J?- 
 
 THE MOVING POWER 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH 
 
 IN PHILADELHHIA, 
 
 SUNDAY MORNING, FEB. 9, 1851, 
 
 AFTER THE OCCURRENCE OF A FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE. 
 
 W. H. FURNESS 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 MERIUHEW AND THOMPSON, PRINTERS, 
 
 No. 7 Carter's Alley. 
 1851. 
 

 // b~ Co 3 b 
 

 DISCOURSE 
 
 GALAT. IV. XVlIf. 
 "It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing." 
 
 And not only so; it is quite impossible to effect anything in life, 
 without the due degree of feeling, without a zealous interest in it. 
 A man must be in earnest. As you cannot set a steam engine 
 going without making a fire, so you cannot get the power neces- 
 sary to the achievement of what you undertake, unless you have 
 what may be called, and what really is, an enthusiasm about it. 
 The successful men are always the men who are really interested 
 in what they attempt ; and no others. They love their work. They 
 are inspired by a passion, and a passion so strong and so steady, 
 that it takes away from labor all its irksomeness, and gives to 
 self-denial the sweetness of self-gratification, and converts self- 
 sacrifice into an exquisite luxury. Unless it is so with us, pre- 
 cisely so, or rather, only as it is so, can we gain our ends. 
 
 My friends, is not this all very plain ? Is it not universally 
 true, true in regard to all undertakings 1 To imagine that any 
 object of human pursuit can be secured without interest in it — is 
 it not as absurd as to think of seeing without eyes, or living with- 
 out air 1 
 
 But it is emphatically true — what I have just said — in the case r 
 
of all things of a great moral or religious character. Whatever 
 we engage in, having reference to the inmost life of us, to the 
 growth of our being up to its appointed stature, in fine, to the salva- 
 tion and perfection of the soul, must be engaged in in earnest, with 
 the heart, or it will come to nothing. As a tree cannot grow, but 
 must of necessity wither and die, without a root, so we have no 
 force, we can have none, there is none for us anywhere, except it 
 comes out of our hearts. 
 
 Accordingly the appeal of Christianity is directly and mainly, not 
 to our reason, but to the heart. While it requires us to do certain 
 things and forbids us to do others, still its first and great com- 
 mandment is Love, the Love of God and man ; and Love is, not 
 an exertion of the muscles, not a conclusion of the understanding, 
 but a feeling, an affection, a passion. It is the affection, in and 
 through which we are to find all the strength requisite for doing 
 and for refraining to do. When, therefore, the aim is our own 
 improvement or the good of others, the indispensable preliminary 
 is that we should cherish it with enthusiasm. We can do nothing 
 for it, we are as helpless as the dead in their graves, we may talk 
 and reason about it till the day of doom, and flatter ourselves that 
 Ave understand all about it, that no one understands it better, and 
 we may, in fact, understand it as completely as it can be under- 
 stood, and yet if we do not feel, if we are not in a glow here at 
 the heart, it is all to no purpose. Not an effort can be made, not 
 a step taken, not a finger stirred. We end where we began. 
 We remain just as we were, fastened to the spot, with nothing to 
 overcome the dead force of gravitation. 
 
 And here, by the way, the reason is made very apparent, why it is 
 that we are all so prone to question and deny the possibility of ac- 
 complishing any great object, the abolition of great wrongs, the 
 realization of great benefits. There are very few men who cher- 
 '| Q h any confident hope of the success of any object of this kind ; 
 and still fewer who actually believe that such things can be ac- 
 
complished. And, at. one point of view, we hardly see how to ac- 
 count for this absence of faith and hope in the practicability of 
 great purposes. Here we are in the midst of an immeasurable 
 Universe, all the arrangements of which point to good. Everything 
 tends to the welfare of God's creatures. Nothing exists for evil 
 and evil only. The evil that does exist conduces, or may be made 
 to conduce, to good. How significantly, for instance, do all the 
 aspects of Nature express the beauty, and all the elements thereof 
 assert the glory of Liberty ! Its voice is heard in the roar of the 
 unfettered ocean, in the murmurs of every wind that blows. It 
 sounds among the mountains, setting all their echoes to its music. 
 It sings in the song of every bird that floats in the free air. All 
 things combine to announce and magnify it. And yet, notwith- 
 standing the manifest omnipresence of an Almighty and Beneficent 
 Power, we have no faith, scarcely any thing that can be called 
 a hope, in the emancipation of the enslaved, in the elevation of 
 our race. We doubt and deny the possibility of such things, or 
 our admission of it is very cold and faint. We doubt and deny it, 
 not because we are ignorant, not because we do not know that the 
 predominating purpose and power of things is good, and that 
 everything is fitted to promote the diffusion and increase of good, 
 but because we have no knowledge through our own consciousness, 
 (the only way in which such knowledge can be had, or is so much 
 as possible,) of that feeling, that earnest interest, which alone gene- 
 rates the force, which alone is the force, by which the wrong is 
 abolished and the right rendered victorious. Our understandings 
 may be perfectly satisfied. To the eye of our reason, it may be 
 very clear that wrong is wrong, and right is right ; and we may 
 see also and be convinced that God is always working through all 
 the laws and forces of nature to advance the good and bring the 
 evil to an end, still we have no faith, no hope ; and our counsel 
 consequently is that things should be let alone ; and our knees are 
 weak and our hands hang down. The plain fact is, we are 
 
strangers to that mightiest force in nature by which evil is defeat- 
 ed, and good made triumphant. We have no real concern for what 
 is good. We actually care little or nothing about mankind ; we 
 are cold and indifferent, devoid of the enthusiasm for Truth 
 which is the only power in existence that can enthrone her in the 
 world. 
 
 Once in a while, at long intervals, men make their appearance, 
 uncultivated, ignorant men perhaps, to all human seeming, ob- 
 scure, solitary, with no remarkable powers of mind, scarcely pos- 
 sessing any gift of utterance, but with large and fiery hearts ; and 
 they not only see the Right, they feel it — they feel it like a ma- 
 terial presence, like a consuming flame in their bosoms. It is no 
 matter of cold speculation with them, but an object of their idol- 
 izing affection. They love it with their whole souls. And in the 
 conscious power of their love, they have a hope and a faith so strong 
 and so inspiring that they engage in the cause of the Right with 
 a vigor that carries all before it, and fling down the gauntlet to 
 all the world's wisdom and power, and, in the unequal conflict 
 win immortal victories, and crowns of 'blinding' and imperishablt 
 glory. Such an one was the Apostle Paul, who said : ' I know 
 that bonds and afflictions await me, but none of these things move 
 me, neither count I my life dear to myself, so that I may finish 
 my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received to tes- 
 tify the Gospel of the grace of God.' "There is something exceed- 
 ingly majestic in the steadiness with which the Apostle points out the 
 single object of his life, and the unquenchable courage with which 
 he walks towards it. ' I know that I shall die, butl have a great- 
 er object than life, the zeal of a high duty. Situation allows 
 some men to think of safety ; I not only must not consult it, but 
 must go where I know it will be most exposed. I must hold out 
 my hands for chains, my body for stripes, and my soul for misery. 
 I am ready to do it all.' These are the feelings," continues the 
 eloquent writer Avhom I quote, "by which alone bold truths 
 
have been told to the world ; by which the bondage of falsehood 
 has been broken and the chains of slavery snapt asunder ! It is 
 in vain to talk of men numerically ; if the passions of a man are 
 exalted to a summit like this, he is a thousand men ! If all the 
 feebleness and fluctuation of his nature are shamed away, you 
 must not pretend to calculate upon his efforts. Under the influence 
 of sublime feelings, sometimes liberty, sometimes religious men, 
 have sprung up from the dust, to shiver the oldest dominions ; to 
 toss to the ground the highest despots ; to astonish ages to come 
 with the immensity and power and grandeur of human feelings. 
 In all desperate situations, these are the feelings that must rescue 
 us ; when prudence is mute, when reason is baffled, when all the 
 ordinary resources of discretion are exhausted and dried up — 
 there is no safety but in heroic passions, no hope but in sublime 
 men."* 
 
 Is it any wonder now that we have no faith in the force of 
 Truth and the success of Right, when we know nothing of the 
 power to serve them, which only affection can supply, which can 
 be supplied in no other way, from no other quarter on earth 
 or in heaven, and which alone can make their triumph cer- 
 tain ? 
 
 We may ridicule and despise enthusiasm and call it by all sorts 
 of disparaging names, yet it is the life and hope of mankind, the 
 central and moving power. Without it all things would go to de- 
 cay, tumble into ruins. It is the source of all human energy. It 
 is the breath of the Almighty, the wind and fire from heaven, 
 which, when once fairly abroad in the hearts of men, will sweep 
 away and consume all opposition, the mightiest that can be mustered. 
 
 *Sidney Smith. According to the estimate of the State of Georgia, 
 William Lloyd Garrison would seem to be one of these rare men. For he 
 scarcely opened his lips on the subject of Slavery before that great State 
 offered $5000 for his head, surmising with the instinctive sagacity of fear 
 that it carried in it the Abolition of that mighty Wrong. 
 
8 
 
 So manifest is this from all that we know of human nature and 
 from all the lessons of history, that when this whole-hearted 
 affection appears in the world, when any number of men, 
 however small, nay, when only one man, no matter how 
 humble, is fully possessed with it, to resist him is a great 
 deal worse than in vain. The world may as well lay down 
 its arms with what stomach it can, and acknowledge its con- 
 queror, and come to terms with him at once. There is no put- 
 ting him down. There is no putting him off. He will command, 
 and what is more, he will be obeyed. He may be persecuted, but 
 he cannot be silenced ; for he will compel his very persecutors 
 to be the vociferous heralds of his fame. He may be crucified, 
 but he cannot be conquered ; he will turn the cross on which he 
 bleeds into a throne, and kings shall come and bow to it. He 
 may be chained to the stake and burned ; and the light of the 
 fire that consumes his body shall flash down the coming 
 ages, a beacon-light to generations. You may scatter his 
 ashes to the winds ; and they shall be as seed, sown by the 
 mighty hand of God, from which shall spring an immortal har- 
 vest of saints and heroes. Put forth your utmost power against 
 him and grind him into dust, and there shall roll up a cloud of 
 incense to fill and ravish and purify and hallow the world with 
 the odor of its sanctity. 
 
 Seeing then that zeal, enthusiasm, love, or whatever it may be 
 called, is the grand motive power, without which Religion with 
 all its ceremonies, and Reason and Philosophy with all their wis- 
 dom are as inefficient as so much mechanism of w T ood and iron, 
 we find ourselves confronted with a question of indescribable im- 
 portance to every soul of man. And this question is simply this: 
 How shall we get this feeling? How shall we become inspired 
 with the ardor necessary to the salvation of our souls andthe de- 
 liverance of the world from the bondage of evil ? 
 
 We fully admit the absolute necessity of being in earnest, if we 
 
are to effect anything for ourselves and for others. We know that 
 we must love God with our utmost strength, and our brother as 
 we love ourselves. We must love Truth and Mercy and Justice with 
 our whole hearts. And when we are told to do so, we answer : 
 'We want to love God and all that is good, and Christ and his 
 spirit and his precepts as we love our friends and our children, and 
 our ease, and even more than we love these. We would that the 
 Best stood the Highest in our affections.' 
 
 But we say, we cannot love, merely because we are command- 
 ed to love, or because we want to love. You might as well com- 
 mand us to eat and drink with a relish ; if we are not hungry or 
 thirsty, all the commanding in the world will be of no avail. You 
 may lecture to us never so eloquently about the advantages of eat- 
 ing and drinking, and tell us how they conduce to health and 
 strength, and explain to us the structure of the body, and show 
 us the importance of nourishment; and what is more, we may listen 
 to you with the greatest patience, and our reason may be per- 
 fectly convinced that it is beneficial and necessary that we should 
 take food, but we do not immediately become hungry and thirsty 
 in consequence. We may wish that we were hungry and athirst, 
 but all our mere wishing, however strongly expressed, will not 
 make us so. We may still, after all, loathe food or be entirely in- 
 different to it. Is there not a complete analogy here, between the 
 body and the soul ? You may tell us of the divinity of truth, and 
 of being true, and of the beauty of holiness, and satisfy our un- 
 derstandings of the necessity and obligation of loving the right 
 and the good with a perfect love, yet it does not necessarily fol- 
 low that we cherish that love. We cannot desire what is good, 
 merely because we desire to desire it. We cannot hunger 
 for righteousness, merely because we should so like to be hun- 
 gry for it. All our mere wishing will not of itself alone create 
 the spiritual appetite. I cannot leap at once into the possession 
 of faith and love, by a simple act of my own will. 
 
10 
 
 So true is all this, so evident is it that we cannot cherish a de- 
 sire, merely because we wish to cherish it, or because we are con- 
 vinced that we ought to cherish it, that there really seems to be no 
 little plausibility in the doctrine which teaches that we can do 
 nothing for ourselves, that we only sin when we attempt it, that we 
 must wait for the sovereign grace of God to do for us what is 
 needed. 
 
 And truly such would seem to be the case, most especially when 
 we see, as we may, that, when God is doing a great deal for us, 
 we still seem to have no power to do anything for ourselves; that, 
 when the Holy Spirit of his Mercy darts its thrilling appeals, like 
 lightnings out of Heaven, into our inmost hearts, those hearts re- 
 main cold and hard as adamant, and scarcely one poor drop of 
 human feeling oozes therefrom. "What have we just beheld ? Into 
 this community, which so significantly expresses through its numer- 
 ous Churches and its Sabbaths to want to love God and man, into 
 this free, Christian, and praying community'comes a man, and drags 
 a fellow-creature before our courts, a being made by the same God 
 that made us all, God-endowed, a woman and a mother, and lays 
 claim to her as his property, which he has a perfect right to sell 
 and treat like any beast of burden; and this too, as if to give the 
 greatest possible aggravation to the case, after she has enjoyed al- 
 most a quarter of a century of freedom; and men stand forth 
 amongst us to assist in the prosecution of this inhuman claim ! And 
 was the community kindled at once into a flame of excited pity and 
 indignation ? Has anybody lost his appetite or his sleep ? Were 
 we born of woman ? Did we ,feed from our mothers' breasts 1 Is 
 there any , touch of humanity in us ? Can we so much 
 as weep 1 It hardly appears. It is true we shook our 
 heads and said that we were very sorry, that it was a great pity, 
 but we soon comforted ourselves with saying, that at the worst the 
 poor creature would not be sent back into bondage, that she would 
 be bought off, that the despised friends of the slave, the Abolition- 
 
11 
 
 ists, whom we denounce, would see to it that she was taken care 
 of. But where, where was that storm of public indignation that 
 should have broken forth with terrific power, more like the power 
 of God than the power of man, if we had any love of humanity in 
 us, at the bare idea of so monstrous a claim 1 Where is the intol- 
 erable shame that should bow down our heads to the dust at the 
 thought of the sacred soil of this Free State of Pennsylvania turned 
 into a very Guinea coast, a hunting ground, where human beings 
 are the game and mothers are torn from their children? Where is 
 that love of Mercy and of Freedom that such events as this should 
 awaken into such power that we should rush together in a mass, 
 with one heart and voice, solemnly to swear before God that, come 
 what may, Union or no Union, such things shall no longer be ? 
 my hearers, the condition of that poor woman and her children 
 was pitiable enough. But it was not the most pitiable thing, by 
 any means, in this affair. Had the worst happened to her that 
 might, had she been consigned again to slavery, still the place, 
 where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, 
 would still have been only, at the farthest, a little distance off 
 And her little ones — the alms-house and the penitentiary would 
 have taken care of them ; and in a little while they would have 
 followed their mother to her rest. But in what terms shall be de- 
 picted our own miserable condition ! Here we are, lapped in com- 
 fort, surrounded by mothers, sisters and children, bound by most 
 tender ties, amidst the blazing light of a nineteenth Christian 
 century, on a soil, consecrated by the tears and blood and memor- 
 ials of the most splendid and successful struggle for Humanity 
 the world has ever witnessed, yet we cannot be touched by the di- 
 vine beauty of Mercy and of Liberty ; so chained are we, in the in- 
 most being of us, by inhuman prejudices, by selfishness and pride 
 of prosperity that we can hardly feel for our own flesh ; with no 
 vigor, no life, but dead, dead while we live. It is a sight to make 
 the angels weep in the very presence of God. 
 
12 
 
 Truly, it would seem, as I have already said, that we never 
 had any power, or, if we ever had it, that it had gone from us : 
 power to feel, power to love with simple human affection what is 
 humane and just ; that, even when Providence is assisting us to feel 
 by events of the most awakening character, when the Holy Spirit, 
 through the wrongs and agonies of a poor human mother and the 
 feeble cries of forsaken children, speaks to whatever of humanity 
 there is in us, and searches for our hearts to fill them with its own 
 love, our hearts are nowhere to be found. 
 
 I will not limit the resources of God's mercy. They are inex- 
 haustible. He has events in store for us that will reach and move 
 us, if the past and the present can not ; and if tears and groans, 
 the anguish of a mother's heart and the wailings of helpless child- 
 hood cannot touch us, he will send forth from the hiding of his 
 Power, fiery and bloody ministers ; and at their presence the moun- 
 tains of our pride shall flow down and our stony natures shall be 
 melted ; and amidst trial and agony, Truth and Right shall be re- 
 vealed to us in a terrible beauty, and we shall leave all and flee to 
 them and worship and obey. 
 
 But at present we are so fettered by our selfish and worldly 
 habits that it is hardly possible for us to feel, even in cases 
 in which it would seem to be impossible not to feel. Thus far all 
 the gracious aid which has been afforded us in the Providence of 
 Heaven seems to have been all but wasted; we lie bound hand and 
 foot in the most deplorable insensibility. 
 
 Nevertheless we still profess to desire to love God and his truth 
 with supreme affection. We would fain feel as we ought. 
 
 Well, then, although it is true that we cannot have the right 
 feeling, merely because we wish to have it, yet we can do 
 something; we can do all that is needful to be done towards ob- 
 taining it. What we can do towards this end is little, but if we do 
 that little, all will be done; for God is at hand to make good the de- 
 ficiency^ our power. lie is here, always ready to help us, not in any 
 
13 
 
 supernatural and extraordinary way, but in the plain course of 
 nature and providence. He is supplying us with abundant and power- 
 ful causes and occasions for feeling. And as the hunger of the body 
 may be stimulated by the exhibition of food, so the love of God is 
 continually providing us with opportunities, placing us in situa- 
 tions, causing occurrences to take place before our eyes, fitted to 
 create in us the sacred hunger for Righteousness, the love of the 
 good, which is the spring of all power. 
 
 And the one thing we have to do is simply this: To attend. 
 Although we cannot believe or love, merely because we will so to 
 do, it clearly lies within our ability to give attention to what sounds 
 in our ears, to what passes before our eyes. We can command 
 our attention if we will. Is is within our ability to say whether 
 we will put our fingers in our ears or not, whether we will keep 
 our eyes open or shut. He then that has eyes to see, let him see ! 
 He that has ears to hear, let him hear ! 
 
 If we will only pause and consider why it is that men are so de- 
 ficient in right feeling, we shall perceive that it is because, although 
 they have eyes, yet they do not see, and ears, yet they do not hear. 
 We think it a very small matter whether we use our eyes and ears. 
 It is no matter of principle with us, but only of idle curiosity. If 
 we do not happen to like what is to be seen or heard, if it does not 
 suit our notions, our prejudices, we have not the slightest scruple — 
 we consider ourselves at perfect liberty to walk away. And yet, 
 jn turning thus thoughtlessly away, in refusing to attend, we may 
 wrong our own souls most fearfully. We defraud ourselves of op- 
 portunities of life and power, we know not how precious. On such 
 occasions, of little moment as we may think them, we seal our own 
 doom. Then the Judge was seated and the Book was opened and the 
 sentence was pronounced at the dread invisible tribunal, then, when 
 our feet were perhaps on the threshold of Heaven, and we knew 
 it not, but turned recklessly away. Then we might have entered upon 
 a new life, a new world of truth would have dawned upon us, a 
 
14 
 
 new fountain of power gushed up within us. Without being aware of 
 it, we have passed through a crisis which will determine our condi- 
 tion, we know not for how long ; and that thoughtless act of wil- 
 ful inattention consigns our mind to a darkness that deepens at 
 every step, and our hearts to a spiritual stupor that shall wrap us 
 like a shroud, and from which nothing in the usual order of things 
 can startle us. No matter how vigorous may be our understandings, 
 or how highly cultivated, yet if, having ears to hear, we will not 
 hear, our hearts will become harder than the nether millstone ; 
 and mothers may be torn from their children again and again, and 
 the most outrageous injustice be enacted, and we shall be incapable 
 of feeling any pity. Take heed, then, I beseech you, take heed 
 how you hear ; for unto him, who exerts what power he has to 
 hear, be it ever so little, will more power be given, but from him, 
 who does not exert the power that he may, will be taken away — 
 he will inevitably lose — what power he has. 
 
 It appears now that, in order to be inspired with the earnest- 
 ness in the cause of the Right, which is of such vital importance, 
 and which we all profess to desire, we can do something. We can 
 command our attention. We can use our eyes and ears, and give 
 heed to all those occurrences by which God acts upon our nature to 
 awaken our sympathies and inspire us with his own omnipotent 
 spirit. Here then is one thing we can do. Do, my hearers, give 
 it your consideration. 
 
 In addition, we can invigorate the true spirit by being faithful to 
 it, when it exists within us in any degree. We can do something 
 to keep it from being quenched. What we know to be right, let 
 us commit ourselves to that ; and then we shall find ourselves 
 growing strong, when we have rendered the smallest service to 
 Truth and Right. Remember the wise injunction : Do what you 
 know you should, and a new light will shine upon your path, a new 
 life animate you. Unlike the appetite of the body, the hunger of 
 ihe soul is stimulated by being fed ; it is not satisfied. 'Blessed 
 
15 
 
 are they who hunger after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' 
 Filled — with what ? Filled with that supreme desire, that absorb- 
 ing love of what is good, which is at once the eternal hunger and 
 the infinite satisfaction of the soul. Again therefore I say, com- 
 mit youself to the great cause of God and Humanity. Speak for 
 it. Stand up for it. Do not be, like the politicians, forever under 
 the necessity of defining your position. Let your position define 
 itself; so that no man can mistake it, let him look at it from what 
 quarter he may, from the East or the West, from the North or the 
 South. And then, when you find yourself irretrievably bound to 
 the stand which you have taken, you will naturally be prompted, 
 as every man is, who, using the powers God has given him, has a 
 position of his own, to make good your position to yourself and to 
 all the world ; and you will find yourself growing more and more 
 in earnest in the use of your eyes and ears and of all the faculties 
 of thought and feeling with which you are endowed. As you grow 
 thoughtful and earnest, as you muse, the fire will burn. You will 
 be inspired with that pure and powerful spirit which the Almighty 
 breathes into every true soul. Thus will come to you, almost 
 before you are aware, the zeal, of which you once thought 
 yourself incapable, which you profess you should like to 
 have, but which all your wishes and professions will never bring 
 you. 
 
 Finally, as to accomplish any good thing, we must be in 
 earnest, as it is not enough that our reason is convinced, as we 
 must feel deeply, it follows that, when the love of Righteousness 
 and Freedom is awakened among us in the due strength, when 
 the hearts of the great majority of the people are inspired by it, the 
 giant Wrong.which now rests upon this nation,likesome huge weight 
 of granite or of iron, seeming to defy all our efforts at its removal, and 
 actually defying all the shallow compromises of politicians, will 
 vanish before the burning hearts of the people, like a foul vapor of 
 the night before the beams of the morning sun. In the victorious 
 
 
16 
 
 faith of a great enthusiasm, we shall look upon it as it flits away, 
 and wonder where the mighty difficulty was. In the meanwhile 
 our plain duty is to put our ourselves, promptly and cordially, in 
 alliance with the Providence of Almighty God, who, through the 
 events daily occurring right before our eyes, is seeking to compel 
 and fix our attention and make us feel. Labouring together with 
 God, we must keep our own hearts wide open for the communica- 
 tions of his love, and do our utmost, each in his place, to stir up 
 the hearts of those around us, till they glow and burn with an all- 
 conquering love of Freedom, forget their sleep, their daily busi- 
 ness and their daily bread, yield themselves up exultingly to the 
 blessed service of wronged and hunted men, and count it infinitely 
 better than money or office to live and die for God and the Right. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 00051^0775 $