
 terly distasteful studies, with no object or hope 
 in the world beyond that of making a little 
 nine-days' display in their native town: and 
 when they have made that, they cast their 
 accomplishments, with much satisfaction, to 
 the owls and the bats. 
 
 Something might be said in favor of recog- 
 
The Uses of Learning. 125 
 
 nizing glory as the end of learning. Man is 
 not a creature to be put under a bushel. He 
 is entitled, not only to a free development, but 
 also to an open manifestation of his powerful 
 nature, and to a certain amount of considera- 
 tion from his fellows. Men everywhere assert 
 this claim ; and they so often do it in cruel and 
 vulgar ways that it might be a great public 
 blessing if learning, with its quiet, inoffensive 
 demeanor, could be set up as the universal title 
 to glorification. But the practical difficulties 
 of a system of education which should adopt 
 glory for its end would be enormous. Who 
 would direct the studies and award the glory? 
 If the professors undertook to do so, the multi- 
 tude might fail to ratify their award, and the 
 professors might have to furnish all the glory 
 themselves at the greatest inconvenience. If 
 the multitude should take the whole matter 
 into their own hands, could they ever agree' 
 upon a course of study and a standard of 
 merit? Would it not be quot homines, tot 
 sententice, or nearly so? And if they could 
 agree to-day, would they be of the same 
 mind to-morrow? The multitude, it must 
 be remembered, is many-headed, and lives in 
 
126 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 an open, windy place, where ideas are kept in 
 rapid circulation. The end would probably be 
 the elective system in its extreme form. Ev- 
 ery man would learn that which was right in his 
 own eyes, and the judges would crown a man 
 to-day and whip him to-morrow for the same 
 performance : sic transit gloria. Then, if the 
 multitude is the fountain of honor, is not 
 learning, after all, a degradation, — a falling 
 off from the higher glory of the glory-be- 
 stowing multitude ? And further, if learn- 
 ing should spread, would it not be cut off 
 from its end? For, if a scholar's end is his 
 own glory, he must devote himself to that 
 end, and he will have no time or disposition 
 to glorify anybody else. When all are learned, 
 then, all will want glory, and none will have any 
 to give. To secure the end of learning, learn- 
 ing must be repressed, which is almost ridicu- 
 lous. But if all practical difficulties were sur- 
 mounted, there remains the question, Why 
 should learning be honored at all? What 
 is its merit? The very idea of honoring 
 learning implies an end of learning other 
 than the honor itself. 
 
 I am sorry to detain you with supreme ends 
 
The Uses of Learning. 127 
 
 which collapse in the handling. It looks so 
 much like trifling with your patience. But my 
 business is not to invent or suggest ends, but to 
 review the most prominent of those which are 
 actually regarded by old and young in the pur- 
 suit of learning : and I should provoke just cen- 
 sure if, in such a review, I did not give a lead- 
 ing place to ends which are so generally and so 
 intensely desired as material prosperity and 
 personal distinction. But, while giving them 
 the foremost places, which I could not deny 
 unto them, I must repeat distinctly that they 
 both have a radical defect in common. They 
 are not compatible with the general advance- 
 ment of learning. All men cannot be rich ; all 
 men cannot be distinguished. The wealth and 
 distinction of some imply the comparative 
 poverty and obscurity of others. If these be 
 the uses of learning, the uses will decrease as 
 the learning increases ; and if learning ever be- 
 comes universal, it will be of no use at all. The 
 proper and supreme end of learning should be 
 forwarded by the advancement of learning and 
 fulfilled by its universal diffusion. It must, 
 therefore, be something which is open to all the 
 world, and which all men may enjoy together. 
 
128 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 Is not pleasure, then, an adequate end of 
 learning? Many profess to seek learning purely 
 for its own sake — that is, for the pleasure and 
 satisfaction which it directly yields. They ask 
 for no gold, they ask for no praise, they delight 
 in learning itself. Yet they have no desire to 
 keep it to themselves alone. Their pleasure is 
 but heightened when others partake of it. 
 The greater the company the merrier the feast. 
 Is not this, at last, the end which we have been 
 looking for? It must be admitted that pleas- 
 ure is a legitimate object of universal desire, 
 and that, while elsewhere the pleasure of one is 
 too often the pain of another, learning affords 
 pleasures which are open to all and which injure 
 none. It is evident also that pleasure would 
 organize a very comprehensive system of learn- 
 ing. It would have no petty aversions or pre- 
 dilections to indulge, but would welcome what- 
 ever could interest the understanding, or engage 
 the reason, or impress the imagination. There 
 would be no childish controversy about science 
 and literature, and no thought of dispensing 
 with or of curtailing either. No sour, timid 
 scrupulosity would impede the progress of light, 
 gay, adventurous studies, and no mouthing 
 
The Uses of Learning. 129 
 
 perversity would hamper the movements or 
 limit the resources of men in their graver moods 
 and questionings. Pious men would have to 
 put up with some ribaldry, and the irreligious 
 would be surprised at the rich stores of broad, 
 pleasing humanities in the Scriptures ; for it is 
 scarcely necessary to say that the Bible would 
 be a leading text-book. The course of study, 
 though comprehensive and impartial, would not 
 be overloaded. Every thing pleasing would be 
 represented, but only the best of every thing 
 would appear. The methods of teaching would 
 also be thoroughly revised. Slovenliness, pe- 
 dantry, and all bungling would be done away, 
 and there would be no more spending " seven 
 or eight years merely in scraping together so 
 much miserable Latin and Greek (or any thing 
 else) as might be learned otherwise easily and 
 delightfully in one year." It is further to be 
 remarked that pleasure would have no difficulty 
 in establishing satisfactory relations with the 
 ends already considered and set aside. Money- 
 making and personal distinction could cheer- 
 fully do homage to pleasure, and pleasure could 
 smilingly accord unto them fat places as well- 
 disposed by-ends. So far so good. 
 
1 30 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 It must be conceded, however, that no order- 
 ing of studies, and no method of teaching, could 
 bring the noblest pleasures of learning to the 
 early stages of our career, where they are most 
 needed to wean us from the poorer delights of 
 sense and indolence. The great pleasures of 
 learning are on the far heights ; the steps thither, 
 though not unpleasing, too often fail to allure 
 us from the easier, softer path on the plain. 
 " Die Hohe reizt uns, nicht die Stufen : den 
 Gipfel im Auge wandeln wir gern auf der 
 Ebene." Thus it comes to pass that, in a sys- 
 tem whose end is pleasure, we would have to 
 begin with self-denial. Having delight only in 
 view, we must " scorn delights and live labo- 
 rious days," to attain our end. This necessity, 
 no doubt, would repel many sincere lovers of 
 pleasure, and leave them all their days to such 
 unlearned amusement as they might find over 
 their cups or among the tangles of Neaera's hair. 
 The more erect spirits would take the neces- 
 sary pains and reach the heights and receive 
 their reward. From the mount of speculation 
 they could look forth upon all the world lying 
 at their feet. They would need no wings of a 
 dove to enable them to follow the setting sun 
 
The Uses of Learning. 1 3 1 
 
 in his glowing career. They could follow him 
 easily on the light wing of the cherub Contem- 
 plation, and the sun's own glorious eye would 
 be blind to many scenes of ravishing beauty 
 and of awful splendor which they would be- 
 hold. Their position would overlook time as 
 well as space. They could watch the vague 
 earth emerging from chaos and slowly advan- 
 cing to a habitable age. They could share the 
 mute wonder of the old creation at the advent 
 of man, and they could look with the untried 
 eyes of the first man upon the virgin world un- 
 subdued and unexplored. They could see man 
 going forth to his work, and through the long 
 day they could watch the mighty fabric of hu- 
 man life and civilization " rise like an exhalation " 
 from infinite toil and endurance. They could be 
 the close companions of heroes on each side of 
 every old conflict. They could be the bosom 
 friends of the wisest teachers of all schools. 
 They could command the loftiest, severest 
 genius to serve their pleasure. They could 
 mingle for their refreshment the waters of 
 Siloam with all the " thousand rills of Heli- 
 con." Assuredly, for those who would take 
 the necessary pains to attain them, the pleas- 
 ures of learning would be inexhaustible. 
 
132 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 But men inured to hardship, and gifted with 
 the inborn energy which enabled them to be so 
 inured, and brought by their studies face to 
 face with the impetuous life and passion of 
 all the world, could not terminate their labors 
 in mere pleasure. They could not sit and be 
 amused forever in such a presence — mere spec- 
 tators when the battle grew hot, mere listeners 
 when the trumpet blew louder and louder. 
 They would call their pleasure, trifler, as 
 Hotspur called his love: 
 
 " Away, you trifler ! — love? — I love thee not, 
 I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world 
 To play with mammets, or to tilt with lips ; 
 We must have bloody noses, and cracked crowns, 
 And pass them current too. Gods me, my horse ! " 
 
 A life of pleasure is a reproach even on the 
 lower levels of the busy earth ; on the clear 
 height of knowledge, fronting all the serious 
 interests of the world, it is insufferable. Men 
 may rightly desire pleasure and seek it, but 
 only incidentally. They cannot make it a su- 
 preme end, " even though all the animals in the 
 world assert the contrary." Pleasure would 
 lose its own nature in such excess, and its vo- 
 taries would perish of utter disgust, like poor 
 
The Uses of Learning. 133 
 
 Clarence in his sweet Malmsey. Learned men 
 must bear their part of the burden of life, and 
 many think that the end of learning should be 
 to fit men for their work in the world. " The 
 greatest error of all the rest," says Lord Bacon, 
 " is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or 
 furthest end of knowledge. For men have en- 
 tered into a desire of learning and knowledge, 
 sometimes upon a natural curiosity and in- 
 quisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their 
 minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for 
 ornament and reputation; and sometimes to 
 enable them to victory of wit and contradic- 
 tion ; and most times for lucre and profession ; 
 and seldom sincerely to give a true account of 
 their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of 
 men : as if there were sought in knowledge a 
 couch whereupon to rest a searching and rest- 
 less spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and 
 variable mind to walk up and down with a fair 
 prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind 
 to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding 
 ground for strife and contention ; or a shop for 
 profit or sale ; and not a rich storehouse for the 
 glory of the Creator and the relief of man's 
 estate." In like manner Milton writes : " I call, 
 
1 34 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 therefore, a complete and generous education, 
 that which fits a man to perform justly, skil- 
 fully, and magnanimously all the offices, both 
 private and public, of peace and war." But 
 what are these offices ? What is the work of 
 the world, and what constitutes fitness to per- 
 form it ? Are we to plunge into it at random, 
 from sheer mettle and fury, like highly-fed 
 steeds rushing into battle ? Would it be ful- 
 filled or forwarded, or only hindered and com- 
 plicated, if every man living were equipped 
 with the strength of Atlas, and the hands of 
 Briareus, and the eyes of Argus, and all the 
 potent spells of Prospero ? Would we be fitted 
 to perform our part if we could speak with the 
 tongues of men and of angels, and had the gift 
 of prophecy, and understood all mysteries and 
 all knowledge ? Though we be assured that 
 the end of learning is to fit men for their work 
 in the world, we are not enlightened at all until 
 we know whether that work has a definite pur- 
 pose, and what the purpose is, if such a pur- 
 pose there be. Is our work in the world to be 
 done for our own sake, or for the sake of the 
 world ? If for our own sake, we still need an 
 end worthier than those which we have already 
 
The Uses of Learning. 135 
 
 considered ; and if for the world's sake, we must 
 ask whether ends which are inadequate for our- 
 selves are any better for the world. Can it be 
 that we are simply to feed the world with savory 
 food, and clothe it in purple and fine linen, with 
 all the bright buttons and gay feathers its silly 
 heart can wish? Are we only to promote its 
 comfort and its self-complacency, and to 
 provide for it riches, and conveniences, and 
 pomps, and vanities, and some cunning con- 
 trivance to keep it from strangling itself? Is 
 this the work of the world, and the end of 
 learning? It cannot be. The world is greater, 
 not less, than ourselves. We must not offer 
 the world a lame, irrational service which is 
 contemptible in our own eyes ; and we must 
 not drown the cry of our own hearts for a 
 worthy end in our studies and our labors by 
 the "drums and timbrels loud" of an aimless 
 public service. But Milton says that our work 
 is to be done "justly and magnanimously"; 
 and Bacon says that it is to be done " for the 
 glory of the Creator and for the relief of man's 
 estate." That brings us to the brow of a very 
 high hill, from whence we catch a glimpse of a 
 new heaven and a new earth wherein we may 
 
136 Prejudiced Injuiries. 
 
 discover the true end of our personal life, and 
 of our public labors, and of the learning which 
 is to guide and serve both. It directs us, in 
 fact, to the wide realms of moral law and order 
 and spiritual life, where learning may enter the 
 service of duty and do the work of righteous- 
 ness. Here are the " worlds unrealized," on the 
 confines of which man walks about from his 
 birth, and to which, in all his wanderings, his 
 heart, " untravelled, fondly turns," as to its 
 proper home. Here are the deep sources of 
 inspiration and heroism. Here is the spring of 
 comfort, more grateful to the parched lips of 
 men than the water of the well of Bethlehem 
 to the exhausted warrior. Here is the glory of 
 the storied past, and here is all the hope of the 
 future. Here, certainly, learning may find a 
 worthy end if it can but rise high enough to 
 reach it. Let learning lead man to his place in 
 the unseen universe. Let it set him right with 
 the moral law and with his own conscience. 
 Let it heal the deep schism at the core of his 
 life. Having accomplished that, let it aid him 
 to develop his various powers, and to subdue 
 the earth, and to arrange all the uses of this 
 world in their due relations to the central 
 
The Uses of Learning. 1 3 7 
 
 spiritual life which has been set right. This is 
 a worthy end of learning. But what learning 
 is worthy to lead the way to fulfil so high an 
 end ? 
 
 At the present day, we naturally turn with a 
 lively hope to Science. Science has so often 
 rebuked our faint hearts, and performed what 
 we had pronounced impossible ; and through 
 its reverent attitude toward the great cosmic 
 forces it has obtained such a prophet's rod to 
 work endless wonders with in future, that we 
 could not help invoking its aid in the awful 
 perplexities of our spiritual life. Science re- 
 ceives us, in all our moral turpitude, with a 
 serene, bland smile, and bids us be of good 
 cheer and banish all anxiety. It bids us feed 
 well, and sleep well, and be good brutes in 
 every respect, and assures us that Nature will 
 then attend to our moral life, and convert a 
 suitable portion of our food into the highest 
 virtue that she can produce at a single effort ; 
 and that, if our posterity will be good brutes 
 also, then, in the course of many generations, 
 Nature may be depended upon to turn out a 
 truly excellent spiritual life from the fruit of 
 our loins, 
 
1 3 8 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 We will endeavor to feed well, and to sleep 
 well, and to respect the whole physical order of 
 the world, — the counsel is not untimely, — and 
 we shall rejoice in all the good that bountiful 
 Nature may do unto us. But we never blamed 
 Nature ; we were never ashamed of her ; we 
 never loathed her work ; neither can we take 
 any credit for the good which she does now or 
 may do hereafter. Our moral life begins with 
 our freedom, with what we ourselves do beyond 
 what Nature does for us. Let Nature do her 
 utmost, the moral life is yet to come. The 
 highest possible excellence of the work of Na- 
 ture in us, far from insuring our moral excel- 
 lence, exposes us to a more awful risk. Corruptio 
 optimi pessima. Science, in its present mood, 
 will not directly help our moral life, will not 
 really recognize the existence of a moral life, 
 good or evil. The so-called moral life, which 
 science promises to those who are careful to 
 observe natural laws, is not a moral life at all, 
 but a natural life, — as entirely natural, in every 
 sense, as the life of a plant or of a four-footed 
 beast. We have no reason to complain of sci- 
 ence, however. Science is earnestly endeavor- 
 ing to do justice to Nature — a work, in its place, 
 
The Uses of Learning. 139 
 
 quite inestimable ; and if it is deaf and blind 
 and barren to our moral necessities, let us 
 meekly turn elsewhere. Let us turn to Litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Here at least our moral life shall have abun- 
 dant recognition. The moral life of man is, in 
 fact, the greatest theme and inspiration of 
 literature throughout the world. The highest 
 literature is almost wholly concerned with it, 
 and the very lowest cannot ignore it. But 
 what is the result of all this attention ? What 
 has literature done for us as moral beings ? It 
 has laid bare our infirmities. It has probed 
 our wounds and our putrifying sores. It has 
 branded as an illiterate delusion the notion 
 that all is well with mankind. It has refused 
 to be comforted by the oracular babble of easy- 
 going speculation, or by the nutritious gruel of 
 the naturalists. It has found the evil that is 
 in the world grow more hopeless in its hands 
 from age to age, and, in these last days, it has 
 fairly despaired of mankind. In early times, it 
 marked only the monstrous, presumptuous 
 sins of the notorious few. Later it discovered 
 the secret faults of the many. Last of all, it 
 has entered into our holiest place, and found 
 
1 40 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 blots and deep blemishes in our very virtues ; 
 and it has taken a savage, desperate pleasure in 
 dragging to the fiercest light the frailty and 
 the falsehood of our inner life at its best. In 
 the extremity of its awful discovery, it has tried 
 to be content to wallow in the mire, and, like 
 Satan, to say unto evil, " Evil be thou my good," 
 or at least to rest satisfied with some secondary 
 and attainable good, such as the truth of art, 
 or the refinement of manners. But heaven 
 and earth will pass away before man can shake 
 off the moral law from his conscience, or lower 
 its demands to the level of his practice : and 
 literature, the voice of the world, whether in 
 humility and contrition or in blasphemous 
 rage or cynical bitterness, is still a heavy-laden 
 confession of sin, and a condemnation of the 
 human race. Literature, it is true, is full of 
 hilarity and entertainment ; but, left to itself, 
 it is also full of anguish and despair. It knows 
 that all its beauty but thinly drapes a " dark, 
 opprobrious den of shame," and that its gayety 
 is but as strong drink unto him that is ready to 
 perish, and unto those that be of heavy hearts, 
 that they may drink and forget their poverty, 
 and remember their misery no more. Litera- 
 
The Uses of Learning. 1 4 1 
 
 ture will not set our moral life right, will not 
 attempt to do so. But who, or what, will even 
 attempt the task? The truth is, this work is 
 not much sought. There are those who, with 
 a clear vox pecudis, declare it needless. The 
 general voice of mankind declares it hopeless. 
 The Gospel of Christ alone seriously undertakes 
 the task. The Gospel recognizes the evil as 
 fully as the bitterest passion or the keenest 
 analysis in modern literature. In entire harmony 
 with the deeper tone of literature, it declares 
 the evil radical, universal, and past all earthly 
 remedy. But, instead of despairing or taking 
 refuge in mere diversion, it proclaims salvation 
 through a miracle of divine mercy and sacrifice, 
 which it declares to be the central, ruling fact of 
 human history, witnessed to in ancient times 
 among Jews and Gentiles, and to be manifes- 
 ted with increasing power in the life of man- 
 kind to the end. Such a salvation would 
 certainly be adequate. The life of God would 
 suffice as a source of life and salvation to men ; 
 and the derivation of salvation from God would 
 not destroy the moral character of man's life, 
 inasmuch as the appropriation is to be made, 
 not through meats and drinks or any physical 
 
142 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 treatment, but through faith— that is, through 
 the moral life itself. 
 
 Christ is believed on in the world. With the 
 belief in Him, the sense of sin grows stronger 
 and clearer; the requirements of the moral law, 
 far from being annulled or relaxed, appear for 
 the first time in all their fulness and sacredness ; 
 the fearful abyss between the soul and God 
 seems wider and deeper than before. But 
 though the sense of sin increases, there ac- 
 companies it a sense of pardon and recon- 
 ciliation with God. Though the standard of 
 holiness seems higher than ever, a new hope 
 has dawned upon the soul, and the battle with 
 indwelling sin is waged with an earnest devo- 
 tion and an assurance of final victory wholly 
 unknown before. The peace within extends 
 to the world without. The burdens of life 
 grow lighter, and its joys more sacred. Weak- 
 ness becomes strength, and loss is counted gain. 
 There is no more curse. There is no more death. 
 These signs follow them that believe in Christ 
 in every age, and in every land, and in every 
 condition of life ; and they are signs of salva- 
 tion and victory. Through faith in Christ man 
 is justified and renewed. His moral life is set 
 
The Uses of Learning. 143 
 
 right. His true career is opened. Henceforth 
 in his work in the world he will have firm 
 ground to stand on. He will have clear, 
 worthy aims, and the loftiest and most pow- 
 erful motives, and boundless hope for himself 
 and his race. If education is to fit man for his 
 work in the world, then, it should certainly be a 
 Christian education, including the personal faith 
 which unites the conscious, voluntary life of 
 man to the fountain of life, and lifts man 
 himself to his place in the mighty spiritual 
 evolution in which human freedom and the 
 eternal power of God work together. 
 
 Shall we, therefore, gather up our secular 
 books and our implements of curious arts 
 and sciences and burn them before all men, 
 or " drown them deeper than did ever plum- 
 met sound," and betake ourselves to our testa- 
 ments and our prayers ? Shall we, in the inter- 
 est of true Christian learning, abandon the uni- 
 versities and set up parochial schools ? It will 
 be well for us, for the sake of true learning, to 
 betake ourselves with new zeal and with new 
 humility to the Holy Scriptures. It will be ex- 
 ceedingly well for us, for the sake of learning, 
 to give ourselves unto earnest, incessant 
 
144 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 prayer. The maxim, Bene orasse est bene 
 studuisse, was found true by holy men of old, 
 and it will be found strictly true forever. It 
 may be necessary to set up parochial schools, 
 or missionary schools, or what not, among our 
 most highly cultivated families as well as among 
 the most illiterate. It is hard telling what it 
 may not be necessary to do to save the parents 
 of Christendom from throwing away, in utter 
 wantonness or in the blindest infatuation, their 
 children's noblest inheritance. But, whatever 
 may have to be done, God forbid that Chris- 
 tian men should dream of advancing the faith 
 by neglecting secular learning. The Christian 
 faith is the strongest reason there is for culti- 
 vating secular learning in every direction to the 
 utmost extent possible. Christ came not to de- 
 stroy, but to fulfil Gentile thought and civili- 
 zation as well as the law and the prophets of 
 Israel. He came not to repudiate, but to re- 
 deem the world for man as well as man for God. 
 The secular life is a part of the field which 
 the Christian life must occupy, and in which it 
 must glorify God and prepare itself for heaven ; 
 and Christian truth, specifically so called, far 
 from diminishing, greatly increases, the dignity 
 
The Uses of Learning. 145 
 
 of secular arts and sciences, by giving a new and 
 profound significance to the whole secular life. 
 Christian learning is not a new learning to 
 supersede the old. It is the old itself, with im- 
 portant additions which give a centre and a 
 unity and a glorious meaning to the whole, and 
 render possible, for the first time, a true classi- 
 fication of the sciences and a complete organi- 
 zation of human learning. Christian faith, in 
 the direct proportion of its purity and strength, 
 adopts and employs every thing properly hu- 
 man. It knows that in our earthly life that is 
 not first which is spiritual, but that which is 
 natural ; and it is tender towards the natural, 
 both for its own sake as the work of God's 
 hands, and for the sake of the spiritual of which 
 it is the harbinger. Therefore true Christian 
 faith always encourages secular learning 
 throughout its whole range, even though that 
 learning should, for the time being, serve Chaos 
 and old Night. " Destroy it not," says Faith, 
 tenderly, " for there is blessing in it." The 
 Christian faith of the present day is cheerfully 
 paying for the board and lodging of a learning 
 which, like a petulant infant, slaps it in the 
 face, — of a learning which still asks if life be 
 
1 46 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 worth living, and whether all things are not 
 founded on rottenness, — of a learning which, 
 though conceited enough, has little real respect 
 even for itself, and could not give a sane answer 
 if asked what it is good for, or what it is that 
 gives it all its might. Faith knows the end of 
 learning better than learning itself till learning 
 is allied to faith and so becomes Christian 
 learning. 
 
 But if faith is the devoted champion of all 
 secular learning, how is learning going to be- 
 come Christian, or how is Christian learning 
 going to extend its bounds ? Even as Christian 
 learning came into the world and made the 
 conquests which it has already achieved, by the 
 inspiration of the Almighty and the consecrated 
 labors of faithful souls. The lively oracles are 
 with us. The Great Teacher of men is ever 
 near. The secret of the Lord is still with them 
 that fear Him ; and He will still give the tongue 
 of the learned to those who will awake morning 
 by morning to hear as the learned. You may 
 have the anointing from the Holy One if you 
 will, and you may go forth to teach in His name. 
 If you have brilliant parts, and great wealth, 
 and high station, and other worldly advantages, 
 
The Uses of Learning. 147 
 
 you can turn them all to good account in the 
 cause of Christian truth. Yet if you have none 
 of these you are not disqualified for the highest 
 personal service. You may found a great school 
 in your own humble home and among your 
 natural associates wherever your lot is cast. 
 But whether you labor with small gifts or with 
 great, in a wide or in a narrow field, your eye 
 must be single, your devotion entire, and you 
 must walk steadfastly by faith and not by sight. 
 If you find this a hard saying which you cannot 
 receive, if you must fare sumptuously every day, 
 and wear gorgeous apparel, and sit in the chief 
 places, and receive glory of men, as the reward 
 of your services, you may still do something 
 for learning ; you may gather dry bones to- 
 gether, and sort and combine them with admi- 
 rable skill ; you may do much excellent pre- 
 paratory work, but you are not the men to 
 summon the mighty breath of life. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 WHEN we first awake as men on the earth, 
 the sun is in mid-heaven if not already declin- 
 ing, and the fields are covered with men at 
 work and children at play. We rub our daz- 
 zled eyes in perplexity, and inquire when the 
 work began, and how long the great sun has 
 been up ; and we learn, bewildered, that the 
 world is very old, that many generations have 
 come and gone, that our fathers and mothers 
 long ago awoke at mid-day like ourselves. 
 Mouldering traces of former times are pointed 
 out to us, and we are led through the grassy, 
 voiceless little plot where the forefathers of the 
 neighborhood sleep side by side, each in his low 
 and narrow house. Right there, perhaps, at 
 the grave of one who smiled upon our infancy, 
 but departed, with a ripe harvest of love, un- 
 known and unlamented by us, we begin, with 
 awe and wonder, to study History. As yet, 
 
 148 
 
History. 1 49 
 
 the field of history is not much larger than the 
 parish, and even in the parish itself there is a 
 whole Africa which has no history at all for us. 
 The parish is historical only as it is related in 
 one way or another to our own family. But, 
 though the field be small, the history is quick 
 and powerful. It tells of labors and sufferings 
 long past of which we now reap the benefit. 
 It dwells with loving reverence on the courage, 
 and the fortitude, and the simple, entire devo- 
 tion which these quiet fields and the plain 
 houses have witnessed. It reveals the true 
 subject of history in human character, and the 
 abiding, expanding work of the human spirit. 
 It erects trophies which will not let us sleep. 
 It enlists us in the continuous life of our kind, 
 and directs our youthful hearts forward, already 
 throbbing with vague anticipations of conflict 
 and glory, or, perhaps, of martyrdom. The 
 parish bounds are now too narrow for our 
 awakened sympathies. We eagerly pass the 
 little Rubicon into the vast domains of uni- 
 versal history. No smaller field will satisfy 
 our wondering curiosity ; and excited curiosity 
 is more or less encouraged by sober reason, 
 which intimates that the history of all man- 
 
1 50 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 kind is our own true history, and that it would 
 be well for us to hear the whole story, not 
 merely for our entertainment, but that we may 
 the better know what our life is, and find out- 
 places in the busy ranks, and fulfil our own 
 allotted task, before we also go the way of all 
 the earth. 
 
 But if the history of all mankind is our true 
 and proper history, is not history an impos- 
 sible study, and must we not feel our way 
 through life without its aid ? We should 
 doubtless be much better qualified to do our 
 own work if we understood precisely what has 
 been done already, and how the work 
 of the world stands. But if we must hear 
 the endless story of our whole dispersed race 
 before we begin our own task, will not the 
 shadows of evening, when they fall, find us 
 still listening to the beginning of the tale, with 
 our work untouched at the hour when it should 
 be completed ? It must be confessed, of course, 
 that we cannot know, in detail, all that has 
 been done by men upon the earth. It would 
 take longer to study history so than it has 
 taken to enact it, for in studying the history 
 one man would have to go over all the steps 
 
History. i c i 
 
 which all men have taken in making it. And if 
 history is the reproduction in thought of all the 
 details of the lives of those whose history is 
 studied, we must pronounce impossible, not only 
 universal history, but national history, and 
 family history, and even individual biography. 
 We know, however, that it is possible, without 
 attempting literal completeness, to gain very 
 helpful views of the work of individuals and 
 of nations, and, by observing a few simple rules 
 which the very nature and object of human 
 history would suggest, the story of the whole 
 race, vast as it is, may be approached, with 
 hope and with profit, by ordinary people, in 
 the midst of the care and labor of life. At 
 present, we will not enter upon the actual study 
 of universal history; but we will consider 
 some of the conditions on which, in our cir- 
 cumstances and with our objects, the study is 
 possible. 
 
 First of all, in a study so vast and complicate, 
 it is surely indispensable that we should begin 
 no further back than the beginning. The be- 
 ginning of human history is not the beginning 
 of all things ; and in studying history, we 
 should begin, not with the origin of things, nor 
 
152 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 with pre-historic evolution, whether cosmical 
 or biological, or other, but with the history it- 
 self. In the view of human history, the dust 
 from which man was made is of no more ac- 
 count than any other dust ; and the animals 
 which come nearest to man in the order of na- 
 ture, however near they come, and whatever 
 the character of their relation to him may be, 
 if they are still brutes and not men, are of no 
 more account than any other animals ; and if 
 there ever was a time when man himself, so- 
 called, played merely the part of a brute upon 
 the earth, human history has nothing to do 
 with such a time. Many wondrous histories 
 have preceded human history, and many won- 
 drous histories have always coincided with it ; 
 but when the career of man, as man, began, it 
 was a new-created world ; and ever since it be- 
 gan, though not unrelated to the other devel- 
 opments of the earth and of the universe, it 
 has been a distinct movement. The study of 
 human history is the study of this distinct 
 movement, not the study of collateral or pre- 
 ceding facts. I have no wish to see those facts 
 ignored or neglected. I have no wish to deny 
 or question their important relations to human 
 
History. 1 5 3 
 
 history. At a proper time and place those 
 facts should be studied, and their bearings 
 upon history expounded ; but they should not 
 be placed at the threshold, to bar our approach 
 to the proper facts of history, or to dominate 
 our interpretation of them. The life and work 
 of man, as man, constitute the subject of his- 
 tory. Let the study of history not begin else- 
 where, neither let it turn aside from this its 
 proper subject. 
 
 Then, when we have the actual life and work 
 of mankind before us, though universal history 
 is our ultimate end, we must begin with some 
 particular portion of the history, and we must 
 proceed toward the universal gradually, and in 
 some definite order. I have already said that 
 we begin with our own family ; and I may say 
 that we must also proceed with our own family, 
 and that our solid advance in universal history 
 will follow the lines of the enlargement of our 
 tent, and of the establishment of real, effective 
 relations with our fellow-men. For history is 
 the history of our own kind, — of the body of 
 which we are members ; and we cannot proper- 
 ly learn the history except so far as we realize 
 the unity of the body. We have reached, it is 
 
154 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 true, a theoretical belief in the solidarity of the 
 human race ; and we naturally rush into un- 
 bounded cosmopolitan and eclectic schemes 
 based on that theoretical solidarity. Such 
 schemes cannot altogether lose their reward, 
 for they are based on what is fundamentally 
 true. But the practical disorganization of the 
 human race is as much a fact as its theoretical 
 unity ; and the very thought of unity is but 
 the result of the orderly providential advance, 
 through ages of separate national development, 
 towards practical unification. The unification 
 is still far from complete ; and its progress in 
 future will doubtless depend on the tenacity 
 and self-respect, not on the laxity and ser- 
 vility, of the common life gradually attained. 
 The old Greek pride in Hellas, the jealous, 
 separate life of the seed of Abraham, the Ro- 
 man devotion to the city, and the free seclusion 
 of the German forest, were all necessary for the 
 practical unification of mankind. In the fulness 
 of time, Greek and Hebrew and Roman and 
 Teuton, not of their own accord, but by the 
 over-ruling will of Heaven, united their accumu- 
 lated riches, and became the common spiritual 
 heads of our family of nations. Our study of uni- 
 
History. 155 
 
 versal history must begin with the life and work 
 of our own people, and of these their spiritual 
 ancestors. Other peoples have their history. 
 There are no unhistorical nations, in Africa or 
 elsewhere. The Hebrews were Barbarians to 
 the Greeks, and the Greeks were Gentiles to the 
 Hebrews. The call of Abraham was unknown 
 in Athens, and the Dorian migration in Jeru- 
 salem. Each race might seem utterly unhistori- 
 cal to the other ; but each had a great history 
 in progress, and now the smallest details in the 
 life of each seem full of significance to the 
 world. All nations of the earth have historical 
 significance, and the significance of all will some 
 day be apparent. But, for all that, we must not 
 go to glean scattered ears of history in distant 
 fields until we have first gathered our own har- 
 vest. The history of our own people, and of those 
 who have poured their life into ours, is thrust 
 upon us at every turn, in our own tongue, al- 
 most from our birth. Like wisdom, it standeth 
 in the top of high places, by the way in the 
 places of the paths. It crieth at the gates, at 
 the entry of the city, at the coming in at the 
 doors, and we ought to have very strong rea- 
 sons if Ave turn away from a history so mani- 
 
156 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 festly set before us by nature, to study another 
 at every disadvantage. But what reason can 
 we have for our preference when we are igno- 
 rant both of what we neglect and of what we 
 choose ? 
 
 Our own family history not only invites our 
 first and earnest attention by its nearness, but 
 also rewards all the attention we bestow upon 
 it by its wealth and nobleness. It is exceeding- 
 ly rich in all that we should look for in history. 
 It would itself make a not unworthy universal 
 history if there were no more. It supplies the 
 elements of a great, strong, beautiful, inde- 
 structible life. With these elements held fast, 
 and held in their due relations to one another, 
 we might well be satisfied with our own united 
 world, without Ethiopia or Cathay. But seeing 
 that Ethiopia and Cathay exist, this same his- 
 tory of ours assures us that there are new riches 
 for the world to be gathered there also ; and it 
 sends us thither, not empty-handed, nor at all 
 disposed to barter away what we have for what 
 we may find ; not to enter a new world, nor to 
 learn over again the first principles of human 
 life and history, but to proclaim the principles 
 and history of our own world, and to add new 
 
History. 157 
 
 provinces to it. The new provinces are not empty- 
 handed any more than ourselves. They too 
 have long and sacred histories, and they will not 
 be annexed without stubborn resistance. But, 
 in the struggle, we shall draw nearer and nearer 
 to one another, and the converging lines of a 
 world-wide purpose will meet, and we shall 
 know one another, and be one people, with one 
 great future and one marvellous past. Thus, a 
 firm, loyal hold upon our own American history, 
 with all that lies behind it, is the best start in 
 universal history, and the surest pledge that 
 there will be no turning aside and no delaying 
 until the goal is reached. 
 
 It must be admitted that our own history, as 
 defined above, is still vast enough to confound 
 us ; that, although thrust upon us from child- 
 hood, it easily eludes our unwary or over-am- 
 bitious grasp, and leaves in our hands mere 
 heaps of worn-out clothing. In view of this 
 fact, and of the rich variety of the history, we 
 are often tempted to renounce our claim to the 
 whole, and to devote ourselves to some modest 
 portion which we may hope to make entirely 
 our own. Alas ! we may hope to make a mod- 
 est portion of our own history, taken all by it- 
 
158 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 self, entirely our own, just as we might hope to 
 make a living branch our own without the 
 vine, or a hand or foot without the body. 
 The attempt is quite commonly made. We 
 have among us earnest Judaisers who zeal- 
 ously sacrifice all secular history, and brilliant 
 Hellenisers who sacrifice gayly all but secular 
 history. We have more than a Heptarchy of 
 sturdy settlers on various sections and sub-sec- 
 tions of our common British history. We 
 have our own Yankee purists always gather- 
 ing the precious dust of Plymouth Rock. We 
 have a few noble devotees of the submerged 
 Dutch settlements ; and I know not how many 
 more isolated tribes we have, all abandoning 
 wider inquiry and devoting themselves to thor- 
 oughness in their chosen provinces. We must 
 admire their talents, and their enthusiasm, and 
 their industry ; and we doubt not but they will 
 all help to enrich our common life, for they all 
 labor in our own mines. But they have no part 
 in our common life themselves. They are cut 
 off from among their people, and scattered 
 among the nations of a by-gone world. We are 
 neither Greeks nor Jews, but we are the heirs 
 of both, and of all Europe, and we are pro- 
 
History. 159 
 
 faner persons than Esau if we propose to di- 
 vide our inheritance, though the separate por- 
 tions be magnificent, and though the care of the 
 whole be very onerous. It is well to have some 
 little homestead, all our own, in the midst of 
 our people, whether it be by Plymouth Rock 
 or in Sleepy Hollow. It is well to survey and 
 enjoy the riches of our common history as 
 settled dwellers in some portion of the land, 
 not as roving gypsies. It is well to command 
 the spacious past from the eminence of special 
 tastes and aptitudes and opportunities. But if 
 we must ignore our country because we own a 
 farm, it would be better for us to be, like the 
 tribe of Levi, without an allotment among our 
 brethren ; and if special tastes and aptitudes 
 must detach us from the great combined cur- 
 rents in our history, it would be better for us 
 to throw our privileges to the winds and take 
 our chances with the multitude. 
 
 The chances of the multitude, indeed, are ex- 
 cellent. For, though our history is too great 
 to be completely mastered by any, it is yet 
 so truly our own that, for the highest purposes, 
 it is within the reach of all. The great move- 
 ments of history have registered themselves 
 
1 60 Preju diced Inqu tries. 
 
 for our perusal, not in a prosy, pedantic, inter- 
 minable day-book, vainly attempting to keep 
 up with all events and put everything bodily on 
 record, but in great views, from commanding 
 points along the route, from whence the inter- 
 vening path is clear and the work of a thousand 
 years may manifest itself in one day. The 
 selection of the points of view, and the prepa- 
 ration of the " optic glass " of genius or inspira- 
 tion, through which alone we can see the great 
 sight, belong to the same power that impels 
 and directs the historic movements themselves. 
 When history thus writes itself, it writes, with 
 large, Pentecostal freedom, for the great body 
 of the people. It leaves plenty of work for 
 scholars to do, by way of criticism and sub- 
 sidiary investigation. But, in the end, the 
 inspired popular history, " for substance of 
 doctrine," remains our best and truest his- 
 tory. It marks with unerring instinct the 
 great steps which mankind have taken, and 
 it points with masterly force to the lessons of 
 history. 
 
 For history, let it be remembered, is not a 
 medley of promiscuous facts to exercise the 
 memory or to be told over for a pastime. Uni- 
 
History. 1 6 1 
 
 versal history evidently has a meaning. Its 
 facts fall into a profound, significant order ; 
 and the interpretation of that order is of great 
 moment, not only in the prosecution of our 
 studies, but also in the conduct of life. The 
 interpretation, whatever it be, must agree with 
 the facts, and should, if possible, be framed out 
 of the facts themselves, or, at least, in full view 
 of them, and, particularly, in full view of the most 
 profoundly and distinctively human of them. 
 If you construct your philosophy of history in 
 retirement, out of your ruminations on the 
 capabilities of atoms, or out of some fruitful 
 abstract idea which has taken possession of 
 you, and then proceed to fit it to the facts of 
 history, woe be unto those facts ! For I know 
 you, — that you are men of great decision of 
 character, and that when you once have your 
 philosophy all ready, it will seem to you much 
 more reasonable to mutilate and suppress facts 
 wholesale than to consign a great philosophy, 
 the offspring of your love and travail, to the 
 dishonored limbo of abortions and failures. In 
 truth, some of the commonest operations in 
 philosophies of history are the torturing and 
 brow-beating of plain facts, especially of the 
 
1 6 2 Prejudiced Inqtc tries. 
 
 noblest facts of human history, to induce 
 them to submit to a fore-ordained interpreta- 
 tion, and the resolute strangling of facts that 
 prove altogether intractable. It will be ad- 
 mitted that such proceedings are irregular. 
 The interpretation of history, therefore, must 
 not be imported from natural science, or from 
 abstract speculation. It must be borne in upon 
 our souls by the historical facts themselves. 
 History, if it has a meaning, must be allowed 
 to speak for itself and declare its meaning. We 
 should expect it, of course, to live peaceably in 
 the same world with demonstrated science and 
 rational metaphysics. But it has an initiative 
 of its own ; and it is too much to assume that 
 it will not sometimes astonish and perplex the 
 astutest theorists by insisting on certain preg- 
 nant articles of its own devising in the set- 
 tlement with the physical sciences and with 
 metaphysical speculation. 
 
 But, while protesting against prejudging the 
 course of history at the bidding of sciences 
 and philosophies which have no necessary 
 jurisdiction in the matter, I must myself do 
 homage to one fore-ordained condition of all 
 human interpretation of history. We must 
 
History. 163 
 
 interpret history, not from without, but from 
 within ; not as mere students and spectators 
 who have only to observe and interpret, but as 
 men who have their life to live in history. 
 Quorum pars magna fui, every human soul 
 may say, at the last, of the events of history ; 
 and no interpretation of history is pertinent 
 or valid to us which we may not practically 
 and fully recognize as the final interpretation 
 and rule of our own life. 
 
 Now, however little we may know of history, 
 and however little we may be able to anticipate 
 the actual form and power of its lessons, it is 
 reasonable to presume that we know something 
 of ourselves, and of what we need to learn, and, 
 especially, of what we do not need and cannot 
 afford to learn, either from history or from any 
 other source. Shall we consider for a moment, 
 then, in a general way, what the practical les- 
 sons may be which we would desire to learn, or 
 consent under any circumstances to learn, from 
 the philosophy of history, or the science of his- 
 tory, or whatever else we may choose to call 
 our interpretation of historical facts ? 
 
 Shall we learn to prostrate ourselves help- 
 lessly and carelessly before the forces which 
 
1 64 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 work with such precision in history ? Shall we 
 eat and drink, and be as merry as we can, and 
 leave all the serious work of the world to the 
 cunning atoms and the overruling fates ? Shall 
 the science of history harden our hearts, and 
 sear our consciences as with hot iron, and re- 
 move from us every burden and every yoke ex- 
 cepting only the yoke and the burden of irre- 
 sistible coercion ? Shall we learn to renounce 
 all purpose, and all endeavor, and all hope, and 
 divest ourselves of every human quality, and be 
 mere clay in the hands of brutish potters? 
 Can this, or any thing in any way approaching 
 to this, ever be the final lesson of history, how- 
 ever scientific or philosophical history may 
 prove to be ? 
 
 Or shall we learn the very reverse of this, — 
 shall we master the secrets of the vast organism 
 so thoroughly that the fixed concatenation of 
 events, far from appalling and paralyzing us, 
 shall be the very means to deliver the world 
 into our hands, and to make us, if we can keep 
 our fellow-historians from meddling, absolute 
 dictators in the life of the human race ? Shall 
 we learn to anticipate all seeming contingencies, 
 and to see the end from the beginning; or, 
 
History. 165 
 
 rather, to determine the end ourselves, and to 
 guarantee the whole future, fixing to-morrow's 
 good and evil, and shepherding at our will the 
 countless flocks of unborn souls? Shall we 
 learn from the science of history to aspire thus 
 or " beyond thus high " ? If we dare not think 
 either of controlling and supporting the history 
 of our race, or of growing indifferent to it and 
 surrendering our life to be moulded by the mass 
 of external influences, would we be willing to 
 learn from the philosophy of history, first and 
 above all, the old-fashioned lessons of faith and 
 piety ? Would we be willing to find these old 
 lessons grow more impressive with increasing 
 knowledge, illustrated and confirmed even when 
 boldly set aside, with apparent advantage and 
 with the approval of great sages, by the most 
 effective characters in history, the scourges and 
 hammers of God, who are themselves set aside 
 in due time and brought down to the sides of 
 the pit ? We would be willing enough to learn 
 the old lessons, we almost hear ourselves reply, 
 if .they could be made out rationally from his- 
 tory ; but we are not willing, whatever the les- 
 son may be, to see history interpreted by means 
 of theology. And yet why not ? Perhaps the 
 
1 6 6 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 application of theology, and Christian theology 
 at that, to the interpretation of history is not 
 only legitimate but necessary. Christian theol- 
 ogy is not a product of speculation. The 
 Christian creed is a historical statement, cover- 
 ing long periods and the gravest events in the 
 life of the race. If true, it is obviously most 
 momentous ; and those who believe it must 
 interpret all history in its light. Those who do 
 not believe it to be true are not at liberty to 
 discard it altogether ; for, even if Christian the- 
 ology in its current form be not strictly true, 
 still it can only be a more or less incorrect 
 statement of a portion of human history so 
 vital and commanding that without it no toler- 
 able interpretation of the whole can be possible. 
 Those who dispute the accuracy of the old 
 statement are welcome to correct it. Let them 
 write the life of Jesus, and the history of the 
 Christian Church, or rather the history of the 
 Christian life upon the earth. When they have 
 done, the result will be a revised Christian the- 
 ology, which they must employ in their inter- 
 pretation of all history. 
 
 And, meanwhile, Christian theology, in its 
 accepted form, furnishes, what we nowhere 
 
History. 167 
 
 else find, an interpretation of history at once 
 complete and adequate to the magnitude of the 
 facts, and charged with mighty and beneficent 
 working power. If any, failing to perceive the 
 strictly historical character of the Christian rev- 
 elation, fail also to recognize the legitimacy of its 
 interpretation of history, it may not be amiss 
 to remind them that, even if that interpreta- 
 tion be not accepted as authoritative, still, the 
 questions which it raises are questions which 
 all history raises, and which must be settled 
 definitely in any worthy interpretation of 
 history, but which are neither settled nor in a 
 way to be settled anywhere apart from the 
 Christian revelation ; and not only so, but that 
 a settlement of them is impossible, and there- 
 fore the interpretation of history also is im- 
 possible, unless history itself contains some 
 such means of settlement as the Christian 
 Scriptures furnish ; or unless we allow to faith 
 and hope a far greater place in the settlement 
 than even Christianity itself demands for them ; 
 or, on the other hand, leave every thing to our 
 senses and our ignorance, which would be a turn- 
 ing away from the questions at issue rather 
 than a settlement of them. The questions are 
 
1 68 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 such as, whether human history on the earth 
 is a part or a whole ; whether all the power and 
 the direction of it are in itself, or whether it be 
 dependent on the counsels and will of God ; 
 whether its interests and its issues are bounded 
 by the earth and the breath in man's nostrils, 
 or whether it be but a beginning, looking to a 
 spiritual consummation in eternity. Human 
 history, throughout its whole course, persis- 
 tently raises these questions ; and they, with 
 other similar questions which necessarily follow 
 them, are, beyond all comparison, the weightiest 
 questions concerning our history : and to in- 
 terpret history without deciding them is to 
 leave the whole task to be performed over 
 again. 
 
 But how are such questions to be answered ? 
 Can they be answered at all? If God has sent 
 forth His Son, in our nature, to take part in our 
 history, and has, from the beginning even until 
 now, by His Spirit, borne witness to His Son, in 
 the midst of history itself, the answer is clear. 
 Human history on the earth is not complete 
 in itself; and it is not completed even by 
 the inclusion of all the physical conditions 
 which affect it. It depends directly upon the 
 
History. 1 69 
 
 wisdom and the power and the redeeming love 
 of God, as well as upon the will of man and 
 the apparent necessities of his nature and con- 
 dition. It is connected with a spiritual order 
 extending far beyond itself, and its goal is in 
 a spiritual life beyond the grave. All races and 
 all generations are alike included in the divine 
 plan, and the end for all is to grow up unto 
 Him in all things, which is the head, even 
 Christ. 
 
 Ignoring or disputing the great historical 
 facts which are gathered up in Christian the- 
 ology, we have still the answer of human faith 
 and reason, implied in the persistent raising of 
 the questions in the face of all darkness and 
 shadows of death. The human race looks for 
 the sympathy and aid of spiritual powers, as 
 well as for the co-operation of natural forces, in 
 working out its destiny ; and it cannot willingly 
 let all that it inherits, and all that it achieves, 
 perish everlastingly. Desertion and destruction 
 seem to it unreasonable, and too bad to be 
 true ; and if it cannot find Providence and the 
 promise of eternal life in the facts of history, 
 it will yet trust the larger and better hope, 
 hoping against hope, and trusting against ap- 
 
1 70 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 parent facts, counting the reasonable alone for 
 ever true. This simple faith, which finds no 
 external warrant in the course of history, will 
 furnish a general and somewhat misty and 
 wavering answer to the questions stated above ; 
 but it will not enable us to proceed to the in- 
 terpretation of the actual facts of history. It 
 finds no light in the facts, and it brings none to 
 them. It maintains itself apart from them and 
 in spite of them. Faith is itself, indeed, a his- 
 torical fact of the greatest consequence ; but, 
 cut loose from all other facts, it cannot interpret 
 history, though it be strong enough to remove 
 mountains. 
 
 If we not only reject the Christian history, 
 but also separate ourselves from all the faith of 
 mankind in the spiritual environment and the 
 eternal issues of our earthly life, we have 
 nothing at all to say in answer to the questions 
 which have been proposed. We cannot be ex- 
 pected to prove that God and immortality are 
 impossible ; and our personal opinion in such a 
 matter is not worth mentioning for any phil- 
 osophical purpose. The questions must be left 
 open ; and if we still must have an interpreta- 
 tion of history, it must be an interpretation 
 
History. 171 
 
 which does not depend on such questions — that 
 is, it must be an interpretation which will be 
 equally full and valid whether the history 
 which we interpret be a part, a mere beginning, 
 or a whole, complete in itself, and whether its 
 significance be inconsiderable or infinite. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " Philosophy," said one who in his day 
 passed for a great philosopher, " was never 
 made for the people. We have never cared to 
 enlighten cobblers and maid-servants. That 
 is the work of apostles." 
 
 We belong to the society of cobblers and 
 maid-servants, though we have to follow many 
 other occupations. We are thankful even for 
 a place among the people, and we can never 
 forget our immense indebtedness to the 
 apostles. But we should be very glad, neverthe- 
 less, to be permitted to have some interest in 
 philosophy, and to be in some humble measure 
 enlightened by it, if it were but possible. We 
 will not have the impertinence to claim acquaint- 
 ance with a subject not intended for us. But 
 we have always heard the great fame of philos- 
 ophy, for that has gone forth into all the world. 
 It murmured in our ears like Apollo's lute when 
 
 172 
 
Philosophy. 1 73 
 
 we were yet in our cradles, and we have ever 
 since heard it gladly and with unwavering faith. 
 We have never received against philosophy the 
 reproaches of mean detractors, nor ever had any 
 respect for the evil forebodings of chattering 
 soothsayers, who announce that its last hour 
 is at hand, if not already come. Slighted and 
 rejected as we are, and disqualified to speak 
 more openly, we may still say of philosophy as 
 Consuelo said of art : Je vons le dirai quandje 
 le comprendrai bien moi mhne ; mats cest quelqiie 
 chose de grande, rCen doutez pas ! 
 
 Being thus perfectly tractable, and so well 
 affected towards philosophy that we are pre- 
 pared to bless it meekly, even if it must exclude 
 us in a body from its groves and its porches 
 and from all its bounds, we hope it will not be 
 presumption, but a further mark of good-will 
 on our part, if, instead of hurrying into gloomy, 
 hopeless exile, at the mere suggestion of what 
 may, after all, prove to be the unauthorized im- 
 pudence of individual philosophers, we seek to 
 ascertain definitely whether we really are placed 
 under the ban of philosophy itself or not. We 
 cannot attribute any thing arbitrary or irrational 
 to philosophy. If we are shut out it is for suf- 
 
1 74 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 ficient reasons, for reasons grounded in the very 
 nature of things. This fact greatly simplifies 
 our present task. We are to inquire whether 
 there be any fixed, inexorable reasons why the 
 people, including cobblers and maid-servants 
 and ourselves, should have neither part nor lot 
 in philosophy. 
 
 We are aware that philosophy is a most diffi- 
 cult, most laborious pursuit, wholly unfit for 
 indolent, effeminate minds. But that is no 
 reason why its doors should be closed against 
 the people. The indolent, effeminate minds, 
 like the men who wear soft clothing, are found 
 mostly in privileged places. The people have 
 no opportunity to be effeminate. They are 
 bred amidst the severities of camps, and the 
 hardships of continual sieges and battle-fields. 
 Energy and endurance and ever-wakeful intelli- 
 gence are necessaries of life to them day by 
 day. If philosophy is to be taken by force or 
 by untiring patience, the people are prepared 
 both to labor and to wait for it. But perhaps 
 there are difficulties in the way, against which 
 general force of mind and honest labor can 
 avail nothing. What are the particular difficul- 
 ties which the people must encounter, whether 
 
Philosophy. 1 75 
 
 successfully or unsuccessfully, if they make a 
 serious attempt to gain a foothold in philos- 
 ophy? 
 
 It has sometimes been supposed that the 
 chief difficulty is a confusion of tongues. 
 Philosophy, it is frequently said, speaks a 
 strange, forbidding language of its own ; 
 noWai pisv yXoorrai 6vr/TOiS y /xia 6' adava- 
 roiaiv : many are the dialects of men, but 
 the language of philosophers is one. The lan- 
 guage of philosophers may be largely made up, 
 it is thought, out of the languages of men ; and 
 divers scraps of undigested Greek and German, 
 and even of plain English, may undoubtedly be 
 found here and there among its more original 
 elements. But, the allegation continues, Eng- 
 lish and German and Greek alike forget their 
 native cunning upon entering this service, and 
 become unapproachable strangers and aliens to 
 the children of their people. 
 
 This view of the matter perhaps is not with- 
 out some measure of justification. But, on the 
 whole, I am disposed to believe that it is incor- 
 rect or greatly exaggerated. At any rate, noth- 
 ing can be more evident than the fact that 
 many of the philosophers, even if they have 
 
ij6 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 an occult language of their own for profes- 
 sional use, are yet able to speak the languages 
 of men with singular grace and power when so 
 disposed. Some of these duoglot or polyglot 
 philosophers have strong popular sympathies, 
 and they might, doubtless, be induced to trans- 
 late philosophy into the vernacular languages 
 out of the original philosophic tongue, if such 
 a tongue there be ; or they might even be per- 
 suaded to bridge the chasm between the people 
 and philosophy for all time by issuing complete 
 grammars and dictionaries of the philosophic 
 speech in the tongues of the vulgar. Then the 
 patient cobblers who have mastered Sanskrit 
 and Chinese would quickly get hold of philos- 
 ophy also, and the reproach of the people 
 would be taken away. I only wish we could 
 be sure that the difficulties of philosophy are 
 merely or mainly linguistic. In that case, dic- 
 tionary or no dictionary, we should advance to 
 the attack with the greatest cheerfulness in the 
 world. 
 
 But what could we do if it should turn out 
 that philosophy, whatever language it may 
 speak, discourses of things or of the shadows 
 of things, which we have not faculties to take 
 
Philosophy. iyy 
 
 a 
 
 cognizance of ? What if philosophy has not a 
 peculiar dialect merely, but also a distinct 
 world of its own, sufficient in itself and safe 
 from all intrusion, in some inconceivable fourth 
 or n th dimension of space, or in a weltering 
 abyss of impersonal mind far deeper and 
 darker than Tartarus? The surmise has 
 been afloat for two thousand years and more, 
 that real philosophers never know any thing 
 that other people know ; that they cannot 
 even find their way about the streets with- 
 out tumbling into wells and basements; that 
 they do not know whether their neighbors 
 are men or horned cattle ; that they are igno- 
 rant of the laws of their country, indifferent to 
 the welfare of their people, and wholly uncon- 
 cerned about the prospects of the great globe 
 itself ; that at their own homes they are regu- 
 larly "within and not within" at the same 
 time, their puzzled visages entertaining their 
 friends while their minds are raising " many a 
 towered structure high " beyond the utmost 
 verge of being. What could we do if these 
 ancient and modern surmises should prove 
 well founded ? And how can we tell whether 
 they are well founded or not ? 
 
178 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 Perhaps the bare statement of such a diffi- 
 culty in the study of philosophy is sufficient to 
 prove its unreality, and to discover its origin 
 in the flustered, half-awakened minds of those 
 to whom the whole universe means just what 
 they can see, and who really believe only what 
 they can " hold in their hands." As compared 
 with the mere world of sense, the world which 
 men have in common with sheep and oxen, 
 philosophy assuredly has another spacious 
 world of its own. On the other hand, philoso- 
 phers are but men ; and the boldest philosophy, 
 being but the work of the human mind, can 
 never pass the barriers of the mind's proper 
 sphere. 
 
 " Whatsoever here befalls, 
 You in the region of yourself remain, 
 Neighboring on heaven ; and that no foreign land." 
 
 And in this region, where philosophy must 
 find all its matter and do all its work, we also 
 dwell at large, with a full title to its best 
 springs and to " every fertile inch of the 
 island." The world of philosophy can be no 
 other than the actual world of human experi- 
 ence. Philosophy cannot make facts, cannot 
 monopolize facts, cannot make facts void. It 
 
Philosophy. I jg 
 
 must start from nothing and bring forth noth- 
 ing, or be content to occupy itself with the 
 common heritage of mankind. This is the 
 ground of our lingering hope that philosophy 
 may yet make common cause with the bulk of 
 the people, and not use the substance of all 
 men to make a Belshazzar's feast for a thou- 
 sand lords. 
 
 At all events, here we are now, cobblers, and 
 maid-servants, and philosophers, all together, 
 face to face with the same great world of 
 manifold human experience. Here we must all 
 start, however our paths may hereafter diverge. 
 And the general question for us all would seem 
 to be, what we are to make of this whole actual 
 world to which we have been born. This must 
 be. the great question for the philosophers; 
 and it is certainly the sum of all questions for 
 the people. Can there be more than one com- 
 plete, final, satisfactory answer to such a ques- 
 tion ? Or can there be two totally different 
 ways whereby the philosophers and the people 
 may separately reach the same sole answer ? 
 
 We shall probably be told that we must dis- 
 tinguish between philosophy and life ; that the 
 people may learn from " apostles," or perchance 
 
1 80 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 by this time from less exacting teachers, pos- 
 sibly even from plain common-sense, what they 
 must make of the world practically in the con- 
 duct of life ; while philosophers cannot rest in 
 the mere practical use of the world, but must 
 'seek a clear, comprehensive view of the ground 
 and constitution of the world itself. We are 
 sensible of the paramount claims of life upon 
 us, and of our urgent need of practical direc- 
 tions. We also see clearly that the greater 
 leisure of the philosophers entitles them to a 
 fuller gratification of merely speculative crav- 
 ings than we can ever aspire to. We are as far 
 as possible from begrudging them that fuller 
 speculative gratification. We are well content 
 that the philosophers should have all the toil 
 and all the reward of investigations which have 
 no serious bearing upon life. But if philoso- 
 phy attains a true view of the world, does not 
 that view necessarily carry with it the true, im- 
 perative rule of life which we all need ? If, on 
 the other hand, we find a rule of life elsewhere, 
 how are we to know whether it be a good rule 
 that will always hold or not, unless wcare mas- 
 ters of a well-established theory of the world, 
 by which all rules must be justified ? 
 
Ph ilosophy. 1 8 1 
 
 Thus, philosophy and life, however carefully 
 we may distinguish between them, walk right 
 over our distinctions into each other's arms ; 
 and the philosophers and the people, unless 
 the people are to build on the sand in the con- 
 duct of life, must be united, not only in start- 
 ing with the actual world of human experience, 
 but also in seeking a rational explanation of 
 that actual world. The main question which 
 we are considering, then, whether the people at 
 large, including ourselves, can have any part in 
 the labor and profit of philosophy, will depend 
 on the possibility of agreement betwedn the 
 people and the philosophers as to what consti- 
 tutes a rational explanation. If they agree in 
 this, they are looking for the same thing ; and 
 the labors of far-seeing, deep-thinking philoso- 
 phers cannot fail to benefit the people, whether 
 the people, in their turn, can render any assist- 
 ance to the philosophers or not. 
 
 What, then, would satisfy both the philoso- 
 phers and ourselves in an explanation of the 
 world of experience ? We will make bold to an- 
 swer for the philosophers that they would be 
 satisfied with an explanation which gave such 
 an account of the world as would make it un- 
 
1 8 2 Prejtidiced Inqu tries. 
 
 reasonable to inquire further for any other 
 account of it. We are happy to say also that 
 we ourselves would not be satisfied with less. 
 If our reason, as reason, has a right to ask any 
 questions, it has a right to ask all the questions 
 which seem necessary to it. If our reason, as 
 reason, is to be baffled and suppressed at all, it 
 may as well be suppressed at the beginning as 
 at the end. As long as reason demands more 
 explanation, more explanation is necessary, 
 whether it be forthcoming or not. Reason 
 will not compromise. It must be fully satis- 
 fied. So much both the philosophers and our- 
 selves must require. The philosophers surely 
 will require no more. Neither will we require 
 any more. When we find such an account of 
 the world as we here demand, it shall be our 
 law and gospel as well as our philosophy. We 
 shall seal the sincerity of our speculative con- 
 viction by committing ourselves in practice 
 wholly and forever to the view of the world 
 which has met all the demands of our reason. 
 May we not say that the philosophers, a for- 
 tiori, will do the same ? 
 
 Let us now consider whether we can for- 
 mulate the demands of our reason, and state 
 
Ph ilosophy. 183 
 
 an ultimatum beyond which it would not 
 be reasonable to ask for another explanation 
 of the world. I think I may say that if 
 we can take the world, the entire world 
 of human experience, and, pointing out the 
 mutual relations of all its various orders of 
 facts, demonstrate it to be a systematic, com- 
 plete, independent whole, natura naturans and 
 natura naturata all in one, our task will be 
 done, and reason will ask for no further expla- 
 nation. Reason will have seen all of any con- 
 sequence that there is to see. There will be 
 room afterwards, of course, for examination of 
 details ad libitum, but there will be no great 
 questions left to be asked. Some irrepressible 
 bunglers would, perhaps, even then have some- 
 thing to say about first cause, and final cause, 
 and so forth ; but reason knows that it is the 
 height of unreason to seek the first cause, or the 
 final cause, of a complete and entirely indepen- 
 dent whole, anywhere outside of that whole 
 itself. If we can demonstrate the unity and 
 complete independence of our actual world, and 
 show the relations of its parts, the world is ex- 
 plained. The final word is spoken. 
 
 But if all our efforts in that direction should 
 
1 8 4 Prejudiced Inqtn'ries. 
 
 fail ; if it should become more and more appar- 
 ent that our world of experience is not a whole 
 but a part, and a rough-hewn, unfinished part 
 at that ; and that in our world, such as it is, 
 there are strong suggestions of things which 
 most deeply concern it, and may be in it, but 
 are not of it, nor all confined within it, what 
 then ? Must reason still demand that our 
 world be interpreted as an independent whole, 
 though it is conceded not to be such a whole ? 
 Or will reason demand that, in order to explain 
 what is before us now, all that is and all that is 
 to be, shall be delivered into our hands forth- 
 with, though that may well be understood to 
 be impossible and even unreasonable ? Will 
 not reason rest contented when that which is 
 but a part is explained as a part, especially if 
 the relation of the part to the whole which 
 reaches beyond it be indicated, though, from 
 the nature of the case, the whole itself, which 
 is largely beyond our experience, cannot be 
 made known ? Pascal's saying will then prove 
 true : "La derniere d-marche de la raison est de 
 reconnaitre qiiil y a une infinite' de choses qui la 
 surpassent. Elle n'est que faible si elle ne va 
 jusqua connaitre cela" 
 
Ph ilosophy. 1 8 5 
 
 It is very common, I am well aware, to scoff 
 at all such explanations of the world, in the 
 lump, as mere religious impressions and not 
 rational explanations at all. " No one who is 
 religious," says Schopenhauer, " arrives as far 
 as philosophy ; he does not require it. No one 
 who really philosophizes is religious." " The 
 contentment with the regress to a God- 
 Creator, or a surrogate of the same," says Ed- 
 uard von Hartmann, " is the proper mark of 
 speculative indolence." These gentlemen are 
 perfectly right if it be possible to prove that 
 the world which we know is a complete and in- 
 dependent whole, beginning, continuing, and 
 ending in itself. On the other hand, if not 
 that, but the very reverse of that, be proved, 
 then no one who philosophizes to any purpose 
 will fail to arrive at religion ; questions about 
 first cause and final cause beyond the limits of 
 our world will be pressed by reason itself ; and 
 it may be in order for the most energetic 
 thinkers to speak, not of the regress, but of the 
 advance, to God-Creator. Reason itself, finding 
 no other refuge or resting-place, will order that 
 advance, and thereby secure an explanation of 
 the world which it can recognize as final. 
 
1 8 6 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 Here is our ultimatum then. If the world 
 be independent, show its systematic unity and 
 completeness ; prove its independence, and ex- 
 hibit its internal order. That will satisfy reason 
 perfectly, and no further question can be asked. 
 If the world is not complete in itself or inde- 
 pendent, show its incompleteness and depend- 
 ence ; and, if possible, give such an indication 
 of that on which it depends as will reveal the 
 true order and law of the world. That also 
 will satisfy reason completely. 
 
 But, while either of these explanations, if 
 fairly compassed, would be perfectly rational 
 and conclusive, it is clear that only one of them 
 can be actually possible. Each of them rigor- 
 ously excludes the other. If the world is inde- 
 pendent, it cannot be explained as dependent. 
 If it is dependent, it cannot be explained as in- 
 dependent. The philosophers have a predilec- 
 tion for one of the two explanations, and the 
 people are deeply prejudiced in favor of the 
 other. But which of the two is to prevail, 
 proof alone must decide. The philosophers 
 quite generally assume that everybody ought 
 to see that the proof is on their side ; and they 
 have no patience with anybody that fails to 
 
Philosophy. 187 
 
 see it at a glance. " My age," says one of the 
 great thinkers already mentioned, " after the 
 teaching of Bruno, Spinoza, and Schelling, had 
 perfectly understood that all things are but 
 one ; but the nature of that unity, and the 
 rationale of its appearance as plurality, were re- 
 served for me to explain." And so he explains 
 and explains, and so they all explain and ex- 
 plain, with deep insight and with brilliant ela- 
 boration, but without helping us in the least to 
 grasp the proof, deemed by them so easy, 
 "that all things are but one." Perhaps it is 
 right here that the philosophers mean to leave 
 us in the lurch. They have the proof of the 
 unity of all things under their thumbs, and they 
 will keep it there. They know, but they will 
 not tell. 
 
 The matter, however, concerns us all so 
 nearly that, with all our veneration for phil- 
 osophers, and with the most humbling sense 
 of our incompetence to supply what they omit, 
 we must challenge the assumption that all 
 things have been proved to be but one ; and 
 we must endeavor to see where the proof is to 
 come from, though we could never undertake 
 to find it ourselves. 
 
1 88 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 Some of us have probably thought that it 
 was surely coming from the physical sciences, 
 which investigate the order of the material 
 world, revealing therein a unity so vast in its 
 reach and so subtle in its arrangements that at 
 first it captivates the mind entirely, and seems 
 to enfold all things in an indissoluble embrace. 
 But when we recover from our first scientific 
 transport, we not only miss the proof that 
 all things are one, but we are aware that the 
 proof will never come through the physical 
 sciences at least. These sciences take pains, 
 if I may so speak, to leave ample room for an- 
 other world, on which all the world which they 
 investigate may ultimately depend. They os- 
 tentatiously repudiate all knowledge of causes 
 within their own sphere. They know not what 
 a day may bring forth before their eyes. The 
 unity which they find in the world with which 
 they have to do has, in their view, nothing 
 necessary or universal about it. It is vast and 
 imposing, and it has lasted a good while ; but it 
 is entirely unaccounted for, and devoid of any 
 rational bond to guarantee its permanence. 
 And this unity, accidental and insecure as it 
 is, does not include the whole world of human 
 
Philosophy. 1 89 
 
 experience. It does not wholly include even 
 a single portion, great or small, of our actual 
 experience. In all experience there is a dual- 
 ity, which the most advanced science is as pow- 
 erless to reduce as the most rudimentary. 
 With any amount of knowledge, and with any 
 theory of knowledge, there must always be 
 that which knows as well as that which is 
 known. We may strip the mind of its old- 
 fashioned substance and state ; we may give 
 it the chariest, most diminutive names we can 
 invent,— unity of apperception, ego, self-con- 
 sciousness, what we please ; but we must 
 necessarily fail to merge it in the mass of other 
 things, or even to shorten in any degree the 
 distance between it and other things, unless 
 we are to destroy all knowledge and deliver the 
 world up to flat, uniform darkness. The phys- 
 ical sciences, then, will never prove that all 
 things are one, for their own existence depends 
 on that which cannot be identified or levelled 
 with the physical world which they investigate. 
 It may be added that, even if the sciences were 
 not debarred from proving the unity of all 
 things by the deadly peril to themselves, they 
 would find in the consciousness of freedom, on 
 
1 90 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 which our practical life depends, a difficulty in 
 the way of the proof quite as insuperable as 
 that which confronts them in the " unity of ap- 
 perception," on which knowledge depends. 
 
 If it be said that, though the sciences fail 
 to prove the substantial identity of all things, 
 they do demonstrate a marvellous correspond- 
 ence or relationship between all things known 
 to us, whether they be called mind or matter, 
 nature or spirit, or whatever else, I can only 
 reply that this is perfectly true, and that the 
 correspondence or relationship insisted on has 
 never been denied or doubted by the people. 
 But the wonderful correspondence between the 
 remotest and most diverse things in the world, 
 seeing that it cannot be explained by any sub- 
 stantial unity in the things themselves, or by 
 any adequate cause known to science within the 
 world of experience, is of a nature to suggest 
 strongly, to the popular mind at least, that our 
 actual world of experience is not complete in 
 itself, but is related to and dependent upon 
 causes and ends outside of itself. 
 
 But if the physical sciences, beginning with 
 the material world, fail to reach unity, can it 
 not be reached by some other process begin- 
 
Philosophy. 1 9 1 
 
 ning with the self-consciousness which baffles 
 the sciences? What shall the process be? 
 Sometimes, I admit, it is easier to jump down 
 than to jump up precisely the same distance. 
 But the jump to complete unity seems equally 
 difficult and hazardous wherever you start. It 
 was found that self-consciousness could not be 
 merged in the objective world without destroy- 
 ing the possibility of knowledge. Would not 
 the same catastrophe ensue if unity were to be 
 attained by merging the world in blank self- 
 consciousness ? Or rather, would not self-con- 
 sciousness itself fail before the process could be 
 completed ? Would not the very unity of ap- 
 perception vanish if there were nothing at all 
 to be perceived ? Our world of experience is 
 impossible without self-consciousness, and our 
 self-consciousness cannot exist without the ob- 
 jective world. If it were possible for one to 
 swallow and assimilate the other, both would 
 disappear together in the very act. If we seek 
 absolute unity in the world of experience, then, 
 begin where we please, we must seek it at the 
 peril of that whole world itself, self-conscious- 
 ness included. 
 And yet, does not this our dire extremity show 
 
192 Prejudiced Inqu tries, 
 
 that we have been unreasonable with the phil- 
 osophers? And does it not at last make ap- 
 parent unto us the very unity which they ex- 
 pected us to perceive at a glance ? Our world 
 of experience cannot exist without self-con- 
 sciousness, and our self-consciousness cannot 
 exist without the objective world. Destroy but 
 one and you destroy both. What sense was 
 there, then, in going forth to seek means to 
 unite things which are absolutely inseparable 
 and dependent on each other for their very 
 being? Are we not ashamed of our childish 
 wild-goose chase ? Do we not see that we have 
 no self-consciousness all by itself, and no objec- 
 tive world all by itself, but both inseparably 
 joined together in the unity of experience ? 
 And do we not see that out of or beyond this 
 unity of experience we cannot go ; that the 
 unity of experience is, for all mankind, all that 
 there is, and all that there can be at all ? 
 
 Now then, at last, and far beyond all our 
 hopes, it is by us "perfectly understood that all 
 things are but one "; that is, that all things are 
 embraced in the unity of experience. We can 
 never tell what a satisfaction it is to find our- 
 selves again, after a temporary separation, in 
 
Ph ilosophy. i g 3 
 
 formal accord with philosophers. We shall not 
 question their proceedings again if we can 
 possibly avoid it. But we may still venture to 
 seek more light. We have seen above, that 
 after it was perfectly understood by a whole 
 age that all things are but one, it was still re- 
 served for a great philosopher to " explain the 
 nature of that unity and the rationale of its ap- 
 pearance as plurality." It cannot be unphilo- 
 sophical for us, then, after understanding per- 
 fectly that all things are embraced in the unity 
 of experience, to require further explanation on 
 points not settled by that great fundamental 
 understanding. The most pressing question is, 
 whether our happy discovery will do any thing 
 to assure us of the completeness and indepen- 
 dence of the world which at the present time 
 we either know or may know in the unity of 
 experience, and so to give us a scientific frontier 
 which will also be a sure defence against sur- 
 prise and unlooked-for intervention. Nothing 
 outside of the unity of experience can touch 
 us, or affect us at all ; of that we are quite 
 sure. But that simply means that no power 
 can disturb us while yet on the other side of a 
 very remote and unexplored frontier, and we 
 
1 94 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 wish to know for certain what powers of good 
 or evil there may be already within our far out- 
 posts, and what there is to hinder other hordes 
 from crossing the frontier in the time to come. 
 Nothing outside of the unity of experience can 
 affect us ; but nothing inside of it can fail to 
 concern us. And is there not a most appalling 
 plurality possible within this unity? Do we 
 know any limit to the plurality and change 
 herein possible ? How are we to determine 
 what the unity of experience may or may not 
 include ? From what stand-point shall we sur- 
 vey experience, and measure all its length and 
 breadth ? 
 
 To make our own actual experience the 
 measure of all possible experience, would be 
 not only to beg the question at issue but also 
 to complicate it hopelessly ; for every individual 
 has an experience of his own, which would be 
 the measure of all possible experience, though 
 it would differ more or less from the experience 
 of every one else, and would itself keep chan- 
 ging and increasing from year to year. 
 
 To acknowledge that our actual experience 
 cannot be the measure of all possible experience, 
 and yet to determine directly from an ex- 
 
Philosophy. 195 
 
 amination of our actual experience, what further 
 experience is possible, is to assume, what needs 
 to be proved, that our actual experience fur- 
 nishes all the factors and conditions of all 
 possible experience. We have already had 
 much weighty experience which we could never 
 have anticipated. We have speculated con- 
 fidently for years, and in one creative day we 
 have seen our brave thoughts perish, and a 
 new unexpected world burst forth upon us. We 
 have much less ground for confidence now in 
 calculating all that remains, than we had once 
 in reckoning all amiss what has already come. 
 
 There are those who are not at all abashed 
 by this difficulty. They urge that we cannot 
 expect to survey all experience from the low 
 ground of our active life, where the practical 
 considerations which befit our condition must 
 always limit the scope of speculation ; that we 
 must rise far above the mounds and hillocks of 
 our native heath, and above the agonizing 
 strife and endeavor of our own hearts, and 
 view experience from the lofty and serene 
 standpoint of universal thought. The simple, 
 inevitable answer is, that we must stand, not 
 where we would, but where we can ; and that 
 
1 96 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 we can truly stand only where we are placed, 
 even on the low ground, if low ground it must 
 be called, of the practical and moral life of man. 
 Any attempt to get away from this ground will 
 becloud our world and impoverish our knowl- 
 edge rather than enlarge or enrich either, — will, 
 in fact, take away from us the best of what we 
 have, without giving us any thing that we have 
 not. Man has a place and a part in the 
 universe ; and if he quits his place and throws 
 away his part in his search for a higher mount 
 of speculation, he shall be, not sicut Deus, who, 
 though high over all, is yet in his own rightful 
 place, but sicut diabolus, whose mounting is a 
 defection and a fall ; and he will be no nearer 
 the universal than he was before. Our practi- 
 cal and moral life is within the unity of ex- 
 perience ; and we have no reason to suppose 
 that its significance is diminished as the point 
 of view rises higher. On the contrary, we 
 have every reason to believe that its significance 
 would be, and is, most emphatically recognized 
 from the highest point of all. No survey of expe- 
 rience, therefore, can be adequate which either 
 makes light of man's moral life or fails to take 
 due account of the leading facts relating to it. 
 
Ph ilosophy. I g y 
 
 One of the most obvious facts relating to it 
 is that it cannot be viewed in its entirety from 
 the starting-point. It advances far from thence 
 through unforeseen stages — some of them so 
 startling and so momentous, that they are best 
 described by the strongest terms which human 
 speech can fashion. Regeneration and new 
 birth and new creation are strong words, but 
 none too strong here. As the higher stages 
 are reached, new revelations are necessarily 
 made to the mind and new power is commu- 
 nicated to the heart, transforming the whole 
 life. The philosopher who is to explain this 
 moral life must not stand outside of it, and 
 must not linger near the threshold. He of 
 all men must earnestly go on unto perfection, 
 that he may spiritually discern spiritual things 
 and speak with convincing authority to men of 
 advanced spiritual experience. 
 
 Another obvious fact relating to our moral 
 or spiritual life is, that while it profoundly con- 
 cerns the individual, it also concerns the human 
 race as a whole and has a continuous history in 
 the world. This history, though its course was 
 dimly foreshadowed from the earliest times, has 
 been, like the moral life of the individual, full 
 
1 9 8 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 of great and marvellous surprises. All nations 
 have their places in it, but one separate people 
 occupies a pre-eminent place in the midst of the 
 nations. The long-prepared work of this sepa- 
 rate people was gathered up and brought to its 
 pre-determined world-wide issue by one man, 
 who stands in a manifestly unique relation to 
 the moral life and history of all mankind. 
 This man, Christ Jesus, comes within the 
 unity of human experience ; and he will 
 prove to our philosophy, as to our whole 
 spiritual life, either a stone of stumbling and a 
 rock of offence, or the Chief Corner-stone. He 
 comes to us within the unity of experience, 
 and in the survey of all experience, He and 
 His work must be surveyed. If the world 
 which we know is to be proved complete in 
 itself and independent, His place, as well as 
 our own, within the world, must be clearly 
 pointed out. Philosophers could not fail to 
 perceive this necessity, and they have made 
 bold efforts to meet it. They have, however, 
 not succeeded too well even in pointing out 
 our own place within the known world. Men 
 turn away from their forced demonstrations, 
 and, all at sea, whisper sadly to one another 
 
Philosophy. 1 99 
 
 the vast, indeterminate ejaculation of the 
 poet : 
 
 "We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 But if philosophers are baffled in their at- 
 tempts to exhibit the place and relations of plain 
 mankind in the world, what shall be said of their 
 endeavors to place here the man Christ Jesus? 
 Let it suffice to say that their endeavors thus 
 far have been so violent, so fantastical, so con- 
 tradictory, as to serve scarcely any other pur- 
 pose than to fix anew the gaze of serious men 
 upon the account which the Christians of nine- 
 teen centuries have steadfastly believed — the 
 account full of deep and awful mystery which 
 the apostles give of Him whom they call their 
 Lord and Saviour and the only-begotten Son of 
 God. 
 
 This account directs our eyes to an Infinity 
 not of space or duration merely, but of life and 
 love and power ; extending indeed unto us, 
 manifesting itself in many ways to our 
 thought, and folding our world within its 
 embrace, but extending also immeasurably 
 beyond the furthest reach of human thought, 
 
200 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 and calling into being worlds which have not 
 entered into the heart of man. But this dis- 
 closure of an Infinity, related to us and yet 
 largely unknown unto us, carries with it, not dis- 
 may and terror, not doubt and perplexity, but 
 the gladdest, surest tidings ever heard of per- 
 petual peace and good-will unto men. All 
 things are not one, but God is one, and the 
 subjection of all things must be perfect, that 
 He may be all in all. " There is no fear of the 
 end ; perfect love has cast out fear. There is 
 no fear of that which lies as the unknown, for 
 the law which determines it is known. There 
 is no fear of that which may be summoned forth 
 from beyond the confines of this earth or drawn 
 from the lowest deeps ; for the same organic 
 law prevails through all worlds, — the law mani- 
 fested in the Christ, in His redemptive king- 
 dom." (Mulford, " Republic of God," p. 255.) 
 
 If the teaching of the apostles concerning the 
 person and work of Christ be true, it determines 
 the general interpretation of the world ; and the 
 philosophy which ignores it, whatever merits it 
 may have, must give a singularly irrelevant ac- 
 count of human experience. If the teaching of 
 the apostles is not true, it is not fit instruction 
 
Philosophy. 2 o 1 
 
 for cobblers or maid-servants, or for any of the 
 humblest of the people, and it would bring 
 deathless honor to the wisest philosophers if 
 they would but tell the world frankly what the 
 truth is about the grave and far-reaching ques- 
 tions which the apostles have discussed in vain. 
 But whether the doctrine of the apostles is true 
 or not, it is certainly put forth as a serious, 
 comprehensive account of the world, and it 
 boldly appeals to all forms of evidence which 
 should support such an account. It is not the 
 ipse dixit of a master, or the labored, artificial 
 product of a school. It professes to be a plain 
 statement of world-controlling facts, and, though 
 full of mystery, it certainly is the plainest state- 
 ment possible, supposing the facts to be true. 
 It invites all men to study the facts, and to in- 
 quire whether they be true or not, commending 
 such inquiry as most magnanimous. It does 
 not live merely in a by-gone world, however. 
 It speaks of One who was and is and is to 
 come, who has relations as real and intimate 
 with one generation as with another through all 
 history. It seeks to commend itself directly to 
 the minds and consciences of the men of to-day 
 as the true key to the very life which we are 
 
2 02 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 now living as well as to all history and to the 
 universe at large. It eagerly courts the crucial 
 test of practical life. It demands that those 
 who believe it shall trust themselves wholly to 
 its direction, and seek to bring all human society 
 under its guidance, and it promises that its 
 truth shall become more evident the more it is 
 trusted and obeyed. It has been widely and 
 seriously believed in the world, by men of all 
 intellectual ranks, ever since its first proclama- 
 tion. It is believed to-day more widely than 
 ever, and no less seriously, by the greatest as 
 well as by the humblest of men. It affiliates 
 readily our positive thought and all our estab- 
 lished knowledge. It meets the deepest, strong- 
 est yearnings of our nature, and it gives us our 
 heart's desire. It inspires the noblest efforts, 
 and it secures the greatest achievements of 
 mankind. Such an account of the world, if not 
 accepted as the true explanation, must, at least, 
 itself be explained. It is too conspicuous, it is 
 too strong, it lives on too majestically from age 
 to age, it wins too many first-rate minds, it is a 
 formidable rival too near the throne of phil- 
 osophy itself, to be left out of all the thoughts 
 of philosophers. 
 
Philosophy. 203 
 
 « 
 
 But here, abruptly, our inquiry ends. We 
 are content to be still taught by the apostles, 
 and we believe that we shall find their teaching 
 not only confirmed, but bearing fruit, in every 
 field open to human thought. But the greatest 
 philosophers must seriously study and weigh, 
 with us, the apostolic doctrine, in all its wide 
 bearings and profound significance. We shall 
 get better acquainted while studying the same 
 lessons in the same school ; and who knows but 
 we may all discover to our great joy that the 
 apostles' doctrine and true philosophy agree in 
 one, and that we can continue to learn and 
 labor together, with the greatest diversities and 
 disparities of gifts, but with one object and one 
 spirit and one exceeding great reward ? 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 FREE THINKING. 
 
 We are made for freedom, and the world is 
 large enough to allow us all the freedom we 
 can take. We can walk and we can run till we 
 are tired out before we come to the " green 
 earth's end " ; and if we have a mind to climb 
 or soar upward, there is plenty of room for our 
 eagle-winged ambition in 
 
 ' ' Those happy climes that lie 
 Where day never shuts his eye, 
 Up in the broad fields of the sky." 
 
 There is no limit to our freedom but the finite 
 constitution and necessary bounds of our own 
 nature. It is true that men are often confined 
 in dungeons, and hurt with fetters, and laid in 
 iron ; but sometimes they walk across the 
 boundaries of human nature into the dun- 
 geons, and they forge the fetters and weld 
 the iron themselves. When this is not the 
 case — when men are caged and manacled by 
 
 204 
 
Free Thinking. 205 
 
 arbitrary violence, humanity rises in arms at 
 the outrage and marches armies across Africa, 
 or calls peaceful nations to the tented field to 
 set the captives free ; so precious and so sacred 
 is bodily freedom. What shall we say then of 
 the freedom of the mind ? And what must not 
 mankind do to maintain it inviolate? Are there 
 any among us so base that they would not read- 
 ily part with all they have and with life itself, 
 rather than sacrifice this godlike privilege? 
 Are there any so lost to all care for the gen- 
 eral good that they will not, to their last 
 breath, defend this right, not for themselves 
 only, but also for all their fellow-men? No; 
 deep as our depravity is, and many as are our 
 bitter dissensions, we are all agreed that the 
 mind must be free. Look forth, if you please, 
 upon the divided forces of mankind; single out 
 factions the most hostile to one another and 
 the most irreconcilable — will you not find the 
 gallant banner of free thought waving over 
 them all alike ? Take those who may seem to 
 be parted asunder by this very question, — take 
 the religious and the irreligious world; or, to 
 avoid what may be deemed a disputable and 
 offensive distinction, take the Christian and the 
 
206 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 anti-Christian world. Christianity lives and 
 moves and has its being in free thought. It 
 holds its ground and extends its power among 
 men only by opening up new worlds before 
 them and inviting their minds to enter in 
 freely and possess the land. It not only in- 
 vites them to enter freely, but it urges them 
 to consider the matter well and count the cost, 
 and enter deliberately if at all. Christianity 
 claims our allegiance only as a reasonable ser- 
 vice. Though it is very much more, yet it cer- 
 tainly is a " religion founded on argument," and 
 it presents its argument with astonishing frank- 
 ness. It will conceal nothing ; it will mitigate 
 nothing ; it has no craftiness and no fear ; what 
 is foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling- 
 block to the Jews, and a continual alarm and 
 embarrassment to its own fashionable, worldly- 
 wise adherents, it exposes of set purpose and 
 without reserve. It comes boldly into the light 
 everywhere, and will not skulk or dodge for 
 friend or foe. Its argument, though full of 
 stumbling -'blocks, is neither cabalistic nor 
 mystical. It is clear as the day, and deals 
 with great interests and robust matters of 
 fact which concern all men. It handles his- 
 
Free Thinking. 207 
 
 tory on the largest scale and most openly. 
 It commits itself irretrievably on the most 
 momentous questions of philosophy. It 
 searches the deepest secrets of our hearts, 
 and offers to tell us both the dream of our 
 life and the interpretation thereof. It de- 
 clares the law of our individual and social 
 life, often reversing both the headlong judg- 
 ments of the multitude and the seasoned wis- 
 dom of the scribes, yet appealing calmly to the 
 decision of events. Though coming from 
 heaven, it declares unto us earthly things, 
 and bids us judge of what it says and not ex- 
 pect to come at the heavenly otherwise than 
 through the earthly. It does not address men 
 in masses merely, and it is not satisfied with a 
 public or formal recognition. It comes to men 
 individually in the "sessions of sweet silent 
 thought," and, in full view of all the intel- 
 lectual stumbling-blocks and all the carnal 
 rocks of offence, in the face of the scorning 
 of those that are at ease and the contempt of 
 the proud, it asks to be received with the whole 
 heart and mind. It summons man to the great- 
 est act of intellectual and moral freedom of 
 which he is capable ; and its whole aim is to 
 
208 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 bring him to a larger place and a greater free- 
 dom, — to bestow upon him the spirit, not of 
 fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound 
 mind, — to make him free indeed. 
 
 The Christian world, then, has a right to un- 
 furl the " imperial ensign " of free thought. It 
 is the necessary, normal spirit of Christianity 
 that speaks, through the pens of earnest and 
 devout Christians, in the Liberty of Prophesying, 
 Showing the Unreasonableness of Prescribing to 
 Other Men's Faith, and the Iniquity of Persecut- 
 ing Differing Opinions ; and in Areopagitica — a 
 Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to 
 the Parliament of England ; and in the famous 
 Letters on Toleration. 
 
 But turn now to anti-Christian ladies and 
 gentlemen. Do they not favor freedom of 
 thought ? The very question is absurd, and I 
 would not ask it but for the necessity of pro- 
 ceeding with my subject. I will, however, do 
 them the justice to omit, as entirely useless, 
 any demonstration of their devotion to free 
 thinking. If words have any force, if declara- 
 tions and protestations avail any thing, we 
 ought to know that these brethren seriously 
 look upon themselves as a chosen generation, a 
 
Free Thinking. 209 
 
 peculiar people, raised up for the particular 
 benefit of free thought, and that, consequently, 
 they must be as zealous for freedom as the 
 Christian world itself. Any one of them, doubt- 
 less, might have written the Liberty of Prophe- 
 sying, or Areopagitica. 
 
 Here we have, then, a great and violent 
 schism on the very question of free thought, 
 and when the confusion of the separation al- 
 lows us to discern any thing, we find the em- 
 battled hosts encamped upon the self-same hill, 
 flying identical colors and passing common 
 watchwords, though they have neither signed 
 a treaty of peace nor even proclaimed a truce. 
 They evidently agree at heart, and we all 
 agree, in fervent devotion to perfect freedom 
 of thought. 
 
 Therefore, though I say it who should not 
 till I am through with this lecture at any rate, 
 perhaps the best thing we can do is to drop 
 this whole subject, and, without further ado, 
 use the freedom we claim, and think freely till 
 some one stops us. I doubt whether anybody 
 will ever attempt to stop us at all. Some 
 weary, baffled thinkers may, more in dejection 
 than in charity, exhort us to abandon the 
 
2 1 o Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 highest and greatest questions as unthinkable. 
 But I cannot believe that they will use violence 
 to restrain us if we decide to think the unthink- 
 able at our own risk, and if they will not restrain 
 us, it is certain that nobody else will. Seeing, 
 then, that we have plenty of room to do all the 
 thinking of which we are capable, it seems 
 childish to buckle on the armor and breathe 
 the stormy defiance of old heroes who had to 
 cut their way through the serried ranks and 
 flaming swords of dread adversaries. All the 
 good that such bluster can do nowadays is to 
 warn the heedless world that we are thinking, 
 or going to think. It is more akin to the ad- 
 vertising cackle of a domestic hen over her 
 new-laid egg than to the prowess of heroes. It 
 would be much more dignified, when we think, 
 to anoint our heads and wash our faces in un- 
 affected simplicity, and let the world find out, 
 in due time and by its own wit, that we have 
 been thinking, or suffer such penalty as is meet 
 for its dulness. 
 
 If we keep battling for freedom of thought, 
 when such freedom is in no wise endangered 
 from without, besides exposing ourselves as 
 vainglorious blusterers, we make awkward 
 
Free Thinking. 2 1 1 
 
 thrusts in various ways at the very cause which 
 we would serve. We excite all the odium we can 
 against those whom, unless the war is to be 
 altogether in the clouds, we must represent as 
 our enemies, though all their enmity consists 
 in using earnestly the very freedom for which 
 we so vehemently contend as the birthright of 
 all men. We also excite unnecessary and dis- 
 astrous odium against ourselves. Our neigh- 
 bors are naturally well-disposed towards us, and, 
 as a general thing, they are not a bit afraid of 
 our thought. We could go about all our think- 
 ing in peace, with their genial blessing, and 
 from our furthest excursions we could return 
 to them proudly to divide the spoil. They 
 would give us a royal welcome and a glittering 
 triumph for the scantiest achievements. All 
 our slightest trophies would please them, for 
 they are exceedingly good-natured ; but we 
 could scarcely astonish them, and much less 
 confound and overwhelm them, with our rich- 
 est, rarest treasure. They will absorb all that 
 we can bring them, and complacently gape for 
 more. They have the swallow of a whale or a 
 sea. Whatever we can hold, be we ever so 
 capacious, they also can contain easily. We 
 
2 1 2 Prejitdiced Inquiries. 
 
 cannot fill them or choke them with thought. 
 But if we must insult the unoffending people 
 at the start, and think with the air of rebels 
 and public enemies or angry superior gods, 
 scowling and fulminating even before we strike 
 a single thought of any consequence, the abused 
 multitude will still take us at our own estimate, 
 and give us the coveted place of outcasts, and 
 quietly neglect our opera omnia, not because 
 they fear them at all, but because they choose 
 to dispense with the overweening services of 
 ill-natured, ill-mannered, unreasonable mon- 
 keys. 
 
 Worst of all, needless battling for freedom of 
 thought not only foments a senseless persecu- 
 tion against worthy and peaceable men, and 
 breeds public contempt and neglect of the 
 arduous, much-heralded thought of the dashing 
 veterans who do the one-sided fighting, but, 
 alas ! tends directly to render their arduous, 
 much-heralded thought, apart from all preju- 
 dice, not unworthy of neglect, to say the least. 
 Even if we had to fight real enemies who 
 threatened to stop all our thinking or to rule it 
 with a rod of iron, the fighting would rightly 
 be considered a hard necessity laid upon us by 
 
Free Thinking. 2 1 3 
 
 our foes, and a grievous interruption of the 
 sowing and reaping and manifold industry and 
 prosperity of our proper intellectual life. But 
 actual enemies could be met at definite points 
 in decisive engagements. Some temporary 
 mode of living could be arranged, and 
 some period and settlement might be looked 
 for in such a conflict. A war without real ene- 
 mies, on the other hand, is a war without any 
 prospect of peace ; a war which cannot be con- 
 fined to any definite area or brought to any 
 head or tail anywhere ; a war which will go on 
 pottering wearily and ineffectually over a whole 
 mind and a whole lifetime, disfiguring and im- 
 poverishing both. If we engage in such a war 
 for the freedom of thought, our own thought 
 at least will have little freedom, and will prob- 
 ably do little good of any sort to anybody. 
 Before we begin to think we shall have wasted 
 our best strength in maintaining against warlike 
 shadows and nightmares our right to think ; 
 and when at last we begin to think, the uncon- 
 querable shadows will again swoop down upon 
 us from a clear sky, and goad us to such stren- 
 uous fury in our efforts to think freely that we 
 shall think unnaturally, and falsely, and most 
 
214 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 slavishly withal. Every desperate blow we 
 strike for liberty will but rivet our chains. Our 
 career will be like that of a miser who in his 
 anxiety to increase his store keeps reducing his 
 pittance, and who enriches himself and starves 
 himself at the same pace. 
 
 If, however, our hearts are warmly enlisted 
 in this inspiring cause, we shall probably dis- 
 dain all warning as temporizing and mean- 
 spirited. But we may, perhaps, be induced to 
 encourage a modest inquiry into the nature of 
 that freedom of thought for which, even at this 
 time, we still feel compelled to fight. 
 
 Is it the freedom of the thought within the 
 mind, or freedom from personal activity or ef- 
 fort in thinking, that is required ? Is it free- 
 dom from interference on our own part with 
 the spontaneous flow of thought within us ? 
 Must the thoughts be free from the mind in 
 which they are conceived ? We all believe that 
 the original sources of thought are not at the 
 command of the will, and that we cannot manu- 
 facture thought to order by any mechanical 
 contrivance. We are aware that bright, happy 
 thoughts often come to us unsought, we know 
 not whence ; and we have heard of fair divini- 
 
Free Thinking. 215 
 
 ties nightly visiting the slumber of great po- 
 ets and bringing them their immortal works 
 all but ready-made. Perhaps the great enemy 
 of thought is the meddling intellect ; and we 
 cannot think freely, it may be, until we are de- 
 livered from the domineering activity of our 
 own minds. 
 
 ' ' The eye — it cannot choose but see ; 
 We cannot bid the ear be still ; 
 Our bodies feel, where'er they be, 
 Against, or with our will. 
 
 ' ' Nor less I deem that there are powers 
 
 Which of themselves our minds impress ; 
 That we can feed this mind of ours 
 In a wise passiveness. 
 
 " Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum 
 Of things for ever speaking, 
 That nothing of itself will come, 
 That we must still be seeking ? 
 
 " Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, 
 Conversing as I may, 
 I sit upon this old gray stone, 
 And dream my time away." 
 
 Is that old gray stone the goal of our striv- 
 ing ? Is it perfect freedom to dream life away, 
 waiting for that which of itself will come ? If 
 
2 1 6 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 so, why strive at all ? We can sit down right 
 here, and win the great victory without labor 
 or risk. But we are not fighting our own 
 battle merely. We are " soldiers in the war of 
 the liberation of humanity." We could sit 
 down on the old stone ourselves, perhaps, in a 
 wise, passive temper, and throw our minds 
 wide open for wandering thoughts to work 
 their promiscuous will unrestrained, and there- 
 by secure all the freedom of thought we per- 
 sonally craved. But such is the weakness of 
 language, and such is the inherent imperfection 
 of all forms of reasoning, that we could never 
 make it appear unto others that the way to be 
 free is to abdicate the government of our own 
 thoughts, and sit still to be preyed upon by 
 idle dreams and casual imaginations. Most 
 men are incapable of receiving so great a para- 
 dox, and would conclude that in such a state of 
 freedom it is the thoughts alone that are free, 
 while the poor thinker is the slave and victim 
 of an incoherent, irresponsible rabble. Average 
 men will insist on being free themselves, and 
 will direct and restrain their thoughts as they 
 do their households. They will give courteous 
 audience to grave, majestic thoughts, as to 
 
Free Thinking. 217 
 
 honored counsellors or ambassadors ; and they 
 will receive lighter thoughts with the comedi- 
 ans and the fools, to make them laugh when 
 the stress of serious business is over : but they 
 will reign in the midst of all the thoughts 
 which they entertain ; and to the innumerable, 
 indistinguishable thoughts which refuse to as- 
 sume the forms and acknowledge the laws of 
 their own minds they will give no more heed 
 than to the formless ghosts which flit and twit- 
 ter on the banks of Acheron. Men generally 
 consider thinking an act of their own, a manly 
 exercise, not the random work of loose, inde- 
 pendent thoughts within them ; and they even 
 assume that right thinking consists largely in 
 limiting the freedom of what is called sponta- 
 neous thought, and subjecting it to the quick- 
 ening and directing power of the personal 
 mind. They hope for no enlargement of 
 thought through mere waiting. They expect 
 to think their way every step to the farthest 
 realms of thought they will ever reach. They 
 believe in growth and in inspiration, but not in 
 any inspiration or growth which supersedes the 
 active cooperation of the thinking mind. How- 
 ever we may regret it, then, and whatever nota- 
 
2 1 8 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 ble exceptions may cheer us in our disappoint- 
 ment, it would be vain to seek, for mankind at 
 large, the freedom which would emancipate 
 thought from the personal mind. The mass of 
 men will always think their own thoughts with 
 all the circumspection and intellectual self- 
 mastery which they can command ; and unat- 
 tached, undirected thoughts can make a play- 
 ground of their minds only when they are 
 asleep or perchance intoxicated. 
 
 If, therefore, the thoughts cannot, in general, 
 be free from the yoke of the thinking mind, 
 shall we pass over to the other side, and con- 
 tend that the mind must be absolutely free 
 among its thoughts, free from allegiance to any 
 of them, and free from all entangling alliances 
 with them ; free to prefer one above another, 
 to be sure, but free also from the tyranny of 
 any preference ; free to decide all questions, 
 yet entirely untrammelled by its own decisions ; 
 free to pursue truth for the simple delight of 
 the pursuit, and free to let truth go back to the 
 bush when overtaken, rather than exchange the 
 exhilarating sport of the chase for the tame en- 
 joyment of so circumscribed a possession ; free 
 to take any conceivable course in the wide uni- 
 
Free Thinking. 219 
 
 verse of thought, and, to maintain that immense 
 freedom, free also to halt between all courses, 
 and to decline any and every particular course 
 whatsoever ? 
 
 It must be confessed that there is in such 
 freedom a romantic boundlessness which is 
 very fascinating. Thought ordinarily presses 
 urgently along fixed lines towards a definite 
 end in some conclusion or other ; but the free- 
 dom here proposed would keep the mind clear 
 of every goal and clear of every track for ever, 
 eclipsing the mystery of the Flying Dutchman. 
 Is such freedom of thought possible ? A little 
 friend of mine, contemplating the state of soci- 
 ety around her, and anticipating years to come, 
 declared solemnly that she would never be an 
 old maid, and that she would never in the world 
 be married, but that, when the proper time 
 arrived, she would surely be a rich widow. 
 Wary little maiden of long ago, what became 
 of thy perfectly discreet plan ? Did not the 
 mere flow of years make thee an old maid with- 
 out thy consent ? And didst thou not, in sheer 
 fright, at last get married, finding no other way 
 to escape thy first and greatest aversion? Is 
 not a like necessity laid upon the mind of man ? 
 
220 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 If it will not think truly, must it not think 
 falsely ? If it will not think one way or the 
 other, but will ever hold itself in maiden free- 
 dom from all thought and for all thought, must 
 it not lapse into a barren, inane senility, sans 
 freedom, sans thought, sans every thing ? 
 
 And must the mind be free to think falsely, 
 if it pleases ; free to think that black is white, 
 that fair is foul, and foul is fair ; that yes and 
 no to the same question always mean the same 
 thing ; that two and two make five, or fifteen, 
 or fifty, just as it may choose to decide ? If we 
 attain such freedom, how shall we distinguish 
 between free-thinking and the delirium of t the 
 sick or the raving of maniacs, and how shall we 
 save our thinkers from rushing in herds over 
 beetling precipices into the sea ? Such free- 
 dom should be accompanied by power to create 
 and uncreate worlds, and by a sure, unthinking 
 instinct to guide that power to make reality 
 wait on thought, since thought must be free to 
 break away from reality. Situated as we are, 
 we must be content with a freedom of thought 
 which is not all caprice and lawlessness. Our 
 minds must, at least, bear the yoke of sanity, 
 and do homage to reason and truth. 
 
Free Thinking. 221 
 
 But, granting that the mind must not be law- 
 less, cannot in fact be lawless because it is 
 rationally constituted, must we not yet demand 
 that the mind, in thinking, shall at any rate be 
 free from the biassing influence of hopes, and 
 fears, and desires, and all the imperious ele- 
 ments of our social and moral nature ? Must 
 not the intellect be completely independent of 
 the affections and the conscience, lest its de- 
 liberations be disturbed by their fixed bent and 
 overborne by their vehemence ? Is not this 
 freedom of the intellect proper from the practi- 
 cal principles in our nature the true freedom of 
 thought for which there has been so much faith- 
 ful groping ? And is not this freedom indis- 
 pensable if thought is to be trustworthy ? 
 
 We seem to have struck firm ground at last, 
 don't we ? It seems to be fairness itself to de- 
 mand that nothing shall tamper with the purely 
 intellectual character, the dry light, of our 
 thinking. But even here a very little considera- 
 tion brings up a perplexing array of difficulties. 
 First of all, how is our subtle inward nature to 
 be practically broken up into parts, and how 
 are the parts to be kept separate and out of 
 one another's hearing, so to speak, while our 
 
222 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 thinking is going on ? It would be easier to 
 cut out for Shylock his stipulated pound of flesh 
 from the living human breast, without spilling 
 the blood which was not in his bond, than to 
 separate the intellect, for practical purposes, 
 from the affections or from the moral nature in 
 handling matters with which the affections and 
 the moral nature are concerned. We can vary 
 the temperature and change the objects of our 
 affections, but we cannot eradicate the affec- 
 tions themselves or deprive them of their 
 natural power over the mind or in the mind. 
 Sour or frigid or cramped or inverted and un- 
 natural affections are still real affections, and 
 will influence thought as much as the freshest, 
 warmest, most genial and orderly affections in 
 the world. So of our moral nature. It has an 
 infinite range upward and downward ; but it 
 cannot be got rid of, and it cannot be deprived, 
 at any stage of elevation or debasement, of its 
 natural bearing and influence on the mind. As 
 we can become immoral if we will but cannot 
 become unmoral, so our greatest efforts to 
 eliminate moral elements from our thought can 
 only result in substituting for them immoral 
 elements. The Christian graces of faith, hope, 
 
Free Thinking. 223 
 
 chanty, and purity, cannot flourish in the soul 
 without powerfully affecting the intellect, both 
 in its theoretical view of the world and in its 
 creative activity. On the other hand, distrust, 
 and craven fear, and hopelessness, and uncharit- 
 ableness, and vile sensuality, are not neutral 
 in relation to thought. They prejudge the 
 greatest questions, and color our most momen- 
 tous thought as necessarily as the Christian 
 graces themselves. There is no way to make 
 the intellect, in its operations, independent of 
 the rest of our human nature. 
 
 If a way could be found, and if the intellect 
 were practically severed from our whole moral 
 life, the question would arise, What is to guide 
 and serve our moral life, now that its old lamp 
 is taken away from it ? But that question is 
 for others, or for us at another time. We are 
 not concerned with the moral life now, but 
 with the intellectual life ; and it is more to 
 our present purpose to ask, if our minds were 
 wholly released from our moral nature and 
 from all hopes and fears and from every de- 
 sire, who would pay us for thinking? What 
 inducement would there be for us to think at 
 all? What security that thinking would not 
 
224 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 perish from the earth ? The great and varied 
 interests — temporal and eternal — of our indi- 
 vidual and social life supply a powerful spring 
 for intellectual activity on their behalf. But 
 when the thinking mind is free from all the 
 rest of our nature, what purpose will all its in- 
 dependent thinking serve ? Will the bare mind 
 think simply for its own bare pleasure? If that 
 is to be the use of its freedom, let it win its un- 
 profitable freedom alone, without any aid from 
 the public spirit and other moral energies which 
 it will spurn from it when free. 
 
 Again, what will the independent intellect 
 think about? When it loses all that it owes 
 to its intimate communion with the affections 
 and the moral nature, will it not confess that 
 its emancipation has dimmed its eyes and 
 clipped its wings, and that it has been " en- 
 franchised with a clog"? The fairest, most 
 spacious fields of thought are forever beyond 
 the reach of mere intellect. The natural and 
 spiritual affections in their normal, healthy ac- 
 tivity are not disturbers, but benefactors of 
 thought. They furnish its noblest material. 
 They discover worlds for it. They are the 
 true openers of its eyes. They are its guides 
 
Free Thinking. 225 
 
 to new regions of knowledge beyond the " dark 
 unbottomed infinite abyss," where the senses 
 desert it. Rather than perverting and enslav- 
 ing thought, they ennoble it and enlarge its 
 freedom ; and the more they are quickened, 
 and the more firmly they are fixed upon their 
 proper objects, the ampler and more glorious 
 will be the liberty which they bestow. 
 
 The bare intellect, then, if there be such a 
 thing, must not take too much upon itself. 
 Our souls and all that is within us must help 
 to determine our best thoughts. On the high- 
 est and gravest questions the whole spiritual 
 man must do the effective thinking, whether 
 or not his thinking can be fully displayed in 
 strict logical forms or in any forms whatever. 
 
 But if we must not divide man against him- 
 self in our zeal for free thinking, may we not 
 separate him from his fellows? May we not 
 insist that every man's thinking shall be en- 
 tirely independent of every other man's? If 
 we choose this as our end, we must choose 
 effective means to secure the end : and what 
 shall the means be? In the interest of this 
 freedom we must probably frame conventicle 
 acts, and five-mile acts, and other coer- 
 
226 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 cive measures far surpassing in scope and 
 stringency any thing ever devised by the 
 fiercest oppressors. We must forbid all pub- 
 lic meetings and all private intercourse be- 
 tween man and man. We must cancel the 
 liberty of prophesying, and the liberty of un- 
 licensed printing, and all other liberties which 
 favor the communion of mind with mind. We 
 must expel not the Bible only, but all other 
 books also from the schools, or rather, we 
 must abolish the schools themselves. We 
 must separate parent and child, and break up 
 the family, and dissolve society, and effect- 
 ually isolate every human mind. But that is 
 a stupendous undertaking. It will take at 
 least one half of the human race to blockade 
 the other half in this " hard liberty"; and 
 then, quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? Most men 
 desire to learn something from those who have 
 gone before them ; and those who most con- 
 temptuously reject instruction would still 
 teach others as gladly as the pious and 
 learned clerk of Oxenford. Those who will 
 owe nothing to the past, would fain have the 
 present and even the future owe every thing 
 to them. There is not a free thinker — no, 
 
Free Thinking. 227 
 
 not one — who could be trusted to protect 
 loyally the absolute independence of every 
 individual mind. We must do without abso- 
 lute independence, then, and put up with an 
 independence more or less qualified. And 
 now for the qualifications. 
 
 Shall we say that the mind must surely be 
 directed and helped in youth, but should attain 
 freedom with its maturity ; that as it is vain to 
 give a child freedom to walk before he is able 
 to walk, as the child must be taught and helped 
 to walk, and then may be permitted to walk 
 freely, so freedom to think is of no avail with- 
 out the power to think, but should be claimed 
 and granted as the power is developed? If we 
 say this, it will be hard to gainsay us ; but it 
 will be easy to show that we have not won any 
 exceptional victory for independence of thought. 
 We have admitted that any mental indepen- 
 dence worth having must depend on maturity 
 and power of mind, and that our maturity and 
 power must be reached by the aid of others. 
 What are we to do with the modesty of genius 
 if it will not be weaned from the old fountains 
 whence it drew its first inspiration ? And what 
 shall we do with the growing humility which 
 
228 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 attends the greatest attainments, and makes 
 maturity seem further off, and assistance more 
 desirable, day by day ? The notorious fact is 
 that in every great line of thought the helpless 
 infants and the callow youths are squirming and 
 screaming for independence, while the tried and 
 seasoned minds are thankful for aid. The chil- 
 dren will not go to school ; the strong men will 
 not forsake their teachers. The brief span of 
 threescore years and ten does not suffice either 
 to bring the human mind to its full maturity or 
 to enable the individual to leave behind him 
 the wisdom of the race. If we need direction 
 at the beginning of our career we need it to the 
 end. 
 
 Let us admit, then, that it is proper for one 
 mind to receive help from other minds all 
 through its career ; that both learning and 
 teaching are legitimate at every age ; that it 
 becomes us to profit by the thought of past 
 generations, and that we may justly hope to 
 influence the thought of generations to come. 
 Let us admit all this ; but let us try to insert 
 some saving clause as to the character or the 
 measure of the aid which one mind may, with- 
 out forfeiting its freedom, continue to receive 
 
Free Thinking. 229 
 
 from other minds. What if we say that the 
 free mind may always receive from other minds 
 help to think, but not actual thoughts ; that it 
 may receive stimulus and direction to seek 
 truth, but not the truth itself, — materials and 
 data of all kinds, but no definite conclusions, 
 no cut-and-dry doctrines? In fact, something 
 like this has often been said, so that we are not 
 alone in venturing to suggest it ; and, indeed, 
 we should never have dared to mention it with- 
 out the authority of brilliant names to balance 
 obvious objections. As it is, we cannot under- 
 take to answer any questions on the subject. 
 We cannot explain how the learning or the 
 teaching can be carried on within the limits 
 prescibed, whether by Socratic dialogue, or by 
 dumb show, or how. We cannot imagine how 
 materials and data can be given without giving 
 some definite truth. Nor can we assign any 
 reason why, after receiving the direction and 
 the stimulus and the data which must determine 
 the truth, we may not just as well receive the 
 truth itself. The permission to give and to re- 
 ceive every thing but the conclusion to which 
 every thing tends seems, we must confess, like 
 permitting a squad of surgeons to pull and 
 
230 Prejtidiced Inqtt tries. 
 
 squeeze at a dislocated joint with all their 
 might, only with the understanding that they 
 must be sure to stop just short of setting it 
 right. We made our suggestion hastily, with- 
 out seeing why free minds which have their 
 data in cojnmon may not remain free with 
 conclusions in common, and without consider- 
 ing how the freest minds, if sane, can avoid re- 
 ceiving conclusions when they receive premises. 
 To avoid quizzing and cavilling, however, let 
 it be admitted that free thinkers may receive 
 from their fellow-men actual thoughts, definite 
 conclusions, and if there be any value in the 
 addition, cut-and-dry doctrines also, provided 
 only that all the conclusions and the doctrines 
 be capable of verification, and be carefully veri- 
 fied by those who receive them. This will 
 probably satisfy the champions of free thought. 
 Should it not also satisfy all reasonable men? 
 Something will depend on the meaning of the 
 verification required. If all that is intended is, 
 that the mind must not formally or mechanically 
 assent to traditional doctrines or teachings with- 
 out apprehending their meaning and scope and 
 assuring itself of the validity of the grounds 
 on which they rest, all reasonable people will 
 
Free Thinking. 231 
 
 support the demand for verification, because 
 verification, in the sense here defined, is essen- 
 tial not only to the coveted free thought but to 
 all real thought, to the most conservative 
 thought as well as to the most liberal. It 
 would be too uncharitable to suppose that all 
 those who receive their most absorbing 
 thoughts and their most sacred convictions 
 from others receive "them, lightly and blindly, 
 not as thoughts and convictions at all but as 
 inert traditions. To receive a thought involves 
 the apprehension of it ; to receive a conviction 
 involves a serious estimate of its rational 
 grounds. The aim of all serious teaching is 
 not to sow dead tradition in slumbering minds, 
 but to commend established truth, by means 
 of its rational, convincing grounds, to the awak- 
 ened minds and consciences of men. The very 
 process of learning truth from others, then, is 
 a continual verification of the truth in the sense 
 given above ; and all will agree that such veri- 
 fication must be insisted on : and the free think- 
 ers, if that be all that they desire, will have the 
 surprising satisfaction of finding mankind on 
 their side. 
 
 If, however, by demanding that every con- 
 
232 Prejudiced Inqttiries. 
 
 elusion received be verified, they mean to sub- 
 ject all our thoughts, throughout their infinite 
 range, to a uniform test, that test being the 
 particular method of verification with which we 
 are familiar in experimental science, there is a 
 very great gulf fixed between them and man- 
 kind ; and no human being can afford to pass 
 over unto them unless he can command the sun 
 and the course of time anci all the pressing in- 
 terests of life to stand still, that he may have 
 the unlimited leisure which his verifications will 
 require. For he will have to turn his face back- 
 ward to begin with ; and it is very doubtful 
 whether he will ever be ready to face any other 
 way. He has his actual stock of thoughts to 
 verify first of all. This actual stock is mostly 
 old stock, accumulated long before his scrupu- 
 lous free thinking began. In his later and more 
 scrupulous thinking he had to use much of the 
 old stock in every operation, so that the whole 
 pile of his actual thoughts rests on the old un- 
 verified accumulations. He must remove every 
 thought until he reaches the very bottom of the 
 pile ; and when he reaches the bottom of the 
 unverified heap, he will be confronted by un- 
 verified foundations reaching downward nobody 
 
Free Thinking. 233 
 
 knows how far ; and he will have to verify these 
 deep and dark foundations scientifically without 
 a single thought in his head to work with. 
 Surely we shall never hear of him again above 
 ground. He must grub blindly in the abyss 
 " ages of hopeless end." Or if, in pity on him- 
 self, and in tenderness towards his own thoughts, 
 he resolves to decline this backward search and 
 proceed at once to verify, or rather (for so it 
 must be with his arbitrary method) to prove 
 unverifiable and therefore untenable, the deep- 
 est and most precious convictions of mankind, 
 is he not more abominably inconsistent than the 
 Prophet Jonah who had pity on the gourd 
 which came up in a night, and yet would not 
 spare Nineveh, that great city, with its myriads 
 of souls ? And how can he be supposed to love 
 freedom and truth when he builds impassable 
 barriers around himself, and deliberately shuts 
 truth out at all entrances but one, that one en- 
 trance being, in the nature of things, too low 
 and too narrow to admit the highest truths 
 which are suggested to us as probable, even if 
 they be most real and knocking loudly at his 
 doors ? 
 
 We must abandon our inquiry without dis- 
 
234 Prejtcdiced Inqit tries. 
 
 covering the freedom of thought which is to be 
 won at the present day by strife and conten- 
 tion. We cannot by searching find that those 
 who contend the most for freedom have any 
 more of it than those against whom they con- 
 tend. The anti-Christian zealots have no more 
 freedom of thought than the firmest Christian 
 believers. The Christian, it is true, believes 
 with all his heart in the incarnation of the 
 Son of God, in his atoning death for the sin 
 of the world, in his glorious resurrection and 
 ascension, in the coming of the Holy Ghost, 
 and in the life of the world to come. Believing 
 thus, he is not free, and cannot wish to be free, 
 to stultify and contradict his own belief by be- 
 lieving the contrary at the same time. Being a 
 Christian, he is not free, and cannot wish to be 
 free, to think like an infidel. His thoughts are 
 pledged in glad captivity to his Lord, whose 
 service is perfect freedom for the intellect no 
 less than for the will. On the other hand, the 
 anti-Christian free thinker believes that Jesus 
 Christ is not God at all, that he did not die 
 to redeem mankind or rise again for their justi- 
 fication, that he has not ascended into heaven, 
 does not sit at the right hand of God the Father, 
 
Free T J linking. 235 
 
 will not come again to judge the world, and will 
 not give eternal life to his people. In a certain 
 sad sense, doubtless, he is free to believe thus. 
 But, believing thus, he is not free in any sense 
 at all to believe the contrary at the same time. 
 While believing as he does, he is no more free 
 to think like a Christian than a Christian is 
 to think like him. His thoughts are bound as 
 fast in the captivity of his unbelief as the Chris- 
 tian's thoughts in the obedience of faith. He 
 has no freedom to bestow if he conquers the 
 world. He is a mere propagandist after all. 
 His thoughts are systematized and stereotyped. 
 He has names to swear by, and hoary traditions, 
 and sacred books, and a notable index libronun 
 prohibit or nm, and what does service excellently 
 well for the most rancorous odium tJieologicimi 
 ever known. Let me add that his whole pe- 
 culiar system is negative, and leads to pure 
 nothing. He generally teaches much positive 
 truth, to be sure ; but that is incidental, and all 
 the positive truth he teaches is as much at the 
 service of his antagonists as at his own, while 
 the greatest and most fruitful thoughts of his 
 antagonists are wholly out of his reach. 
 
 If the contention be, not for any of the shad- 
 
236 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 owy forms of freedom which we have noticed, 
 and not really for freedom of thought at all, 
 but for immunity from the natural conse- 
 quences of thought, and for escape from the 
 proper responsibility of men for the thoughts 
 which they actively represent in human society, 
 the contention is intelligible enough, — just as 
 intelligible, indeed, as the base struggle of weak 
 and wicked men to escape the proper conse- 
 quences of their own acts. 
 
 Our thoughts may be false and misleading 
 and injurious to society. Still we are free to 
 think them and to speak them : but we have no 
 right to complain if we lose the confidence and 
 countenance of good men thereby ; and we 
 ought not to wonder if the most hospitable 
 doors in our neighborhood are jealously closed 
 against us. Evil, erring thoughts corrupt good 
 manners most deeply and irremediably, and 
 honest people may have to treat those who 
 spread them as they would treat burglars and 
 assassins. 
 
 On the other hand, our thoughts may be 
 better, greater, truer than the thoughts of some 
 of our neighbors, and those neighbors may, in 
 sheer weakness and confusion, distrust and op- 
 
Free Thinking. 237 
 
 pose the higher truth. Shall we fume and 
 storm and waste our time because the people 
 are not ready for the truth ? Or shall we who 
 are strong bear the infirmities of the weak, and 
 witness a good confession in a time of trial, suf- 
 fering persecution cheerfully, and rejoicing in 
 all humiliation whereby we may prepare the 
 way for the truth which must prevail at last ? 
 Thought is not a light or frivolous matter. 
 It is most serious and weighty. It is our life, 
 and it touches the life of others. For this 
 reason, we must think with perfect freedom ; 
 and for the very same reason, we must think 
 with full responsibility. Every man should 
 think day by day, as the noble Strafford de- 
 liberately served his unworthy master, at the 
 peril of his head ; and the great oath of Straf- 
 ford is the proper oath for every thinker who 
 has occasion to swear : " On the peril of my 
 life, and that of my children." 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 HOBBIES. 
 
 It is very difficult to mete out the proper 
 measure of praise or blame, of admiration or 
 pity, to persons who earnestly pursue what 
 may be called hobbies of a moral and reforma- 
 tory character. Our first impulse is, perhaps, 
 to condemn them, for narrowing and darken- 
 ing their lives by sacrificing to one idea or pur- 
 pose the many graces of a catholic culture and 
 a generous social life. A broad, symmetrical, 
 cheerful culture of mind and life is exceedingly 
 desirable : but it is constantly sacrificed, with 
 little compunction and with very general ap- 
 proval, for reasons not more satisfactory, per- 
 haps, than these grim hobbies can plead. For 
 instance, the most sour-faced hobby of them 
 all does not exclude liberal culture as complete- 
 ly as the luxurious, beaming indolence and in- 
 difference which we meet at every turn without 
 any irritation. Why should we fret about the 
 
 238 
 
Hobbies. 239 
 
 sacrifice of the earnest hobbyist, and take no 
 account of the far greater sacrifice of the gay, 
 self-indulgent crowd all around us ? 
 
 Then, consider how unfriendly to universal 
 culture are many of the occupations by which 
 men earn their daily bread. It is not given to 
 every man to take all knowledge for his province, 
 or to make industrious and select reading or the 
 writing of epic poems his portion in life. Many 
 good men spend the livelong day, year in and 
 year out, at drudging tasks, which cramp mind 
 and body alike. Yet we blame them not, and 
 we do not presume to pity them. They are 
 justified, not merely by the necessity of their 
 condition, but much more by the value of their 
 services to mankind. They are straitened that 
 others may be enlarged : and to lose individual 
 culture, and even life, for the sake of others, is 
 neither blameworthy nor inglorious. 
 
 • ' Some kinds of baseness 
 Are nobly undergone ; and most poor matters 
 Point to rich ends." 
 
 If hobbies, then, can be proved to benefit 
 mankind, though they stunt and oppress their 
 votaries, they have the same justification as the 
 
240 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 common business of life. And as many occu- 
 pations, though cramping in the extreme during 
 the hours of toil, allow generous leisure at the 
 close of the day and a blessed Sabbath once a 
 week, and even by limiting leisure hours often 
 make them more precious and fruitful than the 
 solid days and years of the unemployed, even 
 so the severest hobbies must allow some spare 
 moments for the cultivation of general knowl- 
 edge and social intercourse ; and great hobby- 
 ists have been known to make an admirable use 
 of such moments. There are also hobbies, as 
 there are common occupations, which them- 
 selves lead to varied knowledge and experience 
 of the world as directly as the most exhaustive 
 academic course that ever was devised. 
 
 But, waiving the direct personal interests of 
 the hobbyists themselves, are hobbies a pest or 
 a blessing to mankind ? The question refers, of 
 course, not to trivial, pitiful, personal hobbies, 
 verging on dotage or blank insanity, but to 
 those which are inspired by ideas, and which 
 contemplate the progress of society or the 
 destiny of the race. Are these serious, far- 
 reaching, public-spirited hobbies a help or a 
 hindrance to our real advancement? If we look 
 
Hobbies. 241 
 
 to the past, it is difficult to withhold from them 
 the very highest praise. It seems as if they 
 had done much of the very best work of the 
 world. Human society does not owe its noblest 
 possessions either to the simultaneous efforts of 
 all its members or to the steady, harmonious 
 march of powerful parties. Powerful parties 
 and the great multitude have generally taken 
 part in a good fight very late in the day. The 
 long night-watch, the fierce charge at daybreak, 
 and the raging battle till its strength is broken, 
 have all been borne by a devoted few : and 
 those few have not been men who had mas- 
 tered all the details of all the universe so as to 
 be able to provide for all things at once, and fore- 
 see precisely how every thing was to turn out, 
 but men who were possessed by certain truths 
 or ideas, which they. trusted absolutely, and 
 proceeded to carry out without hesitation or 
 compromise, leaving other truths and other in- 
 terests to such maintenance as the Providence 
 of God might raise for them also. Such men, 
 appearing among us to-day, would be called 
 hobbyists. Do we need them or not ? 
 
 We can scarcely deny that we have needed 
 them at our very doors quite recently. But 
 
242 Prejudiced Inqu tries, 
 
 yesterday, the emancipation of the Negro was 
 a hobby, and a very weak and ridiculous hobby 
 it seemed in our established social and political 
 systems. Wise and good men, even in 
 schools and sanctuaries, laughed it to scorn. 
 Temperance, likewise, though a matter of life 
 and death, was long cared for seriously by hob- 
 byists alone ; and it can hardly be trusted out 
 of their hands yet, although a national interest 
 in it is awaking. It seems that the mass of a 
 Christian nation in the nineteenth century, as 
 of less-favored nations in darker times, can live 
 contented, priest and people alike, in strong- 
 holds of iniquity, until some elect persons are 
 awakened and made a spectacle, marching about 
 and blowing loud trumpets ; at first in shabby 
 helplessness amidst jeers and laughter, and at 
 last victoriously amidst crumbling walls and 
 falling towers, like the chosen people around 
 Jericho. 
 
 We need hobbyists, then, to keep us from 
 dwelling at ease in the midst of abominations. 
 We need them to urge us forward to our proper 
 good, as well as to deliver us from abuses. We 
 even need them when we have great, lofty 
 ideals in view, about as much as when we dwell 
 
Hobbies. 243 
 
 in gross darkness without discerning good or 
 evil. Great ideals charm us easily. Their 
 truth and beauty are unmistakable ; but, to 
 our sensual, unheroic natures, they seem wholly 
 inapplicable to the practical life of our times. 
 
 We have the highest ideal in politics, gov- 
 ernment by the people, and for the people, in 
 city and State and throughout the Union. We 
 glory in this ideal. We tell the nations of the 
 earth that it is emphatically our own. But with 
 all our pride in our shining ideal, and with all the 
 freedom to realize it that it is possible for a peo- 
 ple to have, how helplessly we sit down and look 
 upon great cities and mighty States manipu- 
 lated and pocketed like playthings, to the great 
 injury of the people, by the least illustrious of 
 oligarchies ! We glory in our political ideal and 
 groan over the actual situation at the same time. 
 
 So, again, we have the highest ideal possible 
 for our individual and social life, in the Chris- 
 tian revelation. Some among us may have 
 misgivings about the deeper mysteries of the 
 Christian faith ; but those who deny and 
 blaspheme the faith extol the moral ideal. It 
 is the recognized ideal of us all, and a higher 
 we cannot conceive. But its very excellence 
 
244 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 destroys its effect with most of us. " The pre- 
 cepts of Christ are more at variance with the 
 lives of ordinary Christians than the discourse 
 of Utopia," just because ordinary Christians re- 
 gard them as more purely ideal, — more deserv- 
 ing of admiring contemplation, but also more 
 completely inapplicable to the individual and 
 social life of the present day than Utopia itself. 
 The phrase, ordinary Christians, in the above 
 statement, may be misleading. It is not in- 
 tended to indicate a class among Christian 
 people, but Christian people in general, includ- 
 ing the best-informed and the most given to 
 reflection. In fact, if we think of classes at all, 
 perhaps there is no class among Christians to 
 which the Christian ideal seems more hopelessly 
 sundered from reality, and is therefore become 
 more unprofitable except for purely artistic 
 purposes, than to the highly educated and 
 studious class. 
 
 Even when we have high ideals, then, we 
 need sturdy, uncompromising hobbyists, to 
 dare, alone, to believe that the ideals have 
 life in them and are good for something be- 
 sides artistic representation ; and to dare also 
 to crack and displace the common world and 
 
Hobbies. 245 
 
 the things that are in it, to make room for the 
 realization of the ideals. For what the inap- 
 plicability of great ideals to the practical life 
 of our times means is, simply that you cannot 
 reform the world and also leave it just as it is. 
 The hobbyists understand this well enough ; 
 but they believe in their ideals so heartily that 
 they are willing that every thing in the world 
 that is incompatible with them should perish ; 
 and they will work on undismayed though the 
 earth be removed and though the mountains be 
 carried into the midst of the sea. Without 
 such courage and enterprise the brightest ideals 
 will remain forever barren ; yet, to the great 
 majority of civilized persons, such ventures 
 seem most fanatical and pernicious. Therefore, 
 we need hobbyists, not only to call forth ideals 
 in our gross, unthinking life, but also to give 
 energy to the ideals we have, and save them 
 from becoming a sublime mockery, and to save 
 ourselves from being over-awed and paralyzed 
 by the world and by our own knowledge and 
 wisdom. 
 
 Thus it appears that hobbies have answered 
 a good purpose in the world, and that they are 
 still needed, seeing that much good remains to 
 
246 Prej^td^ced Inqu tries. 
 
 be done which is in no way of being done with- 
 out them. But what of all that, my country- 
 men ? We have been looking at one side. We 
 must look at the other. 
 
 We cannot give full scope to hobbies though 
 they may sometimes have pioneered a good 
 cause : and though the world is always set in 
 evil ways and needs much rousing, we cannot 
 always heed the sound of a trumpet. Hobbies 
 have done good, we freely admit ; but they 
 have seldom done all the good alone ; much 
 credit is often due to the hootings, and brick- 
 bats, and dungeons, and gallows-trees of the 
 opposite side. Before the hobbies alone the 
 world could not stand long enough to be re- 
 formed, and a reformed world could not abide 
 while we beheld what manner of world it was. 
 As long as a shred of our earthly life remains, 
 there will always be something for a hobby to 
 cast out as evil. Our earthly life is tied up in 
 finite, adamantine bonds ; hobbies are fancy's 
 children, and will fret and chafe at our world 
 until it is resolved into a pure, bodiless, in- 
 vulnerable idea. They will find grievances and 
 scandals wherever they please to look for them. 
 As the microscope can find nasty creeping 
 
Hobbies. 247 
 
 things everywhere, even in the sparkling, re- 
 freshing water, which is the aptest symbol of 
 purity itself, so these hobbies will turn their 
 witching ideas upon the most admired arrange- 
 ments of our life, and find them teeming with 
 Egyptian plagues ; and, like the potent rod of 
 Amram's son, when they have rid us of one 
 pest, they will smite again and discover another 
 brood still more insufferable. We could bear 
 to be convulsed and rent asunder to obtain de- 
 liverance from usurping demons, if we could 
 afterwards be healed and clothed and live in 
 our right minds in peace. But we cannot bear 
 to be kept on the rack of a great deliverance 
 perpetually, cured of evil after evil only that 
 we may live to undergo severer operations for 
 ever and ever. Yet this is the prospect which 
 hobbies hold out for us ; for the commonest 
 and most unlikely matters yield towering griev- 
 ances, which easily connect themselves with the 
 most sacred interests of mankind, and are made 
 to cry for redress with a voice which all must 
 hear and an argument which none can gainsay. 
 To satisfy ourselves of this, we need but 
 glance at some of the minor hobbies of the 
 day. Take, as one of the most apposite in- 
 
248 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 stances, the women's dress reform. Who in 
 the world could have imagined that any reform 
 was necessary or possible here? In the first 
 place, women are themselves natural reformers. 
 They have deep intuitions of the true and the 
 beautiful. They have quick sympathies and 
 strong impulses on the right side. Above all, 
 they have a boundless capacity of self-sacrifice. 
 Believing all this, we have long been striving to 
 give them more authority in the world, not only 
 because it is their just right, but also because 
 the world needs their cleansing, renovating 
 touch. Results have justified all the confi- 
 dence we have placed in them. The women 
 of our age have supported and inspired and 
 led us in every good work. Can it be possible 
 that they who are so thoughtful about the re- 
 mote interests of the wide world have forgot- 
 ten to give any thought to a matter so near 
 them and so important as their own clothing ? 
 No, it is not possible. The women of our day 
 have not grown more indifferent than the 
 women of other ages to the question, where- 
 withal they shall be clothed. New interests, 
 and new duties, learning, fame, politics, philan- 
 thropy, and all the rest have detracted nothing 
 
Hobbies. 249 
 
 from this world-old occupation. The enlarged, 
 invigorated, overcrowded minds of the women 
 of to-day condescend cheerfully to give to the 
 whole matter of dress, down to the most in- 
 finitesimal point, an attention as unstinted and 
 loving as was ever bestowed upon it by the 
 simpler minds of the olden time. Seeing, then, 
 that women are intelligent, zealous, sweeping re- 
 formers, and that they have never ceased to give 
 much time and thought to this particular ques- 
 tion, and that the whole concern is also entirely 
 in their own power, we might reasonably hope 
 that the hobbyists themselves would have to 
 admit that, here at least, they are forestalled, — 
 that here, if nowhere else under the sun, is one 
 matter of some consequence in which they can 
 suggest no material improvement. Vainest of 
 vain hopes ! There is scarcely a careless work 
 of heedless, blundering man more riddled with 
 deadly objections than this masterpiece of the 
 long and serious thought of woman. The 
 charges against it take away our breath, and 
 cause our heads to swim. We are like them 
 that dream in our astonishment and disappoint- 
 ment. The evil found here is solemnly declared 
 to be more outrageous than drunkenness, — 
 
250 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 not only more deliberate and more unpro- 
 voked, but more deeply and widely disastrous 
 than even that fiery scourge. Drunkenness is 
 put under the ban of all good men, and deliv- 
 ered unto Satan by all honorable women, and 
 has to hide its ungracious head " under the 
 cope of hell." This other evil, it is said, is 
 delicately nurtured in the best families, and 
 commended to young people by grave parental 
 authority, while its unhallowed wares are con- 
 spicuously advertised, as a matter of course, by 
 religious publications of the highest preten- 
 sions ; all Christendom thus uniting to nurse 
 the desolating evil in its bosom. But are we 
 really not dreaming or raving ? Where is the 
 evil, and where is the desolation ? What is the 
 grain of sense, if there be so much, in this windy 
 indictment ? Wherein does woman's thorough- 
 ly studied and elaborately prepared apparel vio- 
 late the sacred law of the world ? 
 
 Long ago, when the minds of women rusted 
 in bondage, or still bore marks of their long 
 captivity, there used to be complaints that 
 they were given to a wanton, wasteful, ostenta- 
 tious, ridiculous excess in their apparel. The 
 gentlest and greatest of the prophets rebuked 
 
Hobbies. 251 
 
 the daughters of Zion for the bravery of their 
 tinkling ornaments, and their round tires like 
 the moon, and other trumpery : and after the 
 lapse of many ages, the gentlest and greatest of 
 the apostles had still to entreat the women of 
 his day to adorn themselves in modest apparel, 
 with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with 
 braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. 
 The fathers, Greek and Latin, contended with 
 the same evil all their days. It lingered among 
 Christian women even after the Reformation, 
 calling forth a vigorous protest in the Book of 
 Homilies, and a rousing sermon from John 
 Wesley. At last, the emancipation of women 
 came, and what prophets, and apostles, and 
 fathers, and bishops, and John Wesley failed 
 to bring about, has come about of itself. The 
 sumptuary part of the dress question is very 
 happily settled ; and we hear no more reprov- 
 ing of tinkling ornaments or costly array. The 
 pastor no more worries the flock. The church 
 no longer teases the world. World, church, 
 pastor, and all are satisfied with one another's 
 sobriety in apparel. For what was not fore- 
 seen by the prophets, or revealed to the apos- 
 tles, has been fairly discovered at last,— that 
 
252 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 . shamefacedness and sobriety are never so beau- 
 tiful as when combined with braided hair, and 
 gold, and pearls, and costly array, the costlier 
 the better ; and that the inward adorning of a 
 meek and quiet spirit and the outward adorn- 
 ing of a rich and finished toilet are necessary 
 and most effective helpers, the one of the other; 
 so that sumptuous apparel, richly bedecked with 
 gems and gold, is, to the ripened, emancipated 
 world, a means of grace, and a powerful instru- 
 ment for Christian work. Who would with- 
 hold riches, then, from this beautiful and bless- 
 ed service ? What better use can the abounding 
 wealth, which God has entrusted to the Ameri- 
 can people, be put to against the day of ac- 
 count ? Surely, no enlightened hobbyist, in 
 view of all this, can object to the female 
 apparel of our time on the old prophetic and 
 apostolic score of wanton, wicked, ridiculous 
 excess. 
 
 Nor will many dare even to mention openly 
 another disgraceful charge which some have in- 
 sinuated in secret, — that our fashionable wom- 
 en, in some of their most fashionable assem- 
 blies, appear indecently attired, impudently 
 tricked out to betray and to invite forbidden 
 
Hobbies. 253 
 
 thoughts. It is strange that anybody should 
 be found to invent such base nonsense. I have 
 no occasion to descant on the romantic purity 
 and delicacy of fashionable society, but it is 
 monstrous to insinuate that any shadow of 
 taint appears in the attire of our gayest, 
 lightest circles. Entire nations live all the 
 day long with scantier clothing than the 
 scantiest ever displayed among us for a few 
 hours on great occasions, and the noblest 
 thinker of Greece would have pronounced 
 the ladies and gentlemen of those simple 
 races greatly over-dressed for co-education in 
 the Palestra. The truth would seem to be 
 that our women, in general, anticipating pru- 
 dish, ill-natured criticism, run, with quaint 
 good-humor, to such ultra-Puritanic lengths 
 in veiling every sign and covering up the 
 very remembrance of the human form, that 
 any brilliant reminder of the real human be- 
 ings rolled up in the familiar stacks strikes 
 the unaccustomed beholders with confusion 
 and fear. Who will say that the ladies are 
 not entitled to this merry revenge on the 
 stupid admirers of the ascetic disguises which 
 they assumed in a mischievous frolic ? If 
 
254 Prejtidiced Inquiries. 
 
 any find this view of the matter light and un- 
 satisfactory, I will not defend it, though de- 
 fence is said to be a good cause. Let those 
 who are dissatisfied proceed in their own way 
 till they are annihilated with a lofty honi soit, 
 etc. 
 
 But shall woman's dress, because it thus tri- 
 umphs over ancient foes, finally escape the 
 meddling hobbies? By no means. Escaping 
 from fear, it shall fall into a pit, and getting 
 up out of the pit, it shall be taken in a snare ; 
 fleeing from a lion, a bear shall meet it. Its 
 victories but lure it to hotter fields. It has 
 trampled upon Isaiah and Peter and Paul ; it 
 has flung fathers and bishops and the holiest 
 saints, "with scattered arms and ensigns," into 
 the merciless, oblivious deep. But what avails 
 it all ? The battle waxes sorer than ever. The 
 solemn theological and metaphysical hosts are 
 routed, but the goodly tents and fresh powers 
 of positive science cover the heights and the 
 plains far and near, and the pitiless hobbyists 
 have made a covenant with them, and, after so 
 many rebuffs, they confidently expect to pre- 
 vail at last, deeming their present allies more 
 formidable to this profane generation than all 
 
Hobbies. 255 
 
 the fellowship of the prophets and the com- 
 pany of the apostles. 
 
 The last, heaviest charge against the brave, 
 battered apparel is, not that it is heathenish, or 
 immodest, or wasteful, or ridiculous— not that 
 it offends directly against the life of the soul, 
 but that it seriously damages the body to be- 
 gin with. This is business. Now the charge 
 will be heard. At last the hobbyists have 
 found their true weapon, and the fair defend- 
 ers will be driven, however unreasonably, to a 
 corner, where they must surrender without con- 
 dition, or discredit their emancipation and their 
 culture, and close their career as philanthropists 
 by throwing themselves prone athwart the path 
 of a humane reform which is backed by all the 
 array of modern science. 
 
 If you doubt the seriousness of the situation, 
 just look at a single encounter. There goes a 
 man who, through the ministration of good 
 women, has been rescued from intemperance. 
 He also would be a ministering angel, and, as 
 is most meet, he would first serve his generous 
 deliverers. He wends his way to the most in- 
 fluential and best-dressed lady in the village, 
 who also was foremost in the movement by 
 
256 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 which he was saved. In her presence he is 
 quite abashed. He feels "how awful goodness 
 is," but he is persuaded that all the goodness 
 stoops to folly on one side, and he constrains 
 himself to fulfil his ministry. 
 
 " I hate to tell what I came for, madam," he 
 begins, " but you faced every thing to save me, 
 and I will not be sheepish. I came to talk to 
 you about those barbarous things that you and 
 all the ladies are wearing." 
 
 " You have a mind for pleasantry this morn- 
 ing," replied the lady. " I am delighted to see 
 you so gay." 
 
 " I have no mind for pleasantry at all. I 
 have done with gayety for ever. I came to 
 talk seriously with you on the subject I men- 
 tioned." 
 
 " But it is impossible for a lady and a gentle- 
 man to talk seriously together about such 
 things. Those matters are surely for us alone 
 to manage, and you have greater things to 
 occupy you." 
 
 " I used to think that my drinks and my 
 sprees were my own concern, and all the other 
 boys thought so. Yet you ladies did not hesi- 
 tate to make what concerned us your concern 
 
Hobbies. 257 
 
 also. You troubled yourselves very much 
 about what seemed to us entirely our own 
 business. I confess that we were greatly an- 
 noyed at the time, but now we feel deeply 
 grateful to you, and I have come to pay part 
 of my debt." 
 
 " Oh ! You are very kind, I am sure, but the 
 cases are entirely different." 
 
 " Pardon me, dear madam, the cases are ex- 
 actly alike." 
 
 " But you were, — excuse me for reminding 
 you, — you were on the road to ruin, and our 
 common humanity entitled us to save you." 
 
 " And you, — it grieves me sorely to say 
 it, — you are on the highway to ruin, and 
 our common humanity bids us attempt your 
 rescue." 
 
 " This is too ridiculous. Some furious idiot 
 has been stuffing you. We are very comfort- 
 able, I assure you. Do you suppose we would 
 torture ourselves, to gain nothing and to please 
 nobody ? " 
 
 " And were we not comfortable in our old 
 revels ? Did we complain aloud of aching 
 heads and sore bones ? Did not the neighbor- 
 hood often ring all night long with our merry 
 
258 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 carousing? Truly we had comforts which it 
 seemed extremely hard to give up." 
 
 'Yet you know, and all the world knows, 
 that Bacchanalian comfort is a short, swift road 
 to perdition. It is mapped out clearly in the 
 miserable history of many of your acquaint- 
 ances, as well as in the scientific works with 
 which you are not unfamiliar." 
 
 " The way your comfort leads is not so easy 
 to trace in the map of common experience. It 
 is a covered road, on which disasters may occur 
 every day, and the outside world be never the 
 wiser. But in the blessed scientific works of 
 which you speak, this hidden destruction is un- 
 covered and mapped out as clearly as the 
 drunkard's downright path into the abyss. 
 Rather than presume to argue with you, then, 
 I would humbly beseech you to examine these 
 scientific books— all of the highest authority— 
 which I have brought with me. Be good 
 enough to pay particular attention to the pic- 
 tures, no fancy pictures, as you will observe. 
 If these fail to do more than raise questions and 
 doubtful thoughts in your mind, I can order 
 your admission to the dissecting-room at the 
 hospital, where opportunities will be given you 
 
Hobbies. 259 
 
 to look with your own eyes upon that which 
 may well make what you call furious idiots of 
 us all." 
 
 " I perceive that you are the victim of hasty 
 generalizations. Extreme cases find their way 
 to the dissecting-rooms and get pictured as curi- 
 osities in the books. What if, among ten 
 thousand women, one vain simpleton abuse 
 the habits of her sex to her own destruction ? 
 If we cared to be pictured for the public gaze, 
 we could furnish unexceptionable specimens 
 from the most fastidiously dressed among us 
 all ; and if we have the misfortune to come to 
 your dissecting-rooms at the last, I will warrant 
 you there will be no great show for your idiots. 
 You would plead against our whole society the 
 irrational performances of erratic individuals: 
 and when you mention this foolish subject as 
 at all to be compared with intemperance, you 
 forget that the evil you allude to, even when 
 most flagrant, begins and ends with itself, and 
 finds its perpetrator and its sole victim in one 
 person, while drunkenness leads to every sin 
 and shame, and involves in its dire consequences 
 the innocent as well as the guilty." 
 
 " Then you, who see through the whole tern- 
 
2 60 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 perance question so clearly, have never had 
 one glimpse of this other matter. The drunk- 
 ard's path, though short, has two ends. At one 
 end, I could have my picture taken, or be dis- 
 sected, without shame. At the other end, alive 
 or dead, I should want to sink into some deep, 
 dark pit, and be out of sight forever. There 
 are loathsome wretches at this shameful end of 
 the road. There are bright, noble fellows at 
 the other end. But the majority of drinking 
 men are to be found, and the evil work of 
 drunkards is mostly done, at different points 
 along the road between the two extremes. So 
 it is with your road. The erratic individuals, 
 as you call your weaker sisters, have not strayed 
 from the path ; they have but followed it to 
 the bitter end. You are at the good end. The 
 road is not deserted all the way between you. 
 Probably all intermediate points are thronged. 
 If they are, dream not that your sisters along 
 that highway do no harm besides the bodily 
 injury which they inflict upon themselves. 
 They cannot thus sin against their own bodies 
 without unfitting themselves to fulfil the ends 
 of nature and Divine Providence in their 
 lives; and they cannot wilfully unfit them- 
 
Hobbies. 261 
 
 selves to fulfil the ends of life without either 
 fulfilling those ends ill, at ruinous cost to 
 themselves and to others, or entering into 
 direct conflict with the order of the world 
 and into an impious league with the whole 
 mystery of iniquity to avoid or defeat those 
 ends. And were this not so, is the sad fate 
 of the erratic individuals, who get pictured 
 and dissected for their folly, not sad enough to 
 excite some pity in their noble sisters, and even 
 sad enough to be averted, seeing that it could 
 be averted easily and without loss to anybody? 
 I was taught — and blessed forever be those 
 who taught me — that as long as I indulged in 
 strong drink, whether I suffered any direct 
 harm from it myself or not, I was guilty of the 
 sin and the shame and the sorrow which it 
 brought upon all mankind : and I consented to 
 abandon it, not from any sense of immediate 
 peril to myself, but that I might be free from 
 the blood of all others. For this great lesson, 
 madam, I am indebted chiefly to you ; and you 
 must pardon me if I cannot but think of the 
 appeal of Scripture, — ' Thou therefore which 
 teachest others, teachest thou not thyself ? ' Go, 
 I pray you, and set an example which cannot 
 
262 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 be abused to any one's destruction ; walk in a 
 path which can be safely followed to the very 
 end. " 
 
 " My dear friend, I see that you are in earn- 
 est, and I will excuse this strange outburst of 
 your misguided zeal. But we cannot pursue 
 this most incongruous conversation any further. 
 You will not distinguish between things that 
 are wider apart than the poles. You mix 
 every thing all up. Is your wife pretty well 
 this morning ? " 
 
 " I thank you, my wife is quite well. But 
 permit me to say one word more. I consulted 
 with a number of friends before I came here, 
 and we decided that, if I failed to bring you 
 over to our view of the matter in hand, I was 
 to ask your permission for myself and my 
 friends to come and pray with you on the sub- 
 ject this afternoon." 
 
 " How dare you ! Who ever heard of such a 
 thing ? I thought you were in earnest, though 
 badly confused. But I see that you are only 
 bent on ribaldry, and that you are not afraid 
 even of blasphemy. I hope you will see that you 
 have gone a great deal too far, and that I cannot 
 allow even my friends to trifle with me thus." 
 
Hobbies. 263 
 
 " I am extremely sorry to offend you. But 
 we are all serious even to solemnity. We 
 should shrink as much as yourself, I doubt not, 
 from blasphemy and ribaldry. We are influ- 
 enced solely by earnest convictions ; and we 
 must follow the brave example you gave us. 
 If you will not admit us into the house, we will 
 hold our meeting on the door-steps." 
 
 It is clear what the sequel must be unless 
 the hobbyists meet with some timely disaster. 
 From this meek mission work they will proceed 
 to rough political agitation. They will start a 
 new party, and bray on every stump in the 
 Union; and either they will carry their point 
 at some irresolute moment in the popular 
 mind, and amend the Constitution to suit their 
 notion, or the ladies of the whole land, to save 
 a remnant of their menaced dignity, will antici- 
 pate the calamity, and petition that they may 
 be commanded to pay a little personal tax, and 
 be clothed neatly and comfortably by a public 
 board of health, without any thought or labor 
 of their own. When this reformed system has 
 prevailed a while, and our women have grown 
 robust and powerful, the idea will dawn upon 
 some wakeful minds that the gross bodily 
 
264 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 health growing so prevalent under the new 
 system profiteth little in comparison with per- 
 sonal freedom and the development and occu- 
 pation and satisfaction of the aesthetic nature 
 of women which independence in dress might 
 secure. Health will be too common to inspire 
 any enthusiasm or to point any argument. 
 The new hobby will sweep with hurricane fury 
 along the track of the old, and we shall have all 
 the brilliant, reckless, boundless extravagance 
 of a restoration. 
 
 Thus may hobbies rise at any spot out of the 
 quiet ground at the mere sound of a whistle, 
 like the armed bands of some mountain chief, 
 and brush away our oldest manners and most 
 cherished customs like cobwebs ; and then, 
 with equal zeal and violence, bring them back 
 again, when we have ceased to mourn for them. 
 And thus do we stand in the sorriest plight 
 between our indolent helplessness without the 
 stimulus of the hobbies and our harassed and 
 terrified helplessness in their presence. 
 
 Come what will, however, we cannot repudi- 
 ate the hobbies altogether. They faintly repre- 
 sent true ideas when they disturb and embarrass 
 us the most. They serve some part of the 
 
Hobbies. 265 
 
 infinitely diversified truth and life of the world 
 both when they build and when they pull down. 
 Rather than suppress them, we should, if pos- 
 sible, balance and complete their work. One 
 conceivable and not unpopular way to do this 
 is by fostering " liberty " and bidding it increase 
 and multiply original and forcible individuali- 
 ties to its full capacity ; by summoning to the 
 field new hobbies by the legion, and urging 
 them all to do their utmost in all opposite 
 ways ; by offering prizes for strange hobbies 
 unheard of before, and pressing every man to 
 be as original as possible and to be always 
 striking hard at something or other ; and by 
 cursing bitterly every tranquil Meroz in the 
 land. In the " universal hubbub wild " that 
 we should thus raise, perhaps all ideas would 
 be fittingly represented, and one thing would 
 perfectly balance another, and the jars and dis- 
 cords, if there be but plenty of them, would 
 make one vast music filling the world. 
 
 But if the world is too fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made to be set right and governed by any 
 haphazard activity, or even by any deliberate, 
 preconcerted activity of ours, perhaps it is not 
 left altogether to our management. Our work 
 
266 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 may be quite secondary. Our places and 
 our tasks, and our personal gifts may be as- 
 signed unto us by One who seeth, and sus- 
 taineth, and overruleth all. If we could be 
 sure that it is so, and, especially, if we could 
 know something of the central, governing pur- 
 poses of the supreme mind, we might learn to 
 sympathize and co-operate with the good in 
 every high-minded hobby, and yet hold the 
 general, continuous order of the world too 
 sacred to be lightly disturbed. The Christian 
 faith supplies the assurance and the light we 
 need ; and it brings us into bona-fide sympathy 
 with all humanitarian hobbyists, without sub- 
 jecting us to their limitations. All human 
 ideals, celestial and terrestrial, the serenest 
 and the most revolutionary alike, point to, and 
 are merged in, Christian ideals ; and the Chris- 
 tian ideals are justified, and seriously set forth 
 as practical ends, by the Christian faith. Their 
 full realization is not to be attained in any in- 
 dividual life or in any separate community, it 
 is true, but only in the complete body of 
 Christ, gathered from all ages and climes. Yet 
 the true believer, being a partaker of the life 
 of the body, while he has his own distinct place 
 
Hobbies. 267 
 
 and office to fill, is not to rest satisfied with any 
 thing short of the perfection of the whole. This 
 perfection, certainly, is not to be attained by 
 any outbursts of the wrath of man. The per- 
 fection of mankind is not to be wrought by 
 mankind alone. Not by might, or by power, 
 but by the Spirit of the Lord is the great con- 
 summation to be effected. But the Spirit of 
 the Lord, in this work, operates in and through 
 the spirit of man, quickening and directing it to 
 work out His own glorious and blessed will ; so 
 that the end is reached, after all, no less by the 
 faith and obedience of man than by the power 
 and faithfulness of God. The individual Chris- 
 tian, then, is entrusted and charged, in an im- 
 portant sense, with the realization of the highest 
 Christian ideals. This is his business in the world 
 as a Christian. 
 
 But if the Christian believer accepts this his 
 proper mission, and lives by faith, what manner 
 of man will he be ? Wherein will he differ from 
 a common hobbyist ? He will certainly not be 
 better satisfied with the world as it is. He will 
 not be less at variance with its ordinary spirit 
 and practice. He will not be less frank and out- 
 spoken where he is at variance with the world ; 
 
268 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 and he will not be less scrupulous and uncom- 
 promising in ordering his own steps aright. It 
 is safe to add that he will not be more admired 
 or better liked by the world than the most ordi- 
 nary hobbyist. Woe betide the Christian who 
 is the idol and darling of all men ! He sits un- 
 becomingly high above the chiefest apostles and 
 ominously high above his Master. Woe be also 
 unto the Christian who goes through the world 
 smoothly, the inoffensive, unoffended, undis- 
 turbing, and undisturbed observer of an adulter- 
 ous and sinful generation ! He has lost his 
 savor. If he be a Christian indeed, then is the 
 offence of the cross ceased ; the strait gate is 
 removed, and the narrow way and the broad 
 road are all one. Christ himself was from his 
 birth set for a sign which should be spoken 
 against. He and the children whom the Lord 
 giveth unto him are also for signs and for won- 
 ders in the fair, self-satisfied modern world. 
 
 Yet, the true Christian is most unlike ordi- 
 nary hobbyists. He is not less thorough than 
 they are, but more thorough. They cleanse the 
 outside of the cup and the platter. They re- 
 form laws and customs. He knows that the 
 evil is deeper, even in the hearts of men. He 
 
Hobbies. 269 
 
 has found the root of all evil in his own heart ; 
 and he has found salvation in Christ for himself 
 and for all the world. He has given himself, 
 body, soul, and spirit, to his Saviour. He re- 
 news and confirms the gift day by day, seeking 
 to do all things, the least and the greatest, in 
 the name of the Lord Jesus and according to 
 His will. His whole life is necessarily a witness 
 and a struggle against the evils that are in the 
 world, whatever form they take. But his whole 
 life also, as necessarily, bears witness of the long- 
 suffering and tender mercy and great power 
 and unsearchable wisdom of God : and bearing 
 such witness, he must himself be long-suffering 
 and gentle and hopeful even in dealing with an 
 evil world. A corrupt, unbelieving society can 
 give the reckless hobbies no valid reason why 
 they should spare it. The destroyers mean as 
 well as the victims at least. But earnest, con- 
 sistent Christian believers, if they are anywhere 
 to be found, can reasonably plead for the world 
 that it may be spared until the harvest, and yet 
 labor more abundantly than all the hobbies to 
 gather up the tares and burn them, when that 
 can be done without risking the true crop. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 JUVENAL complained, nearly two thousand 
 years ago, that an incurable itch for writing was 
 taking hold of multitudes in his day. Doubt- 
 less he had seen sorry heaps of literature under 
 the sun. But what if he lived in this nine- 
 teenth century, and knew our mammoth au- 
 thors and publishers ! Would his satire be still 
 more keen, or would the astounding diffusion 
 and vigor of the " itch " at last convince him 
 that it was not a disease at all, but a proper 
 element of human nature, long discouraged and 
 repressed, but now about to win for itself an 
 honorable and secure place ? Almost every as- 
 piration of man has been treated as a pestilence 
 or a crime, and has been nourished by the blood 
 of martyrs. Many better men than Thersites 
 have been pounded black and blue for criticising 
 kings and preparing the way for civil and politi- 
 cal freedom. Others have been burned to cin- 
 
 270 
 
A nt hor ship. 2 7 1 
 
 ders for presuming to take an interest in their 
 own souls. In very recent times, and very near 
 unto us, it has seemed ridiculous and worthy 
 of stripes for men to have an " itch " to call 
 their wives and children and the labor of their 
 hands their own. The desire for political and 
 religious freedom and for civil rights is to-day 
 stronger than ever ; but nobody calls it bad 
 names any more. Now we understand that 
 it was the kings, and the popes, and the petty 
 lordlings, and not the people, that had an unnat- 
 ural itch all the while. But the people have 
 not come to all their own yet. Democracy 
 is to spread its conquests still further. You 
 have already a sovereign voice in the govern- 
 ment of your country, and an open career in 
 its service. You have secure homes and broad 
 lands of your own. You enjoy the long-covet- 
 ed freedom to worship God according to your 
 own consciences. You have inherited blessings 
 which many generations of your forefathers re- 
 joiced but to see very far off. What remains 
 but that the wish of the earliest and noblest of 
 democrats be fulfilled for you, and that all the 
 Lord's people of these States be prophets, and 
 consequently, in the conditions of our time, au- 
 
272 Prejudiced Inqu tries, 
 
 thors ? The popular itch for writing must be 
 vindicated and gratified : and I am here to per- 
 suade every man of you to shake off indolence 
 and unbelief and all fear of arrogant criticism, 
 and to begin at once a life-long career of quiet, 
 brave, diligent authorship. 
 
 You have the materials for the work, in un- 
 imagined abundance, always at hand. The ma- 
 terials for authorship are thoughts ; and who 
 has not thoughts of all forms and colors com- 
 ing and going through his head every moment ? 
 They are your latest guests at night, and the 
 first to greet you with returning day. They 
 follow you to your labor and to your rest, into 
 society and into solitude. They are busy al- 
 ways, and busiest of all when you observe 
 them least. If you could invent a machine 
 to register them as they pass through your 
 minds, you would be astonished at least at 
 the number and variety of them. And yet 
 the thoughts which actually pass through your 
 minds are but the scouts and skirmishers of 
 swarming hordes that press for entrance on 
 every side. Your store of thoughts can never 
 be exhausted or diminished. Your thoughts 
 are not the productions of your own minds, 
 
A u thorsh ip. 273 
 
 They inhabit eternity, and every pulsation of 
 the life of nature wafts them on to you through 
 all things, visible and invisible. Expressing 
 some of them only makes room for others to 
 rush in. The more you use the more you will 
 have in reserve. Never shrink from authorship, 
 then, for lack of materials or for fear of ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 But does not this argument for authorship 
 prove too much, and make out all authorship 
 nugatory and impertinent? If thoughts come, 
 like the glory of the lilies, without toiling or 
 spinning ; if they are, by the course of nature, 
 new every morning and every moment, why 
 should we yet toil and spin for them ? Why 
 not rather be satisfied with every moment's nat- 
 ural supply? Where is the wisdom of making 
 a stagnant pool, with infinite pains, when the 
 living stream runs for ever by your door? 
 True, perhaps, the author will not exhaust his 
 store of thoughts ; but will he not, on the other 
 hand, lose the sweet benefit of the many by 
 engrossing himself with the few, like the erring 
 pair long ago who doted on one fair apple and 
 sacrificed all the pleasant fruits of paradise? If 
 thoughts come spontaneously in endless pro- 
 
2 74 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 cessions, why not let them come, and look on 
 for ever without disturbing the pageantry? 
 Amidst such generous profusion, is not quiet, 
 contented enjoyment the truest thrift, the high- 
 est wisdom, the most natural piety? 
 
 Such questions might have seemed impres- 
 sive in the morning of the world ; but in the 
 ear of old experience they are void. The 
 prodigality of nature is not intended to supply 
 bread and sport for an idle rabble ; and when 
 it is perverted to so base a purpose it becomes 
 a curse. The blessed light of the sun and 
 sweet life itself become weariness and corrup- 
 tion to those who seek merely to enjoy them in 
 unfruitful ease ; and the multitude of your 
 thoughts will be no better than a plague of 
 locusts if you stand idle in the midst of them ; 
 but with attention and manly care on your 
 part, they may become an innumerable com- 
 pany of angels to bring you continually the 
 riches of all the world, and to minister unto 
 others at your bidding. The labors required 
 for this end are severe and manifold ; but 
 earnest, diligent authorship will be auxiliary 
 to them all. 
 
 You want, before all things, to know the 
 
A uthorsh ip. 275 
 
 thoughts which throng about you, especially 
 those which haunt you the most ; and you 
 don't know them at all when you but dimly 
 feel their mysterious presence, and faintly hear 
 their inarticulate mutterings. Unexpressed 
 thoughts are often in a mist, which distorts 
 them into fantastic shapes and magnitudes, 
 and casts a doubtful hue upon their intellectual 
 and moral worth. The pen is Ithuriel's spear 
 that reveals their proper size and quality. All 
 who wield the pen with any force will aid you 
 in this task of discerning- the spirits. Even the 
 most fanatical poets and scribes of the flesh 
 and the devil have done excellent service in 
 setting forth clearly the ruling thoughts of 
 those dread principalities ; thoughts which 
 have often looked in upon you all, and which, 
 perhaps, seemed more or less fair until you saw 
 them adequately expressed. And how good it 
 is to have your better thoughts made plain to 
 you ! It is for this, and not for any ideas pe- 
 culiarly their own, that you love and bless the 
 nobler race of poets. But no poet or prophet 
 can do all this work for you. You must toil at 
 it yourselves. Toil then. Face your thoughts 
 squarely, one by one, and set them forth firmly 
 
276 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 and clearly. If they suffer by the process, you 
 gain. For henceforth, having been condemned 
 by the light, they will not be so bold and im- 
 portunate ; and, still coldly frowned upon, they 
 will retire sullenly to outer darkness, drawing 
 their voluminous train after them, and making 
 room for brighter hosts. But if they are found 
 worthy, you gain still more. For you can then 
 bid them welcome, and invite their frequent re- 
 turn, and at last adopt them as your own. 
 
 The random thoughts which flit in and out 
 at your window are not properly yours. They 
 are strangers and foreigners ; candidates, per- 
 haps, for a place in your household, but still 
 free from any allegiance to you. And the 
 more persistent thoughts which, without your 
 clear approval or condemnation, still loiter 
 about, like the suitors of Penelope, to court 
 and amuse and alarm and devour you by turns, 
 are not your thoughts for any good purpose, 
 though you may be responsible for them. You 
 want your own household, and court, and body- 
 guard, of thoughts which you know and can 
 absolutely trust, through which you can com- 
 municate with the whole universe of thought 
 p.nd do your work in the world, and in whose 
 
A uthorsh ip. 277 
 
 arms you can die contented when your last 
 hour comes. Authorship will be a valuable 
 help, first, to choose your life thoughts, and 
 afterwards to cherish them and use them to 
 advantage* 
 
 Authorship, forsooth ! Then, have all men 
 excepting the talkers and the scribblers, up to 
 this time, been strangers to their own thoughts, 
 and helpless in the midst of them, or without 
 any thoughts to call their own, in life or in 
 death ? Do your greatest authors write their 
 own thoughts merely or the deeds of heroes? 
 Are the divinest poets greater than the heroes 
 whom they celebrate ? Is the herald who pro- 
 claims the victor greater than the victor him- 
 self ? And, leaving out comparisons, have our 
 great writers always, or even generally, been re- 
 markable for discretion and the wise direction 
 of their thoughts to fulfil the noblest ends of 
 life ? Does not authorship manifest and spread 
 a disease, a malignant fever raging at the heart, 
 as often as the seeds of a better life ? Is not 
 our common life, with its tasks and its trials, 
 the true day which declares our thoughts ? 
 And must not the discipline for life be found, 
 and the work of life be done, in life itself 
 
2 78 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 rather than in lucubration and excellency of 
 speech ? 
 
 Yes, the training for life must be found, and 
 the work of life must be done, in life itself. 
 But life itself does not exclude lucubration 
 and excellency of speech. Life itself is not 
 complete without them. The poet and the his- 
 torian have sometimes been pitiful figures in the 
 stress of life for lack of pluck and principle 
 and plain common-sense. But the most puis- 
 sant heroes have also been unnecessarily ridicu- 
 lous frequently for lack of disciplined thought 
 and well-ordered speech. Ajax was the brav- 
 est and strongest of the Greeks after Achilles ; 
 but he is an awkward, inglorious, " beef-witted 
 lord " before the world to this day ; and he is, 
 alas, the head of a numerous tribe. But there 
 have been heroes who were also poets. There 
 have been men who made history, and also un- 
 derstood it and wrote it. One-sidedness is not 
 essential to excellence. It is possible to be et 
 litno insignis et hastd. And in calling upon 
 you to be authors, I do not call upon you to 
 renounce the world and forsake all that you 
 have and be wholly absorbed in this one pur- 
 suit. I call upon you to adorn and solace and 
 
Authorship. 279 
 
 complete your life by adding this accomplish- 
 ment to your other occupations. I do not 
 even cast any slur upon the memory of the 
 fathers who never in their lives put pen to 
 paper. They lived in another world — in a 
 world where men had ears to hear and leisure 
 for real conversation. They poured forth vol- 
 ume after volume upon their own hearth-stone 
 and by the wayside. But now men's ears are 
 sealed up, and what was once committed to 
 living men and women, must be entrusted to 
 faithful sheets or to the idle winds ; and, on 
 the whole, we must prefer the former. You 
 are to write, not that you may be better than 
 your fathers — though that would in no way be 
 blameworthy, — but that you may not sink into 
 an inarticulate or monosyllabic habit altogether 
 unknown to them. 
 
 But if everybody writes, who will read ? So 
 we may ask, if everybody plants potatoes, who 
 will go to the store to buy potatoes? If it is 
 in every way convenient and profitable for you 
 to plant potatoes, you will not abstain from 
 planting them simply for the sake of patron- 
 izing the potatoes in the store ; and, assur- 
 edly, if you do grow your own vegetables, you 
 
280 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 will not supply your table with cost and trou- 
 ble from the distant store, and leave your own 
 crop in the ground or in the cellar. Now, it is 
 perfectly convenient and very profitable for you 
 to think, and also to bring your thoughts to the 
 full, plump ripeness of language ; and it is nei- 
 ther modesty nor generosity, but mere folly to 
 go further in search of thoughts that will rot at 
 your own door unless you gather them. You 
 have a duty towards the thoughts of other peo- 
 ple. It is your duty and privilege to hearken 
 most reverently to the rare spirits who can 
 speak unto you as from heaven. It is 
 your plain duty also to listen patiently and 
 cheerfully to very slim thoughts in your family, 
 and in society, and in church sometimes, and 
 especially in your own Backwoods Lecture- 
 room. But when you come, as many of you 
 do, to smother your own rising thoughts, and 
 to pay out time and money to bring the com- 
 monest mortals from their graves and from all 
 their natural hiding-places to stuff you by day 
 and by night with thoughts more prosy and un- 
 wholesome than your own murdered innocents, 
 it is time for some one to protest ; and I hereby 
 make my protest, and invite you to turn from 
 
A nt hor ship. 2 8 1 
 
 your dissolute mental habits to a steady career 
 of earnest, independent authorship. 
 
 But would not the devoted study of great 
 authors be a better remedy? And is not the 
 production of a commonplace literature about 
 as unprofitable an employment as the reading 
 of it? A distinguished living author says: 
 " There are few thoughts likely to come 
 across ordinary men which have not already 
 been expressed by greater men in the best pos- 
 sible way ; and it is a wiser, more generous, more 
 noble thing to remember and point out the per- 
 fect words than to invent poorer ones where- 
 with to encumber temporarily the world." 
 One of the " greater men " licensed to speak 
 says all that, but we can hardly accept it as 
 the final answer to the question before us. 
 
 In the first place, men so tame and subdued as 
 to be able to delegate the expression of all their 
 best thoughts to others, and to " point out " 
 words, even though they be perfect words, 
 instead of speaking directly from a full and 
 living heart, have not the stuff in them to 
 make even readers of the truly great. It is 
 those in whom the fire burns, and who, when 
 occasion calls, will speak with the tongue, and 
 
282 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 with the pen also, though at the risk of encum- 
 bering the world temporarily or even forever, 
 that make the true readers of great books. The 
 best thinker and writer you can find is also the 
 best reader, though not the most voracious. 
 Ripe or ripening thought will seek converse 
 with its kind, and will be quick to recognize 
 and do homage to excellence. 
 
 In the second place, works of genius, read, 
 marked, and inwardly digested, will inevitably 
 urge the student to further thought and ex- 
 pression. Great thoughts cannot be billeted 
 on the mind to consume its substance and 
 overawe its movements. It is the nature of 
 thought to awaken thought ; and it is the na- 
 ture of awakened thought to demand and find 
 expression. Thus the supposed substitute for 
 common authorship requires the energies of 
 authorship in the popular mind before it will 
 work, and, when it is set agoing, leads to more 
 and more authorship as its direct result. Great 
 authors are valuable as they make authors as 
 well as men of their readers ; and readers are 
 worthy as they not only walk in the light 
 which they receive but also kindle their own 
 torches and pass the light onward. 
 
A uthorsh ift. 283 
 
 Is the great movement of democracy, then, 
 to abolish intellectual property, and to conse- 
 crate plagiarism as well as the cacoetJies scrib- 
 endi ? Yes, plagiarism, if that is the word for 
 the free appropriation of all available thought, 
 is one of the rights of man. If you object to 
 have your thought freely used, keep it to your- 
 self. The law of literature is the old law of 
 Sparta. Stealing is lawful, and praiseworthy, 
 and necessary ; but to be caught stealing or 
 harboring stolen goods is a crime and a dis- 
 grace. In fact, this is the law of nature as 
 well as of Sparta. All the trees of the forest, 
 and all the flowers of the field, live by stealing 
 from the soil and the atmosphere ; but the 
 stealing is so deftly done that the despoiled 
 powers cannot hope to identify their property. 
 The pilfered stuff has become tree and flower. 
 So it is, and so let it be, in literature. Pillage 
 the wide world. Enrich yourself with the 
 spoils of all time. Steal all you can find, only 
 do not steal rubbish, and do not steal feebly 
 and clumsily like an idiot. Put Homer and 
 Plato boldly in your book ; but do not let 
 them put on airs and talk Greek in English. 
 Subdue them, and subdue all, to your own will 
 
284 Prejudiced Inqu tries. 
 
 and purpose. Chew them down, take them 
 into your very blood, let them be absorbed 
 and lost in your own life, or you will be but a 
 poor demoniac, foaming, and pining, and pos- 
 sessed by incoherent legions. 
 
 But works of genius make authors, not only 
 by supplying rich materials for reproduction, 
 but also by stimulating and kindling the minds 
 of their readers often to such a degree that the 
 fervent heat would dissolve any thing into 
 workable material. 
 
 If the very objections to common authorship 
 thus declare in its favor, if the curse to be pro- 
 nounced against it turn to a blessing in the 
 prophet's mouth, you may well foresee the end 
 and prepare for it. But what preparations can 
 you make ? Favored individuals may be trained 
 for authorship at the great schools ; and they 
 may live all their days in learned leisure and in 
 the society of the wise, whether in studious 
 cloisters or in some inspiring Arcadia of pleas- 
 ant fields and murmuring streams. They may 
 well produce great works. But what can be 
 done amid the distractions and limitations of 
 common life ? Every thing that is worth doing. 
 The groves of Academe and the backwoods of 
 
Authorship. 285 
 
 Pennsylvania are much alike to the living 
 mind : and Urania, descending from heaven, 
 alights at the sheep-cote, and behind the plough 
 upon the mountain side, as willingly as on the 
 classic banks of Cam or Isis. The so-called dis- 
 tractions of common life are but its opportuni- 
 ties. The chief limitations of the mind are not 
 matters of external condition. The most mo- 
 mentous and inexorable of them all is " that 
 order in nature's works whereby all things pro- 
 duce their like." The mind, in every condition, 
 will produce fruit according to its kind, and its 
 kind is determined, not by circumstances, but 
 partly by the Creator and partly by the man 
 himself. So far as the mind is the work of 
 God, its fruit will be a legitimate and becoming 
 variety in nature. It may be unlike the recog- 
 nized productions of any known school. It 
 may be neither poetry nor prose according to 
 accepted canons and prevailing tastes. But it 
 is sent into the world, and honorable room 
 must be found for it. If it belongs to no 
 school known, it founds a new one of the most 
 exclusive description. 
 
 The necessary limitations of the mind, then, 
 are no worse than the fences and ditches which 
 
286 PreJ7tdiced Inquiries. 
 
 shut way-farers out from the open fields only to 
 secure and hasten their destined journey. The 
 disastrous limitations are those which men, in a 
 more or less direct manner, impose upon them- 
 selves, as, for instance, through indolence, or 
 levity, or unbelief : and your first and greatest 
 task, in a worthy career of authorship, will be 
 to slay these hideous dragons that beset your 
 mind's paths. The task is all the more serious 
 because the monsters have learned to wear the 
 attire and put on the airs of the Graces and of 
 the Muses themselves. What jargon have you 
 not heard about art for art's sake, about the 
 non-moral character of poetry, about the abso- 
 lute freedom of thought, and so forth ? Has 
 art, or poetry, or thought, or have they all to- 
 gether, rented a chamber in the human mind 
 to carry on some business of their own unre- 
 lated to man's life ? Nay, they have to do 
 wholly with man's life ; and man is himself the 
 artist, the poet, and the thinker. But man is 
 nothing if not a reasonable creature with wise, 
 serious moral purpose, with deep spiritual aspi- 
 rations, and with responsibilities not to be 
 evaded ; which purpose and aspirations and 
 responsibilities, in the progress of the race, 
 
A tit hor ship. 287 
 
 necessarily assume some fixed and ascertain- 
 able forms, which must be held sacred by the 
 soul of every man and by all that is within 
 him. Your work, as authors, if severed from 
 these essential characteristics of human nature, 
 may be useful as new disclosures of some of 
 the depths of Satan, but otherwise can be of 
 little account to mankind. Your first care 
 should be that your minds are human minds, 
 rich and strong in the properly human life, and 
 as distinct as possible from the beasts of the 
 field and the birds of the air, and from the 
 daintiest irresponsible spirit ever conceived, 
 though it should leave even the delicate Ariel 
 far behind. Deal with your minds faithfully in 
 this respect, and then give them full freedom. 
 
 Be not discouraged if, at first, they fail to 
 respond to your call, or if your most desirable 
 thoughts desert you just when you particularly 
 need them. Catching your best thoughts is 
 sometimes as hard a matter as shooting crows. 
 Go among the crows with a loaded gun and a 
 deadly purpose, and they all know you to be 
 an untrustworthy person. There are plenty of 
 them about ; but they all seem to have urgent 
 business in every direction away out of your 
 
288 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 range. Leave your gun at home, or let it be 
 unloaded, and every crow will recognize you as 
 a man of peace, and will cross your path time 
 and again and stare and scream confidingly in 
 your face. Just so, if you parade your literary 
 purposes too much, your choicest thoughts 
 may take the alarm ; the choicest are almost 
 always the shyest. You must often go among 
 your thoughts unofficially, without pen or pa- 
 per. Walk familiarly among them in the fields 
 and the woods. Watch them quietly when 
 they are off their guard. After a while they 
 will get used to your scrutiny, and they will 
 troop about you even in your study. Then 
 you can sit down at your desk, and hold out to 
 them any reasonable subject you choose, and 
 they will fly to it as doves to their windows. 
 
 But they will not do your work for you. 
 They only bring you work ; and the more 
 numerous they are, all the harder will your 
 task be. When a man has but one idea, he 
 ought to be able to dress it charmingly and 
 place it properly, as people generally dress and 
 place an only child ; but when thoughts rush 
 in upon you like a flood, it takes much patient 
 toil to provide for them. Some authors, when 
 
Authorship. 289 
 
 they discover this, grow desperate, and apply 
 Malthusian principles to their thoughts and 
 impose barrenness upon themselves to save 
 trouble. But that is unnatural. Toil for your 
 thought is as sweet as toil for wife or child or 
 fatherland. Be careful, however, not to waste 
 all your labor. Labor for thought, as for wife 
 and children, is very often wildly misapplied 
 and lost. The main rules to avoid throwing 
 toil away in authorship are very simple. 
 
 First, please yourself. Do not work up 
 painfully to a conventional standard, in which 
 you can see no comeliness, and do not work 
 doggedly and slovenly without any standard 
 at all. Have a standard, clearly understood, 
 and as high as possible ; but let it be one which 
 stirs and attracts you. Work hard ; but work 
 so that you can sing at your task and crow a 
 little when it is done, not in the vain conceit of 
 one who would put " two marks of admiration 
 at the end of each line as hieroglyphics of the 
 author's admiration of his own cleverness," but 
 in the simple, natural delight of one who has 
 faithfully exercised a true gift. Let your toil 
 and your delight embrace the whole of your 
 work, and also be distributed if possible over 
 
290 Prejudiced Inquiries. 
 
 every part. Be a gentle, devoted lover of 
 sentences ; but do not dawdle foolishly with 
 them and forget the chapter and the book. If 
 the sentences are very refractory, be stern with 
 them ; strip them naked of all finery, lest they 
 mock your magnificence ; walk firmly on their 
 prostrate bodies till you are out of the difficulty. 
 But however you fare with the sentence, let the 
 whole piece, whatever it be, command your 
 respect at least, your love if possible. 
 
 Secondly, — not first, remember, but secondly, 
 having pleased yourself, please others. In urg- 
 ing you all to become authors, I did not promise 
 to find readers for you, and I do not promise 
 now. The work is worth doing, readers or no 
 readers. But for your own sake, and for the sake 
 of your work, you must do it in such a way that, 
 if any human beings should chance to light upon 
 it, they may smile kindly and own that it was 
 not amiss to lift it for a brief moment from 
 endless oblivion. Their pleasure need not be 
 great ; it need not be nearly as great as yours ; 
 but there must be a gentle ripple raised in their 
 minds or your work is not done as well as it 
 should be. Worthy thoughts are not fittingly 
 expressed unless they give pleasure as they 
 
A uthorship. 291 
 
 enter another mind. Truth may be arrayed 
 in splendor or in simplicity ; but to huddle it 
 in mean rags that make men turn away from it 
 is to wrong its noble nature. 
 
 To secure yourselves on this capital point, 
 study the people round about you, and work as 
 if for their special benefit. Do not write a line 
 for posterity, or for an imaginary public, made 
 up of giants eight feet high. Make your own 
 home the centre of mankind, and aim at the 
 world through your nearest neighbors. But 
 they are common people — hopelessly common, 
 are they? That is all the better for you. 
 Most men are common people. Posterity will 
 be common people too. The giants are dead 
 and have left no seed. Behind your common- 
 place neighbors, stretching out through space 
 and time, are the myriads of mankind now 
 living and yet to be. If you, with simple, 
 honest thought, and without sacrificing your 
 own judgment or taste, can gladden and govern, 
 for a single hour, the common people at your 
 door, I would rather be in your shoes than 
 in Robert Browning's. It is well enough to 
 be able to entertain and instruct the ac- 
 complished few, — to dine late with a picked 
 
292 Prejudiced Inquiries, 
 
 company, as Landor expected to do. But if you 
 can have the same viands, or viands just as 
 good, it is surely better to dine at a reasonable 
 hour with all the cheery multitude. 
 
 Address your commonest neighbors then ; 
 but do not make them commoner than they 
 are. Do not address them as Tom, Dick, and 
 Harry, — as atoms and fragments. Call them, 
 Men, Brethern, and Fathers. Address them as 
 Friends, Americans, Countrymen. Do not 
 allow the accidental limitations, which make 
 them seem paltry, to conceal from you the 
 substantial life and august relations which 
 make them great, and which would stir the 
 prophetic heart of real genius in your com- 
 munity as readily as in ancient Rome or 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 While striving up to your own ideal with 
 perfect freedom, and while addressing the com- 
 mon mind and heart of mankind as represented 
 in your nearest neighbors, work " as ever in the 
 Great Task-Master's eye," who delights in all 
 His works, and who is indifferent to no perfec- 
 tion or endeavor of man which does not con- 
 travene the highest. When we have offered to 
 Him first a broken, contrite heart, He will not 
 
Authorship. 293 
 
 disdain whatever else we may have to bring; 
 whether it be the fruit of the ground that we 
 have tilled, or the firstlings of the flocks that 
 we have tended ; whether it be gold and frank- 
 incense and myrrh, or the cherished thoughts 
 and ordered speech of a loyal mind. When 
 we trust Him entirely, we can not only worship 
 and adore, but also do our common work and 
 even dance and play, before His face, and lift 
 up our whole complex nature to His light. 
 Make Him your patron, then, as well as 
 your Lord. Spread out all your work, as a 
 psalm, before Him— the lightest as well as the 
 gravest : and so, without constraint or repres- 
 sion, bring a new measure into the multitude 
 of your thoughts ; and escape at once from the 
 fever of vain ambition and from the defiant 
 cheerlessness of self-sufficiency. 
 



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