■i n 
 
 ■I 
 
 IHHH 
 
 HBra 
 
 Rhh 
 
 ■ 
 
 >:!ih(;.'B» SI 
 
 w 
 
 m 
 
 ■ !i Mil'i 
 
 mi 
 
 IlHi 
 
 ■ ■ Us IB 
 
 
 
>% " ^-\ 
 
 \0 
 
 x s 
 
 ,0 O. 
 
 ■ 
 
 V 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 / % 
 
 
 
 
 ^ "> 
 
 
 ^ ~ fr K 
 
 ++ 
 
 
 : 
 
 
 V 
 
 'J 1 , A xX 
 
 '% / '% ^ 
 
 
 
 * .A 
 
 
 •V* 
 
 s % % 
 
 
 .^ .' 
 
 
 >^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 ++/< 
 
 x ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 •v * 
 
 
 
 Oo 
 
 ^ v 
 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 *< 
 
 
 

 X ^. 
 
 Q- '- 
 
 ^ 
 
 * v. o> -0' \ - 
 
 4 ^. 
 
 
 
PLAIN TALKS 
 
 FAMILIAR SUBJECTS 
 
 SERIES OF POPULAR LECTURES. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. G. HOLLAND 
 
 FIFTEENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 SCRIBNER,, ARMSTRONG & CO., 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 
 
 654 BROADWAY. 
 1872. 
 

 *v Transfer 
 Jim 6 1*0? 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United State* for fcha 
 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
SHme ^ttinxn 
 
 ARE DEDICATED 
 
 TO THOSE 
 
 FOR WHOM THEY WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OE THE 
 
 LYCEUMS AND LE C TUBE ASS 00 IATI X8 
 
 UNITED STATES, 
 
c*% 
 
 ^/r 
 
 «4 
 
 
 
 
 PEEFAOE 
 
 Evert accepted speaker before the lecture-asso- 
 ciations of the country hears the frequent expres- 
 sion of a wish, on the part of his audiences, to secure 
 in type the utterances of his tongue. My own ex- 
 perience in this respect has not been exceptional ; 
 and, in publishing this volume of lectures, I fulfil a 
 promise repeatedly made to those who have heard 
 them from the platform. It seems legitimate to con- 
 clude that that is not valueless on the printed page 
 which has been received with favor by many audien- 
 ces, in nearly every Northern State of the Union. 
 I am sure it will revive some pleasant memories ; 
 and I hope it may renew some useful impressions. 
 
 These lectures have been written at different 
 periods during the last six or seven years. These 
 years have been eventful ones in American history ; 
 
Preface. 
 
 and they have given point and coloring to much 
 that the volume contains. It has not been deemed 
 desirable to introduce changes in the text, in order 
 to adapt it to altered times and circumstances, or to 
 append notes explanatory of incidents and events 
 that have retired from the field of current interest 
 into history. Such lectures as bear the stamp of 
 any time bear the stamp of their own time, and 
 sufficiently explain themselves. 
 
 J. G. H. 
 
 Speingfield, Mass., July, 1S66- 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGI 
 
 I. — Self-Help, . .... 9 
 
 IL— Fashion, 48 
 
 III.— Work and Play, 82 
 
 IT. — Working and Shirking 119 
 
 V. — High Life and Low Life, . . , 156 
 
 VI. — The National Heart, 195 
 
 VII. — Cost and Compensation, 233 
 
 VTH. — Art and Life, 271 
 
 IX. — The Popular Lecture, 309 
 
SELF-HELP. 
 
 THE power of self-help — the power that sits be« 
 hind, or sits above, all other human powers — the 
 motive force of progress — the mother element of his- 
 tory — is, perhaps, the most interesting and the most 
 wonderful to which we can turn our attention. In it 
 abide the germs of all individual growth and develop- 
 ment. Of it are born all the facts and all the pheno- 
 mena of human civilization. 
 
 It is this power which distinguishes man among, or 
 from, animals. Curious philosophers have variously 
 characterized man as a laughing animal, a talking ani- 
 mal, a reasoning animal ; but the functions upon which 
 these distinctions are based can hardly be deemed 
 radically characteristic ; for all animals laugh, and talk, 
 and reason, in their own way. The power of self-help, 
 nowever, cannot be predicated of any animal but man 
 — the power to conceive and achieve a higher, better, and 
 rationally more desirable character and condition than 
 1* 
 
10 Self-Help. 
 
 he possesses. It is not a development of the animal 
 life at all, but stands above it — stands upon it — and 
 lifts the hand by which man links himself in alliance 
 with God and the angels. All art, all science, all agen- 
 cies that give man power over nature and over his own 
 destiny, all civilizing forces whatsoever, are emanations 
 of this power. All inspirations from above are ad- 
 dressed to it. All ambitions have root in it. All emu- 
 lations are suggested and supported by it. It is the 
 main-spring which moves the wheels of the world's 
 industry. It is, in short, the characteristic power of 
 man, and that which crowns him with divine possibili- 
 ties. 
 
 This faculty of self-help, then — this power of build* 
 ing exalted ideals of life and character, and of realizing 
 those ideals by self-elevation to them and into them — 
 the power of voluntary development in the individual 
 and of civilization in society, is that which distinguishes 
 man from all the forms of life we know. It would be 
 delightful to devote the hour to a historical and philo- 
 sophical consideration of this characteristic power of 
 man. It would be pleasant to draw from biography 
 \nd from history illustrations of its operation, because 
 the grateful task would be simply to sketch the story 
 of the progress of mankind. "We should see how im- 
 pulsive childhood has, by the inborn power of self-help, 
 visen into rational manhood; — how rude barbarism has, 
 
Self-Help. 11 
 
 by its patient hands, climbed slowly up the centuries 
 into civilization — how it has constructed and used, and 
 destroyed and reorganized, institutions — how Chris- 
 tianity itself came down to meet and aid it, and to join 
 hands with it for the world's regeneration. But our 
 discussion will take a lower and more practical range. 
 
 You are aware that, for the past twenty or twenty- 
 five years, there has been a great deal of talk about 
 self-help, self-culture, self-discipline, and self-made men. 
 The young, and particularly those who have had little 
 to do w T ith the schools, have been addressed through 
 ingeniously written biographies, through anecdotes of 
 humble men who have risen in the world, through 
 proverbs, maxims, exhortations, and appeals in prose 
 and verse — every imaginable thing, indeed, adapted to 
 reach and rouse unlettered ambition. In all the teach- 
 ings on this subject there has been a measure of truth, 
 and always, perhaps, a laudable motive ; but it con- 
 tains so much of falsehood — it has led so many men 
 into fatal mistakes — it is so mischievous in the social, 
 political, and professional life of this country — that the 
 time is fully come when the public thought should be 
 critically directed to it. 
 
 We have had, and we now have, a cla^s of writers 
 whose avowed purpose it is to stimulate the humble to 
 rise in the world, — not to rise into manly excellence in 
 their own sphere ; but, irrespective of their tastes and 
 
12 Self-Help. 
 
 talents, to rise out of their sphere. Biographies of 
 men of genius are written with the direct intent to 
 excite the whole class out of which these exceptional 
 men sprang into an imitation of their efforts. Here 
 and there, doubtless, some worthy nature gets encour* 
 agement from these narratives ; but the general effect 
 is to start young men into courses of life, and lead 
 them to the adoption of callings and professions, to 
 which the^ have no natural adaptation. 
 
 The lesson of the lives of these men is not left to 
 be gathered by the common sense of their readers ; 
 but the biographies are written for the sake of the 
 lesson, and, of course, the lesson is pointedly shaped to 
 its purpose. The idea kept prominently uppermost in 
 these biographies, as in all the teachings of their 
 writers, is, that a man may be anything that he 
 chooses to become ; that will, determination, purpose, 
 labor, perseverance, will accomplish anything — all true 
 with relation to some men, and all false with relation 
 to the majority of men. The effect of this upon bright 
 men, who have sense enough to see what kind of a life 
 they are adapted to, and who do not need the stimulus 
 which works like these are calculated to supply, is, of 
 course, not bad ; but the stupid, the weak, the obtuse, 
 the slow, are those generally who read the books, and 
 who are influenced by them into a life for which thev 
 bave no natural fitness. 
 
Self-Help. 13 
 
 Let us, for a moment, look at some of the maxima 
 which these biographies are intended to illustrate, and 
 which are in frequent use themselves. " Where there's 
 a will there's a way " — one of the largest lies ever 
 palmed off upon credulous humanity. Everybody haa 
 a will to be rich ; but there is no way for everybody to 
 be rich ; there is no way for one man in ten to be rich. 
 1 suppose that at least a thousand men have a will to 
 become President of the United States ; but there is 
 no way for one in five hundred of them to achieve the 
 object of his ambition. There is a pretty universal 
 will for social or political distinction ; but the laudable 
 ways of obtaining it are not many nor easy. 
 
 " Labor conquers all things " — another lie, as it is 
 accepted and used. The power of the laborer must be 
 equal to the power required by his task, or his labor 
 will conquer nothing. Set an ass to carry an ele- 
 phant's burden, and his back will be broken. The 
 man of few brains cannot do the work of the man of 
 many brains. Labor may read many books, without 
 conquering one of them. Labor may read Shakspere ; 
 but labor alone did not write Shakspere, and labor 
 alone, without Shakspere's brains, can never equal him. 
 
 " Nothing is impossible to him who wills " — a sen- 
 tence of Mr. Emerson's, I think, though only a repe- 
 tition of a Chinese maxim, and about as true as we 
 should naturally suppose a Chinese maxim would be. 
 
Self-Help. 
 
 Now these maxims, and the biographies and anec* 
 dotes which are written to illustrate and enforce them, 
 all say to the boy and the young man this : " You can 
 make of yourself anything you may choose to make. 
 To become a great preacher, or a great lawyer, or a 
 great physician, or a great financier, or a great states- 
 man, all that it is necessary for you to do is to will, to 
 labor, and to persevere." Like the accommodating 
 showman, who was inquired of as to which might be 
 the kangaroo and which the hyena in his collection, 
 they say : " Yichever you please, gentlemen ; you pays 
 your money and you takes your choice." All they 
 have to do is to pay the requisite amount of labor, and 
 the key of destiny will be placed in their hands. 
 
 It is under spurs like, these that multitudes of men 
 come up, and enter into walks of life for which they 
 nave no natural fitness. Victims of the false ideas pro- 
 mulgated upon this subject may be counted by thou- 
 sands in this country — disappointed men — unqualified 
 for the posts they have patiently and faithfully labored 
 to reach and fill, and spoiled for the range of life in 
 which they naturally belonged. 
 
 But, before I go further in this direction, I have 
 another matter to discuss, which may be introduced by 
 the proposition that every well-made man is a self-made 
 man. It matters not whether he rise from vulgar pov- 
 erty, or vulgar riches ; whether Lis roots be planted in 
 
Self-Help. 15 
 
 high or in humble life ; whether he have the advan- 
 tage of books and preceptors, or whether he acquire 
 his education by direct contact with facts and things ; 
 whether he be a day-laborer in the garden of his neigh- 
 bor, or a life-laborer in the vineyard of his Lord ; if he 
 be a well-made man, he is always a self-made man. 
 
 I mean, by this, that there is no instituted process 
 by which a true manhood may be manufactured ; that 
 there is no educational mill which takes in boys and 
 turns out men ; that all who become men of power 
 reach their estate by the same self-mastery, the same 
 self-adjustment to circumstances, the same voluntary 
 exercise and discipline of their faculties, and the same 
 working of their life up to, and into, their high ideals 
 of life. 
 
 The popular notion is, that only he is a self-made 
 man who, without the aid of schools, or the regular 
 processes of education, arrives at excellence in knowl- 
 edge, or who, without the advantages of wealth and 
 culture, achieves high position. 
 
 The self-made man is thus, in the popular apprehen- 
 sion, a remarkable man — a most honorable and worthy 
 exception to the general rule. A day-laborer, for in- 
 stance, acquires in the intervals of his toil a score of 
 languages, and he is dubbed a self-made man, though 
 his acquisitions may be useless to the community in 
 which he lives, and an absolute disadvantage to him 
 
16 Self-Help. 
 
 self and his family. A man by craft, and cunning, and 
 miserly meanness, may come up from some low place, 
 and acquire wealth, and, through wealth, influence ; 
 and straightway people will speak of him as a self- 
 made man. A vulgar wretch, s by the arts of the dema- 
 gogue — by chicanery, and duplicity, and bribery — may 
 arrive at place and power; and he will always find 
 toadies and tools enough around him to glorify him as 
 a self-made man. A peculiar honor seems to be at- 
 tached to such men as these, as if whatever they might 
 do were more remarkable and creditable than if done 
 by others. The music of a corn-stalk fiddle or a pump- 
 kin trumpet may not be overwhelmingly ravishing in 
 itself ; but we are expected to admire it, because corn- 
 stalks and pumpkin-vines are not materials usually drawn 
 upon for the manufacture of musical instruments. 
 
 Of self-made men like these, the high places of this 
 country are. shamefully full to-day ; but the majority of 
 them are not self-made men at all. We have self-made 
 governors, self-made members of Congress, self-made 
 preachers, doctors, and lawyers ; self-made sheriffs and 
 justices ; self-made mayors and aldermen ; self-made 
 scoundrels and self-made noodles of various denomina- 
 tions ; but self-made men are by no means so plenty. 
 It would not be safe to predicate genuine manhood of 
 every person who rises from poverty to wealth, or who 
 lifts himself from common life to positions of influence 
 
Self-Help. 17 
 
 and power. It might bring us into relations which 
 would damage both our comfort and our character, 
 even should we be so fortunate as to escape with our 
 pocket-handkerchiefs and watches. 
 
 Though the popular idea of self-made men includes 
 all the classes which have been alluded to, it is applied 
 in a better sense, and more particularly, to those who 
 have arrived at learning and legitimate personal power 
 without the aid of schools. These are called self- 
 made men to distinguish them from college-made men, 
 or " university-men." It would not be difficult to 
 select two men, of equal and similar natural gifts, 
 representatives respectively of these two classes, work- 
 ing side by side in life, and illustrating the difference 
 in the temper and quality of their manhood. It w r ould 
 not be difficult to see why the man who educates him- 
 self, without the aid of professional preceptors, always 
 surpasses in personal power him who is simply a col- 
 lege-made man. 
 
 Now let me be understood with relation to what 
 — for the purposes of this discussion — I call a college- 
 made man. Let me first repeat the proposition that all 
 well-made men are self-made men; and now let me 
 say that the majority of self-made men are men who 
 have had a "liberal education." A strictly college- 
 made man is one who has adopted and obeyed the 
 arbitrary and undiscriminating laws of the schools tbi 
 
8 Self-Help. 
 
 his development ; who has submitted himself, with his 
 fellows, to all the prescribed processes ; who has swal- 
 lowed, without a question, the food prepared alike for 
 him and them, and who has gone to the work of hia 
 life without a particle of training addressed to hia 
 special individuality, or without the slightest knowl- 
 edge of the relations of his individuality to the world 
 of life upon which he has undertaken to exercise his 
 power. Such are the men who pray by rote and 
 preach by rule; whose individual personal power is 
 absolutely nothing ; who are simply tolerated as neces- 
 sary and cheaply-procured parts of ecclesiastical ma- 
 chinery. Such are the men who make mockery of law ; 
 who hold principles subject to precedents, and who 
 forget justice in their blind worship of words and 
 forms and phrases. Such are the men who prescribe 
 the name of a drug for the name of a disease, and who 
 lay down the lives of their neighbors, and would possi- 
 bly be willing to lay down their owd, rather than de- 
 part from their old, unreasoning routine. 
 
 Such as these I call college-made men, in contradis- 
 tinction from self-made men. Both from college and 
 from the world outside, noble, self-made men arise — 
 men who know their own individual powers ; who in- 
 telligently select the nutriment which those powers 
 demand ; who understand the relations of their indi- 
 viduality to the life of the world ; who place them- 
 
Self-Helo. 19 
 
 selves in contact with facts and affairs, and who, with 
 an ideal of excellence before them, which their own 
 imaginations have builded, build themselves up to it, 
 and into it. Such are the men who elect, appropriate, 
 and assimilate, from the wide variety of food presented 
 to them, that which will nourish them, whether it come 
 from the intellectual commons of college-life, prepared 
 and presented by the accredited professional cooks, or 
 whether it be hunted down in the wilderness, and eaten 
 by the wayside. 
 
 The prominent characteristic of self-made men is 
 individuality — a quality never characteristic of college- 
 made men. When I say this, I beg you to keep in 
 mind the vital distinction between these two classes 
 which I have endeavored to define, and the fact that 
 self-made men come more frequently from the college 
 than from the world outside. In any process of train- 
 ing to which they may be subjected, they never allow 
 their self-hood to be crushed. They take in that which 
 they need ; they reject that which they do not need — 
 that which bears no relation to their individuality. 
 They make themselves, and are not made by others — 
 that is, they voluntarily bring their powers up to the 
 work which they see themselves adapted to do ; they 
 feed themselves with relation to their work; they 
 grow from the centre, and organize as they grow ; and 
 all the efforts of their life go out on the lines of the 
 
20 Self-Help. 
 
 relations of their individuality to the world and its 
 affairs. 
 
 Power, in its quality and degree, is the measure of 
 manhood. Scholarship, save by accident, is never the 
 measure of a man's power. It may be inferior to his 
 power ; it may be greater than his power ; it may exist 
 unaccompanied by power at all, as it does in all who 
 are simply college-made. All the positive, progressive 
 thinking and work of this world, are done by self-made 
 men. The life of these men may pass through college- 
 made men — considerably diluted — using them for ve- 
 hicles, and thus become indefinitely diffusive and effect- 
 ive ; but all positive human power abides in and pro- 
 ceeds from those self-nourished, self-sustained, self- 
 educated, self-trained souls that place themselves in 
 vital contact with the things of God and man, and 
 organize and use them according to their respective 
 individualities. 
 
 College-made men can tell what they have learned 
 by measure. ' They can be called up and made to de- 
 liver thoughts upon any given subject by platoons. 
 They have profound reverence for authority. They 
 are always loyal partisans. They contentedly abide 
 within the precincts of creeds. Pure scholarship is 
 always conservative. It clings to, and loves to become 
 the ornament of, dominant institutions, and is ever 
 timid of change. It swims easily along the currect of 
 
Self-Help. 21 
 
 peaceful life, but shrinks from emergencies, and shirks 
 the work of revolutions. It does not know how to 
 deal with new questions. It has no vital, sympathetic 
 connection with the life of the world ; and shuts its 
 ears to the din, and its eyes to the dust, of its con- 
 flicts. It is too often a dead-weight upon social and 
 political reforms. Its life is a borrowed and specific 
 life, and has no power of self-adjustment to the shifting 
 circumstances of a world of change, and the constantly 
 new developments of a progressive age and race. It 
 lives in, and upon, the past ; and draws neither motive 
 from the present nor inspiration from the future. 
 
 College-made men are very fine ornamental-men- - 
 very good things to have for celebrations and occasions 
 of show. They excel in contributions to family news- 
 papers. They collate excellent school-books. They 
 preach unexceptionable sermons to very exceptional 
 people, and reverently put off their shoes among those 
 who have the reputation of tender corns. The self- 
 made men of the world — self-made in college or out of 
 college — may be very rough men — men who will shock 
 your prejudices, and offend your notions of propriety, 
 and scare you by their innovations, and horrify you by 
 their lack of reverence for great names and venerable 
 conventions and institutions ; but they are the only 
 men whose productions will possess permanent attrac* 
 tions for you. They are the only men who can feed 
 
22 Self-Help 
 
 and stimulate and move you, and satisfy the cravings 
 of your nature. They have original power ; they pos- 
 sess individuality : and the only fresh things introduced 
 into the world, from year to year, and from generation 
 to generation, are borne by the hand of individuality. 
 
 Having exhibited my idea of the self-made, as con 
 tradistinguished from the college-made, man, I am ready 
 to make the proposition that every man's natural or- 
 ganization is adapted to the fulfilment of a certain 
 office in the world. In making this proposition, I only 
 say that God gives every man individuality of constitu- 
 tion, and a chance for achieving individuality of char- 
 acter ; that He puts special instruments into every 
 man's hands by which to make himself and achieve his 
 mission. I suppose that the proposition will hardly be 
 controverted by any one. It certainly must underlie 
 all sound theories of human development, even if it be 
 not self-evident. 
 
 Every man, therefore, as he has individuality of 
 nature, may have individuality of character ; and every 
 man who can achieve individuality of character can be, 
 either in a higher or humbler degree, a self-made man. 
 It is a fact, I suppose, that there is comparatively little 
 individuality of character in the world. The rule is 
 against it, because the influences of the world are 
 against it. We are all soldiers of the king of fashion, 
 and dress in uniform. We march in battalions under 
 
Self- Help. 23 
 
 the banner of public opinion. We choose our courses 
 and our callings, not with reference to our own pow 
 ers, but with reference to conventional notions touch- 
 ing the desirableness of those courses and callings. In 
 this way, the individuality of our natures is suppressed 
 and ultimately destroyed. They find in the work 
 which they are set to do nothing to which they bear 
 natural relation. Put a penknife to do the work of an 
 axe, and you spoil at once an instrument that only bears 
 relation to quills and finger-nails ; and it is hardly more 
 or less than truth to say that the majority of men put 
 themselves, or are put, to work to which they have no 
 natural adaptation. 
 
 We find that, in the world's estimate, certain pro- 
 fessions, callings, and trades are held highest — held to 
 be most honorable and respectable. So the whole 
 world rushes after them — rushes into them ; so half of 
 the world gets out of its place at once, and loses its 
 individuality ; and so half of the world gets made by 
 its calling, and does not make itself at all. 
 
 Now, the truth is that every man is respectable, and 
 every man grows in power symmetrically, only when 
 he is in his place. No man is respectable when he is 
 out of his place ; no man can grow in characteristic 
 power when out of his place. All thrifty and success- 
 ful self-making must depend not only upon an intelli- 
 gent selection of nourishment for our powers, but an 
 
24 Self-Help. 
 
 intelligent selection of the work which they are best 
 adapted to do. 
 
 If you have ever attended an exhibition of horses, 
 you will remember that they are presented in a great 
 variety of size, and style of form and action. One is a 
 truck-horse, another is a farm-horse ; one is a family- 
 horse, another a saddle-horse ; one is a fancy horse, and 
 another a fast hoi^se. The fast horse is the most popu- 
 lar — the most admired and coveted by the crowd 
 These different classes of horses are each adapted to a 
 different kind of labor, and can only manifest their 
 individual qualities when put to their legitimate work. 
 They can only properly develop, or make themselves, 
 by that work. Now suppose, with a view to the popu- 
 larity of fast horses as a class, and not with reference 
 to individual qualities at all, these horses, in all their 
 variety, are entered for the premium on speed. Think 
 what a figure they would make on the course ! The 
 real — the only — contest, would be among those that 
 have a natural adaptation to speed ; while the remain- 
 der would go lumbering along behind, and, by the 
 clumsiness of their extraordinary efforts, would render 
 themselves ridiculous. Boys would hoot at them ; 
 dogs would bark at them ; and they would come in 
 so far behind that their drivers would be obliged to 
 join in the laugh that would sweep along the line of 
 spectators. 
 
Self-Help. 
 
 25 
 
 Now drive all from the track, and bring them up in 
 classes ; and you will see that we have a very different 
 result. The elephantine truck-horse walks slowly by, 
 the representative of sturdy strength ; and there is 
 nothing ridiculous about him now. The docife farm 
 horse trots quietly along in fitting harness, and proves 
 himself to be a legitimate object of our admiration. 
 The family-horse, at an easy pace, bears over the course 
 his freight of women and children, and he, too, is ad- 
 mirable — nay, he may be lovable. The saddle-horse 
 ambles along under his rider, and we pronounce him 
 both beautiful and graceful. You perceive that all 
 these animals were ridiculous and contemptible so 
 long as they undertook to do that to which their 
 individualities were not adapted ; and that all be- 
 came pleasing and admirable, the moment they took 
 their own place, and entered upon their legitimate 
 work. 
 
 Now, suppose all these horses had actually been 
 trained with reference to the popular opinion that 
 speed is the only desirable thing, or the most desir- 
 able thing, in a horse. Suppose the truck-horse, for 
 example, had been put to his best as a trotter, 
 through a long course of training : would he ever 
 have made a fast horse ? Never ; and, what is much 
 more to be lamented, he would have been spoiled 
 for a truck-horse forever. His wind would have 
 2 
 
26 Self-Help. 
 
 been broken, his knees started, and his spirit ruined. 
 In other words, his individuality — thoroughly admi- 
 rable in itself — would have been destroyed. The 
 same may be said of all the other classes of animals 
 I have mentioned. No possible training could make 
 fast horses of them ; and they could only receive 
 training for high speed at the cost of their indi- 
 viduality, and the loss of their ability to do that 
 work well for which they were originally designed. 
 
 What a lesson for us is there in this illustration ! 
 Bear me witness that the track of American public 
 and professional life is crowded with human truck- 
 horses and farm-horses and family-horses and saddle- 
 horses, ail entered for the premium on speed, all 
 making themselves ridiculous by the efforts they 
 put forth to win it, and all spoiling themselves for 
 the sphere to -which their native individualities are 
 adapted. 
 
 Thousands of these unhappy men were started 
 and stimulated in their courses by such general, in- 
 discriminate counsels as I have alluded to. As boys 
 — as young men — they were told to " aim high," and 
 particularly informed that if they pointed their ar- 
 rows at the sun, the flight would be higher than it 
 would be if the aim were lower, — another of those pre- 
 cious maxims, by-the-way, of which the w r orld has too 
 many; as if it were not better to knock from a 
 
Self-Help. 2T 
 
 Virginia fence a respectable gray squirrel, than t<J 
 spend one's shots on blank blue sky ! No man who 
 can hit anything, or who was ever made to hit any- 
 thing, can afford to waste his arrows upon an object 
 which he knows they can never reach. Even if the 
 acquisition of learning were the grand object of a 
 man, definiteness of aim would serve him better than 
 indefiniteness, though it is not so essential ; but when 
 his object is to cultivate that power which is the 
 measure of his manhood, his aim must be deter- 
 mined by the shape of his arrow, the size of his bow, 
 and the strength of his arm. 
 
 The prizes of professional and political life are 
 those which the great world of unformed mind is 
 taught to regard not only as desirable above all 
 things, but as obtainable by all men ; and, being 
 both desirable and obtainable, to be striven for. 
 The effect has been to crowd professional life with 
 mountebanks and inferior men, and political life 
 with demagogues. It will not be disputed, I sup- 
 pose, that there are more men engaged in the pro- 
 fessions of law and medicine than the country has 
 any need of; more than can obtain a respectable 
 livelihood for themselves. The popular notion — the 
 popular fallacy — is, that if a man is going to make 
 anything of himself, he must be in public or profes- 
 sional life of some sort. 
 
28 'Self-Help. 
 
 I hesitate to speak of the effect of these falsa 
 ideas upon the Christian ministry, because it is im- 
 possible to judge how far they have been compli- 
 cated with conscience, honest self-consecration, and 
 motives of beneficence. A young man commences 
 a course of training with reference to a professional 
 life. He proposes,*we will say, to become a lawyer. 
 Possibly he has a decided adaptation to that profes- 
 sion ; but, midway in his college course, he becomes 
 a religious man. Immediately — with no sufficient 
 regard to the adaptedness of his individuality to 
 the work of the ministry — he determines to become 
 a preacher. I suppose that nine out of every ten 
 occupants of the American pulpit were moved to 
 the choice of their profession by their hearts, with- 
 out any really competent examination of the qual- 
 ity of their heads. One consequence of this is, that 
 we have a Christian ministry in this country which 
 embraces a larger number of honest, good, pure, 
 self-sacrificing men than can be found, as I believe, 
 in any other class of men in the world. In my 
 judgment the American Christian ministry contains 
 the least corrupted, and the least corruptible, of men ; 
 but, alas ! I am afraid that not one half of them are 
 self-made — that not more than one half of them have 
 appreciable power as ministers of the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ. They break down under the effect 
 
Self-Help. 29 
 
 of labors for which they have no natural adapta* 
 tion ; they rove unfruitful and unhappy from pul- 
 pit to pulpit ; they fail to command the attention 
 and respect of the world around them ; and they 
 have the life-long grief of seeing the work to which 
 their hearts are devoted failing to prosper in their 
 bands. 
 
 I will not undertake to decide so delicate a 
 question as this matter involves ; but I may be al- 
 lowed to say that it seems to me as if it were a 
 more Christian thing to be a first-rate Christian 
 lawyer, or a first-rate Christian farmer, or a first- 
 rate Christian shoemaker, than a fifth-rate Christian 
 minister. If a young man becomes religious, and 
 puts his fife under the law of love, it is not there- 
 fore necessary to his highest efficiency in the Mas- 
 ter's service that he become a preacher. Nay, the 
 pulpit may be the place of all others in the world 
 where he would be the most likely to do damage to 
 the cause he loves. • 
 
 With a respect for the Christian ministry of this 
 country which is as great as Puritan training and a 
 thousand delightful personal ^ friendships can make it, 
 I am compelled to believe that a full half of its 
 members are little more than the creatures of their 
 colleges and the mouth-pieces of their theological 
 schools ; that they entered their profession, not be 
 
30 Self-Help. 
 
 cause they were adapted to it, or saw themselves 
 specially adapted to it, but because they were moved 
 to it by a mistaken sense of duty, or a false idea of 
 professional life. It seems to me that one of the most 
 pitiful objects in this world is a made-up Christian 
 minister — a manufactured preacher — a man whose in- 
 dividuality has failed to find its appropriate nutri- 
 ment and its appropriate field of demonstration in 
 his office — a man who is useless where he is, and 
 helpless elsewhere. 
 
 Of the over-crowded professions of law and medi- 
 cine, I speak with less hesitation, because I have to 
 deal with less delicate motives of life. Men go into 
 these professions to get a living, and get a position. 
 Talk to a poor boy about becoming what people 
 call " a self-made man," and he invariably thinks of 
 becoming a lawyer or a physician. Go into any pre- 
 paratory school: you will find that nearly every boy 
 is aiming at one of these professions. Now if. you 
 will reflect for a moment, you will come to the con- 
 clusion that the number of really good lawyers and 
 good physicians is comparatively small ; and when 
 you have reached this conclusion, you will be able to 
 see how many of them have mistaken their vocation. 
 
 In the popular idea, the medical profession is the 
 least showy and attractive of the three which we call 
 learned ; but think how rare and peculiar the indi- 
 
Self-Help. 31 
 
 viduality must be that is perfectly, or even measur 
 ably, adapted to it. Think of the delicate insight 
 that is necessary to judge of temperaments ; to de- 
 tect the true relations of symptoms to diseases in 
 different constitutions ; to decide when remedies will 
 assist nature, and when they will not ; to draw the 
 line between diseases and disorders ; and to discrimi- 
 nate between bodily and mental derangements ! — 
 Think of the tender sympathy that is necessary to 
 him who stands beside woman in her hour of trial, 
 and bends over the cradles of suffering children, and 
 moves from house to house, to help poor humanity 
 in its extremity ! Think of the strong, serene self- 
 poise that he must sustain notwithstanding this sym- 
 pathy — the firm equanimity and cheerful assurance 
 which shall enable him to carry confidence and hope 
 to every pillow, and pass through the most terrific 
 trials of heart and nerve and skill in great emergen- 
 cies ! Think of the pure heart, the unswerving honor, 
 the Christian integrity, that should be his around 
 whom the faith and the affections of five hundred 
 families cluster ! — who enters into their life, shares 
 their secrets, and has their dearest earthly interests 
 in keeping ! Think of all this, and of much more 
 that might be named ; and then think of the multi- 
 tudes of men spawned upon the country every year 
 by our medical institutions ; many of them Bob Saw 
 
32 Self- Help. 
 
 yers and Ben Aliens — dissolute and unprincipled ; 
 many of them rough, and obtuse ; some of them who 
 have studied medicine simply because they were not 
 adapted to law or theology — reminding one of the 
 dog that was supposed to be good for rabbits be- 
 cause he was good for nothing else ; think of all this, 
 I say, and then marvel not that a distinguished pro- 
 fessor — distinguished alike at the dissecting and the 
 breakfast table — has said that if all the drugs in the 
 w T orld were emptied into the sea, it would be infinitely 
 better for mankind and infinitely worse for the fishes ! 
 
 Notwithstanding this, the profession of medicine 
 is one which I hold in profound and tender respect. 
 My physician shall walk hand in hand with my pastor 
 in my esteem, confidence, and affection ; he shall be 
 welcome to my table, my hearth-stone, and my heart : 
 but I utter no more than a self-evident truth, when 
 I say that, because a man passes an examination 
 before a corps of professors, he is not necessarily 
 qualified for a physician, and that there are num- 
 bers of the profession who sit in their offices, with 
 their diplomas signed and sealed — aye, and framed 
 and glazed before them — impatiently waiting for pa- 
 tients, who vulgarly look upon their profession as a 
 trade, and in whose medical care it would not be safe 
 to risk a sick norse worth the sum of twenty-five 
 dollars. 
 
Self- Help. 33 
 
 Those who know more about the law than I do 
 —worthy representatives of the legal profession-— 
 will tell you that it requires a rare organization to 
 comprehend its philosophy, to master its principles and 
 the detail of its facts and forms, and to treat each 
 new question as it arises by successful practice. But 
 common observation is sufficiently suggestive upon 
 this matter. If you will classify the lawyers of your 
 acquaintance under these four heads, as I name them 
 — lawyers of eminence (count them), lawyers of 
 respectability (count them), lawyers of mediocrity 
 (the task grows difficult), and lawyers of absolute 
 inferiority (you can't count them), you will be able to 
 judge how many of them have mistaken their profes- 
 sion. A man- has no right to be inferior in his profes- 
 sion, or, rather, he has no right to be in a profession in 
 which he is inferior. Every man who can be a first-rate 
 something — as every man can be who is a man at all 
 — has no right to be a fifth-rate something ; for a fifth- 
 rate something is no better than a first-rate nothing. 
 
 I have sometimes fancied that the reason why so 
 few are adapted to the three varieties of professional 
 life which we are considering, is, that there was no 
 original provision made for these classes of men. 
 When Eve, our dear, over-tempted grandmother, did 
 that which " brought death into the world and all our 
 woe," she did that which brought physicians into tha 
 2* 
 
34 Self-Help. 
 
 world and all our lawyers and ministers. If our rac6 
 had not fallen, it would not have needed ministers, 
 certainly; and a race that would do without minis- 
 ters, would offer a very unpromising field for the pro- 
 fessions of law and medicine. I cannot help thinking 
 that when the golden thousand years, which have been 
 promised us, shall come, professional life will be very 
 much less desirable than it is now. Every man will 
 be as good as a minister, and every lawyer will be — 
 a man; and the fawrite professional joke about the 
 existence of an "alarming state of health" will be- 
 come as serious as it is stale. 
 
 But, at this day, it is in politics, quite as much as 
 in the professions, that we see the effect of those un- 
 wise counsels, given to the young, which have been 
 noticed in this discussion. A poor boy rises to be- 
 come a governor, as many a poor boy has worthily 
 risen — as many a poor boy, I trust, may worthily rise ; 
 or he has become a member of Congress, or achieved 
 some higher or humbler position in political life. To 
 the young mind, these titles and these positions are so 
 represented as to appear to be the prizes for which 
 their possessors have striven — as a fitting and natural 
 object and reward of their labors. The young have 
 not been taught by their self-appointed counsellors that 
 manhood is the highest human estate ; that office can 
 confer honor upon no man who is worthy of it, and 
 
Self-Help. 35 
 
 that it will disgrace every man who is not. They 
 have not been taught that to desire office, and to 
 labor for it, for the sake of its honors and distinctions, 
 is the meanest of all ambitions, and the most degrad- 
 ing of all pursuits. They have not been taught tc 
 distinguish between a self-made man and a self-made 
 governor, and brought to understand that a self-made 
 man is greater than a governor, and that a self-made 
 governor is less than a man. Vital distinctions lib! 
 these have been ignored ; and the consequence is, that 
 boys without beards may be counted by thousands in 
 this country who have already begun their dreams of 
 political distinction — who look upon political distinc- 
 tion as a legitimate aim of life, and who are, of course, 
 growing up into demagogues. 
 
 Among all the dangers which threaten this coun- 
 try, I know of none so great as that which arises from 
 the greed of small men for office, and the ease with 
 which they obtain it. When the good and the worthy 
 men of a nation like ours — men who do not need 
 office, but men whom office sadly needs — become dis« 
 gusted with politics, because of the inferior society 
 and undignified contests into which it introduces 
 them, the country may well tremble with apprehen- 
 sion. When the stable gives law to the library, and 
 the boy who does chores for his board puts his feet 
 upon the parlor-table, and madam stays at home ta 
 
30 Self-Help, 
 
 take care of the baby while Betty makes her calls and 
 goes shopping, it is about time to begin to think of 
 breaking up housekeeping. If the effect of small men 
 in office be degrading to office and disastrous to lbs 
 country, the effect of office upon small .men is quite 
 as disastrous. There is never danger that office will 
 spoil a man who is fit for office. No man who has been 
 spoiled by an office — either by holding it or by losing 
 it — was ever fit for it. A true man is just as much a 
 man when his coat is off as when it is on. Take the 
 coat from a scarecrow — which is simply a buudle of 
 old clothes in office — and you spoil it. In all cases 
 where office injures a man, it is too large for him, and 
 he has no business with it. 
 
 Let a man hold an office for any length of time, to 
 which the individuality of his nature and character 
 bears no legitimate relations, and he will be spoiled 
 for the place in which he belongs. 
 
 The country is full of these men, or wrecks of men 
 — disappointed, soured, ruined — out of office, out of 
 money, out of credit, out of courage, out at elbow r s, 
 out in the cold, and usually, I regret to say, exceed- 
 ingly dry. Ah ! if every man who holds, or has held, 
 office in the land, were in the place where he belongs, 
 wmat a supply of farm-laborers would be given to the 
 great producing interest of this country ! What a 
 convulsion w r ould run through the shoe-trade ! What 
 
Self-Help. 37 
 
 a relief would be felt by our mercantile marine 1 
 Nay, what an impetus would be given to stone* 
 dressing in some of our public institutions ! 
 
 In view of the sad effects of the indiscriminate 
 rush into professional and political pursuits, we may 
 well deplore those counsels that are stimulating the 
 ambition of the young everywhere, and urging them 
 into a life which, to half of them at least, must neces- 
 sarily be unsuccessful and unhappy. God has made 
 all men different one from another. Nature broke her 
 die while moulding you and me as truly as she did 
 while moulding Sheridan. The faculties of our souls 
 differ as widely as the features of our faces and the 
 forms of our frames. Thus, all true self-making must 
 be carried on with relation to this characteristic self- 
 hood. 
 
 We see some men rising into a splendid manhood 
 without the aid of teachers — carrying grandly up from 
 their individual nature a corresponding individual char- 
 acter, and finding their place and their work by an 
 unsophisticated instinct. We see others, with the aids 
 of schools and teachers, doing the same thing, perhaps 
 even more grandly ; but we see men who went off 
 with these latter, upon the same early educational 
 cruise, coming back razeed — their characteristic upper- 
 deck gone, and that which was their peculiar glory all 
 cut away. One is led by his individuality up into a 
 
Self-Help. 
 
 characteristic development and into his place ; the 
 other permits his individuality to be blotted out, and 
 takes, instead, the mixed, incongruous, and undi- 
 gested and indigestible individualities of his pre- 
 ceptors. 
 
 Lest I be thought to undervalue what is popularly 
 denominated education, I devote a few words specially 
 to the subject. All systems of school and college 
 education have the necessary imperfection of regard- 
 ing and treating men in masses. Classes are formed, 
 not upon a natural but upon an arbitrary basis. The 
 young men who are to be preachers and physicians, 
 and lawyers and merchants, and editors and farmers, 
 and manufacturers and mechanics, are all put through 
 the same text-books, the same exercises, the same dis- 
 cipline. There is no plan of education, except the 
 individual, which can obviate this disadvantage — for 
 it obviously is a great disadvantage. !STow the man 
 who educates, or makes, himself, by drawing to him- 
 self that which his individuality craves and needs, and 
 by putting himself to the work to which his individu- 
 ality is adapted, has an advantage, at this single point, 
 over him who goes through school and college, and 
 yields himself w r holly to their undiscriminating disci- 
 pline. There are disadvantages, however, on both 
 sides. The habit of study — of mental labor — and tho 
 general knowledge acquired in a systematic education, 
 
Self-Help. 3<J 
 
 give the regular student great advantage over the 
 irregular. 
 
 Every student can make himself just as well in 
 college as he can out, and he ought to be permitted — 
 nay, made — to do it a great deal better. I pity the 
 poor fellows who have to do their work alone ; and 
 I pity quite as much those who permit themselves 
 to be spoiled. As I have said before, scholarship is 
 the measure of no man's power, though the opposite 
 opinion seems to prevail among the teachers of schools 
 and the faculties of colleges. Two men may be 
 exactly equal in scholarship, one of whom will have 
 no more power in the world than a baby, while the 
 other will be a giant, shaking thrones, and moulding 
 the lives and destinies of nations. The difference 
 between these two men will be simply this : one will 
 have sacrificed his individuality or self-hood to his 
 scholarship ; the other will have appropriated his schol- 
 arship as food for his individuality. Nearly all stu- 
 dents, however, make themselves after they leave col- 
 lege. Ten years after a man takes his bachelor's de- 
 gree, he looks back upon what he learned in college, 
 and the training he received there, as a very small part, 
 and usually the least practical part, of his education. 
 The moment he is beyond college- walls, he drops such 
 books as do not feed him, and seizes upon those that 
 do ; and, if he be not injured, he tvill immediately 
 
40 Self-Help. 
 
 bring himself into his natural relation to the world's 
 thinking, society, and affairs. 
 
 It matters little by what mode a man develops his 
 power, or by what path he finds his place in the world, 
 provided he successfully does both. When John C. 
 Heenan was preparing for his fight with Tom Sayers, 
 he subjected himself to the most rigorous discipline 
 required by the professors of the ring, while his antag-, 
 onist took his own way in the matter, and did as he 
 liked. When they came to their struggle, it was a 
 question of pluck and muscle ; and, the pluck being 
 equal, the larger muscle won, simply because it was 
 larger, and not because it was better. So, in the con- 
 flicts of life, it is a question of brains and power. It 
 is not a question how much a man knows, but what 
 use he can make of what he knows ; not a question of 
 what he has acquired, and how he has been trained, 
 but of what he is, and what he can do. 
 
 In truth, it is in work that a man develops and 
 makes himself, more than in any prescribed or indi- 
 vidually chosen mode of training. A man can only 
 become a good accountant — can only develop a good 
 accountant's powers and aptitudes — by the duties of 
 the counting-room. If I wished to make a good wood- 
 chopper of a man whom I believed to be good for 
 nothing else, I would not send him to a gymnasium 
 as a preliminary process. I would put an axe into bin 
 
Self-Help. 41 
 
 hand, direct him to the woods, and there let him work 
 it out. Every man's powers have relation to some 
 kind of work ; and whenever he finds that kind of work 
 which he can do best — that to which his powers are 
 best adapted — he finds that which will give him the 
 best development, and that by which he can best build 
 up, or make, his manhood. 
 
 But there is a higher point from which this subject 
 may be viewed ; and, in the moral as in the natural 
 world, the higher the point of observation, the more 
 extended and comprehensive the survey. Christianity, 
 for illustration, regards man from a higher point than 
 any system of philosophy ; yet few may be philoso- 
 phers, while all may be Christians ; and it is better to 
 be a Christian than to be a philosopher. So all cannot 
 be preachers and doctors and lawyers, and authors and 
 statesmen and orators ; yet all can be men : and it is 
 better to be a man (begging pardon of the women) 
 than to be anything else, for anything else may be 
 something less. It is better to be a self-made man — ■ 
 filled up according to God's original pattern — than to 
 be half a man, made after some other man's pattern. 
 Manhood overtops all titles. 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; 
 A man 's a man for a' that." 
 
 Labor, calling, profession, scholarship, and artificial 
 
42 Self-Help. 
 
 and arbitrary distinctions of all sorts, are incidents 
 and accidents of life, and pass away. It is only man- 
 hood that remains, and it is only by manhood that 
 man is to be measured. When this proposition shall 
 be comprehended and accepted, it will become easy to 
 see that there is no such thing as menial work in this 
 world. No work that God sets a man to do — no work 
 to which God has specially adapted a man's powers — 
 can properly be called either menial or mean. The 
 man who blacks your boots and blacks them well, and 
 who engages in that variety of labor because he can 
 do it better than he can do anything else, may have, if 
 he choose, just as sound and true a manhood as you 
 have, not only after he gets through the work of his 
 life, but now, with your boots in one hand and your 
 shilling in the other. There is very much dirtier work 
 done in politics, and sometimes in the professions, than 
 that of blacking boots ; work, too, which destroys 
 manhood, or renders its acquisition impossible. 
 
 If I have attained the object of this lecture, I have 
 presented to you, and impressed upon you, certain im- 
 portant and intimately related truths, which I will 
 briefly recount : 
 
 First, That the faculty of self-help is that which 
 distinguishes man from animals ; that it is the Godlike 
 element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of 
 his constitution. 
 
Self-Help. 43 
 
 Second. That God gives every man individuality 
 of constitution, and the faculty to achieve individuality 
 of character, through an intelligent selection of food 
 for the nourishment, and labor for the discipline and 
 development, of his powers. 
 
 Third. That those counsels which convey to young 
 persons, indiscriminately, the idea that they can make 
 anything of themselves that they choose to make, are 
 pernicious, from the fact that many will choose to 
 make of themselves that for which Nature never 
 designed them, and will thus spoil themselves for the 
 work to which their individualities are adapted. 
 
 Fourth. That a man can never be well-made who 
 is not, in reality, self-made ; whose native individuality 
 is not the initial and the dominant fact in his develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Fifth. That it is a mistake to suppose that a man, 
 in order to be self-made, must necessarily seek the 
 peculiar development that will prepare him for pro- 
 fessional or political life. 
 
 Sh'ih. That no man has a right to be engaged in a 
 calling or profession in which he occupies an inferior 
 position, while there exists a calling or profession in 
 which he may occupy a superior position ; and that 
 no man is respectable when out of his place, however 
 respectable the place he occupies may be. 
 
 Seventh. That a man without a title is greater than 
 
44 Self-Help. 
 
 a title without a man ; and that a self-made man may 
 occupy, in honor and the noblest respectability, the 
 humblest place in the world, if its duties are only 
 those for which God designed his powers. 
 
 There are other truths that I might add to this 
 rehearsal, but they would be hardly more than modi- 
 fications of these, or correlatives of these. I should 
 be sorry, if, by presenting and insisting on them, I had 
 dampened in a single bosom a worthy ambition. I 
 should regret the awakening in any mind of questions 
 that would prove fatal to a legitimate career. But 
 facts are facts. I am not responsible for them ; and 
 I am only anxious that no man, through influence of 
 mine, use them to his harm. 
 
 I account the loss of a man's life and individuality, 
 through the non-adaptation or the rnal-adaptation of 
 his powers to his pursuits, the greatest calamity, next 
 to the loss of personal virtue, that he can suffer in this 
 world I believe that a full moiety of the trials and 
 disappointments that darken a world which, I am sure, 
 was intended to be measurably bright and happy, are 
 traceable to this prolific source. Men are not in their 
 places. Women are not in their places. John is 
 doing badly the work that William would do well, 
 and William is doing badly the work that John would 
 do well ; and both are disappointed, and unhap* 
 py, and self-unmade. It is quite possible that John 
 
Self-Help. 45 
 
 is doing Mary's work and Mary is doing John's 
 work 
 
 " Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 The saddest are these : ' it might have been.' " 
 
 ~N'ow I do not suppose we shall ever get the world 
 all right on this matter. I do not suppose that all 
 men will find the places for which they were de* 
 signed, or that, in many instances, Maud will marry 
 the Judge : but an improvement can be made ; and if 
 an improvement ever shall be made, it will be through 
 the inculcation of sounder views among the young. 
 
 I am sick of the stupid cant by which stupid men 
 strive to inflame the ambition of the youth that are 
 placed under their direction. Far too many of our 
 schools are little better than places for the develop- 
 ment of mental and moral fever. Both boys and girls 
 are stimulated, by the infernal machinery of prizes, and 
 honorary appointments, and fear of disgrace, and such 
 counsels as those upon which I have already remarked, 
 to the most ambitious aspirations, the most extrava- 
 gant expectations, and the most extraordinary exer- 
 tions. I verily believe that there are but few boys in 
 this country who have not had the idea drilled into 
 them, by teachers or by books, that they can be any- 
 thing in this world that they choose to be, or really 
 try to become. 
 
46 Self-Help. 
 
 The question which a youth is called upon to de- 
 cide for himself, or which his parents and friends are 
 called upon to decide for him, or assist him in decid- 
 ing, is not what, with reference to the arbitrary stan- 
 dard of personal and social values accredited by the 
 world, he chooses to be, but what God has chosen to 
 make him. Woe to that youth who finds his choice 
 at war with that of his Maker — who sets his powers 
 to a life-task which they were never intended to per- 
 form ! 
 
 If there be one man before me who honestly and 
 contentedly believes that, on the whole, he is doing 
 that work to which his powers are best adapted, I 
 wish to congratulate him. My friend, I care not 
 whether your hand be hard or soft ; I care not 
 whether you are froln the office or the shop ; I care 
 not whether you preach the everlasting gospel from 
 the pulpit, or swing the hammer over the blacksmith's 
 anvil ; I care not whether you have seen the inside 
 of a college or the outside — whether your work be 
 that of the head or that of the hand — whether the 
 world account you noble or ignoble : if you have found 
 your place, you are a happy man. Let no ambition 
 ever tempt you away from it, by so much as a ques- 
 tioning thought. I say, if you have found your place 
 — no matter what or where it is — you are a happj 
 man. I give you joy of your good fortune ; for if you 
 
Self-Help. 47 
 
 do the work of that place well, and draw from it all 
 that it can give you of nutriment and discipline and 
 development, you are, or you will become, a man 
 filled up — made after God's pattern — the noblest pro* 
 duct of the world, — a self-made man. 
 
FASHIOE 
 
 THE proverb that it is as well to be out of the 
 world as out of fashion, is an old one and a 
 mean one ; and it has so damaged the world that the 
 alternative is come to be not so bad as it was. In* 
 deed, it were better that a man should be out of the 
 world than in some fashions. I do not speak with 
 particular reference to dress, or manners, or social 
 usage. It does not matter what a fool wears upon 
 his back, or a flirt upon her head ; nor does it mat- 
 ter how closely or how universally sensible and sober 
 people imitate them, provided they are comfortable 
 in their habit, and tradesmen drive a thrifty business, 
 t is, of course, very sad to think how often good taste 
 is perverted or ignored in the fabric and form of per- 
 sonal drapery, and how frequently common sense and 
 common honesty are offended by the social customs 
 which fashion ordains ; but as uniformity to a consid- 
 erable extent is desirable, let fashion be the law. It 
 
Fashion. 49 
 
 is well enough that a silly queen reign over .an un- 
 important realm. So long as fashion is employed in 
 the shops of the tailor and the milliner, she is engaged 
 in entirely innocent and legitimate business. I am 
 aware that her freaks in these departments often make 
 us all ridiculous ; but because they make us all ridicu- 
 lous, there are none left to laugh at us — so we don't 
 care. If fashion had only to do with forms and man- 
 ners and methods which touch the person and the outer 
 life, it would not be important as a subject of public 
 discussion ; but it goes deeper than this, and becomes 
 a power of no mean magnitude in the world's life — 
 even disputing supremacy with Christianity in our 
 civilization. 
 
 It will be well for us, at starting, to obtain a suf- 
 ficient idea of what fashion essentially is, and is not, 
 even if we do not stop to define it fully. Fashion is 
 not public opinion, or the result or embodiment of 
 public opinion. It may be that public opinion will 
 condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to 
 do always, with the certainty of being right nine times 
 in ten ; but fashion will place it upon the head of every 
 woman in America, and, were it literally a crown of 
 thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the impo- 
 sition. Public opinion may be opposed to the wine- 
 cup on the dinner-table, on festive occasions ; but 
 fashion places and keeps it there. Kay, fashion and 
 
50 Fashion. 
 
 public opinion, in all matters of form, are very often 
 at variance ; yet fashion is now, and always has been, 
 stronger than public opinion. Fashion is aristocratic 
 — autocratic ; public opinion is democratic. Fashion is 
 oased upon the assumed or the admitted right of some 
 man, or of some class, to rule ; public opinion is the 
 creature of universal suffrage. 
 
 I say that fashion is based upon the assumed or the 
 admitted right of some men to rule. There seems to 
 be in the human mind a native reverence for those 
 who are high in position and social privilege — a native 
 willingness to follow this class in all matters which do 
 not touch the soul's life too deeply. Nay, there is a 
 natural deference, in the majority of minds, to bold 
 assumption of superiority, and bold assumption of the 
 right to rule. The sway of that class which is, or 
 assumes to be, superior, is fashion. What its mem- 
 bers wear, the world wears. What their habits are — 
 at the table, in the assembly, on the street — the world 
 adopts. The Empress of France has but to change the 
 position of a ribbon to set all the ribbons in Christen- 
 dom to rustling. A single word from her convulses 
 the whalebone markets of the world, and sends a thrill 
 to the most frigid zone, — alike of world and woman. 
 The mustaches of the world wax as the Emperor's 
 wax, and wane as the Emperor's are waxed. Coat- 
 collars rise and fall, hats expand and contract their 
 
Fashion. 
 
 brims, waistcoats change from black to white and 
 from white to black, gloves blush and turn pale, in 
 response to the monthly reports from the Tuileries. 
 Fashion is based on the idea of caste ; and the sturdiest 
 democrat in politics is not unfrequently its blindest 
 devotee in his individual and social life. 
 
 So, over all the broad realm of public opinion and 
 public conscience, regardless of all recognised rules of 
 taste and propriety, trampling all our democratic theo- 
 ry and practice under feet, Fashion holds her undis 
 puted sway — Fashion, the - self-ordained queen over 
 subjects who bow to her, not only with no question 
 as to her authority, but with joyful and unmeasured 
 devotion of time and treasure. She holds in her hands 
 the keys of social destiny. She blesses, and men and 
 women smile ; she bans, and they weep. The place 
 where she stands becomes thenceforth holy ground. 
 That which she embraces is sacred ; that which she 
 shuns is profane. 
 
 We have fashionable sins and fashionable follies, 
 fashionable churches and fashionable schools, fashion- 
 able politics and fashionable medicine, fashionable 
 authors and fashionable preachers, fashionable water- 
 ing-places, fashionable hotels, fashionable streets and 
 fashionable sides of streets. There is no department 
 of life into which fashion does not thrust its hand, 
 and there is no society, unless it be some such conser- 
 
52 Fashion. 
 
 v;itory of ugliness as a Shaker community, that does 
 not bow to it. Consequently, or concomitantly, we 
 have a fashionable style of manhood and womanhood, 
 a fashionable social life, and a fashionable literature ; 
 and these, as opposed to democracy and a genuine 
 Christian civilization, I propose to make the subject of 
 my discussion. 
 
 Here let us define terms a little further. I have 
 spoken of fashion as opposed to democracy and Chris- 
 tian civilization ; but by these latter I do not intend to 
 indicate unlike or unrelated things. The popular defi- 
 nition of democracy is something more and something 
 better than " a glittering generality." Democracy is, 
 in a most important sense, practical Christianity, and 
 Christianity is, indeed, the life and soul of a pure 
 democracy. The fundamental idea of Christian so- 
 ciety is human equality, and the democratic root strikes 
 into the same soil. Christianity and democracy alike 
 crown men with equal rights and privileges, make 
 them individually responsible, and pass through acci- 
 dents of birth, circumstances, and position, to lay their 
 claims and their awards upon every soul. They are 
 so closely allied, that a Christian government must 
 necessarily have the democratic element predominant ; 
 and a democratic government only needs to lose its 
 Christianity as a controlling power to become a despot- 
 ism. Whei ever, and under whatever form, we find a 
 
Fashion. 53 
 
 government that is essentially Christian, we shall find 
 a government that is essentially democratic. I beg 
 you to regard me, therefore, as speaking always and 
 alike in behalf of Christian civilization and American 
 democracy. There is not an influence of fashion 
 which does not tell against both, and both are asso« 
 ciated in every advantage gained by either. 
 
 What is a fashionable style of manhood and 
 womanhood ? It is not always the same in all 
 places, but this is true of it everywhere, I think : 
 that it never demands Christianity, or a regard for 
 popular rights, as an essential element. I have never 
 known a man to be denied the possession of a fash- 
 ionable style of manhood on the ground that he was 
 an infidel, or an atheist, or a despot, or an oppressor 
 of the poor. I may say, indeed, that I have never 
 known a thorough Christian or an honest democrat 
 to be the possessor of a fashionable style of manhood. 
 A lack of earnestness in any great or useful pursuit, 
 a blind worship of rank and of those who hold it, a 
 childish sensitiveness to the charms of personal adorn- 
 ment, a disposition to magnify above things essential 
 all matters of form and ceremony, a hatred of labor 
 and contempt for the laborer, and a selSsh jealousy 
 that walks hand in hand with an undisguised per- 
 sonal vanity — these are the leading characteristics of 
 what may be denominated a fashionable style of man* 
 
54 Fashion. 
 
 hood and womanhood, — the basis of an outside life, 
 ordered in obedience to an outside law. You will 
 perceive that my definition will establish a great dif- 
 ference between the fashionable man and the polite 
 or gentle man. The fashionable man is often popu- 
 larly mistaken for the polite man, and, I may say, is 
 greatly interested in being mistaken for him. In- 
 deed, he often mistakes himself for him. The dif- 
 ference between a gentleman and a man of fashion 
 is just as distinct as that between a man of fashion 
 and an unpretending boor. The fashionable man may 
 be, and often is, a brute in his instincts and in his 
 secret life ; he may be a cringing puppy among his 
 superiors ; he may be the meanest toady of power and 
 place ; he may be intolerably insolent among those 
 whom he deems his inferiors ; but certainly these 
 things are not possible with a gentleman. 
 
 It is not to be denied that genuine ladies and 
 gentlemen frequently associate with men and women 
 who have no farther claim to consideration than that 
 they are fashionable, or that ladies and gentlemen 
 give more or less countenance and coloring to fash- 
 ionable life ; but there is no man in all the world 
 more conscious than the purely fashionable man that 
 there is a style of manhood above his, and a style of 
 social life in which he has no home save as a favored 
 or a fawning guest. He is only an imitation of some- 
 
Fashion. 55 
 
 thing which he envies. The gentleman is solid ma? 
 hogany ; the fashionable man is only veneer. 
 
 The fashionable man, either rich and powerful of 
 allied with those who are, makes social preeminence 
 the end of his life. He dreads poverty, but bows low 
 to vulgar and insolent wealth. All his affinities run in 
 sordid channels. He meanly worships the rich and 
 the powerful, the titled and the gently-bred, and 
 regards all contact with other classes as contamina- 
 tion. His moralities are the fashionable moralities, 
 whatever those may happen to be. If a corrupt and 
 licentious court be the ruling influence, corruption and 
 licentiousness become fashionable with him. If the 
 leading minds are mockers at the Christian religion, 
 he treats it with irreverence and contempt. He calls 
 things good and bad by fashionable names. An ear- 
 nest Christian with him is a bigot ; preaching is cant ; 
 prayer is a sort of Puritan snuffle ; a life of self-sacri- 
 fice to duty is fanaticism ; godliness, gloom ; conscien- 
 tious strictness in religious duty or observance, the 
 being " deeply, darkly, beautifully blue." On the 
 other hand, a libertine is only a man of the world ; 
 a rich and well-dressed sot only lives too fast, or has 
 an infirmity which renders it necessary that he should 
 be seen before dinner to be appreciated. Swindling 
 by himself and friends is regarded as sharp practice, 
 and obtaining clothes without paying for them, " doing 
 
56 
 
 Fashion. 
 
 the tailor," — a very sad joke to one of the parties, but 
 traditionally a good one with the other. 
 
 ~Now for a glance at another picture. Here and 
 there in the world — more numerous in the aggregate 
 than those know who do not love their society — 
 there are men and women whose lives are ordered 
 from within ; whose motive and regulating force is 
 love of Grod and love of men ; who are loyal to con- 
 science, earnest in all benevolent enterprise, self-sacri- 
 ficing, most happy in the communication of happiness, 
 without jealousy and without hypocrisy ; who esteem 
 it a more honorable thing to forgive an injury than to 
 resent one ; who are humble in their estimate of them- 
 selves, and who in honor prefer one another. This, 
 very briefly, is what I understand to be the Christian 
 style of manhood and womanhood. 
 
 Now the difference between this and the fashion- 
 able style is certainly the difference between antago- 
 nistic opposites. The man of fashion is exclusive, and 
 has no sympathy with any but his class or clique. The 
 Christian is universal in his sympathies, embracing in 
 his prayer and in his charitable endeavor every nation, 
 class, and individual. One seeks only to make the 
 world useful to himself; the other, to make himself 
 useful to the world. One seeks for, or seizes, priv- 
 ilege ; the other is happiest in ministry. One is a 
 despot ; the other is a democrat. 
 
Fashion. 5^ 
 
 If we approach our second point in the discussion 
 — fashionable social life — we shall find that that which 
 is true of one is true of many. Social life is the 
 interflow of the life of individuals; but social life has 
 individuality. It has its creeds, customs, and conven- 
 tionalities. It has its store and style of power. It 
 has its currently understood, but capriciously fluctuat- 
 ing, laws. It is a distinct, characteristic thing, to be 
 looked at, turned over, and talked about. If I were 
 called upon to give an opinion upon any form of social 
 life, I should first wish to learn the object of its wor- 
 ship, and, second, the object of its pursuit. I know 
 that a social life which worships God, and pursues the 
 good of men, is a Christian social life ; and I know 
 just as well that a social life which worships money, 
 and pursues social distinction as its end, is, in spirit 
 and in fact, an aristocracy. It may have no titles, it 
 may have no civil privileges ; but, wherever its power 
 can go, — into all matters, social and religious, political 
 and military, — it will go with the characteristic influ- 
 ence of an aristocracy. 
 
 - Such is the fashionable social life of America. If 
 it boast no hereditary titles, it is not because it does 
 not desire and worship them. If it have no civil priv- 
 ileges and prerogatives, it is not because it does not 
 feel itself entitled to them. It is, in itself, the result 
 of a conspiracy on the part of wealth and power for 
 3* 
 
58 Fashion, 
 
 achieving and holding social distinction — elevation 
 above the masses of men and the associations* of la* 
 bor. It separates itself from the commonwealth of 
 humanity so far as it may, and believes in its right 
 to rule and use men for its own aggrandizement and 
 convenience. 
 
 This, fashionable social life has, as I have said, its 
 creeds, customs, and conventionalities. Thronged with 
 jealousies within itself, it is jealous of all outside en- 
 croachment and interference. It has its own code of 
 morals, which, more or less strict according to circum- 
 stances, is never up to the Christian standard. I do 
 not believe that there is any fashionable life in the 
 world that can justly be called Christian. If I go to 
 the great cities, or even to the little cities, and witness 
 the idleness, the intrigues, the frivolities, and the gen- 
 eral self-seeking which characterize the fashionable 
 social life that exists there ; or, if I look in upon the 
 wanton wastefulness and the worse than childish greed 
 for display at a fashionable summer resort, I can find 
 nothing that will remind me that man has either a 
 nature or a destiny better than a beast, — nothing that 
 indicates to me that man, as man, has common need of 
 ministry and common privilege. The humanity within 
 me is insulted by assumptions of superiority which 
 Agnore the regal supremacy of manhood. 
 
 The most intimate sympathy to be found in purely 
 
Fashion. 59 
 
 fashionable society is that which comes through its low 
 tone of morality. Wealth and power and place are 
 considered sufficient in all fashionable social life to pal- 
 liate, or atone for, almost every crime of which a mar 
 can be guilty. Morality is a matter of secondary im 
 portance ; and there is nothing better understood than 
 the conspiracy among fashionable people to sustain 
 each other in practices which are only justifiable by 
 their own low standard of morals. None of us will 
 be obliged to tax the memory beyond measure to call 
 up the image of a notorious libertine, petted by fash- 
 ionable mothers of fashionable daughters, because he 
 occupies a high place in fashionable society. None of 
 us will be obliged to go out of his own neighborhood to 
 meet with those whose sole claim to a place in fashion- 
 able society is based upon the possession of money won 
 by gigantic frauds, or corrupt contracts, or oppression 
 of the poor. I know of but one garment which the 
 fashionable social life of this country borrows of Chris- 
 tianity. It is that ample mantle of charity which cov 
 ers a multitude of sins — particularly fashionable sins. 
 
 Fashionable society has always been the ally and 
 Bupport of every instituted and profitable wrong. Let 
 any wrong become the permanent source of wealth 
 and power to any class of men, and fashionable society 
 will at once become its defender. We have in the his< 
 tory of the passing times a competent illustration of 
 
GO Fashion. 
 
 this fact. If there be in all the world an institution 
 which is both unnatural and unchristian, you will 
 agree with me that it is human slavery; yet fashion- 
 able social life has always been in friendly alliance 
 with it. The fashionable society of the North has 
 meanly bowed down to and envied that class at the 
 South whose wealth and position have been based 
 upon the possession and the profits of human slaves ; 
 and even at this late day you will find the two classes 
 sympathetic. With the exception of a few wretched 
 politicians, there have been in the North no sympa- 
 thizers with the great rebellion, undertaken on behalf 
 of human slavery, not found in fashionable society. 
 There has not been a time since the commencement 
 of the great rebellion when it needed more than the 
 striking of the fashionable class out of Baltimore to 
 make that city as loyal as the city of Boston. Almost 
 the only element of Northern society that was at first 
 sympathetic with treason was the fashionable. In the 
 city of Washington — the capital of this great nation — 
 fashionable society even now bemoans the loss of the 
 lordly swaggerers from whom for whole generations it 
 had received its life-blood and law. By the means 
 and through the influence of these men this society 
 had made all reform unfashionable, made labor unfash- 
 ionable, made Northern men unfashionable, made hu- 
 ttian freedom unfashionable, made Christianity and con- 
 
Fashion. 61 
 
 science unfashionable, made democracy itself unfasb 
 ionable. 
 
 There sits in the White House, to-day, a -most un 
 fashionable man. His hands are clean from all suspi- 
 cion of bribes, — but he is unfashionable. No President 
 since Washington has sought so little to compass pri- 
 vate ends and promote personal ambitions as he, — but 
 he is unfashionable. He has but a single aim, which 
 has actuated him through all the weary months of his 
 public life — the restoration of national unity, — but he 
 is unfashionable. With an army numbering a million 
 of nobler and braver men than were ever before mar- 
 shalled upon the field — an army finer than any king or 
 emperor ever saw — and with a navy that within a year 
 of the time of its creation revolutionized the modes of 
 naval warfare throughout the world — head of a realm 
 of thirty millions, and presiding calmly, conscientiously, 
 and wisely over the history of the most eventful period 
 of the national existence, — he remains a most unfashion- 
 able man. Honesty, integrity, patriotism, unflinching 
 devotion to the great cause into which he has cast his 
 life, boldness to do what he believes to be right, char- 
 itable moderation toward all, — none of these things 
 have made him fashionable. Nay, occupying a posi- 
 tion of moral grandeur which we cannot possibly 
 apprehend, as it will be conceived by the future his« 
 torian, there are fashionable people about him who 
 
62 Fashion. 
 
 regard him with ineffable contempt ; fashionable peo- 
 ple who owe to his moderation and large-hearted char- 
 ity their immunity from iron gratings and hempen 
 cravats. Let the nation thank God, that whatever else 
 President Lincoln has been, he has not been a fashion- 
 able man. 
 
 Fashionable society has not only been the defender 
 of every system of profitable wrong, in this and other 
 countries, but it has been the constant opposer and 
 re viler of humane and Christian reform. The fashion- 
 able instinct naturally rises against reform — against 
 any scheme which tends to elevate the people, and 
 relieve them from the rule of those who give law to 
 fashionable life. Reforms are always democratic, and 
 are based upon a recognition of the equality of men; 
 and fashionable society can possibly have no sympathy 
 with them. There is hardly a fact in all history more 
 patent than this : that in the undertaking and prosecut- 
 ing any humane or Christian reform, the fashionable 
 class are never to be relied upon for aid, while their 
 opposition in one form or another is certain. While 
 this is true, it is just as true that the rule of Christian 
 society, its motive and regulating force, is universal 
 benevolence, which finds no plane of action and no rest 
 save in the sentiment of universal brotherhood — the 
 basis of a perfect democracy. So distinct are the 
 spheres and the atmospheres of these two forms of 
 
Fashion. 63 
 
 social life, that the Christian gentleman finds nothing 
 in fashionable society for the satisfaction of his social 
 nature, and the fashionable man finds nothing in genu- 
 ine Christian social life which is not to him a burden 
 and a bore. Sometimes — quite universally, indeed — ■ 
 compromises are effected between fashionable .and 
 Christian social life, for the accommodation of worldly 
 people with tender consciences and Christian people 
 with tough consciences ; but compromises of this char- 
 acter are always surrenders upon the wrong side. 
 Christian society, by consenting to an alliance with it, 
 consents to neutralization by it. It is the old and 
 everlasting impossibility of serving God and Mam- 
 mon. 
 
 We, as Americans, profess to be a Christian nation. 
 We profess to believe that we live under a democratic 
 government, and that we are democrats ourselves. 
 We should be startled to learn that we had really been 
 governed for years by an aristocracy; but what are 
 the facts? How much, for the past fifty years, has 
 Christian social life in Washington influenced the 
 legislation of Congress? You know that I ask a 
 question to be sadly laughed at. You know that 
 fashionable society at the national capital has always 
 been able to secure the performance of its behests. In 
 3lose alliance with every profitable wrong, it has been 
 able to lord it over the Christian element, which : 
 
64 Fashion. 
 
 weaker or stronger, has always been present. It has 
 branded good, conscientious, Christian men as fanatics, 
 and they have walked the streets of the national eapi- , 
 tal despised, proscribed, alone. It has contemptuously 
 barred its doors against those whom posterity will 
 number among its saints and its heroes. It has 
 laughed to scorn those who have dared to speak of 
 a higher than human law, and coupled their names 
 with the foulest epithets which malice could invent. 
 Arrogant, selfish, exclusive, meddlesome, the fashion- 
 able society of Washington has used the machinery 
 of the government for its own support and aggrandize- 
 ment. No unchristian, and oppressive measure has 
 ever found its slimy way through Congress, that was 
 not either engineered or aided by the fashionable 
 society of Washington. It has kept its gilded wares 
 constantly in the political market. They have been 
 hawked about by scheming women, who have boasted 
 of successes won by flatteries and favors which de- 
 graded them and all who received them. It has never 
 been the fashion jto be virtuous in public affairs at 
 Washington. It has never been the fashion to be 
 devoted to the interests of the people there. Moral- 
 ity, integrity, religion, democracy, patriotism — these 
 have only been names in Washington ; and the men 
 who have really believed in them, and who have 
 undertaken to incorporate that which" they represent 
 
Fashion. • 65 
 
 into their living and doing, have been regarded with' 
 pity or derision. 
 
 I am smitten by wonder when I think of the powei 
 which bold assumption has in the world — when I sea 
 how it moulds the hearts and bends the wills of men. 
 I am smitten by wonder when I see how the masses 
 of men bow to the assumptions of fashionable society. 
 I see everywhere a class of men who assume to give 
 the law of social distinction to the communities in 
 which they live. This law, so far as it reaches, is 
 supreme. The great and the little, the rich and the 
 poor, the old and the young, bow to it, and regulate 
 themselves and their relations by it. It ignores Chris- 
 tianity, moral worth, intellectual culture, personal 
 loveliness — everything most prized in the soul's life 
 and loves and friend ships— and decides upon the posi- 
 tions of men and women by its own rule. It shuts 
 out from the circle of its sympathies and support a 
 good man because he is poor ; it bids a bad man wel- 
 come because he is rich. It ignores the charms of 
 a beautiful and gifted woman because she earns her 
 bread ; it accepts an old and ugly remnant of an old 
 and ugly family because she manages to live upon 
 her friends. It kicks the young man of modest worth 
 and noble aims and industries, and kisses the idle 
 lout whose worth is on his back and whose graces are 
 in his heels. It receives a religious sect into favor 
 
06 
 
 Fashion, 
 
 and frowns upon all others. In every variety of life 
 which it enters, it assumes the preeminence, bending 
 to nothing, and deliberately opposing itself to Chris- 
 tianity as the dominant element in our civilization. 
 
 But I hasten to the third point which I have pro- 
 posed to discuss, viz., fashionable literature. There is 
 fashion in literature. Nowhere, indeed, is it more 
 exclusive or despotic ; nowhere is it more mischievous. 
 I make the unqualified statement, that fashion has 
 always insisted on the divorce of Christianity from 
 elegant literature. It has patronized with a lavish 
 hand the mythologies of ancient Greece and Rome, 
 with all their classical and cursed abominations ; and, 
 in modern days particularly, it has treated with dainty 
 tenderness the Korans and Yedas and Shasters of 
 swarthier and more insignificant heathen. I will, if 
 you please, admit that, sometimes, as a matter of 
 favor, it has accorded to the sacred writings of the 
 Jews a place by the side of the sacred writings of the 
 Hindoos. Nay, I will go further, and confess that 
 the name of God is sometimes used by the most 
 fashionable writers as a sonorous old noun for the 
 rounding of a period, and that " the sweet Christ," or 
 " the Spotless One," as He is patronizingly called, is 
 worked up very handsomely for ornamental purposes 
 in works of sentiment. But Jesus Christ, the personal 
 representative of Jehovah on the earth — the very cen 
 
Fashion. 67 
 
 tre and soul of that civilization which embraces the 
 moral, social, and political salvation of the human race — 
 its breath, bread, and life-blood — is a name never hearti- 
 ly' spoken by the writers whom Fashion recognizes a? 
 her own. It is not fashionable to write a Christian 
 book. It is not fashionable to read a Christian book. 
 To these two facts ambition, when yoked with genius, 
 has almost uniformly bowed, and, having performed its 
 fashionable work, gone forward to its fashionable re- 
 ward. In vain have I searched the pages of fashiona- 
 ble literature, including much of what we call elegant 
 letters, to find what has seemed to me to be the genuine 
 Christian element. In all the exquisite creations which 
 have found life and immortality in fashionable fiction, 
 I have never met one, so far as I can remember, that 
 was put forward as a genuine embodiment of Christian 
 piety. Lovely women we have "had in abundance; 
 women of beauty and brilliancy and virtue ; women 
 of amiable dispositions and noble instincts ; but of 
 women whose whole lives were ordered by 'Christian 
 principle, by conscience, by the love of God and the 
 love of humanity, alas! how few! — alas ! none! 
 
 Here and there some sweet-faced, sad-souled de- 
 votee has been developed and described, not because 
 she was pious, but because she was picturesque, and 
 never with sympathetic interest on the part of the 
 writer. We have plenty of caricatures of Christian 
 
58 Fashion. 
 
 ministers, and Christian societies, and Christian reforms ; 
 but never any examples of what the writer accepts as 
 the genuine article. We have had Chadbands and 
 Stigginses, and Dominie Sampsons and Cream Cheeses 
 — reverend fops and reverend fools without number ; 
 and these men have been thrust forward in all fashion- 
 able fiction as the representatives of Christianity. 
 
 ISTow, mark you, I do not complain that these char- 
 acters are presented. I do not believe in shielding a 
 humbug because he wears a white cravat, nor do I 
 claim that in every work of fiction a writer is bound 
 to represent both sides of every subject which he in- 
 troduces. What I complain of, is, that fashionable 
 writers, throughout their whole lives, criticise and 
 caricature Christian men, institutions, reforms, and 
 practices, which, on the basis of their own ideal, 
 they never seek to embody and represent. They are 
 fond of exposing Christian pretension. I find no fault 
 with this, for if there is anything that deserves to be 
 held up to ridicule and scorn, it is Christian preten- 
 sion. This is not my complaint at all. I complain 
 that, for anything to be found in their works to the 
 contrary, they consider all Christianity pretension, and 
 all Christians pretenders. They never introduce Chris- 
 tian character, Christian principle, Christian love, and 
 Christian purpose, as golden elements in literary crea- 
 tion and composition. 
 
Fashion. 69 
 
 Let me illustrate. Charles Dickens is a fashionable 
 author, and he is not only fashionable, but popular, and 
 popular, too, with the Christian public. Now no man 
 can admire more ardently than I do the genius of 
 Charles Dickens. No man, according to the measure 
 of his nature, can sympathize more thoroughly than 
 I do with the many lovely characters and the sweet 
 humanities which throng the path of his delightful 
 pen ; but, so far as I can learn from his writings, that 
 pen, thrilling to its nib with the genius which inspires 
 it, has never written, in good, honest -text, the name 
 of Jesus Christ. And when I say this, I mean all that 
 my words can compass and convey. The Christian 
 element is not to be found in his writings. Christian- 
 ity is not brought forward, either as a cure or a miti- 
 gation of the evils which his eyes are so ready to see, 
 and the woes which touch him with so quick a sym- 
 pathy. You will find in Dickers travesties of mission- 
 ary enterprise, and ridicule of various schemes of Chris- 
 tian reform; but nowhere, so far as I can remember, 
 any evidence that he either loves Christianity, or be- 
 lieves in it, as his own and the world's consolation and 
 cure 
 
 I havo not read Thackeray to find him better, even 
 when I take into account the sulphurous satire which 
 he points, with such deadly fire at the very society 
 which makes him fashionable. It is the fashion to 
 
'0 Fashion. 
 
 read Thackeray, and the fashion to admire him, though 
 he is far less popular than his rival ; and we have to 
 thank him for his exposure of the shallowness and 
 shabbiness of the fashionable life which engages his 
 caustic pen ; but he has never, so far as I know, admin- 
 istered any medicine but satire. He has never shown, 
 by direct teaching or by any form of art, the radical 
 cure for the life which he so keenly satirizes and so 
 thoroughly despises. Image-breaker he may be, but 
 no reformer. With his pen of gold he probes every 
 social sore with merciless precision ; but he leaves it 
 black with his own ink, and unblessed by any balm. 
 
 I name these men only because they are representa- 
 tive men, — because most of the fashionable novel-writ- 
 ing of the time consists of Dickens and Thackeray 
 diluted and flavored according to the feeble necessities 
 of the producers and the flatulent mental habit of the 
 consumers. All that is and all that aims to be 
 genuinely fashionable, ignores Christianity as the ma- 
 trix of a true literature, and discards the social and 
 political systems which are its offspring as its choicest 
 framework and material. 
 
 We have an abundance of theology ; we have 
 countless volumes of excellent practical sermons — duly 
 labelled, that no one shall mistake them for elegant 
 literature ; we have a planet-full of pious stories, 
 written by goodish men and women, whose stupidity 
 
Fashion. 71 
 
 has nullified any honor to Christianity which they may 
 have intended, — but only here and there has genuine 
 genius, inspired and impelled by Christianity, worked 
 freely and honestly in literary creation and composi- 
 tion ; only here and there has Christian life been 
 carved out of the world's life, and thrown into a 
 form of art which reveals its transcendent virtue and 
 beauty. 
 
 It must be known to you that there is a class of 
 writers in every country who assume to be the fashion 
 in literature. You will find them clustered around a 
 literary institution, or a literary magazine, or united in 
 a literary club or cabal. They constitute what irrev- 
 erent persons have denominated a mutual-admiration 
 society. We know little of the tie which unites them, 
 but we know that no plummet-line is long enough to 
 sound the depths of their self-complacency, and that 
 no common understanding can understand the under- 
 standing that exists between them. We know that 
 while they criticise each other in private, they toast 
 each other in public, and quote each other in print, 
 and that when one of them dies, they sow his grave 
 with eulogies that are kept constantly thrifty by 
 copious showers of Maynard & ISToyes. We know 
 that neither man nor woman is regarded as having 
 any position, or any right, in the field of letters with- 
 out their indorsement, and that neither man nor 
 
72 Fashion. 
 
 woman can obtain that indorsement without the 
 acknowledgment of their supreme authority. We 
 know that their principal purpose is the nursing 
 and rearing of reputations — the conservation and 
 canonization of names ; and that literary art is never 
 regarded by them as only true and legitimate when 
 it is made the minister of a Christian civilization. 
 We know that they regard, or pretend to regard, the 
 most indifferent productions of their sacred circle as 
 the offspring of genius, and that all men who fail to 
 detect in the productions themselves the reason for 
 their good opinion, are regarded by them as devoid 
 of literary judgment. And more than all this : wc 
 know that a modest and self-distrustful public volun- 
 tarily disfranchises itself by acknowledging merits 
 which it does not see and cannot feel, simply be- 
 cause it is the fashion to admire or to admit them. 
 Y^e know also that these literary fashionables have 
 multitudes of abject worshippers who regard them 
 fearfully from afar, and others who will crawl upcn 
 their bellies for a bow, and become their toadies and 
 tools for a single glass of their Madeira. 
 
 All this we know, and yet how well we know that 
 we must go outside of this circle to find the Christian 
 power in literature that is to move the world toward 
 the religious and political millennium. We never find 
 in this circle a power effluent in all directions upon the 
 
Fashion. 73 
 
 world of life around it, to melt and mould, to elevate 
 and bless, but a beautiful show of gifts and graces that 
 have conspired together to attract the admiration of 
 tributary gazers. 
 
 Now I put it to your candor to say whether it is 
 not true, that, in the opinion of this fashionable lite- 
 rary cabal, this self-constituted court of literature, reli- 
 gion hurts a book? Is not hearty, practical, devo- 
 tional Christianity regarded by this court as a foreign 
 element ? a something which is not at home in elegant 
 literature at all ? Is it not true that any literary work 
 which is burdened with a Christian mission is regard- 
 ed as laboring under a disadvantage ? Answer these 
 questions as I know you must answer them, if you are 
 well informed, and you yield essentially all that I claim 
 touching the influence of fashionable literature upon 
 Christian civilization. 
 
 It is possible that you will tell me that there are 
 some truly Christian writers who are fashionable. 
 There are, indeed, beautiful names that rise to you 
 and to me, before which even the fashionable bow 
 with reverent admiration. I think of one whose gen- 
 ius was angelic ; who swept all the chords of human 
 passion with fingers that shook with the stress of their 
 inspiration ; who soared and sang as never woman 
 soared and sang before; whose every uttered word 
 leaped from her lips like a bird, radiant in plumags 
 4 
 
74 Fashion. 
 
 and glorious in music ; yet whose heart was the dwell- 
 ing-place of an all-controlling, all-subordinating Chris- 
 tian purpose. She looked out upon humanity with a 
 love ineffable even to her. She looked up to Heaven 
 with a Christian adoration to which even her marvel- 
 lous gift of language could give no fitting expression. 
 Her whole being throbbed and sparkled like the sea, 
 stretching its pure, life-giving sympathies around the 
 world, and tossing evermore its white hands toward 
 the stars. Ah! yes; she soared and sang as never 
 woman soared and sang before ; soared and sang at 
 last, English sky -lark though she was, into the golden 
 dawn of Italian nationality, till the attraction of the 
 earth was surpassed, and -Heaven drew her home. 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning! How the pretentious 
 stuff that drapes our mutual admiration societies be- 
 comes fustian in the presence of her queenly robes ! 
 
 I think of a name nearer home than this — the name 
 of one now living — one of whom I may not speak in 
 such terms as her consecrated genius deserves, because 
 she lives. You have read her books, for they have 
 been read in many lands and many languages — read 
 more widely than the works of any other living writer. 
 In these works she has incorporated the religion of 
 Jesus Christ, as it is incorporated in her own life and 
 character. She has devoted her magnificent genius 
 to the cause of Christian reform, and wields a pen 
 
Fashion. 75 
 
 whose power one would as little think of questioning 
 as the power of the sun or the lightning. Under the 
 inspiration of Christianity she writes for humanity, 
 entering as a Christian power into life and character 
 wherever books are read and hearts are open ; and she 
 sits to-day the queen of a realm, all of which she has 
 either subjugated or created. In your hearts you 
 have already spoken the name of Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe. 
 
 There are others, still, whose names come to you 
 and to me. I might pronounce the name of our 
 Gabriel in drab — trumpet-tongued for the right, trum- 
 pet-tongued against the wrong ; loving the poor man 
 more than the rich, loving both more than himself, 
 loving God more than all — John Greenleaf Whittier. 
 I might speak of him whose catholic sympathies and 
 whose quick sense of Christian truth and love and jus- 
 tice are as evident in his "Biglow Papers" as in his 
 golden " Vision of Sir Launfal " — James Russell Low- 
 ell. I might speak of Charles Kingsley, a great Chris- 
 tian genius, or of John Ruskin, the peerless scholar 
 and Christian leader of art, or of Dr. John Brown, 
 whose "Spare Hours" have linked their Christian 
 arms with your spare hours, I trust, and helped them 
 heavenward. 
 
 Now do you ask me if these are not fashionable 
 writers ? Do you ask me why writers whom fashion- 
 
Fashion. 
 
 able people praise are not fashionable? Simply be« 
 cause they are Christian and catholic in their spirit, 
 their sympathies, their associations, and their objects, 
 and are as little dependent on fashion for their reward 
 as they are influenced by it in their work. They have 
 a genius which commands respect and reverence even 
 among the fashionable, in spite of the Christian inspi- 
 ration which informs and the Christian purpose which 
 possesses it. They have nothing in common with 
 those whose sole aim is to gather a reputation and 
 make a name. They may be fashionable in a certain 
 negative sense, perhaps, — in the fact that it would be 
 unfashionable to betray such lack of common sense as 
 to deny their genius. Do you suppose that fashion- 
 able writers, and the lovers of fashionable literature, 
 love the objects for which Mrs. Browning and Mrs. 
 Stowe have labored? that they sympathize with Mr. 
 Whittier and Mr. Lowell and Mr. Kingsley ? Not at 
 all. They look upon all of them as amiable fanatics, 
 and, while they acknowledge their genius, regard their 
 unselfish devotion to the world of men and women, 
 and God's truth in its relations to them, as an element 
 of weakness. 
 
 I have said that it is not fashionable to put Chris- 
 tianity into elegant literature. I may and I should say, 
 here and now, that it is not fashionable to put it into 
 a literary address. It is not fashionable for an unpro* 
 
Fashion. 77 
 
 fessional literary man to deliver such an address as 1 
 am now delivering before a literary audience. Have 
 we not men clothed in black and choked with white 
 cravats who are paid for this sort of service ? Have 
 we not temples built for it ? Is there not one day in 
 seven, ordaineql for religious purposes from the founda- 
 tion of the world, in which these temples are thrown 
 open that these men may be vocal in their vocations ? 
 These Christian addresses are things that we get done 
 by the year! Is not butter furnished by the season ? 
 Are not gas and water paid for by the quarter ? Every 
 man to his work in the regular way. No handling of 
 Christianity by common hands, especially literary hands, 
 on ordinary occasions, especially literary occasions. 
 " Ah ! don't mingle " — you remember the familiar music. 
 Now, my idea of the Christian religion is, that it is 
 an inspiration and its vital consequences — an inspira- 
 tion and a life — God's life breathed into a man and 
 breathed through a man — the highest inspiration and 
 the highest life of every soul which it inhabits; and, 
 furthermore, that the soul which it inhabits can have 
 no high issue which is not essentially religious. There 
 are those who make it their business to promulgate 
 dogmatic Christianity : let them fulfil their calling in 
 the proper time and place. There are adepts in scrip- 
 tural exposition : let them exercise their gifts on all 
 proper occasions. There are earnest souls whose per- 
 
78 Fashion. 
 
 sonal exhortations have power to move men to a reli* 
 gious life : God speed them everywhere. It is of none 
 of these things or of these men that I speak. My point 
 is, that a man in whom religion is an inspiration, who 
 has surrendered his being to its power, who drinks it, 
 breathes it, bathes in it, cannot speak otherwise than 
 religiously. The magician can draw an uncounted 
 variety of wines from a single flask, but the alcoholic 
 base runs through them all. So the religious soul may 
 give forth utterances of various forms and flavors, but 
 one spirit imparts to each its vitality and power. 
 
 We never know a man's measure till we take it for 
 his coffin. You will find among fashionable writers 
 such wearing of high-heeled boots, such mounting upon 
 stilts, such sporting of tall hats and riding of high 
 horses, that you will be obliged to get them down and 
 get the tape upon them before you can tell how much 
 space they will occupy. Their names will shine upon 
 the coffin-lid, and they will bury well, and stay buried ; 
 but no grave can hold a fruitful Christian genius. We 
 say that Mrs. Browning is dead, w r e say that Mrs. 
 Browning is buried ; but we know that she lives, and 
 that she walks the earth, and wings the air, and sits 
 with us here to-night. The earth is not broad enough, 
 the earth is not deep enough, to bury Mrs. Brown- 
 ing in. 
 
 I have thus attempted to expose to you the nature 
 
Fashion. 79 
 
 and the tendency of fashion, as it exists in personal 
 character, in social life, and in literature. I have 
 endeavored to show you that it is essentially aristo* 
 cratic, and must therefore be opposed to a genuine 
 Christian civilization and a true democracy. It practi- 
 cally denies the rightful supremacy of Christianity in 
 every field, ignores its grand, levelling truths, and 
 maintains, through corrupt convention, an independent 
 standard of morals. It is exclusive, devoted to clique 
 and caste, and thoroughly sympathetic with all systems 
 and schemes of life and all forms of society and gov- 
 ernment which take power and profit from the many 
 and give them to the few. 
 
 In this great hoar of our national history, I have 
 chosen this subject that a useful lesson may be won 
 from it. I have tried to speak not as a politician or a 
 partisan, but as a philosopher, who believes in the 
 beneficence of democratic institutions and the conser- 
 vative power of Christianity. This democratic gov- 
 ernment of ours was founded by Christian men, on 
 Christian principles. It can only be perpetuated by 
 Christian men, on Christian principles. Whenever it 
 passes into the hands of an aristocratic class, which 
 denies the rights of the meanest man, and sustains 
 itself by the oppression and disfranchisement of the 
 laboring masses, that moment it must cease to exist, 
 and a despotism will take its place. A class that 
 
80 Fashion, 
 
 denies a black man the privilege of a man, will deny 
 a powerless white man the same — always and every- 
 where. 
 
 The struggle in this country is now and has been 
 for years between a democracy with a Christian con- 
 science, and an aristocracy fanatically devoted to 
 human slavery. The rebellion originated in a domi- 
 nating class, with which no Christian democrat in this 
 country can possibly have any sympathy ; and the 
 power of that class must be destroyed, utterly, or 
 a Christian democracy cannot possibly be the domi- 
 nant power on this continent. 
 
 The sympathy and the support which the rebellion 
 has received from the upper classes of Great Britain 
 and continental Europe, have been natural and inevita- 
 ble. The aristocratic classes of Europe recognize the 
 nature of the struggle, and take the side of the aristo- 
 cratic class of this country. I do not wonder at it ; I 
 do not blame them for it ; and I do not care a straw 
 about it. We are fighting the great battle of the 
 people — the great battle of democratic and Christian 
 equality against the combined aristocracies of the 
 world, and all that fashionable class, at home and 
 abroad, which sympathizes with them. And when the 
 day of our victory shall come, as it will come, let us 
 remember that if we would secure the national safety 
 forever, we must thenceforward and forever make 
 
Fashion. 81 
 
 Christianity popular. I do not say that we must 
 make Christiauity fashionable, for it cannot be, in 
 the nature of things. We must make it popular, and 
 compel every political caucus, convention, candidate, 
 and clique, to bend to it and obey it. When that 
 time shall come, we shall have arrived at the political 
 millennium, — and the time must come. 
 
 4* 
 
WORK AND PLAT. 
 
 THE human race presents no aspect more interest* 
 ing than that which it wears in its apron and 
 shirt-sleeves. There breathes no nobler music under 
 heaven than the roar of a great city, in which the din 
 of wheels, and the clangor of hammers, and the cries 
 of the hawker and the auctioneer, and the hurried 
 tread of uncounted thousands upon the pavement, are 
 blunted and crushed and blended into a sublime mono- 
 tone, that rises and swells, and surges and subsides, 
 from day to day, through all the prosperous centuries. 
 There is nothing more wonderful than that laby- 
 rinthine net-work of human interests, spread finely 
 over a continent and more broadly enveloping a world, 
 out from whose indistinguishable intersections run the 
 daily efforts of the earth's thronging millions. 
 
 There is an office for every man, and a man for 
 every office. One builds a ship, another turns a spool ; 
 one paints a madonna, another decorates a toy ; one 
 attends a king, another grooms a horse ; one sends a 
 
Work and Play. 83 
 
 ship to the Indies, another gleans the offal of the 
 streets ; one writes a book, another places it in type ; 
 one conducts a railroad-train over a hundred miles . 
 another trundles a wheel-barrow up and down a plank. 
 Millions live among the whirl of spindles and the clash 
 of looms ; and other millions ply the needles that fash- 
 ion their fabrics. On cotton-fields and corn-fields, on 
 farms and plantations, in workshops and mills, on the 
 water and on the land — everywhere, everywhere — men 
 and women are at work. The brain and nerve and 
 muscle of the world expend their energy, day after 
 day, in tidal sweeps through every artery of industry ; 
 and thus the world's great heart throbs and throbs ; 
 and thus it will throb until its strings shall shiver in 
 dissolution. 
 
 This is a working world — a serious, earnest, hard 
 working world ; yet it is not all, or not always, so. 
 Rising out of this daily vision of work, and harmo- 
 niously blending with it, like variations sporting with, 
 and above, a musical theme, there are other scenes that 
 attract attention. A steamer pushes out into the bay, 
 with music swelling and streamers flying over a happy 
 company of men, women, and children, upon an excur- 
 sion of pleasure. Under the shadow of a grove the 
 groups of a picnic romp and run, and laugh and chat, 
 through the long summer afternoon. In public halls 
 
84 Work and Play. 
 
 and private parlors feet move to the sound of the viol 
 through the merry evenings, till they cross the bars of 
 midnight. Children frolic upon the lawn, and boys 
 play at football or cricket upon the common. All over 
 the country, where the snow falls, old and young are 
 sleighing and skating and sliding under the moon ; and 
 wherever the surf rolls in upon a pleasant beach, or 
 crystal waters mirror lordly mountains, or the earth 
 bubbles with its mineral treasures, a nation of languid 
 travellers gather during the heat of summer, for relax- 
 ation and enjoyment. 
 
 So this world is a world of work, not only, but a 
 world of play. Surely something of present interest 
 and permanent, practical value may be said of things 
 which absorb more than half of the time, and all the 
 energy, of the civilized world ; and I propose to devote 
 the hour to the discussion of Work and Play, and the 
 illustration of their meaning and their mission. 
 
 I have not selected this subject because there is 
 much that is brilliant or amusing to be said upon it, 
 but because there is no man, not too indolent to attend 
 a lecture, who does not possess a practical, every-day 
 interest in it. I have selected it, too, because I believe 
 that the popular notions with relation to it are in 
 many respects erroneous, and in some respects unheal- 
 thy and even dangerous. My aim will be : 
 
Work and Play. 85 
 
 First, To reveal the relations of work and play tc 
 the development of the worker ; 
 
 Second, The relations of work and play to each 
 other, in securing this development ; 
 
 Third, Their relations to the health and happiness 
 of the race ; and, 
 
 Fourth, To suggest something of their ultimate re- 
 sults. 
 
 The first thing to be done is to define our terms. 
 What is work, and what is play ? 
 
 Work is the exercise of the mind, or the body, or 
 both, under the command and control of the will, for 
 the attainment of an object of fancied or real utility. 
 
 Play is the exercise of the mind, or of the mind and 
 body, at the instance of impulses originating in the 
 conditions and dispositions of the system, and expend- 
 ing themselves without an object, beyond momentary 
 satisfaction. Work contemplates achievement and 
 acquisition, and has its end outside of, and beyond, 
 itself, so far as relates to the worker's intent. Play, 
 self-moved, seeks for nothing further than present 
 gratification, and has its end in itself. Will is the 
 master of work. It fixes its goal, and then harnesses 
 and drives all the human faculties toward it, or to it. 
 Play removes their harnesses, hangs up the whip, and 
 releases them to the impulses which move them tc 
 ehow the iron upon their heels, to roll in the sand, 01 
 
86 Work and Play. 
 
 to frisk upon the sward. Work, under will, is deter- 
 mined, persistent, and steady ; play, under impulse, is 
 volatile, and delights in change. 
 
 Now let us go directly to nature for our first lesson 
 in the meaning and mission of work and play. The 
 boy is born into the world a delicate organism — a soft 
 bundle of brains and nerves, and bones and muscles, 
 and vessels and limbs, without will, and without the 
 power of self-support and self-direction. The first 
 months of his life are passed in a kind of unconscious 
 consciousness, and nothing higher is expected of him 
 than that he pull the whiskers of his father, and smile 
 appre daringly when his mother talks nonsense to him. 
 Soon he begins to grasp, or to reach after, the things 
 he sees — a pearl-button, a coffee-pot, a chandelier, or a 
 church-steeple ; and we feel that great progress has 
 been made when he can shake his rattle-box three 
 times and repeat, even if the performance be slightly 
 spasmodic and irregular. The months pass away, and 
 he stands upon his feet ; and after a brief and delight- 
 ful tutelage, he waddles about wherever his impulses 
 lead him. He takes trips of ten feet upon his father's 
 cane, which not unfrequently proves refractory and 
 throws him. He frolics with the kittens, or hugs 
 them to death. He builds block-houses, and knocks 
 them down. He excavates convenient sand-banks. 
 He delights, above all things, in the open air, and 
 
— I 
 
 "^r 
 
 Work and Piay. 8* 
 
 runs because he loves to run ; but whether within 
 doors or without, he is always in mischief. From 
 morning to night his little muscles are in motion ; and 
 when compelled, at last, to go to bed, he relinquishes 
 his play with tears. Year by year, as he grows up 
 through boyhood, the range of his play is widened. 
 He drives other boys four-in-hand, cr plays at ball, or 
 slides down hill, or runs races, or wrestles, or goes 
 hunting and fishing. 
 
 Now, what makes this boy play ? And what does 
 this play do for him ? 
 
 He plays because he cannot help it — because in the 
 centra], motive forces of his nature God has written 
 the command to play. He has no end beyond the 
 gratification of his momentary and shifting impulses. 
 He plays because the life within him exults in action, 
 and delights in expenditure. Tired in one direction of 
 amusing or pleasant effort, he turns toward another ; 
 and thus, one by one, or group by group, he calls into 
 activity all the faculties of his mind and all the func- 
 tions of his body. He has no object, I repeat, in this 
 constant action and constant change ; .but God has. 
 This play is for the symmetrical development of the 
 boy, of all the powers of which he is the possessor ; and 
 no boy without play was ever well-developed, or ever 
 can be. A boy who does not play, and does not love 
 to play, is not a healthy boy, mentally, morally, or phy« 
 
88 Work and Play. 
 
 sically, no matter how many precious hymns he can 
 repeat, nor how well he can say his catechism. Play 
 is the Creator's ordained means for the development 
 of the child. I am aware that it drives weak-headed 
 mothers crazy, and aggravates the aggregate of the 
 shoe-bill, and makes terrific work with trousers ; but 
 it makes men, and, as a general rule, the boy that 
 plays the best, makes the best man. 
 
 There is a sad amount of fighting against Heaven in 
 the attempts made by irritable and impatient parents 
 to repress the playful manifestations of their children. 
 Carefully and reverently I declare that God impels, 
 nay, compels, the child to play, and that those who 
 strive to crush the spirit of play in children for the 
 security of their own ease and comfort, or from mis- 
 taken notions of the nature and the mission of play, 
 oppose Him as really as when they set themselves 
 against any movement or policy in His moral universe. 
 
 Play is a sacred thing, a divine ordinance, for 
 developing in the child a harmonious and healthy 
 organism, and preparing that organism for the com- 
 mencement of the work of life. I insist upon this, at 
 this point, for I shall call it up again in the course of 
 this discussion ; I insist that play is not only an inno- 
 cent thing in itself, but that it is an essential portion 
 of the divinely appointed means for the development 
 of the race into its highest earthly estate. 
 
Work and Play. 
 
 89 
 
 In order that our lesson may Dot be complicated, 
 we will leave the period of study out of consideration, 
 and put our boy to work. Perhaps he has already per 
 formed a few tasks about the house, willingly or un- 
 willingly, but they have been so light that he has not 
 seriously felt them. That the work may be simple, 
 we will apprentice him to a trade. This little bundle 
 of organs, grown into compactness and power through 
 the exercise which play has procured, is placed under 
 a task-master. The first day, perhaps the first week, is 
 passed delightfully, because it has the charm of novel- 
 ty ; but, at last, his mind, strained in one direction, 
 and his muscles, exercised in a single style of action, 
 become weary. At this point begins the discipline of 
 work — the bringing of all his faculties under the con- 
 trol of his will. He -flinches from his task, perhaps, 
 but his will spurs him on. He looks from his window, 
 and sees other boys engaged in play, and longs to be 
 among them ; but his will vetoes his impulses, and 
 keeps him to his work. 
 
 Thus these organs that have been developed by 
 play, and this life that will manifest itself in action, 
 bend themselves, under the command of will, to the 
 accomplishment of useful results. Directed by intel- 
 ligence, and starting from rationally apprehended mo- 
 tives, they take their way along the channels of the 
 world's industry. 
 
90 Work and Play. 
 
 Here dawns upon us the mission of work. God, 
 by implanting in the boy the impulse to play, has 
 taken care of his development up to this point. As 
 a boy, he is complete ; but manhood demands some- 
 thing further, and he must be trained to self-impulsion, 
 self-direction, and self-control. The organs which play 
 has prepared, work puts to use. Over these young 
 faculties the will is placed in office, and is, itself, 
 developed by the exercise of its functions. The mis- 
 sion of work is never fully accomplished until the will 
 has attained supreme control of all the mental and 
 bodily faculties, and those faculties have become obe- 
 dient and efficient instruments of the will. Patience, 
 persistence, and power to do, are only acquired by 
 work. 
 
 But we are leaving our boy. If we watch him at 
 the close of his daily task, we shall find him very 
 weary, but very ready to play. He has been working 
 in a single direction. A single group of faculties and 
 a single set of muscles have been employed during the 
 day, and before he sleeps, Nature impels him to bring 
 those that have been unemployed into harmony with 
 them. The strain must be released, and the worked 
 and the unworked boy must be reconciled to each 
 other by play, before both can sleep well. So, 
 through the evening the boy is as active as the live- 
 liest, and as boisterous as the noisiest ; and at bed-time, 
 
Work and Play. 
 
 91 
 
 if he be not rested, he is ready to rest, and to rest 
 well. He sleeps better at night, and he works better 
 the next day, for this play ; and thus, play comes in 
 as the minister and helper of work. The used and the 
 unused faculties are harmonized with each other, and 
 developed together. If the impulse to play between 
 the periods of labor be suppressed, and nothing of the 
 boy be developed save the faculties engaged in his 
 special work, he will become not only the slave of 
 work, but he will be transformed into its creature. 
 Woe to him if he fail to yield to the impulses to play 
 which start up among his unused faculties, until those 
 faculties dwindle beyond the power to give birth to 
 an impulse ! 
 
 This simple illustration has introduced us to the 
 primary and principal offices of work and play. In 
 this illustration they reveal themselves as coordinately 
 essential in that economy which contemplates the high- 
 est human development. The development which God 
 seeks for is the growth and perfection of the power to 
 do. Play does what it can for this object, and work, 
 in widely-varied forms of ministry, does the rest. 
 
 Our illustration has not only revealed the primary 
 relations of work and play to human development, but 
 it has suggested something of their relations to each 
 other, and thus brought us to the second point under 
 discussion. I begin with the proposition that work 
 
92 Work and Play. 
 
 was made for man, and not man for work. Work is 
 man's servant, both in its results to the worker and 
 the world. Man is not work's servant, save as an 
 almost universal perversion has made him such. We 
 need not go beyond the circle of our immediate ac- 
 quaintances for instances of this perversion. Every 
 variety of work has stamped itself and left its stamp 
 upon society. Almost everywhere men have become 
 the particular things which their particular work has 
 made them. In the place of a broad, strong, sym- 
 metrical manhood, we have a weak, crippled, and dis- 
 torted manhood. We know a thoroughly-worked old 
 lawyer as readily as we do an old fox. We can recog- 
 nize a Wall-street financier at thirty paces, and can tell 
 a clergyman as far as we can see him. There are very 
 much greater differences between a Yankee farmer and 
 a Yankee sailor than in the length of their trousers. 
 There are round shoulders, and pulpy muscles, and 
 halting limbs, and all varieties of bodily and mental 
 eccentricities, resulting from the slavish pursuit of the 
 different callings. The negroes on the cotton planta- 
 tions of the South, who carry water to the field upon 
 their heads, become bald upon the spot where u the 
 hair ought to grow " by the weight and friction of the 
 jugs, but they are no more distinctly stamped by their 
 work, and are, in fact, not half so bald, as multitudes 
 of whites who bear heavier burdens of a different kind. 
 
Work and Play. 93 
 
 Thus have men become the creatures of their work, 
 and thus has work become to them, in many respects, 
 a curse. When work enslaves a group of faculties, 
 and employs and develops that group to the neglect or 
 the death of all others, then does it surpass aud abuse 
 its office. This it is that makes one-sided men, partial 
 men, fractional men. This it is that puts the menial 
 stamp upon men, that brands them with the name of 
 their tyrant-master. This it is which spoils manhood, 
 and debases its subjects to the level of their calling. 
 This it is which too often transforms men into lawyers 
 and financiers and ministers and merchants and farmers 
 and hod-carriers — beings who can do one thing, and 
 nothing else — who are competent in one direction, and 
 babies or fools in every other direction. I say again, 
 that man was not made for work, but work for him, 
 and that its office is abused in the degree by which it 
 hinders the symmetrical development of all his facul- 
 ties. One of the direct roads to brutality lies through 
 unalieviated and undiversified bodily labor. Let a man 
 be worked and fed as a brute is worked and fed, and 
 he will become brutal. A man using only the facul- 
 ties demanded by his calling will develop only those 
 faculties. So it is evident that something besides 
 work is necessary ' for healthful development, after 
 the peculiar period of play is passed. 
 
 If, now, we turn to play as the exclusive agent 
 
94 Work and Play. 
 
 in the development of the adult, we shall find it still 
 more inadequate than work, because in play there is 
 no purpose and no training of power under will. Up tc 
 a certain period of life play is everything that is neces- 
 sary. Wherever it is suppressed, and the young mind, 
 or the young body, or both, are put into the harness 
 of work, disease or disaster is the result. I know not 
 which to pity most — the infants crowded into a prema- 
 ture development of brain and mind, or the pale faced 
 dwarfs among the factory-boys. Whenever I see a pale, 
 old face on a young body, I know that somebody's wil- 
 ful ignorance, or somebody's cupidity, needs forgiveness. 
 Up to a certain point of development, I say, play 
 only is necessary. Beyond that point work must come 
 in with its discipline, or play will degenerate into dissi- 
 pation. There are few more pitiable objects than men 
 and women who have never had anything to do but to 
 amuse themselves. They are pitiable because useless, 
 powerless, and unhappy. The whole horde of dandies 
 and devotees of fashion — men and women who have 
 no higher employment than ministry to vanity and 
 appetite and passion — are blanks, or blotches, on one 
 of the most beautiful and beneficent schemes of the 
 Creator, and objects of disgust to every healthy soul. 
 As much as many working men desire ease, I have 
 never seen one who did not in his inmost soul despise 
 on idle man, or one who could do nothing. 
 
Work and Play. 95 
 
 Play, I repeat, leaves entirely out of consideration 
 one of the principal offices of work, viz., the training 
 of the will. It is all-important that the intense vitality 
 that comes in with manhood and womanhood be under 
 control, and be directed into legitimate channels of ex- 
 penditure. As childhood is left behind, new passions 
 take possession of the individual ; and if he be left to 
 the sway of impulse, he will be almost certain to gravi- 
 tate toward sensuality. There is abundant life to be 
 expended somewhere — if not in work, then in some- 
 thing else. Impulse will be sure of the mastery if the 
 will be weak and vacillating. Appetite is clamorous, 
 and passion is imperious, and an undeveloped and un- 
 trained will, will bend readily under the stress of 
 these motives. It is notorious that, almost without 
 exception, those young men who are never put to 
 work, especially if they have strong vitality in them, 
 sink into vice. The reason is, that exclusive play, after 
 the period of childhood, naturally degenerates into dis- 
 sipation. The will bends before the strongest impulse, 
 or lends it its aid ; and the strongest impulse is born 
 of the strongest passion that happens to be in exercise. 
 
 Not unfrequently we have striking instances of this 
 dissipation and degradation, and the corrective influ- 
 ence of work when resorted to for the first time in 
 adult life. We all of us know young men who have 
 led a life of gayety and vice upon the paternal wealth, 
 
96 Work and Play. 
 
 and we have seen them become the terror and disgrace 
 of a neighborhood, the bane and burden of a home, 
 — given up, as hopelessly debauched, by their best 
 friends. Yet, when some great disaster has whelmed 
 the wealth upon which they have lived, and a great 
 motive of action has presented itself to them, we have 
 seen them sobered in a day, and, under the disci- 
 pline of labor, become men of character and of power. 
 Among men, these cases may be rare ; but among 
 women, cases not dissimilar are abundant. With 
 them, play is more a dissipating and less a debasing 
 habit, and reformation is consequently easier. How 
 many gay girls have we seen — butterflies, giddy, 
 thoughtless, undisciplined creatures — becoming sober, 
 noble, and devoted wives and mothers, when marriage 
 and maternity have put the discipline of work upon 
 them. How, under the motive of a great love, has 
 their work often taken on the character of a great 
 heroism ! 
 
 So, neither work nor play is sufficient of itself ; and 
 now, before I come to the practical discussion of the 
 relations of play to labor in adult life, I recall the ques- 
 tion of the essential nature of play. I propose that it 
 has as legitimate functions in the life of the man and 
 the woman as in that of the child, and that, in the dis- 
 charge of those functions, it is in no sense ninful, 
 thriftless, or undignified. The religious asceticism that 
 
Work and Play. 97 
 
 has placed its ban upon play in its various manifesta- 
 tions, the hard economy that denounces it as wasteful 
 of time and money, and the stolid dignity that re- 
 gards it with contempt, are essentially moral nuisan- 
 ces. Play may not have so high a place in the divine 
 economy, but it has as legitimate a place, as prayer. 
 Its direct importance, when we contemplate useful 
 results, is not so great as that of work ; but it is 
 essential to the healthful development of the worker, 
 and essential in keeping the machinery of work in 
 order. It is the great harmonizer of the human facul- 
 ties, overstrained and made inharmonious by labor. It 
 is the agency that keeps alive, and in healthy activity, 
 the faculties and sympathies which work fails to use, 
 or helps to repress. It is the conservator of moral, 
 mental, and physical health. 
 
 I have never seen a man who, through a long life 
 of labor, has been playful, giving himself up in the 
 hours of his leisure to the lead of his innocent im- 
 pulses, who was either bigoted, invalid, or insane. In 
 short, play is as innocent and as legitimate in the man 
 as in the boy, provided, of course, that it start from 
 innocent impulses, and answer its legitimate ends. 
 
 I bring out this point with special prominence, be- 
 cause many of the innocent modes of play, like play it- 
 self, have been placed under ban by well-meaning people 
 who are possessed by the notion that all time spent in 
 5 
 
98 Work and Play. 
 
 play is mis-spent, and that all money devoted to play 
 is mis- appropriated ; who believe that the idle words 
 and the thriftless deeds of play are those for which 
 they are to be brought into judgment. Play is to be 
 resorted to intelligently and conscientiously, without 
 doubt, and should never descend into dissipation. It 
 should always be of that kind and amount which will 
 induce the most perfect sleep ; which will the most thor- 
 oughly harmonize the functions of the mind and body, 
 wearied and distracted by work ; which will best nour- 
 ish the faculties that work has neglected ; and which 
 will best prepare both body and mind for the pursuit 
 of work. This is the mission of play to the worker ; 
 and a great blessing would it be to the world could it 
 be intelligently apprehended as such. A great blessing 
 would it be, could the almost universal bondage of the 
 world to the idea that play compromises Christian con- 
 sistency, and worldly thrift, and manly dignity, be for- 
 ever broken. A great blessing would it be, could a mis- 
 takenly conscientious world look heavenward, and feel 
 the full blessedness of the truth that God smiles upon 
 His creatures at play as benignantly as when they are at 
 work, and that He frowns as indignantly upon that work 
 which enslaves and distorts and spoils them, as upon 
 that excess of play which dissipates or prostitutes them. 
 "We have resorted to Nature for an illustration of 
 the effect of play upon the boy : let us go to the same 
 
Work and Play. 99 
 
 teacher to learn the united effect of work and play 
 upon the man. The simpler the illustration, the bet- 
 ter. We will take the negroes of a cotton plantation. 
 They will sing all day while engaged in their work, 
 and dance all night after it, if they can get a chance. 
 For every hard task they have a song which helps 
 them through. It is in this way that they preserve 
 themselves from disease and insanity. If you would 
 find invalids and lunatics, go among the Yankees, and 
 particularly the Yankee farmers. By this play, these 
 negroes become safe property to own. They follow 
 their instincts and impulses, unchecked by any con- 
 scientious or economical considerations ; and I wish 
 that all the poor slaT-es, chained to the oar of labor, 
 would follow them as innocently. 
 
 But I can bring my lesson from a nearer point than 
 this. I appeal to you to testify if there do not come 
 to you, at the close of each day's hearty and healthy 
 labor, the desire to play. You go home from your 
 work to your dinner or your tea, and when you rise 
 from your table, (if you are not smokers,) what is your 
 first impulse ? Springs there not in you that which 
 tells you there is something w 7 hich should intervene 
 between that point and sleep ? You love that wife, 
 or those children, or sisters, better than all, of course ; 
 but is it your supreme desire to sit quietly down with 
 them and spend the evening ? Is it the most delight/ 
 
100 Work and Play. 
 
 ful thing you can imagine to doze over your evening 
 paper for an hour, and retire to bed as early as you 
 decently can ? Never, unless work has killed the best 
 part of you. Do you not feel that you need something 
 besides rest and before it ? Is it not habitual for it to 
 occur to you that you have " an a'ppointment," that 
 you must go to the post-office, or go somewhere ? Do 
 you not long to get into the open air, and to wander 
 where you list? I know that I touch the experience 
 of every healthy working man present. Now, believe 
 me, this is God's voice in your nature bidding you 
 play, and you have no right to disregard it. It is 
 under this untaught impulse that the slave resorts 
 to singing and dancing. It is this impulse, perverted, 
 which drives the poor toper to his pot-house and his 
 pot-house companions. It is this impulse, under a 
 German education and German habits, that takes the 
 German to his garden and his lager bier ; but you, 
 with higher tastes and better impulses, resort to noth- 
 ing at all but a barren walk in a giddy street, and feel 
 yourselves obliged to make a business apology for 
 that ! " They order these things better in France." 
 
 I therefore make the assertion, that every intelli- 
 gent worker — every man and woman whose faculties, 
 ander will, are trained and held to the performance 
 of a daily task — should always have regular periods 
 of play. 
 
Work and Play. 101 
 
 The practical question now arises as to what this 
 play shall be. It should never be that which is essen- 
 tially work — that which is felt to be a tax of power, 
 under will. If you have read Dickens, you will remem- 
 ber the picture of Dr. Blimber's young gentlemen as 
 they appeared when " enjoying themselves," walking 
 out in dignified and dressy couples, with the Doctor 
 at their head, and the boys of the street turning sum- 
 mersets in the foreground. There is a great deal of 
 this bastard play, in which the young have been forced 
 into walks which worried them, and tasks which dis- 
 gusted them, as a relief to study or work. Exercise 
 which has been the severest mental and bodily discom- 
 fort has been mistaken for play. I have seen young 
 men working away for dear life at saw-horses, or scud- 
 ding over barren miles as if a ghost were after them, 
 or swinging dumb-bells, when I knew they were en- 
 gaged in harder tasks than those from which they 
 sought relief. This "muscle-movement," as it is 
 called, in our colleges, will amount to but little if the 
 element of play do not enter largely into it. A young 
 man, or a young woman, who takes exercise of set pur- 
 pose for the preservation of health, may in some in- 
 stances succeed ; but the chances are against success, in 
 all cases where the exercise alternates with periods of 
 severe labor, of any kind. The severest exercise may, 
 indeed, be play, but that which is felt to be a task is 
 
102 Work and Play. 
 
 not play, and can never be made to take the place 
 of it. 
 
 The mode of every man's play must be determined 
 by the indications of his tastes, conditions, and disposi- 
 tions. There are some who enjoy athletic games, and 
 are never so much at home as when on the cricket- 
 ground, or the bowling-alley, or the row-boat. Play 
 of this character has the double power to give mental 
 relief, and preserve and develop physical health and 
 strength. Every intelligent lover of his country and 
 his kind will hail the fresh attention attracted to this 
 kind of play with gladness and gratitude. It is time 
 that this over-worked nation — this nation of narrow 
 shoulders, and flat chests, and weak arms and spindle- 
 shanks — possessed more of the characteristics of phys- 
 ical manhood. Who wonders that strong-handed and 
 strong-minded women assert their rights in the pres- 
 ence of such a race of men as this ? Were I such a 
 woman, with such a husband as such a woman invaria- 
 bly has, if she has any, I would assert mine. Why is 
 it that the good men of a city permit the bad men tc 
 rule it ? Why is it that the respectable men of a ward 
 allow rowdies to keep them from the ballot-box ? Be- 
 cause, and only because, they lack pluck and prowess, 
 and are physically afraid of them. The cause of public 
 decency, nay, the cause of Christianity, demands more 
 muscle, and I am glad to see that it is likely to get it. 
 
Work and Play. 103 
 
 In such times as these, and in such as seem likely to 
 come, the church militant would find abundant employ- 
 ment for a saintly corps of robust and muscular men. 
 
 There are others who most enjoy society, and who 
 find recreation and reward in a genial circle of friends. 
 Much is to be done for the play of the nation by a 
 more generous development of its social life. Work 
 has well-nigh killed out this kind of play. How few 
 are the impulses among the every-day, hard workers 
 of the world to mingle in society ! We wander from 
 our work into lonely moodiness, for, though we may 
 have something to receive, we are conscious that we 
 have nothing to give, in social intercourse. How many 
 are there in my audience who shrink from receiving 
 company, and who dread to go into it, because too con- 
 stant and too much work has spoiled them for social 
 life ? Work has exhausted them ; work has possessed 
 them, and they cannot get their thoughts out of it. 
 Work has absorbed, drunk up all their vital juices; 
 and if they go to a social gathering, they are either 
 driven or dragged there. 
 
 It is in a genial social life that the worker comes 
 into contact with minds developed in various direc- 
 tions. A congregation of sympathies touch him at 
 every point, and stimulate his whole nature into de- 
 lightful activity. It is in society that knowledge is 
 equalized, and experience harmonized, and all those 
 
104 Work and Play, 
 
 faculties that work has kept from free development, 
 and those sympathies that work has cursed, are called 
 into demonstration. It is in social life that the adult 
 is always to find his best play, and, until work has 
 destroyed the disposition to play, it is there that he 
 will always seek it. In the mind of the healthy man 
 and woman, as in the mind of the healthy boy and girl, 
 play and society will be inseparable thoughts and things. 
 The moment that work has so far abused a man that 
 he loses the impulse to play, that moment his love of 
 society is lost. So I advise all those who find them- 
 selves averse to going into society, to go until they like 
 it, as they will be sure to do, so soon as the mischief 
 which work has wrought shall have been remedied. 
 
 Lonely walking, unless among new scenery, cannot 
 be play, except in peculiar conditions of the mind. 
 Routine walking, in order to be play, should always 
 be social walking. It takes two pairs of ears, at least, 
 to enjoy the music of a waterfall, and two pairs of 
 eyes to weigh the gold of a sunset with just appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 To a great multitude, riding is, perhaps, the most 
 delightful of out-door play. The man and woman who 
 carry heavy burdens love to be carried. This love of 
 being carried begins in the mother's arms, and is never 
 outgrown. There is something in the passive exercise 
 of riding, and even in the society of a horse, if one can 
 
Work and Play. 105 
 
 get no better, that is eminently refreshing. I nevei 
 despair of a man who really loves the society of an in- 
 telligent horse. A man who lives as a man should 
 live, never outgrows his love of playthings, and he 
 should always have them. The little girl plays with 
 her doll, the mother with her baby ; the boy plays 
 with his rocking-horse, the man with the living ani- 
 mal ; and baby and horse are just as really playthings 
 as doll and hobby. 
 
 Happy are ye who own horses, and love them and 
 know how to use them ; and happy will you all be 
 when you get rich enough to own and keep one. In 
 the mean time, let your imagination tell you of the 
 horse which is to come. His color shall be bay — dark 
 and glossy, like the throat of a wild pigeon ; and his 
 mane and tail shall be black and flowing. His pace, 
 when you wish to be soothed, shall be as gentle as the 
 motion of a yacht under easy sail ; and, when you 
 wish to be exhilarated, he shall fly like the wind. He 
 shall draw you and yours over the smoothly-gravelled 
 roads, and learn to know and love his burden. He 
 shall whinny for you in his stall, and inform you iu 
 his choicest forms of " horse-talk " that all your adini 
 ration of him is appreciated. You will speak pet 
 phrases in his ear, your children shall caress him, and 
 he shall catch their spirit and become playful like them 
 and like you. You will tell him that he is very beauti- 
 5* 
 
106 Work and Play. 
 
 ful ; that there is grandeur in the arch of his neck ; that 
 there is grace in all his action ; and that it is not a sin 
 for a horse to be proud. When, by intimate associa- 
 tion with you, he shall become half human, you will 
 make known to him the beautiful truth, that when you 
 were young God gave you ready and active limbs to 
 play with, but now, when work has tired them, He 
 has given you a horse. 
 
 Every man, I say again, must determine what his 
 play shall be. I say, must determine, because he only 
 can judge what is play to him — what his taste selects, 
 and what his nature calls for — and because there is a 
 duty involved in the matter. To every man who has 
 the power to spend a portion of his time in play, I say 
 that you have no right to spoil yourself by refusing to 
 play. You have no right to prostitute all the noble 
 faculties of your soul, and the powers of your frame, to 
 the offices of work — to become the things, the ma- 
 chines, of a calling. What you are to be careful about 
 is, that your play be that which best relieves your la- 
 bor, and best prepares you for it; that it do not degen- 
 erate into dissipation, nor tend in vicious directions ; 
 that, for the time, it drive work from your mind, and 
 be recognized as one of its most grateful rewards. 
 
 There can be no radical reform in this matter until 
 the popular mind shall more fully comprehend the in- 
 trinsic nature of work and its relations to life. The 
 
Work and Play. 107 
 
 popular mind is enslaved, and needs emancipation. It 
 is enslaved to the idea that life is work and that work 
 is life ; whereas work is but an instrument of life, to be 
 held at arm's-length, and used in such a way that there 
 shall be no damaging reaction. During the hours of 
 labor, the mind should bend to its faithful perform- 
 ance ; but as soon as they are passed, it should rise 
 out of work into a free and noble life. The Italian 
 beggar, after obtaining enough for a dinner, contents 
 himself, and gives himself up for the remainder of the 
 day to music and maccaroni. This, you say, is very 
 stupid, and I think it is ; but he is more sensible than 
 the Broadway merchant or the Wall-street broker 
 whose whole soul is absorbed by work — who is in it all 
 day, and who dreams of it all night. We need emanci- 
 pation, if for nothing else than for the sake of a decent 
 family-life. The slave of work becomes an inharmo- 
 nious element in his own home-circle. It is pitiful to 
 see the thousands scattered all over this country, who, 
 through insane devotion to business, have ceased to be 
 husbands and fathers ; who have no part in the family- 
 life but to furnish funds for its maintenance ; and 
 who are only treated respectfully by wives and chil- 
 dren because they are crabbed and sour, or because 
 they carry the key of the family treasury. 
 
 We need emancipation, and the tendency to it is 
 happily evident. It is evident in the more general cir- 
 
108 Work and Play. 
 
 « 
 
 culation and entertainment of sound and rational ideas -. 
 evident in the growing love of literature and art ; evi- 
 dent in the increasing attention directed to physical 
 culture and games and sports. These facts relate pecu- 
 liarly, perhaps, to the literary and mercantile classes ; 
 but there is abundant evidence of approaching emanci- 
 pation to the tiller of the soil, the artisan, and the 
 operative. The effect of labor-saving machinery must 
 ultimately be to reduce the hours of labor, as it has 
 already mitigated its severity. The work of a day will 
 be crowded into a smaller space ; and so soon as our 
 people can learn that gold is not the highest good, and 
 that man is something better than a beast of burden, 
 we shall throw off the shackles which now make our 
 callings our masters, and which reduce our life to one 
 long, unmitigated bondage to work. 
 
 I now pass to the relations of work and play to the 
 health and happiness of the race. Use is the condition 
 of health in all the human faculties and functions. We 
 have seen that it is the condition of development ; and 
 health is naturally implied in the same condition. 
 When a plant grows strongly and thriftily, it is in 
 its healthiest state : so, when the faculties of the 
 mind and the powers of the body thrive the best, 
 are they naturally the healthiest. Happiness depends 
 also upon the same condition ; for a complete human 
 organism, in p bcess of full, healthy development 
 
Work and Play. 10s 
 
 must be happy, or, in other words, consciously har- 
 monious. Work and play, then, do not stop at devel 
 opment as their direct result to the individual, but 
 they make him healthy, and they make him happy so 
 far as happiness depends upon the harmonious move- 
 ments of his complicated nature. Utter idleness is but 
 another name for utter misery. As a symmetrical de- 
 velopment depends upon the use, in work and play, of 
 all the human faculties, so also do health and happiness. 
 I do not believe the world can furnish a man who has 
 for any length of time been entirely absorbed in the 
 duties of a calling, and is, at the same time, healthy and 
 happy. It is impossible in the nature of things that he 
 should be so. 
 
 Here we arrive at a point of importance. Neither 
 development, nor health, nor happiness can be secured, 
 in their full degree, unless the mind be animated by a 
 purpose to secure an object in which it is interested. 
 There must be a glad consent of the mind to the 
 efforts of its life, or use will be nothing better than 
 slavery. Childhood may do without a grand purpose, 
 but manhood cannot. For the accomplishment of this 
 purpose, work is the instrument ; to its accomplish- 
 ment, play is only indirectly, though essentially, tribu- 
 tary. There must be a tendency of the life, starting 
 from an intelligently apprehended purpose, to certain 
 snds or certain results, before everything in a man— 
 
110 Work and Play. 
 
 before all things in a man — can move harmoniously. 
 Now the mind of no healthy and sound man can gladly 
 consent to a life of slavery to a calling. It revolts 
 from such a life ; and play comes in here, not only as 
 an agent in development, but as a mental relief and a 
 mental reward. If a few hours of work purchase and 
 secure a few hours of play, then is the work sweetened 
 as an exercise, and rewarded as a finished performance. 
 In this philosophy we shall find at least one of the 
 causes of the discontent and the not unfrequent disas- 
 ter that attend retirement from business. ]STo man 'in 
 the possession of his faculties can actually retire from 
 business and be happy. The moment a life loses its 
 purpose, and seeks for its sole enjoyment in play, and 
 the neglect of the use of its powers, that moment it 
 loses its happiness. It matters nothing how rich a 
 man may be : the moment those purposes of life are 
 gone to which the work of his life has been devoted, 
 he will become miserable, provided he have any power 
 left for the fulfilment of a purpose. Your memory 
 will recall many a man who has retired from business 
 only to die, or to become a melancholy invalid. So 
 long as a man retains his faculties, and his control of 
 them, he must remain in harness if he would be happy. 
 He must possess and pursue a purpose, or bid farewell 
 to the zest of life. Here is where the greedy multitude 
 of money-makers make wreck of themselves. They 
 
Work and Play. Hi 
 
 deny to themselves play while the work of their life is 
 in progress, in order to have a few years of play, or 
 uninterrupted ease,, at the end of it. When their 
 money is made, they find themselves spoiled for play, 
 and having accomplished their purposes, life is utterly 
 spoiled for them. The truth is that play, for the man 
 and woman, was never intended to be a steady dish, 
 but the condiment of a steady dish. Play is to be 
 taken every day, or never. The moment that the pur- 
 poses of life are accomplished, play has lost not only 
 its power but its significance ; and a man who has 
 really retired from all business is practically dead. 
 
 Independence and self-respect are essential to hap- 
 piness, and these are never to be attained together 
 without work. It is impossible that a man shall be a 
 drone, and go through life without a purpose which 
 contemplates worthy results, and, at the same time, 
 maintain his self-respect. No idle man, however rich 
 he may be, can feel the genuine independence of him 
 who earns honestly and manfully his daily bread. 
 The idle man stands outside of God's plan, outside of 
 the ordained scheme of things ; and the truest self- 
 respect, the noblest independence, and the most genu- 
 ine dignity, are not to be found there. The man who 
 does his part in life, who pursues a worthy end, and 
 who takes care of himself, is the happy man. There 
 is a great deal of cant afloat about the dignity of labor, 
 
112 Work and Play. 
 
 « 
 
 uttered mostly, perhaps, by those who know little 
 about it experimentally ; but labor has a dignity which 
 attaches to little else that is human. 
 
 To labor rightly and earnestly is to walk in the 
 golden track that leads to God. It is to adopt the 
 regimen of manhood and womanhood. It is to come 
 into sympathy with the great struggle of humanity 
 toward perfection. It is to adopt the fellowship of 
 all the great and good the world has ever known. 
 
 I suppose that all God's purposes in work and play 
 are fulfilled in the completion of the discipline of the 
 worker, — and the results of work are doubtless laid 
 under tribute for this end ; but man's direct purposes 
 culminate in the achievement of ends relating to socie- 
 ty, institutions, material necessities, art, literature, and 
 the varied objects of human pursuit. 
 
 It is in achievement that work throws off all its 
 repulsive features, and assumes the form and functions 
 of an angel. Before her, like a dissolving scene, the 
 forest fades, with its wild beasts and its wild men, and 
 under her hand smiling villages rise among the hills 
 and on the plains, and yellow harvests spread the 
 fields with gold. The city, with its docks and ware- 
 houses, and churches and palaces, springs at her bid- 
 ding into being. The trackless ocean mirrors her 
 tireless pinions as she ransacks the climes for the food 
 of commerce, or flames with the torches of her steam 
 
Work and Play. n; 
 
 sped messengers. She binds states and marts and capi- 
 tals together with bars of iron, that thunder with the 
 ceaseless rush of life .and trade. She pictures all scenes 
 of beauty on canvas, and carves all forms of excellence 
 iia marble. Into huge libraries she pours the wealth of 
 countless precious lives. She erects beautiful and con. 
 venient homes for men and women to dwell in, and 
 weaves the fibres which nature prepares into fabrics 
 for their covering and comfort. She rears great civili- 
 zations that run like mountain-ranges through the level 
 centuries, their summits sleeping among the clouds, or 
 still flaming with the fire that fills them, or looming 
 grandly in the purple haze of history. Nature fur- 
 nishes material, and work fashions it. By the hand of 
 art, work selects, and moulds, and modifies, and re-com- 
 bines that which it finds, and gives utterance and being 
 to those compositions of matter and of thought which 
 build for man a new world, with special adaptation to 
 his desires, tastes, and necessities. Man's record upon 
 this wild world is the record of work, and of work 
 alone. 
 
 Work explores the secrets of the universe, and 
 brings back those contributions which make up the 
 sum of human knowledge. It counts the ribs of the 
 mountains, and feels the pulses of the sea, and traces 
 Jie foot-paths of the stars, and calls the animals of the 
 forest and the birds of the air and the flowers of the 
 
11*4 Work and Play. 
 
 field by name. It summons horses of fire and chariots 
 of lire from heaven, and makes them the bearers of its 
 thought. It plunders the tombs of dead nationalities, 
 and weaves living histories from the shreds it finds. 
 It seeks out and sets in order the secrets of the soil, 
 and divides to every plant its food. It builds and 
 binds into unity great philosophies, along which run 
 the life and thought of ages. It embalms the life of 
 nations in literatures, in whose crypts are scattered 
 seeds of thought that only need the light to spread 
 into harvests of bread for living generations. 
 
 How wonderful a being is man, when viewed in the 
 light of his achievements ! It is in the record of these 
 that we find the evidence of his power and the creden- 
 tials of his glory. Into the results of work each gene- 
 ration pours its life ; and as these results grow in excel- 
 lence, with broader forms and richer tints and nobler 
 meanings, they become the indexes of the world's prog- 
 ress. We estimate the life of a generation by what 
 it does ; aud the results of its work stand out in ad- 
 vance of its successor, to show it what it can do, and 
 to show it what it must do, to reach a finer consum- 
 mation. Thus the results of work become the most 
 powerful stimulus of the worker. They inspire emula- 
 tion ; they instruct in mode and style ; they feed peren- 
 nially the springs of ambition. 
 
 Great, however, as these achievements are, they 
 
Work and Play. 115 
 
 derive their peculiar significance from the fact that 
 they are necessarily and forever less than their author. 
 Work being the ordained means of development to the 
 worker, must always, by an immutable law, leave him 
 higher than his achievement. Never was a worthy 
 work accomplished, above which the worker did not 
 stand with the feeling that by his work he had been 
 fitted for something higher. Every generation that 
 has stepped from its sphere of labor into the shadowy 
 beyond, has walked forth with the results of its work 
 beneath its feet. He who hath builded the house hath 
 more honor than the house. Thus work, in its results, 
 lifts each generation in the world's progress from step 
 to step, shortening the ladder upon which the angels 
 ascend and descend, and climbing by ever brighter and 
 broader gradations toward the ultimate perfection. 
 A new and more glorious gift of power compensates 
 for each worthy expenditure, so that it is by work 
 that man carves his way to that measure of power 
 which will fit him for his destiny, and leave him near- 
 est God. 
 
 Among the results of work, we shall find for play, 
 too, a compensating ministry. Work wins the appe- 
 tite for play, and provides the multiplied means for it. 
 It buys and mans a yacht for play. It purchases a 
 horse for play, and drives him before its door, and 
 gives it the ribbons. It opens houses to the incoming 
 
116 Work and Play. 
 
 of friends, and carpets floors for them, and fills their 
 ears with music and their mouths with delicacies. 
 Play plays for work, and work works for play. Play 
 assists work by ministering to its delight, and keeping 
 its machinery in order, and work supplies play with 
 implements for its grateful service. 
 
 There remains to be presented another thought 
 relating to the ultimate results of Work and Play. 
 Development and discipline have been seen to be 
 their immediate object. What is the object of the 
 development and the discipline ? For what purpose 
 must you and I play in boyhood, and then work 
 through a life-time, bringing all our powers under 
 the control of will, bending our whole being to the 
 accomplishment of a purpose, till every faculty moves 
 harmoniously with every other faculty ? Why is man 
 fitted by his work to do something higher than his 
 work, and to lie down in the dust at last, capable of 
 a greater deed than he has ever performed ? Why is 
 it, that, great as the record of man upon the earth is, 
 it must be forever unworthy of man, and convey but a 
 hint of his power? 
 
 I am not a preacher, nor is this an occasion for 
 preaching ; but this is a Christian congregation, which 
 claims from me the noblest view of this subject — the 
 key to its whole meaning. You and I believe that 
 man is immortal, and your knowledge of yourselves 
 
Work and Play. in 
 
 will readily bring you to the admission that an immor« 
 tality of rest must be, beyond all conception, horrible 
 — more repulsive, in fact, than an immortality of work. 
 The mind that ceases to act without an object, must 
 forever feed upon itself. If I am taught anything by 
 the intimate association and the mutual relations of 
 work and play in this sphere of being, it is, that a 
 period will arrive when they will be blended in one ; 
 when out of rectified conditions, and purified disposi- 
 tions, and rationally apprehended schemes and objects 
 of good, impulses will rise to spur the will and all the 
 faculties trained under it into an eternal play that will 
 be essential work, and an eternal work that will be 
 essential play. 
 
 Thus introduced to the object and the meaning of 
 this development and discipline, what wondrous music 
 do the din and discord of business become ! How 
 magnificent the thought that, running parallel, or 
 intertwining, with our own limited purposes, and even 
 our careless play, there is a limitless divine purpose 
 threading each object and achievement, and passing 
 infinitely on into the unseen ! Hammer away ! thou 
 sturdy smith, at that bar of iron, for thou art bravely 
 forging thy own destiny ! Weave on in glad content, 
 industrious worker of the mill, for thou art weaving 
 cloth of gold, though thou mark not its lustre ! 
 Plough and plant, and rear and reap, ye tillers of the 
 
118 Work and Play. 
 
 soil, for those brown acres of yours are pregnant with 
 nobler fruitage than that which hung in Eden. Let 
 Commerce fearlessly send out her ships, for there is 
 a haven where they will arrive at last, with freight- 
 ed wealth below, and flying streamers above, and jubi- 
 lant crews between ! Working well for the minor 
 good and the chief good of life, and wisely making 
 play tributary to your ends, you shall all win your way 
 to the great consummation I have indicated, and find 
 in your hands the golden key that will open for you 
 the riddle of your history. 
 
WOEKOTG A3STD SHIEKING. 
 
 THE disposition to shirk seems to be constitutional 
 with the human race. The first recorded act of 
 the primal pair, after they had eaten the fatal fruit, 
 was an attempt to shirk a moral responsibility. The 
 man tried to shift the burden of his guilt upon the 
 woman, and the woman charged the serpent with being 
 her beguiler. From that day to this their descendants 
 have shown that sinning and shirking are inseparable 
 companions. --k 
 
 There is a prevalent disposition in this country to 
 shirk the hardships of useful and productive labor, and 
 to shirk personal, social, and political responsibility. 
 Very £ew men make a straight path for themselves, 
 dodging no duty, avoiding no burden that legitimately 
 belongs to them, and cheerfully and manfully assuming 
 every responsibility that Providence places in their 
 path. I think that we shall find it both interesting 
 and profitable to discuss this fault and failing of man- 
 
120 
 
 Working and Shirking. 
 
 kind, especially as illustrated by American character 
 and history, and to say a few words of the remedy 
 which Providence prescribes. 
 
 Let me begin with the proposition that all mankind 
 are naturally lazy. There are probably some men in 
 the world who love to work, for work's sake, as there 
 are some men in the world who love tobacco and 
 pickled olives, having acquired a taste for them ; but, 
 generally, men work because they are obliged to, for 
 the procurement of the necessaries of life, or because 
 they are impelled to by the wish for wealth or some 
 other desirable good. I do not suppose that any con- 
 siderable amount of stone-fence was ever laid " for the 
 fun of it," or that the boy lives who prefers raking 
 after a cart to flying a kite. Labor is embraced by 
 the majority of men as a lesser evil than that from 
 which it purchases exemption. 
 
 Now what is labor ? It is the price we pay for 
 everything that is not free and common to men. For 
 air, we pay no price. It is with us and about us every- 
 where. For the water that bathes our faces and slakes 
 our thirst, we have only to go where it is — and it is 
 everywhere — to find it bursting from the ground in 
 perennial springs, or leaping down cataracts, or mur- 
 muring to itself in brooks, or spreading itself out into 
 rivers, lakes, and oceans. Nay, it will come to us from 
 the sky, and we can catch it in our hands, if we will. 
 
Working and Shirking. 121 
 
 It is possible that some special disposition of air and 
 water may cost labor, but both are intended to be 
 without price; and they are made free because they 
 are so immediately essential to the preservation of life. 
 It will be found also that those articles of food which 
 are absolutely essential are cheap. A few nuts, to be 
 had for the gathering; a few roots, to be obtained for 
 the digging ; a few sheep and goats that will take care 
 of themselves, and yield milk and meat and peltry — 
 these cost but little labor ; but the moment we pass 
 beyond the simplest essentials for the preservation of 
 animal life, we must pay the full price in labor for 
 every article we obtain. 
 
 I say we must pay : somebody must pay. A bushel 
 of wheat represents a certain amount of labor — the 
 preparation of soil for the seed, the sowing, the cover- 
 ing, the reaping, gathering, threshing, winnowing, and 
 transportation. A barrel of flour represents a still 
 greater amount of labor, both in its quantity and con- 
 dition. Every bushel of wheat and every barrel of 
 flour represents certain processes of labor without which 
 it could never have been produced. So, every ton of 
 iron cost somebody a certain price in labor, and an 
 ounce of gold, if it will pay for the ton of iron, cost 
 somebody just as much labor as the ton of iron cost. 
 
 All values are based on labor — the labor they origi- 
 nally cost, or the labor it would cost to duplicate or 
 6 
 
122 
 
 Working and Shirking. 
 
 reproduce them. A necklace of diamonds will sell for 
 ten thousand dollars because it would, roughly and gen- 
 erally speaking, cost ten thousand dollars to duplicate 
 the gems and their setting, drawing them from the origi- 
 nal stock of nature. There are exceptions to this rule 
 in the lucky stumbles that are made upon extraordi- 
 nary deposits of the precious stones and metals ; but, 
 speaking in the large way, everything costs its value 
 in labor. California makes no more money in digging 
 gold than Illinois makes in growing wheat; Georgia 
 gets no richer in producing cotton than Massachusetts 
 does in spinning it. Nature is so nicely adjusted to this 
 basis of values, that intelligent labor thrives as well on 
 a mountain as in a valley ; thrives as well on the water 
 as on the land ; gets just as much for its pains in a 
 quarry of granite as in a vein of gold-bearing quartz ; 
 and finds equal profit in working a coal-mine and wash- 
 ing for diamonds. 
 
 I look over my audience, and I see silks from China, 
 ribbons from France, cloths from England and Ger- 
 many, brooches from California, gloves from the feet 
 of the Alps — the work of thousands of weavers and 
 spinners and dyers and cunning artisans and artists — 
 and all these represent labor. All these cost the labor 
 of somebody, and the money that bought them cost 
 the labor of somebody. The money which you gave 
 for these things may not have cost you anything, but 
 
Working and Shirking. 123 
 
 it cost somebody its value in labor. There are some 
 of you, possibly, who have never been obliged to labor, 
 and who have earned nothing that you possess ; but 
 somebody has earned it. That wealth of yours was dug 
 out of the ground, or drawn from the sea, by some- 
 body ; perhaps it required ten thousand somebodies to 
 do it. You or your ancestors may have won this wealth 
 at comparatively little cost ; but it all came originally 
 from the marrow and through the muscles of labor. 
 
 The facS that some persons are rich proves that the 
 labor of the world is more than sufficient for the wants 
 of the world. That everybody lives, and that some 
 have wealth who produce nothing, shows that there 
 are various ways of securing the results of productive 
 labor without engaging in that labor. There is a large 
 number of men and women in the world who live upon 
 the labor of others — a large number besides those who 
 are naturally or necessarily dependent. Many secure a 
 share of this surplus of production by entirely legiti- 
 mate means. They take a just contribution from it as 
 it passes through their hands in various commercial 
 exchanges. They fill some office or perform some ser- 
 vice for the producers, and secure a proper payment 
 for their work ; but the great strife, of the world is 
 to see how much of this labor of production can be 
 shirked, and how great an amount of its results can be 
 secured without paying their legitimate price. Every 
 
124 Working and Shirking. 
 
 employment that gives heavy pay for light work, every 
 scheme of gain that promises large rewards for little 
 labor, every profession, trade, or calling, that secures 
 the results of productive toil without paying their full 
 price, is filled to overflowing, in every community. 
 
 The great centres of commercial exchange are 
 points of attraction for the shirks of the world. They 
 stand wherever the producers and consumers meet, 
 ready to grasp some portion of the profits of trade — 
 men who live by their wits — men who minister to the 
 vices of wealth for a consideration — men who are con- 
 tent to be the well-dressed slaves of capital — men who 
 speculate in the necessaries of life, though thousands 
 starve — men who gamble in stocks and invent fancy 
 schemes of plunder — knaves who eat the flesh and 
 drink the blood of needle- women — Peter Funks, beg- 
 gars, thieves — men who prefer to simper and smirk 
 behind a counter to doing a man's work behind a 
 plough — women who sell their bodies and their souls 
 for luxury and ease — suckers and swindlers and super- 
 numeraries and sinners generally. 
 
 Nor are these all the shirks of the city. If we 
 could know the real motive that brings the reputable 
 people of a city together, we should, very generally, 
 find it to be the desire to win wealth without pro- 
 ducing it, and without paying in labor the full price 
 for it. The able-bodied farmer's boy leaves the hoe 
 
Working and Shirking. . 125 
 
 for the yard-stick to save his back from labor ; and 
 there are hundreds of thousands of men in our larger 
 cities who have relinquished manly employment, manly 
 aims and ambitions, and manly independence, for the 
 sole purpose of securing the results of the labor of 
 others at a cheap rate. I do not say that they accom- 
 plish their object, for there is great competition in shirk- 
 ing, and pretty hard work is made of it sometimes. I 
 am talking simply of their motive and their aim. 
 
 You will not understand me to have any reference 
 to the legitimate commerce and the useful profession? 
 and callings which engage large and honorable num- 
 bers in every city, when I say that the shirks of the 
 city are very great curses of the country. They have 
 contrived to make labor disreputable, or, at least, 
 unfashionable. They have erected a false standard of 
 respectability. They have helped to establish the opin- 
 iou that the laborer — the producer and the artificer of 
 the wealth of the nation — cannot possibly be a gentle- 
 man, and that the only gentle pursuits are those of 
 trade and commerce, and the professions and callings 
 which more immediately serve them. It is in these 
 false ideas — offspring of pretentious laziness — that 
 American productive labor is educated ; and it is 
 sad to think how much of it grows up to despise 
 itself, and to look upon its lot as equally severe and 
 degrading. The city is the beautiful and haughty 
 
126 Working and Shirking. 
 
 Estella that tells poor Pip that his hands are coarse, 
 and poor Pip gets ashamed of his hands, and feels very 
 sadly ah out himself 
 
 But it is not in ideas alone that the shirking classes 
 of the city curse the country. Let us look for a mo- 
 ment at that paradise of shirks, the stock-exchange — 
 a place where not the first particle of wealth ever was 
 produced or ever will be produced ; where great games 
 of chance are played in a strictly legal and a superlative- 
 ly immoral way ; where men combine to break down the 
 credit of worthy corporations, conspire to give a ficti- 
 tious value to that which is valueless, and make a busi- 
 ness of cheating each other and swindling the world. 
 I can perceive no difference between a professional 
 gambler in stocks and any other professional gambler. 
 Both are men who produce nothing ; who play at 
 games of skill and hazard for money ; who never win 
 a dollar that does not leave some other man poorer ; 
 and who strive to over-reach each other, and burn the 
 fingers of unsuspicious outsiders. Professional specu- 
 lating in stocks is organized and instituted shirking. 
 Sin, we are told, " when it is finished bringeth forth 
 death." Shirking, in its ultimate development, bring- 
 eth forth the stock-exchange. 
 
 Think of the influence of this institution upon the 
 country. To leave out of account the temptations it 
 holds out to those who are greedy for sudden wealth, 
 
Working and Shirking. 127 
 
 or to those who are in desperate circumstances, think 
 of the false standard of values it sets before the coun- 
 try. Think how the trade, the commercial confidence, 
 and the business enterprise of the nation rise and fall 
 with the varying influence of the bulls and the bears in 
 the stock-market, while the real value of the fluctuating 
 stocks may not materially change from one year to an- 
 other. A panic in the stock-market, produced by pro- 
 fessional speculators, is felt from one end of the coun- 
 try to the other ; and all this disturbance is caused that 
 a set of professional shirks may make an opportunity to 
 steal a dollar out of a railway-bond, or filch a dirty 
 dime from an honest man's share of bank-stock. 
 Would it not be, indeed, a blessing to the country 
 if this legal gambling-shop were shut up ? Would 
 it not be better, on the whole, that the men who get 
 their living there should take to similar pursuits in pri- 
 vate, where they use a thicker variety of paper — paste- 
 board, in fact — and where they have only four knaves 
 in a pack ? I think so. 
 
 Perhaps the most humiliating exhibition which the 
 shirks make of themselves is on the occasion of a change 
 in the national administration. A hundred dollars in 
 money (borrowed), three clean shirts, a long petition, 
 an anxious face, and a carpet-bag, form the outfit of 
 something less than a hundred thousand able-bodied 
 men who make a pilgrimage to Washington every foul 
 
128 Working and Shirking. 
 
 years. And what do these men want ? They want a 
 clerkship, a collectorship, a postmastership — any sort of 
 a ship that will save them the trouble of rowing, and 
 that will furnish them with pay and rations. The ma- 
 jority of these men are shirks, who wish to be released 
 from the necessity of productive and useful industry. 
 They swarm around the centres of patronage like bees 
 around a sugar-cask, every one after something sweet 
 which others have collected. Alas ! let me confess 
 that the shirks are not all in the city. Rip Van Win- 
 kle lived in a country-village under the Catskills, and 
 we are told by Mr. Irving that " the great error in 
 Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all 
 kinds of profitable labor." There is more than one 
 Rip Van Winkle in every American village ; but in- 
 stead of decently lying clown in the field, and sleeping 
 for twenty years, he prefers to take a nap equally long 
 in a government-office, and waking up with better 
 clothes on, instead of worse. 
 
 The genuine shirk, wherever he lives, has no honor, 
 no conscience, and no patriotism. In the nation's hour 
 of trial, when everything good in an American's nature 
 was appealed to, he clothed our troops with shoddy, 
 and cheated them in their rations, and took advantage 
 of his country's need to fill his coffers, every dollar of 
 which must be patiently worked out by his fellow-citi- 
 zens. Certainly a swindling government contractor, in 
 
Working and Shirking. 12s 
 
 a time of national peril, deserves the most infamous 
 place among the shirks and scoundrels of the world. 
 
 Let us look at some of the more obvious and ordi- 
 nary results of shirking. All kinds of business that 
 promise large results at little cost are overdone. The 
 country drives straight into financial wreck at brief, 
 irregular periods, simply because there are too many 
 men trying to get a living without producing anything. 
 If we look over the list of our acquaintances, we shall 
 be astonished to see how large a number of disappointed 
 men it embraces, and how large a proportion of this 
 number is made up of those who tried to win wealth 
 cheaply. Generally, disappointed and broken-down 
 men are those who have failed in trade, or have run 
 through some fancy scheme of gaiu, or, to use an ex- 
 pressive Yankee phrase, have " flatted out " in a calling 
 or profession which was intended to draw money in 
 some way from the producing and commercial inter- 
 ests. 
 
 I repeat, that all kinds of business that promise 
 large results at little cost are overdone. The haste to 
 get rich — the desire to acquire sudden wealth without 
 being obliged to pay in labor the legitimate price for it 
 — is the principal cause of the financial calamities that 
 at brief intervals have befallen our country during the 
 last fifty years. It is not that we have not been a 
 nation of workers. To get rich rapidly, we have been 
 6* 
 
130 Working and Shirking. 
 
 willing to work intensely and immensely ; but we have 
 been shirks all the while — striving to get out of our 
 work ten, fifty, or a hundred times more than it has 
 been worth. America can never become a truly hap 
 py, stable, and reliable nation, until its views of life 
 become more sober, and a much larger proportion of 
 its people become willing, by patient, manly labor in 
 the useful or productive arts of life, to earn every dol- 
 lar they receive. 
 
 I ought to add to all this, that much of the failure 
 in commercial and professional life is due to a lack of 
 preparation for it ; and this neglect of preparation for 
 success is a part of the universal system of shirking. 
 Lawyers are made in a day. Physicians there are in 
 abundance who are as innocent of any knowledge of 
 science as they were when they were born. Men enter 
 the various avenues of trade without a decent familiar- 
 ity with the forms of business, and without any busi- 
 ness habits at all. Trades are adopted, not acquired — 
 adopted at the suggestion of a natural knack. Indeed, 
 I believe that the habit of shirking the work of thor- 
 ough preparation for the business of life is well-nigh 
 universal in the country. Long periods of training for 
 the professions, and patiently pursued apprenticeships 
 to the arts and trades, are almost unknown. In short, 
 we choose a pursuit which will enable us to shirk labor 
 as far as possible, and then shirk the necessary prepara- 
 
Working and Shirking. 
 
 131 
 
 tion to win success in it. When a boy changes hia 
 roundabout for a coat, he is ready to " stick out his 
 shingle," as he calls it, and the shingle usually " sticks 
 out " a good deal longer than he does. 
 
 It is among men who try to get a living by some 
 shift or trick of laziness that we hear the familiar 
 words : " the world owes me a living." A loafer w r ho 
 never did a useful thing in his life ; who dresses at the 
 expense of the tailor, and drinks at the cost of his 
 friends, always insists that " the world owes him a liv- 
 ing," and declares his intention to secure the debt. I 
 should like to know how it is that a man who owes 
 the world for every mouthful he ever ate and every 
 garment he ever put on, should be so heavy a credit- 
 or in account with the world. The loafer lies about 
 it. The world owes him nothing but a very rough 
 coffin, and a retired and otherwise useless place to put 
 it in. 
 
 The world owes a living to those who are not able 
 to earn one — to children, to the sick, to the disabled 
 and the aged — to all who in the course of nature or by 
 force of circumstances are dependent ; and it was main- 
 ly for the supply of the wants of these that men were 
 endowed with the power to produce more than enough 
 for themselves. To a genuine shirk the world owes 
 nothing ; and when he tells me with a whine that the 
 world owes him a living, I am assured that he has the 
 
132 Working and Shirking. 
 
 disposition of a highway-robber, and lacks only his 
 courage and his enterprise. 
 
 I pass now to the consideration of the disposition to 
 shirk special duties of life ; and first, the duty of per- 
 sonal self-assertion. We live in a country where, more 
 than in any other, public opinion domineers over the 
 minds of men. Americans generally dread singularity 
 in sentiments and opinions as much as they do in dress ; 
 so that if they cannot quite reflect the changing phases 
 of the public mind, they modify their moral clothing 
 sufficiently to avoid attracting the attention of the boys. 
 We dread to appear in the street with a hat or a coat 
 live years old ; and we dread just as much to appear in 
 an opinion which has gone out of fashion. 
 
 Sacred convictions, deliberately formed opinions, 
 long-cherished sentiments, are clipped and rounded 
 and shortened in, or pieced out in accordance with the 
 popular style, so that we may be enabled to pass for 
 men who are up with the times. The men are com- 
 paratively few who are willing to take the responsibil- 
 ity of the full assertion of their personality ; who will 
 stand or fall by their convictions, sentiments, and opin- 
 ions ; who will insist on being themselves, even when 
 that is equivalent to being singular. This despotic 
 public opinion, which, without doubt, has a legitimate 
 limited field of influence, shapes our whole national life 
 and character, through its influence upon the individual. 
 
Working and Shirking. 133 
 
 None escape this modifying power, though some fee* 
 it and are moulded by it less than others. 
 
 I think you will all be able to call to mind some 
 man of your acquaintance who will sufficiently serve to 
 illustrate by his life and character this prevalent dispo- 
 sition to shirk self-assertion. Perhaps in early life he 
 had a few opinions, and conducted his life after a certain 
 policy ; but some damaging collision — a little infirmity 
 of will — a little too large a love of approbation, and a 
 good deal of moral cowardice, have led him to throw 
 overboard everything he can call his own ; and he has 
 become the victim and sport of the sea of personalities 
 around him. He has a great horror of a collision, and 
 will hear his most sacred sentiments attacked without 
 replying. He shirks all conflict of opinions as he 
 would shun a personal street-fight. Whenever he ven- 
 tures to push out any manifestation of his personality 
 which hits anything, or meets a repulse, he takes it 
 back as quickly as he would a burnt finger. He is 
 careful to agree with every man who carries a positive 
 character ; and it is astonishing to see the variety of 
 people he can agree with. He is like arrow-root, or 
 certain widely-advertised patent medicines that are 
 warranted to " agree with all temperaments and the 
 most delicate constitutions." One always knows where 
 to find such a man as this ; and so does one's neigt bor. 
 In a time of quiet, he will be with you, and with any> 
 
134 Working and Shirking. 
 
 body who happens to be near him ; but in a time of 
 disturbance, when opinions are clashing and a great 
 moral conflict is in progress, the fence is his invariable 
 resort. He takes to a fence as naturally at every sign 
 of tumult and struggle as a squirrel takes to a tree 
 when the dogs are out. We have in every community 
 a considerable number of men who have spent all their 
 years of discretion upon the fence. Such men always 
 affect candor and dignity and freedom from prejudice 
 and passion, but they are invariably shirks and cowards. 
 
 Such men as these occupy an extreme, it is true ; 
 but how large is the multitude who are only less des- 
 picable than they ! How many are there who go dodg- 
 ing through life, — shunning a collision here for the 
 sake of peace, sacrificing a sentiment there rather than 
 be guilty of singularity, shirking the assertion of their 
 sentiments, convictions, and opinions, when manhood de- 
 mands their assertion, allowing themselves to be ham- 
 pered and paralyzed in every putting-forth of their per- 
 sonality, and clipped and rubbed and rounded and pol- 
 ished, until they become as thin and smooth and scents 
 less as an old cake of soap in a public bathing-room. 
 
 Going uniformly with one's sect in religion, witn 
 one's party in politics, or with one's clique in social 
 life, is only less mean than occupying the fence. A 
 man who buries his personality in a sect or party be- 
 cause he is afraid or ashamed to stand alone, is quite as 
 
Working and Shirking. 135 
 
 much a coward as he who endeavors to preserve neu- 
 trality. A bully with backers is quite likely to be th« 
 poltroon of his company, and quite likely to be a bully 
 because he is conscious of his cowardice, and wishes to 
 prevent other people from finding him out. 
 
 We are every day sacrificing something for peace. 
 Well, peace is good, or may be good. Peace is cer- 
 tainly desirable. If daily peace with all mankind can 
 be purchased by the sacrifice of unimportant things, 
 by the surrender of a few personal notions, by a little 
 inconvenience that affects only ourselves, very well. 
 But peace purchased by running away ; peace pur- 
 chased by avoiding conflicts upon questions of vital 
 importance ; peace purchased by yielding a point of 
 honor, or sacrificing a principle ; peace purchased by 
 silent acquiescence in wrong, is not very well. Such 
 peace is the most insidious and deadly poison that 
 assails American manhood. It is for this peace that a 
 certain class has parted with its political opinions. It 
 is for this peace that men have practically denied their 
 religion. It is for this peace that numbers have failed 
 to set themselves against great evils that threaten their 
 neighbors, themselves, and their children. It was for 
 this peace that American nationality was sold out by 
 cowardly politicians and cowardly people. Shirking 
 self-assertion and personal responsibility for the sake 
 of personal peace — what else was it that led patriotism 
 
 \ 
 
136 Working and Shirking. 
 
 to retire from year to year before the on-coming flood 
 of treason, until even in the capital of the nation there 
 was not an ark-load of loyalty left ? Ah ! cursed peace 
 —•ah ! fatal peace, that is purchased by the surrender 
 of personal manhood ! 
 
 We are every day sacrificing something for popular- 
 ity. Well, popularity may be very good, but it is not 
 the best good, and it can be purchased at far too high 
 a price. Popularity that is secured by meanly with- 
 drawing our own opinions to give place to the opinions 
 of others, or by refusing to give voice to solemn con- 
 victions, or by ignoring a popular vice or giving coun- 
 tenance to a popular wrong, is not good. It is the 
 basest possession which human meanness can win. A 
 man who only asserts so much of that which is in him 
 as will find favor with those among whom he has his 
 daily life, and who withholds all that will wound 
 their vanity and condemn their selfishness and clash 
 with their principles and prejudices, has no more man- 
 hood in him than there is in a spaniel, and is certainly 
 one of the most contemptible shirks the world contains. 
 
 Of course, I would not be understood to advocate 
 the idea that every man's personality should so stand 
 out that every other man's personality shall run against 
 it. I do not advocate the gratuitous obtrusion of one's 
 opinions, sentiments, and convictions upon the world, or 
 seeking a collision or a conflict wherever one may be pos* 
 
Working and Shirking. 137 
 
 sible. I simply maintain that for no mean consideration, 
 like a cowardly desire for peace or a childish greed for 
 praise or popularity, shall a man refrain, on every just 
 occasion, from asserting himself and all there is in him. 
 I shall speak next of the disposition to shirk the 
 duties of social life. I will lead you to my lesson in 
 this department of my subject through an illustration. 
 In our ISTew England Congregationalism, the parish or 
 society is independent in certain very important re- 
 spects of the church, and has its own peculiar machinery. 
 The parish raises the money, makes the appropriations, 
 and does all the business. Now, if you will get inside 
 of this organization, and look about you, you will find 
 that its responsibility and its work are upon the shoul- 
 ders of a very small number of persons, and that by far 
 the larger number have no more interest in the affairs 
 of the parish than they would have in the management 
 of a theatre which they might occasionally visit. The 
 majority of those who attend church look upon the 
 minister and the deacons and the parish committee as 
 a sort of corporation whose business they have no 
 interest in and no responsibility for. I have sometimes 
 thought that they suspected there was an annual divi- 
 dend of the profits of running the machine which those 
 who handled the crank monopolized. They hire a pew ; 
 and, if they pay for it, they imagine that their duty ends 
 there. They are patrons of the institution ; and if thej 
 
13S Working and Shirking. 
 
 do not like it they hire a pew somewhere else. Some 
 of them apparently suppose that they place a parish 
 under obligation to them by purchasing the gospel at 
 its particular counter. 
 
 The idea that every man who attends a church 
 should have just as much interest in it and just as much 
 responsibility for it — means, brains, and piety being 
 equal— as any other man, they do not apprehend at all. 
 The fact that the support and the responsibility of a 
 church rest upon all alike, and that the man who is 
 willing to enjoy the privileges of a church without 
 bearing his proportion of its burdens is a shirk, has 
 never come within the range of their conception. 
 I suppose this audience is made up of those who do 
 their duty in the parishes to which they belong, — and 
 those who do not ; and if it should be like audiences 
 that I am best acquainted with, the latter outnumber 
 the former ten to one. 
 
 In general society we find matters much in the same 
 way. Society differs from the parish, however, in that 
 it has no formal organization, no instituted machinery, 
 no sittings with definite appraisements, and no written 
 articles of constitution. Society is, in the looser signi- 
 fication of the word, conventional. Men can enjoy at 
 least a portion of its privileges — and many do enjoy 
 them — without paying anything for them, or without 
 paying the full price for them. 
 
Working and Shirking. 13S 
 
 Society, like the parish, has its burdens ; and these 
 burdens are usually borne by a few. We say of one 
 man that he is public spirited, and of another that h6 
 is not public spirited. We mean that one is willing to 
 assume his portion of the duties and burdens of society, 
 or of the general public, and that the other is not. If 
 some public enterprise is proposed which naturally ap- 
 peals to the generosity of men as citizens — lovers of 
 the general good — members of society — then we see 
 who is ready to bear his proportion of the burdens of 
 society, and who is disposed to shirk them. We shall 
 find, I am sorry to believe, that the majority of men 
 shirk the pecuniary burdens of society, and yet are 
 quite willing to share in the results of the sacrifices 
 of others. If a park is to be laid out, or a thousand 
 shade-trees are to be planted, or a public library 
 is to be established, or anything is to be done for the 
 general good, which must be done voluntarily, by men 
 acting as citizens — as members of society — we shall 
 find that a few will contribute generously, and that the 
 many will contribute niggardly, and always among 
 these many, the miserly rich. The shirking multitude 
 are quite willing to believe that what ought to be done 
 will be done by somebody, and quite ready to be pen« 
 sioners upon the bounty of their betters, with the pi ivi 
 lege of abusing them. Most men do what they are 
 obliged by law to do, and no more ; and we can 
 
140 Working and Shirking. 
 
 ascertain how willingly they do even this by inquiring 
 of the assessors and collectors of taxes. 
 
 In a restricted sense, " society " is that indefinite 
 number of individuals and families with which each 
 person is brought into intimate relation. The men 
 and women among whom I find myself in social assem- 
 blages, who frequent my house, who form the circle 
 next to that which embraces my family-life, are my 
 " society." This circle will be larger or smaller, better 
 or poorer, according to my social value ; and my social 
 value will depend upon what I can give and what I do 
 give for what I receive. If I give a great deal more 
 than I receive, that will make me a social leader, or, in 
 time, lift me into community with a higher grade than 
 that in which I move. If I give less than I receive — 
 though I give all I can — that will make me socially 
 subordinate, or translate me to a grade in which the 
 social requirements are less. 
 
 We find a very large number of men and women 
 who are not willing to remain in the social circle in 
 which the circumstances and the natural affinities and 
 proprieties of their life have placed them. They have 
 an idea that their social value is not determined by 
 what they have to give to society, but rather by what 
 society gives to them. They believe that if they can 
 set their feet within some circle that is nominally above 
 them — into that charming sphere which Our Best 
 
Working and Shirking. 141 
 
 Society calls " our best society " — their brass will 
 immediately be transmuted into gold. Let us see 
 what our best society, as Oar Best Society calls it, is. 
 There are three elements that constitute it, and that 
 we may remember them the more readily, they shall 
 all begin with a _Z?, viz. : Breeding, Brains, and Bullion. 
 These three elements are rarely or never in equipoise^ 
 but they mingle in different proportions in different 
 places, according to circumstances. In a town where 
 there is a considerable number of honorable old fami- 
 lies, Breeding usually takes the lead, and gives the law. 
 In a town where there is no pretension to hereditary 
 respectability, and there is comparatively little wealth, 
 Brains will be in the ascendant, and men and women 
 of culture and gentle manners will be the leaders. 
 When Breeding and Brains are lacking, Bullion will 
 give the law to society ; and those who have the repu- 
 tation of wealth and the habit of ostentatious display 
 will hold the weight of social inlluence. These three 
 elements combine, as I have said, in various propor- 
 tions, to make what Our Best Society is pleased to 
 denominate our best society — that circle to which the 
 socially ambitious always aspire. 
 
 Now if there are those before me who stand on the 
 outside of this charming and charmed circle, looking 
 losgingly into the inclosure, let me put this single 
 question to them : " What will you give to go in ? " 
 
142 Working and Shirking. 
 
 What Our Best Society is pleased to call our best socie- 
 ty, is not so unreasonable or so difficult as you may 
 suppose. It simply demands that you take notice of 
 its dominant ideas, and pay for its privileges :u iho 
 current coin. How much old and honorable blood can 
 you bring to add to its stock of respectability ? If 
 you have good blood, it is not so much matter about 
 Brains, provided that your pedigree is so unquestiona- 
 ble that Bullion will lend you money. If you have 
 plenty of Bullion, and will use it in the entertainment 
 of our best society, you can get along quite well with- 
 out either Brains or Breeding ; but Breeding, Brains, 
 or Bullion you must have, or you cannot go in. Tell 
 me : have you a great family-name, or wit or learning, 
 and the power to make exhibition of them in conversa- 
 tion ? or excellent manners ? or a great house and 
 splendid equipage and a hospitable table, with which 
 to pay for the privilege of entering this society ? Can 
 you, and will you, pay the price of admission in the 
 current coin, or do you wish to become one of the pen- 
 sioners and bores of this society ? Are you willing 
 and ready to pay the price and assume the duties of a 
 high social position, or do you wish to enjoy its plea- 
 sures and advantages and shirk all its responsibilities ? 
 — to be patronized and tolerated as people who give 
 nothing for what they receive ? 
 
 I suppose there are multitudes of people, whose 
 
Working and Shirking. 143 
 
 great desire and anxiety relate to getting into certain 
 society for the fancied or real privileges of which they 
 have nothing to offer ; who do not dream of being any- 
 thing but beneficiaries ; and who look upon good soci- 
 ety as a sort of charitable soup-concern for social men- 
 dicants, supported by people who have nothing to do, 
 and unlimited means to do it with. 
 
 There is a great deal of fault-finding with that 
 very nebulous entity which we call society ; but if we 
 examine carefully, we shall find that it is uniformly the 
 shirks who make most complaint. I never heard a 
 man who faithfully and cordially performed all his 
 social duties complain of society ; and so society, like 
 the parish, is carried on by the few, while the masses 
 of men do not regard themselves as having any social 
 responsibilities whatever. They are shirks, who are 
 willing to receive all that society has to bestow — shirks, 
 who fold their hands and whine because society neg- 
 lects them — shirks, who never perform a social duty, 
 or feel that a particle of social responsibility is upon 
 them. 
 
 I shall notice in particular but one more variety of 
 shirking of which Americans are peculiarly guilty, and 
 this is political shirking — perhaps the most prevalent 
 and mischievous of all, because it strikes at the very 
 root of the state, and of all individual and social well- 
 being. Social shirking does not damage good society 
 
144 Working and Shirking. 
 
 or injure its quality ; it only makes it smaller. The 
 better elements of society combine by natural and con- 
 ditional affinities, and the shirks only fall back into com- 
 paratively harmless disorganization. Political shirk- 
 ing, on the other hand, instead of leaving political 
 affairs in good hands, invariably leaves them in bad 
 hands ; for it is the more virtuous constituents of polit- 
 ical communities, and not the vicious, that shirk their 
 political responsibilities. I should rather say, perhaps, 
 that bad men seize the opportunity which the negli- 
 gence of good men affords them, to manage political 
 affairs for their own selfish advantage. 
 
 Under the American system of self-government — at 
 whose ballot-box all social and individual distinctions 
 are wiped away — it is astonishing to see how many 
 there are who do not feel that they have the slightest 
 political responsibility. They come out to the elec- 
 tions, perhaps, because their party-leaders desire them 
 to come out, or because their party-feelings urge them 
 to come out, or because they delight in the excitement 
 of an election, or, possibly, in some rare and remarka- 
 ble instances, because they are paid for coming out. I 
 give it as a carefully formed judgment, that not one 
 American voter in five really feels that he has any per- 
 sonal responsibility in the government of the country. 
 All feel, of course, that they have a personal interest in 
 it, but this interest is not associated with a sense of 
 
Working and Shirking. 145 
 
 high personal duty. In times of political excitement 
 they may be excited, but their interest is mainly in be- 
 half of a party. They may work very enthusiastically, 
 indeed, for " our side," without giving a single thought 
 to our country. To a certain extent, this is the result 
 of ignorance, or of a lack of power to grasp their real 
 relations to the state, or of a degree of moral poverty 
 which shuts them off from all high, patriotic motives. 
 
 I have yet to learn that the American nation is not 
 the equal of any of the nations of the world in the pos- 
 session of pure morals and Christian virtues ; but it is 
 painfully evident that there is not a nation on the face 
 of the earth in which bad men have such facilities for 
 acquiring and retaining power as in ours. They win 
 elections to seats in the national legislature by frauds 
 and briberies ; they go to roost like foul birds in the 
 offices of great cities ; they batten on public spoil ; 
 they disgrace Christian civilization and free institu- 
 tions ; they debase the moral sense of the nation. To 
 them, a country or a city is but a great goose to be 
 plucked and plucked and plucked again, until, sibilant 
 and shrieking, it tears itself from their grasp, to be 
 caught immediately by another set of spoilsmen and 
 plucked to the very quills and pin-feathers. 
 
 Now, who is responsible for this ? Not the bad 
 man, certainly, or not the bad men mainly. It can 
 hardly be accounted a crime for a vessel to run a 
 7' 
 
146 
 
 Working and Shirking. 
 
 blockade if she can, and her interests demand the risk ; 
 but it is a crime for a blockading fleet to allow her to 
 do it. If the devil is permitted to manage the politics 
 of a nation we expect him to do it, for politics are in 
 his particular line ; and the good men, whose business 
 it is to hinder him from doing it, must be held respon- 
 sible for the damage that may result from his manage- 
 ment. Thus I affirm that the good men of America 
 are mainly responsible for everything evil in American 
 politics. They have the best social influences in their 
 hands ; they have the Christian Church ; they have the 
 literary institutions ; they have the pure sympathies of 
 women ; they have reason, conscience, truth, and God 
 all on their side — nay, they have the majority ; and the 
 only reason why bad men reign and they are power- 
 less, is that they are shirks. 
 
 Yet these political shirks are very respectable men. 
 Let us not allude to them too harshly or too lightly. 
 If they are " fossiliferous " and fussy, they are prudent 
 and pious. Far be it from me to speak disrespectfully 
 of their linen, or to question the whiteness of their fra- 
 grant hands. They are exceedingly clean and pure 
 men, their particular fault (if they have one) being an 
 excessive cleanliness and purity that unfits them for 
 having anything to do with politics. They are of that 
 unlucky moral hue that shows dirt on the slightest 
 provocation, and requires them to be carefully dusted 
 
Working and Shirking. m 
 
 and set away. They refuse, year after year, to visit 
 the polls, because politics have become so corrupt that 
 they have ceased to have any interest in them, or 
 because good men are not nominated for office ; yet 
 they never dream of attending a primary meeting to 
 make sure that good men are nominated, or of making 
 any attempt to render politics less corrupt. Of all the 
 shirks and sneaks which the prolific soil of America 
 produces, there certainly can be none more despicable 
 than these. America is not suffering from a political 
 evil to-day for which the good men of the country 
 should not be held mainly responsible. Bad men have 
 run the nation upon ruin, because they have been per- 
 mitted to do it ; and good men, instead of leading in 
 the political battles, have fought humbly in the ranks, 
 or run away. Indeed, many of them have come to the 
 conclusion that there is something necessarily demoral- 
 izing in politics, and that religion and politics are 
 entirely incompatible with each other. 
 
 There is another class of good, or goodish men, 
 who hold political privilege at a cheap price, and who 
 are ready to sell it for personal ease and convenience. 
 They are willing to look after politics a little, or to do 
 anything for their country, if it does not cost too much 
 trouble, or too much money. They are very much 
 absorbed by their own affairs, and have no time to 
 give to their town, or their state, or their country 
 
143 Working and Shirking. 
 
 They leave these matters to those who have leisure . 
 aud those who have leisure happen to be those who are 
 bent on public mischief or private advantage. Bad men 
 always have leisure for taking and employing all the 
 power which the excessive occupation of good men leaves 
 in their hands. While, therefore, one set of men are so 
 good as to be disgusted with politics, and another is so 
 busy as not to have time for attending to them, the very 
 worst elements of society find an easy path to power. 
 
 The time was not long ago when there were few — 
 alas ! how few ! — who were willing to sacrifice any- 
 thing for their country. The best men have declined 
 office and shunned public duty because they could not 
 afford to hold office. They could afford to see office 
 held by second and third rate men, and to be them- 
 selves ruled by vicious men, and to have the institu- 
 tions of their country cheapened and disgraced by the 
 weak or wicked administration of the laws, but they 
 could not afford to part company with a few dollars to 
 serve the country and the institutions which their chil- 
 dren were to inherit ! What, in Heaven's name, shall 
 become of a nation whose good men — whose best men 
 — not only refuse to participate in elections, but refuse 
 to be elected to office, when chance, or an aroused moral 
 sentiment, designates them for responsible positions ? 
 Let the unhappy condition of the country, and the his- 
 tory of the last twenty years, give answer ! 
 
Working and Shirking. 149 
 
 I have thus spoken of several varieties of shirking, 
 and several classes of shirks. I might mention others, 
 but it would be alike tedious and unnecessary. 
 
 And now I am ready to ask what the cure for this 
 grand national fault in all its various forms of manifes- 
 tation may be. What is the medicine for this mean- 
 ness ? What will drive the shirking multitudes that 
 throng all the easier trades and professions back to 
 hard and honest gains in the useful or productive arts 
 of life ? What will harden the bones and strengthen 
 the muscles and stiffen the courage of manhood, so 
 that it will assert itself as manhood should — at all 
 times, in all places — yielding nothing of personal con- 
 viction or personal power to a weak desire for peace or 
 popularity ? What will make us public-spirited, and 
 generous in social life ? What will enlarge our sym- 
 pathies and quicken our activities as members of a 
 national brotherhood? What thing, more than any 
 other, will bring us up to a comprehension of our politi- 
 cal duties, and a willingness to perform them ? What 
 will teach us that we cannot shirk these duties — that 
 there is not an interest of life on which they do not 
 have a practical bearing ? What will make us nobler 
 and more unselfish men — more willing to do or die for 
 that which is god-like in our souls and God-given in 
 our institutions ? What will transform all this multi- 
 tude of personal, social, and political shi *ks into heroes. 
 
150 Working and Shirking. 
 
 and evoke from this mass of sneaking laziness and self 
 ish indifference those virtues which are a nation's noblest 
 wealth ? I answer — A great war for a great cause. 
 
 If the history of America for the last fifty years 
 proves anything with striking clearness, it proves that a 
 long peace, maintained without sacrifice, and held with- 
 out a sense of its value, is the very breeding-bed of cow- 
 ardice, cupidity, and corruption. The most heroic blood 
 becomes thin, and the stoutest hearts grow weak and 
 cowardly, in the luxurious atmosphere of a cheap peace. 
 National pride, love of country, patriotic self-devotion 
 — these are not the sentiments and the virtues that 
 thrive among a people that recedes from all sense of 
 national care into the selfish pursuits of gain, or the 
 weak indulgences of ease. Peace is very beautiful ; 
 peace may be very safe, indeed, for angels ; but for 
 men, with the imperfections, temptations, and tenden- 
 cies of men, a peace that is not the price of ceaseless 
 vigilance, and the cost of a daily sense of sacrifice, may 
 be a curse so much worse than war, that war may be 
 gladly greeted as a blessing in its stead. It was Lon- 
 don, cheaply built and cheaply held, and bent on selfish 
 advantage, that was smitten again and again by the 
 plague. At length, in one brief visitation, it breathed 
 upon and blasted a hundred thousand lives. And then 
 came the furious and all-devouring fire, driving the 
 sickly multitudes from their homes, and licking up 
 
Working a^d Shirking. 
 
 151 
 
 and wiping out cheap London forever. Straightway, 
 on the ruins of both plague and fire, rose a new city • 
 and long generations have blessed the fire that ban- 
 ished' the plague forever. The question in America 
 has been for many years between plague and fire. 
 With a full comprehension of the horrors and sacrifices 
 of war — with a heart bleeding with sympathy for every 
 soul to which war brings bereavement and sorrow — I 
 thank God for the fire, and the dearer and better peace 
 it will bring us. 
 
 Fire is a great renovator and gunpowder a remark- 
 able disinfectant. Already is the influence of war visi- 
 ble for good upon the American people. Men have 
 not only discovered that there is something better 
 than money, but more than this — and greater discovery 
 than this — that there is really something which they 
 love better than money. The universal revival of 
 patriotism in the American heart, and the devotion of 
 a million hands and lives to patriotic duty — is not this 
 a blessing ? Could anything but war have won it ? 
 That one thrill of patriotic indignation that passed 
 through the American heart when the national flag was 
 insulted at Fort Sumter, by those whom it had pro- 
 tected for nearly a century, was worth more than the 
 whole sum of emotion that had rolled up in lazy accu- 
 mulation during the previous period of peace. It trans- 
 formed every man into a hero ; it made a heroine of 
 
152 Working and Shirking. 
 
 every woman. It was like the sudden flowering of the 
 aloe, after sleeping through a century of suns. It burst 
 upon the world like the comet that followed it— unher* 
 aided, unexpected. Men saw the flaming glory, stream- 
 ing up the midnight sky, and wondered from what depth 
 of heaven it had sprung. 
 
 And now there have gone forth a million of men, 
 drawn from every walk of society, with their lives in 
 their hands, to defend American nationality and Amer- 
 ican institutions. The lawyer has left his briefs, the 
 preacher has left his flock or taken it with him, the 
 physician has forsaken his daily round of duty, the 
 merchant his counting-room, the politician his in- 
 trigues, and the rich man his home of ease ; the gov- 
 ernor and the governed, the high and the humble, have 
 gone together, and all have pressed forward, inspired 
 by a common impulse, to do or die for home and native 
 land. Men who have long been sleeping in their politi- 
 cal sepulchres have come forth by a miracle of resur- 
 rection, to the surprise of the doubtful and the joy of 
 friends. That great number whose perch has been the 
 fence through years of questionable manhood, have 
 made haste to descend, and to declare themselves for 
 their country against all foes. Women, used orJy to 
 luxury, have laid aside their frivolous pursuits, and 
 with busy fingers and the noblest charities have pre- 
 pared mustering thousands of fathers and brothers and 
 
Working and Shirking. 153 
 
 husbands and lovers for war. Nay, more : forsaking 
 home and kindred and comfort and peace, they have 
 gone forth voluntarily, at their own charges, and with- 
 out hope of reward, to breathe the foul air of hospi- 
 tals, and move among the cots of the sick and wound 
 ed soldiery, with the sweet ministries of sympathy and 
 mercy. Capital, timid and careful and compromising 
 through years of political decay, and gathering signa 
 of national disruption, has become bold and defiant. 
 Noblest of all, it has thrown its giant arms around the 
 tottering form of American nationality, and sworn to 
 sustain it forever. It has brought its golden treasures, 
 and laid them all at the feet of its country, and said : 
 " Take them, for without thee they are worthless." If 
 there could be one thing nobler than the eager readi- 
 ness of a million of men to sacrifice their lives for their 
 country, it would be the bold and unhesitating devo- 
 tion of capital to the common cause. From its nature, 
 it is the sign and seal of political salvation, and the 
 harbinger of returning political virtue. 
 
 There is no lack now of personal self-assertion. 
 Ah men now have an opinion, and there are but few 
 who have not been stiffened up to a determination to 
 assert and maintain it against all forms of opposition. 
 Political shirking is among the sins of the past. Men 
 feel now, in their consciences and in their persona] 
 interests, the burdens of the government, and under 
 7* 
 
154 Working and Shirking. 
 
 stand and feel, as they have nevei understood and felt 
 before, their personal responsibility in public affairs 
 When men fight for their country, and sacrifice their 
 present prosperity and their accumulated treasure for 
 their country, and voluntarily tax themselves through 
 the remainder of their lives for their country, they will 
 apprehend and faithfully discharge their personal re- 
 sponsibilities in its government. 
 
 He would be an unwise and a most unsafe physician 
 who should prescribe war as a specific remedy for each 
 of the national evils I have discussed, considered with- 
 out relation to their cause ; but it must be remembered 
 that they are the offspring of a common parent. It is 
 because we have held our choicest blessings cheaply — 
 it is because we have enjoyed them, like air and water, 
 without price, and with no adequate sense of their 
 value, that we have failed to appreciate the minor 
 good, and, whenever possible, shirked its price. The 
 right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — a 
 right for the acquisition and maintenance of which 
 many a nation has struggled through centuries of blood 
 and sacrifice — the right which the revolutionary fathers 
 fought through weary years of suffering and privation 
 to achieve — we have enjoyed without sacrifice, without 
 price, and with only the feeblest sense of its value. 
 The right to worship God according to the dictates of 
 our own consciences, under forms of our own choice, — 
 
Working and Shirking. 155 
 
 the right which the pilgrim fathers found in the wilder- 
 ness after their weary search across the sea — has been 
 ours without question and without cost. The right to 
 govern ourselves — -asking no privilege of outside pow 
 ers, and suffering no interference from them — has been 
 as cheaply held as the right to breathe. It is thus that 
 we have lost the standard by which to measure values, 
 and learned to shirk the price demanded for our hum- 
 bler wealth. 
 
 The war remedy is a radical one. It strikes at the 
 very root of the difficulty ; and I have no more doubt 
 of its curative power than I have that Providence pre- 
 scribes it. Whatever may be the issue of this war, it 
 will leave us a better, a braver, and every way a nobler, 
 people. It will leave us industrious, sober, willing to 
 earn the good we enjoy. It will make us self-respect- 
 ful, and self-asserting, at whatever cost of peace or 
 popularity. Best of all, it will teach every man the 
 value of the political blessings he enjoys, and place the 
 government once more in the hands of the people, wno 
 will restore to power the statesman so long discarded, 
 and displace the politician forever. 
 
HIGH LIFE ARD LOW LIFE. 
 
 LIFE is high or low according to its pursuits, 
 pleasures, and motives. There may be, and, 
 as a matter of fact, there often is, high life below 
 stairs and low life in the drawing-room. There are 
 palaces into which the conception of what consti- 
 tutes high life has never entered. There are hovels 
 so radiant and redolent with a high and beautiful life, 
 that we count them courts of the immortals. There 
 was conventional high life, I presume, in Sodom ; but 
 the only variety which the angels recognized was 
 found in Lot's tent, at the gate of the city ; and, for 
 the rest, the flames disposed of it. There was a good 
 deal of nominal high life, without doubt, among the 
 antediluvians ; but there was only one family that was 
 high enough to keep its head above water. 
 
 Real high life and conventional high life have 
 rarely been identical ; and, although the theme is not 
 new, I have thought that a fresh presentation of it 
 
High Life and Low Life. 157 
 
 might not be without interest and profit. The preach 
 er, the social reformer, the philanthropist, the philoso* 
 pher, the statesman, and the moralist, all drive at it 
 from different directions, pushing their ideas toward 
 a common centre, as the Indian hunters sweep the 
 game of the prairies into a single inclosure. It cer- 
 tainly ought not to be irksome to stand where the lines 
 converge, and survey the group as it assembles. 
 
 It will be useless for us to enter upon a discussion 
 like this without a measure of honest faith in human 
 nature, and in the perfectibility of human character. I 
 believe there are such things in and among men as hon- 
 or, virtue, truthfulness, dignity, unselfishness. I nei- 
 ther propose nor oppose any theological dogma when 
 I say that I believe in human nature. It is my nature, 
 and, if God made me, it is the nature He gave me. 
 There may be in it hereditary tendencies to evil — it 
 would be strange if there were not ; but the nature 
 itself is the finest and most glorious of all God's work, 
 in this world, itself fitted up expressly for its habita- 
 tion. Without this faith in human nature, high life is 
 anything we may choose to call such, and low life is 
 simply that which does not please us. I make this 
 statement, in this way, because there are so many who, 
 for various reasons, mostly found in their own hearts 
 and lives, do not believe in the possibility of a human 
 life organized, active, and permanent, above the plane 
 
158 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 of selfishness and sensuality, forever free from the 
 dominion of sordid motives, and tending only to divine 
 issues. 
 
 We shall arrive at a competent comprehension of 
 human nature, and at what constitutes high and low 
 life, by an illustration. Let us regard every rational 
 man in the world as two men. E^ery individual shall 
 be dividual into a master and a slave. Every man is 
 constituted a man by the conjunction of an angel with 
 an animal. Each has a distinct and characteristic will, 
 distinct and characteristic affections, passions, powers, 
 and destiny. One is limited in life, and dies as the ani- 
 mals die. The other lives as the angels live, and is im- 
 mortal. There is probably not a man or woman before 
 me who is not conscious of the constant struggle going 
 on between these two natures ; and I presume there is 
 not one who is not conscious that all the real dignity 
 of life comes through the thorough subordination of 
 the animal to the angel within him. Let us listen to 
 what our man in white and our man in black have to 
 say to each other, 
 
 The man in black, being irrational, and having no 
 law but desire, says : " I wish to gorge myself with 
 meat and drink ;" but the man in white is rational, and 
 replies : " No ; that would harm you, and, as you are 
 united with me, it would injure me." The man in black 
 howls or whines, and begs for indulgence, but the man in 
 
High Life and Low Life. 159 
 
 white repeats the prohibition, and shuts his ears. The 
 man in black pleads for the object of his base desires, 
 but the man in white shrinks from the suggestion with 
 indignation and shame, and regards with tender honor 
 her whom the man in black would pollute and ruin. 
 The man in black is vain, and would dress himself in 
 gaudy colors, like the animal or the savage. The man 
 in white objects that he would not be his fit associate 
 thus decorated. The man in black gets angry like a 
 dog, but the man in white holds him by the collar 
 until he is calm. The man in black is constantly 
 calling the attention of the man in white to the 
 objects of sense, and pleading for greater license, 
 and offering sweet rewards for indulgence ; and strong 
 and true as the man in white may be, he feels the in- 
 fluence as a persistently degrading power. 
 
 But the result of this conference is not always such 
 as I have represented to you. The man in white is 
 sometimes a very feeble man, and the man in black a 
 very strong one. In such cases, the struggle may be 
 as long as life, or it may be no struggle at all, and the 
 man in black may have everything his own way. You 
 have only to look into the haunts of vice — into the 
 drinking-hells, the houses of shame, the prisons, the 
 halls of revelry, the gambling-saloons, — nay, you have 
 only to look into those decent dwellings where the 
 gratifications of sense are sought for, or delighted in, 
 
ICO High Life and Low Life. 
 
 alone, to find the man in white a miserable menial-^- 
 the slave of the man in black, sharing in his debauche- 
 ries, and pandering to his desires. If ever in these 
 places the man in white asserts his will, the man in 
 black tramples upon it. If the man in white says : 
 " This is wrong," or " that is indecent — I will not obey 
 you," the man in black leads him by the nose, and 
 proves to him his hopeless subjection. The man in 
 black blasphemes, or commits murder, or drowns him- 
 self in drink, and the man in white serves him in all 
 his crimes and debaucheries, and weeps between his 
 helpless protests, or becomes so tainted by his society 
 that he takes a hollow joy in his degrading service, 
 and grows black with his companion. 
 
 I believe in the slavery of this particular black man, 
 and the natural superiority of this particular white man. 
 I do not believe that the black man should be abused 
 and killed, but that he should be properly fed, clothed, 
 and taken care of; that while he is under perfect con- 
 trol he should be indulged in his natural, healthful, and 
 legitimate desires. But he is never to be master, never 
 to take the lead, and never to hold an equal partnership 
 in life with the white man. The latter is to be sove- 
 reign, and to give the law of his own life to the life be- 
 neath it. 
 
 And now I drop my illustration, to make the propo- 
 sition that high life is born of the dominance of the 
 
High Life and Low Life. 161 
 
 soul over the body — born of the subordination of that 
 portion of our natures which we share with the animals 
 to the purposes and the welfare of that portion which 
 we share with the angels. There can be no perfection 
 of human character without this. There can be no 
 such thing as good society without this ; and this can 
 be, or human life is no more than a sorry jest, prac- 
 tised upon a race of beings called into existence for 
 that purpose. I have no knack at splitting theological 
 hairs, or dodging the knives of those who do ; but of 
 this one thing I am as certain as I am that there is a 
 God in heaven, and that He has given me the faculty 
 of reason, viz. : that human ability and human respon- 
 sibility never part company. It seems the extreme of 
 scholastic idiocy to preach human inability out of one 
 corner of the mouth and human responsibility out of 
 the other, — to erect in the eyes of the world, as the 
 representative of humanity, an effigy of helpless and 
 hopeless pollution, and, shaking the scroll of a perfect 
 law in its face, say : " You must, but you can't ; you 
 ought to, but it is impossible." I believe in human 
 responsibility, and with-it the essential condition of 
 human ability, or I do not believe in anything. With- 
 out these, progress can have no path, and perfection 
 no fulfilment. 
 
 I have said that the inferior man is to be properly 
 e ed, clothed, and taken care of. This must be, because 
 
162 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 the superior man lives in him, and, in the present state 
 of existence, by means of him. The necessities of the 
 case put the inferior man to labor under the superior 
 man's direction and constraint. The animal in man is 
 always lazy, and needs to be driven to its work like the 
 animal in the stall : and here we strike the question of 
 labor as it relates to our subject. 
 
 We find the whole world engaged in getting a liv- 
 ing — getting food to eat, clothes to wear, houses to 
 dwell in, carriages to ride in — comforts, helps, luxu- 
 ries, for the sole use of the body. This care for the 
 body by the soul has, with great universality, degene- 
 rated into a slavery of the soul to the body. The great 
 masses of men and women do nothing else all their 
 lives but labor to supply themselves and their depend- 
 ents with the means of comfortable subsistence. 
 There seems at present to be no help for this. There 
 is something to hope for in the wider diffusion of 
 wealth and the invention of labor-saving machinery — 
 the multiplication of man-power without an increase 
 of consumption ; but even these consummations will 
 amount to little in the relief of labor, in a country 
 where the rewards of material enterprise are limitless, 
 and wealth is regarded as the chief good. The compre- 
 hension of the essential distinction between getting a 
 living, and living, is a matter of education. 
 
 I do not deny that there is a certain amount of edu 
 
High Life and Low Life. 1G3 
 
 cation — of soul-culture — nay, I do not deny that there 
 is a certain amount of spiritual satisfaction, in intelli 
 gent labor. The man in black works under the impul- 
 sion and direction of the man in white, and, in the 
 exercise, the man in white finds food for his faculties, 
 gains a knowledge of mental and material forces, dis- 
 covers the qualities of things, and secures a healthful 
 expenditure of his constantly generated energies. It 
 is happily ordained that this shall be so, because it 
 secures a certain amount of development to every man, 
 whatever his circumstances may be. But work of the 
 body is not life, in any high sense ; and those who 
 prate of labor and worship as in any way identical are 
 the shallowest of dreamers. Work is the means of liv- 
 ing, but it is not living. The aeronaut fills his balloon, 
 and then rises and floats. Floating is what the balloon 
 was made for. It takes in its breath below, and it can 
 be held by a leash to the earth it spurns ; but its true 
 life begins when the cords are loosed, and it becomes 
 a companion of the clouds. 
 
 I once found myself, on a cold winter morning, in 
 a manufacturing village. At four o'clock — still more 
 than three hours to sunrise, and three hours before 
 dawn — the bells of the factories were rung to waken 
 the operatives to their day of toil. Half an hour after- 
 wards they w^ent to their work, at which they remained 
 until six, when they breakfasted. Half an hour was 
 
164 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 given to the meal, when work was resumed, and con- 
 tinued until twelve, when they dined. Half an hou* 
 was also given to this meal, and then they entered the 
 mills and worked until seven, after which came supper. 
 More than fifteen hours between bell and bell, with 
 only one hour out of the number in which, silently, 
 two meals were bolted, with no more of the dignities 
 and amenities of life at the table than may be found at 
 the manger during cattle-feeding ! Strong men, tender 
 women, almost children, kept to this work, not one day 
 only, but six days of every week, and fifty-two weeks 
 of every year, unless the water should fail, when the 
 wages go down with the gate ! How much of a 
 chance, think you, does the man in white have in such 
 a life as this ? 
 
 It is complained that manufacturing towns are low 
 places ; that religious institutions do not thrive there ; 
 that literary societies are not supported there ; that peo- 
 ple will hot turn out to lectures there ; that the Sabbath 
 is sadly broken there, or sadly idled away ; that there 
 is no reading and no mental improvement there. Nice 
 people, who own manufacturing stocks and live upon 
 the dividends, lament this. It is further complained 
 that operatives drink, and go on sprees, and throng the 
 circuses, and crowd the halls of the negro minstrels, 
 and support the low places of amusement, to the 
 neglect of all that is elevating and refining. Do you 
 
High Life and Low Life. 165 
 
 wonder at it ? Would you not wonder if they did 
 anything else ? A man who works until there is no 
 life left in him, and who feels that to-morrow is to 
 be like to-day, must be amused. I do not wonder 
 that he should prefer to hear a negro minstrel or a 
 clown to hearing me. Nay, nor do I blame him for 
 his preference. If I were in his place, I am sure that 
 I should do as he does; and it is my well-adjusted con- 
 viction that the clown would benefit me more than the 
 lecturer ; that the hour's relief he would give me from 
 the consciousness of my slavery, would do more to 
 make my lot tolerable than any exercise which would 
 still further tax my weakness, or which would give me 
 glimpses of a life that my lot places beyond my reali- 
 zation. 
 
 You will admit that to such a community as this 
 high life is not attainable. There is no time for society 
 but such as may be stolen from the hours of sleep. A 
 man who has been on his feet fifteen hours is unfitted 
 for society, unfitted for intellectual efforts and entertain- 
 ments, unfitted for religious exercises, unfitted for any- 
 thing and everything that pertains to a higher life. 
 He is the slave of labor ; and although there are a few 
 who have sufficient vitality to stand up against the 
 depressing influence of this slavery, and a few who 
 move upon a higher plane by impetus of early habits, 
 ^acquired under more favorable circumstances, the 
 
166 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 masses are bound to low life by a bond which they will 
 never sunder, and which it is well-nigh impossible for 
 them to sunder. 
 
 Now that there is a great wrong involved in a sys- 
 tem of labor which absolutely compels a class, and that 
 a large one in some parts of the country, and growing 
 larger every year, to a life of low aims, attainments, 
 and enjoyments, there can be no doubt. Perhaps you 
 will say that the case I have cited is an exceptional 
 one. I think it is, but the average hours of labor in 
 our factories do not yield a much better result. The 
 worst of the matter is, that no way seems apparent for 
 remedying the evil. The manufacturing of Great Brit- 
 ain, and indeed of all Europe, is set to this key, and 
 the manufacturing of America comes into competition 
 with it, and, to be successful, must harmonize with it. 
 Reform would, in many instances, be the ruin of the 
 manufacturer, and the loss of all labor to those in his 
 employ. The whole machinery of trade has been 
 adjusted to these hours and the values which are 
 established by them, and change could not come 
 without a revolution in prices. As reform, to be 
 practicable and permanent, must be general, and as so 
 many selfish interests are involved, I confess that the 
 case looks hopeless enough to me. I can only fall 
 back on my faith in the gradual melioration of the con- 
 dition of society, and the operation of those principles 
 
High Life and Low Life. 167 
 
 of justice and humanity which are embodied in Chris- 
 tian civilization. 
 
 But the factories are not alone in their denial of 
 high life to laboring men and women. The retail 
 stores, the milliners', dress-makers', and tailors' shops — 
 all shops where the work is simple, and devoted to the 
 production of articles of common necessity, compel 
 long hours, and render it practically impossible for 
 their inmates to make much progress in intellectual, 
 social, and religious excellence. It is not possible for 
 them to do more than work and eat and sleep, and get 
 such brief out-of-door relief and amusement as will 
 keep their lives from becoming utterly tasteless. 
 
 Now I confess to a deep and tender sympathy with 
 these people. They are found fault with for being 
 exactly what their work, through a natural influence, 
 makes them. They could not be otherwise without a 
 constant struggle against this influence. They are 
 blamed because they do not love reading, because they 
 do not seek elevating society, because they love carou- 
 sals and gay assemblies and buffoonery, because they 
 break the Sabbath and will not attend church. Why, 
 the great, crying, everlasting need of these men is rest 
 and amusement. The call for these is the voice of 
 God in them. Books do not satisfy it ; intellectual 
 society does not satisfy it ; preaching does not satisfy 
 it ; and when I see one of these pale fellows or pale 
 
1(58 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 girls, after having worked through every working hour 
 of the week, walking out among the trees and flowers 
 and grass on Sunday, enjoying the beauty of God's 
 world, breathing the pure air and enjoying the rare 
 luxury of the blessed sunlight, I say in my heart that 
 it is right. It is enough for our cupidity to enslave 
 them in the name of Mammon for six days of the 
 week. It is too much for our bigotry to enslave them 
 in the name of God on the seventh. 
 
 And now, if we turn to the consideration of volun- 
 tary slavery to labor, we shall find that the man in 
 white has but little better entertainment in it than 
 in that which is involuntary. So far as the effect on 
 the quality of life is concerned, the voluntary devotion 
 of a man's entire energies to bodily labor is as disas- 
 trous as if it were compulsory. From the small farmer 
 and the wife who is the partner of his toils and for- 
 tunes, to the merchant whose transactions involve annual 
 millions ; from the maker of a button to the builder of 
 a navy ; throughout the whole range of trades and occu- 
 pations, we shall witness a voluntary devotion of time 
 and vital resources to labor — to getting a living and to 
 hoarding for real wants or superfluous wealth — which 
 leaves real living entirely out of contemplation, and 
 places it beyond possibility. 
 
 But let us understand a little more definitely what 
 real living is. We all know what getting a living is ; 
 
High Life and Low Life. 169 
 
 now what is it to live ? It is to engage in and enjoy 
 intellectual activity outside of, and above, that which 
 is occupied in the provision for bodily needs ; to acquire 
 and enjoy knowledge and the power which is born of 
 it ; to give free exercise to social sympathy in a pure 
 intercourse with young and old ; to have sweet satis- 
 faction in home, so that it shall be the one bright spot 
 of all the earth, never left without a sense of sacrifice ; 
 to take delight in those things which rise above the 
 bare utilities of life into the realm of the tasteful and 
 beautiful, and to cultivate the x arts which make that 
 realm attractive; to be happy in the activity of the 
 moral and religious nature — in worship and in minis- 
 try : this it is to live. 
 
 It will be seen that living and getting a living are 
 very different things, and that it requires time to live 
 just as really as it requires time to get a living. A 
 man who labors by compulsion, or by choice, fifteen 
 hours of every twenty-four, has no time to live. If 
 the life of man has any rewards above that of the 
 animal, they must be found in this upper life : yet how 
 few are they who look to this upper life for their 
 rewards ! The fact explains the unsatisfactory nature 
 of wealth, and the countless failures in the search for 
 happiness which every man has seen. Let us glance 
 at the career of a representative mercantile man. 
 From the age of fourteen to twenty-one he is a clerk 
 8 
 
170 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 with a mean salary, and with such confinement to long 
 hours that he finds no time for mental improvement, 
 and no time for the development of social and aesthetic 
 tastes. He enters business early, with a limited capi- 
 tal, or with no capital at all, and for twenty-five or 
 thirty years he is certain, unless he dies, to be the 
 slave of his business. For twenty-five or thirty years 
 he feels obliged to hold the man in white within him 
 to unrelieved bondage. He does not enjoy home. He 
 does not enjoy leisure when circumstances bring it. 
 His shop or his counting-room is the centre of his 
 thoughts. Visitors at his house are never welcome, 
 if they interfere with business, or take any of his time. 
 His wife and children see nothing of him. He is not 
 felt or seen in society. He is known only as an active, 
 devoted, business man, and thrifty as a consequence. 
 
 Let it be remembered that during all these years he 
 has been carrying in his mind the thought that he is 
 getting ready to live. He knows that he is not living 
 — knows that there is something better in life than 
 what he gets out of it, and expects that after the body 
 is provided for, with an ample margin for the future, 
 he will then begin to live, and enjoy the reward of his 
 industry. So, at last, having acquired money enough, 
 he retires from business, and finds — poor man ! — that 
 he does not know how to live. Of all the miserable 
 men in the world, I know of none more hopeless and 
 
High Life and Low Life. 171 
 
 helpless than a man of acquired wealth who retires 
 from business to make his first experiment in living. 
 Such an experiment usually results in one of thiee 
 ways, viz., he sickens and dies with the effect of a 
 change of habits and with disappointment, or he 
 returns to his business, or he fritters away his life in 
 aimless activities. The real man within him has been 
 a slave to business so long that he cannot rise into 
 independent life. A man who does not learn to live 
 while he is getting a living, is a poorer man after his 
 wealth is won than he was before. There is no way 
 to learn how to live, and there is no way to live, 
 except by keeping a life organized and in operation 
 above and outside of the labors and enterprises in- 
 volved in getting a living. 
 
 When I see at a cottage-door little patches and 
 pots of flowers, and, entering, I find a row of books 
 upon the shelf, and a newspaper on the table, and a 
 few pictures on the walls in domestic frames ; and 
 when, on a Sunday morning, I see issuing from this 
 door a neatly-dressed group which takes its way to the 
 village-church, I know that the inmates have got hold 
 of life — got hold of something better than gold — some- 
 thing which lifts them above their lot. Their time, I 
 know, is mainly spent in getting a living, but they find 
 some time to live, and find something in life that gives 
 them dignity. 
 
172 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 It is always. delightful to see a man getting at the 
 secret of living ; and I suppose we have all witnessed 
 some strange transformations of character consequent 
 upon discoveries of this kind. I have seen men intro- 
 duced to life by the reading of a poem or a story, 
 which so stirred them, so revealed to them their own 
 higher natures, so discovered to them fresh and attrac- 
 tive fields of pleasure, that they became new men from 
 that moment. Straightway they chose new associates, 
 and bought new books, and sought for new pictures, 
 having already found new meaning in the old ones. 
 New visions met them on the sea, and in the sky, and 
 around them on the earth. That which had been their 
 throne became their footstool. That which they had 
 hitherto regarded as a realm of visions and illusions 
 became their home. 
 
 I have seen a man, thoroughly absorbed in business, 
 introduced to life by being compelled for a single win- 
 ter to care for a few pots of flowers. The flowers 
 became to him teachers, preachers, inspirers. They 
 converted him — transformed him. Now, whenever ho 
 can steal away from his business, he is in his garden, 
 where everything he touches thrives. You will see his 
 name in all the horticultural reports of the section in 
 which he lives, and if you enter his dwelling, you will 
 find everything brought into harmony with his newly 
 born taste ; and you will find him living and enjoying 
 
High Life and Low Life. 173 
 
 life, and preparing to enjoy still more the wealth which 
 his busy hands and tireless enterprise are acquiring. 
 
 Mr. Wemmick, in " Great Expectations," under- 
 stood this matter very well. The office of Mr. Jaggers 
 was by no means the place where he lived, or found the 
 rewards of his life. I think that little castle of his at 
 Walworth one of the most delightful and suggestive 
 of all Dickens's creations. The real flag-staff, the 
 draw-bridge made of a single plank, the gun fired 
 every night at nine o'clock Greenwich time, the ar- 
 rangements for standing an imaginary siege, and the 
 effort to excite the admiration and secure the content- 
 ment of the aged parent, are strokes of real genius. 
 Wemmick's, philosophy was even better than his at- 
 tempt at its embodiment. " The office," says Wem- 
 mick, " is one thing, and private life is another. When 
 I go into the office, I leave the castle behind me ; and 
 when I come into the castle, I leave the office behind me." 
 His attempt to realize something in life which should re- 
 ward him for the tedious detail of an unpleasant busi- 
 ness was peculiar, perhaps, but his theory was correct. 
 
 I do not happen to believe in the ennobling influ- 
 ence of constant physical labor. It is noble and enno- 
 bling to labor with a high motive — to labor for per- 
 sonal independence, or for any great and good end 
 which involves the soul's prosperity ; but to labor for 
 bodily subsistence, throughout one's life, is not enno- 
 
174 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 bring at all. If I wished utterly to degrade a nation, I 
 would keep it to constant labor for the supply of bodily 
 needs. What such labor as this has done for slaves of 
 all colors, and what it has done for the peasantries of 
 the world, we all know. Strict confinement to such 
 labor as this is necessarily low life. It is bondage to 
 the body ; and high life is only to be realized when the 
 body becomes the soul's servant in its high pursuits 
 and its pure satisfactions. 
 
 Again, the character of life is determined by its 
 pleasures. I have already incidentally touched upon 
 this, but it requires more definite treatment. There is 
 a natural desire in every soul for pleasure. It begins 
 with infancy and lasts as long as life. And here, as we 
 have already seen, the man in white and the man in 
 black are at variance. All life that seeks and secures 
 its best satisfactions in the pleasures of sense is low, 
 and you may judge how much of that which is called 
 high life is really such. I beg you not to misunder- 
 stand me here. I believe that the pleasures of sense 
 are just as legitimate as the pleasures of the soul, 
 and that they may be, and should be, a portion of 
 the pleasures of the soul. God never ordained the 
 pleasure-giving power of the senses for the simple pur- 
 pose of denying its indulgence. I have no faith in the 
 beneficence of any creed which imposes indiscriminate 
 mortification of the senses as sources of pleasure. Such 
 
High Life and Low Life. 175 
 
 a creed is alike inhuman and ungodly. I believe that 
 there is not a pleasure of sense, from the least to the 
 greatest, which may not, under legitimate conditions 
 and limitations, be made a minister to the soul's life — 
 to what I have called high life — and which was not 
 intended to be such a minister. It is when the plea- 
 sures of sense are sought for and indulged in as the 
 chief satisfactions of life — when the soul devotes itself 
 to the procurement and enjoyment of these pleasures 
 — that they are perverted, and that they taint the char- 
 acter of life with vulgarity and animalism. I believe 
 a keen enjoyment of sensual pleasure entirely compati- 
 ble with a high life which shall be the master of the 
 senses, and which shall hold them subordinate to itself 
 and its own peculiar delights. 
 
 All slavery is low life, of whatever sort it may be, 
 and the most abject of all slaves is he who is bound 
 to his senses as the sole or supreme sources of plea- 
 sure. The nature of this slavery can be read in its 
 results. The drunkard and the glutton are always low- 
 lived men. There are some instances in which the soul 
 tries to keep up its life in the midst of sensual slavery. 
 It is a sort of mongrel life, and always ends in the 
 reform of one life or the destruction of the other. 
 There are grosser forms of sensual indulgence, having 
 a peculiar power, when relied upon for satisfaction, to 
 bestialize men, and to impose the lowest life upon their 
 
176 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 » 1 ! « 
 
 devotees. I say that high life is impossible to any per- 
 son who relies upon the ministry of sense for his choi- 
 cest pleasures. Even music itself, divine as it may be 
 made, and purifying and elevating as it is when used 
 aright, may become degrading, as all know who have 
 with sadness marked the low life of many who are 
 devoted to it. The pleasures of sense have no power 
 in and of themselves to lift a man above the brutes 
 around him ; and he who clings to them as his chief 
 delight, and makes their acquisition his principal pur- 
 suit, is more a brute than a man. It matters not how 
 or where such a man lives, or what his social position 
 may be ; he is low-lived — unfit for good society — out 
 of place in any sphere of high life. 
 
 The pleasures of the mind, the soul, the heart — of all 
 those departments of the human nature which charac- 
 terize it as human nature — are the pleasures of high life, 
 and they are as various as the forms and phases of that 
 nature. The difficulty is that, in our absorption in the 
 business of getting a living, we do not have time and 
 opportunity for a culture broad enough to make all 
 these sources of high pleasure available. One man 
 gets a taste of knowledge, and spends his life in the 
 pleasure of acquiring it. Another takes his principal 
 delight in the production of works of beauty, or in the 
 study and possession of them. Another is most delight- 
 ed with poetry. Another has his highest satisfaction 
 
High Life and Low Life. 177 
 
 in science or philosophy, while his neighbor has his life 
 in pure society : with strong human sympathies, he 
 delights to mingle with his kind, in the active life of 
 the affections. Another has his highest pleasure in 
 religion, in worship, in the practice of works of benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 Now all these men live a high life, but not the 
 highest possible to them. It is not possible that all 
 men shall grasp all the pleasures of high life, because 
 of the variety in the constitution of their natures ; but 
 all can take a broader sweep than they do. Almost 
 the entire high life of the working classes — and, practi- 
 cally, the working classes embrace nearly all of us — is 
 connected with religion. The only time the most of 
 us have for living is Sunday. The remaining six days 
 of the week are devoted to getting a living. By reli- 
 gious people and their families, and — in this country, 
 among those American-born — by the people generally, 
 there is no culture but that which is religious deemed 
 legitimate on Sunday, and none but religious pleasures 
 accounted consistent with the sacred character of the 
 day. To this fact is attributable the dry and unattrac- 
 ti v r e character of a great multitude of religious people. 
 They occupy but a single sphere of high life, and their 
 lack of culture in other directions naturally and almost 
 necessarily makes their religion of the hardest and 
 most ungenerous type. There is no mistaking the fact, 
 
178 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 that many of the Christian people of the world are 
 held in contempt by men of culture in other depart- 
 ments of high life, because they are so utterly barren, 
 so one-sided, so lacking in all matters of intellectual 
 culture. There is no mistaking the fact, that Christian- 
 ity suffers in its reputation among a large class of intel- 
 lectual people because so large a number of its profes- 
 sors lack culture in all other directions. The religion 
 which they represent has no breadth of view, no com- 
 prehension of great principles, no grand and all-embra- 
 cing sympathies and charities, and not only no tasce 
 for the pure pleasures of the intellect, but a certain 
 degree of contempt for them, or moral aversion to 
 them. It has seemed to be the policy of some church- 
 es to repress the intellect, to decry reason, and to 
 reckon the higher accomplishments of the mind as 
 only ministers to human pride. Now my idea of a 
 Christian is, that he should be the most generous, culti 
 vated, and attractive man in the world ; and my belief 
 is, that the more widely he can extend the realm of his 
 pleasures in the domain of high life, the more thor 
 oughly will he comprehend and enjoy his religion, and 
 the more will he be able by his life and character to 
 commend that religion to the esteem of all. 
 
 But the man who is devoted exclusively to intellec- 
 tual pleasures is quite as one-sided and quite as dry 
 and unattractive as he whose only hold upon high life 
 
High Life and Low Life. 179 
 
 is through his religion — possibly more so. The unde- 
 vout astronomer is not only mad, but mean. An irreli- 
 gious man whom a love for intellectual pleasure has 
 freed from the dominion of his lower nature, lacks still 
 the grandest element of high life. 
 
 It is a matter of surprise to many that culture in 
 high life is so almost universally partial. There are 
 two facts which lie on the surface of things, patent to 
 common observers, viz., that highly intellectual people 
 are not oommonly highly religious people, and that 
 highly religious people are not commonly highly 
 intellectual. I do not state these facts as unvarying 
 rules, but the^ are common enough to be commonly 
 observed, and notorious enough to be beyond contra- 
 vention. The great masses of church-members you 
 will find to be simple people. Perhaps the great 
 masses are always simple people ; but in the church 
 you will find them out of proportion to those of 
 decided intellectual culture. And is it not true that 
 the majority of intellectual people make no pretensions 
 to piety, while many make light of it altogether, as 
 something weak and childish ? The proportion of pro- 
 fessional men who are actively religious is small, and 
 those are not usually foremost in mental gifts and 
 accomplishments. It is a matter of popular regret that 
 our great men who rise to important places in the 
 nation's councils, and who have a predominant influ 
 
180 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 ence in national affairs, are generally either without 
 religious character, or with strong passions un- 
 chastened and uncontrolled. This is so notorious 
 that many have come to regard religion as something 
 that will do very well for humble people, and for 
 women, while men of strength, and intellect are above 
 it. This idea prevails not only among professional 
 and highly intellectual men, but it largely pervades the 
 mechanical mind of the country. An ingenious, inven- 
 tive, and skilful mechanic, who has an absorbing in- 
 terest in his pursuits, is rarely a Christian — rarely reli- 
 gious — and none are more aware of this than mechanics 
 themselves. 
 
 Now why is this ? Is an intellectual man or an 
 ingenious man more depraved in consequence x)f his 
 superiority, or is he by his superiority really raised 
 above religion ? Neither. It is mainly because he 
 becomes absorbed by the sources of pleasure which 
 have been opened to him in his intellect, and thus has 
 no room for the motive which would extend his cul- 
 ture to the rest of his higher nature. The religious life 
 of the masses is barren and unattractive for a similar 
 reason. They cultivate their hearts to the neglect, 
 certainly, if not at the expense, of their brains ; while 
 those who despise them cultivate their brains at the 
 expense of their hearts. Each class is absorbed in its 
 own sphere of pleasure, and the result is as bad as it 
 
High Life and Low Life. 181 
 
 can be. The intellectual giants of the world give us a 
 Christless literature, and refuse to treat religion as any- 
 thing more than a useful delusion, or fail to speak of it 
 at all, while people of common gifts and ordinary cul- 
 ture are left to represent a religion which holds within 
 it the wealth of the world, and the highest and purest 
 sources of pleasure which God has discovered to the 
 race. The world has produced but few Miltons and 
 Newtons, but a number sufficient to show us what a 
 noble creature man is when he consents to drink at all 
 those fountains which have been opened for the satis- 
 faction of his higher nature. 
 
 The present age has produced one man whom I 
 accept as one of the most beautiful instances of broad 
 culture and high life with which I am acquainted, 
 through observation or history. I have no fitting 
 words with which to express my admiration of this 
 man. With a power, grace, and brilliancy of poetic 
 expression which place him in the front rank of those 
 who write the English language, an industry that is tire- 
 less in its search after and study of truth, a love for 
 and a knowledge of art far surpassing all who live and 
 all who have lived before him, a moral courage that 
 tramples upon conventionalities as if they were chaff*, 
 and that gallantly, attacks the most venerable errors, 
 regardless of the spite of their petty upholders — with 
 all these, he unites the most reverent adoration of the 
 
182 
 
 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 great Jehovah, the sweetest trust in Jesus Christ, and 
 the sublimest faith i in the revelations of the Old and 
 New Testaments. To this man, the intellect 'of the 
 world bows as to a master. The lovers of art accept 
 his dictum as that of an anointed king. The man of 
 culture is content if he can read, understand, and ex- 
 pound him, and the Christian, whether high or hum- 
 ble, recognizes him as a brother in Jesus Christ. 
 
 No man can read the works of John Ruskin with- 
 out learning that his sources of pleasure are well-nigh 
 infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a tree, 
 nor a mountain, nor a star ; not a bird that fans the air, 
 nor a creature that walks the earth ; not a glimpse of 
 sea or sky or meadow-greenery; not a work of worthy 
 art in the domains of painting, sculpture, poetry, and 
 architecture; not a thought of God as the Great Spirit 
 presiding over and informing all things, that is not to 
 him a source of the sweetest pleasure. The whole 
 world of matter and of spirit, and the long record of 
 human art, are open to him as the never-failing foun- 
 tains of his delight. In these pure realms he seeks his 
 daily food and has his daily life. 
 
 This man, so full of pleasure, is a reformer. In the 
 domain of art he moves the world. A pagan archi 
 tecture dies before his sturdy strokes, and in the revi 
 val of the Gothic he is Christianizing the face of Chris 
 tendom. Architecture, emancipated by him, has noth- 
 
High Life and Low Life. 183 
 
 mg before it now but progress. Painting, which had 
 bowed so long to the authority of the masters, has 
 been released by him from the degrading servitude, 
 and led back free to its mother nature. Above all, he 
 has sanctified the literature of art, and has demon- 
 strated in his own personal life and character that a 
 man, to be truly great, and to have all his intellectual 
 nature enriched and rendered superlatively fruitful, 
 must be a religious man. I hold up this man as a 
 representative of high life, and as an illustration of the 
 normal union of all the highest pleasures of the intel- 
 lect and the heart, and of the ministry of these plea- 
 sures to the symmetrical development and power of 
 the man. 
 
 There is still another point in this discussion. I 
 have treated of pursuits and pleasures as determinative 
 of the character of life. It remains to treat of mo- 
 tives. 
 
 What is a motive ? It is a source of motion. We 
 enter a mill, and find all the spindles awhirr, and all the 
 shuttles flying, and all the complementary machinery 
 in operation for the production of a certain fabric, the 
 accomplishment of a bertain end. At last, we descend 
 to the wheel-pit, where, shut away from common ob- 
 servation, the great wheel, turned by the water of a 
 passing stream, swings its ponderous arms — the source 
 of all the motion we have seen above it. This is the 
 
184 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 motive of the mill. Thus, is the engine the motive of 
 the steamer ; the mainspring, of the watch ; the heart, 
 of the vascular system of the living body. And wher- 
 ever we see a great human life in progress, in the pro- 
 duction of notable results, we may always know that 
 there is something within it which drives it — a motive- 
 power. It may be a mixed power, as we sometimes 
 find steam and water joined in the driving of a mill. 
 We have already seen that the necessities of the body 
 are powerful and very prevalent motives of life. We 
 have also seen that our love of pleasure in the various 
 spheres of high and low life is a motive of great power, 
 and by these we may learn how everything that gives 
 action and direction to life is a motive of life. One or 
 two of these motives, in consequence of their promi- 
 nence and prevalence, call for separate and direct treat- 
 ment. 
 
 The first to be noticed is ambition. There is in the 
 human mind a natural desire for distinction — for being, 
 or acquiring, something which shall lift the individual 
 above the mass, and give him consideration with his 
 fellows. Some strive for power, and these seek it 
 mainly in political place and preferment. Some seek 
 only for notoriety, and resort to many means for keep- 
 ing their names before the public. Others are greedy 
 for fame, a higher and a better prize than notoriety. 
 In oratory, in literature, in war, in ten thousand fields 
 
High Life and Low Life. 185 
 
 of human action, it impels to the greatest sacrifices of 
 time and strength and safety. It urges the traveliei 
 through dangerous fields of discovery ; it inspires Blon- 
 din on his rope ; it nerves the wrestler at his game, 
 and gives power and patience to the noblest of the 
 workers in art. Indeed, it comes in as an aid to much 
 of the worthiest work of the world. A desire so natu- 
 ral and so universal as this — a desire that so readily 
 joins hands with the highest motives of which we are 
 conscious — must have a legitimate sphere of operation, 
 and must, when confined to this sphere, be entirely 
 consistent with the highest life. When it is united 
 with a sincere love of men, and an honest regard for the 
 claims of Christian duty ; when it is held subordinate 
 and subsidiary to the universal good ; when it lusts for 
 and grasps at nothing which actual excellence of power 
 and character may not legitimately claim, then it is 
 good in itself and good in its results. It is right for a 
 man to desire to excel in anything worthy of a man. 
 It is right for a man to love high position and to seek 
 it in right ways. It is when ambition becomes the 
 single or supreme motive of life that it is wrong. In 
 such cases it is invariably selfish and base, and gives to 
 the mind in which it has its seat, and the life which 
 proceeds from it, a low and vulgar character. 
 
 No man, for instance, can follow politics and place- 
 hunting- as the business of his life, impelled thereto by 
 
186 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 his desire for distinction, without being, or becoming, 
 a low-lived man. The man whose ruling motive of life 
 is the desire for political distinction is a mean man, no 
 matter whether he occupies the bench of a country jus- 
 tice, or the chair of the President of the United States. 
 And this explains fully why it is that our politics are so 
 corrupt, and why, almost invariably, our politicians are 
 men without moral principle. They are self-seeking 
 men, almost exclusively, and the result upon the nation 
 is as bad as it is upon themselves. This accursed selfish 
 ambition is at the root of all the political evils we suffer 
 from to-day, and the parent of the whole series of hor- 
 rors through which we have passed during the last few 
 years. If only those men had been intrusted with 
 power whose love of God and their country surpassed 
 their love of themselves and their love of place, not 
 one drop of blood, and not one cent of money, which 
 the Great Rebellion has cost would have been called 
 for. But for these men, we should have remained a 
 united and a happy nation. They have dechristianized 
 our politics, demoralized our nation, and dethroned 
 God in the national councils ; and nothing but the 
 -unselfish virtues of the people have saved the country 
 from irretrievable wreck. 
 
 What is Washington life ? Is it high life ? Do 
 good people love to go to Washington and remain : 
 Like calls to itself like. It is, and it has always been, 
 
High Life and Low Life. 187 
 
 a home of gamblers and courtesans and corruptionists. 
 I do not question that there are good men there, but 1 
 believe that the majority of those in place are, and for 
 the past fifty years have been, low-lived men. The life 
 that is lived there is a selfish one ; and a selfish life is 
 always low. I state a notorious fact, when I say that 
 it is almost as much as a decent man's character is 
 worth to become actively engaged in politics. He is 
 obliged to come into association and competition with 
 so many unfair and unprincipled men ; he is obliged to 
 meet and struggle with such meanness and mendacity ; 
 he is obliged to adopt or countenance so much immoral 
 machinery, that his moral sense becomes sophisticated. 
 There are offices in this country whose responsibilities 
 are great, and whose honors once corresponded with 
 their responsibilities, that good men decline to accept 
 because of the low life which has lied and cheated 
 and bought its way into them. These men cannot 
 afford the loss of moral and social caste which connec- 
 tion with these offices would inflict upon them. 
 
 "We live under that which is theoretically a popular 
 government — what we comfort ourselves by calling a 
 popular government. A popular government ? What 
 have the people had to do with it ? Have they select- 
 ed their office-holders and their rulers ? Have the}^ 
 with a Christian conscience, sought among the wise 
 and good of the land, and, selecting the wisest and the 
 
188 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 best, placed thera in office and in power ? Not at all 
 Politicians get themselves nominated. They nominate 
 one another. Choice of men is determined in newspa- 
 per offices, in little cliques and cabals, composed of men 
 who have axes to grind ; in primary meetings, packed 
 and managed by interested demagogues ; and when 
 election-day comes, the people, lacking wisdom or 
 organization to do otherwise, vote for the least objec- 
 tionable political candidate presented to them, and 
 vote blindly at that. The people are simply used for 
 the purpose of effecting the aims of the demagogues. 
 I do not suppose that one man in twenty who votes, 
 ever in his life had anything to do directly or indirectly 
 in selecting the candidates for office whom he has an- 
 nually assisted in electing, or in trying to elect. 
 
 Ours a government of the people ? Why, it has 
 been a government of the politicians for half a century 
 —of a set of men who, in the main, are actuated by no 
 higher motives than a love of plunder and of place ; 
 and these are the men — low-lived and selfish and mean 
 — who make the laws and preside over the destinies of 
 a Christian nation ! With all this selfishness and low 
 life and low motive in politics, is it to be wondered at 
 that we have political convulsions ? The grand motive- 
 power in our government has for years been personal 
 and political ambition. Religion, as an element of 
 political power and life, has been persistently counted 
 
" High Life and Low Life. 189 
 
 out ; and when its aid has been invoked to secure an 
 election, it has been done selfishly in the main. The 
 people are religious : the politicians are not. 
 
 We shall find at the political centres that which 
 claims to be high life, in the highest meaning of the 
 phrase. Fashion and fools fall down before this life, 
 and worship it. This is one of the foulest ills which it 
 breeds in society — that, by the forwardness of its arro- 
 gance, it overtops all other life, and holds itself before 
 the public with its intellectual culture, and its low aims 
 and motives, as really and distinctively the high life of 
 the nation. We hear of movements in high life, and 
 scandal in high life. We hear of high life attending 
 church, as if Jehovah had been honored in an unusual 
 way. High life dances, and Jenkins informs the public 
 what it wore on the occasion. High life occupies a box 
 at the theatre, and gets the fact reported. High life 
 gets married, and some toadying press announces that 
 the Hon. Mr. So-and-so, member of Congress from a 
 certain district in Massachusetts, or New York, or 
 Ohio, has led to the hymeneal altar the beautiful and 
 highly accomplished daughter of the Hon. Mr. What's- 
 his-name, of the Cabinet or the Senate. And this an- 
 nouncement goes the round of the newsmongers, as an 
 instance of a " marriage in high life." Does the honor- 
 able member, who got his seat by the most dishonora- 
 ble demagogism, protest ? Does the beautiful and 
 
190 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 highly accomplished daughter of the Hon. Mr. What's- 
 his-name, who is a played-out belle and a mercenary 
 husband-hunter, blush at her vulgar notoriety ? Does 
 the Hon. Mr. What's-his-name, who is very happy to 
 shift the expenses of his lovely daughter to other shoul- 
 ders, and grind a political axe at the same time, object ? 
 Oh ! no ; this is high life — dignified life — the life most 
 directly associated with the government — the social 
 life that goes with successful politics. You would 
 blush, and so would your modest and Christian daugh- 
 ters ; but high life, such as we find at the political cen- 
 tres, never blushes. It has no thought that is not self- 
 ishly devoted to personal aggrandizement. 
 
 A gambler is a gambler ; and I know of no moral 
 difference between the gambler in politics and the gam- 
 bler in money, to whom he is so fond of playing away 
 his little salary, and the profits of his little jobs. There 
 is no moral difference between them ; and there is no 
 reason why one should be regarded as belonging to 
 high life more than the other. Life takes the char- 
 acter of its motive ; and all selfishness is irredeemably 
 low. 
 
 The desire for wealth is a great and almost univer- 
 sal motive of life. There is nothing necessarily wrong, 
 or low, in the desire for wealth. As a means of good 
 to the possessor and to the world, when rightly used, 
 the usefulness and desirableness of wealth are hardly tc 
 
High Life and Low Life. 19] 
 
 be over-estimated. Wealth fills the world with beauti- 
 ful architecture, hangs halls and walls with pictures, iills 
 libraries w r ith books, builds churches and colleges, fur- 
 nishes the life-blood of great charities, relieves from 
 the slavery and the hard economies of labor, commands 
 time for culture and for living, procures the comforts 
 of independence, furnishes the sinews of war, constructs 
 railroads and navies, and gives wings to commerce. 
 The pursuit of wealth under right motives, or, rather, 
 for right ends, is as legitimate as the pursuit of compe- 
 tence. It is only when wealth is pursued for its own 
 sake, or for the sake of the distinction or the low de- 
 lights which it secures, that it becomes vulgar. How 
 generally wealth is pursued with these low aims, I 
 leave you to be the judges. How often the claim to 
 respectability is based upon material possessions, we all 
 know. Society -holds many men and many families, 
 whose pole claim to a respectable position is based 
 upon the possession of money. Mr. Jones, the grocer, 
 was a common sort of man enough when he was poor, 
 and bis family were not recognized in the conventional 
 high life around him. But Mr. Jones, wishing to get 
 into high life, with his family, kept very busily at 
 work, drove sharp bargains, and used his little capi- 
 tal so wisely that he became rich. He moved into 
 a splendid house, bought expensive equipage, put 
 on airs, and, though high life turned up its nose 
 
192 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 a little superciliously at first, it brought it down, 
 and dipped it in Mr. Jones's wine, and then opened 
 its drawing-rooms to Mr. Jones and his family. Mr. 
 Jones bought his place in society, and a share in 
 conventional high life, as he Avould buy a box in a 
 theatre, or a share of railway-stock. Even this is 
 better than the pursuit of wealth for the sake of 
 wealth — better than piling up money for the sake of 
 counting it, or to see how large a pile can be made 
 one's own. Wealth, as the servant of high life, is 
 good ; but wealth as the end of life, or as the basis of 
 any life, whether nominally high or low, is bad. 
 
 But these are commonplaces, and the argument 
 needs to be pursued no further. I have attempted to 
 define natural and necessary distinctions between that 
 which is true and false in life — between that wliich is 
 high and low. I have tried to show you that the char- 
 acter of life is determined by its pursuits, pleasures, and 
 motives. It has been a plain task — so plain and so 
 obvious in every statement, and so trite, withal, that 
 it must have seemed to many of you like the recitation 
 of a school-room. Yet you know, as well as I, that 
 the propositions I have made, though accepted by the 
 judgment, are practically rejected by the life, of society. 
 
 Who are those, generally, in society, whom society 
 itself regards as enviable, — as, indeed, representatives 
 of the highest life of society ? Are they the men of 
 
High Life and Low Life. 193 
 
 intellect, the men of accomplishments, the men of pure 
 morals and pure motives, the Christian men ; or are they 
 the men of wealth, or the occupants of place ? Who 
 are those who give to society its shape — who pull down 
 one and set up another ? Who arrogate to themselves 
 the distinctions and the prerogatives of high life ? I 
 answer, the men of power and the men of money. It 
 matters not what their pursuits are ; it matters not 
 what their pleasures are ; it matters not what their mo- 
 tives are — whether a love of power, or distinction, or 
 money : they claim, receive, and hold the highest place. 
 Low life rides and high life walks. Low life assumes 
 the leadership, and high life modestly, though with 
 many inward protests, acquiesces. Low life throngs 
 the market-places, throngs the watering-places, throngs 
 political conventions, throngs the halls of legislation, 
 throngs all the fashionable assemblies. It has a low 
 and vulgar desire to be seen of men, while high life is 
 modest, and shrinks from contact with so much that is 
 meretricious and base. The animal is rampant and reg- 
 nant, and the angel hangs his head and folds his wings. 
 Can we not build better than this ? Shall not 
 Christian manhood and Christian womanhood have 
 and hold their place ? Shall social and individual 
 values forever depend upon material conditions ? My 
 friend, if you are a man of brains, a man of culture, a 
 man of taste, a man of pure and true life, a man acting 
 9 
 
194 
 
 High Life and Low Life. 
 
 and living under the impulsion of high motives, bow no 
 more to false gods. Demand that a man shall be a man 
 before he shall be your associate. Do what you can to 
 establish juster social values, so that a man shall stand 
 for a man, however poor and humble he may be, and a 
 brute shall pass for a brute, however proud and high. 
 Do what you can to make high life possible to all, and 
 to bring the low life of the world to do it homage. 
 
THE NATIONAL HEAET. 
 
 IT has always been the folly of the wise to under- 
 value the wisdom of the common people. The 
 lawyer despises the jury that he natters, and the poli- 
 tician shows, in the tricks by which he endeavors to 
 deceive and mislead the people, the contempt he feels 
 for those whom he affects to honor. All the orators 
 have then* little compliment for the people — for what 
 they call " the hardy yeomanry," " the intelligent 
 masses," &c. The matter has really become conven- 
 tional, and the compliment is tossed out as a gallant 
 tosses a pleasant word to a pretty woman, partly be- 
 cause it is his habit, and partly because she expects it. 
 
 It was the very wise and brilliant Carlyle who 
 accused the British nation of being mostly fools ; yet 
 it must be admitted that, for a nation of fools, it has 
 got on remarkably well. Somehow, British commerce, 
 British manufactures, British agriculture, British pow- 
 er, British wealth, British charities, and British litera- 
 
196 The National Heart. 
 
 ture, suggest magnificent national acquisitions, resour- 
 ces, and characteristics. 
 
 An old-fashioned New England town will give us, 
 perhaps, as good an illustration of the wisdom of the 
 common people as we can find. I presume that there 
 cannot be found elsewhere, upon the earth, communi- 
 ties so well regulated, so pure, so equal and just in all 
 departments of municipal administration, as among 
 some of the older and humbler towns of New Eng- 
 land. Once a year they assemble in town-meeting. 
 They are usually fortunate enough to possess one man 
 who understands parliamentary usage, and who pre- 
 sides, year after year, as moderator. They vote their 
 appropriations, elect their town-clerk, selectmen, and 
 school-committee — their road-surveyors, fence -viewers, 
 pound-keepers, and hog-reeves — and go home. Among 
 the thousand persons, more or less, who live in the 
 town, there is not one pauper, not one man or woman, 
 or child over six years of age, who cannot read ; not 
 one drunkard, not one place where a drunkard can be 
 made, and not a man except the minister and the phy- 
 sician who has had anything more than a common- 
 school education. Are these men fools, or wise ? 
 How much would their condition be improved, think 
 you, by the importation of brilliant men who would 
 despise their simplicity ? 
 
 But we can find illustrations of popular wisdom in 
 
The National Heart. 197 
 
 more important assemblies than New England town- 
 meetings. My impression is that State legislatures 
 have not been remarkable, either in New England or 
 elsewhere, for the native gifts or the learning of their 
 members. Indeed, it has been more than intimated to 
 me that the majority of those who find places there are 
 not so dazzlingly brilliant that they cannot be regarded 
 safely by the naked eye. The boy who emigrated to 
 the "West, and wrote back to his father, inviting him 
 to follow, persuading him thereto by the assurance that 
 " mighty small men get office out there," evidently did 
 not understand the composition of Eastern legislatures 
 as well as his father did. Yet, without learning and 
 without experience, these' men come together, and 
 legislate for the States composing this Union ; and 
 it must be confessed — nay, it may be proudly claimed 
 — that, in the main, they do it well ; that, when left to 
 their own good sense and conscience, they do it always 
 well. Under the laws enacted by these men, we have 
 liberty, protection, and prosperity ; and we shall find 
 the reason for this as we advance further in our discus- 
 sion. 
 
 It must be apparent to all, that, in the national life, 
 there are certain men, institutions, agencies, and move- 
 ments, which monopolize the popular attention, and 
 which alone find record upon the page of history. 
 Great men, political institutions, administrations, par 
 
19 
 
 The National Heart 
 
 ties, wars, intrigues of politicians, theories and policies 
 of government — these occupy the surface of the na- 
 tional life ; these are what men see and talk about ; 
 these produce material for the newspapers ; these fur- 
 nish the staple from which the historian weaves his 
 varied record. In the issue of a war, in the result of 
 a political campaign, in the success of a man, in the tri- 
 umph of a policy, in the progress of an institution, it 
 is our habit to recognize the results of independent 
 agencies which produce the sum of national life and 
 the stuff of history, and to lose sight of that grand 
 vital power, abiding in the heart of the people, which 
 hides itself by throwing to its surface these shows 
 which cheat our attention. 
 
 The child that stands upon the river-bank and sees 
 a great steamer go by, sees only the long and graceful 
 sweep of her decks, the revolution of her wheels, the 
 rise and fall of her working-beam, the smoke pouring 
 from her tall chimneys, her crowd of passengers, and 
 the beautiful flag that floats over all. He does not 
 dream of that heart of fire which throbs in her bosom, 
 without whose mighty pulsations the boat would be 
 only a mass of useless lumber. So, when we enter a 
 garden, we only interest ourselves with that portion of 
 it which occupies the sunlight and the air. Stems and 
 foliage and flowers and fruits — these absorb our atten- 
 tion j while the under-world of soils and roots and 
 
The National Heart. 199 
 
 vital chemistries, in which all the secrets of the upper 
 beauty hide, are unthought of. 
 
 The heart of the people — the national heart — out 
 of this are the issues of the national life. We talk oi 
 institutions, and policies, and state-craft, and inter 
 national reactions, and imagine that we are touching 
 grand realities and vitalities ; and while we talk the 
 national heart beats on and the national life flows on, 
 and bears us all upon its tide. There is probably no 
 man so unobserving as not to have noticed a certain 
 drift of events, altogether independent of apparent 
 forces, — a certain drift that the wisdom of the wisest 
 cannot account for — a drift that neither statesmen nor 
 politicians can divert or arrest — for which, indeed, they 
 are in no way responsible. Events march, or seem to 
 march, in solid column, pricking each other forward 
 with crowding spears ; and the men and the parties 
 which pretend to marshal them, and which have a cer- 
 tain show of marshaling them, only run with them, or 
 run before them to avoid being crushed beneath their 
 feet. Throughout the sad and terrible war which still 
 engages the energies of this nation, there has been 
 nothing more remarkable than this independent drift 
 of events, baffling all attempts at prevision, breaking 
 up all the schemes of the politicians, making folly to- 
 day of the wisdom of yesterday, and showing how lit- 
 tle the apparent actors in the great drama have had tc 
 
200 The National Heart. 
 
 do with its inspiration, and the order of its combina- 
 tions. I recognize here, reverently and gladly, the 
 presidency of Providence over all our national affairs, 
 and the power of Providence in them ; but I see, par- 
 ticularly in this majestic drift of events, which so ruth- 
 lessly overthrows policies and prophecies, and theories 
 and men, the tide of the national life as it flows forth 
 from the national heart. It has its birth among the 
 aspirations, the convictions, the affections, and the faith 
 of the American people. It is the product of no man's 
 will. It is not even distinctively the product of the 
 nation's will. It is the product of forces starting as 
 independently of volition as the beating of the human 
 heart itself; and these forces, like springs in the moun- 
 tain-side, send out their contributions to create that 
 resistless stream which bears the freight of history 
 upon its bosom. 
 
 I do not go to the heads of those who compose a 
 New England town-meeting to find the secret of their 
 wisdom, but to their hearts. They are right-hearted, 
 and see clearly ; they are right-hearted, and act con- 
 scientiously. They aim to do right, and have a com- 
 mon interest in doing right ; and the life of the town 
 is that which comes forth from the heart of the town, 
 producing the natural results of peace, order, and pros- 
 perity. I do not look for the wisdom of our State 
 legislatures among the brains of the legislators. In 
 
The National Heart. 201 
 
 the laws and statutes of a State, the learned minds and 
 practised hauds*of a few have only put into form that 
 which the heart of the majority has pronounced good. 
 Mr. Bancroft, speaking of colonial Connecticut, saya 
 that iC the magistrates were sometimes persons of no 
 ordinary endowments, but, though gifts of learning and 
 genius were valued, the State was content with virtue 
 and single-mindedness ; and the public welfare never 
 suffered at the hands of plain men." And what he 
 says of Connecticut is true generally of all the States. 
 Plain men, in responsible positions, act as they are 
 moved to act by their hearts, and live in a close and 
 fruitful communion with conscience. Sometimes, de- 
 signing men may lead them away from the right, but 
 they always come back to it with renewed loyalty. 
 
 The present period of our national history is marked 
 by such great events, by such antagonisms of opinion 
 in high places, and by such prominence of individual 
 men, that we are more than ever liable to forget the 
 real source of the national life and power, and to judge 
 shallowly and mistakenly of its developments and phe- 
 nomena. We say, that if this or that policy shall be 
 pursued, if this or that man succeed, if this or that 
 party prevail, if some institution be saved or over- 
 thrown, or a battle be lost or won, then shall we have 
 unity, peace, and prosperity, or the opposite of these ; 
 whereas, these are not dependent upon any man, or 
 
202 
 
 The National Heart. 
 
 institution, or policy, or party. They must come, and 
 come to stay, as the product of permanent forces, start- 
 ing in the national heart ; as the product of an inspir- 
 ing, moving, governing, and conservative power, whose 
 fountain-head is among those affections which are high- 
 est and nearest heaven. Ambitious men, and interest- 
 ed and selfish parties, and brute force, may for a time 
 pervert the legitimate issues of this power; but it is 
 certain, if it save itself from perversion, to overcome 
 all these, and carry its quality into every act and event 
 which goes to make up national history. 
 
 I propose to speak a few words concerning the na 
 tional heart, as the residence of those forces which 
 move and conserve the national life. 
 
 Every heart that is of value to itself and others is 
 identified with a home. There is, somewhere, a group 
 of hearts to which each heart belongs, or it has no 
 strong hold upon the world — a group that is usually 
 bound to a certain spot by all its interests and affec- 
 tions. A boy grows up to manhood in a home, and, 
 choosing to himself a companion, builds a new home 
 for himself and for her. Children are born to him, 
 and at length a home-circle is formed, made up of kin- 
 dred hearts, and held together by natural affection. 
 Looking into this home, we shall find that all its ambi- 
 tions, aspirations, and industries, are inspired by this 
 affection. The husband strives to give a worthy home 
 
The National Heart. 201 
 
 lo the woman of his love, and the wife returns hia 
 devotion with all love's sympathies and ministries, 
 while both labor for the comfort, the education, and 
 the prosperity of their children, who, themselves, ar 
 helpful toward the general welfare. Love is the vita 
 air on which this home lives — on which home as an 
 institution lives. It is both motive and satisfaction — 
 inspiration and reward. 
 
 Now let each man before me measure, if he can, 
 the influence of his home-affections upon his individual 
 life. How much of any sort of effort do you put forth 
 that . is not inspired, or suggested, or aided, by your 
 love for the persons and the things that make up your 
 home ? Where do you look for your sweetest satisfac- 
 tions ? Where does your life centre ? Around what 
 spot does your life revolve ? Ah ! when you lose home 
 and that which home holds, do you not lose that which 
 hallowed the name of country ? that which endowed 
 Iho world with value ? Nay, do you not lose that 
 which made you valuable to yourself? 
 
 Well, a neighborhood is made up of homes, and, in 
 the main, one home is. like another in its characteristic 
 influence upon the individual life. A town or a coun- 
 ty is made up of neighborhoods, and a State is com- 
 posed of counties and towns, and a group of States 
 constitutes the federal Union. So we come, by a very 
 short path, as you see, to the conclusion that the nation 
 
204 The National Heart. 
 
 is only a grand aggregation of homes, and that the 
 mainspring of the national life is the love that inspires 
 the home-life. A nation is a thing that lives and acts 
 like a man, and men are the particles of which it is 
 composed. If these particles obey the law of their 
 home-life — each one pervaded and controlled by the 
 power of home-affection — then it is easy to see that 
 home-life enters very essentially into the constitution 
 of the national life. We can understand, at least, that 
 we are not to look for the staple of national life in cabi- 
 nets or congresses, in armies or institutions. We can 
 understand, at least, that in the homes of the nation — 
 under the control of home-affections — the nation lives. 
 We often wonder how it is that a nation whose 
 government has made it responsible for great crimes 
 can survive those crimes — how a nation debauched in 
 public morals, and corrupted by the prevalence of per- 
 sonal vice in high places, can live — why it does not fall 
 into anarchy by the weight of its guilt pressing upon 
 its rottenness. It is because the great national heart is 
 not guilty, and because the national life is not in the 
 government at all. No nation can be destroyed while 
 it possesses a good home-life. My lawn cannot be 
 spoiled so long as the grass is green, no matter how 
 many trees may be prostrated — no matter how many 
 flowers may be trampled under feet by unclean beasts. 
 The essential life and beauty of the lawn are in the 
 
The National Heart. 205 
 
 grass, and not in the trees, and not in the flowers, and 
 not in any creature that passes over it ; and the life of 
 a nation is not in political institutions, and not in politic 
 cal parties, and not in political or great men, but in the 
 love-inspired home-life of the people. 
 
 Where this home-life thrives best, there patriotism 
 — another offspring of the national heart — grows thrift- 
 iest. The love of country is one of the purest and most 
 powerful passions of the heart, and is the constant 
 companion of the love of home. Indeed, country is 
 home in the largest sense, and the nation is the great 
 family of which all of us are members. Country is the 
 home of home itself — the setting of the jewel which 
 we wear next our hearts. We claim as kindred all 
 who were born under our own sky, all who are loyal 
 to the same government, all who share the same na- 
 tional lot, and all who cheer the same flag ; and we 
 love the land which gives them and us a common 
 home. I say that this love of country and this na- 
 tional affection are only love of home and love of family 
 enlarged, and that these loves always live and thrive 
 together, t The man who loves home best, and loves it 
 most unselfishly, loves his country best. 
 
 Patriotism is simple and trustful, like family affec- 
 tion ; and its subordinate place in the ordinary life of 
 the nation is seen in the fact that it rarely shows itself 
 except in the national emergencies. When the coun* 
 
206 
 
 The National Heart 
 
 try is endangered, or insulted, or outraged, then we 
 learn something of the strength and the universality 
 of patriotism, and then we learn something of its inspir- 
 ing and motive power in national action. In recent 
 years, we have seen it rouse our slumbering nation to 
 arms, and lift our startled and distracted people into 
 harmony and unity in the national defence. Truth, 
 presented to the intellect, and enforced with eloquence 
 the divinest, would only have bred difference and dis- 
 turbance, when the voice of that first hostile cannon, 
 turned against the flag that floated over Fort Sumter, 
 reached the national heart ; and the nation, casting off 
 every fetter, stood up as one man, and called for ven- 
 geance. This was at a time when there were fear and 
 trembling in high places ; when treason had tainted all 
 the governmental departments ; when there was neither 
 army nor navy ; when statesmen, insomuch as they 
 could see farther than other men, were in despair. It 
 was at a time when popular apathy left no ground hard 
 enough to build a policy upon. Ah ! how this wound 
 of the national affections — this insult to the object of 
 the nation's worship — this blow at its unsuspecting loy- 
 alty — inspired its life, and shattered the bands by which 
 it had been bound so long ! I know of nothing more 
 sublime than this sudden waking of a nation through an 
 outrage upon the object of its love ; and it will not be 
 possible for the muse of History to measure its inspiring 
 
The National Heart. 207 
 
 power in the great events which have followed. That 
 can only be found recorded in blood on a thousand bat 
 tie-fields, and in tears in a million of sacrificial homes. 
 
 Love of country does not burn with so steady and 
 so reliable a flame as love of home. It is not so con- 
 stant a motive in the national life. In the absorption 
 of home-pursuits, and the selfish struggle for gold and 
 power and fame, the national heart forgets, or is prone 
 to forget, its patriotic fervor, and to consent to the 
 subordination of patriotic motives ; but when danger 
 comes, there is nothing it will not dare and do to 
 defend the object of its affections. Patriotism — inferior 
 to Christianity as it is — has had a longer life than 
 Christianity and a broader hold upon mankind, and 
 numbers a hundred martyrs where Christianity can 
 claim but one. And patriotism, let me insist, is not 
 confined to the noble few. It is the commonwealth. 
 I believe in the patriotism of the American people — the 
 loyalty of the national heart. It may be tampered 
 with and deceived and misled, but it lives as an irresist- 
 ible motive-power in the national life. 
 
 It is the habit of some over-charitable people to say 
 that, in the present struggle between the loyal people 
 of this country and those in rebellion, the latter are 
 actuated by just as good motives as the former. This 
 may be true to a very limited extent ; but it is noto- 
 rious that the grand motive-power of the rebellion is 
 
208 The National Heart. 
 
 hate ( and hate is not so good a motive as love, and, 
 thank God ! it is not so powerful a motive as love. ^ I 
 see arrayed on one side of this struggle those who hate 
 democracy, who hate labor, who hate the idea of human 
 equality, who hate their country and its constitution, 
 who hate the political mother that bore them — the 
 mother under whose fostering care they had lived in 
 wealth, independence, and peace — and who, more than 
 they hate democracy, and more than they hate free 
 institutions, and more than they hate their country, 
 hate the North and the universal Yankee. If you can 
 find any love that operates as a motive of rebellion 
 besides the love of power and the love of slavery, you 
 will be more successful than I have been. 
 
 It is patent that the motive-power of the rebellion 
 is hate — hate, fostered and fed in every possible way. 
 It breathes its foul breath through the rebel newspa- 
 pers ; it finds utterance in every speech ; it comes forth 
 with bitterest venom from the lips of women ; it pol- 
 lutes and burns the hearts and tongues of even the lit- 
 tle children. Extinguish the hatred that glows in the 
 heart of the rebellion to-day, and you extinguish the 
 rebellion itself. 
 
 Now, can any sane man think of comparing this 
 motive with that which has poured out for the national 
 redemption its untold millions of treasure, and its hun« 
 dred thousand lives ? Have the men whom we have sent 
 
The National Heart. 205 
 
 to Southern camps and Southern battle-fields and South- 
 ern graves been moved to enlist by feelings of enmity 
 toward those against whom they went to fight ? Has 
 there been a bitter hatred of the Southron in the 
 Northern heart ? Has it not been notorious, not only 
 here but abroad, that the loyal people of the country — 
 especially those of the North — have carried no bitter- 
 ness of feeling into this contest ? I telJ you that it was 
 only because love of country was stronger than broth- 
 erly sympathy, that the nation was not ruined years 
 ago. Our troops will not, cannot, be bitter ; and I 
 have no question that, if the armies of the rebellion 
 should give up their cause to-day, our loyal forces could 
 not be restrained from the expression of their fraternal 
 feelings for them. We have fought for the country ; 
 we have fought for the flag; and love has been the 
 motive-power with us in all the contest ; and just as 
 certain as God is stronger than all the powers of evil, 
 and truth is stronger than falsehood, and virtue is 
 stronger than vice, is love stronger than hate in any 
 contest. One is supremely, everlastingly positive, 
 allied to God and heaven ; the other is infernally nega- 
 tive, born of hell and bound for it. 
 
 There is still another motive-force in national life 
 which claims our consideration, and this is religion. I 
 am inclined to think that we undervalue the power of 
 religion upon the heart of this nation. In saying this. 
 
210 The National Heart. 
 
 I contemplate no narrow definition of religion, though 
 I embrace in it, of course, all the forms of Christianity. 
 Religion existed before Christianity, and of course can 
 exist outside of Christianity. It may exist without any 
 written revelation of God, flowing naturally and neces- 
 sarily from the constitution of the human soul, and its 
 rationally apprehended relations to the Father-Soul. 
 We know there are multitudes of men and women who 
 never enter a Christian church — who have no adequate 
 Christian knowledge —who do not pretend to be Chris- 
 tians ; yet who, through the indirect teachings of Chris- 
 tianity and the outworking of their religious natures, 
 entertain the thought of a Supreme God within whose 
 providential reign they come ; a God to whom they 
 pray in times of peril, and to whom they owe a certain 
 sort or degree of obedience. This religion may be 
 shallow, and it doubtless is so. There may be very 
 little of love in it— very little of worship in it — very 
 little of comfort and joy in it ; but, shallow and love- 
 less and joyless as it may be^ there is something in it 
 which gives significance to the word duty. It recog- 
 nizes and acknowledges certain duties, growing out of 
 the relations sustained by man to man and men to God ; 
 and this religion, shallow but broad, embraces a nation. 
 It may be that the highest form it ever reaches is a 
 simple sense of duty ; but this sense of duty is strong 
 and universal. As I understand the word duty, it al- 
 
The National Heart. '211 
 
 ways has direct or indirect reference to God and ever 
 lasting good. We do that which is due from us to God 
 — due from us to others — due from us to our country — • 
 because God's constitution of things makes it due, and 
 God's constitution of us makes us feel it to be so, and 
 urges us to a practical acknowledgment of the fact. 
 
 Now permit me to illustrate the peculiar power of 
 this sense of duty, as a motive, from our recent nation- 
 al history. I am aware that, like patriotism, it often 
 sleeps in times of peace, but, when danger comes, it 
 prings to its office with an energy that is really sub- 
 lime. At the opening of the present war, when all 
 the country was a camping-ground, and volunteers 
 were rushing to rendezvous by tens and hundreds of 
 thousands, there was one question w T hich nearly every 
 man was called upon to answer; and that question re- 
 ceived but one reply — " What induced you to enlist ? " 
 This question, put to rude and rough men by sympa- 
 thetic friends and visitors — put to men who were often 
 profane and intemperate — put to men who had never 
 been moved to do a heroic deed before — put to the 
 simple-hearted boy from the farm, and the delicate- 
 handed clerk from the counting-room — elicited but this 
 response : " Somebody must go." It was not the love 
 of home entirely that made this " must go," for many 
 of them had no home that they loved, or that loved 
 them. It was not patriotism alone, for many of these 
 
212 The National Heart. 
 
 men had little that bound them to their country, and 
 feeble interest in its prosperity and safety. This " must 
 go " sprang from a sense of duty, and this sense of 
 duty was born of that which was essentially religion. 
 It was so imperative that it gave them no peace until 
 the uniform was on and the march begun. Now this 
 religion may not have been pure and powerful enough 
 — may not have been intelligent enough — to produce in 
 these men a good personal character, but, appealed to 
 by this great emergency, it made this great and beau- 
 tiful response. If there are any who doubt the essen- 
 tially religious character of this response, they will, at 
 least, admit that the nation's life was indebted to the 
 nation's heart for it, and not to its intellect. 
 
 " Somebody must go." Here was a full recognition 
 of duty, and this recognition has placed two millions 
 of men in fields of action which now hold five hundred 
 thousand of them in the sleep that knows no waking. 
 " Somebody must go." American, German, Irishman 
 — Catholic and Protestant — all gave the same suggest- 
 ive reply ; and in that sense of duty which dictated it 
 lay the national safety. 
 
 But it can be hardly necessary to illustrate the 
 power of religion in national life in a country whose 
 origin and history are, themselves, the most striking 
 illustrations of it. It was religion that directed the 
 Puritans to Plymouth Rock. It was religion that in- 
 
The National Heart. 213 
 
 spired and sustained them throughout their colonial 
 struggle. Religion constituted so much of their life, 
 that it really ordered the affairs of the State. It had 
 been, in other countries, the habit of the State to take 
 religion under its patronage, that it might be regulated 
 and used for State purposes ; but here, religion was 
 the dominant power, and the State was used for reli- 
 gious purposes, as an instrument of the church. Reli- 
 gion found its way into every statute, and every muni- 
 cipal regulation, and every political institution. Before 
 home-life was well established, and while yet the coun- 
 try waited to be loved and to be made worthy of pa- 
 triotic affection, religion was the ever-present, ever- 
 prevalent motive. Ministers stood side by side in 
 public honor with magistrates, and the people were 
 governed by them in harmonious companionship. 
 
 When, in critical moods, we look back upon those 
 men and those times, we find much uncharitableness to 
 condemn, much ignorance to lament, and much super- 
 stition to pity ; but we know, after all, that the reigning 
 motive of all that early life was the religion of Jesus 
 Christ. It was this religion that crystallized into our 
 political, educational, and charitable institutions. There 
 is not a State constitution in this Union — there is not a 
 college or a public school — that does not testify, direct- 
 ly or indirectly, to the power of religion as the motive 
 of the early life of the nation. 
 
214 The National Heart. 
 
 And here permit me a single word on the subject 
 of Puritanism, about whose malign influence in national 
 affairs we hear so much in these latter days, from the 
 lips of mountebanks and demagogues and traitors. Of 
 what crimes does Puritanism stand convicted before 
 the bar of History ? It persecuted Quakers and hung 
 witches, and did both in the fear of God and for His 
 glory — which, perhaps, was the most lamentable part 
 of the matter. What else did Puritanism do ? It 
 planted one of the most remarkable nations of the 
 world in the wilderness. It gave that nation a love 
 of freedom and justice, a regard for the moral govern- 
 ment of God, an open Bible and a free pen and tongue. 
 It impregnated a continent with the democratic idea, 
 and the continent has borne to it a great family of re- 
 publics. It built the school-house by the side of the 
 church, and the college among the school-houses, and 
 educated, and taught the world how to educate, the 
 common people. It governed social life by the rules 
 of Christian propriety, and carried its religion into 
 every sphere where religion has an office to perform. 
 When the oppressor came to extort tribute, and crush 
 the free spirit of the nation, it rose the first in rebel- 
 lion ; and throughout the long years of the Revolution 
 it poured out its blood like water for the national salva- 
 tion. It sent from a single little State — the State that 
 holds the everlasting rock on which it first planted its 
 
The National Heart. 215 
 
 foot — eighty thousand men to the Revolutionary war ; 
 and I stand here as the son of a Puritan, and of Pu- 
 ritan New England, to declare with grateful pride that 
 the triumph then achieved over the mother-country 
 was not only a victory of the Puritans, but a victory 
 of Puritan ideas. A belief in the right to life, liber- 
 ty, and the pursuit of happiness — this is Puritanism. 
 A belief that God rules in the affairs of men ; that man 
 has a right to himself that cannot be bought and sold 
 without sin ; that the golden rule is the best rule ; and 
 that loyalty to freedom and a free government is lauda- 
 ble, and that traitors ought to be hanged — this is Puri- 
 tanism. 
 
 And New England is to be left out in the cold for 
 its Puritanism ! New England cold ! Why, the only 
 way New England has kept comfortably cool for the 
 last half century has been through her contact with 
 other States, of great conducting power* Leave New 
 England out, and she would come up to a white heat 
 in twelve months. But you cannot leave New England 
 out ; you cannot leave Puritanism out. New England 
 is in ; Puritanism is in — mixed in ; and so long as they 
 represent freedom, and pure morals, and patriotism, they 
 will stay in. 
 
 But it is not necessary to refer to the general 
 religious sentiment of the nation, or to historical 
 Puritanism, to learn that religion is a powerful mo- 
 
21G The National Heart. 
 
 live in the national life. Its Christian spire rises wher- 
 ever a hamlet gathers. The cities are crowded with its 
 costly architecture, and into these churches gathers the 
 best and most highly vitalized society of the nation. 
 The Christian pulpit is the greatest moral lever of the 
 age. It holds the highest culture of the country and 
 the best intellect ; and its power cannot be measured. 
 
 The love of home is strong, and the love of country 
 is strong ; but the love of God is supreme, and fertilizes 
 and vitalizes all other loves. Ah ! how little do the 
 unthinking realize the power of the religion taught by 
 a free Bible and a free pulpit in such a nation as this ! 
 Think what it is to have twenty thousand men in 
 twenty thousand pulpits, proclaiming every week to 
 twenty thousand congregations, made up of the most 
 influential society of the nation, the truths of the ever- 
 lasting gospel ; preaching justice and purity and truth- 
 fulness, and love and freedom and faith ; enforcing the 
 claims of duty in all the departments of life ; giving 
 constant recognition to the reality of a future existence, 
 and drawing motives from it ; and exhorting to daily 
 communion with Him who is the source of life and the 
 spring of inspiration ! Can such a power as this be 
 measured ? — a power with the highest spiritual forces 
 in it — with God and eternity in it, and love as deep 
 and broad as both ? Think what it is to have a thou- 
 sand presses busy with the production of Bibles and 
 
The National Heart. 217 
 
 religious newspapers and Christian books and tracts ! 
 Think of twenty thousand Sunday-schools and a hun- 
 dred thousand other schools in which prayer is offered 
 daily and more or less religious instruction given, and 
 of a hundred colleges, every one of which is in Chris- 
 tian hands in the pursuit of Christian ends, and then 
 you can only begin to get an idea of the power of reli- 
 gion in our national life. 
 
 I have thus tried to exhibit to you the fact that tbo 
 heart is the motive-power in the national life, and that 
 this life is essentially love and love's natural offspring 
 — that in the love of home, and the love of country, and 
 the love of God, the nation holds all the motive-forces 
 of its being. The national heart is the birthplace of all 
 generous national enthusiasms, all worthy aspirations, 
 all noble heroisms, and through it everything divine in 
 the national life is breathed. A government may exist 
 without love in it, and it may rule a nation without love 
 in it ; but no nation, can live, in itself, with the power 
 of self-government, self-development, and self-preserva- 
 tion, save as its life starts in, and is fed by, its heart. 
 
 We are naturally desirous of the spread of republi- 
 can institutions over the world ; but we may rest cer- 
 tain that they will spread no faster than the hearts of 
 the nations are prepared for them. The only reason 
 why a republic cannot live in Rome and France is, that 
 the hearts of those nations are not capable of creating 
 10 
 
218 The National Heart. 
 
 and sustaining a republic — that they are not under 
 those motive-forces of love which produce a republic, 
 or any form of self-organized national life. The heart 
 of France, for instance, unless I greatly mistake it, does 
 not possess that home-love, that patriotism, and that 
 love of God, whose natural outgrowth and expression 
 is republicanism. When the heart of France wins 
 those possessions, the imperial crown will tumble, and 
 France will become a republic without essay of arms, 
 or effort of will. France is full, even to-day, of repub- 
 lican theory. Nothing can be more radical than the 
 doctrines of popular rights and self-government taught 
 by some of the brightest and most influential minds of 
 France. Indeed, the head of France has been republi- 
 can for years ; but it takes something more than heads 
 and hands to make and sustain a republic. Look at the 
 old republic of Mexico, and see how it has died out at 
 the heart. Its home-life had become poor, its patriot- 
 ism had been narrowed down to partisanship, and its 
 religion was in dead forms and dead churches, and not 
 in the hearts of the people. When Mexico died as a 
 republic, she died simply because her heart was dead, 
 and because she could not exist longer as a republic. 
 Venice died at the heart, and though events over 
 which she had no control were busy with her destiny, 
 they hardly hastened her fall. In the striking language 
 of Mr. Ruskin : " By the inner burning of her own pas* 
 
The National Heart. 219 
 
 sions, as fatal as the fiery rain of Gomorrah, she was 
 consumed from her place among the nations ; and her 
 ashes are choking the channels of the dead, salt sea." 
 
 And here I am led naturally to speak of the national 
 heart as the conservative power of the national life. 
 You will see that my subject is a difficult one to divide 
 — that is, it is difficult, with my view of the subject, to 
 separate for consideration the motive and conservative 
 forces of national life. The winds and tides that give 
 ceaseless motion to the sea are also the conservative 
 forces of the sea. Its constant sweetness is the prod- 
 uct mainly of its constant motion. That vital force in 
 the human body which gives it the power to act upon 
 matter is the same force which preserves that body 
 from decay. It is thus in national life. The heart is 
 the motive-power, and it is also the conservative 
 power, through identical channels of operation ; but 
 the politics of the day give us our words, and we must 
 see how much meaning there is in them. There is an 
 idea that the conservative forces of our nation are en- 
 tirely distinct from the motive forces, and we conse- 
 quently hear of conservatism, and conservative influ- 
 ences, and conservative men. There has been a feeling 
 afloat that this nation is in great need of being saved 
 by somebody, or something ; and there is a class of 
 people who have written and talked and engaged in 
 associated action with reference to an outside scheme 
 
220 
 
 The National Heart. 
 
 of salvation, under the name of conservatives. There 
 are others that do not call themselves by this name, 
 who look for the national preservation to powers that 
 do not inhere in the national life. 
 
 I think, for instance, that many of us have been 
 looking throughout all this war for a great man — a 
 great leader — bearing his patent of nobility and sign 
 of authority on his forehead, and taking the national 
 salvation into his own hands. I have not seen him : 
 have you ? Why have we not seen him ? Because we 
 did not. need him. We have seen good men, honest 
 men, honorable men, who did their duty, and who were 
 a fair expression of the national heart ; but the great, 
 the commanding man, has not come, and would not be 
 heeded if he had. Great men save feeble nations by 
 harmonizing their will and concentrating their power ; 
 but ours is not a feeble nation, its will is sufficiently 
 harmonized, and its power is sufficiently concentrated. 
 The nation is able to take care of itself, and has its con- 
 servative power in the sources of its life. Still the call 
 for a great man is kept up, and the newspapers have 
 said "lo here," and " lo there;" and politicians have 
 bruited several distinct discoveries of the genuine arti- 
 cle ; but, to use the street-slang of the day, the people 
 " don't see it." They have no special anxiety to see it. 
 They are on the right track, and know what they want. 
 They need only honest and efficient men to execute 
 
The National Heart. 221 
 
 their will. Are we willing, at this date of our national 
 life, to trust ourselves in the hands of a great man — to 
 be led by him — to be moulded by him — to be saved by 
 him, in his way ? Are we become so w T eak, so igno- 
 rant, so degraded, as to be looking for a great man to 
 save us ? God forbid ! and God forbid (I speak it rev- 
 erently and earnestly) that any great man rise to take 
 the nation's work out of the nation's hands ! 
 
 There are some, I suppose, who are honest in the 
 belief that the nation is to be saved by party politics. 
 We judge thus by the resolutions passed at their con- 
 ventions, and by the tenor of their speeches and their 
 newspapers. We hear not unfrequently of assemblies 
 of leading politicians in Washington or New York, 
 which seem to be devoted to the business of saving 
 the nation — in their way. One would imagine, from 
 the airs they put on, that the life of the nation w T as in 
 their hands, or that it had no life independent of party 
 politics. We have a great crisis, as you know, on the 
 occasion of every national election, in which the na- 
 tional salvation is understood to depend on the triumph 
 of — all parties. First and last all parties have succeeded, 
 and first and last all parties have been defeated, and 
 still the nation lives ; and it has manifested more genu- 
 ine vitality, with a third of its subjects in rebellion, 
 than it ever did while all were united. 
 
 The idea of putting a living, intelligent, powerful 
 
222 The National Heart. 
 
 nation into the keeping — into the conservative embrace 
 — of a few lean party men, the majority of whom are 
 working for power or for pay, is just as ridiculous as 
 the thought of a great army — whose salvation is in 
 itself, if it is anywhere — consenting to be led by a 
 band of camp-followers and sutlers who had volun- 
 teered to save it from destruction. 
 
 No nation ever conserved its life by or through a 
 policy. A policy may modify the issues of national 
 life somewhat, and have a reactionary effect upon the 
 life itself; but a mere policy has no life in it, to bestow 
 upon anything. Most nations live — indeed, most na- 
 tions always have lived — in spite of the policy imposed 
 upon them. A national policy is only a way of na- 
 tional living. The life of a stream does not depend 
 upon the way of its flowing. It may be turned by arti- 
 ficial means out of its old channel, and then turned 
 back again, and then diverted into other channels ; but 
 these changes do not diminish the volume of the 
 stream, nor hinder it a day from finding the ocean to 
 which it tends. So a party policy may change the 
 direction of a nation's life, and modify for a time its 
 minor issues ; but it has no power to save that life — < 
 no conservative power. The nation carries its salva- 
 tion hi its own strong heart, and not in the pocket of 
 any party. 
 
 I do not pretend that one policy is as good as an- 
 
The National Heart. 
 
 223 
 
 other, or offer the opinion that it makes no difference 
 what party manages the government : on the con 
 trary, I think that the mode of national life is of very 
 great importance. I simply hold that it is not of vital 
 importance. So far is the nation from having its life 
 in a party, or a policy, that all parties and policies have 
 their life in the nation. 
 
 All parties pretend to conservatism, in one way or 
 another — conservatism as they understand it ; and we 
 find in them all, and sometimes outside of them all, a 
 class of men who profess to be distinctively conserva- 
 tive. Exactly what they mean by conservatism does 
 not appear, but — they — are — well, they are conserva- 
 tive. They are general dissenters, protestants, fault- 
 finders, critics. Many of them are bankrupt politi- 
 cians ; some have very stiff backs and very sore heads ; 
 some have very supple backs and very soft heads ; most 
 of them, for some private reason, don't believe in party 
 politics at all, but would like to belong to a party 
 which is not a party, with politics which are. not poli- 
 tics. They usually dine satisfactorily, wear good 
 clothes, and have a little something invested in stocks. 
 They are in favor of things as they are, with one or 
 two trifling exceptions. They would like to have all 
 radicals and reformers hanged. They cherish an abid- 
 ing affection for every good, old-fashioned, comfortable, 
 respectable wrong, and can have no patience with those 
 
 , 
 
224 The National Heart. 
 
 who are bent on disturbing it. I may have been pecu 
 liarly unfortunate in my field of observation, but I have 
 never known an out-and-out, genuine conservative to be 
 on the humane side of anything ; and, to-day, he is no- 
 toriously bent on saving that which alone brings the 
 nation into danger — saving that which, for its hideous 
 crimes against humanity, against liberty, against the 
 peace and dignity of this nation, against the loyal and 
 patriotic blood of the American people, ought to be 
 destroyed. His peculiar affection for the Constitution 
 of his country seems to be inspired mainly by the 
 clause which protects those who have spit upon that 
 Constitution, and trampled it under their feet. 
 
 This sort of conservatism would save the patient by 
 saving the ulcer that gnaws his flesh ; would save the 
 ship by saving the barnacles that hinder her way 
 through the water and drag her downward ; would 
 save the tree by saving the caterpillars. that consume 
 its foliage. It believes that ulcers are angels, and bar- 
 nacles blessings, and that caterpillars have a constitu- 
 tional right to be nuisances. It distrusts — nay, it does 
 not recognize at all — the pow T er of a living nation to 
 rid itself of wrongs by the natural outgoings of its life. 
 It stands still amid the sweep and swirl of the national 
 life like an old stump in a western river, with its feet 
 stuck in the mud — a lodging-place for political drift- 
 wood — while the steadily on-going national life slips 
 
The National Heart. 
 
 221 
 
 under and around it without paying it the compliment 
 of a ripple or an eddy. 
 
 There are many who believe in the conservative 
 power of education. Many have, indeed, come to a 
 settled opinion that the public-school system of the 
 North and the universal newspaper are the real safe- 
 guards of the national life. I think this matter is not 
 properly understood. Education may or may not be 
 conservative in its influence. It is conservative or des- 
 tructive according to circumstances. When the cul- 
 ture of the heart keeps pace with the culture of the 
 head, and both are educated together, education be- 
 comes a conservative power ; but when the intellect 
 alone is developed, and the heart is permitted to lie 
 dead or to become corrupted, education simply sharp- 
 ens a knife for the nation's throat. Education certainly 
 adds something to national life, but conservative power 
 resides in quality, not quantity. It is the sugar that 
 preserves the fruit and not the fruit that preserves the 
 sugar. Educate the intellect of the common people — 
 educate everybody ; only remember that conservative 
 power resides in quality and not in quantity. The 
 legitimate relation between the development of the 
 heart and the brain must be constantly preserved, or 
 education will breed national corruption by a law of 
 nature which cannot possibly be evaded. 
 
 I have thus attempted to present to you the great 
 10* 
 
226 The National Heart. 
 
 fact that national life does not abide in the govern- 
 ment, does not abide in political institutions, does not 
 abide in political parties or political men — that its 
 source is the national heart. I have endeavored to 
 show you that in the love of home, the love of country, 
 and the love of God, lies the grand secret of the na- 
 tion's vitality — lies that which is distinctively a nation's 
 life — this nation's life. If the government were over- 
 thrown, the nation would live ; if its political institu- 
 tions were destroyed to-day, it would form new ones 
 to morrow, and better ones ; if its political parties and 
 its party men were annihilated, it would only be the 
 stronger for the loss. These are only accidents and 
 outgrowths of national life ; but if the love of home 
 and country and God should be destroyed, the nation 
 would at once cease to be an organized, living thing. 
 These loves which inform the national heart are the 
 fountain-head of all motive that has life in it, and of all 
 conservative power. I have endeavored to exhibit to 
 you this nation as a creature of the heart — as having in 
 itself, by virtue of its origin and constitution, an inde- 
 pendent life. The government is only its instrument ; 
 institutions are only its drapery, or property, or ma- 
 chinery ; parties are only its parasites ; and great 
 men only its agents or ornaments. Private and 
 public errors — private and public vices — these are 
 diseases, these are agents of death ; but so long as 
 
The National Heart. 227 
 
 the vital fountain remains strong and full, the nation ia 
 safe, 
 
 I have entertained two purposes in this discussion. 
 The first is, to show that whenever disease attacks the 
 national life, all remedial agents that have reference to 
 a permanent cure should be addressed to the heart. 
 This nation has been, and still is, sick. Treason is a 
 symptom. Sympathy with treason is a symptom. In- 
 surrection is a symptom. Corruption in high places is 
 a symptom. Loveless, selfish, godless politicians are a 
 symptom. I tell you that this nation cannot get thor- 
 oughly well, until the national heart shall have been 
 made pure enough and unselfish enough to control 
 these symptoms, and expel the diseases which give 
 them birth. By feeding the domestic affections, by the 
 stimulation and development of patriotism, and, above 
 all, by the cultivation of Christian grace and a sense of 
 responsibility to God, is the nation to be cured of its 
 disease. Policies, politics, men, administrations — these 
 are nothing : all nostrums addressed to mere symptoms 
 can be nothing better than momentary in their effect. 
 Deepen and purify the national heart, and treason and 
 rebellion and corruption and selfish politics will be 
 sloughed off by the power of a better blood. It is 
 simply a question of power between the motive and 
 conservative forces of the national life, and the paraly 
 zing and destructive forces. 
 
228 
 
 The National Heart. 
 
 Ah ! how well the great physician who has this na- 
 tion in his care understands its case ! His treatment 
 has indeed been heroic, but it has been wholesome. 
 Is not home more precious to us than it was before this 
 war began ? Do we not hold every domestic joy at a 
 higher value ? Is not our love of country strengthened 
 and purified since this war began ? Has not the na- 
 tional flag a new significance, and a new power of 
 inspiration ? Is not our patriotism deeper and broader 
 and better ? Is not the piety of the national heart 
 purified and strengthened also?, I declare my belief 
 that there has not been a time within the last half cen- 
 tury when, as a nation, we have been so willing to ac- 
 knowledge the sovereign sway of the King of kings, 
 so ready to see His hand in all chastisement and in all 
 success, and so earnest to seek His favor and do His 
 will, as now. These loves that are our life have been 
 fed by the nation's blood, the nation's tears, and the 
 nation's treasures, until the nation's vital forces are 
 greater than ever before in its history. 
 
 The second purpose of my discussion is to exhibit 
 to you the true and only ground of hope for the future. 
 Ever since this war was commenced there have been 
 croakers in every community declaring more or less 
 boldly that the nation is dead ; that all the blood that 
 has been shed, and all the treasure that has been ex- 
 pended, have been wasted, and that anarchy and general 
 
The National Heart. 229 
 
 wreck lie before us. I tell you that, with the develop, 
 ment of the national heart that has taken place since 
 the war commenced, the nation cannot die. That ques- 
 tion is settled ; «nd neither rebellion at home nor inter- 
 ference from abroad can unsettle it. It is beyond all 
 the contingencies of war and treason and intrigue 
 The government itself is safe from wreck at this mo- 
 ment, not through any power of its own, but through 
 the power of the people under an impulse of the na- 
 tional heart. At the opening of the rebellion, the gov- 
 ernment was as powerless to save itself as if it had 
 been no more than the corporation of the city of Wash- 
 ington ; and when the heart of the nation could not 
 push its blood through Baltimore, it pushed it around 
 Baltimore, to save the national brain from syncope. 
 And this is exactly my point. It is the national life 
 that upholds and moulds and controls the government. 
 The government is only the coronet upon the nation's 
 brow. The nation is king, and the crown moves only 
 as the king moves, and shines only when the king lifts 
 it high into the light. 
 
 I suppose there may be eyes in Europe, greedy 
 with the lust of dominion, that are looking toward our 
 shores for new fields of conquest ; but if any power 
 should ever undertake to swallow this nation, it would 
 find itsell in possession of a most indigestible morsel. 
 A living nation, capable of self-government, cannot be 
 
230 
 
 The National Heart. 
 
 digested by a nation so dead that it consents to be 
 governed by a despot. Even demoralized Poland, 
 with her comparatively low grade of vitality, lies very 
 hard upon the stomach of Russia. Hungary is a con- 
 stant disturber of the spleen of Austria, and refuses to 
 be digested. Little Switzerland — living Switzerland — 
 with her two and a half millions, sits among her moun- 
 tain-homes smiling, over the immunity she enjoys from 
 the rapacious maws of the great nations around her. 
 If Switzerland could have been digested, none of the 
 considerations to which her safety has been so often 
 attributed would have saved her from being swallowed 
 long ago. But Switzerland is alive at the heart, and. 
 cannot be killed at the heart, so as to be digested. 
 The American nation is alive at the heart, and could 
 not be killed by a foreign war a hundred years long. 
 
 And now, as a final result of our discussion, we 
 may learn why it is that this nation has had, from the 
 beginning of its history, such faith in itself. The faith 
 in itself, which it manifested during those long, long 
 years of the Revolution, filled all the European politi- 
 cians with wonder. They could not realize the fact 
 that these feeble colonies were already a nation, alive 
 at the heart, and possessing the power of self-organiza- 
 tion and self-government. The end taught them some- 
 thing, but the lesson did not last. How constantly, 
 during the present war, have European politicians 
 
The National Heart. 231 
 
 failed to understand and measure us ! They prophe« 
 sied early success to the rebellion, but the rebellion has 
 not succeeded. They thought they foresaw an early 
 exhaustion of means, but they have seen us prosecute 
 the most gigantic war of the century without going to 
 them for a dollar. Nay, they have seen their own 
 capitalists eagerly buying the securities of our govern- 
 ment out of the hands of our own people. They fore- 
 told famine, but we have had plenty, not only for our- 
 selves but for them ; universal bankruptcy, but we 
 have all prospered ; anarchy, but we have had per- 
 fect order, save in one or two instances when base 
 European blood has disturbed it. They have won- 
 dered that as a nation w r e did not despair — almost felt 
 like quarrelling with us because we would not see and 
 admit that we were ruined — have begged us for hu- 
 manity's sake not to fight against fate. As if a living 
 nation, any more than a living man, would consent to 
 the amputation of a limb, so long as there was vitality 
 enough in its heart to save it ! 
 
 Ah ! this faith of the nation in itself ! It is grand 
 — it is glorious. It is not in the power of this nation 
 to despair. Its faith is not in its government, its insti- 
 tutions, its politicians, or even in its armies. Its faith 
 is in itself, and in God, and is a natural product of its 
 life. It is born among the affections. It is a child of 
 love; and while the love of home and country and 
 
232 The National Heart. 
 
 heaven live, this faith will live, rising above all disas- 
 ter, superior to all difficulty, and, like a winged angel, 
 leading the nation to the grand consummations of per- 
 petual peace, prosperity, and power. 
 
COST AND COMPENSATION". 
 
 THE law of compensation, as it is generally held 
 and expounded, is a law of circumstances. Over 
 against every defect in a man's constitution, over 
 against every flaw in his condition, over against every 
 weakness in his character, there is set some compensat- 
 ing excellence which rounds him into wholeness. Mr. 
 Emerson, in his exposition of this law, declares that no 
 man ever had a defect which was not made useful to 
 him somewhere — a comfortable suggestion to that lim- 
 ited number of fortunate persons who have defects ! 
 
 In the general view of this law, man would seem to 
 be not unlike those gum-elastic heads which amuse our 
 children. A pressure on the cheeks is accompanied by 
 a compensatory thickening of the lips. Bear down the 
 bump of reverence, and up comes the bump of benevo- 
 lence. Squeeze hard across the temples, and hold 
 closely in the back of the head, and we have Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott. There is compensation for every squeeze in 
 
234 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 _, 
 
 some new protrusion. The head assumes new forms 
 and expressions, but it is never smaller. So, in this 
 philosophy, a man may have any number of defects, 
 but the measure of his manhood is not reduced by 
 them. Indeed, his defects are the measure of his excel- 
 lences. 
 
 Now I do not propose to quarrel with this philoso- 
 phy, which, I may say in passing, covers not only man 
 in his constitution, but man in all his belongings ; for 
 there is some truth, or half-truth, in it. It opens a 
 field of observation and thought that will well repay 
 exploration, though the only practical result that can 
 be reached is contentment with the constitution of 
 things and the allotments of life ; and this is not a 
 mean prize. 
 
 I propose to leave this aspect of the law, for one 
 which has relation directly to life and its motive-forces. 
 Cost is the father and compensation is the mother of 
 progress ; and I propose to treat of them as they relate 
 to the grand ends, enterprises, and activities of life. 
 
 Exchange, for mutual benefit, is the basis of all 
 trade — it is itself all legitimate trade. The man who 
 does a day's work for me exchanges that work for my 
 money, and we are mutually benefited. He would 
 rather have my money than save his labor. I would 
 rather have his labor than save my money. The story 
 of the two Yankee boys who were shut up in a room 
 
Cost and Compensation. 235 
 
 together, and made twenty-live cents a-piece swapping 
 jack-knives before they came out, is entirely rational 
 and probable. It is very likely that each found his 
 advantage in his new possession. A merchant in 1115 - 
 nois has wheat w T hich he exchanges with a New York 
 jobber for hardware. The exchange is made at the 
 market value, and is nominally an even one, but, in 
 reality, each finds advantages in it, and each makes 
 money by it. When the business of a nation is in a 
 healthy condition, all men thrive through the means 
 of exchanges of ^values that are nominally equal. 
 
 As a rule of business intercourse, we pay for what 
 we get, dollar for dollar, and pound for pound. Every 
 material good which man produces has its price, and 
 can be procured for its price. Except this price be 
 paid, it can only be procured by begging or stealing — 
 through shame or sin. Everything costs something ; 
 and most of the meannesses of the world are perpe- 
 trated in various ingenious attempts to get something 
 for nothing, or for an inadequate price. 
 
 The history of a dollar has been written, I believe, 
 and it would certainly be interesting to follow any dol- 
 lar through the endless concatenation of exchanges, 
 and see how it relieves and enriches every hand it 
 touches. I pay a dollar, for instance, for a bushel of 
 potatoes, and the green-grocer pays it to the gardener, 
 who pays it, we will say, to the coal-dealer, who pays 
 
236 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 it to the mining company, who pay it to the miner 
 who pays it to the draper for a shirt, who pays it to 
 the manufacturer, who pays it to the cotton-factor, who 
 pays it to the Southern shipper, who pays it to the 
 Southern planter, who pays it to his — no — I believe he 
 doesn't. My illustration is not entirely happy, I see ; 
 but, after all, it is the only one that will give me a 
 stopping-place. Everything a man parts with is the 
 cost of something. Everything he receives is the com- 
 pensation for something. 
 
 This, as between man and man, in all business inter- 
 course whatsoever. Now between man and nature 
 there is precisely the same relation. Man, as his own 
 proprietor, understands it, and God understands it as the 
 proprietor of nature. God has commissioned nature 
 to pay for Everything that man does for her — imposed 
 upon her this law, indeed, which she never disobeys. 
 To man, He says by many voices : " I have given you 
 all the air you can breathe, all the water you can use, 
 and all the earth you can cultivate ; I have given you 
 the ministry of the rain and the dew, and the light of 
 the sun and moon and stars, and spread over you the 
 beauty of the heavens ; I have given you brains to de- 
 sign and muscles to labor. These are essentials— these 
 are necessary capital for commencing life's business — 
 these are common and free ; but if you want anything 
 else — and you do want everything else — you must work 
 
Cost and Compensation. 23T 
 
 for it — pay for it in labor or its equivalent. You are 
 at liberty to exchange what you have worked for, for 
 that which your neighbor has worked for, but, between 
 you, you must work for what you get." 
 
 And here is where we find the basis of all the values 
 by which we regulate our exchanges. Labor — the ex- 
 penditure of vital effort in some form — is the measure, 
 nay, it is the maker, of values. A pearl will sell for just 
 as much more than a potato as it will cost of human 
 effort to obtain it. Gold is not so useful a metal as 
 iron. Iron can be put to ten uses where gold can only 
 be put to one ; but gold is ten thousand times as valu- 
 able as iron, and mainly because it costs ten thousand 
 times as much labor to obtain it from the earth. 
 
 Expenditure — Compensation : these are the great 
 motions of -the world. We are all the time pouring 
 our life into the earth, and the earth is all the time 
 pouring its life back into us. Her great storehouse 
 of treasure is filled for those who will pay for it. 
 Douglas Jerrold said that in Australia it is only neces- 
 sary to tickle the earth with a hoe to make her laugh 
 with a harvest. That I suppose is when she meets the 
 first settler, and is particularly glad to see him ; but 
 she soon gets over her extreme good nature, and insists 
 on rigid business dealing. In New England she is 
 severe, but she is true. There is not a spot of all her 
 sterile soil that will not fairly compensate those who 
 
238 
 
 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 put their life into it. The meanest white-birch swamp 
 only asks for drainage and tillage, and it will pay boun- 
 tifully in bread. Culture, fertilization, exploration — 
 these are the conditions upon which the earth yields up 
 her treasures to man — and she never fails to pay back 
 all that she receives. The trapper, in his pursuit of 
 furs, travels far and wide, and exercises all his skill and 
 cunning ; and he brings back that which pays him for 
 his expenditure. The fisherman throws his net or his 
 hook in all waters, and the sea faithfully rewards his 
 quest. The gold-hunter digs into the side of the moun- 
 tain, and, when he has probed far enough, he reaches 
 the chamber where Nature sits behind her crystal coun- 
 ter, and deals out the yellow ingots. The sweat of 
 the human brow, wherever it falls, dissolves the bars 
 by which nature holds her treasures from human hands. 
 Thus we find in fellow-dealing, and in all our 
 search for material good among the resources of 
 nature, this law — that everything costs, and every- 
 thing pays ; that if we make an intelligent expendi- 
 ture, under essential conditions intelligently appre- 
 hended and fulfilled, we receive full compensation 
 in the kind of good which we seek. And this law 
 is not a special one. It is universal, and throws its 
 girdle around everything desirable to the human soul. 
 We give and get, and only get by giving. All the 
 good we win, we win by sacrifice. 
 
Cost and Compensation. 239 
 
 There are certain essentials to the soul's life, as 
 there are to the body's life, which God bestows in com- 
 mon upon all the race — necessary spiritual capital on 
 which to set up business. It is as if God had said : 
 " I have given you love for your hearts, senses to yield 
 you pleasure while they do you service, joy in living, as- 
 pirations, ambitions, hopes ; but if you want anything 
 more than these — -and you do want everything that 
 you can appropriate in all my universe — you must pay 
 for it by an expenditure of yourself or your possessions. 
 If you want learning, you must work for it. If you 
 desire to reproduce, or embody, that which is within 
 you in any form of art, you must make great sacrifices 
 for it. If you would make high acquisitions in spir- 
 itual and moral excellence, you must pay, measure for 
 measure, for all you obtain. There is not a single 
 good in my realm — not yours in common with all your 
 race — not embraced in your original capital — that can 
 be secured without a sacrifice that corresponds to, and 
 in some degree measures, its value ; and there is not a 
 good in my realm that will not reward, and does not 
 wait to reward, your expenditures." 
 
 Now what are the treasures that a man holds in 
 his hands, exchangeable for the better wealth ? 
 
 First, Time. Our life is limited. The average life 
 of men does not exceed forty years ; and threescore 
 years and ten measure, except in rare instances, the 
 
240 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 farthest limit of active life. This matter of time, as 
 one of our articles of exchange, is a very important 
 one. Under ordinary and prevalent circumstances, it 
 is a pleasant thing to live, and, it being a pleasant thing 
 to live, it is a pleasant thing to have leisure — that is, to 
 have nothing which shall so occupy our time as to inter- 
 fere with the simple enjoyment of living. When, there- 
 fore, we are called out of our leisure into labor, we go, 
 if our leisure is comfortable or happy, with a sense of 
 real sacrifice. 
 
 Again, time is of great value to us, because so much 
 of it is required for those activities whose aim is the 
 sustenance and protection of the bodily life. The 
 amount of time required for the acquisition of the 
 means of bodily subsistence is very great ; and to this 
 must be added all that is necessary for bodily rest 
 and refreshment. A man whose period of active life 
 stretches on to fifty years — say from twenty to seventy 
 — laboring ten hours a day, sleeping and resting and 
 idling ten hours, and spending two hours in eating, 
 dressing, bathing, &c., has just two hours left out of 
 the twenty-four which are at his disposal. These 
 amount to four years and a fraction in fifty, without 
 reckoning the Sabbaths — but, as the average of active 
 life is really not more than twenty-five years, and we are 
 only after a general result, we will let the Sabbaths go ; 
 and say that every man has four years of time, as a 
 
Cost and Compensation. 241 
 
 treasure to be disposed of for whatever the soul may 
 choose to purchase. 
 
 Let us remember that we are making a liberal esti- 
 mate. There are great multitudes of men- — aye, and 
 women too — perhaps more women than men — who, 
 even in an active life of fifty years, do not have two 
 years of time at their disposal ; who work and eat and 
 sleep throughout the whole period, and then die with 
 absolutely no time with which to purchase that higher 
 good for which they were made. It will be seen, 
 therefore, that time, as one of our disposable treasures, 
 is not- measured by the duration of life at all. Divide 
 the number of years we live by ten, and the quotient 
 will give us more than the average of time in our pos- 
 session, for conversion into the higher grades of good. 
 
 The second treasure which a man holds for ex- 
 change is Vitality. " No man," says Peter Bayne, 
 " has more than a certain force allotted him by nature. 
 It may be greater or less ; but it is measured, and it 
 cannot be expended twice." Every man, I suppose, 
 arrives at adult years with a definite stock of vital 
 power on hand. Before he dies, that stock is all to be 
 expended. It may all be expended in bodily labor, or 
 a portion of it only. It may be expended in a struggle 
 against disease. It may be expended in the illicit 
 gratification of the senses. It may be wasted in the 
 digestion of unnecessary food. Or, it may be expend- 
 11 
 
242 
 
 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 ed mainly in the acquisition of intellectual, moral, aid 
 spiritual wealth. Like time, much of it must be used 
 in obtaining food and clothing and shelter for the body; 
 but there is a remnant left to be applied by the power 
 of the will to the purchase of that good which is the 
 highest wealth of life and character. 
 
 The third treasure is Ease. Beyond the simple 
 pleasure of living, and beyond the passive reception 
 of pleasure through the senses, ease is, and always has 
 been, regarded as a treasure. Men often work through 
 many weary years to obtain it. Labor is not a thing 
 which men love for itself. Men love that which pleas- 
 antly engages the activities of body and mind ; but 
 that is essentially play. Work is something which 
 both body and mind are driven to. The will is obliged 
 to apply its determining and motive power, before 
 either body or mind will undertake that which is essen- 
 tially a task. To many men, of fine powers, the ease 
 of those powers is the most grateful and precious of all 
 their treasures, and the one which they are the most 
 unwilling to sacrifice for the higher good which only 
 ts surrender can win. The fairest picture of heaven 
 itself, to some souls, is that which represents it as the 
 home of ease. But this treasure must go with the 
 others, as a part of the price of spiritual *»nd all supe- 
 rior good. 
 
 There is another treasure, harder than all the rest 
 
Cost and Compensation. 243 
 
 to surrender, without which the whole payment is 
 vitiated ; and this is the Will, with all its self-love and 
 pride. There is nothing more precious to a man than 
 his will ; there is nothing which he relinquishes with 
 so much reluctance. The natural desire of every man 
 is to follow the dictates of his own will, unhindered. 
 Obedience is not easy, until it is adopted as the rule of 
 life. If we had no authority but human experience, it 
 would be safe to say that an obedient and childlike 
 spirit is absolutely essential, not only to the acquisition 
 but to the reception of the highest good. A man must 
 come under the laws of his being, and bow to the laws 
 and conditions of all being — he must place his own 
 will in harmony with the Supreme will — before it will 
 be possible for him even to receive the highest good 
 God has to bestow. 
 
 I might enumerate other treasures which every man 
 holds for exchange, but you see the drift of the argu- 
 ment, and can fill out the inventory. 
 
 These, then, are our treasures — our stock ; and 
 now let us examine some of the ways by which, as 
 individuals, communities, and nations, men win com- 
 pensation for their expenditures. 
 
 And first, let me state the proposition which I hope 
 with some degree of clearness to illustrate in this lec- 
 ture, viz., that no expenditure of the treasures I have 
 enumerated can ever be made, with earnest truthful 
 
244 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 ness of purpose, without securing compensation in some 
 form, at some time. Let us understand that there arc 
 oefore every one of us two hoards of treasure — one 
 held by God, the other by man — mutually exchange- 
 able, and that this law of exchange, or this law of com- 
 pensation for expenditure, is instituted from eternity, 
 and has no suspension and no flaw. Let me present 
 this treasure which God holds for us under the figure 
 of a massive golden vase, filled to the brim with water 
 — a vase that can neither be dipped from nor drawn 
 from, but that overflows to the hand that drops its 
 treasure into it — overflows to that hand always, and 
 overflows to no other hand. 
 
 In our consideration of this subject, we shall find 
 that cost and compensation are of two kinds ; that they 
 are separable into two departments, each governed by 
 independent laws. In one, compensation is directly 
 sought, for personal advantage. In the other, moved 
 by the power of love, we expend our treasure without 
 hope of personal advantage, and receive it without the 
 seeking. The instinct of infancy is to grasp and appro- 
 priate something to build itself up with. It blindly 
 reaches out toward everything its senses apprehend, 
 and fixes its grapple upon evil as greedily a? upon 
 good. This impulse, directed with increasing intelli- 
 gence, follows us throughout the infancy of our being. 
 We work for a direct reward. The hardest trial we 
 
Cost and Compensation. 245 
 
 have, in the education of children, is to induce them to 
 study when they are unable to see and appreciate the 
 reward which that study will secure. Daily practice 
 of the scales upon a musical instrument, drill in the 
 rudiments of a foreign language — these are tasks which 
 a child tires of, because it does not distinctly appre- 
 hend, or does not value, their reward. Set the child 
 to learning a tune, or trying a bit of translation, and 
 the reward for work is so near, and so distinctly ap- 
 prehended, and so much valued, that it labors with 
 efficiency and enthusiasm. 
 
 Grown-up children betray the same characteristic, 
 and it is not to be found fault with. It is the ordina- 
 tion of nature that we shall be something before we 
 can do something — that we shall win something before 
 we can have anything to bestow. We are to be fed, 
 developed, endowed, before we are fitted for ministry ; 
 and we must seek directly for those rewards which 
 give us food, development, and endowment. 
 
 The second motive of action proceeds from within 
 rather than from without. The personal reward is un- 
 sought for, but it never fails. When a man moves 
 under the law of love, he is unselfish, and loses al) 
 thought of reward. He has ceased for the time to 
 appropriate, and becomes a dispenser. His life is 
 voluntarily transformed into a channel through which 
 the divine beneficence flows into the world. That 
 
246 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 which he has won of the higher good becomes gen- 
 erative, and makes manifestation. Bat here, as else- 
 where, he must expend his private treasures ; and for 
 this, expenditure there is always payment. He must 
 expend time, ease and vitality, and money, perhaps- 
 one of the forms in which all these treasures are pre- 
 served. Does the meadow that bears one of God's 
 broad rivers on its bosom get no reward from the 
 river ? By bearing the burden of the hills, it is 
 greener than they. Any man who becomes the chan- 
 nel of a divine good, sucks into his own being the 
 juices of that good. Indeed, the reward for unselfish 
 service is better than any other, because the quality of 
 the sacrifice is finer. 
 
 And here let me say that there is no such thing in 
 the world — that there never was, and never can be, 
 any such thing in the world — as charity — something 
 given for nothing. There may be abundant charity in 
 the motive — that is, sacrifice may be made from mo- 
 tives of love, or pity, or sympathy, or mercy, without 
 wish or expectation of reward ; but this expenditure is 
 subject to the highest grade of compensation. There 
 is no letting up of this law for any motive. Expend, 
 and the compensation comes. One motive is the com- 
 plement and resolution of the other. They fly wing- 
 and-wing throughout the universe. The operation of 
 the law i? lire that of those Oid countrr -wells ^hLl? 
 
Cost and Compensation. 24T 
 
 we knew in our childhood. While we empty one of 
 their two buckets, the other is filling : it is impossible 
 that one should be emptied without the other being 
 filled, and equally impossible that one should be filled 
 without the other being emptied. 
 
 In the first of these two departments of compensa- 
 tion we need to linger but a moment. Precisely as we 
 dig in the ground for gold, or wash the sand for gems, 
 or sound the sea for pearls — precisely as we cultivate 
 the field to obtain those fruits which feed us, or ope- 
 rate the mill to make those fabrics which clothe us, do 
 we seek for that higher good which supplies and en- 
 dows our higher life. The recorded wisdom of the 
 world is in our libraries ; the truth of God is in our 
 Bibles. We know just where labor will win, moment 
 by moment, full compensation. We know what sacri- 
 fices will win wisdom, learning, culture. We know 
 what we must give of time, ease, and vitality, for every 
 excellence in art. We know how much of sensual 
 pleasure and how much of will we must relinquish to 
 acquire spiritual elevation and purity ; and we know 
 that, in all these cases, these sacrifices will procure the 
 exact measure of compensation which we seek. We 
 know, furthermore, that there is not a power or posses- 
 sion with which we seek to endow ourselves, which is 
 to be procured in any way but by these specific sacri- 
 fices. It is said that there is no royal road to learning.. 
 
248 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 It may be said with equal truth that there is no royal 
 road to anything desirable. Genius enjoys no immu- 
 nities. The bird flies faster than the fox runs ; but the 
 bird must use its wings or the fox will catch it. God 
 gives us arms and hands, but he does not give us 
 strength and dexterity. These have a price, and 
 we must work with our hands and work with our 
 arms, or we cannot have strength and dexterity. He 
 gives us brains, but he does not give us learning, or 
 wisdom, or power of easy expression, or strength and 
 skill in intellectual labor. All these must be purchased, 
 and all these are a sufficient reward for what we give 
 for them. 
 
 We turn to the other department, and find our most 
 direct way to its illustration through an appeal to uni- 
 versal human experience. We find no statistics ready 
 for us. No. careful plodder has ever been over the 
 ground, and collected the facts which show that for 
 every unselfish deed of good the doer has received a 
 grand reward ; and The Master keeps no accounts that 
 are open to our inspection. Every man, however, who 
 hears me will testify to this : that he never fed a beg 
 gar, or ministered to a helpless or suffering fellow- 
 man, or made a sacrifice for the public good, without a 
 return which more than paid hiui for his expenditure. 
 
 It is not necessary that I should point out the modes 
 in which good comes to a man, as a compensation for 
 
Cost and Compensation. 249 
 
 unselfish sacrifice. It is enough for me to say that no 
 man ever made this sacrifice without feeling abundantly 
 paid for it. 
 
 Still, let us illustrate the point. I choose for this 
 purpose true marriage and happy maternity. In the 
 surrender of her name, her destiny, her life, herself, to 
 her husband, a woman realizes the reception of a bless- 
 ing greater than she believes it in her power to bestow ; 
 for true love is always humble in the presence of its 
 object. This surrender is entire, and glad as it is 
 entire ; and the moment it is made, she finds that 
 she is worth more to herself, as the possession of an- 
 other, than she was when she was her own. And this 
 wife becoming a mother, gives her life to her children. 
 The freshness fades from her brow, the roses fall from 
 her cheeks, the violets in her eyes drop their dew, and 
 her frame loses its elasticity ; but in these children and 
 their precious love, she has a reward for every sacrifice, 
 so great that sacrifice becomes a pleasant habit, and 
 ministry the passion of her life. She expends, under 
 the motive-power of love, all her treasures of time, 
 ease, vitality, and will, and feels pouring back into her 
 heart, through numberless unsuspected avenues, such 
 largess of blessing as overflows her with a sense of 
 grateful satisfaction. Does that Christian lover of his 
 kind who spends his life in hospitals and prisons, in 
 ministry to human need and human suffering, have 
 11* 
 
250 
 
 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 smaller pay ? Has he who gives himself for his coun- 
 try, even if he fall in the front of battle, meaner com- 
 pensation ? Ask him, and hear his noble answer : " It 
 is sweet and glorious to die for one's country." Does 
 he who gives himself in service to the Great Master, 
 even though he die the martyr's death of fire, have a 
 smaller reward ? Love is one. It moves to one tune ; 
 it works by one law ; it leads to one issue. 
 
 And now I come to the consideration of this law 
 of compensation as it relates to social communities. 
 Society has material interests and treasures, and society 
 is high or low, good or bad, progressive in culture and 
 goodness or retrograde, refined or coarse, polite or 
 vulgar, as it sacrifices these interests and treasures for 
 social food and social wealth. When we reach the 
 consideration of associated men, we come to institu- 
 tions. Those who are Christians associate themselves 
 together, and form a church. They build a house of 
 worship, and engage the ministry of a preacher. They 
 start a Sunday-school, and institute all the machinery 
 necessary for securing the best Christian results. So- 
 ciety establishes and supports schools for the educa- 
 tion of the young of all classes, purchases libraries for 
 the people, forms lecture associations, establishes insti- 
 tutions for the relief of the poor, and institutes a multi- 
 tude of agencies for the general good. 
 
 Now, while there is a certain number of persons, 
 
Cost and Compensation. 251 
 
 m all society, who must sacrifice time, ease, and vital- 
 ity, directly, for the purpose of elevating its life, the 
 great majority are called upon to sacrifice little more 
 than money ; but money itself, as I have already inci- 
 dentally stated, is an article in which time, ease, and 
 vitality are embodied and hoarded. Some men inherit 
 in money the hoarded fives of many men, and so have 
 much power. Time, ease, and vitality are converted 
 into money, so that a given amount of money repre- 
 sents a day's labor. If my friend, who has a special 
 gift for doing the work of society, spends a day in that 
 work, he sacrifices no more than I do, who give, to for- 
 ward his objects, as much money as he would earn in 
 that time. Money is a grand, indispensable requisite 
 for all the operations for social improvement. Churches 
 and schools cannot be built and supported without 
 money, and it is a beneficent ordination of Providence 
 that the results of labor can be accumulated and em- 
 bodied in a form so available for social purposes. 
 
 There are three forms in which reward comes for 
 all expenditures made for the higher interests of so- 
 ciety. The first is material, and perfectly appreciable 
 by minds actuated mainly by material motives. The 
 Great Rewarder has provided a payment for. social 
 sacrifices which the most selfish man can appreciate 
 and appropriate. If a man makes a sacrifice for socie- 
 ty, he can, with a common share of brains, see that he 
 
252 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 gets his money back, so that he may regard his sacri- 
 fice as an investment. 
 
 Let us, for illustration, suppose the existence of a 
 little city of ten thousand inhabitants, without a 
 church, or a school-house, or a library, or a lyceum, or 
 any institution of any kind for the moral, intellectual, 
 and social culture of the people. Let us suppose this 
 city to be rich in material good, and in facilities and 
 opportunities for augmenting it. Would property be 
 safe in such a city ? Would vice be under control 
 there ? Would men be industrious there ? Would it 
 possess the best elements of prosperity and security ? 
 What things, in all the world, would add most to the 
 value of real and personal property in such a city ? 
 Would there be a man among its ten thousand — no 
 matter how vile or mean his personal character might 
 be — who could find a better investment for his money 
 than by paying his share toward building five churches 
 and ten school-houses, and endowing a public library 
 and lyceum ? Such an investment as this would dou- 
 ble the actual market value of all the property of the 
 city. ISTo man there could afford to place his money at 
 simple interest while such an investment waited to be 
 made. Any man who permits institutions like these to 
 go begging, in a city which contains his property, con- 
 victs himself of business incompetency. All these insti- 
 tutions bring with them a positive, money-producing 
 
Cost and Compensation. 253 
 
 and money-preserving power. They are stimulants of 
 industry, foes to all wasteful vices, bonds of harmony 
 among jarring material interests ; nay, they are abso 
 lute essentials to a safe, steady, and reliable prosperity. 
 It is not necessary that a man should be benevolent to 
 give money for the establishment and support of these 
 institutions. It is simply necessary that he have the 
 instincts and the foresight of an ordinary man of busi- 
 ness. 
 
 The second form in which reward comes for social 
 sacrifice is higher and better than this ; and there are 
 very few minds that cannot appreciate this, and even 
 appropriate it. There are things in the world which 
 cannot be eaten, or Worn, or handled, that have a 
 money-value. When a man pays out half a dollar for 
 a dinner, he buys that which he knows to be necessary 
 to his life. A dinner is one of the things that he must 
 have. When he pays out half a dollar for cigars, he 
 pays for that which is not necessary to him, but which, 
 through habit, has become so desirable, perhaps, that 
 he really wins more satisfaction from his expenditure 
 than he did from that which procured his dinner. 
 Here, you see, is a money-value attached to a satisfac- 
 tion which stands outside the pale of utility. If he 
 pays half a dollar for the privilege of listening to a 
 concert, he concedes that music, or the satisfaction it 
 gives him, has an actual money-value. If he gives 
 
251 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 half a dollar to hear a lecture, he declares by his act 
 that the satisfaction, or inspiration, or instruction 
 which the lecture yields him is worth half a dollar in 
 money. If he pays a hundred dollars a year for the 
 purpose of hearing a preacher, he recognizes a money- 
 value in preaching, considered with direct reference to 
 himself and his family. There is, then, an actual and 
 well recognized money-value in the satisfactions and 
 acquisitions which come to society immediately through 
 its institutions. We pay out our money, and we get 
 for it a kind of good which we cannot re-convert into 
 money, but which we recognize as worth the money it 
 costs us in the market. Indeed, the value which we 
 attach to this good is measured by the dollars it costs 
 far more than we are generally aware. We talk about 
 free churches, and free schools, and free libraries ; but 
 if these were all free — free as air, or water, everywhere 
 — society would be impoverished by them. People do 
 not prize a blessing which costs them nothing, nor 
 care for an institution whose burdens they do not feel. 
 If all these institutions, which do such service for so- 
 ciety, should be placed where they would cost society 
 nothing, they would die of inanition. 
 
 I have thus discovered to you two distinct and 
 independently competent rewards for all that is ex- 
 pended in the establishment of social institutions. The 
 first is a return in kind, of dollars and cents : a com- 
 
Cost and Compensation. 255 
 
 munity is actually and demonstrably worth more money 
 after having sacrificed generously for the ordinary insti- 
 tutions of Christian society, than it was before. The 
 second is a reward, in money-value, of the good which 
 these institutions were established to secure, in their 
 direct and immediate result : it is a reward which so- 
 ciety feels that it is profited by accepting in place of its 
 money. Yet there is a third reward, not much consid- 
 ered in the expenditure, greater and better than these. 
 Society, by intelligent sacrifice, not only wins a 
 reward in material good and passing intellectual and 
 spiritual satisfaction, but it builds up for itself a char- 
 acter and a culture, which increase its value to itself 
 and the world. Society grows rich in social wealth, 
 as its sources of satisfaction are multiplied and deep- 
 ened, and its power and influence are extended. The 
 more society pays wisely for its higher good, the more 
 capacity it has for the reception, enjoyment, and dis- 
 semination of that good. Let us, for illustration, take 
 two men, representatives of classes. One is a man of 
 wealth, who hoards his money, or spends it stingily or 
 selfishly. The other is one who spends freely of his 
 means, for the culture of his brain and his heart. 
 The sole satisfaction of one is in accumulating and 
 keeping money. The other delights in intellectual pur- 
 suits, in the gratification of his tastes, in the exercise 
 and culture of his religious nature, in all those things 
 
256 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 which inspire, feed, satisfy, and build up that which ia 
 his manhood. Tell me, which of these two men is of 
 the more value to himself? Plainly he who possesses 
 the best and the largest number of sources of satisfac- 
 tion. If these two men could possibly exchange places 
 with each other, the miser would make an infinite gain, 
 and the man would make an infinite loss. The man is 
 worth more to himself than the miser, because his sour- 
 ces of satisfaction are better, are more varied and 
 numerous, are perfectly reliable, are inalienable, and 
 are constantly deepening and extending. What is true 
 of an individual is true of society. Society becomes 
 rich in power, rich in sources of satisfaction, rich in 
 character, rich in influence, and of value to itself and 
 the world, according to the amount of its sacrifices for 
 those institutions on whose prosperity the progress of 
 society mainly depends. There can never be good 
 society without good social institutions, and there can 
 be no good social institutions without sacrifice. 
 
 I ask you to look at this largess of recompense — 
 this threefold reward, touching and enriching every 
 interest, and then be mean in any expenditure for 
 social good if you can. 
 
 Thus far in this discussion, even when treating 
 society as an organic, independent entity, I have 
 spoken of this law mainly as it applies to the indi- 
 vidual life of men. There is a broader view of the 
 
Cost and Compensation. 251 
 
 law? remaining to be presented; and this covers its 
 relation to the national life. The painter who com- 
 poses a picture that is to cover a broad canvas, paints 
 a small one first, which he calls " a study ; " the archi- 
 tect who designs a cathedral, draws it first upon a 
 small scale : and both painter and architect do this that 
 they may keep their masses of detail within limits 
 which the eye can embrace at a glance. We, too, 
 shall find it for our advantage, before undertaking to 
 get a view of a nation as a grand, organic life, to 
 study some smaller kindred life — such, for instance, as 
 we may find in a great city. 
 
 A great city is a huge living creature, with life and 
 breath and motives, and power and pride and destiny. 
 Its being is just as distinct as that of a man. If we- 
 could be lifted above it, and obtain, not a bird's-eye 
 view, but a God's-eye view of it, Ave should see its arte- 
 ries throbbing with the majestic currents of life, pushed 
 out from its centre to its remotest circumference, and 
 returning through a multitude of avenues ; fleets of 
 winged messengers and ministers hanging and flutter- 
 ing upon its wave- washed borders like a fringe ; breath 
 of steam and smoke rising from its lungs ; food received 
 by cargoes, and offal discharged by countless hidden 
 estuaries into the all-hiding and all-purifying sea: 
 grand forces of animal life and grander forces of art 
 and nature harnessed to ceaseless service ; couriers of 
 
258 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 fire flashing forth on their way to other cities, or 
 returning from them with freights of life and treasure 
 at their heels ; and, over all, a robe of august architec- 
 tural beauty, broidered with the thoughts of the ages, 
 and garnished with the greenery of parks and lawns. 
 And this body, embracing all the varieties of human 
 and animal life, and all the matter and material forces 
 whose form and movements are apparent to the eye, is 
 a living organism, and has a soul. Descending into it, 
 we shall find it the subject of laws which it makes, and 
 laws which it does not make. We shall find it a net- 
 work of interests, with congeries of interests, acting 
 and reacting upon one another. We shall find it with 
 a moral character and a moral influence. We shall 
 find it with a heart, will, and culture, peculiarities of 
 disposition and genius and taste, just as distinct among 
 the great cities of the world as those of a great man 
 among the great men of the world. What a contrast 
 of individuality and character do the two words Lon- 
 don and Paris suggest ! Light and darkness convey 
 ideas hardly more diverse. New York, Boston, Phila 
 delphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati — how distinct 
 the individuality which each of these words represents 
 to us ! Bring before your imagination six great men, 
 and you shall not find them more different in all that 
 goes to make up their characteristic manhood, than 
 these cities are in all that constitutes their individual- 
 
Cost and Compensation. 259 
 
 ity. They are. I have no doubt, in the eye of God, 
 organic creations, made np of an aggregate of human 
 ity and human powers, peculiarities, and possessions, 
 which have an interest, as such, independent of the indi- 
 viduals which compose them. They have interests that 
 over-ride personal interests, subordinating the man to 
 the city, and a life and development of their own. 
 
 It is said that the particles in the human body are 
 changed every seven years. This can almost be said 
 of a city, regarding men and women as the constituent 
 units. Certainly these units are changed every genera- 
 tion, but still the city lives. A man falls dead upon 
 the sidewalk, or dies quietly in his bed. Does the 
 city feel it ? His funeral will make part of the life of 
 to-morrow. A few tears around a bier, a few clods 
 upon a grave, a little family draped in black, and new 
 life rushes to fill the place made .vacant by his depar- 
 ture ! Day brings its roar and night its rest, and 
 there is no pause ; there is not even a shudder at the 
 extinction of a life. Twenty generations will pass 
 away, and the great city which we see to-day will be 
 greater still. The giant will be more gigantic, though 
 not a life remains that even remembers the life of 
 to-day. 
 
 Thus, in this picture of a city, we have the study 
 for a picture of a nation. I use the word nation, be- 
 cause a nation in healthful life cannot be considered 
 
260 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 apart from the country which is its dwelling-place, and 
 because the word brings us closer to humanity than 
 the word country. 
 
 Take this study now — so small that we can measuie 
 it and comprehend its details with a glance of the eye 
 ind spread it upon the canvas. We have here a 
 Colossus, the constituent units of which are men, cer- 
 tainly, but men in cities, men in villages, men in town- 
 ships, counties, States. Here is a grand organic being, 
 with a range of life reaching through long millen- 
 niums ; with a character and a manifestation of life 
 peculiar to itself, and just as different from the other 
 nations of the world as London is different from Paris, 
 or Boston from New York, or Henry Clay from Daniel 
 Webster, or Abraham Lincoln from Jefferson Davis. 
 As we look down upon it, we find navigable rivers 
 and lines of railroad and canal taking the place of 
 streets ; continental stretches of coast haunted by sail 
 and steam, instead of wharves and harbor bustle ; uni- 
 versal production and transportation in place of limited 
 trade ; instead of wreathed smoke, the breath of cli- 
 mates, drawn in in storms, and expired in mists that 
 drape the sky with the glory of the clouds ; and, sham- 
 ing into insignificance the sorry piles of brick and stone 
 which we call architecture, grand mountain-ranges," 
 " rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; v fertile valleys 
 that hold within their broad bosoms milk for a conti 
 
Cost and Compensation. 201 
 
 nent; vast forests that bury their feet in the mould of 
 uncounted centuries; lakes that glow alone like gems, or 
 stretch across a continent their chain of silver; and scat- 
 tered over all, informing all, making its mark upon all, 
 appropriating all, a vast organized human life. This 
 is the nation — body, and soul, and belongings. This 
 is the grandest organized life that the world knows. 
 The life of hundreds of millions is swallowed up in this 
 life. It draws into itself the blood of a thousand gene- 
 rations, and tinctures that blood with its own quality 
 — gives it its own law. What makes a man an Eng- 
 lishman ? — birth in England ? What constitutes an 
 American ? — generation under a Western sky ? Why 
 is a Frenchman a Frenchman ? — because he drew his 
 first breath in France ? Nay. These men are not 
 born into England, America, and France, so much as 
 these countries are born into these men. This great, 
 all-subordinating national life begets and bears its own ; 
 so that, meet whom you may where you may, you shall 
 fiud his national mark upon him, and all over him, and 
 all through him — coloring his skin, characterizing his 
 frame, tinting his eyes, and, in the large view, deter- 
 mining the character of his mental constitution. Cli- 
 mate, food, institutions, pursuits, religion — all contrib- 
 ute to make him what he is. 
 
 Now this great creature which we call a nation- 
 one of the gigantic units in God's universe — which, in 
 
262 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 its aggregate of influences, colors and characterizes the 
 individual life of which it is composed, is, in turn, col- 
 ored and characterized by that life. Its action is the 
 expression of the sum of individual motives, and its 
 character the sum of individual character. The sum 
 of all Americans makes America, and America makes 
 Americans what they are. 
 
 We shall find that a nation's constitution and law 
 of life are at least fairly illustrated by those of the indi- 
 vidual man. A nation has grand material interests ; 
 and it may become mean and miserly like a man. It 
 has lusts and passions, and it may commit all crimes to 
 gratify its greed for power and its passion for glory. It 
 may be so fond of ease that it w T ill permit its liberties 
 to be stolen from it. It may have a will so stubborn 
 and unreasonable that it will sacrifice for its gratification 
 peace and prosperity, in quarrels with other nations. 
 It may have the vice of pride, so that it will take of- 
 fence at every fancied insult, and be haughty and insolent 
 in all its intercourse. It may be under the control of 
 the lowest grade of motives ; and, on the other hand, 
 it may bow loyally to the highest. It may hold wealth 
 subordinate and subsidiary to those institutions and 
 policies which tend to popular competence and comfort. 
 It may sacrifice its passion for power to national com- 
 ity, and the desire for the peace and the good-will of the 
 world. It may subordinate its love of ease to the vigi- 
 
Cost and Compensation. 
 
 263 
 
 lant guardianship and defence of its rights. It may give 
 up its will and its pride for the security of its peace and 
 prosperity, or from higher motives of Christian principle. 
 
 Iu the case of a nation, as in that of a man, an in- 
 ferior possession is to be sacrificed as the price of a 
 superior good, and this superior good can be had at 
 this price, and cannot be had without it. Whatever 
 of true glory has been won by any nation of the earth ; 
 whatever great advance has been made by any nation in 
 that which constitutes a high Christian civilization, has 
 been always at the cost of sacrifice — has cost the price 
 marked upon it in God's inventory of national gooc^. 
 
 Now what are the items in this divine schedule ? 
 I will name some of them ; and first, freedom — free- 
 dom of person and pursuit, freedom of thought and 
 worship, freedom of expression by type and tongue. 
 Where freedom is wanting, the highest national good is 
 wanting, for it is not only a good in itself, but it is the 
 condition of all other national good. Without it, there 
 is nothing in national life that is not base. After the 
 freedom of the citizen, intelligence and virtue ; then 
 good, competent, Christian rulers, selected because they 
 are competent and Christian, and because they secure 
 justice and humanity in the administration of law, and 
 purity in office. Then peace and security, without which 
 no national possession, high or low, is valuable. And 
 with security and peace and a Christian administration 
 
264 
 
 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 of law, a studied and consistent policy which shall en- 
 courage all that is desirable in morals, education, litera- 
 ture, and art. Then fraternal concord, and harmony of 
 sections and interests. I do not need to mention a hu- 
 mane, honorable, and Christian character, for it is alike 
 the source and sequence of all this desiderated good. 
 Still less do I need to mention patriotism — the warm 
 and devoted love of all the nation's children for their 
 government and their fatherland ; for such a nation as 
 this must be made of patriots, who glory in their nation- 
 al name, and who are willing to sacrifice everything to 
 that which is truly national glory. 
 
 All the good which has been named, and all that is 
 related to it, or associated with it, has a price ; and this 
 price must be paid, or the good cannot be secured. 
 Glance with me, for a moment, at one or two points 
 of our early national history, that we may have con- 
 venient illustration. Look at that little band of pil- 
 grims that planted their feet on Plymouth Rock, nearly 
 two centuries and a half ago. Watch them throughout 
 the trials of that first winter, when half of them laid 
 down their lives ; and watch them still through ail 
 their subsequent struggles with the native tribes. See 
 them winning their bread by the hardest, lodging in 
 rude cabins, and ground almost into the earth by small 
 economies, and, at the same time, planting school- 
 houses and building churches. Mark how every act 
 
Cost and Compensation. 
 
 205 
 
 of their lives was a sacrifice — how every foundation- 
 stone of this national temple of ours was laid in sacri- 
 fice. Mark, further, how whole generations of asso- 
 ciated colonial life built in sacrifice upon these founda- 
 tions, cementing the whole structure with sweat and 
 tears and blood. Did. it pay ? I do not ask now 
 whether it paid. them. That question has already been 
 disposed of. Regarding the nation as an organic indi- 
 vidual, I ask whether these sacrifices secured any com- 
 mensurate national good ? Was it a wise and profita- 
 ble investment on the part of the nation ? There is 
 but one answer to this question. 
 
 If there is one fact that shines out with unques- 
 tioned radiance from the history of all time, it is, that 
 by the pangs of that mother-period — as necessary, as 
 unavoidable, as the pangs of human birth — was the 
 fairest nation born that Time counts among her children. 
 All down these two long centuries has the nation been 
 reaping in joy what then she sowed in tears. There 
 was not a hardship endured, not a drop of blood shed, 
 not a life laid down, in vain. There was not one sacri- 
 fice for principle, not one unselfish effort for the gen- 
 eral good, not one treasure of time, or ease, or vitality 
 surrendered, that miscarried of its purpose. 
 
 Still later came those sacrifices that won our na- 
 tional independence. Independence was a good that 
 had a price, and a heavy price it proved to be. Those 
 12 
 
266 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 brave, enduring, patient three millions paid it. Seven 
 years of war, for what ? What was a little tax on tea ? 
 What mattered the stamp on paper ? It did not 
 amount to much — not a thousandth part as much as 
 a war would cost. Ah ! but a principle was involved. 
 Here was taxation without representation — tribute de- 
 manded, and a voice in the government and even 
 respectful petitions denied — and this was oppression. 
 Popular rights were not only unrecognized, but tram- 
 pled upon. The colonies which had already sacrificed 
 much to establish their life as colonies, determined to 
 be independent of a power that abused them, and bent 
 themselves patiently to the task of paying the price 
 which their independence would cost them. Seven 
 years of war ! Seven years of blood, of hardship, of 
 crippled prosperity, ending in total financial wreck ; 
 seven years of weeping and watching, of scanty food 
 and scantier clothing ; seven years of anxiety and dif- 
 ference in the public councils, and of quarrels with 
 public servants, even the spotless Washington being 
 accused of the grossest political crimes ; seven years of 
 vigilance against the intrigues of tories, who worked 
 in the interest of the enemy, and clamored for peace ; 
 seven years of what seemed to the observing nations 
 of the world to be the hopeless struggle of a colonial 
 handful with the most gigantic military and naval 
 power of the earth. 
 
Cost and Compensation. 26? 
 
 The end finally came. The price was all paid to 
 the last drop of blood and the last tear — to the last 
 hardship and heart-ache ; and the coveted boon was 
 won. From this long struggle the nation rose a bank- 
 rupt in everything but that one prize it had sacrificed 
 every material good to obtain. It was independent, 
 and had its destiny in its own hands. Was the new 
 possession worth its cost ? Let the history of the last 
 eighty years answer. We have grown from three to 
 more than thirty millions. Never in the history of the 
 world has a nation had such enormous growth, or sucl 
 marvellous prosperity. The oppressed of all nations 
 have found an asylum with us. It is no idle boast, but 
 sober fact, that we stand to-day, as a nation, without a 
 rival in the world in general intelligence, morality, and 
 material resources. 
 
 The American nation developed in its symmetry 
 from the point of its independence. Colonial life was 
 childhood ; independent life was manhood. If we, for 
 a moment, suppose that this price had not been paid, 
 we shall get a suggestion of the measure of good we 
 should miss. It would reduce our thirty millions to 
 ten, and make a contemptible Canada of our mag- 
 nificent empire. Time would fail me to indicate the 
 variety of good which the nation has received from the 
 sacrifices of the Revolution, and imagination could not 
 compass the amount. It is enough that none can deny 
 
2G8 
 
 Cost and Compensation. 
 
 that the reward for these sacrifices has been unspeak- 
 ably munificent. 
 
 These illustrations are two, among the thousands 
 furnished by the history of the world. I choose them 
 because they need no treatment. You are familiar 
 with all the facts, and these facts teach us that this law 
 of cost and compensation, beginning, as we have seen, in 
 the life of the individual man, runs up through all the 
 social and civil organizations and institutions of men ; 
 that all those treasures which a nation holds dearest — 
 its freedom, unity, independence, peace, security, pros- 
 perity, character, and position — have their price in the 
 free sacrifice of inferior good ; that those treasures are 
 not only won at a cost but kept at a cost ; and that no 
 national sacrifice can possibly be made, in the right 
 spirit, for high ends, that does not, by an immutable 
 law of God, procure a grand reward. 
 
 Give and get ; sacrifice and win ; expend and grow 
 rich ; minister and be helped — this is the lesson of 
 our lecture ; and it is a lesson necessary to be learned 
 before the first step can be taken in individual, social, 
 and national progress. For our own good, God puts 
 us on a business footing with Himself; and he is the 
 only reliable paymaster. Do not be deceived by ap- 
 pearances. If payment does not come at once, in 
 return for a sacrifice, it is because you have only 
 paid an instalment. Italy paid for her unity in instal- 
 
Cost and Compensation. 269 
 
 meats. Rome has made one instalment of the price 
 for her liberty. When the price is all paid, she will 
 have it. Hungary has paid one instalment. Wait 
 until she pays another, and another, and perhaps still 
 another, and we shall learn, at last, the price of her 
 independence. 
 
 As I come to my closing page, I cannot choose but 
 think of him. whom the nation loved — the pure, the 
 wise, the gentle, the true — stricken from his high 
 place by the hand of the assassin — every man's 
 father, brother, and friend — the sweetest, noblest, 
 costliest sacrifice ever laid upon the altar of free- 
 dom. I cannot choose but think of half a million 
 of men who, alive four years ago, sleep in the sol- 
 dier's grave to-day. They perished, some of them, be- 
 neath the fiery crest of battle, some of them after 
 the wave had passed, and only the stars saw and 
 pitied them, some of them in hospitals, some in 
 ambulances, some of them in the sea — all of them 
 for their country and its holy cause, with a patri- 
 otic enthusiasm that rose to a sublime faith in their 
 country's future, and a prophecy of its permanent glory 
 and peace. I see, too, a million women draped in black 
 — mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, lovers, of those 
 who have given their lives to the great cause. There 
 is mourning in the land — mourning all over the land. 
 Not a battle has been fought that did not shake the 
 
270 
 
 Cost and Compensation, 
 
 nation's breast with one great sob of sorrow. I see a 
 great sacrifice of treasure — time, industry, money, vital- 
 ity, ease — more than I can compute ; more, indeed, than 
 will ever be computed. I see a long period of taxa- 
 tion for ourselves and our children ; but I see beyond 
 all these, piled quietly against a golden sky, mountains 
 of compensation, bright with the hues of a glorious 
 peace, and holding within their purple bosoms treas- 
 ures for the endowment of all the coming generations 
 of men. 
 
AET AND LIFE. 
 
 PRIMITIVE art must have been as humble, and 
 its character as simple, as the life from which it 
 sprang and to which it ministered. It was the crea- 
 ture of rude utility, having relation only to man's mate- 
 rial necessities — to the dressing and keeping of a gar- 
 den, and the stitching of fig-leaves. It was entirely 
 natural and rational that Jabal, Adah's first-born, 
 should be the father of such as dwell in tents and have 
 cattle, and that her later son, Jubal, should be the father 
 of such as handle the harp and organ ; though I doubt 
 not that Tubal-Cain wrought brass and iron, and was a 
 favorite in the family for a good many years before 
 Jubal effected much in instrumental music. 
 
 It may be presumed that the arts necessary for 
 securing food and raiment and shelter were those 
 which had first development. They lay nearest the 
 outreaching life of a new race. They were born of 
 the natural, animal want to which they ministered 
 
272 Art and Life. 
 
 They were the first things on which the instinct of 
 self-preservation laid its hand. Ideas were an after- 
 growth, and their expression in sound, and form, and 
 color, and: language, an after-fact. When Jubal played 
 his first tune, he opened the golden gate to a new 
 realm. Music was a thing of the soul — a rose-lipped 
 shell that murmured of the eternal sea — a strange bird 
 singing the songs of another shore. In this first ex- 
 pression of the soul, high art had its birth. The art 
 which had preceded it had its origin and end in the 
 material ; high art began and ended in the spiritual ; 
 and this later development is so exalted above the for- 
 mer, that we make the generic title specific, and call it 
 Art. 
 
 I propose to address you upon art and life — art as 
 the expression of life, and life as the end of art. My 
 first proposition is, that God and his creation, or God 
 and nature, are the first facts in all life and all art. 
 Nature is the expression of God's self and of God's 
 life ; legitimate art is the expression of that which is 
 godlike in man and in man's life. I only need to as- 
 sume, w r hat you will all admit, that man is God's child, 
 bearing His image, and partaking of His essence, to 
 show that the expression of himself and of his life, 
 when both are in their normal estate, must necessarily 
 be after the order of nature and in the style of na- 
 ture. If that which is greatest and best in man be like 
 
Art and Life. 
 
 273 
 
 God, then that which is greatest and best in art must 
 be like nature. It is from this fact, and from no other 
 fact, that nature becomes in some respects a standard 
 by which to test the forms and qualities of art ; that 
 is, of the highest art, which is essential creation. 
 
 To develop my idea of art in its higher manifesta- 
 tions, I begin at its lower. God expresses an idea in a 
 beautiful landscape ; man, admiring it, expresses him- 
 self by painting its picture. God makes a man of bone 
 and brawn and blood ; man imitates the form as closely 
 as he may in marble. God builds a forest, and man re- 
 peats the sweep of its arches and the lines of its tracery 
 in cathedrals. In the rolling thunder and the hoarse 
 cataract, God speaks to man with audible voice, and 
 writes his thoughts in woods and mountain-ranges, 
 and stars and grass and flowers. So man speaks his 
 thoughts to men by audible sounds and visible signs. 
 God makes instruments of music, and His great life 
 plays through them. The sounding shore, the gurgling 
 brook, the roaring storm, the plashing waterfall — 
 beasts, birds, and insects — weave their separate melo- 
 dies into august harmonies. Man, too, makes instru- 
 ments of music, and breathes through them the melo- 
 dies and the harmonies of his life. 
 
 So far, man expresses the life in him through his 
 faculty of imitation. He simply takes in from nature, 
 and gives out what he receives. Nature is his nurse 
 12* 
 
274 
 
 Art and Life. 
 
 and his teacher. She speaks, and he faintly and imper- 
 fectly repeats her words. At this point, what we call 
 talent in man stops ; beyond this point talent never 
 goes. It may flutter and mount with many a graceful 
 gyration, but it cannot surpass it. Genius may imitate, 
 and even in imitation show its divinity ; but it goes 
 alone into the higher realms of art. Genius only can 
 create and compose. Nature may educate and correct 
 genius ; but its expression is the expression of a life 
 unborrowed from nature — a life instituted, informed, 
 and inspired by God Himself. If genius lays nature 
 Trader tribute, it is for materials — not inspiration. It 
 chooses from nature, and moulds to its will ; it assimi- 
 lates nature to itself, ^and then utters it as its own ex- 
 pression. Nature is the master of talent ; genius is 
 the master of nature. Genius acts from the centre to 
 the circumference, as a power of creation and order ; 
 talent gathers from the circumference, and utters only 
 what it gathers. Genius originates ideas and invents 
 forms ; talent adopts ideas and imitates forms. Talent 
 is instructed ; genius is inspired. 
 
 My second proposition is, that nature, which is an 
 expression of God's life, is not an end in itself, but is 
 addressed to life, and has its end in life. The whole 
 structure of the universe — the blue expanse above our 
 heads, the sun, the moon, the constellations, the atmo- 
 sphere which invests us, the great ocean, trackless, fath- 
 
Art and Life. 275 
 
 omless, boundless ; all of inanimate nature that we see 
 - — is utterly without significance and without value, 
 save as it relates to life — the life to which it ministers 
 and from which it proceeds. Not only inorganic but 
 organic nature, in all its subordinate forms, relates to a 
 life above and beyond itself. The earth feeds the 
 grass, and the grass feeds the ox, and the ox feeds the 
 animal life of man, and. the animal life of man serves 
 the higher life of the human soul. We find life re- 
 joicing in every element of nature — swimming in the 
 sea, flying through the air, and rejoicing on the land. 
 Even the old rocks of far-retired, ages are records of 
 the great fact that they were that life might be ; and 
 they even now bow their Titan shoulders, with patience 
 and purpose, to sustain the burden of that which lives 
 in the sunlight above them. 
 
 There is not an atom of matter, not a form of beau- 
 ty and grace, not a star in heaven nor a flower on the 
 earth, not a rill that cleaves the sod nor a sea that 
 chafes the shore, that does not appeal to life for the 
 justification of its existence. 
 
 Thus God becomes transitive through nature, into 
 life. There is no such thing in nature as beauty for 
 beautj 's sake ; all beauty is for man's sake. The pro- 
 cession of the seasons, the phenomena of revolution and 
 change, all the magnificent machinery operative in the 
 natural world, are the ministry of the life of God to 
 
276 Art and Life. 
 
 the life of men. We drink that life from these cups. 
 When I take a flower into my hand, and mark its won- 
 derful beauty of form and color, and inhale its fra- 
 grance, I know that it is a thought of God expressed 
 to me, and that one end of its value is upheld by God's 
 thought and the other end by mine — that, save as the 
 expression of one life, and the apprehension and appro- 
 priation of another life, conjoined, it is as valueless as 
 utter nothing. 
 
 Upon this basis I rest my third proposition, and 
 from this I propose to develop the lesson of the hour. 
 This proposition is, that art is not an end in itself, and 
 that it cannot be justified, save as it ministers to a life 
 beyond itself. In other terms, art intransitive, without 
 an object, is a monster, illegitimate in its origin and 
 unjustifiable in its existence. A work of art, in any 
 department of creation and composition, that has no 
 ministry, is either a thing utterly without value, or a 
 thing of discord and mischief. It is not enough that 
 art be true to nature, for nature is not an end — it is a 
 means. It is not enough that the artist be true to 
 himself, for he is not the end of art. It is not enough 
 that he be true to art, which simply means being true 
 to certain conventional ideas and arbitrary rules, for 
 art is not the end of itself. Art has a mission to life, 
 and can only be true art when true to life through a 
 well- administered purpose. The question which every 
 
Art and Life. 277 
 
 true artist will ask himself before he undertake expres- 
 sion will be, " What have I, in me, as the development 
 of my life, which is susceptible of embodiment, and 
 which I can embody, in a form of art that shall minister 
 to the growth or the wealth of other life ? " 
 
 Thus I take the standard of art out of the hand of 
 the artist, out of the hand of art, and out of the hand 
 of nature, and place it in the hand of life, arid bid the 
 artist be true to that. He is not to bow to art, for art 
 is his servant. He is not to bow to nature, for nature 
 is God's servant. He is not to bow to himself, for he 
 is life's servant. He is to bow to life — that to which 
 he owes service — that which is necessary to give to art 
 the slightest significance and value. 
 
 The question of ultimate purpose becomes, then, 
 the very first question in all sound and rational criti- 
 cism. Primarily to be settled is the question of intent 
 upon one side of a work of art, and of legitimate or 
 actual effect upon the other. If the intent and the 
 effect both be good, then the existence of the work is 
 justified, and the work itself may be approached criti- 
 cally from both sides ; — from both sides, I say, for the 
 life of the author and the life of the age or the people 
 that he addresses, furnish the only standpoints from 
 which a work of art may legitimately be criticised 
 The justification of a work of art existing only in its 
 intent and effect, criticism may only decide whether 
 
278 Art and Life. 
 
 the intent have its best possible embodiment in the 
 work — whether the work embrace perfectly the artist's 
 idea, and whether the end secured be the highest to be 
 secured by the idea. Thus, if these principles are 
 genuine, are laid aside the arbitrary rules of the 
 schools, the notions and conventionalisms of a pes- 
 tiferous dilettanti, the tests and standards born of the 
 usages of the masters ; and the very soul and substance 
 of criticism is brought within the compass of a nutshell, 
 and the comprehension of all. 
 
 To illustrate : we find spread over our heads a can- 
 opy of blue. If, for the nonce, we assume the inter- 
 pretation of the purposes of the Creator, this color was 
 selected through the reach of His contrivance to pre- 
 sent to the eye a soft and pleasant tint to meet its out- 
 look into space. This sky is a work of nature, mar- 
 velously beautiful. The intent is good ; the end is 
 good ; and its existence is justified. Now let us ap- 
 proach this work as critics. We are now ready to ask 
 whether blue, of all the colors of the spectrum, is the 
 best to paint a sky with — whether blue, of all those 
 colors, is the most agreeable to the eye when looking 
 into space, or whether some other color, or combina- 
 tion of colors, would be better. If we can prove that 
 some other color would be better for this purpose, then 
 we can prove that the work, as a work of nature, is im- 
 perfect. But no : we say that it is the embodiment of 
 
Art and Life. 279 
 
 God's best thought, in God's best way, for the best 
 achievement of a great and good purpose, relating to 
 the life of His children. This conclusion would, of 
 course, follow the critical examination of every other 
 work of nature with which we are acquainted. And 
 this is my key not only to all art but to all criticism. 
 
 I have exhibited these principles, as the ground of 
 my justification in declaring the prevalent ideas of art 
 to be mainly a mass of crude conceits and inconsistent 
 notions. I have exhibited them, that the people may 
 assume for themselves a rational judgment of art, and 
 enter upon a domain from which they have hitherto 
 been excluded— upon which they have not even pre- 
 sumed to enter. Hitherto, this domain has been the 
 domain of mystery. Art itself looms upon the popular 
 apprehension as a phantom — a great, shadowy, sublime 
 something, into whose presence only a favored few 
 may come ; into whose counsels and secrets only the 
 world's elite may be admitted. It cannot be ap- 
 proached through any of the ordinary channels of 
 knowledge. Science, laden with the spoils of nature's 
 arcana, stops embarrassed before this phantom, and 
 bows and retires. Philosophy confronts it with bold- 
 ness and determination, only to see it vanish into the 
 impalpable and the incomprehensible. Wisdom, that 
 has gathered into its storehouse the wealth of all lands 
 and all languages, may not even give it good-morrow 
 
280 Art and Life. 
 
 without betraying the accent of the unsophisticated 
 Only those whose eyes have been anointed may see ; 
 only those whose ears have been touched may hear ; 
 only the mind that has been miraculously quickened 
 may conceive the marvels of a world the brightest 
 glories of which found their birth in the inspirations 
 of paganism, and were addressed to an age of sensual- 
 ity and shame. 
 
 Homage to the old, the useless, and the arbitrary, 
 is the price of that which is called the artistic sense. 
 At the shrine of this absurd trinity, Christian man- 
 hood, truth, and purity must kneel with votive offer- 
 ings. On its altar must they sacrifice their first-born 
 sense of the tasteful and truthful, in order to procure 
 a vision of that which is inscrutable to natural eyes, 
 and a love of that which appeals to no natural appetite 
 or aptitude. So true is this that the conviction is al- 
 most universal that artistic sense, or artistic taste, is a 
 thing never inborn, but always acquired — that it is 
 itself a thing of art, or something which proceeds from 
 art. The multitude acknowledge that they know noth- 
 ing of art. They see an old painting that they would 
 hesitate to give a dollar for at an auction-shop, sold for 
 a hundred guineas — " a phantom of delight " to critics 
 and connoisseurs — and they shake their heads in pro- 
 found self-distrust. They see a select few go into rap- 
 tures over the long-drawn, dreary iterations and reitera* 
 
Art and Life. 281 
 
 tions of a symphony, and confess that they know noth- 
 ing of music. They read a literary performance which 
 stirs and inspires them — which elevates and enlarge? 
 them — which fills them with delight and satisfaction 
 and are shocked and chagrined to learn, at the end of 
 the month, by the shrewd critic of the review, that 
 they have been so vulgar as to be pleased with some- 
 thing that tramples upon every rule of art. 
 
 So the people sit down, and heave the sigh of hum. 
 ble despair. Art is something beyond them — some- 
 thing above them. It is high ; they cannot attain unto 
 it. It is profound ; they may not fathom it. Now 
 this idea of art, as it is held alike by the initiated and 
 the uninitiated, has its birth in distrust of the great 
 truth that art is alike without meaning and without 
 value save as it ministers to life by direct purpose ; the 
 great truth that all true art is but a life-bearer from 
 him who utters to him who receives. Art, as I have 
 said before, is not an end in itself; and the only reason 
 why art has done no more for the civilization and exal- 
 tation of mankind is that artists, and the self-con sti- 
 tuted arbiters of art, have hedged it in from the life of 
 mankind. They actually put a work of art under ban 
 which bears a mission to life, for the reason that it 
 bears a mission. In their view, a work of art is actu- 
 ally prostituted by the burden of a mission. If a les- 
 son of life is to be conveyed, they would let the school- 
 
282 Art and Life. 
 
 master and parson bear it. It must not profane the 
 backs of the dapper gentlemen who do the sublime 
 and beautiful for them. The art-critic of to-day con- 
 temns and derides a work which has any intent in it 
 beyond the satisfaction of the critical judgment of him- 
 self and his precious fraternity. 
 
 You will readily apprehend, from this train of rea- 
 soning and remark, the ground of my claim that the peo- 
 ple — the great world of hungry life — are the only com- 
 petent judges of art. They recognize, know, and love 
 the hand that feeds them — the hand that ministers to 
 their want ; and they are the grand court of final judg- 
 ment on all art and its authors. No artist ever won 
 an immortality that was worth the winning, that he did 
 not win from the people, by a ministry through direct 
 purpose to the life of the people. This is no new doc- 
 trine, even if it be not commonly accepted. " The 
 light of the public square will test its value," said 
 Michel Angelo to the young sculptor whose work 
 he was examining ; confessing, master of masters as 
 he was, his own incompetence to decide whether it 
 should be immortal. 
 
 You will remember that fifteen or twenty years 
 ago two musical artists — players upon the same instru- 
 ment — visited this country respectively to make a pro- 
 fessional tour. One was the pet of the musical critics ; 
 and he was undoubtedly more thoroughly versed in the 
 
Art and Life. 283 
 
 technicalities and intricacies of his art, and possessed 
 more of manual facility, than his rival. We were told 
 that he was true to his art — truer by far than his com- 
 petitor — and that the latter was a charlatan and a trick- 
 ster. Well, this charlatan breathed out upon the peo- 
 ple the life that was in him — the very pathos and pas- 
 sion of his soul ; and the people drank it, and were blest. 
 One of these artists was a man of talent and education ; 
 the other, a man of genius and inspiration. Vieux 
 Temps returned across the Atlantic, chagrined and 
 disgusted ; Ole Bull remained to win the. admiration 
 and the plaudits of a continent. 
 
 Every year or two the musical critics are exercised 
 with ecstacy by the miraculous performances — the runs 
 and roulades, the trills and tricks — of some imported 
 contralto or soprano, and bemoan the low state of art 
 that hinders them from winning attention to that which 
 they miscall art ; but when a pure and generous life, a 
 noble womanhood, a soul of strength and sweetness — 
 gushing with life in every expression, and sympathetic 
 with life in every fibre — breathes through the lips of 
 Jenny Lind, the people drink the nectar with greedy 
 lips, till it overflows in tears. The immortality of Gre- 
 cian-art sprang from its truth to the highest life of its 
 time, and of its ministry to that liie. The Christian 
 art of later centuries addressed also the highest life 
 that lived, and the highest department of that life. 
 
284 Art and Life. 
 
 The entire artist-life of Raphael was devoted to feed- 
 ing the highest religious life of his country and his 
 age. Hardly a picture of this master remains that was 
 not born of religious inspiration, and intended to repro- 
 duce in the beholder the exaltation out of which it pro- 
 ceeded. Raphael is immortal. The people did not 
 ask then, and they do not ask now, what were the 
 characteristics of his school — whether this or that mas- 
 ter modified the development of his genius — whether 
 he learned this thing of one and that thing of another. 
 They know that he gave his most exalted life to them 
 embodied in forms of art ; that those forms enter into 
 their life, elevating their conceptions and exalting their 
 sensibilities, and that they have received a blessing. 
 
 For the illustration of my position, I have dwelt 
 thus far among the confines, the suburbs, of art. I 
 have spoken only of that which resides in sound and 
 form and color. Music may be divine, but its living 
 is its dying. It gushes, and is drunk up by the thirsty 
 silences. It bursts in blooming harmony, and the 
 whole flower is at once exhaled. The great song that 
 entranced the ears of the simple shepherds of Bethle- 
 hem went back into heaven with the vocal host. The 
 literal sentence was saved, but the pearls that glorified 
 the sacred string were returned to their casket. All 
 that is material perishes. Pigments fade, canvas de- 
 cays, and marble crumbles. The long path of art is 
 
Art and Life. 285 
 
 strewn with ruins. Thus the great aggregate of life 
 that in the ages gone has sought embodiment in form 
 and color will waste away, age after age, until only 
 hollow names remain, to be read as we read the names 
 on gravestones set over life and beauty turned to dust. 
 It is only words that live, immortal representatives of 
 everything evolved by the processes of thought, the 
 experiences of life, and the operations of the imagina- 
 tion. The temple of art is built of words. Painting 
 and sculpture and music are but the blazon of its win- 
 dows, borrowing all their significance from the light, 
 and suggestive only of the temple's uses. 
 
 To me, words are a mystery and a marvel. There 
 is no point where man so nearly touches God as in 
 creation by words. There is no point where art so 
 nearly touches nature as when it appears in the form 
 of words. What are these words ? They are the 
 very nothing out of which God spoke creation into 
 being. " Let there be light," said the Creator ; and 
 there was light. It came of those words ; and it 
 comes of ours as well. He spoke to perception ; we 
 speak to imagination. We pronounce the word light, 
 and the imagination sees the atmosphere flooded with 
 sunshine. We pronounce th^word night, and straight 
 the sky is studded with stars. Words paint the flower 
 beyond the faculty and facility of the pencil. Words 
 weave and wind the very harmonies of heaven. There 
 
286 Art and Life. 
 
 is nothing that man knows, there is nothing that the 
 heart has felt, there is nothing the imagination can 
 conceive, that may not, and does not, find in words its 
 highest revelation. Ah ! this is impalpable, invisible, 
 plastic nihility — this formless mother of forms — this 
 vitalized nothingness — this matrix of all being — words ! 
 When the artist works with these, he works with that 
 by which God made the universe ; and there is no 
 genuine embodiment of the highest life of man which 
 passes so directly into the life of other men as that 
 which takes the form of words. The pencil and the 
 chisel are but clumsy things by the side of the pen — 
 the choicest and noblest of all instruments ever placed 
 in human fingers. 
 
 In sculpture and picture, man speaks to man by 
 signs, to which the receiver of the utterance is unac- 
 customed. Into those channels of expression the popu- 
 lar life does not flow ; but words are familiar — the dies 
 in which all daily life and thought are fashioned. 
 Through words, life flows freely and exactly into life. 
 Picture and sculpture are fixed and formal, and strive 
 to make us understand them by attitude and expres- 
 sive dumb-show. Words are vocal and vital, active 
 and flexible, and enter the door of our perception 
 whether we will or no. Words, in short, are not only 
 the highest representatives of thought and life, but 
 they are the representatives, the sources, the expound- 
 
Art and Life. 287 
 
 ers, aDd the preservers of all that is highest in picture 
 and sculpture. 
 
 I approach this field of art with profound interest, 
 for the first book upon which I lay my hand is the 
 Bible. In this book God condescends to speak to men 
 in words. Even He must come to this. The burning 
 stars, the everlasting hills, the infinite sea, forests and 
 streams and flowers — all his sublime sculpture, and 
 infinitely varied picture, even when informed with 
 vitality and instinct with action — are not sufficient for 
 His purpose, not sufficient for His self-expression, and 
 not sufficient for our satisfaction. He comes to con- 
 vey to us something more of His life than He can con- 
 vey through nature. He comes to us with a mission. 
 Now, I ask, will He be simply didactic, or will He 
 convey His life to us through forms of art ? If we 
 examine the volume critically, we shall find that He 
 embodies all His highest truth in these forms. The 
 life He would convey is moulded into the form of 
 human life, endowed with the spirit and the motives of 
 humanity, and then passed over to us. He does not 
 say in two words, "be patient," but He builds the trial 
 and triumph of Job into an exquisite form of art ; and 
 Ruth inculcates the lesson of filial love and duty in the 
 sweetest pastoral that lives in language. He does not 
 read to us dry lessons of morality, but he gives those 
 lessons vitality in parables, iu which " a certain man " 
 
288 Art and Life. 
 
 is made to live what He would have us learn. The 
 sweet singer of Israel pours out his life to us in Psalms 
 — divine life breathed into him, and breathed through 
 him — and we drink in that life to feed the springs of 
 our devotion. On the wings of exaltation and adora* 
 tion furnished by the art of the Psalms, the praise and 
 the thanksgiving of Christendom rise to heaven. 
 
 I ask myself, why this huge volume of poems and 
 allegories, and songs and narratives, and parables and 
 pastorals ? Why this waste of type and paper ? Why 
 all this wonderfully varied machinery for the convey- 
 ance of a definite number of simple and sublime truths ? 
 Why this exhibition of the same truths in wonderfully 
 varied forms ? I find the answer, and I find it only, in 
 ray theory of the mission of art ; and I claim the Bible 
 as a divine recognition of the fact that art is the 
 ordained vehicle for the conveyance of that which is 
 divine in the life of man to the life of men. 
 
 True art is that which is true in life, organized in 
 the idea, in its relations to human motives — abstract 
 truth, assimilated to life, and thus made food for life. 
 Abstract truth is no better fitted to feed the soul's life 
 than the abstract elements which enter into the compo-' 
 sition of the body are fitted to feed the bodily life. 
 Chemistry will tell me all the elements contained in 
 the food I eat ; but if I take my food at the hand of 
 chemistry, I shall die. Vitality must organize these 
 
Art and Life. 289 
 
 elements, and then my vitality will feed upon them. 
 So, if my soul try to live on abstract truth, it will 
 starve. I cannot take my spiritual food from the hand 
 of spiritual chemistry. It must be organized for me by 
 a vital process — it must be lived in fact or in idea — 
 before it can come into healthful relation to my spir- 
 itual vitality. I cannot take even God Himself until 
 He is manifested to me in human life. 
 
 Thus, this book of books is a depository of the 
 highest truth, all assimilated to life by the processes of 
 art. Out of this exhaustless magazine of all that is 
 divine in human life do the nations of Christendom 
 draw their food. Forth from this has sprung our 
 civilization. Out of this germinal mass have grown 
 and will grow all good institutions ; and by it is 
 human life to be wholly regenerated. We find in this 
 book that when God works in the field of art, He 
 works precisely as He does in that of nature — with 
 direct reference to life. He never makes art an end 
 of itself. As in nature, so in revelation, there is no 
 such thing as beauty for beauty's sake ; all beauty is 
 for man's sake. Every form of art contained in the 
 Bible is but a vehicle for the conveyance of divine 
 humanity to a life that needs it. 
 
 But we leave the Bible, and take up a humbler vol 
 ume — a volume which I suppose the majority of lite- 
 rary men would conspire to place upon the lowest shelf 
 13 
 
290 Art and Life. 
 
 of art, and open the pages of The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 From my point of vision, you will see that as a work 
 of art this book must be regarded as one of the most 
 remarkable ever written by mortal pen. More truly 
 than any uninspired book with which I am acquainted 
 does it spring out of life, and answer the end of art — 
 passing into other life. An illiterate tinker sits in Bed- 
 ford jail, and embodies in an allegory his own religious 
 life. In this allegory he gives his highest self-expres- 
 sion — organizes the truth that he has lived, for the 
 nourishment of other life. It will be seen that the 
 origin of the work is strictly legitimate, and that the 
 intent is, beyond question, beneficent. What has been 
 its effect ? It has been the grateful food of millions. 
 It has been translated into a multitude of languages, 
 and will live immortally in the heart and life of Chris- 
 tendom. Yet Bunyan did not know what artistic 
 sense meant. He was innocent of all knowledge of 
 classical models ; but he had something in him, knew 
 what he wanted to do with it, invented the best pos- 
 sible way of doing it, and did it. Many of the greatest 
 minds, though entangled by false theories of art, have 
 not failed to recognize the angel in his pilgrim form, 
 and have rendered him just tribute. When Southey 
 and Cowper, Radcliffe and Franklin, Coleridge and 
 Johnson, Jamieson and Macaulay, bring their offerings 
 to such a shrine, the author may well spare the wor- 
 
Art and Life. 291 
 
 ship of smaller minds. I grant that, as a work of art, 
 this great vehicle of Bunyan's life is roughly finished, 
 but that may well be rough which comes from the 
 hand of a giant. 
 
 We now come to the consideration of an acknowl 
 edged master — crowned by the critics and the people 
 alike as the world's master. What is Shakspere's 
 secret ? What was the material with which he 
 wrought ? Life — always life. In some, perhaps many, 
 respects, he is indeed the world's master. More than 
 any other man has he drunk in, assimilated and organ- 
 ized in forms of art the life of the world. The king 
 and the courtier, the prince and the peasant, the fop 
 and the fool ; manhood and womanhood pure and 
 simple and beautiful — manhood and womanhood black 
 with impurity, passion, and craft ; every form of life 
 that came within the range of his far-sweeping vision 
 —he appropriated to his uses. These he associated 
 and informed with life and motive ; and then he em- 
 bodied in language the dramas which their life played 
 in his wonderful brain. This is the life he has trans- 
 mitted to us ; and in it, and in it alone, resides his 
 power over us. Bunyan and Shakspere are very dif- 
 ferent ; yet both are masters. Shakspere was a highly 
 vitalized medium through which the life of humanity 
 passed into artistic organization for the use of othei 
 life ; Bunyan was a medium hardly less vitalized, 
 
292 Art and Life. 
 
 through which the divine life passed into form fol 
 the nourishment of the same life. 
 
 Though the field is tempting, the lack of time for- 
 bids the further illustration of this point. I cannot 
 leave it, however, without recalling for a moment my 
 proposition that the people are the true judges of art, 
 and that all immortality worth the winning must be 
 won from the people. All the critics in the world can- 
 not kill the Bible. All that philosophy and science 
 and learning can do to effect this object has been 
 done ; but it is stronger to-day than ever before, be- 
 cause the people find a life in it which they need, and 
 which they can find nowhere else. I speak of the 
 book now simply as a collection of works of art, with- 
 out reference to its origin. Bunyan was immortal long 
 before the critics of art found it out. Shakspere would 
 have been forgotten centuries ago if he had not had a 
 ministry for the people. When the people will not 
 come to the support of the critics — when they fail to 
 find anything in a work of art which ministers to their 
 growth and wealth — that work, in my judgment, is 
 competently condemned. It answers no purpose in the 
 earth. It has no apology for existence. A fictitious 
 halo of glory may be thrown around it, and its 
 author's name may descend to posterity in books, 
 and a feeble and foolish dilettanti may make it the 
 theme of encomium ; but it is a dead thing, which 
 
Art and Life. 293 
 
 must ultimately descend to a burial too profound for 
 resurrection. 
 
 Although I have recognized with sufficient direct- 
 ness the popular want with relation to the ministry of 
 art, I have failed to consider that want distinctly in the 
 light of a demand which has a place in the basis of my 
 theory. I have stated, as a general fact, that no man 
 wins immortality in art save by ministering to the life 
 of the people ; but I have not stated that the demand 
 for life at the hand of the artist helps to fix — nay, 
 independently of everything else, fixes — the province, 
 and defines the mission, of art. In the whole range of 
 nature, every want has placed over against it an appro- 
 priate source of satisfaction. If there be a well of 
 water in the desert, and a crowd of thirsty Arabs 
 around it, the office of that well is defined by that 
 thirst. So if a town need bread, and there be only one 
 man who can bake it, that man's province and mission 
 are as well defined by that want, as by the power and 
 skill he has within >him. If such a man should say, 
 " I have nothing to do with this want — I did not make 
 it ; I am to be true to the highest faculties I possess, 
 and the glory of my trade ; I will make patty-cakes 
 and pastry ; if the people will not buy these, the worse 
 for them ; as for ministering to this clamor of popular 
 want, I will do no such thing " — I say that if such a man 
 
294 Art and Life. 
 
 should say this, we should call him a fool or a mad- 
 man — possibly worse names than these. 
 
 Now, in the consideration of this subject, I 6ee 
 before me two classes of men. One is comparatively 
 small, but it is full of vitality, and rich with life. The 
 other is large, and poor in these elements. The artists 
 are opulent ; the people are in poverty, and in need of 
 the overflowing life which the artists possess. I know 
 that there is no way for the administration of this life 
 save through forms of art. " Give us of your wealth," 
 say the people ; " give it to us in a vehicle by means 
 of which we may be enabled to appropriate the whole 
 of it, for we are poor, and in need of that of which you 
 possess an abundance." When I see and hear this, 
 and learn that this want can only be supplied by the 
 artist, I am left in no doubt touching the character of 
 his mission, and the direction of his duty. 
 
 Mark how this appetite for life is pronounced — this 
 need of life declared. Mark how the newspaper has 
 become the universal fire-side companion — how its 
 morning visit is as necessary for the satisfaction of 
 a daily arising want, as the coffee and the rolls of the 
 breakfast-table ; and mark, too, how everything — mar- 
 riages, deaths, and all — is read before the dry and 
 didactic leader. Mark how the personalities of the 
 press — kind or otherwise — are first devoured in the 
 greedy appetite to get at the life of others. We may 
 
Art and Life. 295 
 
 deplore this devotion to the newspaper, but it can 
 neither be checked, nor diverted, until a better life can 
 be drunk in from other sources. The newspaper is 
 only fascinating and absorbing because it feeds better 
 than the popularly available forms of art this demand 
 for life. 
 
 Mark, too, the interest of old and wise men in the 
 books written for children — books, by the way, the 
 truest to the mission of art of any to be found in our 
 literature. I do but give voice to the common expe- 
 rience in the assertion that a first-class juvenile is as 
 interesting and as instructive to the mature mind as to 
 the immature. The truths elucidated may be familiar 
 — even trite ; but the life in which they are cast minis- 
 ters to this ever-open want, and confers a fresh vitality 
 npon the truths themselves. 
 
 Rising into a higher range of literary art, we find 
 almost the whole world engaged in novel-reading. 
 Many of the wise and good shake their heads over it. 
 Careful and conscientious parents place fiction under 
 ban in their households. The pulpit fulminates against 
 it, even if the church fail in terms to proscribe it. 
 Signal instances of its sad effects upon the mind and the 
 morals are portrayed in the issues of the Tract Society, 
 but still the reading goes on ; and from one to one 
 hundred editions of every work find buyers and read- 
 ers. If the novel is not read openly, it is read in 
 
296 Art and Life. 
 
 secret ; if not by sun-light, by gas-light ; if not in the 
 house, or under genial sanction, then in the barn, or 
 under a green tree. Why all this swallowing of so 
 much that is trash ? Why this almost indiscriminate 
 devotion to worth and worthlessness ? Is this all from 
 a debased or a morbid appetite ? By no means. You 
 will find the high and the low all agreed upon a work 
 of fiction from the pen of genuine genius, true to its 
 mission. Of living, active writers, Mr. Dickens and 
 Mrs. Stowe will have the most convenient shelf of the 
 library of him who reads " The Devil's Darning-Needle 
 — a Tale of Love, Madness, and Suicide," as well as 
 that of the man of high and chastened tastes. 
 
 Life ! Life ! This is the cry of the multitude — 
 life, true and chaste and beautiful — life that shall nour- 
 ish and enrich us, if we can get it, but life of some 
 kind — life of any kind — rather than none. This great 
 world of common life, bound to the work-bench, the 
 farm, the counting-room, the four walls that inclose the 
 domestic circle, the factory, the ceaseless routine of 
 daily toil and care in every sphere, cries for the wealth 
 of other life. It cannot go out, and gather life ; so it 
 eagerly grasps that which comes to it. It cannot mix 
 in multitudes, and travel, and enter into varied society ; 
 so it must buy multitudes, and buy travel, and buy so- 
 ciety, in books — so art must bring them into com- 
 munion with life. This cry for life cannot be stifled. It 
 
Art and Life. 297 
 
 can only be hushed by satisfaction. History, narrative, 
 biography — all these — are laid under tribute in accord- 
 ance with individual tastes for the supply of this want. 
 
 If you will go up and down this land, and, when 
 you find him, place your hand upon the shoulder of the 
 preacher who draws the largest audiences, has power 
 over the greatest number of minds, and moulds and 
 sways public sentiment more than any other, you will 
 find him to be one who exhibits his truth organized in 
 the form, and instinct with the breath, of life. You 
 will not find him the expounder and the champion of a 
 creed — the retailer of second-hand dogmas, and ready- 
 made rules and formulas, but the promulgator of a life 
 — a life which he has in him, fed by every fountain 
 that God and humanity open to him. 
 
 So I say that in the want of the world, no less than 
 in the vital wealth of the artist — in the want of the 
 world, no less than in the economy of God in creation 
 and revelation — is the true mission of art defined. 
 Never, until this mission shall be comprehended and 
 practically entered upon, will art rise to be the power 
 in the earth that it ought to be, and is destined to be. 
 We mourn over the decadence of art in its Italian 
 home. We lament the insignificant position that it 
 has achieved in this country. We cross the seas, or 
 go back to a dead literature, to gather from the old 
 masters their secret. We strive to filch from a burnt- 
 13* 
 
298 Art and Life. 
 
 out life the light and inspiration which may only be 
 invoked from a living present and a possible future. 
 We look to decayed nationalities and effete civiliza- 
 tions for ideals and ideas upon which those very 
 nationalities and civilizations have starved. We re- 
 fer to the old models of thought and art with slavish 
 deference to classic authority. We strive to cast the 
 burning life, molten in Christian love, of this latter day 
 of grace, into the old moulds of pagan art and litera- 
 ture — outgrown, outlived, and outlawed. We bow to 
 the life behind us, and not to that within us and be- 
 fore us. We stand upon the mountain-tops of life, and 
 peer down into the valleys for light. 
 
 Pray Heaven we may have no art in this country, 
 until we can learn to be as true to the life within us 
 and without us as those whom we have learned to call 
 masters were true to their own life and that of their 
 age ! We have the same foundation to build upon that 
 they had. We have a hundredfold richer materials 
 than they had. Our civilization and institutions are 
 purer and higher than theirs. Into all our life and 
 thought have been infused the fertilizing influences of 
 Christianity ; and what shall prevent an unprecedented 
 development of art save blind obedience to artificial 
 standards, reared among the ancient schools, standing 
 half way between us and chaos, rather than half way 
 between us and the millennium ? 
 
Art and Life. 209 
 
 I have repeatedly said that, save as art ministers 
 directly to the life of the people, by definite purpose, 
 it is illegitimate. I have nowhere said, directly, that 
 the beautiful in art has a mission to life and a ministry 
 for it ; and this I wish to say here. I do not propose 
 to speculate upon the nature of the beautiful, presum- 
 ing that your minds are already sufficiently confused 
 on that subject. Driving after practical truth, I go 
 back to my first facts — to God and nature — to find the 
 legitimate mission of beauty. Only in subordinate 
 departments of nature do I find beauty a leading ele- 
 ment, or a principal purpose. In a pansy, a daisy, 
 and a rose, as in a wide sisterhood of flowers, I find no 
 object consulted higher than the pleasure of vision, or 
 the excitement into activity of the sense of the beauti- 
 ful ; and when I find millions drinking in this beauty 
 with exquisite pleasure, and see that it has a refining 
 and harmonizing power upon their life, I conclude that 
 beauty in nature, independently of all other elements 
 and properties, has a mission from God to the life of 
 men — that through it something of God's life passes 
 into man's life. 
 
 I look upon a wheat-field, spread like a sheet of 
 gold upon the hill-side, and as the shadows of the 
 clouds chase each other over it, and it bends, and 
 swells in soft undulations, to the will of the wandering 
 wind, I say and feel that it is very beautiful. It moves 
 
300 Art and Life. 
 
 me more than the rose that I hold in my hand ; but I 
 see at once that the beauty of the wheat-field is a sub- 
 ordinate element — that it is no more, in fact, than the 
 glory, the efflorescence, of the element of fitness. It is 
 eminently fit that that sheeted aggregation of plants 
 which have sucked up from the soil, and, by vital elab- 
 oration, have prepared for my hand that which feeds 
 my life, should be beautiful. The beautiful is a proper 
 dress for that to appear in which is the very staff of my 
 life. 
 
 I look out upon the ocean when the sun is bright 
 and the wind is still ; when spectral spars and sails flit 
 along the edge of the horizon, and the sea-birds toss 
 the sunshine from their wings in flakes of silver, and 
 the surf gently kneels at the feet of the headland 
 where I stand, and bathes them with its tears, and 
 wipes them with its flowing hair, and I say that it is 
 all very beautiful : but this beauty is not what the 
 ocean was made for. It is only the fitting garb of the 
 infinite storehouse of waters from whence arise the 
 clouds that spread the heavens with glory, and rejoice 
 the earth with showers. It is only the proper physiog- 
 nomy of the great and wide sea, which defines national- 
 ities and races ; upon whose bosom buoyant Commerce 
 weaves the meshes of human interest, that bind clime 
 to clime, and unite universal man in universal brother- 
 hood. 
 
Art and Life. 301 
 
 With the lesson which these my first facts teach 
 me, I come back to art ; and if this be a legitimate les- 
 sod, drawn from the only legitimate source, I am pre- 
 pared to tell exactly what the mission of beauty in art 
 is. In art, as in nature, beauty has a subordinate mis- 
 sion. If art be simply the medium by which life is 
 transported from those who are rich in gift and grace 
 and goodness to those who are not equally rich, or not 
 rich in identical wealth, the simple question to be set- 
 tled, is, whether beauty be the highest evolution of life 
 on one side, and the greatest need of life upon the 
 other. I assume that there can be but one answer to 
 this question, and that beauty never is, and never can 
 be, more than the shell of the highest art — the appro- 
 priate dress of vital values. I find beauty as the 
 supreme end of art justified in nature, but only in min- 
 iature forms and limited instances. Always, as nature 
 rises toward high ends and important issues, beauty 
 ceases to be an element, and takes the subordinate 
 position of a quality or property, with relations to that 
 which is essential. 
 
 Now you will bear me witness that the slavery of 
 art to beauty is universal. The aim of nine-tenths, at 
 the least, of all the forms of art that have been uttered 
 in the departments of picture, sculpture, and poetry, has 
 been ministry to the sense of the beautiful. The voice 
 of universal art is— beauty first and at any sacrifice; 
 
Art and Life. 
 
 beauty exclusively if necessary. Beauty has been com* 
 pelled to come in. If the palaces of thought would 
 not furnish it, then the highways and hedges have 
 been laid under compulsory tribute, while the highest 
 end of art has been forced into the lowest seat, or 
 thrust out of the house for lack of a becoming gar- 
 ment. 
 
 Thus has art been cheated out of its sinews and its 
 soul. Thus has it failed, where it has flourished most 
 luxuriantly, to preserve the life of nations from decay. 
 Thus are we, in this country, drinking the breath and 
 toying with the curls of beauty, and all the while won- 
 dering why, in an age far in advance of all its predeces- 
 sors, in power, activity, civilization, culture, freedom, 
 and positive goodness, art has made no greater prog- 
 ress. I only wonder that it has a name to live — that it 
 has not utterly starved upon the husks which have 
 been its food. Thank God for the few great souls, 
 scattered here and there, along the track of history, 
 that were a law unto themselves, and revealed all the 
 life that was in them, in such forms as that life natur- 
 ally assumed. 
 
 I have been obliged by the limits of an effort like 
 this to deal in broad generalities, and these relating 
 entirely to the highest departments of art. I might 
 profitably spend another hour in exhibiting the bear- 
 ings of my theory upon the range of art that lies below 
 
Art and Life. 308 
 
 my theme — upon that which is simply imitative and 
 adaptive ; but my pen respects your patience, and I 
 will only add a few practical conclusions. 
 
 My first conclusion is, that there is, and can be, no 
 such thing as a general standard of art and. criticism, 
 having relation to form and management. There is no 
 such thing in nature. A horse is made for fleetness : 
 so is a swallow ; so is an antelope ; so is a greyhound. 
 An elephant is made for strength : so is an ox ; so is a 
 lion ; so is a bull-dog. Suppose a critic of nature 
 should set up his standard at the side of the horse, and 
 insist that a swallow should have four legs, a grey- 
 hound hoofs, and an antelope a switch tail. Or sup- 
 pose he should set it up at the side of the elephant, 
 and insist on tusks for the ox, a trunk for the lion, and 
 a greater show of ivory on the part of the bull-dog. 
 We should all laugh at such a critic as this ; yet a 
 critic like this is just as ridiculous in the domain of art 
 as in the domain of nature. In nature, we always find 
 the form of each creature exactly adapted to the life 
 that is in it ; and both life and form are adapted to 
 their mission. Every creature of God is sent into the 
 world to live a certain life, and do a certain thing, and 
 is endowed with precisely that form which will best 
 enable it to live that life, and do that thing. Forms, 
 varying almost infinitely, combine the same elements. 
 The greyhound and the swallow are fleet, yet one is 
 
304 Art and Life. 
 
 borne upon feet and the other upon wings. There* 
 fore I say that the life embodied in a form of art, 
 and the mission to other life on which it is sent, must 
 always determine and define that form, without regard 
 to any arbitrary standard whatsoever — without regard 
 to any other form in the universe of art. Therefore I 
 say that a man who condemns a work of art because it 
 is not like something else, does not know what he is 
 talking about. Every work of art has in its centre a 
 germinal idea, which has, in itself, a law of develop- 
 ment, and this development cannot be cramped or 
 interfered with in any way, without damage to the 
 work. I know of no way by which such a work may 
 be judged save the one I have already given to you. 
 Does it embody the artist's idea in the best form for 
 producing the effect at which he aims ? That is the 
 question, simply and solely. It has nothing to do with 
 schools, precedents, authorities, and general rules what- 
 ever. 
 
 This leads me to another practical conclusion which 
 has, in substance, already been affirmed, viz., that you 
 and I, and everybody who has brains and uses them, 
 are competent judges of art, in the measure that we 
 are competent judges of anything. If I display a pic- 
 ture, or unveil a statue, or read a poem or a story, or 
 exhibit any form or creature of art to you, and you 
 experience no thrill of delight, and drink in no thought 
 
Art and Life. 30{ 
 
 that feeds in any way the life that is in you, so that you 
 feel enriched by it, I declare that work of art to be 
 competently condemned, notwithstanding a single con- 
 noisseur, judging by his arbitrary standard, may pro- 
 nounce it a gem. So far as you and I are concerned, 
 it is a failure, and so far as we represent the world, it 
 is a failure before the world. There is nothing in it 
 that we want ; there is nothing that the world wants. 
 In short, if there be nothing in a work of art save that 
 which is addressed to the critical judgment of a few 
 dawdlers and dilettanti, professional wine-tasters who 
 cluster about the spigots of art — experts, who have no 
 life that was not born of art, and no life out of art — ■ 
 then that work has no apology for existence, save the 
 ignorance or the hallucination of its author. 
 
 Another and a most important practical conclusion. 
 is, that the life must be rich which produces art, or it 
 will have no wealth to convey to other life. Many 
 young persons — men and women — with genius in them, 
 and with all the natural yearning of genius for self- 
 expression, write books, and give them to the world 
 only to be disappointed, and to sink back into disgust 
 with a public which is not capable, as they think, of 
 appreciating them. But does not this stupid public 
 appreciate Shakspere and Milton ? Ah ! the trouble is 
 that the public does appreciate them. They have 
 nothing, and can have nothing, to give the world, and 
 
306 Art and Life. 
 
 why should the world be grateful ? They have only 
 dealt with books and dreams. They have only become 
 imperfectly prepared to live, themselves, and what have 
 they to give to other life ? The struggles, the sorrows, 
 the patient toil, the collisions, the ten thousand polish 
 ing, chastening, softening, fertilizing, and strengthen- 
 ing influences which give them symmetry, power, 
 knowledge of human motive, and sympathy with the 
 universal human heart, are all unexperienced. I be- 
 lieve that the world, in the main, sooner or later, is 
 just ; and that it will weave a crown for every man 
 and woman who by ministering to its life deserves it. 
 I believe that every man who gives the results of a 
 rich life to the public, in higher or humbler forms of 
 art, will be recognized by the public — that the public 
 will turn to him as one of the benign sources of its 
 life ; and this, not so much from a sense of justice, as 
 from unthinking obedience to a natural law — the law 
 that turns the infant's lips to its mother's bosom, and 
 the dying saint to his Redeemer's promises. 
 
 And now for a practical conclusion of a more grate- 
 ful character — the conclusion of this address. If I 
 apprehend the signs of the times, in their true aspect, 
 a brighter day is dawning upon the world of art. In 
 all departments of thought and life we are cutting loose 
 from the old, and thinking and doing for ourselves, in 
 obedience to the life within us, and with reference tc 
 
Art and Life. 307 
 
 the living realities of to-day. More and more distinct* 
 ly pronounced is the call of the world for help, and 
 more and more is that call respected ; for the world of 
 life is beginning to take judgment into its own hands. 
 More and more is the patronage of art, in all its forms, 
 passing from the hands of the church — from the hands 
 of royalty and wealth and power — into the hands of the 
 people. Less and less is art the servant of the great, 
 and the pensioned glorifier of doughty names and 
 doubtful institutions. Art has now to deal with the 
 people more than ever before in the world's history. 
 The critical middle-men bless and curse with less effect 
 than formerly ; and artists of every class will be com- 
 pelled to give the world what it needs. 
 
 I believe both in the law and the fact of progress ; 
 and as life is more opulent now than ever before, so a 
 higher art is possible now than has ever existed. I be- 
 lieve, too, that the ages which are to follow this will 
 surpass our richness of life, and our possibilities of art, 
 as they will transcend this and all preceding ages in 
 expression. The art of to-day should embody the 
 highest life of to-day for the use of to-day ; for those 
 who have gone before us need it not, and those who 
 will come after us will have something better. The 
 art that now lies in glittering piles upon the shore of 
 achievement was deposited by waves which started 
 near the land, and found but insignificant spoils as they 
 
308 Art and Life. 
 
 rolled in and burst upon the beach. Closely behind us 
 press other billows, with mightier bosoms and loftier 
 crests, surging in from further climes and richer seas, 
 with contributions that will shame our unproductive 
 age. 
 
 I not only believe in progress, but in communion as 
 its vital condition. It is the condition of progress in 
 religious life, and it is the condition of progress in all 
 life. Those who are great, and those who would be 
 great, must serve. Those who would win for their 
 names a wreath of glory, must expend their lives in 
 ministry. The name that is above every name belongs 
 to Him who communicated His whole life to the race. 
 Universal progress is impossible, save as the barren 
 many become partakers of the life of the fertile few. 
 
 Painter, sculptor, poet, — worker in words of what- 
 soever name — minister of the life which is — prophet of 
 that which is to be, — have I not shown to you your 
 mission ? Hungry waiters at the door of art — thirsty 
 loiterers at the fountain of life — hold to your right, and 
 demand that that mission be fuliilled ! 
 
THE POPTTLAE LECTTTEE. 
 
 fTlHE popular lecture, in the Northern States of 
 JL America, has become, in Yankee parlance, " an 
 institution ; " and it has attained such prevalence and 
 power that it deserves more attention and more respect 
 from those who assume the control of the motive influ- 
 ences of society than it has hitherto received. It has 
 been the habit of certain literary men (more particu- 
 larly of such as do not possess a gift for public speech), 
 and of certain literary magazines (managed by persons 
 of delicate habit and weak lungs), to regard and to 
 treat the popular lecture with a measure of contempt. 
 For the last fifteen years the downfall of what has been 
 popularly denominated " The Lecture System " has 
 been confidently predicted by those who, granting 
 them the wisdom which they assume, should have 
 been so well acquainted with its nature and its adapta- 
 tion to a permanent popular want as to see that it must 
 live and thrive until something more practicable can be 
 
310 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 contrived to take its place. If anything more interest- 
 ing, cheaper, simpler, or more portable, can be found 
 than a vigorous man, with a pleasant manner, good 
 voice, and something to say, then the popular lecture 
 will certainly be superseded ; but the man who will 
 invent this substitute is at present engaged on a new 
 order of architecture and the problem of perpetual mo- 
 tion, with such prospect of full employment for the 
 present as will give " the lecture system " sufficient 
 time to die gracefully. An institution which can main- 
 tain its foothold in the popular regard throughout such 
 a war as has challenged the interest and taxed the 
 energies of this nation during the last three four is 
 one which will not easily die ; and the history of the 
 popular lecture proves that, wherever it has been once 
 established, it retains its place through all changes of 
 social material, and all phases of political and reli- 
 gious influence. Circumstances there may be which 
 will bring intermissions in its yearly operations ; but no 
 instance can be found of its permanent relinquishment 
 by a community which has once enjoyed its privileges, 
 and acquired a taste for the food and inspiration which 
 it furnishes. 
 
 An exposition of the character of the popular lec- 
 ture, the machinery by which it is supported, and the 
 results which it aims at and accomplishes, cannot be 
 without interest to thoughtful readers. 
 
The Popular Lecture. 31 1 
 
 What is the popular lecture in America ? It will 
 not help us in this inquest to refer to a dictionary ; for 
 it is not necessary that the performance which Ameri- 
 cans call a lecture should be an instructive discourse 
 at all. A lecture before the Young Men's Associations 
 and lecture organizations of the country is any charac- 
 teristic utterance of any man who speaks in their em- 
 ployment. The word " lecture " covers generally and 
 generically all the orations, declamations, dissertations, 
 exhortations, recitations, humorous extravaganzas, nar- 
 ratives of travel, harangues, sermons, semi-sermons, 
 demi-semi-sermons, and lectures proper, which can be 
 crowded into what is called " a course," but which 
 might be more properly called a bundle, the bundle 
 depending for its size upon the depth of the managerial 
 purse. Ten or twelve lectures are the usual number, 
 although in some of the larger cities, beginning early 
 in " the lecture season," and ending late, the number 
 given may reach twenty. 
 
 The machinery for the management and support of 
 these lectures is as simple as possible, the lecturers 
 themselves having nothing to do with it. There are 
 library associations or lyceum associations, composed 
 principally of young men, in all the cities and large vil- 
 lages, which institute and manage courses of lectures 
 every winter, for the double purpose of interesting and 
 instructing the public and replenishing their treasury. 
 
812 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 The latter object, it must be confessed, occupies the 
 principal place, although, as it depends for its attain- 
 ment on the success of the former, the public is as well 
 served as if its entertainment were alone consulted. 
 In the smaller towns there are usually temporary asso- 
 ciations, organized, for the simple purpose of obtaining 
 lecturers and managnngr the business incident to a 
 course. Not unfrequently, ten, twenty, or thirty men 
 pledge themselves to make up any deficiency there 
 may be in the funds required for the season's entertain- 
 ments, and place the management in the hands of a 
 committee. Sometimes two or three persons call them- 
 selves a lecture-committee, and employ lecturers, them- 
 selves risking the possible loss, and dividing among 
 themselves any profits which their course may produce. 
 The opposition or independent courses in the larger 
 cities are often instituted by such organizations, — some- 
 times, indeed, by a single person, who has a natural turn 
 for this sort of enterprise. The invitations to lecturers 
 are usually sent out months in advance, though very 
 few courses are definitely provided for and arranged 
 before the first of November. The fees of lecturers 
 range from fifty to a hundred dollars. A few uniform- 
 ly command the latter sum, and lecture-committees 
 find, it for their interest to employ them. It is to be 
 presumed that the universal rise of prices will change 
 these figures somewhat. 
 
The Popular Lecture. 313 
 
 The popular lecture is the most purely democratic 
 of all our democratic institutions. The people hear a 
 second time only those who interest them. If a lec- 
 turer cannot engage the interest of his audience, his 
 fame or greatness or learning will pass for nothing. A 
 lecture-audience will forgive extravagance, but never 
 dulness. They will give a man one chance to interest 
 them, and if he fails, that is the last of him. The lec- 
 ture-committees understand this, and gauge the public 
 taste or the public humor as delicately as the most 
 accomplished theatrical manager. The man who re- 
 ceives their invitation may generally be certain that the 
 public wish either to see or hear him. Popularity is 
 the test. Only popularity after trial, or notoriety be- 
 fore, can draw houses. Only popularity and notoriety 
 can pay expenses and swell the balance of profit. No- 
 toriety in the various walks of life and the personal in- 
 fluence of friends aud admirers can usually secure a 
 single hearing, but no outside influence can keep a lec- 
 turer permanently in the field. If the people " love to 
 hear " him, he can lecture from Maine to California six 
 months in the year ; if not, he cannot get so much as a 
 second invitation. 
 
 One of the noticeable features of the public humor 
 
 in this matter is the aversion to professional lecturers,— 
 
 to those who make lecturing a business, with no high 
 
 er aim than that of getting a living. No calling or 
 
 14 
 
814 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 profession can possibly be more legitimate than that 
 of the lecturer ; there is nothing immodest or other- 
 wise improper in the advertisement of a man's literary 
 wares ; yet it is true, beyond dispute, that the public 
 do not regard with favor those who make lecturing 
 their business, particularly if they present themselves 
 uninvited. So well is this understood by this class of 
 lecturers that a part of their machinery consists of invi- 
 tations numerously signed, which invitations are writ- 
 ten and circulated by themselves, their interested 
 friends, or their authorized agents, and published as 
 their apology for appearing. A man who has no other 
 place in the world than that which he makes for him- 
 self on the platform is never a popular favorite, unless 
 he uses the platform for the advocacy of some great 
 philanthropic movement or reform, into which he 
 throws unselfishly the leading efforts of his life. Re- 
 ferring to the history of the last twenty years, it will 
 readily be seen that those who have undertaken to 
 make lecturing a business, without side pursuit or 
 superior aim, are either retired from the field or are 
 very low in the public favor. The public insist, that, 
 in order to Be an acceptable lecturer, a man must be 
 something else, that he must begin and remain some- 
 thing else ; and it will be found to-day that those only 
 who work worthily in other fields have a permanent 
 hold upon the affections of lecture-going people. It 
 
The Popular Lecture. 315 
 
 is the public judgment or caprice that the work of the 
 lecturer shall be incidental to some worthy pursuit, 
 from which that work temporarily calls him. There 
 seems to be a kind of coquetry in this. The public do 
 not accept of those who are too openly in the market, 
 or who are too easily won. They prefer to entice a 
 man from his chosen love, and account his favors 
 sweeter because the wedded favorite is deprived of 
 them. 
 
 A lecturer's first invitation, in consonance with 
 these facts, is almost always suggested by his excel- 
 lence or notoriety in some department of life that may 
 or may not be allied to the platform. If a man makes 
 a remarkable speech, he is very naturally invited to 
 lecture ; but he is no more certain to be invited than 
 he who wins a battle. A showman gets his first invita- 
 tion for the same reason that an author does, — because 
 he is notorious. Nearly all new men in the lecture- 
 field are introduced through the popular desire to see 
 notorious or famous people. A man whose name is on 
 the popular tongue is a man whom the popular eye 
 desires to see. Such a man will always draw one 
 audience ; and a single occasion is all that he is en- 
 gaged for. After getting a place upon the platform, 
 it is for him to prove his power to hold it. If he does 
 not lecture as well as he writes, or fights, or walks, or 
 lifts, or leaps, or hunts lions, or manages an exhibition, 
 
316 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 or plays a French horn, or does anything which has 
 made him a desirable man for curious people to see, 
 then he makes way for the next notoriety. Very few 
 courses of lectures are delivered in the cities and larger 
 villages that do not present at least one new man, who 
 Is invited simply because people are curious to see him. 
 The popular desire is strong to come in some way into 
 personal contact with those who do remarkable things. 
 They cannot be chased in the street ; they can be seen 
 only to a limited extent in the drawing-room ; but it is 
 easy to pay twenty-five cents to hear them lecture, with 
 the privilege of looking at them for an hour and criti- 
 cizing them for a week. 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact, in this connection, that, 
 while there are thousands of cultivated men who would 
 esteem it a privilege to lecture for the lecturer's usual 
 fee, there are hardly more than twenty-five in the coun- 
 try whom the public considers it a privilege worth pay- 
 ing for to hear. It is astonishing, that, in a country so 
 fertile as this in the production of gifted and cultivated 
 men, so few find it possible to establish themselves 
 upon the platform as popular favorites. If the accept- 
 ed ones were in a number of obvious particulars alike, 
 there could be some intelligent generalizing upon 'the 
 subject ; but men possessing fewer points of resem- 
 blance, or presenting stronger contrasts, in style of per- 
 son and performance, than the established favorites of 
 
The Popular Lecture. 317 
 
 lecture-going people, cannot be found in the world ; 
 and if any generalization be attempted, it must relate 
 to matters below the surface and beyond the common 
 apprehension. It is certain that not always the great 
 est or the most brilliant or the most accomplished men 
 are to be found among the popular lecturers. A man 
 may make a great, even a brilliant speech on an im- 
 portant public question, and be utterly dreary in the 
 lecture-room. There are multitudes of eloquent clergy- 
 men who in their pulpits command the attention of im- 
 mense congregations, yet who meet with no acknowl- 
 edgment of power upon the platform. 
 
 In a survey of those who are the established favor- 
 ites, it will be found that there are no slaves among 
 them. The people will not accept tnose who are creed- 
 bound, or those who bow to any authority but God and 
 themselves. They insist that those who address them 
 shall be absolutely free, and that they shall speak only 
 for themselves. Party and sectarian spokesmen find 
 no permanent place upon the platform. It is only when 
 a lecturer cuts loose from all his conventional belong- 
 ings, and speaks with thought and tongue unfettered, 
 that he finds his way to the popular heart. This free- 
 dom has sometimes been considered dangerous by the 
 more conservative members of society ; and they have 
 not unfrequently managed to get the lectures into their 
 own hands, or to organize courses representing more 
 
318 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 moderate views in matters of society, politics, and reli- 
 gion ; but their efforts have uniformly proved failures. 
 The people have always refused to support lectures 
 which brought before them the bondmen of creeds and 
 parties. Year after year men have been invited to 
 address audiences three fourths of whom disagreed 
 utterly with the sentiments and opinions which it was 
 well understood such men would present, simply be- 
 cause they were free men, with minds of their own and 
 tongues that would speak those minds or be dumb. 
 Names could be mentioned of those who for the last 
 fifteen years have been established favorites in commu- 
 nities which listened to them respectfully, nay, ap- 
 plauded them warmly, and then abused them for the 
 remainder of the year. 
 
 It is not enough, however, that a lecturer be free. 
 He must have something fresh to say, or a fresh and 
 attractive way of saying that which is not altogether 
 new. Individuality, and a certain personal quality 
 which, for lack of a better name, is called magnetism, 
 are also essential to the popular lecturer. People de- 
 sire to be moved, to be acted upon, by a strong and 
 positive nature. They like to be furnished with fresh 
 ideas, or with old ideas put into a fresh and practical 
 form, so that they can be readily apprehended and 
 appropriated. 
 
 And here comes the grand difficulty which every 
 
 
The Popular Lecture. 319 
 
 lecturer encounters, and over which so many stumble 
 Into failure, — that of interesting and refreshing men 
 and women of education and culture, and, at the same 
 time, of pleasing, moving, and instructing those of 
 feebler acquirements or no acquirements at all. Most 
 men of fine powers fail before a popular audience, be- 
 cause they do not fully apprehend the thing to be done. 
 They almost invariably write above the level of one 
 half of their audience, or below the level of the other 
 half. In either event, they fail, and have the mortifica- 
 tion of seeing others of inferior gifts succeed through a 
 nicer adaptation of their literary wares to the wants of 
 the market. Much depends upon the choice of a sub- 
 ject. If that be selected from those which touch uni- 
 versal interests and address common motives, half the 
 work is done. A clear, simple, direct style of compo- 
 sition, apt illustration (and the power of this is mar- 
 vellous), and a distinct and pleasant delivery, will do 
 much to complete the success. 
 
 It is about equally painful and amusing to witness 
 the efforts which some men make to write down to the 
 supposed capacity of a popular audience. The pueril- 
 ities and buffooneries that are sometimes undertaken 
 by these men, for the purpose of conciliating the 
 crowd, certainly amuse the crowd, and so answer their 
 end, though not in a way to bring reputation to the 
 actors. No greater mistake can possibly be made than 
 
320 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 that of regarding an American lecture-going audience 
 with contempt. There is no literary tribunal in thia 
 country that can more readily and justly decide 
 whether a man has anything to say, and can say it 
 well, than a lecture-audience in one of the smaller 
 cities and larger villages of the Northern States. It is 
 quite common to suppose that a Western audience de- 
 mands a lower grade of literary effort, and a rougher 
 style of speech, than an Eastern audience. Indeed, 
 there are those who suppose that a lecture which 
 would fully meet the demands of an average Eastern 
 audience would be beyond the comprehension of an 
 average Western audience ; but the lecturer who shall 
 accept any such assumption as this will find -himself 
 very unpleasantly mistaken. At the West, the lecture 
 is both popular and fashionable, and the best people 
 attend it. A lecturer may always be certain, there, 
 that the best he can do will be thoroughly appreciated. 
 The West is not particularly tolerant of dull men ; but 
 if a man be alive, he will find a market there for the 
 best thought he produces. 
 
 In the larger cities of the East, the opera, the play, 
 the frequent concert, the exhibition, the club-house, the 
 social assembly, and a variety of public gatherings and 
 public excitements, take from the lecture-audiences the 
 class that furnishes the best material in the smaller 
 cities ; so that a lecturer rarely or never sees his 
 
The Popular Lecture. 321 
 
 best audiences in New York, or Boston, or Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 . Another requisite to popularity upon the platform 
 i^ earnestness. Those who imagine that a permanent 
 hold upon the people can be obtained by amusing them 
 $re widely mistaken. The popular lecture has fallen 
 into disrepute with many worthy persons in conse- 
 quence of the admission of buffoons and triflers to the 
 lecturer's platform ; and it is an evil which ought to 
 be remedied. It is an evil, indeed, which is slowly 
 working its own remedy. It is a disgraceful fact, that, 
 in order to draw together crowds of people, men have 
 been admitted to the platform whose notoriety was 
 won by the grossest of literary charlatanism — men 
 whose only hold upon the public was gained by extrav- 
 ag'ances of thought and expression which would com- 
 promise the dignity and destroy the self-respect of , any 
 man of character and common sense. It is not enough 
 that these persons quickly disgust their audiences, and 
 have a brief life upon the list. They ought never to 
 be introduced to the public as lecturers ; and any mo- 
 mentary augmentation of receipts that may be secured 
 from the rabble by the patronage of such mountebanks 
 is more than lost by the disgrace they bring and the 
 damage they do to what is called " The Lecture Sys« 
 tern." It is an insult to any lyceum-audience to sup- 
 pose that it can have a strong and permanent interest 
 14* 
 
S22 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 m a trifler ; and it is a gross injustice to every respect- 
 able lecturer in the field to introduce into his guild men 
 who have no better motive and no higher mission than 
 the stage-elown and the negro-minstreL 
 
 But the career of triners is always short. Only he 
 who feels that he has something to do in making the 
 world wiser and better, and who, in a bold and manly 
 way, tries persistently to do it, is always welcome ; 
 and this fact — an incontrovertible one — is a sufficient 
 vindication of the popular lecture from all the asper- 
 sions that have been cast upon it by disappointed aspi- 
 rants for its honors, and shallow observers of its tend- 
 encies and results. 
 
 The choice of a subject has already been spoken of 
 as a matter of importance, and a word should be said 
 touching its manner of treatment. This introduces a 
 discussion of the kind of lecture which at the present 
 time is mainly in demand. Many wise and good men 
 have questioned the character of the popular lecture. 
 In their view, it does not add sufficiently to the stock 
 of popular knowledge. The results are not solid and 
 tangible. They would prefer scientific, or historical, 
 or philosophical discourses. This conviction is so 
 strong with these men, and the men themselves are 
 so much respected, that the people are inclined to coin- 
 cide with them in the matter of theory, while at the 
 Bame time thev refuse to give their theory practical 
 
The Popular Lecture. 323 
 
 entertainment. One reason why scientific and histor- 
 ical lectures are not popular, is to be found in the dif- 
 ficulty of obtaining lecturers who have sufficient inge- 
 nuity and enthusiasm to make such lectures interesting. 
 The number of men in the United States who can make 
 such lectures attractive to popular audiences can be 
 counted on the fingers of a single hand. We have had 
 but one universally popular lecturer on astronomy in 
 twenty years, and he is now numbered among the pre- 
 cious sacrifices of the war. There is only one entirely 
 acceptable popular lecturer on natural sciences in New 
 England ; and what is he among so many ? 
 
 But this class of lectures has not been widely suc- 
 cessful, even under the most favorable circumstances, 
 and with the very best lecturers ; and it is to be ob- 
 served, that they grow less successful with the increas- 
 ing intelligence of the people. In this fact is to be 
 found an entirely rational and competent explanation 
 of their failure. The schools have done so much toward 
 popularizing science, and the circulating-library has 
 rendered so familiar the prominent facts of history, that 
 men and women do not go to the lecture to learn, and, 
 as far as any appreciable practical benefit is concerned, 
 do not need to go. It is only when some eminent en- 
 thusiast in these walks of learning consents to address 
 them that they come out, and then it is rather to place 
 themselves under the influence of his personality than 
 
The Popular Lecture. 
 
 to acquire the knowledge which he dispenses. Facta. 
 if they are identified in any special way with the expe- 
 rience and life of the lecturer, are always acceptable ; 
 but facts which are recorded in books find a poor mar- 
 ket in the popular lecture-room. Thus, while purely 
 historical and scientific lectures are entirely neglected, 
 narratives of personal travel, which combine much of 
 historical and scientific interest, have been quite popu- 
 lar, and, indeed, have been the specialties of more than 
 one of the most popular of American lecturers, whose 
 names will be suggested at once by this statement. 
 
 Twenty years ago the first popular lectures on anato- 
 my and physiology were given, and a corps of lectur- 
 ers came up and swept over the whole country, with 
 much of interest and instruction to the people and no 
 small profit to themselves. These lectures called the 
 attention of educators to these sciences. Text-books 
 for schools and colleges were prepared, and anatomy 
 and physiology became common studies for the young. 
 In various ways, through school-books and magazines 
 and newspapers, there has accumulated a stock of pop- 
 ular knowledge of these sciences, and an apprehension 
 of the limit of their practical usefulness, which have 
 quite destroyed the demand for lectures upon them. 
 Though a new generation has risen since the lecture 
 on anatomy and physiology was the rage, no leaner 
 field could possibly be found than that which the coun- 
 
The Popular Lecture. 325 
 
 try now presents to the popular lecturer on these scien- 
 ces. These facts are interesting in themselves, and 
 they serve to illustrate the truth of that which has 
 been stated touching lectures upon general historical 
 and scientific subjects. 
 
 For facts alone the modern American public does 
 not go hungry. American life is crowded with facts, 
 to which the newspaper gives daily record and diffu- 
 sion. Ideas, motives, thoughts, these are always in 
 demand. Men wish for nothing more than to know 
 how to classify their facts, what to do with them, how 
 to govern them, and how far to be governed by them ; 
 and the man who takes the facts with which the popu- 
 lar life has come into contact and association, and draws 
 from them their nutritive and motive power, and points 
 out their relations to individual and universal good, 
 and organizes around them the popular thought, and 
 uses them to give direction to the popular life, and 
 does all this with masterly skill, is the man whose 
 houses are never large enough to contain those who 
 throng to hear him. This is the popular lecturer, par 
 excellence. The people have an earnest desire to know 
 what a strong, independent, free man has to say about 
 those facts which touc 7 a the experience, the direction, 
 and the duty of their daily life ; and the lecturer who 
 with a hearty human sympathy addresses himself to 
 this desire, and enters upon the seiwice with genuine 
 
326 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 enthusiasm, wins the highest reward there is to be woe 
 in his field of effort. 
 
 The more ill-natured critics of the popular lecturer 
 have reflected with ridicule upon his habit of repeti- 
 tion. A lecturer in full employment will deliver the 
 same discourse perhaps fifty or a hundred times in a 
 single season. There are probably half a dozen favor- 
 ite lectures which have been delivered from two hun- 
 dred to five hundred times within the last fifteen years. 
 It does, indeed, at first glance, seem ridiculous for a 
 man to stand, night after night, and deliver the same 
 words, with the original enthusiasm apparently at its 
 full height ; and some lecturers, with an extra spice of 
 mirthfulness in their composition, have given public 
 record of their impressions in this respect. There are, 
 however, certain facts to be considered which at least 
 relieve him from the charge of literary sterility. A 
 lecture often becomes famous, and is demanded by 
 each succeeding audience, whatever the lecturer's pref- 
 erences may be. There are lectures called for every 
 year by audiences and committees which the lecturer 
 would be glad never to see again, and which he never 
 would see again, if he were to consult his own judg- 
 ment alone. Then the popular lecturer, as has been 
 already intimated, is usually engaged during two thirds 
 of the year in some business or profession whose duties 
 forbid the worthy preparation of more than one dis- 
 
The Popular Lecture. 827 
 
 course for winter use. Then, if he has numerous en- 
 gagements, he has neither time nor strength to do 
 more than his nightly work ; for, among all the pur- 
 suits in which literary men engage, none is more ex- 
 haustive in its demands upon the nervous energy than 
 that of constant lecturing. The fulfilment of from sev- 
 enty-five to ninety engagements involves, in round num- 
 bers, ten thousand miles of railroad-travel, much of it 
 in the night, and all of it during the most unpleasant 
 season of the year. There is probably nothing short 
 of a military campaign that is attended by so many 
 discomforts and genuine hardships as a season of active 
 lecturing. Unless a man be young and endowed with 
 an extraordinary amount of vital power, he becomes 
 entirely unfitted by his nightly work, and the dissipa- 
 tion consequent upon constant change of scene, for con- 
 secutive thought and elaborate composition. 
 
 It is fortunate for the lecturer that there is no 
 necessity for variety. The oft-repeated lecture is new 
 to each new audience, and, being thoroughly in hand, 
 and entirely familiar, is delivered with better effect 
 than if the speaker were frequently choosing from a 
 well-furnished repertory. It is popularly supposed that 
 a lecturer loses all interest in a performance which he 
 repeats so many times. This supposition is correct, in 
 certain aspects of the matter, but not in any sense 
 which detracts from his power to make it interesting 
 
328 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 to others. It is the general experience of lecturers, 
 that, until they have delivered a discourse from ten tc 
 twenty times, they are themselves unable to measure 
 its power ; so that a performance which is offered at 
 first timidly, and with many doubts, comes at length to 
 be delivered confidently, and with measurable certainty 
 of acceptance and success. The grand interest of a lec- 
 turer is in his new audience — in his experiment on an 
 assembly of fresh minds. The lecture itself is regard- 
 ed only as an instrument by which a desirable and im- 
 portant result is to be achieved ; and familiarity with 
 it, and steady use in its elocutionary handling, are con- 
 ditions of the best success. Having selected the sub- 
 ject which, at the time, and for the times, he considers 
 freshest and most fruitful, and with thorough care 
 written out all he has to say upon it, there is no call 
 for recurrence to minor themes, either as regards the 
 credit of the lecturer or the best interests of those 
 whom he addresses. 
 
 What good has the popular lecture accomplished ? 
 Its most enthusiastic advocates will not assert that it 
 has added greatly to the stock of popular knowledge, 
 in science, or art, in history, philosophy, or literature ; 
 yet the most modest of them may claim that it has 
 bestowed upon American society a permanent good 
 of incalculable value. The relentless foe of all bigotry 
 in politics and religion, the constant opponent of every 
 
The Popular Lecture. 329 
 
 form of bondage to party and sect, the practical teach- 
 er of the broadest toleration of individual opinion, it 
 has had more to do with the steady melioration of the 
 prejudices growing out of denominational interests in 
 Church and State than any other agency whatever. 
 The platform of the lecture-hall has been common 
 ground for the representatives of all our social, politi- 
 cal, and religious organizations. It is there that ortho- 
 dox and heterodox, progressive and conservative, have 
 won respect for themselves and toleration for their 
 opinions by the demonstration of their own manhood, 
 and the recognition of the common human brother- 
 hood ; for one has only to prove himself a true man, 
 and to show a universal sympathy with men, to se- 
 cure popular toleration for any opinion he may hold. 
 Hardly a decade has passed away since, in nearly 
 every Northern State, men suffered social depreciation 
 in consequence of their political and religious opinions. 
 Party and sectarian names have been freely used as re- 
 proachful and even as disgraceful epithets. To call a 
 man by the name which he had chosen as the represen- 
 tative of his political or religious opinions was consid- 
 ered equivalent to calling him a knave or a fool ; and 
 if it happened that he was in the minority, his name 
 alone was regarded as the stamp of social degradation. 
 Now,' thanks to the influence of the popular lecture 
 mainly, men have made, and are rapidly making, room 
 
330 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 for each other. A man may be in the minority now 
 without consequently being in personal disgrace. Men 
 of liberal and even latitudinarian views are generously 
 received in orthodox communities, and those of ortho- 
 dox faith are gladly welcomed by men who subscribe 
 to a shorter creed and bear a broader charter of life and 
 liberty. There certainly has never been a time in the 
 history of America when there was such generous and 
 general toleration of all men and all opinions as now ; 
 and as the popular lecture has been universal, with a 
 determined aim and a manifest influence toward this 
 end, it is but fair to claim for it a prominent agency in 
 the result. 
 
 Another good which may be counted among the 
 fruits of the popular lecture, is the education of the 
 public taste in intellectual amusements. The end 
 which the lecture-goer seeks is not always improve- 
 ment, in any respect. Multitudes of men and women 
 have attended the lecture to be interested ; and to be 
 interested intellectually is to be intellectually amused. 
 Lecturers who have appealed simply to the emotional 
 nature, without attempting to engage the intellect, have 
 ceased to be popular favorites. So far as the popular 
 lecture has taken hold of the affections of a communi 
 ty, and secured its constant support, it has destroyed 
 the desire for all amusements of a lower grade ; and it 
 will be found, that, generally, those who attend the 
 
The Popular Lecture. 331 
 
 lecture rarely or never give their patronage and pres- 
 ence to the buffooneries of the day. They have found 
 something better — something with more of flavor in 
 the eating, with more of nutriment in the digestion. 
 How great a good this is, those only can judge who 
 realize that men will have amusements of some sort, 
 and that, if they cannot obtain such as will elevate 
 them, they will indulge in such as are frivolous and 
 dissipating. The lecture does quite as much for ele- 
 vated amusement out of the hall as in it. The quicken- 
 ing social influence of an excellent lecture, particularly 
 in a community where life flows sluggishly and all are 
 absorbed in manual labor, is as remarkable as it is 
 beneficent. The lecture and the lecturer are the com- 
 mon topics of discussion for a week, and the conversa- 
 tion which is so apt to cling to health and the weather 
 is raised above the level of commonplace. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that a moiety, or a major- 
 ity, of the popular lecturers are clergymen, the lecture 
 has not always received the favor of the cloth. Indeed, 
 there has often been private and sometimes public 
 complaint on the part of preachers, that the finished 
 productions of the lecturer, the results of long and 
 patient elaboration, rendered doubly attractive by a 
 style of delivery to be won only by frequent repetition 
 of the same discourse, have brought the hastily pre- 
 pared and plainly presented Sunday sermon into an un« 
 
332 The Popular Lecture. 
 
 just and damaging comparison. The complaint is a 
 strange one, particularly as no one has ever claimed 
 that the highest style of eloquence or the most remark- 
 able models of rhetoric are to be found in the lecture- 
 hall. There has, at least, been no general conviction 
 that a standard of excellence in English and its utter- 
 ance has been maintained there too high for the com- 
 fort and credit of the pulpit. It is possible, therefore, 
 that the pulpit betrays its weak point, and needs the 
 comparison which it deprecates. A man of brains will 
 gratefully receive suggestions from any quarter. That 
 impulses to a more familiar and direct style of sermon- 
 izing, a brighter and better elocution, and a bolder 
 utterance of personal convictions, have come to the pul- 
 pit from the platform, there is no question. This feel- 
 ing on the part of preachers is by no means universal, 
 however ; for some of them have long regarded the 
 lecture with contempt, and have sometimes resented it 
 as an impertinence. And it may be (for there shall be 
 no quarrel in the matter) that lecturers are quacks, and 
 that lectures, like homoeopathic remedies, are very 
 contemptible things ; but they have pleasantly modi- 
 fied the doses of the old practice, however slow the 
 doctors are to confess it ; and so much, at least, may 
 be counted among the beneficent results of the system 
 under discussion. 
 
 Last in the brief enumeration of the benefits of the 
 
The Popular Lecture. 333 
 
 popular lecture, it has been the devoted, consistent, 
 never tiring champion of universal liberty. If the 
 popular lecturer has not been a power in this nation 
 for the overthrow of American slavery — for its over- 
 throw in the conscientious convictions and the legal 
 and conventional fastnesses of the nation — then have 
 the friends of oppression grossly lied ; for none have 
 received their malicious and angry objurgations more 
 unsparingly than our plain-speaking gentleman who 
 makes his yearly circuit among the lyceums. No 
 champion of slavery, no advocate of privilege, no 
 apologist for systematized and legalized wrong has 
 ever been able to establish himself as a popular lec- 
 turer. The people may listen respectfully to such a 
 man once ; but, having heard him, they drop him for- 
 ever. In truth, a man cannot be a popular lecturer 
 who does not plant himself upon the eternal principles 
 of justice. He must be a democrat, a believer in and 
 an advocate of the equal rights of men. A slavery- 
 loving, slavery-upholding lecturer would be just as 
 much of an anomaly as a slavery-loving and slavery- 
 einging poet. The taint so vitiates the whole aesthetic 
 nature, so poisons the moral sense, so palsies the finer 
 powers, so destroys all true sympathy with universal 
 humanity, that the composition of an acceptable lecture 
 becomes impossible to the man who bears it. The 
 popular lecture, as it has been described in this discus- 
 
334: The Popular Lecture. 
 
 sion, has never existed at the South, and could not be 
 tolerated there. Until within four years it has never 
 found opportunity for utterance in the capital of the 
 nation ; but where liberty goes, it makes its way, and 
 helps to break the way for liberty everywhere. 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact, that the popular lecturer, 
 though the devoted advocate of freedom to the slave, 
 has rarely been regarded as either a trustworthy or an 
 important man in the party which has represented his 
 principles in this country. He has always been too free 
 to be a partisan, too radical and intractable for a party 
 seeking power or striving to preserve it. ISTo party of 
 any considerable magnitude has ever regarded him as 
 its expositor. A thousand times have party-speakers 
 and party-organs, professing principles identical with 
 his own, washed their hands of all responsibility for 
 his utterances. Even now, when the sound of falling 
 shackles is in the air, and the smoke of the torment 
 of the oppressor fills the sky, old partisans of freedom 
 cannot quite forget their stupid and hackneyed animos- 
 ities, but still bemoan the baleful influence of this fiery 
 itinerant. Representative of none but himself, dis- 
 owned or hated by all parties, acknowledging respon- 
 sibility to God and his own conscience only, he has 
 done his work, and done it well — done it amid careful 
 questionings and careless curses — done it, and been 
 royally paid for it, when speakers who fairly represent- 
 
The Popular Lecture. 335 
 
 ed the political and religious prejudices of the people 
 could not have called around them a baker's dozen, 
 with tickets at half-price or at no price at all. 
 
 When the cloud which now envelops the country 
 shall gather up its sulphurous folds and roll away, 
 tinted in its retiring by the smile of God beaming from 
 a calm sky upon a nation redeemed to freedom and 
 justice, and the historian, in the light of that smile, 
 shall trace home to their fountains the streams of influ- 
 ence and power which will then join to form the river 
 of the national life, he will find one, starting far in- 
 land among the mountains, longer than the rest and 
 mightier than most, and will recognize it as the conflu- 
 ent outpouring of living, Christian speech, from ten 
 thousand lecture-platforms, on which free men stood 
 and vindicated the right of man to freedom. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 ^ 
 
 •-0 
 
 ** ■< 
 
 v>% 
 
 o°\.' 
 
 x°° 
 
 V 
 
 •> ■<> 
 
 ^ V 'V 
 
 ^V 
 
 ^J. 
 
 ^ O v s // C • 
 
 '>, 
 

 v-v ■:%:•■ 
 
 v J 
 
HI 
 iiliii 
 
 iili 
 
 
 SHBH8H 
 
 Hh 
 
 Utt 
 W 
 
 
 
 
 I- 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS $ 
 
 021 899 079 4 
 
 I