TWELVE SETIMONS.
I 
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Entered according to act of Coni-ess ill the year 1860(), by
TIC KN O    A N D   F I E L 1) S,
in thle Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massaclusetts.
CA M'IB R ID   E:
Tl-,UTRSTOW & MILES,
! B-reok ers  nd Puinters.
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PREFACE.
THE Twelve Sermons constituting this volume, were
written and delivered while Mr. Mann was President
of Antioch College. The Faculty of the College retained the privilege of preaching in their own hands,
and either officiated alternately, or agreed upon inviting other clergymen, or perchance laymen, from abroad,
to take their places.
The Editor has added to the Sermons the Meditations that were found in the manuscripts, and which,
though not read, undoubtedly formed the basis of the
prayers accompanying the Sermons.
The careful revising hand of the Author would
doubtless have given these Sermons to the world, if ihe
had ever published them, in a more perfect form, and
with the addition of much  that was spoken extemporaneously when delivered; but they will be valuable as
they are, it is hoped, to those who loved to listen to his
teachings. 
A 
CONTENTS.
I. GOD'S BEING, THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DUTY, 
II. GOD'S CHARACTER, THE LAW OF HUMAN DUTY,    o
II[. GOD'S LAW, THE PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY,
IV. SIN, THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW,...
V. TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL, A DUTY,.....
VI. THE PRODIGAL SON,.....
VII. THE PRODIGAL SON,.........
VIII TEMPTATION,...........
IX. RETRIBUTION............
X. THE KINGDOM, OF HEAVEN,.......
XI. IMMORT.ALITY.............
XII. MIRACLES,...........
. 11
33
.  65
85
. 109
~   133
. 153
~   167
. 195
~   217
. 245
.   273 
I 
GOD'S BEING THE FOUNDATION
OF HUMAN DUTY.
1  
SERMIONS.
I.
GOD'S BEING TIlE FOUNDATION OF hIUMAN DUTY.
IN the new and almost parental relation ill which I
stand to young men and young, women, I propose to
deliver a series of Discourses on various subjects pertainingr to Human Duty, and particularly designed to
show that the realization of Happiness call alone  coiec
from the performance of Duty.
These Discourses will not be theological, thoughl they
will have something to say respecting the existence,
character, and attributes of God, and much to say respectingr his laws and government on earth.   They will
not be strictly scientific; thougrh they will welcome and(
solicit the aid of all those departments of systematized
knowledge which we dignify with the name of science
all our natural and moral sciences being, but expressions of God's will as manifeste(d in nature and maln.
Least of all will thev be devoted to mere  questions of
political economy, or profit and loss, in a mercantile or
worldly sense; thou,gh even here, they will avail themselves of every opportunity to demonstrate that, as
godliness is great gain," so there can be no great
gain, or gain of any kind, in despite or in defiance of
godliness.
[III 
GO D'S BEING THE
Not beingr an ordained minister of the Gospel, I may
conform to the almost universal custom of such persons,
in not speaking from a text; and yet I may be allowed
to cite the text which an ordained minister would preach
upon.
In reg(rard to Duty, I believe not only in the Ten
Commandments, but in ten thousand.  God lives and
rules by law; and, therefore, whlerever He lives, and
wherever He rules, there is law, and a law of God is a
coimhand.  All the kingdoms of nature around usthe inorganic which exists, and the organic wlich lives,
and the sentient which feels-are pervaded by God's
laws.  We also, in all our powers, faculties, and susceptibilities, are the subjects of God's laws.  Our limbs
and our body, our stomach and our brain, not less than
our heart, each is the subject of God's laws.   That is,
there is a right way, and there are wrongr ways for tlhemi
all; and God commands  the ri,ght way.  Tlhere is,
therefore, not only a Decalogue, but a Mirialotgue.
Of course, among(r all these commands(l, there must be
the first ten.  But hlaving learned these, we ouglit to
go on and learn the rest as fast as we can; an(l, as we
learn, we ought to obey; otlherwise, the learning, is but
the unprofitable hloard of the miser.
But if I discourse on Duty, I must have a foundation
for my discourse.  I must have proof of the solidity and
validity of that foundation.   No man should affirm anythling, or deny anything,, without proof, tlhat is, without
reason. Witlh all rational minds, it is in vain for me to
build the most magrnificent superstructure of airgumient,
and leav-e the four corners hanging( in the air.
I find the fotuldation of Duty in the beincr and attributes of God.   Tliere are se()(ll'v and(l incidental
12
-t. 
FOUNDATION OF IIUMAN DUTY.
arguments, but this is tile primary and ori,ginal one.
There are collateral arguments; but this is fundamental.
Even on the atheistic hypothesis of no God, it could be
shown  that Duty is expedient; but on the theistic hlypothesis of a God, it can be demionstrated that  the
knowledge and the performance of Duty are the higlest
moral necessities for every human being.
It may be a very easy matter to adduce such evidence
of the existence of God as shall be acceptable and satisfactory to one who believes it already. Such a one is
only to be moved down the inclined plane of argument,
and goes easily. But I wish to adduce such evidence
as shall be imperative and constraining to those minds
whiclh do not derive their evidence from their belief,
but their belief from their evidence. Such minds are
to be moved up the inclined plane of argument, and so
both friction and weight are to be overcome.
First, then, I would reverently attempt to prove the
existence of a God, by the same kind of evidence as
prov-es the existence of the external and material world.
Do vou believe in the existence of rivers and forests, of
mountains and oceans, of sun, lmoon, and a firmament
of stars?  Do you believe in the existence of men, and
of the various zoological races, whetlier they walk or
fly, or creep or swimn?  Do you believe in the existence
of anythling outside of yourself, or in anytlhing that is
not yourself?
People who do not believe in the existence of anything, outside of themselves, or in the existence of anything which is not themselves, are commonly considered
the subjects of medical treatment, before they beconme
the sul)iects of s-llogistic or ar-tmentative treatment.
And this medical  tiatmeniit, in w-ell-or(ler(d states, is
1I
13
0 
GOD)'S BEING TIlE
administered inside a lunatic or insane asylum. Wheln,
therefore, we see a man outside of an asylum for the
insane, we are entitled to presume that he does believe
in the existence of a material world.  As to those who
are inside of the insane hospital, let them first go thllrough
with a course of medicine, and afterwards, if necessary,
with a course of logic.
But on what evidence do we believe in the existence
of a material universe outside of ourselves?  I answer,
on thie evidence of the senses, and of reason.
On thle evidence of the senses.  There is an ancient
proverb, that " seeing is believiing."  By our eyes, we
see that thlings exist around us.  And we see the greatest differences between these tliings, in color, slhape,
size, &c.  If all of them, taken tog(ethler, are not solmlething, then tlhey are nothing; and it seems to mie that
N'othing would look more alike, - that is, if it could
look at all.  The external world gives out its myriad
varieties, of sounds to our ear, of odors to iour sniell, of
tastes to our palate, and of tactual sensatiOls.   Tlhe
mountain topl) does not appear like the Inountltin ca-ve;
the shriek of a drowniing man does not sound(l like an
infimt's lautgi; water new-born fiom a  )itre  fountain
does not taste nor smell like the drunkard(is foutl b)everage; and tlhe tliorn-tree does not feel like the )ig(eon's
)lumny b)reast.  If Notliiiy could ble seen or heard, or
smelt, or tasted, or felt, would it not b)e more alike 9
Wlhen INothing call blast the eye-l)alls in tlhe liglitning's
flasl, or solace thle diseased vision in the verdure of
spring; lwhen Nothing can sttun in the wvlirlwvind's roar,
or whisper a welcome to its swNeets as its comes o'erladen
fi'om sp)icy droves; w-nieii Nothill(  clan congeal us with
arctic colds, or dissolve us withl tropic heats; when
14 
FOUNDATION OF IIUMIAN DUTY.
Nothing can tear us in pieces by the ti(rer's fangs, or bind
utp our wounds with -/Esculapian skill; when Nothling
can consume our bodies and scatter the ashes to the
winds, or, witlh Egyptian ungLcuenIts can preserve these
same bodies for thousands of years;- when Nothlling
can do all these things, and ten times ten million more
like them, and repeat them forever, then it will be time
to alter its name, and call it Something.   Now, that is
the Something, which is not you, but is outside of
you, whose existence I am demonstrating.  But, if you
sav that the thing which you call Nothing  has thle
power to put on all this myriad of forms and to do all
this inyriad of thingcrs, then you mean by Nothing, what
I mean by Somethinrg, and we will not dispute about
words.
Now I think it can be shown that there is as highi   a
kind of evidence to our spirits of what we call the Spiritual Wrorld, as there is to our bodily senses of what we
call the MIaterial W17orlld.
I think it can be as convincingly proved that Arkwrichit and Fulton had mechanical talent; that Lord
Chatham  and Dr. Franklin had statesmanship; that
ShlakIspeare and  Milton had poetic geniius; and that
Howard and Oberlin had philanthropy; as that they
hlad boclies, lived in houses, b)reathed air, and ate fbod.
AlIy mind or spirit has proof of the existence of mind
or spirit in others, -proof of affection, talent, genius,
virtue, devotion, just as my bodily senses have of the
existence of what we call the material universe, -seas,
plains, fish, beast, bird, man, stars, galaxies. The spirit
has powers of perception for sl)iritulal qualities outside
of itself, just as the body has organs for the perception
of material properties outside of' itself. What is this,
15 
GOD'S BEING THE
which we call love or hate, which we call philanthropy
or misanthropy, which we call fidelity or perfidy, which
we call saintliness or sin, devotion or impiety;- are all
these the attributes and qualities of Nothing also? The
Levite and the Samaritan, Napoleon and Washington,
Judas and Jesus, were they all the same, too; or rather,
were they all Nothing?.I say, as I said before, that I
think we should find Nothing less variously diversified;
or, if you say that Nothing does put on this multiplicity
and diversity of forms, then you affirm that it is no
longer Nothing, but Something.  Rational beings, then,
who believe in the existence of what we call Matter,
cannot escape from a belief in what we call Mind.
But perhaps an objector will say, that a proof of the
existence of mind does not prove the existence of a
Supreme Mind, - of a creative, intelligent, sovereign,
first cause.  But here, too, it seems to me that the evidence is overwhelmning.  It is the same in nature, or in
kind, as the evidence before referred to,- the evidence
of the existence of matter, and of the existence of mind,
the same in kind, though infinitely greater in amount
and in demonstrativeness.
Whether unaided human reason would ever have
conceived or originated the idea of a God, has been
questioned, and is perhaps questionable. But this I
deem to be a fact not questionable; that there is a sentiment in man, something instinctive, though infinitely
higher and wider in its functions than mere animal instinct, which does suggest, intimate, nay, which would
originate the conception of a Supreme Being.  And if
any pestilence of atheism could suppress or abolish all
expression and belief of the existence of a God in a
whole generation, thle next generation would originate
16 
FOUN')DATION  OF ITUMAN DUTY.
the same idea for itself.  Extinguish it in the parent,
and it would blaze up anew in his children.  Just as
perfect arms and peirfect feet will come to children,
though born thlrough a father whose own limbs have all
been amputated, so an inborn  sentiment and apprehension of a God will come to a child whose father has
striven to smothler and stifle that sentiment in himself.
All nations and tribes which have ever beeni discovered,
and into -whlose condition any adequate scrutiny has
been made, have been found to possess the idea of a
Supreme Beingr.  The polished Athenians erect a temple to the Unknown God.   The Persians worship the
sun.  The  degraded  Afirican has  his  Feticli.  And
thus, I say, we have inward faculties of veneration and
wonder, -whlich of their own mere action su(ggest the
existence, evolve the idea of a great Spiritual Beiing
above us, just as we have outward senses that excite the
idea of material objects around us.  To  any one who
could perfectly colnprehlend our structure, a knowledge
of the eve, even before birth, would communicate tlhe
fact of thle existence of light; a knowledge of the structure of the ear would show that it was made for sound;
and an inspection of tlungs and blood would prove the
existence of thle air.  Just so the religious sentiments
of - veneration and wonder, which are natural to us and
born in us, suggrest or originate the conception of a God.
Now we may call this Beilng by any one of aI thousand
namnes,-  with the Hebrews, Eloi; witlh thle Greeks,
Tilteos; with the Romans, zDeus; with the French,
)ieu; w-ithl the Germans, Gott; or withl the Englisli,
God; or we miay call him  the UinknowNn  or tle Uin-med God; or w-e may call Him by tile siiblime al)pellationi " I       Tm."  That is anotihe(r miatter.  We are now
17 
GOI)'S BEING TIIE
speaking, of thle sentiment in the hmnan mnilnd, and iiot
of its name in a  iumani lainguage.
After these strong relig,ious sentiments of veneration
and wonder have excited the idea of a God, just as
thlirst or hunger excite the idea of water and food, then
the reason or understanding, takes up that idea, and
gives it shape and qualities.  And here two thling,s are
certain; that, in forming its idea of God, the mind can
attribute to Him no quality or attribute of which it has
itself no conception, and that it will attribute to God
such qualities and attributes as most abound in itself:
You may hear a thousand men expatiate upon the clharacter of God, and no two of them will apportion His
peifections atlike.  The austere man  always attributes
to Him more of a stern justice; the benevolent man
more mercy; the lover of grandeur and sublimity regales
himself and exults in God's wonder-working Omnipotence; while the self-esteeming man thinks God loves
him and his firiends better than the whole world besides.
How can it be otherwise?  How can man build up the
idea of God in his own mind out of conceptions or
thoughtts which hle never had in that mind?  If he has
no science, no idea of the laws of nature and of mi(lnd,
how can he conceive of a God, who works eternally by
law; or if lie be supreimely selfish, how can he conceive
of a God of love?
After our religious instincts, then, have given us the
conception of a God, or after we have  been taugh,t by
our parents or otherwise, to form this conception in conformity with our religious instincts, then our own ap)petites and passions, hopes and fears, reason or unreason,
hulmility or pride, go to work to think out a God for
tlhemselv-es, or to find one in thle Bil-)e, or ils thle Koran,
18 
FOUNDATION OF HUMIAN DUTY.
or in the events of Providence; and they put into their
conception or picture of God, more or less of this quality
or that, just as they have more or less of this quality or
that in their own minds.  The contrary would be to
say that a man could in his theology attribute ideas and
qualities to God of which he himself had no conception;
that a painter can put colors into a picture, when he
neither has anly such colors on his pallet, or any idea of
them in his mind.
Here, then, we arrive at two great conclusions; first,
that the natural powers of man do su(ggrest the idea or
conception of God, so that we find the most savage and
barbarous nations in possession of the belief; and second,
that human passions and reason modify this belief. All
men, then, are alike in having the conception of a
Deity; but they are amiazingly unlike  in the Deity
they conceive of.  I supl)pose there are no two men in
the world, nor ever were, whose conceptions of the
Deity were precisely alike. One man is a cannibal,
another is a Chlristian; one man has vast knowledge of
the works of God, another has ignorance vaster still;
one man has fervid religious sentiments, another is cold(
and phlleg(rmatic. Now, if such different men should
agree to repeat the same stereotyp)ed phrases respecting
thle Deity-, anil should repeat them ten thousand times,
the ideas and emotions attached to them and excited by
them in their minds, would be as different as the men.
The iron or the chalk, the ivory or the fungus, will
show in the fabric that is made from them.  Are there
any two persons in all the British realms who have precisely the same idea of Queen Victoria? nay, could they
all see her, Nwhat different views they would carry away!
Not only so, l)ut each man's own ideas of God un
19 
GOD S BEING THE
dergo the greatest  changres, nay, revolutions.  John's
idea is not only different from Peter's, but Jolhn's idea,
when a man, is vastly different from Johln's idea when a
child.  How different is the geolog(ist's idea of a God,
when hle sees in the great strata of the earth ian illi-Lminiated volume, all pictorial witll proofs of power, wisdloin and goodness, -  how different, I say, is his idea of
God, from  that of a President of a certain Soutliern
College, who professes to believe that the bones of the
mastodon, shlells, shlarks' teeth, trilobites, and other fossil
remains of preadaiiiitic ages, were scattered about by
God at the time of the creation, only as a puzzle for
the human race, and to see how much nonsense men
would believe for His gloIy!  How  different the idea
of God which an astronomer has, lwho comprehends the
sublime laws of the solar and the stellar system, and
who can foretell ever'y eclipse that will lhapl)eni for tenl
thlousand years to come, and lwhen the coniets will return from their unutterable distances -  how different
is his idea of God firom that of the barbarian-  who
believes the heavens to be only a few miles above our
heads, and that the stars are notlling but spangles made
for show.  Indeed, all sects and theologies are founded
on the differences of idea which men entertlin  of a
God.
And there is another consideration fair grander and
more important than this. Variant, conflictingr, irreconcilable as are men's ideas, when compared with one
another, respecting the character and attributes of God;
yet the very extremes of them do not differ firom each
other one ten thousandth part so much as they nmust
all differ firom the truth, - fi-om a true, adequate and
absolutelF correct conception of whlat God is.   Can
20 
FOUNDATION OF HUMIAN DUTY.
your finite mind compl)rehlend and embrace the infinite
God?  If not, then what is that almost infinite part of
Him which lies outside of your comprehension?  So
impossible is it for finite natures to understand the
whole of God's infinite nature, that we may say with
reverence, that even He, the Infinite himself, cannot
make us wholly understand it.  How can His infinite
knowledge of Himself be transferred to our finite facul ties? As well might His infinite power be incorporated
in our mortal arm, or His all-seeing wisdom be matched
by our dim faculties, or He make us infinite like Him self. He can hold the ocean in the hollow of His hand;
but with us, in our present state of development at
least, to do this is a natural impossibility. Now that
part of God's nature which we do not understand, may
be vastly different firom the part of which we think we
have some just conception: not contradictory to it, but
d(ifferent phases of it, as the colors of the rainbow differ
firom one another. God loves variety; and He may
have constituted other worlds different from ours. Hlow
different the forms of life He has created upon earth!
How different the fish firom the bird, and both from the
quadruped, and all firom man! The arolites that fall
upon the earth have elementary combinations differing
from any found on the earth.  The moon is supposed
by philosophers to be without an atmosl)llere.  If so,
no breathling thing can live there, and lunmgs would be a
supernumerary organ.  But  does it follow that tihe
moon is a great waste or desert, in which is no life, no
happiness; but evelywhere silent, melancholy desolation?  It may have inhabitants differently constituted
from us, physically; and why not differently constituted
from us morallv? -that is, inhabitants to whom  God
2
21 
GOD'S BEING TIHE
makes known some other glorious part of His infinite
nature?  The stars that fill the firmamenet are of such
different colors, that if they could be thrown tog,ethler
in a mass, as we throw glass beads into a cup, they
would be as variegated with colors of red, blue, yellow,
&c., as a cup full of parti-colored beads.   What right
have we to say that the inhabitants of these starry
realms are not as differently constituted from each
other, as are the shining robes of light that adorn them?
What right have we to say that God has not revealed
to them other attributes of His infinite nature, and
manifested Himself to them in other forms, which shall
appeal to their natures, as His goodness, power and
wisdom appeal to ours?
The light of our sun pours out on all sides.  A beam
of that light strikes the earth, another beam strikes
the planet Venus, another Mars, and so on: but what
a vast proportion of that li,ght passes thliroughi the interplanetary spaces, and seems to go off into immensity
and be lost! But if we really believe in an immensity,
and believe that immensity to be full of God('s worlds,
then not a particle of light is lost.  Some of that which
passes through the inter-planetary spaces strikes the
stars, and is seen  by them, and that which  passes
tllroungh the inter-stellar spaces, strikes the constellations and systems beyond, until somewhere in the vast
concave around us every particle of li,ght that radiates
firom our sun shlall, in the immensity of God('s universe,
help) illuminate a world, and none of it go off into uLninhalbited space to be lost.'Why may it not be so
nayv, have we not reason to believe it is so - in regard
to the infinity of God's spiritual attributes, as well as to
His natural lighlit, and that in different worlds tliere are
22 
FOUND)A.TION OF IHUMAN 1)UTY.
different beings, and thlat He apportions some part of
His infinite peifections to each, so that it requires the
knowledge of all of them to know  somethling of all of
Him, and that it will be a part of the work of the endless agres of eternity to read the lesson in this volume of
God, which, for want of a better name, I must call an
Infinity of Infinities.
We, therefore, on this narrow earth of ours, can no
more tell whlat new powers and wonders, what other
exquisite senses, and what other enrapturing objects of
sense, what other glorious faculties, and  what other
magnificent theatres for the exercise of those fatculties,
God mav have created in other parts of His boundless
universe, than  the aborigines   lwho once inhabited this
beautifiul neighborlood could tell, from its climate, its
veg,etable growthls, and its animnals, what other climate,
what other vegetation and animal life would be found
in the toni'd or arctic zones, or among  their antipodes.  And  it would have been an incomparably less
folly in them to pretend to know all about the richness
and variety  of God's works throLughlout the four quarters of our globe, firom what they saw in this vicinity of
ten miles square, than for us to pretend to know throughl
what perfections God manifests Himself in stars and
constellations  outside  of Siius and  Orion and  the
P'leiades, because  we know somethling, of His  providence in this sublunary world.
Did I not say then tntily, that, much as theologians
or sectarists may differ from each other in their belief
of the attributes of God, -the Trinitarian from  the
Unitarian, the Partialist from the Universalist, the Necessitarian  friom   the  l)eliever in Free  Agency, the
Cathollic  fiolin thee'iotestant, -  tllheir distance  from
23 
GOI) S BElING THE
each other is alnost infinitely less than the distance of
all of them from the truth.  Oh, would to Heaven that
those who condemn and doom their fellow men because
of certain metaphysical differences of belief respecting
God's character and attributes, would for one moment
reflect what would be their own  fate if God slhould
condemn and doom them because of the difference between their best conceptions of Him, and His consciousness of Himself.  How would they stand appalled
and overwhelmed if the rude picture of God in their
minds were exhibited by the side of the Divine Original, and they were held punishable because the mortal
lilnner had not correctly imitated the Inmnortal Prototype!
Now, this view of our subject leads to several conclusions.
F'irst, it shows us that the learned man and the illitrate man, the scientific man and the ignorant man, not
only do not, but they cannot, while remaining as they
are, have the same conception of God, any more than
they can have the same idea of Paradise Lost, or the
lihad; any more than they can have the same idea of the
Principia of Newton, or the l\Iecanique Celeste of La
Place.  The philosopher cannot expunge from his mind
his knowledge of the works of God, and receive back
into it the crude conceptions, or caricatures, which
infested it when hle was a child.  Nor is this difference
coifined to intellectual conceptions of the Creator.
The same is true of all our moral perceptions of the
character of God.  How can a man, who, during his
previous life, has been accustomed to the brutality and
abomination of Cimnibalism, or to the gross and foull
rites of Feticlisin, ever have those immaculate concep
24 
FOUND1ATION OF HUIIAN I)UTY.
tions of God's nature wlfich the prophet IJabakkuk felt
when lie described him to be of "purer eyes than to
look on iniquity "?  How can a child or young man
who has wallowed along, for twenty years, throughl thle
filth and loatlhsomeness of Wapping or St. Giles; or
who has swam for twenty years, as a fish swims in
water, amid the squalor and beastliness of tfle wynds of
Edinburgh, or the Five Points of New York, cleanse his
mindc from the fetor it ha* contracted, and come out
fresh and fragrant as a June morning, full of the perfume of flowers and the songs of birds?  TliougTli his
general conceptions of God's character may be clganed,
thlouhi a new set of resolves and desires may supplant
thle old ones, yet, as the pot will smell of the ointment
it has held, so will the odors of sanctity and even tlhe
incense of praise that come firom him, be adulterated by
the foul emanations of his previous life.  This is thle way
that Christianity became corrupted with the doctrines
of Paganism.  The Pagcans who became Christians did
not leave all their Paganism  behind.  And this we all
know to be the case, when men  of low life and manners, of vulgar and beastly associations, become Chlristians now.  As the crooked spine sticks to the huLncllhback, so thle old moral tang inheres in all thle savor  of
their lives.
But secondly, if men, in this state of existence, witi
tlheir unequal facutlties, unequal attainmlents, and Iunequal opportunities, are not alike, and never can be alike
in their intellectual or metaphysical conceptions of the
Deity, how can they be alike in worsllil)pinc the same
living and true God?  I answer, that with tlie greatest
diversity of tliough,t, tliev canl be alike in tlleir aftfectiols.  ILove must be the saiie in all worlds.  The love
25
2 
GOD S BEING THE
that trembles and flickers in the bosom of the lowliest
worshipper upon earth, is precisely the same, in nature
and in substance, with that which blazes forth from the
loftiest and most adoring seraph, and makes the wide
heavens resound with its celestial anthems. There are
some things -whichl must be the same wherever they
exist. They are incapable of alteration; for, if altered,
their very nature is abolished and lost. Arithmetic and
mathematics must be the same in all worlds.  Nowhere
can two and two be more than four, or less than four.
Everywhlere the three angles of a plane triangle are
equal to two right angles. So love must be the same
in saint or seraph; just as hate is the same in murderer
or fiend.  The altar may be mean or magnificent; the
censer, where we burn our incense, may be large or
small, of gold or of clay, but the flame of devotion that
ascends from it is the same in all. Alike it aspires to
heaven.  We can be alike in spirit, however great or
small we may be in thloughlt; "for, thus saith the high
and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy; I dwell in the  high and holy illace; with him
also that is of a contrite and humble sp)irit;" but nowhere is it said that God dwelleth with the great intellect; or with the intellect that can form  the grandest
conceptions of Him.
Here, then, is a point of conformity, of uniformity, of
identity even, amongl men in other respects antagonistic
and antipodal.  No  two men can picture out God in
thoughts that shall exactly match each other, as a cubic
foot of space is like another cubic foot of space, or as a
right angle is like another rilght a(ngle; but all can love
the God whom  they conceive.  Tlhey may  and must
have somewhlat different ideas of His  )eirectioins; but
26 
FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DUTY.
alike they can adore the perfections they know. They
have various hypotheses about His imodes of goverinmient; but alike they can have the resolve of obedience
to His laws.  They may have different beliefs in articles respecting His purposes and plans, but all can have
that trust in His wisdom, and that confidence in His justice and goodness, which will enable them to say, "Not
my will, O Father, but thine be done."
The only unity, then, which there can be among the
worshippers of God, is a unity of spirit. Even in the
world of the blessed, while the archangel has a less inadequate conception of the Supreme, while he can comprehend a larger segment of the great circle of all
perfection than you or I, his idea of the Being whom
hle worships must be different from ours; but let us
thank God that our humble tribute of devotion, though
poured from the nut-shell capacity of our hearts, will be
as acceptable to Him as thlough its copious floods came
from the hollow of the ocean, or the concave of the sky.
The bond of love engirdles the universe; it is the oneness of Creator and created; so that, as Christ said to
his disciples, " ye shall know that I am in my Father,
and ye in me, and I in you."
27 
51 EDITATION.
MEDITATION.
OUR Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
name.  We acknowledge Thy infinite perfections in
the hope of elevating, our own characters by a con templation of Thine. We acknowledge Thy power
which in the past eternity did create the earth and the
heavens, and in the fulness of time did prepare this
world to become a fitting place for the habitations of
men. We acknowledge Thy omniscience which doth
see through all the immensity of Thy works, and dost
so order the events of Thy providence, that all which
follows is in grand and glorious harmony with all that
preceded.  We  acknowledge Thy justice which will
never do us wrong; and oh, most devoutly would we
acknowledge Thy love, which sees all our inward wants
and makes provision for them.  Oh, Heavenly Father,
may we enlarge our knowledge, may we expand our
minids, may we stretch out our conceptions, so as to
form a less narrow, a less limited, a less imperfect conception of Thee, and when our faculties have exerted
all their powers to comprehend Thy works and Tlhy
glorious nature, may we say with Job; "Lo, these are
parts of His ways, but how little a portion is heard of
Him."
We thank Thee that when the world was sunk in
iniquity and corruption, when tyrants governed nations,
and selfish passions governed men; when  pride and
28 
MI EI)IT ATI 0 N.
vanity and appetite reigned through social life; when
the strong oppressed the weak, and the cunning overreached the simple; and the worship of Thee had degenerated into idolatry in some nations, and into proud
Phariseeism in others,- that Thlou didst send Thy Son
Jesus Christ to be an example to the world, of perfect
purity and goodness; to show men what they must do
to secure salvation from evil.  May we study his claracter profoundly, and imitate the beauty of his life.
Was he obedient to his parents? so may children now
be! As he never defrauded his neighlibors, may we
practise honesty in all our dealings! As lie never
owned a bondman, may we see how opposite to his
life and example is the ownership of bondsmen!  As
he went about doing good, may we also go about, giving
bread to the hlungry, knowledge to the i(-gnoralt, and
showilng the way of salvation to those who sit in the
region of the shadow of death; and may we, like him,
thlou(gh nailed to a cross of public odium and calumny,
never feel one revengefuli impulse towards our enemies.
but be ready, as he was ready, to carry the malefactors
upon the cross in his arms to Paradise. And may we
aspire  to that sublime and godlike sentiment which
prompted him, in the midst of his agonies, to say,
"Father, forgive them,  they know  not what they
do!"
Heavenly Father, may we ask of Thee arigIit; may
we not ask Thee to give what Thou hast enabled us to
obtain - and made it our duty to obtain- for ourselves.  May we not ask Thee for harvests, while we
will not sow; may we not ask Thee for learning, while
wev will not sttudyv; may we not ask Thee for wisdom,
while we disd,aiii to meditate upl)on Thy laws; may we
C)g 
IMEDITATION.
not ask Thllee for streingth and health, while we are indulglent to our appetites; may we not ask Thee for
happiness, while we refuse to love; may we not ask
Thee for heaven, while we neglect to learn and obey
Thy laws here.
30 
GOD'S CHARACTER THE LAW OF HUMAIAN
DUTY.  
II.
GOD'S CHARACTER THE LAW OF HUMIAN DUTY.
I INTRODUCED my last discourse, by telling you, my
young fi-iends, that I meant to address you, from time
to time, on subjects pertaining to Human Duty.  First,
however, I desired to establish a founda ion for Human
duty; else when I had reared the most comely and
imposing superstructure in my power, its four corners
should be left hanging in the air.  I took the position
that the foundation of human duty is to be found in
the being and attributes of God: and that as we have
a g'oup of bodily senses,-  sight, hearing, taste, smell,
and touch, -by vwhich we recognize material objects;
so we have a group of mental faiculties, which develop
within us the conception of a God. And as no nation
or tribe, however barbarous, was ever found, who  did
not believe in the existence of the earth, and of sun,
moon and stars, so no nation or tribe was ever known
to exist who did not believe in the existence of a God.
This led me to consider how, or in what manner,
after having first obtained the idea of a God, different
minds fashion that idea into such an infinite variety of
forms, and accumulate upon it, one after another, the
attributes which they suppose it to possess. How almost infinitely different is the Hottentot's or the Esquimiaux's God fiom the God of Dr. Chalmers or of Dr.
Channing(; and if the ideas of God entertained by Dr.
3)  n  o - 
GOD'S CHARACTER TIlE
Chalmers  and Dr. Clhanningi were broughlt  togetler,
and laid side by side, how  different friom each other
would they also be!
How come men to have such conflicting ideas of the
Supreme Being, and of Htis attributes? It is because
they build up their ideas of Him out of ideas previously
existiing in their own minds.  And how else can they
do  it?  How  can a man  form a conception of any
being, or of any thing, but out of ideas already p)ossessed(?  Can  the dramatist put  sentimenits into the
mouths of his characters, or an orator put arrgulients
into his speech, of which sentimenits and of  -lwhichl arguments neither of them ever before had anly possession,
or an3y conception even?   As Solomion could not have
built the temple of the Lord out of the cedars of Lebanon, and made doors of the oli-ve-trees, and overlaid
the floors with gold, if hle had had no ced(lars, nor olivetrees, nor gold, to do it with, so lie could form no conception  of that Lord, but out of ideas already in his
possession.  Hence the universal truth that menii's conceptions of God, and the attributes they ascribe to Him,
are gathered and fashioned after their own ideas, sentiments and characters.  Is it said that God made mnan
in His own image?  It is no less true tlhat man makes
God in hlis own imageo.  Hence that asceneding( scale in
the attributes of God, as they are conceived by  the
lowest savag(e, by the enlightened heathen, or by the
Christian philosopher.   As  you begin at one end of
this scale, you find the gods of the African or Asiatic
tribes, mean  and  contemptible idols; or miali(rgnant
divinities, not fit to have the control of apes or baboons.
Risigl firom these, you hlave the g(ods of the sensual
nations, who  -iave pepiaed a I)a.(lise of ilmmnortal
34 
LAW' Ol' HUMAN  DUTY.
beauty, wliere tlle passions are to be forever freshi aind
forever gratified.  And at thle Iiiielr end of thle scale
you hlave one only living and true God, -a Being of
infinite pow-er, w-isdom, love and lholiness.   The gods
of the Greeks were beautiful, because the predominiating
idea of that people was the idea of beauty. Thlle gods of
tle Romans were proud and bloody divinities, because
the Roimaus were   a proud and bloody nation.  It is
impossible for the selfislh mani to hlave the same ideas of
God as the benevolent man; impossible for the ignorant
lman to havte the same ideas as the learned manl; and
as impossible for the grown-up manl of educational culture to return to thlle crude and unworthy conceptions
wliel he had of God whenl lie was a chllild, as it is for
thle oak to (go back into thle acorn, or for the b)ird to return to its shlell.  Had every individual vwhlo lhas ever
lived datguerreotyped his ideas of God, to be arrang,ed
in a gallery as pictures are arrainged, tlhere would be
millions and millions more of such l)ictures than of all
the lthuman beings  iho lhav-e ever lived.  And if God
(does not expect impossibilities, tllhen I LIe never expected,
in tlhis state of thlle wvorld, uniform conceptions of his
i-iature and attributes.
And ftlirtliermore, no mortal man  ever had or can
li(ve an adequate idea of thlle one living and true God.
It would be ias easy- to pu[t vour arms around immensity
and clasp your lhauds onI tli, ()1l)oite side, as to (oll —
)i'ehlend  adequately, witll  alny  flculties  A, ill   we
p)ssess, tlle infinite attrilbutes of tlle Omliii)otelt, ()ulllliscielt, All-hloly and ELverlasting God.   After eilnimie]rting all parts of Hi-s nature whlicli we do kinow, we
nitt hiave alele)raic si(glls to indicate t-lose still greater
.larts of Him  w-llicll we  do not kinow.   N,ay, is it not
35 
GOD'S CHARACTER TIHE
impious for feeble and ignorant man, whlo cannot take
larva or chrysalis, and by dissection foretell the properties
of the insect it slhall produce, to speak with flippancy
and arrogance, as we often hear, of the most secret
counsels and the most remote purposes of the Eternal
Jehlovahll?
Is it said we have a revelation in the Scriptures, and
therefore w-e may affirm what He is?  I answer that
there are many points which the Scriptures do settle,
and conceringir which there is no dispute; but there are
also many concerning whlichl, in our present state of
knowledge, the wisest and the most pious of men are at
vaiance; and  this should  teachl  us diffidence and
modesty-, and not presumption or dogmatism.
After all, however, what a wonder of wonders it is,
that amidst the almost infinite diversities of conception
in the human mind, respecting the Deity, there is one
point of absolute uniformiity among all his true worshippers!  In ideas they conflict, but in love they all liarmonize.  Love is the same in all worlds, and in all
natures.  If a hundred  stringed instruments, all in
chlord, are placed in a single apartment, and any one
of them be touched by a master's hand, the strinTgs of
all the others will vibrate in unison with it, and will
give out straias of accordant music.   So all the hlearts
that love God( are in sweet accord, and when one of
them is touched, it thrills lhallelujalls tlhrough  all the
moral universe.  The music of the planetary spheres is
at least a beautiful imagination, but the music of the
spheres of love is no fiction.
At this point let me pause for a moment, to make a
single reflection.   If men  necessarily builld ulp their
ideas ol conceptions of God an(d of His attliulltes firom
36
i
I
I 
LAWN OF IIUMAN DUTY.
their own previous ideas, from the resources of knowl edge and of affection  whichl  they  previously had in
their own  minids, thllen every  step in education, the
inculcation of every new idea, the acquisition of every
new scientific principle, thlle development and training
of eacli intellectual and moral faculty, furnishes precious
mnaterials out of whlichl  a more adequate and glorious
idea of God  can be formed.  As out of richer paints
and purer marble, the artist can make a better picture
or statue, so, out of grander and nobler thlou,ghts  and
out of diviner affections, can we form sublimer and
more God-like conceptions of our Fattlier in IIheaven.
Cannot  the geologist, who looks backwards into the
in-yriads of ages that were spent in bringing, the world
into a habitable condition for man; and thlle astronomner,
who knows that the whole solar system  is wheeling on
around a centre so remote, and tlhrough an orbit so
wonderfully vast, thlat, during thlle six thlousand years
since tle creation of Adam, it has moved tlroughli only
about one degree, or made only one three hunldred ad(I
sixtieth  part of the first revolution; cannot  tlese, I
say, hlave an idea of the everlastincness and infinitude
of God, such as is impossible for the blind mole of a man
whlo moves for a fewi feet to and firo, in darkness, underground, along( a groove, whichl solie othler blind mole
of a mlan cut for him?  Have not the mathematician
and the natural philosopher an idea of the exactness
and inevitablleness of God's laws, such as a man lwho
was cast on the waves of ignorance at his birth, and
lhas been floati(ng lither and thitller on those waves
ever since his  birth, can  never hav-e?  Cannot the
profouind j(ludg(e, accuLstomned all his life to discern between tlhe rigllt and the wrong, form  a truer idea of
'E)) 7
3 * 
GOD S CIIARACTER TiHE
Divine justice, and of rilghteouLs laws and measures  of
retribution, than one whose hand never so much as tried
to poise the balances of equity? Cannot the benevolent
person, -  a Howard, an Oberlin, a Wilberforce, a Mrs.
Fry or a MAiss Dix,-  rise to more vivid and glorious
conceptions of God's goodness and love, - to conceptions more impulsive to good, than a cannibal who feeds
on hunan flesh, or a kidnapper vwhlo feeds on human
letarts, -  better than a man whose brain and muscular
system are as non-electric, as great non-conductors of
sylnpatliy as a statue carved out of chalk, while his
heart is onlv  a nodule in the middle of it?  And
cannot the mind that has been trained to logical and
coherent thoughtit, that can lay its foundations of everlasting principles, that can build up  systems of jurisprudence, of ethics and of government, and radiate
over the whole, the celestial sentiments of philanthropy
and reverence,-  cannot such a man delineate portraitures and flashl out conceptions more true, more radiant,
more honoring to God, than the moral idiot, or the
butterflies of fashionable life?  I repeat, then, that
every lesson of sound science or knowledg,e, of whatever kind, which the teacher gives or the student learns;
every energy which the student rouses or the teacher
directs, supplies materials and means in our minds for a
nobler idea of the God we worship.  Knowledg(e, then,
eiters largely and essentially into the true idea of a
Chnristian, and the highest type of a Christian cannlot
exist without it.
Ha-vinr now taken a view of God from tle buman
si(le of the question, I shlall endleavor to take a view of
]im  fioi n the Divine side, -  from a contemplation of
tlio:e attril)butes which the wisest and l)est menn concur
iii ascrihilog to Him.
01)8 
LAW,k  OF lIUMANN I)UTY.
First, let us consider the eternity of tis existence.
AT-as thlere ever a time, a first period wlhen God (lid not
exist?  If so, then, how  came  He  illto beingi?   He
could not create Himself, for that would be to suppose
Him ill existence as a Maker, before He was in existence as a Beiing made.   If created by another, w1ior was
that other; and could he have imade him dififerent firom
what hle is?  And how came that precedent Being into
existence?  If created, then argain, bv whomn? and so
backwards and backw-ards forever.  No, our faculties
can find no resting-place, save in the  conclusion that
God was not created, but is Uncreate.  And if our
finite minds cannot fully embrace and  comprehend thle
idea that God is self-existent and eternal, they are still
driven back to this conclusion firom every other attempt
at solving the difficulties of the question.   The  nmagnificent language of the Psalmist, that He is "firom
everlasting to everlasting," affords the only scope for
our knowledge, and the only solace for our ignoranee.
Of God's attribute of power, how feeble and pale are
our most highol-wroughlt and vivid conceptions.   How
little we comprehend the significance of the tremnendous
wvords, Almighty, All-powerful, Omnipresent,-  words
that sllould strike the soul as successive thunder-clal)s
would strike the ear.   We  catch a feeble gliimmer of
(Tod's power firom the lightnin(, whichl so sweeps all
vitality out of the man whom it strikes, that the process
of putrefaction begins in a moment; in the tori,nado,
-llose swiftness turns the  fluid and vuoluble air into
wi-de-reachingi, iron-lheaded solidity, so that it strikes
cities and forests like a battering-ran; in the ocean
storm,  that tosses l)roud navies  lipon its surfitce like
bubl)bles; in  tlb e earthquake, wlli(.i smikes cities as
99
1) 
GOD S CIIARACTELR T'HIE
tlhougll  they were toys ill its hand; in the volcano, thle
miere reflection of whose terrors  seems to fill tle sky
with demon sllap)es of fire, and whose fathomless cauldron up-boils as a fountain of desolation.   Yet these
occasional  imanifestations  no  more   rel)present  God's
resistless forces working throu(li all the firame of nature,
thlan the leakag,e of a few drops of water, or a little jet
of steami, or a feeble hiss of imprisoned air represents
the driv-ing, cleaLvingo, or crushing force of the fiery and
l)oinderous machlines of human workmanship.   Animial
fear sees God's power with the senses, -  in noise, in
tumult, in flame; but reason sees it in silence, in order,
in its still yet eternal activities.  Reflect, for a moment,
what this power is constantly doing, in the iinaniniate,
insentient world.      lWho, from tle surface of the earth
and of the sea, lifts up those particles of water that form
the clouds, that descend in rain, that sustain all vegetable and animal life, that fill the channels of the rivers
and brim the ocean; who  impels the winds in tlleir
variable or their periodic courses, and who sends tlhe
ceaseless currents of electricity aroundl thle globe?
But  the thotught is too vast, and in atteimpting to
grasp too much, we lose all.  Let us  divide tlhe great
theme, and look at it in parts. Trake the first -warm day
in spring; go out into the cultivated fields; walk thlrough
tle soleimn woods, or by the strealns.   What millions
of' millions of roots are now wakiing from  their wintry
slumber; how in all their veins they tingle witlh  new
life, as, thlirough all their myriad pores they sutck in the
water that lies by their side!          mlow iany seeds beneath
your feet are alive; what gases  are in fermentation
witlini them to swell, amd  burst, and send out the inew
germ!  Thle air is l)opultlouts withl insects.tliat peiform
L
40 
LAWV OF HlUMAN 1)UTY.
their mystic dances ill the sunbeam.  Thle  mig,ratory
birds rise in such flocks as darken the air, to go northwards on their heaven-appointed course, and the migratory fishes make a wave swell up in the sea as they
journey southward, to fulfil the great economy of life.
Yesterday, the branch of every tree as it stood out
against the sun was naked; to-day, his li(ght is obscured
by its m-riad leaflets.  Each one of all those insect
swarms, of those flocks of birds, of those shloals of fish,
has its bones and muscles, its lungs and brain; and an
instinct that guides them  to their destination burns in
them  all, as though eachk one were a kiing or a queen,
and. gloried in his royal blood.    lWhat varied, what
alnazi.ng, what incalculable life!  WMho f.ashlionetli these
countless forms?  From whose capacious urni are they
filled with life and joy? Who metes out the span of
all their days, and upholds the order of their generations?
Take a day in summer; the winds are astir, the
waters flow, the licght descends.  Can you count the
spires of Tgrass in all the fields, or number the flowers in
garden, and copse, and dell?  Every stalk of grain is
]igh(er and larger at ni(ght than in the mioriling,, and
with what motions, and selections, and adaptations, its
growth has been accomplished.  Take a sin(gle tree that
has been cut down, and count its pores, multiply these
by all the trees of all the forests in all the earth, and
multiply these again by all the particles of sap that have
travelled up and down in them all. WTho supplies these
countless growtths with the peculiar nourishment that
each one needs? Who winnows li,lit, air, and  the
(ases, tlat the sotiiur and tle sweet, tlle nutritious and
tlhe mc(li(:tive, llay receive a('('.'(i1g to tlcir aiffinities?
iI
41 
GOD'S CHARACTER THE
Who  superintends  this vast laboratory, and keeps it
firom lapsing, into chaos?
Take a day ill autumn, when  the infinite grains of
corn are ripeling; when orchlard-trees, and forest-trees,
and the -vines that cli(ng and festoon upon them, are
preparing their innumerable fruits and seeds, and when
the bulbs beneath the ground are finislliin(, the work of
their year and their life.  Who  is the Sculptor that
moulds their forms?  Who is the Limraner that paints
them with such exquisite tints?  Who  is the great
Cheuist that fills them with such delicious and infinitely
varied savors and flavors, for the nutrition, the health,
and the (gratification of man; -  some for the young and
some for the old; some for the strolng, and some for the
invalid?
Now  somewhere, on this globe of ours, anld at all
times, there is slpring; somewlere there is summer;
somewhere there is autummii; and all thle varied processes of sping,, summer, and autumn, are goi(ng on
together.
Look at the hligler life of man.   It is supposed there
are nine hundred millions of human beiings on this globe.
Who opens and closes their ever-beating, hearts? Ahlio
heaves and  contracts  their  restless  lung,s?   Who,
througi arterv and vein circulates their ever-flowin(r
blood?  Who  kindles in the brain the stead(ly liglit of
truth, or coruLscates across its dome tle auroral li(ilt of
sentiment and love?  Who spreads the table it wlicll
these multitudes are fed?  Who spreads out the beautifuil drapery of twiii(ligt before drawiing, the curtain of
darkness around their b)ed; and whlo, when the lorningii(
sun comes rollinog  westward w-ithl its broad wave of
light, wakens them to joy and activity again?
42 
T AW, OF HUMIAN DUTY.
What I have now referred to is obvious and open to
tle naked eye.  But take a microscope, and what infinite  wonders  are  revealed, -  vast  populations, not
merely like drops of water, but in drops of water, - so
minute, that were they to assemble in Worldl's Conventions, in the London of a drop of water, they would not
alter its balance, any more tlhan our World's Conventions, in our London, clanges the equilibrium  of the
earth.  Who  gave  them  their gladsome  life,  their
winged motions, their ecstatic loves?
But let us spring fi'om this to the opposite extreme,fi'om the microscopic to the telescopic, -  to the infinite
-worlds above us and around us, compared with which
our earth is but a drop of water or a grain of sand.
And all these worlds, too, are they not as full of elemental forces, as swift in their velocities, and as resistless
in their strengthl, as is our own?   Are  they  not,
also, futll of some form of glorious life?  Who is it that
l)urnislies the heavens every night with thlose glorious
orbs, and upholds them and keeps them from sinking
back into chaos?
Go out at midnight; look up into that dread yet glo iliols concave, and ask your soul whose arm it is that
iuplolds those unpillared chlamlbers of the sky: who fills
that vast domain with organized, and sentient, and
doubtless with rational and spiritual life; and then r flect that all the galaxies and constellations which you
can behold with the unassisted eye, are only the frontis )iece, not to the mighity volumes of God's works, but
()lly to the index of the nmighlty volumes?  Beyond
Siriius, beyond Orion, bevond the Pleiades, the azure
fields of iiimmensit- are all filled with worlds, systemu
bewond svsvtemi, au(l ak) l)elhiud rank, wloi  God( i
43 
(GOD'S CIIARA('TER T'ItE
Itis merev has removed to those immense distances fronl
us, lest our mortal vision should be blasted by their
overwhelming effuilgence. And as you cannot find one
inch of our lower earth where God is not at work, so
there is not one inch in all those boundless upper realms
where God is not at work.
My children, against such a God, as with feeble words
and inadequate thoughts I have attempted to describe,
-against such a God, do you wish to lift, or do you
dare to lift, your pigmy arm?  His resistless laws that
cleave a pathway wherever they are sent, and punishli
the transgressor wherever they are transgressed, - these
laws do you dare to break? If you would hesitate to
violate a fathler's command, when he stands over you
with a rod; if you would shrink from resisting the authority of a sovereign, who has judges, and officers, and
armies, and navies, in his control, then, oh how can you
ever dare, how can you ever wish to dare to confriont
the power and majesty of the Eternal One; - of that
One who can enwrap the heavens with His thunderclouds, and make you the mark of all their volleyed
lilitnings; who can array His volcanoes in battalions,
and bury you beneath their molten lavas; who can sink
you in the earth's central fires, to lie, without consuming, in that seethiing cauldron, or imprison you in the
eternal solitudes of polar ice; or- unspeakably more
terrible than all this,-  can turn your own soul inwards
in retrospection upon its past life, to read its own history of voluntary wrong, in its self-recorded Book of
Judgment?  Nor can you find refuge in non-existence.
You may call upon the seas to drown you, but there is
not water enough in all the seas.  You may call upon
the fires to consume, but the fires will say, we  cannot
44 
I,AW  OF  I31M.AN I)U'1'TY.
consume remorse.  You may call ul)on arctic frosts to
con(real the currents of lite, but they will say, we have
no power over the currents of thlougrlt, or thle pulses of
the  niinortal life.   You may call upon  the universe to
annilhilate you, but thle universe will respond, " God
alone can annihilate, and God will say, live forever."
I do not address you, my young firiends, as memnbers
of this or that religious denomination, into which the
world is so unhappily divided; I do not appeal to you
merely as Christians, acquainted witll the blessed life
and character of Jesus Christ.  You mighlt be iMahometans, you mi(ght be Pagrans, you milght be savages, and
still I would say, do vou dare encounter and confiront
the great Rtuler of heaven and earthl? Oh, that I could
so thunder in your ears, that the sound would never
cease to vibrate in your hlearts, that word which God
lhas written in letters of flamle over every  avenue  to
temptation,- which hlie has inscribed on the lintels and
door-posts of the gate-wa,ys of sin, which is bliazoned oi
tlhe litlier side of every seducelnenlt to wroing.
BEWARE! IFr You TREAD THERE, OR LOOK  THERE,
OR TIIINK THERE, YOU ENCOUNTER OMNIPOTEXCE.
G(od is Omniiscienlt.  iltMust not Ile who miade everythigo, know how every thing is made'?  Must not He
who can regulate the beating of an animalcules  pulse,
who  can touch with exquisite life the nerves in the
anteiiii  of a microscopic insect; - must not Ile know
ivht is going on in your mind and in your heart?  In
vour widest reaches of thoug,hit, how infinitely beyond
vou Ile thinks; in your furthest scope of knowle(l(ge, hlow
infinitely lbeyond vou He knows.   On  all sides, Ile is
outside of vou.  Is there any deepest cavern, or blackest midnighit, whiere you go to contrive alone, or to
4
45
I 
GO1)'S CIIARACTER THE
conspire with others, wilere He is not present?  Think,
then, of tliis, my  youngi friends, that God  not only
kinows of your most secret desires and purposes, but
know-s thle mlental and moral hlabits and forces out of
wlicili tliey come.   What  is  there, then, that you
would refrain from doing before the friend you love, or
the master you fear, that you would dare to do before
the God who knows it all?
Among( God's other attributes is that of justice.  The
most just men upon eart, -  those in every nation who
are w-orthly to be called its Aristides, may do wrong.
Limited  kinowledge may vitiate the best of purposes,
and finite bei(ngs may make mistakes that will conidemn
the innocent  or save the glilty.  But an Omniscient
Being is safe from all errors; and therefore, of one
thing( we may be certain, that in His dealings with us,
andl in His administration of the universe, He will never
do wrong.
Of the fact of God's attribute of Justice, no truly
relioious man doubts; buit in regard to the manner in
which that attribute is exercised, the Christian world
holds opposite  opinions.  One  party maintains  that
every voluntary departure from  God's laws, whether
more  or less heinous, deserves an eternity of I)unisliinent,  andc hlence that such eteirnal retribution must be
suffered by the offender himself; or that a third person
must suffer vicariouslv for him.   The other party maintains that when a sinner leaves off sinning, hlie does, to
a great extent, leave off sufferingr.  They explain God's
laws in regard to moral evil, by the analogy of His laws
in regard to natural or intellectual evil; that, as when
the druinkard leaves off  drinking, his liquid fire, he
quenches the Topllet whi(  hel had kindled in llis stom
4 C)
I 
LAW OF HUMAN DUTY.
ach, and stops thle scorcliing flame from ascending illto
1]s thlroat; and, as when the iman wh-lo has  souglt to
gathler grapes of thlorns, or fig(s of thistles, finlds that they
will not grow thereon, he pl,unts another stalk, and gets
his firuit; so, when the man who has lived without God
iln the world, turns to God in obedience and adoration,
hlie leaves behind him  with his atheism, the blankness
and solitariness of his atheistic life. Thle one party
paints the consequences of sin as so vast  and terrible,
that a third person must be called in to lift off the
burden  of those consequences; while the other party,
though they paint the consequences of sin just as terrible, while the sin lasts, yet maintain that when the sin
ceases, the consequences mainly cease. I say, mnaintly
cease, for all admit that the mortification and slaine of
the old sin, like the scar of some dishonorable wound,
remain forever.  Both, too, acknowledge the efficacious
intervention of a third person; but  the one maintains
that the mediator bears off the penalties frolm themselves,
while the other maintains that the mediator only helps
the sinner to escape from the sin, and then the penal ties stop, of course, as fiery thllirst stops, wlien slaked
with  water.  The  latter say,  that the order of the
Div-ine government is, " the soul that sinnetli, it shall
die."  " But if the wicked man will turn from all his
sins that hle liath committed, and keep all my statutes,
and do that which is lawful and ri,ghlt, lie shall surely
live, lie shall not die."
Now, on this contestedl point, I g,ive no opinion.  I
here intimiate no opinion.  Let it be to you as tholg,ll I
had no opinion.  Sufficient for our present l)ul)ose is
it, that either view vindicates God's ylorious attril)ute
of Justice; for how  goirious it is - lorious  in both
47 
GOI)' S CIIAIZ.;ACTER  THE
views,,glorious on both sides of it. How admirable for
the innocent man always to be able to say, I know that
my judge is just; I know that where I am innoceut I
never shall be condemned.  And what a noble government is' that, where the tempted man must say, I know
that if I sin, I cannot escape fi'om suffering.  Protected
in innocence, sure of punishment for offences, how can
the rational man, in the exercise of his reason; -  mark
ine, in the exercise of his reason, - how can the rational
man ever dare to commit a sin?
I can now  mention but one more of the Creator's
attributes.  " God is Love."  How striking this exl)ressioii of' the Evangelist, not only once affirmed, but repeated.  God is declared in the Scriptures, times almost
without number, to be holy and just and true, but nowhere is it said that God is holiness, or is justice, or is
truth.  The adjective is used, indicative of a quality
inhering in some being, but not the substantive noun,
in which  the qualities inhere.  WVe can conceive of
each one of all God's attributes, as being a vacuum to
all the others; so that they can co-exist without interference and act without obstruction.  But of no attribute
save this of love, is there such intense and vehement
expression, to si('nifvy that this is the sublime, paramount,
crowning flict of the Godhead  as thougli this were
His whole nature, and all other qualities were ab:sorbed
and swallowed up in tiis perfection.  God is Love.
And does not all that we know of God's works confirm this sacred declaration? What more beautiful
than tlis wonderful world which He has spread out
around us?  Whliat more perfect than the runerring
laws, by which it is goveired, and whi(i the sciences
have just begun to reveal to us?  Not oinly how inor
48 
LASW OF IIUMAN DUTY.
ally-, but how mathematically true it is, that " all things
work together for good to them that love God," -  that
is, to them that learn His laws and obey them; for
knowledge and obedience are the only true manifestations of our love to Him.   How beneficent, that when
we have gone astray, we can be restored!
I said before, how can any of you, finite and feeble
as you are, dare to brave the terrors of the Omnipotent; how can any of you dare to violate  the law
of one who is All-knowing to know, and All-just to
judge your offences?  But here, the key-note changes;
my  expostulations turn fiom alarm to entreaty; firom
fear to gratitude; and if I could, I would say to you
all, in tones of sweetness and affection, deep and tender
as those which angels use, how can you ever do with
your hands, or speak with your lips, or conceive in your
hearts, anything that is blasphemous, or defiant, or dishlonoring, or unpleasing, to that Being of perfect Love?
4*
)
49 
-MEDITA1TION.
MIEDITATION.
OUR  FATIERP, we  adore Thlee as tllat Beigi(, whose
power extends over all worlds, wAvllose wisdom  and skill
have been incorporated, and are now and evermore indwellingr in all created tlhings; whose love pours forth
over the universe and tlhrough all tlie ages - that love,
one drop of which fills the ocean of immensity and still
leaves the infinite of Thly nature full.  We render Thlee
thanksgivi(ng that in the far off ages of past eternity,
Thou didst nmake provision for thle natural  wants of
man in the fertility and exuberance of thle earth, in thle
riches of the forest and  thle mine, in the variety and
abundance of tropical and temperate zones, in tlhe fuilness of rivers and seas. WVe thank Thllee for the beauty
Thou hast shlowered down on all terrestrial scenes, f'or
the green and flowery earthl, and for the azure sky; for
the efltlgence of the risi(ng sun ald thle imany-colored
drapery of his setting hour; for rainbows and auroras,
for the varied beauties of seasons, of island nid  conltinent; for all that can tend to excite tlhe ard(lor of our
d-evotioni, by shlowing Thlee to be so excellent.   We
thank Thlee for those glorious faculties of intellect with
lwhichl Tllou hlast endowed man, and for those laws and
principles,  uniforn  and  eternal, blended  with  each
created thling, which are thle objects of those ficulties
some, capable of being known by a child, siimp)le as thle
alphabet, easy as its mnotlhier's name, yet, risi(ng in co1mplications and profiindities, to such as task, suc1  as sur
50 
MlEDITATION.
pass an archlangiel's power.   Olh, our Heavenly F'atlier,
we thank Thlee that we have the prospect of studying(
these wonderfiil truths in the ages of eternity, - an exhlaustless source of knowledg,e of the grandeur and the
glory of Thy niature. We tlhank Thee for the men of
talent, of skill, and of genius, who have risein up, from
time to time, and, by deep study and lono vig(ils, have
sougolt out these laws, and have thereby hlelpedl to save
mankind from idolatry; have swept away ten thousand
superstitions that tormented the race, anid have  supplanted  the folly  and  vacary,  the senseless dreams
and caprices of ignorance with thle eternal principles of
knowledge, systematized in science, and made  transmissible to all our descendants.  But above all, for that
moral part of our nature which dominates  all the rest,
and for the seers and prophets, men wise in holy things,
who have illustrated it.  If in the majesty and robust ness of thle intellectual powers, Thlou hast shown  tlhe
paternal character; in the sweetness, the tenderness,
the delicacy and purity of our affectional nature, Thllou
least shown the maternal character.  If one class of
these gifts is such as an Infinite Father would give us,
the other is such as an Infinite MIothler would give.
Heavenly Father, may we seek tlhe love of trutlh;
truth in outward act, in inward thloulght, a, in the in nermost thlloughlts  of the heart, at all times, in the
market-place, and in the forum; in solitude, and at
midniglht; in business, in pleasure, in study, and espl  cially in ilivestigating Tlivy nature and laws.  M\Iyl no
preconceiv-ed opinions ever chlain us, ever deter us from
this search, thlough  instilled into us by a father wlhom
we rev-eredl, thloug(h we drank them in on a mother's
breast, sweetened  with  a miotlier's caresses.  If our
~s
11
-D
t
II
I
I 
MEDITATION.
right eye offend Thee, may we pluck it out; if our
right hand lead us to do wrong, may we cut it off.
When assembled together for improvement in health
and strength, in knowledge and virtue, may the earthly
teachers teach youth to go to Thee who can teach them
more than all earthly intelligences. If tempted to do
wrong, may they remember the friends who have sent
them away to be taught; may they see the paternal
eye, feel the maternal hand, hear the maternal voice,
sayiing, MIy son, my daughter, if sinners entice thee, give
not heed unto them.   May they help one another, and
feel it impious to ask Thy help while they do not regard
each fellow being as a brother, or stand as stumblingblocks in each other's way.
52
I 
LAW-rTlE FIIRST PRINCIPLE OF
SPIRIITUAL LIBERTY.
,f
I 
II 
III.
LAW- THE FIRSt PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL
LIBERTY.
Ix former Discourses, I hlaive endeavored to give some
proofs of the Beinu or Attributes of God. But all this
would be nothing( but mere curious speculation, if we
did not hold the closest personal relations to that Being,
and if our nature and destiny did not primarily depend upon His attributes.  If accident should cast us
upon the shores of an unknown country, our first and
most anxious inquiry would be, what kind of men and
government lived and  reigned  within  its borders;
whether man-lovers or man-eaters; whether an arbitrary, tyrannical, and cruel king, or a beneficent and
parental one. So when we are cast upon the shores of
time, and see this outspread universe around us, the
most momentous question we can ask is, what kind of
a Being governs it, and what we must do to adjust ourselves to our new condition. If God be the Creator
and Governor of all existences, then He is our Creator
and Governor.  If He  be All-powerfial, then it is useless, nay, it is madness, for us to defy or resist Him.
If He be Omnipresent, then we cannot escape out of
His jurisdiction, as guilty men sometimes flee from the
rod of the civil magistrate. If He be Omniscient, then
no omissions or technicalities of an imperfect criminal
code, no craft of counsel, nor suborning of witnesses,
could save us; and it would be of no use to plead " Not
[5~ ] 
II.-kN' T-  I    FIRST  PRINcIPIlE
Guilty," wheni we were clilty.  If HIe be just and
good, tllen we know that in order to llave any sympathly or communion withl Him, we, too, must be just and
good.  Wlhat lIe loves, we must love; what  His hloly
nature rep)els, we must repel; or else we array ourselves
in perlpetual waifare a(ainst Him, and sucli a warfare
must be fhital to the weaker party, that is, to us.
Since, thlen, there must be thlle most intimate relation,
-a relation at all points between God and ourselves,
no ftact can be more important for us  to know than
whlat that relation is.  In whlat relation, thlen, do we
standcl to our Creator, Governor, and Final Disposer?
and in whlat correlative relation does He stand to us?
The grand and paramount relation in wlichl God
stands, not onlv to the whllole human race, but to all
creatures that have life, and to all things that hlave no
life, is that of Law-giver.  He hlas made laws for whlatever He lha.s created.  There is not a constellation so
vast, nor an atom so small; there is not an archllangel
so exalted, nor an animalcule so insi(gnificant, that is
not all penetrated and encompassed, bound in and bound
down, by the law vwhlich God lhas impressed upon its
being.  In us, no tl-hought nor desire rises into the lilght
of consciousness, no muscle contracts, no nerve vibrates,
no drop of blood flows in our veins, or hair grows upon
our hleads, but in accordance with the laws whlichl God
hlas severally impressed upon thlem.
But before goingr ftirtlier, let us understand the meaning of this superb and majestic word, L.Aw.
Law," savs MIr. Justice Blackstone, " in its most
general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of
action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of
action, wllether animate or inanimate, rational or irra
11_,0.?    5    it -;.".1S
,56i
i 
OF SPIRITITAL, L,TIBERTY.
tional.  Thus we say the laws of motion, of grav;itation,
of optics, or mechanics, as well as thle law of nature and
of nations."  " Thus, when the Supreme Beiiin(r formed
thle universe, and created matter out of nothing, He
impressed certain principle8 upon  that matter,  finom
w-l'ichl it can never depart, and without which it would
cease to be.    lWhen He put thlat matter into motion,
He established certain laics of motion, to which all
movable bodies must confom." -If we  firthler advance from  mere inactive matter, to vegetal)le and
anilnal life, we shlall find them  still governed by laws;
more numerous, indeed, but equally fixed and invariable.-" Th'lis, then, is the general signification of
law, a rule of action dictated by some superior being."
The word lawv," say-s Mr. Erskine, " is frequently
made use of, both by divines and philosophers, in a large
acceptation, to express the settled  method of  God's
providence by which lIe preserves the order of the material world in such a mainner, that nothing  in it may
deviate from  that  uniform  course  which  Hie  has
appointed for it."
Laws,"  says ~Montesquieu, " in their most general
,signification, are the necessary relations derived from
tlhe nature of things.  In this sense, all being(s lhave
their laws; the Deity has His laws; the material world
its laws; the intelligences superior to man  have their
laws; the beasts, their laws; man, his laws."-" God
is related to the universe as Creator and Preserver;
the laws by which He created all things, are those by
which He preserves them.   He acts according, to these
rules, because He knows them; He knows them because
Ile has made them; and He made them because  they
are related to His wisdom and power."   If all things,
6~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~z
5
57 
L,AW - THIE FIRST PRINCIPLE
then, have their law, you see what infinite number adll(
variety of laws there mnust be. There are not only tell
Commandments, but ten tllousand timnes ten thousand.
Parents make laws for their families, schools and colleg(es are governed by laws. All societies and associations; all states and nations have their laws; and there
are international laws, designed to regulate the intercourse of nations with each other, whether they are in
peace or at war.  We speak of the Mosaic law, meaning
the institutions of MIoses, as distinguished from  the
Gospel. We speak of the Ceremonial law, also, which
commanded certain external rites and observances for
specific cases, and for a limited time, as distinct from
moral precepts, which are of perpetual obligation.
Written laws are laws written out and enacted by the
supreme legislative power of a country; and unwritten
laws are those which derive their binding force from
established usage or long custom.  and they are expounded and defined by the courts. Each of the organs
of our Physical system has its laws.  If, during the
process of cdigestion, we take iced-water, or any other
cold substance into the stomach, in sufficient quantity
to reduce its temperature belowv 98~, digestion, fortlhwith, ceases; andl if that temperature be not raised,
digestion will not re-commence,  and sickness  must
ensue.  If the brain be over tasked, inflammation, and
at last, insanity ensues.  If the lungs are stinted for
air, or are filled with bad air, thle blood cannot  be
oxyg(enated or vitalized; black blood is sent into thl
head, and then all the capacities of the mind, its joy
and its genius, must suffer.  Each of all the myriad
varieties of vegetal)le growthls has its law.  Some p)lants
demand the tropical an(d some the arctic zone. Some
58
I 
OF SP1i IRTiA, LIBERTY.
aspire to' the skies, and stanid  up with independent
strenglthl-  some creep alo(ng the grouid, or parasitically
(ling to a self-sustainingi trunk; like a toddling  child
swho can walk only as he holds up by a stronger hand.
Tius weak minds tod~lle.
Did you ever observe the law by which each leaf of
the deciduous tree has a joint near the stalk where it is
attached, and by means of which joint it is making
preparation, all the time it is growing, for droppingi off
as soon as its ficetions as a living organ are performed?
Did vou ever observe the wonderfiul arrangemenit of the
leaves of trees by which their attachment to different
sides of the tree can be expressed arithmetically? Thus,
if you mark the point at which one leaf starts out from
the trunk or branchl of certain kinds of trees, you will
see that the next leaf above it is exactly on the opposite
side, so that the third one is over the first, the fourth
over the second, and so on, -  each two leaves being
equal  to one turn round  the tree  as  you  ascend.
This is arithmetically expressed by the fraction of one  half; because each new leaf makes half a turn round
the tree.  In the plant called succory, it takes three
leaves to make this spiral turn round the stalk; so that
the fourth leaf comes perpendicularly over the first, and
begins a new turn.  As it takes three leaves here to
make one turn, we denote this by the fraction of one  third.  In the apple tree, five leaves or buds make two
tun-s round the tree, so that this fact is expressed by
the fi'action  two-fifths.   In the currant bush, eight
leaves make three turns, so that the ratio here is three  ei(g,ths.  In the plant called shlephlerd's purlse, it is five  tliirteenths' and in another still, twenty-one successive
leaves, as ynt1 ascend slilally around tile tree, require
59 
LI,.W -THE F'IRST PRINCIPLE
tliirteen turns.  And here another most curious fac(t is
observed, that these several numnbers form an ascending
series in which the denominator of tlle p)receding, fi,action is the numerator of the succeediing one; and the
denominator of the succeeding one is the sum  of the
two precedingr denominators.  Thus, starting with 1-2
and 1-3, we then have 2-5, 5-8, 8-13, 13-21sts, and so
on.  Here, as you will see, the denominator of the
2-5ths is the numerator of the 5-8ths, the denominator
of the 5-8ths is the numerator of the 8-13ths, and the
denominator of the 8-13thls the numerator of the 1321sts.  So you will see the other wonderful fact I mentioned, that the succeeding denominator is equal to the
sum of the two precedingc denominators. Thus, 1-2, 1-3,
2-5; 2+3=  5; 1-3, 2-5, 5-8; 3 +5 — 8;  3-5, 5-8,
8-13;  5 + 8 = 13;  5-8, 8-13, 13-21; 8 + 13- 21.
In this last statement, there is one apparent anomaly,
too subtle for explanation on  this  occasion,  thloulgh
adding to the beauty of the result.
Now this exemplifies, in Botany, what I mean by a
law.  It applies to the rose-bud, the oak-leaf, tle l)inecone; and tloulgh we can conceive of other metlhods of
altanging the leaves, on plants aind trees, yet such other
methods are nowhere to be found in nature.
And it is a phenomenon hlaridly less worthy of note,
that if, in  the position to vwhich leaves  ancd  petals
belong, thley find an obstruction to their development,
such as a deficiency of light, for instance, tlley will
strive to find some  other way, and  turn asi(le and
avoid or surmont the obstacle.  Do we do so, when
we encounter obstacles in obl)evin  God's moral laws?
Like the little blind gernms of tlhe leaves, inmbedded in
darkness beneath the bark of the tree, do we strive
60
-t
t
I
t
I 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY.
to reach outward, and bask ourselves in God's moral
litmt?
Nowv turn your attention for a moment to a field of
nature as different from whlat we have been contemplatijg, as the planets above our heads are firom the vegetation beneath our feet.  The mnean mnotion of each planet,
as compared with its next interior planet, is unifbormnnly
represented, withl great ap)proximation to exactness, by
one of the firactions of the siime series I have given you
in reference to thle growth of leaves.
Look now ilnto anothler department of nature, and
)ehlold the chlemical law; -  that law which determines
tlhe imannier in which atoms shliall combine with each
other.  For instance, water is composed of oxygen and
lhyd(lrogen, and there are always eiyht weights of oxygen
to one of hydrogren, and the oxyg,en and hydrogen will
not combine in any other proportions.   But when oxygen and sulphur unite to form hlydrosulphlurous acid,
then eilght parts of oxyg,en  require sixteen parts of
sulphur, or they will not unite.  But if sulphur and
]hydrogen unite, it takes sixteen parts of sulphur to
combine with one of hlydrogen.  So fourteen grains of
nitrorgen will unite with eilght, or sixteen, or twentyfour, or thirty-two, or forty grains of oxygen, but in no
other proportions.   One grain of hydrogen will not
unite with nine or with seven grains of oxygen, but
only with eight.  These are the laws of chemical combination; but when you come to mechanical admixtures,
there you may mingle bodies together in almost any
proportions you please; -as a pound of sugar or of
salt with a grallon, or with a hogshead of water.  To
form the great constituent bodies of the physical wold,
nature's laws are perempto  vr and invariable, but to
61
5* 
1,AW -  TIIE FIRST I'RINCIPLE
adapt those bodies to thle common and variable uses of
life, we have unbounded scope and discretion.
Look, for another law, at the analogry between man
and the birds and fislhes.  A  fisi's fin, a bird's wing,
and a man's arm, are only the same rudiimentary organs
differently developed, proving that they all had a coiiimon  Author.   After  contemplatting  such  ficts  of
which all the kiingdomis of nature are fill, how imucli
dceeper the imp)ression,-  and the implnl)ressiveness too,
with which we read such passag(res as these: " Hear, O
Israel  the Lord our God is one Lord  " or, "I am the
Lord tlhy God, which have bronught tlee  out of the
land of E(rgypt, out of the house of bondag(e.   Thlou
shalt have no other gods before me."   Not only the
reason of man, but all nature, through all her organs,
responds, "There is no other God but Tliee."
I have spent all this time in illustratii(ng the idea of
law, because it is a fundamental idea.  It is to all
tlieolo-  and ethics, what a definition or postulate is
to geometry.   You cannot take a second step without
error, unless you understand this first step.
Now let us see what are some of the limitations and
characteristics of the idea of Law.
1. Tlhough we personify Lawv and speak of it as a
separate existence or power, yet it is not a being of
itself, and it has no power.  In  scientific strictness,
God's law means simply the mode in which God acts,in which He  creates, upholds, commands, warnls, rewards or punishes.
When the heathlen nations looked out upon the universe, and saw the vast variety of God's works, and
the boundless diversity of their modes of action;    the
stars rolling, the tides hleavingc, thle fountains gushling,
62
11
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I
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OF SPIRITUA.L LIBERT'Y.
thle rivers flowingi, thle liltnins flaincr, thi    e winids
blowingi, and all vegetation  sl)iringir illto (reein life,
with all  the otlher activities wlicli the full realnis of
nlature reveal, tlley coulld  ccouniit for tile I)llenomena
only on the supposition tllat a god presid(led over eacti
class of activities, instead of sul)lposing( one God -llo
acted in so imany wa-s.  And lhncie, whllen weC speak of
the goo(dness of God, the power of God, or the wisdom
of God, wve miean  nothling  separate  or distinct froli
God, but only the benevolent, powerfill, and wise mtiiier in whvlich  He uniformlyl acts; -just as whlen  we
speak of the patriotism of WV,aslington, or the plilaintlirol)y of Ailbl)erforce, w-e do not mean to excite the
idea of any  existence  separate firom AV, asliinton or
Wilbelrforce, but only to describe their love of country
and of imankilnd.
2). Carrying this idea of the word lcatv alo(i(  withl
us, let ine observe in tlhe second place, that God('s laws
are resistless; -  that is, lie is resistless in whatever lie
does.   W ho shall measure strengtli with the Olmlii)otent?  If I-le hlas attached pain and early decrepitude
to (gluttony and intemperance, can you detachl tlhem, so
as to coimmit the offence and still escapl)e the pelnalty?
Whlien He  hlas enabled you to protect tlle eve ioainst
the sun's light, can you ga"tze withi ilimpunility  upon its intolerable splendor?  AVlenL He hlas  made thlle air a
necessitv for thlle lu(ngs, can you fill tlhemi  withl  water
and still live?  Wheni  He  hlas made your body out of
comibustible lmaterials, can you leapl) into burningii(- Etna
and come forthl  unscathled?  5AVllen He has (cuLlled tlie
subtlest and choicest particles firom all nature's elements,
out of whllichl  to form that wonderfill electric battery,
your brain and nervoIus system, so tlat your ligilltningi
61,
ii 
LAW - THE FIRST PRINCIPLE
tliouglits and joyous emotions can leap and flash, like
auroras over the whole; can you consume or corrode
that brain or nervous system with alcohol, tobacco, or
other narcotics, without impairing its native velocities
and dimmingii     its native splendors? - any more than
you can pour tar and vinegar into the whleelwork of
your watch, and still have a good time-keeper?  Every
one knows that in every lhuman face there is an ilmpalpable, immaterial sominething, which we  call expression, whichl seeIms to be, as it were, the sotl nmade visible.
Aliere minds live in the region of pure thou,ghIts and
happy emotions, the felicities and sanctities of the inner
temple shine out through the mortal tenement, and
play over it like lambent flame; the incense makes the
whole altar sweet; and we can understand what the
poet means when he says, that
"Beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face."
On the other hland, io  man  can live a gormandizing,
sordid, or licentious life, and still wear a countenance
hallowed and sanctified withl  a halo of peace and joy.
Around such great mnanuficturing towns as Birmillnglham in Eng,land, or Pittsburg in this country, where
1)itiuminous coal is used, you will find the roses in the
flower-bed and the strawberries and grapes on the vines,
lblackened and defiled by a foul deposit from a thousand
chlimnies.  Tlius  do  obscene, profane and irreverent
men scatter their grime and stench  upon the innocence
and beauty around them; but most deeply and foully
upon  thlemselves.  And since God hlas thlroned conscience in the hlunman soul, no man  can violate its dictates and still escape its scourge and sting, without
repentance and refoirmation.
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OF  SPIRITUtAL  LIB1E'RT'Y. 
3. In the third p)lace, I believe the haws of God to
be infinitely wise.  Some learned and I)ioIs men hlave
said tley could not believe in the doctrine of Optiiiisim;
thl)at is, that this world was constrLcted )upon the best
possible lplan.  Ill the infinite varieties of God's works,
tlley think lIe has practically compared the adjective
good, and hlaving a good, a better, and a best, that this
world can at most be called yood.  I am an Optimist. I
believe the order of Prov-idence to be the best possible
order; and I have no faithl in the criticisms which  a
blind mole may miake on the rangce and height of the
mountains under -whlich he burrows. All the exceptions
ever y-et taken to the perfectness of God's works have
turned out to be fatile andl presumiptuouLs.  Sir Isaac
Newvton thlou(ght there was a screw loose somewhere in
our solar system.  He supposed the moon to be gradually slidingc out of its orbit, so that in process of time
it would require to be set back into its path by miraceulous interference.  Butt La Grangfe, on revisingl Newton's calculations, found him, and not Jehovah, in error,
and that the moon wheeled bLv a law that never  errld,
or rather, that in the wav God's halnd moved it, it is
sure to come round to the true place at the true time.
4. God's laws exhibit infinite skill.   Vhen we use
the word skill, in relation to an earthly contrivance, we
mean tlhat foresi(ght which can adapt means to ends,
and  can  predict  effects  f'()mn causes, and  can  (To
these tliings so as to secure  successful  resilts.   In
hluman  works thlere are all degrees of skill, and of
the want of it.  A  few years ag(o, the Emperor of Austria ordered a splendid barge to be made, in which  tlhe
royal fitmil- mihit sail upon the grand canali.  So the
skill of tle king,doln was put in requisition, and  a
6  
LAVW - THE FIRST PRINCIPLE
structure of immense costliness and splendor was made.
Wlhen they launchled it, it would sail very well on tie
canal, but was too wide to pass thlrough one of tlhe
locks.  Even the most ingeniious inventors are obliged
to modify their orig(inal plans, and  often whlolly to
reconstruct their machines before they succeed.  How
longc did Fulton experiment before hlie triuLmphled, and
whlat vast improvements hlave been since made upon
him!  It is but about a year since Ericsson supposed lhe
lid(l invented a lhot-air engine which would supersede
tl)e steam engine, and no inconsiderable part of tie
civilized world rung with acclainations at the astounding
trium)phl.  A  trial trip to Washing(ton forced him  to
take hlis whole maclhine to pieces, and it is doubtful
-whethler a new  one, will lead to any  better results.
But look at God's works.  Does the solar system ever
get out of gear?  Are not the thlree angrles of any possil)le triangle always equal to two right angles?  Does
tle law of specific gravities ever chlanrge; or thllat of
chemlical combinations?  Will frost and snow, of thlemselves, make flower-beds  and lharvests?   Or  can  a
wicked man ever enjoy that peace of God which passetli
iiuderstanding?  No.   Wlhatever you desire, or yearn
for, or hlope for, you must first find out thle law of God
-which  applies to that case, and then obey it.  And
when yovu understand that the universe is not a mere
machline, which God, haviing first made, now " stands
outside and sees it go;" but, on thle otler liand, t,almt tlle
universe is only thle manifestation of God  himself, ull)hlolding and mloving the work of His lihd(s, it becomines
not only plain but inevitabl)le, thllat everytling pertaiiiino to it must  )be infinitely skilfil.  He  himself being
tile actor, He  must (act 1('c()Fling to His own eterni(l
attributes of Powet, \Wi.(l)ll, il(l L,ov-e.
66
II 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBEItvry.
5. In the next place, God's laws are uniform.   If
His laws merely define the manner in wlicii IIe works,
theni, as there is no variableness nor shladow of turnin(
in Him, thlere can be no failure ill His laws.  It follows
fiom tlhis that in the contemplation of God, or, lookillg
at thle subject from the divine side, there can be no such
thino as a miracle.  If God foresaw everytliingl from
thle beginning, hlow can lie be taken by surprise, or ever
encounter an unexpected event?  Babbage invented an
extraordlinaiy machline, called a Calculati(ng Machinie,
whllich, by the turning of a crank, would perform the
most wonde'ful mathelmatical problems.  He  said lie
could make his machine so that it would  briing out tllhe
same result a million times, and then, the next time,
briing out an exactly opposite result.  Now, to a bystanlder, -whlo hlad seen the same result a million of times,
and should then, thle next time, see a contrary result,
this would seem a miracle, but it would be no miracle
to Babbage himself, for he would expect it. A miracle,
tleli, is, to us, a supernatural event.  Even the deist
admlits the existence of miracles, in thllis sense, as whlen
the sun was spoken into being, and lwhen  thlle invertebrate orders of animals, the fishles, the birds, thle quad(rlipe(ls, and afterwards  man,  were  called into lift.
None of the events whichl  marked thlese mi(llty ents
were contrary to the course of nature, they were only
in further development of it.  Wlien, therefore, Voil
cain  account for any event or p)hienonelnon, onl natltlral
causes, that event or phenomenon is not a  ila(le.
For a cork to swim\, or for lead to sink, is not a miniacle;
but thlle contrary would be.  For a man to get diseases
and early decrepitude by a life of debauchlery, is not a
miracle.  D' ebaucliees without  the diseases  and  the
I)
67 
1,LAWI  -   TIlE  I"'IST' I'RIN'IPLTE
decrepitude, wvould be tile miracle, - a miracle which
God will not work, and the devil cannot.
MIany  people seem to think that they honor God
more, by supposing thlat He is constantly working mira cles, constantly inteifering and wresting( the order of
nature, to prevent some evil, or to eflect some g,ood,
than by - believ-ing that He established an order of nature
so peiiect at first that it needs no intexTerence.   Sup pose one clockmaker were  to make you  a clock that
should keep such impeiTect time as to require him to
come to your house every day to set it and repair it.
Suppose another to make you a clock so perfect that it
would run for y-ears withlout error, vwhich of the two
would be the best clockmaker?
Ignorance is one of the main causes of the belief tfat
God is constantly wresting the order of nature.  Befobre
men understood astronomy, their olly way to explain
an eclipse was to suppose that God darkened the sun
or the moon, instead of believing that the earth and the
moon, in their accustomed revolutions, intercepted tlle
sun's ligllt.  lWhen  people did not know that filth,
intemperance, and other forms of bad living, created
contagious and fhtal distempers, then  they attributed
pestilences to the direct act of God.   Before the laws
of electricity wvere understood, when any particular main
or house was struck with lightnling, it was supposed that
God specially aimed at and hit that manl or that louse,
just as a sportsman aims at a particular bird.   And it
is one of the most remarkable facts in all history, that,
just in proportion as science has advanced, supposed
miracles, or a belief in common miiracles, hIas ceased.
.I say, just in proportion as science Ihas advanced, supposed miracles, or a belief in cortlmon miracles, has
N
68 
()F  SPIRITUAl, I,13ERTY.
ceasecl.  Tllis is true, not only of our predecessors, but
of our contemporaries.  Now, amiong barbarous nations,
ill Asia, Africa, or elsevlwhere, miracles are just as rife,
just as much a thingi of daily occurrence, as thley were
ameono( thle lheathlen nations of antiqity, or amo(ng tlhe
so-called Cliristian nations of thlle   idd(l(le Ages.   This
is so true, that in reg,ard to the present age of' tlie world,
the universatl fact may be expressed in this formula:Kinowledge las its boulndary line, whlere it abuts on
ignorance; onl the outside of thllat boundary line are
ignrorance and miracles; on tllhe inside of it, are scienlce
and no miracles.  Aind wlat is very remarkable, is, thlat
the same fact holds true, in regard to the same people,
whlo are ignorant on one class of sul)jects, andcl learned(
onl anothler.  In tlle subjects whlichl  thley unlderstand,
there are no miracles; in thlle one tlhey do not under
stand(l, miracles abound.
Pride, or self-conceit, is another prolific  cause of a
belief in miiracles.   It is so grateful'to a selfishl  man to
believe thlat God loves him better tlhan He loves otlhers,
tlit hle riots, and wanIItosi, aind gloats over the idea w ithl
a conceite(dlness and  self-flatterv, whlich to a man of intelli gent piety-, is most offeinsive.  W~lleii  an epi(lelic
prev-ails,  and  one  mian escapes; wliei  a  stealn-boat
explodes, and one man is sav-ed; if llie he a selfisll or a
vain man,  he is sure to  attribute his rescuie to God's
special interference in his behalf.   Wlien  tlle terri)le
Norwalk  tragedy halppened  last year, wly was Elder
B,arr, a man so good(, so pioIIus,  so devoted to the intereats of ediucation  and  religion;- whly  was   lie  lo)st,
whiile so many othllers w-o, as compared witih  1iniI, were
so wortliless, useless, or contemptible, were saved?   No.
God  acts bv generale l laws; and  wlen  anyi one  comes
6
69 
LAV -  TIIE FIRST PRltNCIPLE
within the action of those laws, be he a President of the
United States, or a Missionary carrying, salvation to the
heathen, he has no escape from their uniform and resistless force. Not one jot or tittle of the law shlall pass
a w eay.
The next characteristic or quality of God's laws
which I shall mention, is, that they are so comprelensiv-e, so universal, that they absolutely exclude all
chance.  Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as
chance in the universe, and when a philosopher uses
the word cihane, he does not mean to exclude the idea
of law, but only to show that he is ignorant of the law.
When we speak of probable storms at sea, or of winds
on land, we do not mean to intimate that the event of
which we doubt is not certain in itself; we only mean
to declare our ignorance of the causes which will decide
it. Even Chaos - a word we use to express the negation of all law -must have its lav. If it be in motion,
it must have its laws of motion; and if it be at rest, it
must have its law of inertia.
In regard to these great classes of facts which science
has not yet explored, and which, therefore, we call
uncertain, we have demonstrative proof that they are
certain, in themselves, because, when you take great
numbers of individuals, or extensive periods of time, the
results are uniform.  If asked respecting any particular
faniiilv, hIow many of its children are sons, and how
many are daughters, we should have no rule to determine our conjecture.  But if asked respecting a million
of children who were born last year, how Inany of thlem
were sons, and how many were dau(llters, we should
immediately answer, with a certainty of being correct,
that the number of each was nearly equal,- probably
70
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OF SPIlRITUAL LIBERTY.
the daughters a little in excess.  It is so in regard to
crime in given states of society.  The criminal statistician, in France or England, will tell you to-day, with
but very little departure  from  exactness, how many
crimes will be committed  next year, in their respective countries, and not only so, but how many of each
sort;-so many  murders,  so  many  burglaries,  so
many thefts, &c.  So, though you cannot tell whether
the children of IMr. A. B.'s family will be at school
or not, next year, yet you can tell with great approximation  to accuracy,  how many children will  be at
school in the State of Ohio, and in the United States.
Now, my young(r fiiends, do not  all  these  events
incontestibly demonstrate a lawg,iver?  That lawgiver
is God, the Creator of all thlings.
Some have contended that all this universe'of
events, and the laws by which they are governed,
could have ben  the product of chance, - Lucretius,
amongr thle ancients, the French and German  schools
of atheists among the moderns.  I mention this now,
only to show that I  do  not think their arguments
havy  been met with  the  right answer.  Cicero  encountered this hypothesis, but I do not think he met
it withl the right answer.  In  contesting the opinion
of those vwhlo maintained that the universe was formed,
by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms,  he  says  * If any one thinks that tlhis could be, I (lo not see why
* " Hoc qui existima,t fieri potuisse, non intelligo, cur non idem putes,
si innumerabilis unius et viginti formae letterarum, vel auras vel qualislibet, aliquo conjeciantur, posse ex hIis in terram excussis, annales
Ensii ut dleinceps legi possent effici; quod nescio, an,  ne in uno  quidem  versu, possittantum valere fortune."   (De Nat.  Dcorurn, Lib.
IT  n 8.f)i.).  Ernest, Lcnd. 1S19.)
J
71
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WLAW - THE FIRST PRINCIPLE
the same man should not suppose that if an innumerable
quantity of letters of the alphabet were thrown promiscuously upon the ground, they would not fall so as to
make the annals of Ennius; whereas it seems to me, it
would be scarcely possible for them to make one verse."
This aroguiment of Cicero was reproduced in the timne of
the French revolution.  To put down the atleists, it
was said that no number of types, if shaken and thrown
down to(ethler, could so faill as to produce the Iliad of
Homer; and to this, the shrewdest and  profoundest
answer was  made  that ever was made in behalf of
Atheism.  I refer to the celebrated retort of a French
Atheist, who replied, " Give me types enough, and shakes
enou(lgh, and I -will produce  the Iliad of  Iomer."
iNow, regardingo simpl)y the do(ctrine of chances, I do
not see how the correctness of this answver can be denied.  Suppose one had a font of types, eachl letter and
point of which should be so numerous, that it would fill
all that immense sweep of stellar spaces that can now
be seen by the largest telescope; and suppose all these
types were put into an urn so vast that the very handles
of it would let the MIilky Way pass thlrough them unbent; and suppose this urn were swung, round and
round until all the types were slhaken to,etlier as dice
are shaken in a dice-b)ox, and then hurled out upon a
plane so vast, and with such a centrifil(al force that they
would not lie but one deep; and sul)ppose these  t hrows
could be repeated for great cycles of time, of which ages
should be the seconds, I do not see why, somewhere at
some time, they should not turn up) the Iliad of Homer,
- and ELucelid's Elements to boot.
But this answer of the atheist, keen as it is, and profound as it may seem  to be, - does it meet the diffi
i
72
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OF SPIRITUAL,IB,ERTY.
culty?  The problem is, with types enotugh, and shakes
enough, to produce an Iliad. Well, Mlr. Atheist, fill
the void spaces of immensity with types, in order to
sipl)ly one of your conditions of success, and then can
your tiny ainn lift, and rattle, and throw them?  And
if thrown, and you have w-aited your thousands of years
for them  to fly off into space, and spread tllemselves
over your plane, then can your slow-footed steps traverse the illimnitable fields of space in search of the much
desired spot, where your Iliad of Homer  mig,ht be?
And if this space were once traversed, then can your
shallow- hands scoop  up  this slky —fill of types and
replace them in the box, preparatory to another throw?
And if the lucky cast did not come until a period somewhat late in the flowing, eternity, how much of the
work would the threescore-and-ten years of your mortal life-time enable you to accomplislh?  And how, on
your atheistic hypothesis, would you, MIr. Atheist, with
your tiny arm and your tinier causality; with your
shallow hand, and -your shallower log,ic; with your short
life, and your shorter vision; - how would you  ever
have been in existence yourself to try your ridiculous
experiment; and in what type foundry would your font
of types be cast?  Even if the conditions were granted,
none but a (G-d could use them for the exp)ected purpose, and so -ou have supposed a God in order to
supply the conditions,-not of creating a universe, but
of getting at an Iliad only.  Such is the sublime folly
of the grandest answer that Atheism ever made.
A  p)rofound writer has thus sarcastically presented
the atheistic side of this question.  " Talk of Providence!  There is no such thing.  I have been through,
the universe, and there is no God.   God is a whlim
73
Is
6*, 
I,AlW -  THE  FItS'T l'I?lNCIPLE
of man; nature is a fortuitous concourse  of atoms;
man is a fortuitous concourse of atoms; tllouglht is a
fortuitous fiunction of matter, a fortuitous result of a
fortuitous result, a chance-shlot firom the great wilnd-guil
of the universe, -  which itself is also a chlance-shlot
firom  a chance-clhare of a  chlance-oun,  accidentally
loaded, pointed at random, and fired off by cllance."
The last characteristic of God's laws, which I sall
mention, is the most.wonderful of them all.  It is that
they are accompanied by  a sanction.  By the  word
saitctioi, I here mean the penalty that attends trans'resosi.   No human law can  execute itself.   But
God('s laws execute tlhemlselv-es.  The human lawgiver
llas to pro-vid(le a train of officers.  AVlien  the judg(e
passes sentence of deathl, the malefactor does not fortlwith find himself dead. The executioner must be called
in.  If a criminal be condemned to imprisonment, the
air does not inmmediately begin to shape itself into the
four walls of a prison whichl draw toethler arounld him,
and close him in their strong embrace; but a slheriff
must takle him and lock him in tle cell.  Not so witlh
God's laws.  They execute  themselves, as lightning
executes itself, even before you hear the tliunder.  By
creating a natural incompatil)ility between them, God
prohibits the stomach fr'om  takilng arsenic, and wllen
tlle stomach  does  take arsenic, He  has to send  no
angcel to afflict that organ with unspeakable and 11ortal agonv.  God forbids intemperance, and  what  a
ghastly tlhrong of w\oes comes to avenge it!  God( commands cleanliness; and if people will wallow in filth
and imbibe foulness at every pore, what  pestilences
stalk forthl to avenge his violated law!  So when God
prohibits men from  doinw, wroinc, and  tlev  will do
74
t
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OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY.
wIrongl, remorse comes of itself,-  sometimes earlier,
sometilmes later, but always it will come, and with more
terrible avengings, the longer it delayls.
From  humani penalties men  solmetimes  escape;they conceal the ofience, they foil the prosecutor, they
flee the country; but who  cani secrete anythling fi'om
thle All-seeing  Eye; who  can  circinmvelit  the Allknowino g inli(t; who can flee beyond( the jurisdiction
of the Omnipotent?  For all conceiNvable, for all p)ossible offences against God's laws, w-hetlier of the body or
of the mind; whether committed in this life, or in the
next, there is an inexorable, an irrepealable, an a(ldamantine law, that the offenders miust suffer until the oftlnces
cease.
And now-, my young fr'ien,ds, it is not without a special purpose that I have labored thus long to give you
an idea of the word lacv, and of the resistlessness and
universality of the Divine law.  There are two grand,
fundamental truthls to be dravwn  firom whlat has been
said.  Thlough  I have not time to enlarge upon them
now, I hope to do so hereafter.
The  first t-ruthl is, that if the whole universe,
nature and man, body and soul, -  is pervaded by the
laws of God, tlhen, in order to do thle will of God, we
must know what His laws are.   This is a universal
truth.  The navigator cannot cross the ocean in safety,
unless he understands the laws of I navi(gation; and the
more perfectly lie understands and obeys those laws,
the more safely and rapidly can he sail the seas.  The
farmer must observe agricultural laws, and just in proportion as he does so, will be the abundance and the
excellence of his harvests.  The  physician must understand both Plivysiolov and. Patholo(y,-  the laws both
75 
LLAwV - -THE FIRST PRINCIPLE
of health and disease, - or hlie will kill instead of curin,g.
Who would ever consult a lawyer, ignorant of the constitution and laws of the land?  And so the perfect
Christian must understanld the laws of God, as well as
resolve to obey them. He must supply his intellect
wiithl knowledge as well as fill his heart with love. And
before all men in the world, the Christian Pastor,   the
Feeder,- for that is the meaning of the word, should
abound in knowledge.  It is bad enough for our market-men to supply us with unhealthful food; but that
injures our bodies only. It is bad enough for our lawyer to give us false counsel, but that can only put our
worldly estate in peril.  It is bad enouhli when our
surgeon amputates the limb he should save, but that
only mutilates our bodily fiame.  But when our spiritual provider feeds our souls with chaff and husks,
with the superstitions of the Dark Ages, or the do,gmas
of men, instead of the bread of eternal life, le does a
wrong which the ages of eternity can never fully repair.
How  can a man who is ignorant of God's laws be
God's ambassador or representative?  Get kinowledlge,
thlen, my young friends, get wisdom, and with all thy
gettilngs, get understanding.  Get  science  (which is
nothing but a knowledge of God's laws) as a religious
duty.  Before you can obey, you must know.  Knowledgcle, then, is essential to a rational piety. And by
this, I do not mean to lower one class of duties, but only
to elevate the other.
The other truth deducible from this Discourse, is, if
possible, still more important. It regards the quality
or nature of the obedience we render  to any law.
When we obey firom  compulsion, from fear, from a
dread of evil; that is, when we are frightened( into
76
0 
j!
OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 
obedience, or scolded into it, or scourged into it, such
collllmpulsoryl obedience is a-lways attended with a sense
o-tf degriadation, of slhamie, and of pain.  It is a perversion of this feeling tlhat leads some litlf-grown men to
say-, " I  iam w-illi(ng to do it, but if commanded to, I
won}'t."  But, on the other lhand, when we see that a
law is usefuli, rigbt, wise, beautitful; when  our whole
iora.l and intellectual nature approves it, and consents
to it, and rejoices in it, tlhein, in such obedience, there
is a sense of digonity, of elevation, of everlasting joy,
-whichl is indescrilbab)ly pure and glorious.  lThe drunkard is a slave, -  one of the meanest and miscrablest of
slaves.  If some  master stands over him with vwhllip or
blLudgl(eon, and f)rbids his indul,ence on pain of instant
beating, tlhen lie my ablstaii; but how painful, how
mean and contelnpl)til)le are all his feelings.  A  brutish
al)lpetite contends w-ithl  a brutish fear. T'orture, rag,e,
malice, are all his feeliings.  Tolhlet is in his bosom.
Ite burns for tlhe draum lt, and lie crinces at tle blow,
and  each kind of' pain agg(ravates anid maddens  tlhe
other.  l3ut now, suppose that same intemp)erate man
to rise out of his brutish nature, and to become a man
in truth.  Suppose him to stand erect, and say; " I will
be a slave no longer  "   Then, in every struggl,e which
lhe w ies withl his accursed al)ppetite, lie goes into the
battle lilke a lero.   In the fiercest contest, he has.a
proud fbelinou that hle is the superior; and so hlie bears
htimself loftlv tlirouli every struggle, and  comes  out
of it triiumllhautly, like a great conqueror, -  like tlhe
noblest of conquerors, for he has subdued flesh and devil
at once.   Such a maii, after such  a contest, is transfigired.  lIe has a new and nobler soul in him.  He
feels taller, aind lie is taller; foir, in tlle consc(iousness of
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77
f 
78       LAIV -THE FIRST PRINCIPLE, ETC.
rectitude he stands more erect, and looks upon men and
nature firom a manlier brow and with a loftier glance.
All the faculties within him, hail him and say to him;
" Now tlou art a man."   And they crown him witl
conscious honor.  It is so with him who detlhrones any
vice, and enthrones the correlative virtue in its stead.
And what is the difference between this moral hero,
this valiant conqueror in the noblest fields of conflict;
- what is the difference between this mall, and the
craven, cringing cowardly wretch, who abstained from
the same indulgence through the dastard, brutish mnotive of fear? The difference is simply this. One
obeyed firom external and brute restraint; the other
firomn an internal and voluntary one. Both alike abstained, but one was a beast and a slave  while  lihe
abstained; the other, a hero and a conqueror.  Now
this, my young friends, is the liberty wherewith Christ
makes men free.  This is the escape from bonda,ge into
the glorious liberty of the children of God.   What was
before an outward and an imposed law, is now an inward
and a spontaneous act.  What was before a servitude,
is now a sovereignty.  In the one case, the obedience
was slavish; in the other, it was Christ-like.  In the
one case it was torment, in the other it was bliss.
Study the laws of God, then, my young friends, in
regard to your whole nature,-  Body, MIind, Heart.
Bringc yourselves on the side of those laws which are
wvise, good, and holy, and which you cannot resist
adapt yourselves to your position in the universe; and
never forget that such are the irrepealable ordinances
of God, that the righteous martyr at his stake, enjoys
more, and suffers less, than the sinner on a throne.
(
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I 
IMEI)ITA.TION.
MEDITATION.
OUR Fathler, Thou dost talk withl us from heaven now
not less tlan with Thy servants in days of old.  Thou
dost teachl us in Thy providences and in the stupendous
ordtler of nature, not less impressively, not less intelligibly, tlan if Thy voice should peal into our natural
ear firom  Sinai's awful Mount.   Deep-piercing to our
intelligence are Thy warnings and Thy thlreatenings to
dayl, as if they flashed visibly from  mountain or cloud
illto our natural eye. Tllhy righteous laws pronmising
reward; Thy no less righlteous laws menacing punishiment, are wrought into our very frames, into our organizations, into whatever organ we have for physical life,
so that we have an ever-open book before us  calling us
to Tliee by the most powerful of persuasions and entreaties, forbidd(ingc us to forsake an(l forget Thlee, by
admonitions to which the adder's ear could not be deaf.
And in addition to all these appeals and expostulations
in favor of the right; in addition to all these protests
in(d deprecations against the wrong,  revealed to us  in
the very constitution of our being, we  lave the words,
the precepts, the example, the life, the character, of
Jeisus Christ, himself the glorious pattern of what we
ougll,t to be.  Wlien  his public  ministry began,  lie
was first called to resist temptation, first beset, as all
youthl in all times are beset, by the appetite for food;
yet, tliouli hle had  falsted for forty days and forty
79 
MiEDITAr.TIONX.
nighlts, lie would not yield to taste of whlat it was wrong
for him to eat; then tempted by the iniflations of pride
and self-sufficiency, that snare by which so many youth
are made an easy prey to ruin, the belief that they
are  sufficient  for themselves, that they may violate
law and duty, and still secure prosperity and hlonor;
and then tempted by ambition, the love of power, of
dominion, that beguiling seduction that draws so many
away, that fills and crowds the broad  road leadingi to
the chambers of death.  1Oh, may the youth of thlis ag(e,
of all coming ages, first of all, strive to imitate his
example in withlstandi(ng the temptations which lie in
ambush  along their path.  Our Father, look upon us
as tlhy children.   We have needs.   Tlou liast the inexhaustible futlness from which they can  be suppllied.
Thou who in Thy good providence dost give uIs our
daily bread, give us that for which our souls are languislingi and perishing, the bread and the waiters of
life.  Tlou whlo hast given us this mnortal existence,
wilt Thlou prepare us for that immortal existence which
lies beyond the grav-e.   Thou  by whlom  it has been
ordained for all men that they once shall dlie, save, ohl
save us from tlhat second deatlh wAiichl consists in alienation from  Thllee, and voltuntirv- disobedience to Tl'y
hih(-i will.  Thllou dost giv-e us pleasures of sense, )pleasures of the body.   Oh give us tlhose purer an(( nol)ler
satisfactions of the soul by which we slhall be al)le 1al)turously to exclaim, like the I'salmiist of old, " My
deli(ght is in the law of the Lord(l."
Oh, our Fatlher, may we  seek more and more to
know Tlhy laws, tlhat we Imay obey tllem better; for
how can our weakness defy Thy Omnipotence, or our
ignorance talke counsel to defeat Thy knowvle(lge?  Oh
)
80
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MEDIT'I'TIO N.
God, Thy laws are ill thle heavenls above, and  ill th(e
earti beneathl, in every ray that streams friom  every
star; in every leaf that hangs on every tree; in the
structure of every living( thing<; in our bodies, and in
our souls.  The laws of thle universe are but the thoughts
of God(l.  We live then in Thy presence, we are enconmpassed by Thy power.   Thy knowledge( shines like a
sun ill the inmost recesses of our hearts, and our most
secret thoLughts are known to Thee.   In view of this,
may we have sincerity towards Thee, may we imiitate
the exampl)le of Thy Son Jesus Christ.  He came to a
world sunk in ignorance, to a world that had(l never
kiiowni, or that had forg(otten Thy attributes, to a world
tlit  lived in defiance of Thy  colmmandmeadnts.  But
lie di(l not coIme as a conqueror, to subdiue and enslave
he did not coime as al avenger, to overwhelmn or destroyv; he  did not  come  with lightnings alnd with
thunlderings, to terrify and to blast, but hle was heralded
by angels who proclaimed " Peace on  Earth; "     he
tauglit thle doctrine of a Paternal Ruler of tlie Uliverse
and he went al)out doing good.   MIay we imitate his
example'
7
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81 
II
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SIN-THE TRANSGRESSION OF
THE LAW. 
t 
m
IV.
SIN -THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW.
IN my last Discourse, I endeavored to illustrate the
great truth, that the relation between God and ourselves is not merely that of Creator and created, but
that also of Lawgiver and the subjects of law.  God
being( our ri(ghtful Lawgiver, we, as His subjects, owe
Him allegiance.
I then defined the meaning of the word law -that
it merely signifies the manner in which God acts - and
I illustrated the idea of law by copious examples, selected from the different kingdoms of nature, - friom
the inanimate not less than from  the animate world;
from body and from spirit.  I showed also that even
wN-ithin thie narrow circumference of human knowledge,
there is an immense variety in the works of creation,
and that each order, each genus, each species, each individual and each org(ran and faculty of each individual,
has its appropriate law.  Strictly speaking, there is no
such thing as  chance.  WVhen the nav-igator says he is
beyond soundings, he does not nmean to imply that there
is no bottom to the s(ea; but onlv that it is so deep that
he cannot find it, &;c. All classes of created existences
have their laws, though as yet we may not have discovered them, the chemical, the botanical, the zo6logical, and these laws are uniform; that is, when you ascertain how they operate in one case, you know how
7*[85]
I
I 
SIN -THlE' TtAkNSGI, ESSION
they operate in all like cases. The astronomer, firom
his knowledge of planetary motions, can not only calculate the eclipses of this year, but, in his thlou,ghts, lie
canl whleel the heavenly machinery backwards, and tell
the exact time of all the eclipses that have happened
for six tiotusand  -years, and he  can also whleel it forwards, and tell the exact time of all the eclipses that
will ihapilen while our present solar system lasts.   This
seems a v-ast duration to be penetrated  by the foreknowiledge of the astronomer;  but the moralist can
I)enetrate infinitely farther into futurity thlan this; for
lie can foretell, that, not only while the solar system
lasts, but while God lives, the wicked soul, should it
remain wicked, must be miserable: but the pious spirit,
so long as it relmains pious, must  be lhappy.  Su(cl is
the uniformiity of God's laws, enabling us to predict
future histories, firom known facts.
In the natural world, even when we find what appears to be an anomaly, we  do not find it to be any
violation of law, but only the application of a new law
to new  circumstances: and that the new  law  also is
uniform.   It is the law of fluids, for instance, that they
shall contract, or be reduced in bulk, as tlhey grow cold.
A  gallon of water becomes less and less in size, as it
grows colder; until just before it reaches the templ)erature of 32~ of our common thlermometer, - -whichl is
the fr'eezing i, )oint, --  when it suddenly expands.  It
expands just at the moment  when it is to be turned
into ice.  Now this sudden expansion is not a violation
of the law of contraction, but it is a new  law applicable to a new state of facts, and established for the wisest
of purposes.  For, if a cubic foot of water slould continue to grow more  and more solid as it grows colder
8(i
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I 
OF TIlE ILAwV. 
llp to tle time whenl it hardells into ice, then the cubic
foot of ice would be heavier than thle  samne bulk of
water, and would sink to thle bottom, of course.   And
thus, as soon as one layer of water should fireeze and
sink, the water that came  to tlhe surface in its place,
would also freeze and  sink, and so of thle rest, laiyer
after layer, until our poncls, our rivers, and  even our
great lakes miglit all be turned into ice ill a  sing(le
'winter, and then a hundred( sumimers miiillt not be sufficient to tliaw'tliem.   What a beautifitl thlin, it would(l
be, if the heart of a miser, as it growvs lar(der and
harder with av-arice and griping(, sllotl(l, just  c)efore it
solidifies into tile miser petrifaction, sud(denily l)egin to
expand'  and afterwards restore its hloa(rds, as tlhe wavter
gives out its latent hleat for the benefit of tle world.
The newv law of loving our neiglibor as ourselves, applied to him-, would work this marvel.
Again; vwhile any vegetable or animal organization
retains tlhe princille of life, it "rows, or imoves, or acts,
in som-noe -way, accor(ling(  to tle nature il r)rssesd ul)on
it; l),it as soon as life departs, the chemical law takes
possession  again, and  tlle veogetable or  llillll b)ody,
wlhatev-er it imay be, decays, is decomp-)osed, iand returnls
to its origiinal eleiments.   Indeed, if' life departs  fi'oli
any portion of our bodies, even for an ]toiir, nor tii(ctiol c lm nces,  nd(l thle vital oroanizatioil is re(du(e(,
to insensate matter.   Tllius it is tlat the same maeteials
may pass successively under tle action of dlifil reiit laws
be mineral this vear, vegetable next, iand animal tlhe
third, and then return to its original condition, to pass
througllh  thle same cycle again.
All the org,ans of our bo(lies, wvlen we are in a state
of lheatlthl, hlave  their laws of hlealtl, alidl +iese tlaws,
87 
SIN - TIlE TtRANSGRESSION
when embodied in a science, we call Human  Plhysio logy and Hygiene;  but if these laws are violated, so
that the organs pass out of a healthy condition into a
diseased one, then they become subject to a new set of
laws, -  to the laws of Disease,-  the science of which
is called Patliolo(,v.
So tle moral nature of man has its laws, - laws by
which  alny one and every one who chooses the path of
duty and virtue and piety, and walks in it, will find
himself constantly ascending the Mount of Blessedness,
whose upper circles command  all the benefits of tils
world, and whose summit is crowned with all the glories
of Heaven.   But any one and everv one  who chooses
the path of disobedience and follows it, will find himself descendiing to misery and ruin.  And the virtue
and the happiness on the one hand, and the vice and
the misery on the other, are not arbitrary or fortuitous
connections, but each necessitates the other; neither
can exist without the other; they are component parts
of the same thing, just as oxygen and hlydrogen, in certain proportions, are component  parts of a  drop  of
water, and you cannot have a drop of water without
themi, or them in that combination, wvithlout water.
So, as the word law simply expresses the mietlhod in
which God acts, it follows that these laws, that is, His
method of action, are irresistible; so that, if it be a
proof of intellectual idiocy or insanity for a man to
take red-hot iron in his hands, or to pour  molte lI lava
down his throatt, or to feed on hlellebore, or make his
ni(gitly couch  in a furnace, it is a proof also of moral
idiocy or insanity, to bid defiance to the laws of God.
But how can we say that God's laws are irresistible,
and, at the same time speak of our resistiing or violat
88
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1OF  T' HE   L,.S.
imo( those lai-ws?  How ca-n we resist, or violate a resistless and inviolable law?  A  siingle word  will  exlplain
tliis.   Wlieni we speak of v-iolatiiin  one of God's laws,
we do not mean tllhat we ablolisll, or annihilate it. Tliou,li
thlle law  mav ha ve been broken ten  tllousand times, it
remiains as bind(ling and op)eratie as before.  It wotld
be siili)lv abs)urd for a man to say, " I lave broken t},ec
commandmenc t against theft, aind therefore, thiere are
now- oly- nline commanhllia  inenlts left."   Tliho ll one mnay
lhav-e brolken every one of tlhe commnandments a Hlundred
times, the Decalo()e is as whlole and as ilmperisliable as
before.   Whlile one obeys the laws of lhealtll, off virtue,
or of relig(ioni, lie is under  the laws of llealthl, virtue
ad religion' but wllen lie violates tllose laws, tllen le
comes under( new  sets of laws, -  the laws of disease,
vice, a.d irreli-ion.   To  a 1man w-lo never coilnitte(l
murder, or rol)bbery-, thle laws of murder and robbery do
not aptply; but the moment thlose crimies are COllnniitted,
thlen the laws an(l tlheir penalties instantaneously attac'l
to tlle offell(ndLer; -just as wlhenC water is above thlle teineraLture of c, th     e law of fluids apI)lies to it; but
when it siniks to 3)2, tllen tllhe law of cong,elation al-))ies
to it.'lhlis slhows the propriety of oUn1r sp)eakiing of resistanee and v-iolation, by fi'ee agrents, of irresistible and
inviolablle laws.  If, then, God acts by laws, and makes
its know, or enables us to know, wlhat  thlose laws are,
we, as IIis subjects, are bound to obey tllhem, by ian allegilnce whllichl we cin'tiot shlake off.  And, if' bound to
obey-, thlen any willttl or conscious violation of tlhemi is
(guilt.   Or, as Jolim says in that part of' his first Epistle
whlich lI read to \ott this morning, " Sin is a tramsgore-ssion  of tlle  law;"''hicl, l\eh liaps, uinldt 1)e illole
I)itliil- re(lered(l into out la~g'lg,e 1i)  iiinvertilng tlle
89
i
!I 
SIN-l -THE  TIANSGRESSION
order of the words, and saying, " Tle transgression of
the law is sin."
I have spoken to you of the grandeur and amplitude
of the word Lxw, lhowv it reaches to the hei,ghts, and
descends to the depthls, and is commensurate with the
extent of all being.  But this correlative word SIN, this wilfil violation of law, -  has a meaning too large
and terrible ever to be described or conceived by mortal
mind.  Sin! think of it, look at it, tremble and flee!
On the one side, is there not a God of Infinite Power;
for what but Infinite Power could have created the stars
and constellations above us; or the exquisite mechianisms of the vegetable and animal worlds around us, or
our own frames so fearfulily and wonderfully made, or
our souls, whose thougits " wander tlrough eternity?
Is He not a Being, as wise as He is powerful, and as
benevolent as He is wise?  And  was it not thllrough
good-will that He created us, encompassed us with an
atmosphere of blessings, and made us capable of ascending forever aloi(ng an infinite scale of excellence, of enlargingC our natures with new accessions of wisdom and
truth, of adorning ourselves with beauties which exist
only in the Paradise of God, and of rejoicing firom a,ge
to ag(re with more intense and seraphic exultations?
On the other hand, think what it imports, that a
creature of the dust, a being of yesterday, with but a
hand's breadth of knowledge anid the  experience of an
hlour, should attempt to make laws for himself, instead
of findling out and obeying the laws that God has made
for him; that such a being should suppose that lie has
found out a path, by whiic  lie can reach  lapl)piness
sooner, feel its tlirills more deeply and enjoy it longer,
than by followving the counsels and comalands of his
90
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OF THE,LAw.
infinitely wise and perfect Fathtler; is it not amazing,
and would it not be incredible, if our whole lives, full
of observation and experience, did not make us see and
feel its truth!
Milton has personified Sin, and described her as a
hideous monster set to guard thie gates of lhell
"Before the gates there sat,
On either side, a formidable shape,
The one seemed woman to the watist. and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold,
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed
With mortal sting.  About her middle rourd
A cry of hell-hounds, never ceasing, Lark'd,
With wide Cerberean mouths, full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womnb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd
Within unseen."
But no physical imagery, thlou(h gathlering disgust
upon disgust, and accumulating( horror upon horror, can
paint the dreadful reality of sin itself.  Sin is not a
fabled monster, but a real one.  It is not an existence
outside and apart firom man's bosom, but witlin it.  It
is not a creature whom you must go to the gates of a
material hell to see,- it is not a caged beast or fiend
carried about in chains for a show,-  but it is a resident
of every guilty man's heart.  Would to God that sin
had no terrors worse than barking hliell-hounds, fiercely
rusling out from their ambush to seize unwary victims,
and then dragging the prey to their loathsome kennel.
But sin is a voluntary exiling of oue's self firom coininmunion with God and all good beings; it is a forfeiture of
all the heavenly peace of virtue, of the blissful harmnonies whIielc flow  in, like music,  upon the soul, after
I,,)I
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t ~ ~      ~     ~      a v  v'
weary ill its )besiegiiu(s or pursuit, and, at last, leave you
to rest; butt as a foe, wNlich, if you do not exorcise and
exl),l, wNill remiaiin a part of you forever, anid wlien  its
iname is called, tlouh,i il tlie  )resence of an  assel)hled
universe, vou wNill be forced to answer, " It is I."   Sin
consists lot in vultures tearing( your licart withl bloo(ldy
talon and beak; not in wvolves lhoundlng-i  your pantilng
steps, across l()n('y wastes  in a sini(nliAt darkness; not
in serpen,ts coilino tlhemselves roundl bosomn and thlroat,
and stranli(ng out your life; not in pirates torturingii(
out  tlhe secret oF your  hid(den weth;  not iii 1)i(ots
stretchino y-ou upon the liml,-disjointinc ra(.k, or 11il(lin(,  ou t   t i-he fire-englirdled stalke; al thii s  couii(Id b(
bo:', lIres beeni borne tiiumptliantill   w ith   sliout,s of cxtiltation aind joy; but sin consists in a 1     s  state  ofi tlhe
mi(nd ain(d hleart; in dishoniest contriv'ln(-es; in iii)iiCme
desire:; in  intemperance; in COIcul)iscCfl(-C; 1in 1)p0ofhiiity; in blIaspliemy against thlle good Go(l; in tllose
acts o- wvroing, wlfich, Nwhlatever tlley may be, register
tiemselves.,  as they are commniitte(l, uponI t,lie  eterual
tal)let (of tlhe lieart; and, unless   relitet,)f'and( foisa
I
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! 
OF TIIE lAW..
ken, will renmain tHle blackeniing autobiogoraphly of eter nitv.  Sin is the weakness  and disease of tile moral
faculties.  You know  what is meant  by a withered
lillmb, -  an arm that you cannot raise up to your head,
a foot you cannot move  forward in your path.  Sin,
COmlIlmitte(d against our fellow-men, is sucn   a paralysis
of conscience or justice.   You  know what is meant by
an id(iot, -  a blalnk, stark, brainless moonling, - one
Nlio dwells amid the beauties and glories of nature, yet
finds no chlarm or splendor in them all; one who  lives
amid its hlarinmonies, yet hears no music; one who walks
among all thle grandeurs and varieties of creation, but
to whlom they all seem tame and monotonous.  Such is
thle loathsome idiot, lhaving only the outward form, bereft of thle inward majesty of a man.   The sinner is the
moral idiot.  To  his silghtless eye, and his tuneless ear,
all the bri(ghtness and joy of tile moral world is blank
and inane.   Of that summit and crown of all mortal
and imlnmortal beauty,- tHle Beauty of holiness, - lihe
sees not a feature nor a gleam.  To this idiot sinner, or
sinner idiot, all the power and wisdom of this truth(ompacted universe, is enipty and  formless as chlaos
itself; and, instead of dwelling in the beatific presence
of God, and in communion with all good  spirits, he
roams a voluntary exile, fatherless, motherless, fiiendless, and forlorn, tlhrouclgh the unanswering void of inmensity.   Such is sin; such it is to be a sinner.
But instead of these general views, let us look at the
subject of sin wvith a little more particularity and indivildualiziing, and make the domain of conscience and
reli(gion larger.  Moral and  relig,ious teachers  have
confined their expositions, their rewards, and their penalties, to too few things.
8
V
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SIN -  TIlE'l'RANSGRESSION
Tile trans(gression of tlte latw is sill. Before, then,
there can be any sin, there must be a law. On this
point I have before spoken to you at sufficient length.
I have shown you that every created thingr, animnate, or
inanimate; everything, organized, or unorganized, has
its law. All the organs of your bodies, and all the
faculties of your minds, have their law; and when these
laws, or any one of them, is knowin,gly or wilfully transgressed, there is sin.  This shows us what transgression
is; let us now see who is capable of being a transgressor.
The etymological mneaning of the word transgress is, to
pass over or beyond a prescribed limit. A wilful transgression, thlen, can be committed only by some one who
knows, or was bound to know, and had opportunity to
know, where the limit is. None but an intelligent and
moral being can know this.  Hene, none but an intelligent and moral being can be a transgressor, that is, a
sinner.   When a railroad locomotive runs beyond its
station house, it has passed its limit or goal; but it is
not a sinner.  When fire escapes firom furnace or chlilnney top, and burns down a house, or a city, it overleaps
its boundary, but fire is not a sinner.  When  a stark
idiot destroys property, or takes human life, he is not a
sinner, for he knows no better.  You mi,llt as well say
that the moon is a sinner, when, in passing, between the
sun and the earth, it casts its shadow on the latter, and
causes an eclipse.  One of the conditions of sin, then,
is that, there must be a law; and another condition is,
that there must be a capacity for und(lerstandincr the law.
Everyv duty is a law, and, hence, as I have often told
you, there are not only ten commandments,  but ten
tllousand; and, therefore, transgression, or sin, may
manifest itself in ten thousand (liferent w:,vs.
NY'
94
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()OF THE LAW,.'
As conditions of sin, then, there must not only be a
law, and a general ability in the subject, sufficient to
understand the law, but the means of kinowing or understanding it must be supplied.    lWhile a proposed
law still remains in the lawgiver's bosom, or is only
)romulgated in an unknowin tongue, the subject cannot
tiaIlsoress it, in a moral sense.  The Roman Eilmperor,
Caligula, is  said to have caused his laws to be written
in a handvwriting so fine, and to be posted up on columns so highi, that the people could not see to read
themi, and then he punished those by whom they were
not obeyed. Who was the greater criminal in this case,
the alleged law-breaker, or the law-m1aker? And when
a man assures us that God acts by this rule, what does
hle make of God but another Caligula, only an infinitely worse one?
So an ex post facto law is always an iniiq(uitous law.
What, in the language of jurisprudence, is called an
ex post facto law, is a law which looks backwards, instead of forwards, which declares it to be criminal to
have performed an act, tllat was not criminal at the
time when it was done.  For instance there may be
no law, at the present time, against miaking gunpowder;
if, then, the Legislature should pass a law, declaring(r
that every man who has mnade gunpowder during, the
past year, should be subject to fine and imprisonment,
this would be an ex )ost facto law.  I have heard theologiaans say, that all men, except, perhaps, the ancient
Jews, who lived before the advent of Jesus Christ, must
be forever lost; simply because they had never lleard
of, and therefore never believed on Him.   Would such
persons, or would thley not, be jludged bly an ex post
facto law?
9
1)
I 
SI-N' THE TRANSGRESSION
You see, also, tllat, as men pass tlrou(gi tile greatest
variety  of relations and  circumstances, thley  become
subject to the greatest variety of laws, and  therefore
may commlit the greatest variety of sins.  Every new
relation, and every new set of circulmstances, l)presents an
occasion for the app)lication of a new  law.   If one hlas
a fltller, hle is bound to that  flttller by the filial law.
If lie sliould lose thllat filtller and hlave a guardian, tlienI
lie is no longrer bound by the law of the son to the
fathler, but by the modified law of thlle ward to thlle guardian; and -when lie becomes  twenty-one years of ag(e,
then he is absolved from all legal  obligations to llis
guardian, but he takes on the responsibility of a citizen
to the State; and if hle shlould marry and hlave children,
then hle comes under  the parental obligation, and is
leg(ally bound for thlle nurture, support, and e(dutcation of
those children, until they arriv-e at thlle ag(e of twentyone, at whlichl  time tlhis new relation is modified, both
on his part, and on tlleirs.
Tflleien, tlhere are laws applicable to all our appetites
and  l)propensities.  Thllere  is a law wllichl  forbids our
indulgeincc in food or drink, to a deg(rree that would be
injurious to hlealthl.   We  hlave  no right to eat more
because our food tastes good.   We sllould eat in reference to tlle stomalch, and not to thlle palate.  No matter
how sweet, and savory, and odorous, your food may be,
the more so the better; -it was intended tlhat eatinmg aind drinkiing shlould give us pleasure.  lItu whlat I
insist upon is, tlhat hlealth, and not immediate plealslre,
shlould be our law at the table; and lwhoever obevs this
law, will obtain not only more healtll, but more pleasure,
in the long( run.
]By applying this train of tliought to otller splheres of
96
i
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OF  TIlE TI Aw.
action, you will readily perceive that there can be  an
almost infinite number of offences; and offences, too, of
every va riety and degree of heinousness.  Somie are
peccadilloes, faults, defects, or blemishes il moral chlaratcter.  Others are of a graver nature, trespasses, mis demeanors, and crimnes inferior to felonies; while otllers
involve moral turpitude, belong,ing to what, in law, is
called the cri,ien fctlsi, such as conspiracy to injure,
perjury, subonationI of perjury,  &c.; and others are
crimes  a()aiiist God  himself, -  profianity,  blasphemy,
impiety, sacrilege.
Itf, tlhen, there are various grades of offences, there
must be various deffgrees of g_uilt among ofienders.  Did
not Christ say, it should be more tolerable for Tyre and
Sidon, and even for Sodoin and Gomorrah, than for the
oftlbnders in his day?  Justice punishles according to the
ill-desert of the offender.   For the same outward act, it
does not punish an ignoranlt, untutored child, as it
would an initelligent adult.  It surely wvill not punish
the rulers of a nation who have been bred all their lives
long in tllouolts and sentiments of oppression, for commiittino acts of oppression, as it will punish, for similar
acts of injustice and cruelty, those whio have been bred
all their lives long to a knowledge and an appreciation
of the Riglts of Mi'an., And that servant," says Jesus
Christ, " who.lioknewv his Lord's will, and prepared  not
himself, neithler did accordin(r to  his will, shall be
beaten with many stripes.   But  lie that  knew not,
and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten
with few stripes.  For unto whomsoever much is given,
of him shall much be required; and to whom men have
conmmitted much, of him they will ask the more."
Hence we see that God will punish thIe clear-headed,
8*
I
\
t)T 
SIN —THE TRANSGRESSION
strong-minded, far-seeinr man; that He  will punish
those who have been illuminated by the glorious ligt
of the  Gospel, by a different stand(lard friom  that by
which Ile will punish weak and ilnbecile menI, or tle
barbarian andi lleatlen.
Thle same vear that Prof. Webster was executed in
Massachusetts, for thle murder of Doctor  Parkinan,
another rm, naeind Wasliington Goode, was hungI for
anotller murd(ler.  The first was educated, learned, an(d,
from his birth, had enjoyed all the advantages tlhat refinled society, schools, churches, colleges, could bestow.
The latter was a colored man, l)orn in ol)scuritv, swaddledl in ignorancee, nursed by the griping of the iron
arms of poverty, left to fall into intemperance, and
l)esotted by vices, until lie app)roached, at least, near tlhe
line of moral unaccoiintability.   Petitions for the pardon of them both were signed and sent to the Governor.
Now, whlat would you have said of tle Governor, had
hle pardoned the man whom  all the attendant circimnstances of life had tended to rescue and to uplift; but
had sent the man to the gallows, -whose every faculty
from his birth, had l)een loaded withl  some immoral
gravitation  that weighed  him  downward  to ruin?
WVhat should we think of the Ruler of a State whlo could
do this? What shoitld we think of the Ruler of a Universe whlo could do this?  I kinow that -it is said that
God, by right of tlis sovereig,nty, may do  anytllhing
with the creatures of His own creation.   The God I
w-orshlip recognizes no riilt to be unjust!  And there
is no rule of reason or relig(ionl, vwhichl  authorizes me to
judg,e of his good attributes, in order to love and adore
Him, which does not also authorize me to pronounce
upon any evil attributes that are imputed( to Him.
,)S
II
I
I
i
i 
OF THE LAW..
God punishes, also, for the offelnce committed, and
not for any other offence. What should we think of
the father of a family, tle teacher of a school, the facultv
of a colle(ge, or of tle tribunals whliclh administer tlm
criminal laws of a State, if tlev had l)ut one and the
samie p)unishment for all varieties of offenders?   -tas
the Infinite God  less justice, less discrilmination, less
Il)rimiti-ve appliances to fit different degrees of wroncg,
tlmii earthly fathler, teacher, faculty, or judg,e? He
ulnishles physical sins, or transgressions of )bhysical law,
p)iysically; and  other sins according( to tlheir kind and
a(g,ravationi.  Does  a man  exlpose himself to sudden
transitions firom heat to cold? lie is punished by rlieuiatisml, inflammation, and consumption.   Highl living
agg,rav-ated by indolence, is punished by gout.   Liceiltiousness rots men, until they become like rotten shleel)p.
Intemperance  demonizes the  heart, mad(lens, and, at
last, stultifies the brain, divides the limbs, and joints,
and organs of thle body, into a thousand parts, and sets
a devil over each part to torment it.  National crimies,
slavery, or any form of legalized oppression; forbid(ling, popular education, or even neglecting to promote
it,- are punislled by wide-spread poverty, by ignorance, by long( lialting(s in the miarchl of civilization, and,
in many  cases,  by  pestilences,  famine,  and  death.
Crilmes against the soul of man, - such as sectarianism,
bicgotry, intolerance of free thllought, - are punished by
a meanness, and narrowness, and cruelty of national
character, and by the extinction of all manly, noble,
and  generous sentimients.  Crimes against  the moral
laws of God, - such as profanity, blasphemy, sacrilege,
., are punished by moral insensibility, or by remorse;
and, until repented of and abandoned,      by exile from
i* *-:.:    -
99 
SIN - TIJ E TluANSGRA,SSION
God's holy presence, that is fiom those aspirations and
comimnulings, and exaltations of joy, which fill thle life
of good men, wherever they may be, with unspeakable
ecstasy and rapture. We see by all this, that a man
v11y obey some of God's comnmandmenits while he breaks
otlers.  Those which he obeys, lie is rewarded for;
but for all those which hlie breaks, hlie is punislled.
The civil magistrate punishes only for the crimles which
men commit.  If a man be guilty of horse-stealicng only,
he is not punished for bi,gamy.  If lie be guilty only of
theft, hle is not punislied for setting houses on fire.  So
w,e may be sure that God will only punishi men for the
offbnces which they commit.  If thie wickedest man
thlat ever lived miakes a perfect steaiii-eng(ine of five
hundred horse-power, it will work just as well as thlou,ghl
it had been made by the best of saints.  Being, an engine of five hundred horse-power, it will not be cut
ldowvn to an engine of four hundred, or three hundred,
or one hundred horse-power, because its maker practised
one, two, or three vices, or committed so many crimes
of a hideous dye.  The vices or crimnes will be puilislied, according to their respective qualities, but not
the steami-ei(ngine. For, wherever the man is guilty,
tlere he is sure to be punished by the adanmantine law
of eternal rectitude, just as he is sure to be rewarded
whlerever hlie is meritorious.  Hence, if a man loves God
with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and stren(th,l,
and his neighlbor as himself; if he does justly, loves
mercy, and walks hlumbly with his God; if hle visits
the fathlerless and the widows in their affliction, and
keeps himself unspotted from the world; then, there is
only one sense in which it may be said that such a man
cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, - that is, because
—....:.:
100
I-I
IN 
OF TIIE LAW.
he is iin it atlrea(y.  So, if one's life and character are
the reverse of all this, thlen, thllere is only one sense in
whichl it can be said that  such  a man  will not be
doomed to perdition; -  namely, that lie was doomed
there lono ago, and thle sentence is already in process
of execution.   Heaven  and hell are not places,  but
states of mind; not regions for the geographler to exl)lore and set out by metes and bounds; but conditions
of the soul which we call remorse, hatred, and torment,
or joy, beatitude, and ecstasy.  For, as Mlilton says,
"The mind is its own place, and in itself,
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
I have time to set forthl but one idea more on this
ilninensely important theme.  It is an idea of modern
date, -  first advanced by one of the most philosophic
and wisest men of the age.  As  we  have a thousand
instances which show us how much philosophy has been
aided by religion, this shows how much  aid religion
may borrow firom philosophy.
The idea I am about to announce, takes the highest
relig,ious platform, to beg,in with.  It assumes, iii tllhe
first place, that man is bound, as far as it is possible for
suchl   a finite beiiingr to do, to ktiov the will of God, and
theni lie is bound to obey it.  But I believe the opinion
has always p revaill, and, until the idea to which I
refer was first broachedl(, thle ol)inion was universal,
that our obligation to obey God's commandments or laws
was more sacred or less sacred, had more or less binding stringency, and was accompanied and enforced by
liii,ier penal sanctions or )by lower penal sanctions,
Iecordiiig to the manner in which those laws were made
kIowni  to us.  That is, that when  an ackniiowledged
truth or duty has been made known to the world by a
101 
SIN - THE TRANSGRESSI()ON
man of a particular class or nation, or by a man not
believed to be divinely inspired, it has less efficacy, less
binding power upon our consciences and lives, than if
it had been communicated to us by a Hebrew prophet,
or by a man supposed to be divinely inspired. According to this theory, God's truths or commands are not
worthy our homage and observance because of their
intrinsic justice or holiness, because  they are God's
truths or commandm!ents, but because of the channel
thlrough wvhiichl they camle to us; because of their accidents.  Nowv tihe new  and  advanced idea whlich I
wished to set forth is, that any duty, any obligation
whatever, as soon as we are convinced that it is God's
will, or God's law, has the same sovereign authority
over us, and its violation will be accompanied by tle
same fearful penalties, as thlou,ghl the proclamation of
that same will, or law of God, had been made amid
the thunderlings and lightnings of Sinai, or fiom the
burning bush of Horeb.
There are immense differences, it is true, in regard
to the importance of different truths or commandments,
-some referring to the body and some to thle soul,
some pertaining to this life, and some to the next-  and
there are different degrees of faith or of conviction,
according to whichl men believe duties or destinies to
have been  divinely revealed  or philosophically  discovered;  but, when any one of God's truths is demnonstrably made  known to us, that truth is equally
entitled to our homage and observance, and binds us by
tle same awful sanctions, whether revealed from the
cloudy top of Sinai, or discovered by philosophic research, or even by accident.  It is the duty, and not
the mode of demonistratiing it; it is the holy message,
102
I 
OF THE LAW. V.
and not the chlance messengrer; it is the imajesty and
sanctity of God's commands, and not the red or black
ink in which they may be printed; it is thle hloliness of
the li(ght dispensed, and not the direction ft'om which
it shines, which thunders and flashes its appeals on the
soul, and says:  Obey, for it is God's  will. What
matters it to me whether the telegraphic wire whicli
brings me  intelligence of my friend's death, or of his
marvellous rescue from death, be made of iron wire,
or of steel? It is the death or the life of my friend,
and not the wire, that is vital to me.  AMy young friends,
what a solemn thought is this! How are all tile common
duties of life elevated into a higher region, and illuminated with a diviner li(ght by the reflection, that the
truths of Physiology which you learn in your classrooms; that the truths of mental and moral science
which you acquire in your course of collegre studies;
that your duty through life to educate all people in all
lanids, to the higcrhest practicable extent; that your duty
to oppose all unrighteous wars, all oppression, and all
slavery, whether it be of body or of mind; that your
duty to suppress all sources of intemperance, and all evil
habits that have sprung up since the days of Moses or
of Clhrist; that the offence of neglecting, to perform these
duties is just as heinous, and that the punishment for
such neglect will be just as certain and severe, as though
the heatns had been visibly opened and God had au dibly spoken, commanding you to do the same riglit
thlings, or to abstain from the same wrong ones.  Tliis
does not bring down what you may have been accus tomIed to consider the highler truth to a level with what
you thonglit to be the lower one; it only elevates the
low\er to that perfectness of ol)lioation in which yon
lhve hel(l tle hiohler.
103
I 
10-1  SIN -TIE TRANSGRESSION OF TIE LAW.
Let these solemn considerations, my  youong friends,
abide with you thlrou,gh the week and thllrough life; and
may we all remember that as God has promised us the
highest rewards which our natures are capable of receiving, if we obey His laws; for he that doetli righteousness is ri,ghteous, even as God is ri,ghteous; so tIe
has assured us that sin is the transgression of the law,
and made known to us by ten thousand burning, desolating, proofs, that the way of the transgressor is hard.
t
-OS
i
II 
MEDITATION.
MEDITATION.
OUR Father who art in Heaven, we bow before
Thee in reverence and godly fear, and in humility
and love we would adore the Infinite perfections of
Thy nature. Thou alone art the Creator, Preserver,
Ruler, and  Final Disposer of all things.  We  adore
Thee for that Infinite Power by which Thou fillest the
regions of immensity with planets, and suns, and systems, all, as we believe, the abodes of beings capable of
knowin g truth, of feeling love, of enjoying happinessall Thy children, and therefore all our brothers. When
we look upward to the stars, may we not look at them
as vast masses filled with shining but insensate material,
sparkling for an idle show in the azure vault above,
but may we look upon them as realms where Thy moral
power is manifested even more gloriously than Thy
physical. We adore Thee that thou didst create the
universe, not only with Infinite power but with Infinite
skill, so that as Thy creatures advance in knowledge,
the y         can see more and more of Thy perfections of wisdom, of skill, of knowledge, of the adaptation of all
thing(rs to all things, creating, to the ear of contemplation, a solemn harmony, an anthem of praise, through
all the limitless regions of space. To that grand anthem       may we add our hallelujahs.  We  adore Thee
that Thou didst create and dost govern Thy worlds by
immutable and uniform laws, so that we, Thy creatures,
when we know Thy will, for once, can know it al
iF,
105
I 
MEDITATION.
ways; so that we have no fear of the caprices, and
chaingeableness, and arbitrary impulses of a vacillating
governor.  We adore Thee, that Thy laws are all bene volent and holy, made on the great principle that Thy
glory and our highest good are identical, so that all our
nature can respond to the glorious truth that the law
of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the statutes
of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the com mandment of the Lord is firee, enlightening the eyes.
We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, that Thlou hast
raised up from time to time, those great and glorious
men of intellect and genius, who sought out and discovered the laws by  which  Thou  dost govern  the
material world, so that we can explain its wonderful
phenomena, not by follies and va(raries of superstition,
but by the unerring principles of wisdom and truth, so
that we can make those laws subservient to our welfare in arts, in mechanics, in agriculture, in usinig the
great forces of nature to minister to our comfort and
prosperity.  We thank Thee for the men whose genius
has developed and laid down those higher rules of social
life, of civil law, of equity, of government, of education,
by which the interests of great masses of men are promoted and carried into welfare and grandeur.   But
ohl! still more do we praise Thy name for those greater
and nobler spirits who have discovered our relations to
Thee.     *        *   *        *            *
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I 
TESTIO310NY AGAINST EVIL -A DUTY. 
L
I
II 
V.
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL - A DUTY.
MY young friends, I have often sp?ken to you of the
great number and variety of human duties.   Every
relation in life has its peculiar duties. If, therefore, we
consider howv various, and how numerous, or rather how
numberless, are the relations of life, we can have a more
adequate idea of how various and how numberless are
the duties of life.
Every duty implies a command to fulfil it; so that
the moment I become convinced of the existence of
any duty belonging to my position, that moment, I hear
the voice of God commanding me to perform it. Hence,
as I have often said to you before, there are not only
Ten Commandments, but ten thousand.
Tie subject on which I propose to discourse to you
at this timne, is our duty to offenders, to criminals, and
to those who are exposed by any peculiar temptation,
internal or external, to become offenders or criminals.
Alas'  how  numerous  they are!  What  distressful
thlron(gs of men and women who come into life, not only
capable of happiness, but yearning for happiness, have
found only disease and sorrow, pain and ignominy, and
ill sinking at last into an unhallowed grave, have reached
the only quiet spot the earth ever gave them!  The
hopes which nature implanted in their bosoms were
never nurtured into blossoming.  The curse of unfaitli           9*                          [10:3] 
110     TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL -A DUTY.
ful parents, or of bad associates; the pernicious customs
and practices of society, under which they were almost
like clay upon the potter's wheel, exasperated their inborn capacities of evil, and plunged them into ruin.
The health, and strength, and physical joy of which
they were capable, were sacrificed by mnismnanagement.
The mental faculties, hlungering, and  thirsting after
knowledge, were never brought illto right relations to
those objects of knowledg(e of which  the bountiful
Author of nature has prepared such a profusion.  They
were never taught to feel the delights of exercising the
moral nature, delights of which a child can have no
more conception, without a presentation of opportuniities, than he can have an idea of the deliciousness of
fruit that he never tasted.
Indeed, people often deny that children have a love
of knowledge, merely through their own mistakes ill
offering knowledge to them.  Suppose a mother should
buy a vase of the nicest honey for her children, and
should pour it on the top of their heads, or the nape
of their necks, or into their ears, or on the soles of their
feet, instead of putting it into their mouths; and when
the children began to fret and cry, and to express the
strongest disgust, and strive to run away, she should
affirml that children hate honey; she would only do what
many teachers do, when they affirm that children do
not love knowledge.
Consider, for a moment, what a deplorable perversion of their powers bad men make.   Capacitated to
do good, they do evil. With powers and faculties to
seek out and to perform the right, they seek out and
perform the wrong. With health and strength to earn
their own living and add to the common wealth, they
1. 
TESTIMONY AGAINST ElIL -A DUTY.
live by depredating on the property of others. With in genuity and inventive power to improve the machinery
of the usefiul arts, they pervert their gifts to prepare
implements and contrivances for fraud, and robbery,
and the coinag(re of false money. I have witnessed the
trials of several offenders, who had showed genius and
skill enough in their contrivances to commit crime, to
have invented some useful machine that would have
made their fortunes.  What a different life, and what a
different end of life! -to be an inventor and discov erer, like Fulton, or Whitney, or Arkwriglit, or Franklin, and to bless the world by their talents and study, or
to expend talents and study in doing wrong, and end
life in the penitentiary! Some of this class of criminals, instead of living by industry, live by blood. To
their perverted minds, a little money or an hour of
criminal indulgence, was more precious than the life of
a fellow-being,.  Look out upon the broad expanse of
society, as upon a map, and you may see the loathsome
and hideous vestiges of bad men, marked here and there
upon its surface. They go through the community as
a tornado cuts its way through a forest, leaving a pathway of desolation, whose ravages it will take a generation to repair. Instead of founding hospitals, they have
filled prisons.  Those who might have invented and
built life-boats which would have saved crews, have become wreckers, waiting on dangerous coasts, to steal,
and rob the passengers of shipwrecked vessels.  In
many cases, those have stood at the bar of criminal
tribunals and been sentenced to the jail or the gallows,
who, by their native talents and capacities, might have
adorned the bench itself, from which their condemnation
proceeded. Oh, what a perversion was this of powers
ill 
112    TESTIMONY AGAINST EvIL - A ])UT''Y.
and capabilities!  What sacrilege committed upon thle
holiest of God's gifts!  It would seem to be enough to
satiate the maliignity of a fiend, to rob a man of his
powers of usefulness, to smite down the arm that would
dispense blessings, to stifle the aspiration  for worthy
deeds.  But in bad men  the power of doinrg good is
changed into the fact of doing ill. The arm that slhould
dispense blessing(s shlowers injuries.  The honors within
tlleir reach are excliang,ed for ignominy and shlame.
Such are bad men, - in eternal discord with all the
laws of the moral universe, warring against the divine
order of Providence, in a warfare that is certain to
bring defeat and destruction upon themselves.
MIore or less of this class, the thlief, the forger, the
robber, the libertine, the destroyer of life, or the destroyer of character,  within the last month, within
the last week, having done their last and worst deeds
upon earth, have forcibly quitted the world they tormented.  A sad and mournlfil exit.  Are their l)laces
to be filled?  Are their deeds to be re-enacted?  Is
the deformity  of their characters to be reproduced?
AVWho stand ready to furnish the new recruits for the
new campaign of guilt?  Can the state afford this desertion from its own numbers to swell the ranks of sin?
Suppose the government to be a mere soulless entity,
without conscience and withlout lheart, an areli-bailifi;
whose. only function it is to keep the peace, and provided it does keep the peace, indifferent as to the moral
character of the means it uses,-  suppose all this, and
y-et how can the goverinment be indififbrent to crime and
criminals?  If crime were tle greatest of earthly luxuries, it is so expensive that it cannot be afforded.  The
firugality of a Republic protest- ag,ainst so costly an in
VI
N 
TESTIMONY AGAINST ENIL -A DUTY.
dulgence.  If government were intent only on getting
rich, shrewNdness and far-sighted policy would dictate
any expenditure to preserve the morals of the people.
If government were a mere jail-keeper and executioner,
it could adopt no means of help so effectual for lightenin(r the labor of punishment as the diffusion of intelligence and the cultivation of honesty.  Hangman  and
scourger thou(lgh it be, it can make a brilliant pecuniary
speculation by educating its people  aright, and thus
saving the expense of halters, chains, prisons.  Thlere
is no such false economy as in neglecting the proper
culture of youth, because of its cost.  He is the greatest prodig(al and spendthrift who bequeaths money or
goods or lands to his children at the expense of their
heads and hearts.
But if the state is rich enough to spare a portion of
its citizens for the prison and the gallows, where is the
parent who stands ready to have the lot fall upon one
of his own offspring?  If the ranks of guilt are to be
replenished for the next generation, as they have been
for the last, then it inevitably follows that children and
infants, yet in a state of practical innocency, are to
imitate the deeds and receive the doom of the ignominious malefactors  who have gone before them.  An intolerable imagination! In whose arms is that infant
now folded, on whose throbbing breast is that babe now
reposing, who shall hereafter tenant the felon's cell and
fill the felon's grave? One could not see an infant
driven to the projecting angle of an edifice by the
flames that were consuming it, and vainly stretching
out its hlands and lifting its voice for succor, without
!)ecoming frantic at the spectacle; and yet this would
be a gala-scene compared with thie sight of one account
113 
114    TESTI.MONY AGAINST EVIL -  A DUTY.
able being w-rithling under those terrible fires of remorse vwhich burn wvithout consuming.  What parent
has a child that hlie is wvilling, to have apprenticed and
prepared for the terrible work of guilt?  Ihas any one
of you, my  youthful friends, a little brother or sister
whom you are willing to surrender for such a sacrifice?
But if crime be so terrible a calamity, if a criminal
be such an utter perversion of the purpose for which
lan w-as created, how  ought an intelligent and moral
community to regard both crime and criminal?  When
a crime is committed, wlhich party is suffering under
the greater misfortune, the party wrong,ed or the wrongdoer?  Suppose a man's watch, or coat, or horse to be
stolen, or a counterfeit bank-note to be passed upon
him, or his name to be forged to a receipt, or a parcel
of goods to be obtained firom him under false pretences.
In either of the cases supposed, there is no actual destruction of property; the arggre,ate amount of the
wvealth in the state or country remains the same. There
has only been an attempted or a successful transfer of
money or of some article of value from one man to
another, against the ri,ghts of ownership.   This is the
outward fact, and this is the extent of the wrong, done
to the loser. Doubtless it is often a serious one. But
the individual defrauded or robbed may have, and indeed generally has, other watches, or coats, or horses,
or, at least, the means of procuring them.  Even if redress can never be had, it very seldom happens that the
sufferer is obliged to eat, or drink, or sleep the less, or to
forego any of the common  conmforts or conveniences of
life, on account of the loss.  This is the measure of
harmn on the side of the loser.  IBut who can measure
the magnitude of the evil suffered by the offetnder him
A
I
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TESTTIMTONY AGA.INST EVIL - A DIITY.
self?  He has outraged and prof,lned tl.at part of his
nature wichli   should have been  kept  inviolate and
sacred.  Ile has written a terrible chapter in his own
history that no detergent can ever efface, no alchemy
canll ever transmute into -whiteness -a page that will
endure forever as a part of his own living consciousness
and memory.   Pardon may save him firom some of the
consequences of the deed, but not even pardon, however bounteous and overflowilg, can ever annihilate the
fact that guilt was perpetrated, and that he was its author.  The very idea of pardon, indeed, lmust always
sugzest the idea of offence, and the idea of having( offn(lded imust forever make  deductions from the hlappiness of a pure nature.  Perhaps the offender, previous
to his offence, was pressing forward in a course of virtue
and honor, which, so far, is alwavs a course of inward
happiness; but when he violated his allegiance to truth
and deserted her banner, he turned by a right ang,le
and entered the pathway to ruin.  The offence, then,
was a violation of the great principles on which his
moral nature was constructed; it was the sacrifice of
lionor and duty; it was the exchang(e of peace of mind
for anxietv and the goadings of remiorse; it was placino himself in opposition to heaven and in discordance
withl the whole moral universe.  When a man, before
innocent, commits crime, he passes, by a sudden transition, into a new world.  The chlange in himself changes
thle significance of all objects around him; the laws of
ass:ocia,tioin in his own mind are clanged; a viper is
l)()rn in his breast which stincs and goads him; souids
tlat hle never heard before ring in his ears; a violated
colnscience turns avenger and scourger, -  the  foe is
within him.  W ei,( it inmercly an external elnemy that
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116    TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL- A DUTY.
he had to contend with, he  might be fled from, might
be resisted, bribed, or would at last remit his inflictions
through very  weariness  of tormenting.  But not so
with one's own  consciousness  of wrong.   While the
soul is alive, that consciousness is alive, for it is a fiunction of the soul. It will not sleep, nor tire, nor relent.
Hear what the heathen poet, Juvenal, says:
"From virtue's ways when vicious men depart,
The first avenger is the culprit's heart."
Such is the awful measure of harm on the side of
the offender. Contrast, then, the losses of the respective parties,- the offender and the offended.  Tlhough
the injured party has been despoiled of the last cent of
his wealth, though the last morsel has been snatched
from his famishing lips, though his shelter has been
burned over his head, and himself sent forth naked and
penniless into the world, still, after all this, his loss is
infinitely less than that of the criminal who inflicted it.
WVhich of these parties, then, needs the greatest sympathy, succor, and assistance?  Surely the fate of the
criminal is infinitely the most to be deplored. He is
the party most demandiing sympathy.  But what kind
of sympathy does he require?  Does he require that
kind of sympathy which pardons, or that kind of sympathy which reforms? Is he to be saved from the consequences of having offended, or to be saved from the
disposition to offend? Is he to be rescued fi-om outward
and temporary evils, or from inward and indefinitely
long ones? A wvise sympathy seeks out the source of
the calamity and removes that; a foolish sympathy cuts
off the twig or shoot of mischief, or pain, but leaves the
root in the ground.
There is another aspect of this case. When a famnily
4 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL -A DUTY.
or a circle of friends is thrown into consternation by
the exposure of some offence, committed by one of its
members, which is it that a false public sentiment most
laments, the breach of the moral and divine law, or the
worldly disgrace that follows detection? If the public
disgrace and scandal inflict a deeper wound, or cause
more regret than the guilty deed itself, it must be because there is a greater reverence for public opinion
tlan for the laws of God.  If conscience had a higher
hiomage than the community, then we should lament
the wroing in and of itself, more than the shame attendinm it.  A recognition of this truthl would prevent men
firom ever comnmitting a second offence in order to conceal a first.  Indeed, if experience did not disprove it,
we should be ready to affirm that no man of common
sense could ever venture upon  the fatal enterprise of
defending one offence by the commission of another.
For, if the first offence needs the protection of a second,
surely the first two will need twice as much the protection of a third, the first three, three times as much the
protection of a fourth, and so on, in progression. He
who commits a subsequent offence, in order to conceal
a preceding one, is striving to get a cover large enough
to cover itself.
If crime, then, is so terrible an evil, let us consider
how the criminal should be treated.  His case should
always be treated with great solemnity.  A depraved
customn prevails in some civilized communities; and it
is patronized and rewarded by some educated people,
of' using the crimes and distresses of the poor and the
wicked as a fund for ridicule and jocularity.  In our
courts, there is often a body of professional reporters
who attend wllen criminals are arraigned for trial, and
10~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10
117 
118     TESTIMNIONY AGAINST EVIL- AI DUTY.
who find in their depravity, thleir ignorance, their fears,
and their passions, materials for ridicule and merrinenit.
The degradation of the human soul is turned into sport.
Laulghter grows wanton over the bliglitingr of domestic
affections. WAVit is pampered at the expense of all parental ties or filial enjoyinents.   A  human being, fallen
firom his highll estate, eclipsed in all his sliining, faculties,
lost to himself, to his family, and the world,- the saddest spectacle that the pitying eye of heaven ever looks
down upon, is made, by a profligTate wit, tie pastime of
beings calling tl-hemiselves rational and Christian.   Men
of high intellectual endowments and education,-  of a
certain sort, -  weave romances from  humian  crimes.
This mine of human  misery and giilt, deep and terrible as Tartarus, is entered and worked as men  work
mines in California, for pecuniary profit, or worse than
this, for the diabolical pleasure of contemplating sin.
Did Christian sentiments pervade our hlearts and control our actions, the precincts of a criminall court would
be besieged by troops of men and women, gathlered there
to rescue or ransomni these fallen brothers and sisters of
the race.   Men  would gather around the fatal spot,
where the g,iilty are broughlt to be tried and condemnedl,
as eagerly as they gathler along, the shlore of the sea,
when  a storm is dashingr a brave ship on thle rocks.
The shlame and remorse of a criminal otught to send out
a cry more piercing than the shrieks of drowniing mariners.   To be lost in the abysses of,guilt, would be
iecegarded as a ftte ten tlhousand times more (dreadful
than to be sunk in tlhe depthls of the ocean.   The loss
of character and of innocence would be deemed to be,
as it truly is, infinitely greater than the loss of all
worldly go,(l,, ayr, of life itself.  To die is but    small
I
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I.'L
I 
TI'ESFI'1ONY AGAiNST EVIL-,A ])UT'Y.
calamity; to do wrong is a great one.   By what efforts
then can we save; by what kindness can we solace; by
what generosity can we ransom and restore? -  these
tnlings oulght to task the wisdom and benevolence of
men and of society.
We have nowv seen how men  ought to regard crime.
They ought to regard it as they regard a conflagration
thiat makes a city houseless.  They oughit to regard it
as tliey regard unjust war, wvhiclh, without any  recoml)ense, fills a nation with mourning, and lamentation,
and woe.  They ouoght to regard it as they regard a pestilence, that consigns youth, and beauty, and strengtl, to
a common  grave.''Thley ought to regard it as they
regard insanity,  which leaves a being without mind, in
a world where every step and every act requires mind.
They ough(-lt to regard it with fear, and deprecation, and
hlorror, and with an undying( resolve to exterminate it,
for it is a greater calamity than any I have named, or
than all put tog,ethler.
But, more particularly, how ougih t men  to regard
crime as it affects themselves?  All innocent menll feel
a common interest to arrest the career of guilty men.
All guilty men  feel a common interest that all should
be honest except themselves  and their accomplices;
nay, that even an accomplice should be honest, towards
themselves.  Even those who combine together for the
defence and protection of any social vice, and for tram)pling under foot the law that forbids it, are nevertheless,
sturdy defenders of the good laws in which they have
an interest.   The manufacturer or seller of ardent
spirits will,o to the death against horse-thlieves.  hlear
tle keeper of a gaining-liouse talk about tlle villa-ny of
burglars, and you would think lie was a saint.  The
119 
120     TESTIMtONY A(;AINST EVIL- A D'UTY.
trader who increases his profits by  adulteratincr his
goods, will curse the man whlo sells to him  by short
measure or weigTht.   So that thlrough all the  relations
of society, even rogues are interested in hlaving every
body else honest.  Honest men are interested ill hlaving
the whole world honest, in suppressing all firaud, violence, and wrong.
But honesty cannot prevail, unless the guilty are
brought to justice.  Hence it is alike the interest and
the duty of all honest men to furnish whatever aid they
can in bringing the guilty to justice.'The man who
strives to protect or screen a guilty party, deserts the
cause of truth, and allies himself, so far, with the cause
of guilt.  Who will bring the guilty to justice, if hlon est men will not?  Will they volunteer to accuse them selves? Will the murderer go and ask the sheriff to
execute him?  Will the robber go to the penitentiary
and ask the keeper to imprison him for life or for twenty
years? No.  Unless therefore, honest men bring rogues
to justice, villany will be triumphant and universal.
Accordingr to the old narrative, ten righteous men could
have saved Sodom, and that is true, not only of the
ancient Sodom, but of New Orleans or Glasgow.  And
it is no less true, that if ten wicked men were to be
protected and screened from the retributions of justice,
because persons cognizant of their guilt would not ac cuse them, or because grand jurors would not indict
them, or because witnesses would perjure themselves by
wNitlihholding evidence or falsifying evidence on their
trial, - these ten wicked men could go over the world,
like ten demons of wrath, and leave not a virtuous
thing, nor a beautiful thing, nor an innocent thing in
all its realms.  Not only, then, is the guilty man a
I
I 
TESTIMNIONY AGAINST EVIL -A ])UT'Y.
common enemy of mankind, but thle man  who  strives
to protect, defend, or rescue the guilty man, is the common enemy of mankind.
Having considered the manner in which the guilty
ought to be treated, in reference to the good of mankind, let us consider the manner in which  they ought
to be treated in reference to their own good.
Every one knows the tendency of all human propensities or instincts to growv.  The body of the child
growss, but not a thousandth part as fast as his habits
and dispositions.  The good man grows in virtue, and
the bad man grows in sin.  From the youthful benevo-.
lence that rejoices to see an animal happy, one grows up
into a world-wide benefactor, into the hlealer of discas, tlihe-restorer of sight to the blind; the giver of a
tongue to the dumb, the founder of hospitals; and his
life leaves a shiining track along the realms of history,
which will not fltde away to the end of time; but wien
the sun of time sets, will shline forth all the bri,lghter,
as the stars, unseen before, come forthl in their glory
when the day is done.  Another grows firom cruelty to
animals, to being a kidnapper, and enslaver, and seller
of men, womei, and children; from  stealing an egrg,
or roblbiing a garden or an orchlard, to higilhway robbery
or piracy; from using those conlteimptible vulgarisms in
]anguage, sometimes called " baby oaths," to practising
Ill the dreadful dialects of proftane languag(re, to blas])cllnm, and at lengtil to perjury.   Through this force
of hlabit, the life of the good man becomes better and
l)etter, brilghter and brigliter, until its glorious close is
si)len(lcd, and brilliant, and rich as an Oriental caravan
of white elephants, with housings inwrouhit with gems
a,(d gold, with sacred banners flying, vocal with song,
o10*
a
121
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122    TESTIMONY AG.INST EVIL - A DUTY.
and instrumental harmonies, nearing  the Holy City
with many worshippers and many offerings. The life
of a bad man is like a company of East Indian Tllugs,
settinig forth on a horrid journey, not only to commit
plunder, rol)bery, and assassination themselves, but to
teach and train children to commit them, and after minking their murderous circuit, returning(r to their dreary
home with bloody spoils only in their bloody hands,
with fiendish faces and more fiendish hearts - lheralded
everywhere by the echoes of the deathl-groans they
have caused.
In view of this growth of all the sentimnents and passions of men, the earlier you can check any tendency
to wrong, the earlier you can arrest a career in wrong,
the greater good you do.  lIe who crushes one poisonous seed, not only destroys the poisonous plant that
would have grown from it, but all the progeny of poisonous plants which it would have produced forever.
He who crushes one viper's egg, not only destroys tlhe
viper that was in it, but all the lineage of vipers to
which that one would have given birth. So hlie who
reforms one bad youth, has saved the world firom all the
lengthening and deepening  catalogue of crimes his
manhood was competent to commit. To arrest an offender, then, at the earliest possible stage, is the highest
and the divinest benevolence, the most heavenly sympathy, save only that which would take him at a still
earlier period, and forestall the evil altogrethler.
I have spoken of the relations of the great world to
crime and to criminals. Lvery college is a miniature
world.  Here  are enacted on a small scale, the same
deeds which in the magnified reproduction of after lifb,
make histories immortal. He who will drink ardent
i
I 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL- A DUT'Y.
spirits here has that in him, which, if not checked, will
make him  thle drunken father of a famnily.  He who
will play cards here, if not arrested, is likely to keep a
gaming(-house in after life.  The student whllo will tell
aan untruth, if unrepentant, will, as a man,  swear to
false invoices, and cominmit peijury in court.  Do you
say there is a vast interval between these college offences and the world's enormities?  I reply, there is
no greater difference than there is between a youth and
a man.  The lower  class of offences is as great for a
boy or a girl as the higher is for a man or a woman.
A  rattlesnake is no less a  rattlesnake  because  his
rattles hlave not yet grown.   The  rattlesnake nature
is in him, and in clue time its deadly jaw and poison
will come out.
But how can the offences of fellow-students be prevented; how can their bad habits be reformed?
I answer, in the first place, by the creation of a public sentiment in favor of order and propriety and against
indecorum  and misrule.  Thlere is a public sentiment
in every college as much as there is in New York or
Boston; in AVall Street or in State Street.  To  that
public sentiment, students will conform, especially will
all new  comers conform.   Once established, whether
for good or evil, it will descend from class to class, that
is, firom gelieration to generation.  Hence, at the openin(r of a college, an especial duty is imposed upon  all
lovers of goodc order to establish a public sentiment in
favor of good order.
Another way to prevent wrong-doingr and to arrest
wrong-doers, is to remonstrate with them for their offences, and  if they will persist after due warning, to
expose them to some authority that can remonstrate
with them in a more energetic way.
123 
124    TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL -A DUTY.
I am aware that I am  here treading on what some
think very delicate ground.  But however delicate it
may be, I mean to put my foot down with emphasis,
and make you see that it is firm ground. I begin with
a concession.  I acknowledge, at the outset, that a mere
tell-tale student, an eaves-dropper, a Paul  Pry, who
goes around listening at key-lholes or peeping  thlrough
door-cracks, to find some peccadillo that hle may report, is not only dishonorable himself, but must presume
upon a dishonorable government, if lie supposes  they
would reward him, or even listen to him with any complacency.  What I am about to advocate as laudable
and honorable in a student is diametrically opposite to
this.  Suppose one student sees anothler drinking or
card-playing, or engaging in any of that whole series
of nondescript and unaccountable nonsense called colleg,e-boy pranks, -  engaging in anytliing which, if all
should  engage  in the same  (for this is the test),
would lead to disorder or mutiny, - and should first
remonstrate with the offender, and if the remonstrance
were unavailiing, should then firankly  but explicitly
announce to him that if he persisted in  contemning
good advice, hle would present him in a quarter where
was kept soiuethingr stronger than friendly remonstrance
-  who dares to say that it would thlen be disloniorable,
if the offence w-ere persevered in on the one side, for the
ilnformation to be persevered in on the other?
No, my young( fiiends, it is wholly a false code of
lioiior whichl prevents any one, student or citizen, from
])reventing wrong-dloing. It is flilse as tlie code of duelliio' at tlhe South ll; false as the code of reven,ge amonlig
tlhe Arabs  or the North  American Indians.   It is
wholly a false idea of sympl)athy which would sltlffel, a
i -
I 
TESTIMIONY AGA.INST EvII, - A I)UTY.
wrong to be done w-itihouit interference, but would then
initerfere to ward off the just conisequences of the wroing.
True syNmpatihy, by timely interference, would save, at
once, both  wrong and consequences.  It is the falsest
of sylnpatihy that would permit the offence to be cornmitted, then screen the offender, and by such screening,
encourage him and others to a repetition of the same
offence, and thereby to the perpetration of more aggravated ones.
I ask -ou to notice this fact, and see if it does not
happen w-ithi a uniformity too complete to be the effect
of chance.  Are not those students who are most reluctanit to speak to the College Government  against a
fellow-student, most prompt to speak to fellowv-studelts,
and to the whole world, ag,ainst the Colleg,e Government or an- of its members?  As soon0 as tile  sIh)ject
is clanged fiom  student to t('h(eer, tllen tlhis lockjaw
silence ceases; the tongue-tied  become voluble, and
make atonement for screeningi guilt by arraigning iniocellce.
Let us take a single instance in the melancholy cases
which have just happened.  Ardent  spirits were procured and brought into a student's room, and invitations
were given to other students to come and partake of
them.  Suppose the first person invited, immediately on
entering the room, had said in a firm but kindly way,
Do  vou not think this is wrong? What will be tlhe
effect upon the hlabits of the students, upon the reputation of thle college, upon yourself, even, in after life?
AVliat would be the consequence if we should all do so?
if every room should become a bar-room; and if one
may, sliurely all may?   Now  destroy bottle and poison
together, or I will report to the President."  lie ad(ds,
12i- 
12{6   TESTIMIONY AGAINST E'IL- A DUTY.
"I say nothing of what has been done so far, but beware of going further."
Would not that bottle and poison have been destroyed?  Would not four youigi men have been saved
infinite mortification and sorrow? Would not relatives,
the aged father and  mother of one, the affectionate
brothers and sisters of others, hlave been saved bitter
tears, deep-piercing, and long(-enduringr sorrow of heart?
But suppose the guest so invited takes the other
course, - drilnks, and when called upon, shuffles, evades,
squirms tlrough all the slimy depths of prevarication,
adds the offence of falsehood to the offence of drinking,(r
and after all fails to rescue the offenders firom punislhmenit.  Now, according to this false code of honor, the
student whose course might have saved tle whole calamity, the whole immediate wrong, and the  whole
retinue of wrongs that must follow in its train, all
present and all future pain and mortification to offender, parents and firiends,- he is the one whose conduct
is to be denounced as mean and despicable; who is to
be held up as the object of scoffs, jeers, and contempt;
but by virtue of the same code, the student who would
countenance the offence, take part in it, and then sacrifice his frankness and his sincerity by holding up the
base shield of prevarication and shluffling in order to
screen the offence and encourage the commission of
future offences, he is the honorable man, the true and
brave man, to be caressed, honored, rewarded! There
is only one reason why horse-thlieves would not  be
ashamed of such a code of honor as that: - It is because they are hlorse-thieves.
But who, in society and in colleges, are the authors
of such a code as this? for yolt may sometinles jud(ge
4'
i 
TESTIMONY'-Y AGAINST E-IL -  A 1)UTY.
of thle moral qualities of a system ly klnowingc who
were its fiamers and its advocates.  Do good inien or
good students ever enact such laws?  Certainly not.
Good men have enacted the opposite for thle protection
of society, and good students, hlaviing no use, no occasion for anly such laws, uniformly acknowledge the filseness of the code.  Doing nothlling wroing, tley  have
nothling to conceal.  Deservicng no punishment, thley
fear none.  They have the perpetual consciousness  of
security and peace, and that consciousness, by force of
natural and moral, and not by arbitrary laws, gives joy.
No! bahd mien and bad pupils alone h ave occasion for
any such rules of conduct.
AVere you to see a fellow- creature sinkilng in the flood,
would it be your duty to help him out or to thrust himi
ini?  IJfinitely more is it your duty, when you see
your  fellow-being sinlking into any vicious lhtit, or
wading into the streami that conceals its depthls, ny,
even wetting the soles of his feet in its fatal waters, to
rescue h-im iifrom his peril.
Let me present a consideration to confederates, to
accomplices themselves.  Conspirators to do wrong can
never be faithful to one anotlier.  They have no ground
of mutual confidence, and can have none.   When they
make an agreement with each other to be false to mankind( or false towards  righltful  autlority, that  very
aigreemieint contains the germ  of being fitlse to each
other.  Traitors to duty cannot be true to fi'iendship.
Ilow can that be a noble code whlose very basis is filse]ood ( and prevarication? Whlen traitors to duty yield
to a temptation to betray the interests of society, they
viitnuallv (oive notice to each other, on the spot, that if
tlhe tel,1)tatiofl clnoes tliev will 1)etray one anothler.
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120    TESTIMONY AGAINST EILI - A D)UTY.
Traitors to duty cannot be true to vows.  Accomplices
may bind themselves by vows and oaths; there is no
strength in the vow, there is no stren(tlth in the oath,
the dry-rot of immorality has taken all validity out of
them.   There is no aphorism more universally true,
there is no axiom  in geometry more certain, than that
confederates to do wrong can never safely put trust in
each other.  Such obligations rest upon morality, and
in regard to morality traitors to duty are dead men.
Clrist's law of love covers this subject.  " Do unto
others as ye would that others do unto you." In our
best moments, who would not wish to be saved from
sin or any of those subtle approaches to it which make
sin easy?  There is not one amongst you, my  young
friends, who would not, in his best imoments, be grateful
to the firiend who would save him  from  his lowest
moments, and would not ackniowled(ge him to be his
best firiend, if he knew it to be done in the spirit of
friendship.  Eaeb  one of you  would do it for his
youinger brother whom lie tenderly loves.  Then regi.rd each one as your brother, as Christ bids you do.
He died to save sinners, not by substitutingr his suffering for thleirs, he was too wise and far-seeiing for such
folly as that, but by his example of fidelity to truth.
lie drove the money-changers fiom the temple.  The
voice of love is sometimes the voice of thunder. lie
could warn and hle could denounce.  Imitate  iun in
this his noblest mission, to save sinners, for each one of
you can save sinners as truly as Christ did, and by the
same means.  Mly children, love one another.  Tlhat
is all the law and the prophets.
I
I 
MEI)IT ArION.
MIEDITATION.
THOU adorable an(i transcecndent One, to whom  be loangs all power, from  whom proceeds all blessedness,
andl  unto whom  we must render account for all the
deeds (lone in the body; we' thlank Thlee for our ex istence ill this favored land.  As those who have gone
before us lhave implrov-ed it, and made it a better inller itance for us than it would otherwise have been, may
we see how clearly it is our duty to expand and cmlti ply and maonifv those improvements for all iwho in
Tlily Providence slall succeed us.  We  thlank Thlee
tlfat we are not beclouded with that intellectual and
moral darkness, which rests upon so vast a portion ot
our fellow men in other parts of the world.  Al,y we
exert ourselves to the utmost to secure to all others the
social, political and religious privileges whichl we enjoy,
and may we never forg(et that  higher advantages bind
us to the performance of highler duties; that we nmust
give ani account of our stewardship, accordiing to the
talents committed to our hands.  We  thank Thlee for
dear firiends and relatives, and for all the endearlnments
of social and domestic relations.  Maly our fiiendslips
and sy-mpathlies be extended in an ever-enlaigingi circle,
so tliat our several joy-s miay be mutually reflected fiomn
each to each, tlhus increasilng the number and intensity
of all.  We thank Thllee for this (lday of rest.  MAay it
be a day of rest to the labtorer wasted and worn  by
the toils of the week; may it be a day of rest to the
11
129
Ul
F,- I 
MEDITATION.
bondman groaning under his life of servitude and unrequited toil, and a day of rest to the sinner suffering
and weighed down by the heavier burden of sin.  May
this be a day of anxious and solemn reflection to each
one of us, what we shall do to make  the world wiser
and better than it is, what we shall do to make ourselves wiser and better than we are, and a day also of
firm, invincible, undying determination that wrong and
miserv shall cease where we can cause them  to cease,
that right and truth and the joy of right and truth shall
pr'evail wherever we can cause them to prevail.  May
we bergini at home, in our own hearts and lives, and
reform there whatever is not in accordance with Thy
Holy Law. Gently and kindly if it can be, but sternly
if it must, may we reform those who are within the
sphere of our influence, or under our guardianship;
and if we would save the life of a fellow-being sinking
into the englfing, waters, may we still more save him
when perishing in the more terrible perdition of sin.
130
i! 
TIlE PRODIGAL SON. 
I 
VI.
THE PRODIGAL SON.
LUKE xv: 11 et seq.
CHRIST often taught by parables. For such a people
as inhabited the East, the parable was far more impressive and instructive than plain, literal narrative. The
Orientals were imaginative rather than reflective. They
viewed things under concrete forms, rather than in the
abstract. With them, not only the creatures of the
irrational world conversed like men, but trees and plants
had the power of speech. Hence they tended to poetic
deas rather than philosophic ones; and while their
poetry was very grand, their natural philosophy was
very contemptible. They endued everything with life
and consciousness; they adorned it with gorgeous hues,
and inspired it with graceful motions; but they had no
power to reject a beautiful association because it did not
belong(r to the subject, or to compass and comprehend
all the relations that gave to any subject completeness.
Hence their rhetoric was splendid, but their logic often
mean.
Jesus availed himself of this peculiarity in the Oriental mind. He threw the technical and heartless dogmas
of the Rabbis to the winlds.  They made the question
of religion turni on rites and ceremonies; - on the kinds
of pigeons they should sacrifice, on the shape of the pots
I 1;                         [133]
I
I 
THE PRODIGAL SON.
and utensils they should use in their worship, and on
the cut and ornaments of tile gaiments the priests should
wear.  Christ went firom form to substance, from tilhe
external act to the internal motive, prompting, it from
the outside of the body to the centre of tihe soul.   He
spoke directly to the great heart of the people, and addressed all the good common sense the priests had left
in them.  And often did he uitter such brief, pertinent,
and pungent rebukes, that the Doctors of the Jewish
law came unanimously to the conclusion, that the world
would be much better off if lie and his pestilent heresies
were out of it.
One of the most comprehensive and penetrating of all
Christ's parables, is that of the Prodigal Son. No other
one, to my mind, has such force, such pathos, such
sweetness, such universality of application.  I invite
your attention to day, while I attempt to expound some
portions of its wisdom and its beauty.
Let me first, lhowever, premise a word as to the Scriptural distinction between a Parable and an Allegoiy.
A Parable is a sitlposed history; an Allegory is a figurative description of a real history.  Christ chose the
Parable.  This enabled him to invent his whole story.
He could put in any incident or circumstance, or leave
it out. Had he chosen the Allegory, and attempted to
describe real facts in a figurative way, the Scribes and
I'lharisees might have attempted to parry his argiuments
by alleging that he had added something  or omitted
something belonging to historic truth.  But the Parable
was all his own, and if he gave it verisimilitude-  a
likeness to truth - no one had a right to complain.
Not being hampered, therefore, by any historical details,
Christ put into this Parable of the Prodigal Son, just as
134 
THE PtRODIGAL SON.
niiucll as lie chose, left out of it whatever lie chose, and
so adapted it to represent universal and eternal truth.
"A  certain man had two sons.  And the younger of
tlem said to his father, Father, give me the portion of
goods that falletl to me.   And the father divided unto
them his living."
lWhat a rebuke to the Jews!  Chlrist introduces tlis
earthly father as representative of the Heavenly Father.
The earthly father has children; so has the Heavenly
Father.  T'he earthly father has provided favors for each
of his children, and he distributes those favors to them.
He divided unto them his living,."  On  the contrary,
the Jews held that thlough God had created many sons,
that is, imany nations, yet, that he loved only one of
them; and that He had arralg,ed all the events of His
l'rovidence to build up, aggr,aidize, and glorify that one
nation, whatever became of  the rest.  According  to
their belief, God had not made the other nations for
their own sake, nor even for His sake, but for the Jews'
sake.  Such was their bigoted and supercilious theory
of Creation and Providence.   Thley had bees selected
to be God's favorites, foreordained from eternity to be
rulers and lawgivers upon the earth, to go where they
pleased, and take whlat theT liked, to rob adjacent nations of their lands for wealth, of their children for
slaves, of their wives for concubines.  Thlirougil pride
thev thought themselves better than other people, and
that v-ery thoughlt made them  worse.  They thought
God would disinherit the rest of the world, and miake
them his only heirs.  Tlhey counted upon His l)erpetual
favor and defence, as thlou(gh such favor and defence
were a part of His eternal decrees, and that very arrogance forfeited the blessiings they would otherwise have
1!-DI 5
0 
THE T' PRODIGAL SON.
received.  Their downfall was the outcome  of their
principles. False principles will just as certainly lead
a nation to ruin, as false steerage will dash a ship on
the rocks.  They were conquered, they were scattered,
aud for eighteen hundred years they have been a scoff
and a by-word among the nations of the earth.   Sanguine hopes are entertained of their restoration, of a
reinstatement of them in their pristine power and glory.
Wvhen their principles and motives are altered, this may
come to pass; that it should come to pass before is impossible. Still another great principle lies folded in tile
statement, " He divided unto them his lihving."
lie assented to the young man's demand.   If, as we
may readily suppose, the good father foresaw the ruin
which his son would bring upon himself, why did lihe
not deny his claim, and compulsorily withhold him from
temptation, by witlhholding, the means to gratify it? He
did not, and this illustrates the common order of Providence.   To  what purpose would  God  give us free
agency in the general, if he were perpetually restraining us in the particular  use of it?   God  gives us
strength, health, opportunities, means.  He lets us use
them as we please.  He gives us the talents.  He suffers us to get interest from them, or to fold them in
napkins. So the father, in the parable, left his son to
thie consequences of his own rashness and folly.
Tie insolent manner of thie young man towards Iis
father is not unworthy of notice.  "Father, give me
the portion of goods that fallethl to me."   It was not a
petition, a request, but a command, -  the language of
a superior to an inferior, - not of the most gentlemanly
superior either, for true gentility rarely uses the imperative mood.
I ')) 6
II
I 
THE PRODIG\  SON.
THE PRODIGAIL SON~.
And  not many days after, the younger son gatliered all togethler, and took his journey illto a fatr couIItry, and thiere wasted his substance in riotons living."
What a spectacle,   A mere ladl, a boy, exiling himself fiom the securities and guardianship of home, for
the uncertainties and perils of a " fair country."   Ilistruisting father and mother, and elder brother and fiiends,
but trusting(r to the indifference of straingers, and to his
own  rashness.   " He  gathered  all  togetler."   This
occupied him for some time, perhaps for days.  What
think you, were his manner and bearing while making
preparations for departure? Self-satisfied, presuml)ptuous, insolent!  Did any one seek to deter him firom the
commission  of so  great a folly; he  contemned  the
fiiendly counsel, and sneered at the counsellor.  "1 Do
not I know what I am about? " he would say; " when
you see me return in a clhariot and four, clad in costly
apparel, you will know -who is wiisest."   With play mates and uei(gbors who remonstrate at his recklessness,
lie banters and jeers; with his own family, who plead
with him  I)by their disconsolate looks, and w-ith;l  thle si lence of hlearts too fill of emotion for utterance, lihe
sulks.  But the moriinng of his departure comes.   lie
bids the family a careless farewell; their eyes stream,
but his are dry; and with a defiant heart hlie crosses
the paternal threshold, and braves an inhospitable world.
Can you not see him, as lie wends his way along the
road, stifling all natural emotions, puttingc onl l)rout(l and
swelling airs, forcing ulp his coura(Tre by a swarggering
mien, and drawing upon that self-esteem and arro(gance
-li   hlie has never liknown to fail him? " Now I am nmy
own man.  Who has so much molney in his pocket as
1?  No-wN  I am beginiuing to live.  Thiis is litfe!
1,3 7
i 
TIHE PRODIGAT, SON.
Alas  young man! your plan is to enjoy life by in  dttlying your appetites, not by 8ubdtidy( them! you
know not how soon your patrimiony will be squandered!
You have not learnt the immortal truth, that health lies
at the bottom of all physical enjoyment, and that mo  rality and religious affections lie at the bottom of all
that is worthy to be called happiness even in this life.
There he goes, his form waniing and lessening in the
distance; every step out of light into darkness; from
home, tow-ards perdition; he coes to shame, to dishonor,
to ruin; he goes to filth and nakedness; to loneliness
and desertion; to hunger, and even  the intolerable
gnaw-nvgs of famine, and to remorse sharper than famine.
On the top of that hill that bounds my vision, I see
him.  Now, quot, while the form of the hapless young
man is yet visible as a speck in the distant horizon,
who of you will volunteer to pursue him, and woo and
win him  back to security, lhonor, peace?  Alas! wec
cannot overtake him.  He is gone!
Yes! the young man has gone! Sorrow settles down
in blackest cloud over the parental home.  He is 110no
longer at the fire side circle.  His place at the table is
vacant. lIe is remembered, but not spoken of. The
mention of his name would strike the dart of pain too
deep into the heart.
But where now is he, the cause of all these sorrows?
The text I have quoted, tells us where he is; common
sense tells us where he is; the laws of human nature
tell us where lie is.  Hie is wasting his substance with
riotous liviYg.
As hlie travelled on and on, he at last reached a "far
country," where the manners of the people were new
and tleii entertainments attractive.  There hlie stops
1"8
ID
I 
TTIE PRODIGAl, SOX.
not to apply himself to any honorable business, but to
revel ini what he calls enjoyment.  Amongst  addle  headed youngr roysterers, it is called h(ctvity (t yood timie.
Now he dresses, he  gormandizes, he plays, he  drinks,
he revels, he associates with immoral men  and with
impure women.  I need not describe the course of his
rapid downfaill.  Tile forms of ruin are different in
different nations and agres; but the substance is always
the same. It is the undue gratification of those appe  tites and passions whlich God gave us for servants, not
for masters.  It is suffering them to govern us, instead
of our g(roverning them.  It is eating, drinking, gaming,
revelling, late nights, foul companions.   In great cities,
these temptations put on all forms that can attract the
senses, arouse the imagination, whlet the appetite, de  bauchl the conscience.   The "gaming lells" are fitted
up like palaces, with every adornment  and luxury.
Drinkingr saloons chlarm you with the choicest music
and paintings and flowers festoon the steps that lead
to the clhambers of death.  But all this gorgeousness
and(l splendor are unnecessary.  The means of perdition
nmay be found in the Nile drunkeries and subterranean
gaming holes of the meanest village.  Nay, a student
in a college may make a trap-door out of his own sleep  ilmg-room iiinto hell.  The worm that diethl not, and the
fire that is not quenched, are in our own hearts; and
whether we go into palaces or dungeons, they co withl
Ius.  There is no grosser fallacy or folly, than to sup  pose wve could have resisted the temptation under which
aiiiother man fell, when we do not resist our ozvn temlp4 tations.
Contrast the conduct of this young rake, not with a
fabulous character, but with a real one; — with that of
(
1,O) 9 
THE PROD)IGAL SON.
the American  boy, Benjamin  Franklin.   When, at
seventeen years of age, he removed from Boston to
Philadelphia, did hle put up at the most costly hotel,
equip himself at the most fashionable tailor's, and then
strut up the street with a filthy cig,ar in his mouth?
No, he was hungcrry, and he bou,ght a roll of bread, and,
while eatingr it, started off on the errand on which lie
was bent.  He  began life at zero, and rose firom that
point, to the lofty heicght, where hle will be visible, conspicuolus, refulglent, to all nations, and all times. There
is somewhere in Philadelphia, an instructive series of
four paintings illustrative of his ascending course.  In
the first picture, he appears as the Boston  tallowchanidler's son,-  a mere boy, working in his fathler's
shop, his shlirt-sleeves rolled Lip to his elbows, and his
hands and arms buried in the grease.  In the next, he
is draw-incr down liclhtnings from the lheaven, and making,
his own niame as radiant as tlhe lightning he commanded.
In the third, he is signing the Declaration of American
Independence.  In thle fourth, he is standingr among the
kings and mighty men  of Europe, concluding that
treaty of peace vwhichl recognized the freedom and independence of the United States of America, and fiulfilling that sayingcr of the Hebrew sarge: " Seest thlou
a man dili,gent in business? he shlall stand before ki(ngs;
he shiall not stand before mean men."
Youngcr man! young wvoman! vwhom, of the two, (To
you most  resemble? the youthful  prodigal, or the
youthful sage?  Ask  yourselves, whllethler on the one
hland, -youL obey your appetites and passions, or onl the
other, your reason and conscience, and you have yoLur
answer.  The story of the young wanderer's descent
to ruiu is quickly told.  After a few days or weeks'
140
.I 
Tll, PliROD)IGAL SON.
dissipation, his bottles and  his pockets are eminl)ty, his
clotlhes are soiled or tattered, his credit is run out, his
w'itticisims and obscenities have becomie stale, his fairw-eathler firiends have deserted himi, and lie fillds himself
louseless, lhomeless, penniless, friendless,  naked  and
liiungry, in a strange land; his mleans are wasted away,
just in proportion to his enjoymients, which were not the
needed recreations from hlonorable toil, and elevated
and exhausting studies, but the rev-els of a debaucliee.
Virtuous resources never fail, vicious ones perish.  lie
flasled and exploded; he swelled and collapsed.  What
shlall hle now do?  Ile is naked, huingry, atliirst, and
withlout a friend; for those who would have been his
tfr'iends have seen his pride and folly, and now rather
rejoice than miourn over his shlame.  Perhaps hle tries
b)((gin, but thlere is now   " a faminle in thle land," and
the benevolent hav-e eiioulgh to do in providing for their
own families and hlelping the meritorious poor, whom,
perhaps, just such sons or brothers have ilmpoverished.
All expedients fail, and, at last, the pangs of liunger
and cold force him to hire himiself out to a citizen of
that country, lwho sends himi into his fields to feed
swine.
Feeding swine in the East, was the most despised of
all vocations.  It was so considered not only among
the Jews, but, as we learn from Herodotus, among the
EgvIp7tians also.   The Roman poet, MIartial, confirms
tliis.  It was verv diff'erent from tending( sheep.  Jacob
and Moses and David tended shleep.   That was an lionoral)le occupation, and a man's distinction was often
estimated by thle nulmbers of his flocks. But the Orientals hlad a proverl): "Cursed is hlie whlo feds swine."
It was lilid in very difelrent estimation fi'om wlhat it is
12
141 
TIlE PRODIGAL SON.
in Kentucky and Ohio. It was the meanest of all
employments; and this young(r man, lately so gay and
flush of money, with his head bridled back ini pride
before men, and before the women whom his flatteries
had insulted- fed swine I
"And  he would fain have filled himself with the
husks which the swine did eat." Botanically, these
"husks " were the fruit of the Ceratonia or carob tree,
common in the East, and still eaten by swine, and
by the poorer sort of people. It was not the husk (or
glume) of our Indian corn, as some have supposed.
Indeed, that plant was not known  in the East at that
time.
How long this errant youth bore his lot of shame
and humiliation; how long he envied even  the swine
he fed; how long he wrestled with pride, and braved
the pangs of remorse, no intimations are given.   But
at last the crisis came. His proud and rebellious heart
surrendered, or in the language of the narrative, so full
of pathos and sublimity, "He came to himself."   My
young friends, in all the books I have ever read, sacred
or profane, poetry or prose; in all the startling energies
of genius, or the inspirations of the tragic muse, I have
never seen any combination of words so potent, so
touching, as these; "He came to himself." What a
glorious deed do these glorious words declare!
The writer of the same gospel tells us of a man who
called his name "Legion," who, after the exorcism of
his evil spirit, was found " sitting and in his right mind."
But he was a maniac, not a criminal. He had a distempered intellect only, not a distempered heart. It
was an occasion of rejoicing when he recovered possession of his reason; but an infinitely greater occasion
142
II
I 
THE PRODIGAL SO'N.'
for joy when the Prodigal recovered )possessionl of his
conscience.  Of the maniac, it is said that lie had his
dwellin(, not ill any house, but among the tombs; that
no man could bind him with fetters or with chains, for
he plucked asunder the chains and broke the fetters
in pieces; in finle, that he was untamable, roaming by
night and by day among  the mountains and tombs,
crving and cuttingc himself with stones. But the Pro digal Son had a fiercer and more terrible madness upon
him than this. His lunacy was worse than that of an
unsound mind; it was a profligate heart.  He had been
bound by the silken cords of a father's love, and lihe
plucked them asunder and cast them away; the social
endclearments, the moral securities of home, should have
been fetters to prevent him from wandering, but he
broke them in pieces and fled to moral exile.  He hied
himself to drearier spots than lone mountains or tombs
whose air is suffocated with the skeletons of the dead;
for hle sought foutl and wicked companions who were
alive; and instead of barren mountains, he dwelt in those
jungles of society where all the vices grew and grew
luxuriantly. He, too, was untamable, until length and
intensity of suffering overcame him, and brought him
round his aphelion curve.
Out of the agony of his soul the outcast exclaimed,
"I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
thlee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son
make ine as one of thy hired servants."
The remainder of the storv is short. "And he arose
and came to his father."  Neglect not, I beseech you,
the all-important implication contained in these words
- " Hie camne to his father." It was as far back as it
143
0
0 
THE PRODIGAIl, SON.
was out.  He  was not carried llome in a balloon, or
wafted thither on the soft l)osoil of a cloud, or borne
there by any other agency, miraculous or non-miracu   lous. He had to travel it. He had to travel it bare   foot, in all his racgs and squalor; reeking with the odor
of his late companions, the swine; which odor, pungent
as it was, was not strong enough to sheathe the viler
fetor of his late dissolute companions.  I repeat; neg   lect not the implication contained in the words, " lie
CAIE TO his father."  So much as a man  consents to
descend, he has to struggle to ascend.   The elevation
must be equal to the degradation, -  else how can he
ever reach even the point where he began to fall? Con   version, or reformation, means that all the bad old
habits are overcome;- that the intemperate has be   come temperate; the fraudulent man honest; the self   ish man  benevolent.   The  further any one departs
from duty, therefore, so much the further hlie has to
travel back, -  mile for mile, league for league,-  be fore he is reformed or converted.
But there are two points in this Parable whose  im   portance stands forth in bold relief, pre-eminent and
brig,ht-slimnigncr;-like  a mountain  towvering from  a
plain, like the sun blazing in the skv.
As I said before, Christ selected the form of the
Parable instead of the Allegory, because it allowed him
to put in any circumstance, or to leave out any circum   stance, without reference to historical exactness.  Ile
filamed the Parable just as hlie pleased, - to suit his
case, - unembarrassed by extraneous facts. These two
main points are, the fall and the recovery of the Prodi   gal.  And how has he stated these points, upon which
the whole power anid pathlos of the Parabl)le turns?
144 
THE PRODIGAL SON.
"And the younger of them said to his father, Father,
give me the portion of goods that falleth to me." Can
language make  anything more positive and explicit
than this. " He said to his father, Father, give me." He
(lid this. No one else did it for him. It is not even
hinted that the devil tempted him to do it.  We  all of
us have devils enough in our own hearts to make the
office of any other devil a sinecure. The Prodigal
could offer no such lying apology as that he was seduced
by an evil spirit. He was not overborne by persuasion,
by intimidation, or by force. He was conscious of the
truth of what James so emphatically says:  "Let  no
man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God,
for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth
He any man. But every man is tempted when lie is
drawn away of his own lust and enticed." It was the
Prodigal himself, who abandoned his father, who committed self-exile from his parental home, and who spent
his substance in wicked indulgences and with infamous
associates.  It was by yielding when he should have
resisted; it was by giving the rein to his own inordinate propensities that he did this thiing, and hlie would
have done the same had there been no devil in the universe. And as he committed the sin, so must he bear
the remorse; for it is impossible for any but the sinner
to feel remorse for his sin. Hiow does this Parable
smite with a force strong enough to destroy ten thlousand lives, that ethical and religious monstrosity, v-icarious punishment!
The other bold and radiant point of this Parable is
stated in the same precise and unmistakable language.
It was the Prodigal Son himself who sinned, and it was
he whllo turned from his sin.  He said, " I will arise
12*
145 
TIlE PRODIGAL SON.
and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, 1
have sinned against heaven and before thee."  In that
lone pasture; in that forlorn and desolate condition;
with swine for his only companions; agonized with remorse; the black cloud of the future shutting down
upon him and leaving no spot of light firom horizon to
zenith, he came to himself. Prostrate upon the earth,
groaning, sobbing, he put forth the glorious and sovereign resolve that brought him erect upon his feet, and
with invincible force and  tenfold emph)lasis, he exclaimed, Invill go to any father.  According to the
narrative, hlie fell without a tempter. According to the
same narrative, without friend, adviser, or counsellor,
he came to himself.  He repented. He recovered. He
went home.  He did it all.  There was no machinery
of dreams or ghosts, of gods or demi-gods.  There was
no un-Holy Ghost that made him sin; there was no
Holy Ghost that made him repent.  As his was all the
remorse of the sinning, so all the joy of the reformation was his.
What a glorious sun of hope arises firom these facts
for eveiT erring, wandering child of earth. If the
Prodig,al Son could repent and reform, -  and Christ
says lie did repent and reform, then we too, all of us,
when we have strayed from the path of duty, can return to that path.  In this Parable, one of the most
difficult of cases was presented, and yet virtue triumphed.  It assures us, therefore, that however far we
lave wandered, we may go back; however low  we
may have sunk, we may ascend; however black we
may have stained ourselves with guilt, we may purify
ourselves into the whiteness of innocence.
See, too, what rewards follow repenting and returning.
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THE  P'iTODIGAL SON.
See lhow the narrative is all aglow withl  proofs of parental love.  " When hle was yet a great way off, his
fathej saw him, and had compassion, and ran (observe
the haste) and fell oil his neck and kissed him."  What
eag,erness to welcome!  What tokens of endearment!
The son began to make his confession and his promises.
But the father broke him short off in the midst. Knowing(r his sincerity, he did not wish to hear his wailings.
lie did not wait for him to say, " Make me as one of
ty liired servants."  And what did the father do for
tllis reformed boy?  He  came  home in  rags.  The
father adorned him, not merely with a coat, but with a
robe, - the garlment of princes, -  the best robe that
the house afforded.  He put a ring upon his finger.
Only opulent men  wore rings.  Ile came  barefoot.
The father ordered shoes for his feet.  He not only
fed," but " feasted " him.
So it is with every one who abandons vice and returns to duty.  For rags, he gets comely garments
for husks, he gets healthful nourishment; for the conmpanionsliip of swine, lie is introduced to the society of
sages and saints.  Sin is a mean idol, and her votaries
must fare mieanly; but Virtue is an adorable and puissant goddess, and the only limit to her giving is our
capacity of receiving.
My young( friends, let me ask you a few questions.
Do you not believe tlhat God is the Creator and Father
of this universe? Do you not believe that he so framed
every one of its laws, that obedience to them will yield
happiness, and disobedience, misery?  Choose ye, then,
to-day, whether you will live in obedience to those laws,
or in defiance of them.  If you would avoid the shame
and pain of the Prodigal Son, follow not his example.
147 
THE PRODIGAL SON.
Remain in your fathler's house; that is, remain in the
vways of duty. If, unhappily, you have deserted your
father's house, and wandered to a far country, and are
feeding any portion of the swine that sin forces its votaries to feed, and are living upon those husks with which
sin spreads the table of her followers; now, this mnoment, before you leave these seats, put forth an energetic and sovereign resolve, and say, "I will arise and
go to my Father."
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5[ EDITA'rION.
MAIEDITATION.
OUR Father who art in Heaven, we thank Tlhee for
the blessings which surround us wherever we are.  We
know that Thlou hast given us power to enjoy these
blessin,gs; we know that Thou hast g,iven us power to
abuse them; and we would look to Thly law for guidance, so that we may know how to use - as not abusing,
them.  We would look to Thy law to know how to
use the elements, and the mighlty forces of nature, which
Thlou hast stationed like sentinels in every part of the
earth, ready to do our bidding.  The winds that sweep
over the sea, we may employ to bear the implements of
death and destruction around the globe, to ravag,e and(
destroy, to rob property, or to steal men; or we may
employ them to waft civilization, knowledge, science,
and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the darkest liheathen
lands.  Mtay we employ these agencies as means wherewith to do good, and not to work evil to our fellowmen.  The stone in the quarry, the clay in the pit, the
iron in the mine, the wood in the forests, we can  convert into prisons and dungeons, into the gibbet and the
gallows tree, and the flaming fag,ot, vtwhlerewithl to perse cute, and torture, and exterminate our fcllow-b)eings,
wrlio do not think as we think, or believe as we believe
or we can use them to build edifices for science, or
altars and temples for Thy worship.   Oh, may we use
all these inanimate forces and substances of nature for
Thv hlonor, and for the welfarie and hlappiness of our
149 
MEDITATION.
fellow-men.  The very organs of our bodies may  be
used like those of a brute, or like those proper to a
man; as they would be used by a fiend, or as they
would be used by all angel. Our feet can make haste
to shed innocent blood, or they may run swiftly and
sweeten the earth as they go, to carry succor to the
distressed, to reclaim the wandering, to guide the imlorant.  Our hands may wound, or they may heal.  Our
lips may overflow with the honey of wisdom, of truth,
of consolation; or with the poison of slander, of falsehlood, and of cruelty. Oh, may we never suffer these
organs to be enlisted in the service of sin; may we keep
them as bright and holy armor wherewith to fight the
battles of truth and righteousness, wherewith to beat
back ignorance, to subdue error, to extinguish  superstition, and to make men more anld more like the Divine
Teacher, Jesus Christ. Thou hast given us mental
adaptations to this world in which we are placed,appetite for food and for drink, that we may meet the
wants of the body, and be invigorated for the duties of
life; a desire for the goodwill of our fellow-men, that
the path of life may be strewn with the flowers of their
approval, and not with the thorns of their dislike; Thou
hast given us a sense of self-respect, of self-worthiness,
which, if not forfeited by misconduct of our own, tends
to uphold us under trials.  Oh, our Father, may these
and other propensities never rise to overmastering excess.  Alay we control them  by  the highler  law of
justice, of equity, of conscience, of benevolence, of veneration of Thee, and admiration of the character of Thy
Son Jesus Christ, who was in all points tempted as we
are, yet was without sin. * * *
tl- 0
1 o 
THE PRODIGAL SON.
(CONTINUED.)
NL.
0
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VII.
TIIE PRODIGAL SON.
Ix this morning's Discourse, wve considered the Parable of the Prodligal Son,- a Parable so beautiful in its
conception, so pathetic in the tragic mournfulness of its
)beginning, so inspiring to every repentant man ill the
moral triumph and jubilee of its close! Of all the
Parables spoken by the Saviour, this seems the most
impressive, the most touching to the universal heart of
mankind; and could such an account be taken, I presume it would be found that more persons reimell)er
this Parable than any other part of the New Testament.
All the Parables of Christ are full of knowledge and
wisdom, but this is full of genius.  Had the idea of it
)een elaborated by Shakspeare, hle would have expanded
it into a drama of five acts; if lby Milton, hlie would
hlave spread it over an epic poem of twelve books; while
in the simple conception of Christ, both story and
moral are contained in about twenty verses.
The two grand points which are brought out by the
Parable, are, 1st, the exceeding liability of men to fill
from virtue; and, 2d, their power of returning to it.
The great object of the Saviour in devising and announcing it, seems to have been to impress mankind
with a sense of their awfutl exposure to sin, their power
of ceasing to sin whenever they wvill, and the rewards for
13                          [Li53]
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THE PlRODIGAL SON.
repentance and reformation. Christ says, as explicitly
and emphatically as he can say it, that it was the young
man who sinned, - he himself, and not any one else for
him; - and he affirms, just as explicitly and emphatically, that it was the young man,- he himself, and not
any one else for him,- who repented and returned to
his father.  Indeed, if he himself did not sin, why was
he punished with all that mournful and shameful series
of experiences? and if he himself did not recover himself, why was he rewarded with all parental endearilients, - with the robe, and the ring, and the shoes,
and the feast? On the supposition that he himself did
not both faill and rise, the swine themselves might, with
as much moral propriety as he, have been first starved,
and then feasted.
This parable is especially addressed to young( persons.
Youth are exposed to peculiar dangers.  With them,
hope strews all the pit-falls in their pathway with flowers, and throws a rain-bow of promise, not only over
the past, but over the coming storm.  The young lack
experience also, and they are too prone to disregard the
instructions of those who have gone before them. How
can a traveller know the dangers of a road he has
never travelled, or a navigator the perils of a sea whose
reefs have never been laid down in a chart, nor whose
shallows have ever been sounded?  If traveller and
navig(ator  will contemnin the admonitions  of wisdoin
and experience, what other fate can they expect but
wreck and ruin?
All innocent youth, therefore, should heed this parable in order to escape the experiences of the Prodigal
Son, and all guilty youth should take it to heart, that,
like him, they may put forth the supreme and invincible
resolve   " I will arise, and gI to my father. 
I
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TIlE PRODICGALT SON.
Striking as this parable is, an(l generally as it has
impressed itself upon the minds of men, I fear its full
significance is not ordinarily comprehended.  Is it not
a fact that it is generally understood as applying to spendthrift vices; to the squandering of patrimonies or estates by reckless young heirs; to rakes and profligates
in their hideous varieties, and to these only? Any such
view bereaves the parable of much of its significance
and power. Not only hoiuses, and lands, and moneys,
are gifts of God which can be squandered and lavished
upon appetite and passion, but all the rest of God's
blessings can be dissipated and lost in the same way,
health, strength, length of days, ability to acquire knowledge, honor, renown, capacities of doing good to our
fellow-men, the calm and peaceful joy of loving to contemplate the character and perfections of God. All
these are to be numbered among  the "goods"  that
God divides between his children, and any one who
squanders or dissipates any of these, is, so far, a Prodigal Son.
Hence, it is not at all necessary that a young man, or
a young woman, should spend their father's money at
the saloon for drink, or at the fancy stores for superfluous dress, or at the jeweller's for excessive ornament,
in order to be a Prodig(ral Son, or a Prodigal Daughter.  Whether sons or daughters, they may be as great
prodigals of health, strength, and longevity; of talent,
genius, and the power to acquire knowledge; of purity,
benevolence, and religion,- I say they may be as great
prodirals of all these, as they could be of bank notes or
of California gold.
Look at a healthy, well-organized child;  whlat a
magazine of capabilities hlie is!  What  incalculable
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TIlE PRODIGAL SON.
forces are folded up  in him!  His steps are short,
but hlie can yet go round the world. Thle toys hle plays
with are light, but in him is the power of rending mountains asunder for his pathway.   He  is not ampibious,
yet he can swim all the oceans.   His outstretched arm
does not reach far, but he can seize the lightning the
moment it leaps from the cloud, and bring it hlarmless
to his feet.  His vision is less sharp than the eagle's,
but hle can see stars whose  light has been myriads of
years in coming to our earth.  Now, to be a prodigal
and spendthrift of all these powers, is as easy as for
water to run down hill.  Drink whiskey, shatter the
nerves by opium or coffee, or that vilest, foulest, unhealthiest of all weeds,-  tobacco; seal yourselves up
hermetically in a coffin or in a room, - it matters
not which,- firom the fresh air; at the command of
fashion, wear those thin shoes and dresses, for which
Consumption might have taken out a patent; commit
all, or  any  considerable  part  of  these enormities,
and the most vigorous and promising young man or
woman, can, in the course of a few short years,
spend the substance of all his glorious powers of body,
mind, and heart, and exhibit another instance of a
Prodigal child.  Nay, by some single act of indulgence,
by gluttony, by lacerating the stomach with fierce
condiments, or with excessive quantities of even healthful food, any one can extemporize cholera or colic, and
extinciish himself in twenty-four hours, - with all the
appropriate and becoming agonies of a violent death.
Is he not a Prodigal Son, is she not a Prodigal Daugliter, who is guilty of these things, or of such things?
If any of us find ourselves to have been guilty of any of
these offences, let us say, to-day, "I will arise, and go
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TItE I'RODIGAL SON.
to my fitlier," that is, I will hereafter ol)ey God's
laws.
Take the intemperate man; lie is the slave of an
appetite.  The seat of that appetite is a little spot in
the illside of his moutlh not two inches square.  Yet for
the gratification of that little spot, all out of sight as it
is, see what he sacrifices.  He has glorious faculties, 
imaginiation, genius, wit. He can understand art, science,
literature, - can, perhaps, make discoveries and originate
inventions.  lie has a moral nature by which he can
ascend to the upper realns of emotion, of sentiment, of
ecstatic joy.  He has fi-iends, kindred, family.  He can
deserve and win the friendship, esteem, love of mallnkind.
All these lie sacrifices,- all the sources of bliss within
and  bliss withlout, -for the sake of a few  titillations
on a spot,-  not two inches square, -  inside his mouth.
Nay, lie sacrifices all the natural and leitimate pleasures
of that spot itself.  Once all the productions of tlie earth,
-thle sweets of the ve,etable kingdom  from the temperate, or from the tropical zone; the rich flavors of
all that thle huntsman seeks in the forest, or the fisherman draws from the w-aters, were a zest and a joy to his
l)alate.  These delicacies, these luxuries, are all squanderedl.  He has but one taste left, and that is a burning, desire for burning alcohl-ol. The problem whichl t-he
ldrultlkar(  is tri-nfu to solve, may be thus stated; lie
drank hlell-fire, aid it burned him.   Ile drank more to
pit out the first fire, and it burned him worse.  At first,
it buliiit nmouthl, throat, and stomach only. To stop that
tlime, lie drank more, whlich burned liver, heart and
}ur~in; and now  blood, eyes, nose and faee, are all on
tie.     lWhat he has (lone to exti,nguishl  the flame, has
m;)dc it ]age mo(re  fiercely.   Wi'iat lie did to quench
18~ 
157 
TIIE PROI)IGAL SON.
it topically, in one spot, has caused a general combustion. And now, the drunkard's problem I say, is tllis:
How long must he pour hell-fire into hell-fire, to put it
out? The only solver of this problem is Death. Is
not the intemperate man, then, a Prodigal Son,- pI)rodigal of peace, health, happiness, renown; of the love of
man, and the love of God? Oh, young man, the first
draught of intoxicating beverage you take, because jyou
like it, is the first stepfrom your fathler's house.
The Parable says of the young man, " And when he
had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land."
And when he had spent all.  That he would spend his
all, is spoken of here as a matter of course; it is rather
assumed than asserted. And it is a matter of course.
Every prodigal, at some time, will have spent his all.
No matter in what his prodigality may consist; no
matter how vast his possessions of any kind may be,
that prodigality will find the end of that wealth. He
may be rich as Crcesus, but not a dollar of that wealth
will remain.  He  may be strong as Samnson, but that
strength will be wasted.  He may have the endurance
and perseverance of Julius Cesar, and yet die ignobly
as Caesar did.  He may have the cunnilng and craft of
Benedict Arnold, or any other traitor to his country;
but his name shall become the synonyme of folly. The
prodigal spends all; and then it always happens that of
that particular good of which he was a spendthrift, and
became a pauper, there arises a mighty faimine in the
land, so that the sorest want of his appetites faills on the
hardest of times.
I might follow out this analogical reasoning in regard
to the miser, the libertine, or the political demagogue,
who would sacrifice the fame of a nation, or the happiness of a race, for office.  IBut this must suffice.
i
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THEF PRO)IGALI SON.
Thle Paral)le, literally understood, refers to av yoiung
nlan; and I fear that those who read it, after hlaving(
passed the period of youth, think it has no relation to
tiemiselves.  IBut in its le,itimate scope and spirit, it
ai))lies to the man or woman of sixty not less than to
tle y-outhl of sixteen.  Aliddle life and a(e have their
)lessilgs, their prerogatives, their goods, not less tllan
clildldhood, and adolescence.  Whenever, therefore, we
acquire a new pow-er, by wvhich we can encourage good,
or prevent evil; whenever we are placed in a new
position, vwhlere our influence and our example can pro
mote the fight, or repress the wrong,   in every sucl
case God has divided amongst us another portion of
hlis goods, and we can use thlem for His glory, or His
dishonor; for our own welfare, or our own ruin; we can
use them as His obedient, or as His prodigal children.
Perhlaps there is no one of us, who is not, in some respect, in some one thingi, a prodigal.  AWe spend some
possession, power, ftculty, attainment, or opportunity,
less useftilly thlan we might hlave done.  Sul)pose,,then,ll,
we lbve heen tempted, and lhave yiel(led, andt have tllhus
gone, to a (T.eater or less distance, into tlhe " f.r (ou(nti N " of d(iso)edience to God's laws.  Slip)ose tlhis, and(
tlle a.ll-illl1)ortaut practical question  arises, how  lo,tg
sh(t1l wte  reain, there?  Shlall we  make our reso]lve,
and start back on the homeward-boin(d jouirney to-day,
inow; or shiall we wait till next monthl, or next year,
with all tle chances that such waiting, may prove to be
forever!  However long we may wander in a devious
course, we are always sure of one tlling: tie longer we
-wandaer, thle tfarthler we go astray, - the fa.rtler we hlave(
to travel back  before  reacling our fltlher's  house.
IVhlatever vice we  clieisll, wamtever wicke(dness we
t
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TIHE PRODI)IGA.L SON.
practice, we are on the prodigal's downhill course towards privation, destitution, and ruin. Whatever vice
we indulg,e, whatever wickedness we practice, then, in
regard to that vice or that wickedness, first comes poverty (literally or figuratively), then rags, then hunger,
then beggary, then the feeding of swine, with their
husks for our food, and their company for our recreation.
Such is the course, and such the end of every Prodig,al
Son or Daughter, no matter in what respect they nmay
have been prodigal.  All wrong-doing ends in misery,
and it comes inevitably to this at last; husks for breakfalst, husks for dinner, husks for supper; swine  for our
companions in the morningff, swine at noon, swine at
nioht.
I do not say that every prodigal child is in this condition at the present time.  Sonile may have just left
their flither's house; some may have just reached tlhe
fir country," and may be now wasting, their substance
there in feasting, drinking, and revelling; but what I
mean to say is, that every vicious course, not repented
of, or abandoned, ends in the miost painfil of privations,
and the most slhamnefll and meanest of conditions.
Do you smile incredulous at this abhorrent and disgustini termination of the career of a Prodigal Son, or
a Prodigal Daughter -in whatever respect they may
lplay the prodigal?  If so, that incredulous smile is the
summit and sum of all folly.  Do you think that God,
wvithl  His infinite ingenuuitv, and His infinite power,
made this uniiverse such a miserable botch, suchl an illcontrived and misgoing machine, that it will reward
Fguilt, and punishl innocence, so that any prodigal who
al)andons his father's house anld home, can come to anytlling( at last better tltan the companionship and lhusks
160
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THE PRODIGAL SON.
of swine?  Woe to him who yields to such delusion!
But peace, and joy, and everlasting exultation to him
who has never wandered from his father's house; to
him, also, who, though hlie has wandered, hastens back
to receive his father's benediction and bounties.
My young friends, will you hearken to a parting
thought? The ship is governed by the helm. If the
ship is steering for the rocks, and the helmsman will not
change her course, all must be lost! But if the helmsman
knows and does his duty, he avoids ledge and shallow,
and reaches his destined port in security and joy.
Now, my young friends, our thoughts, our intents,
our desires, are the helm of our life. If our thoughts,
our intents, our desires, are wrong, and remain unchanged, our wreck is inevitable; a wreck complete and
overwhelming of our worldly interests, and our immortal hopes.   Towards  what  point of  the moral
compass are our thoughts, intents, desires, now steering
the vessel of our lives? -from  or upon the rocks? -
FROMI OR UPON THE ROCKS?  Be entreated before you
leave this house, so to adjust the helm of life, that it
will conduct you to the haven of everlasting peace.
161 
MEI)ITATION.
MED ITATION.
OUR Father who art in IHeaven, hlallowed be Thyv
name. On this day of rest firom the toils of the body,
and those cares and anxieties of the mind  with which
our pili,nimage here upon earth is encumb)ered, we would
go to that source of strength, without whichi life is weakness; we would go to that fountain of light, without
which this world is darkness; and to that Author of all
goodness, without whom the universe would be a waste
and desolation.  Our Father, we thank Thlee for our
existence, and that that existence has not been ma(le
necessarily wretched and miserable; that with life thou
hliast bestowed upon us the means of abundant enjoyment.  May we possess the power to use these means
diligently and wisely.  Thlou hast given us bodies, constructed throughout with wonderful skill and aptitude,
endowed with senses bv which we can become acquainted
with objects near and remote, withl the minuteness,
with the vastness, and with the splendors of Thy works.
But may we remember that these bodies are but for
temporary use; that they have grown, and that they
will decay; that dust they are, and to dust they shall
return. May we preserve them in health by avoiding
indolence and torpidity on the one hand, and all undue
labor, and exposure, and indulgence, on the other; may
we secure the long life for which they are adapted, by
duly strengthening and never unduly exhausting, their
powers; and may we keepl thenm a fit temple for Thy
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MEDITATION.
Spirit, by rejecting and putting far away every noxious,
and offensive, and impure thing.  May we remember
that tlhese bodies are soon to sleep in the grave, and may
we therefore hold themn subordinate to the lofty and exalted powers of the mind.   Our  Father, may we wisely
discriminate between these powers of the mind Thou
liast bestowed, some of them for the acquisition of knowledg(e -a knowledge of nature and of Thyself some
for the enjoyment of society, some for personal pleasure,
and many for the good of others.  May we think more
of that knowledge which is eternal, than of those enjollymenllts which are temporary, and may  we  enlarge
and exalt these intellectual powers, by thlinking of the
life which is to come, as well as the life that ncow is
by tlhilking of the millions of our fellow-mortals more
thani of ourselves, and always subjecting all our  endeavors to the Supreme  and Perfect Law.   But those
nobler and sublimer capacities which belohng to the soul,
which never can decay, which must live near to Thy
)resence, in li,ht, or far from it, in darkness; which
mlust enjoy Thlee  and all p)ure and  holy spirits forever, or feel the intolerable burden and discord of a
nature at war with truth, and duty, and  goodness,
blind amid the splendors of holiness which none but
those whose eyes are p)ure can see, and dumb amid
the exulting hallelujahs, which lnone save those who
love Thlee can utter -  Illay we improve this day to
elelvate, and adorn, and exalt.
*        *       *        *        *
163 
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T E IPT A TI 0 N.
1I
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i  
VI II.
T EM PTATI O N,
MIATTIIEW VI., part of 1''th v.-" And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us fi'om evil."
" L.EAI) us not illto temptation," -  the  wisest prayer
ever made, for it is full both of religion and  pliilo
sophy.
"Temptation " signifies allurement or enticement to
ev-il.  Good men are tempted to become bad; bad menC
are temp)ted to become worse.
The word " temptation " is never properly used in a
good sense.  It imp)lies an evil (agency.  It imil)lies siiscel)tibility to evil. If a teimptation p)revails, it imlplies
descent, degradatioi, abasement; it imiplies loss, faill,
ruin, perdition.   Hence, one whlo is totally bad,  whllo
cannot be worse than hle is, cannot be tempted.  IIe
,has already touchled bottom, reached his netlhermost.
There is no more room for ]lima to fall or grow down
w-ards.  " Christ," says the Apostle, " was tempted in
all points, like as we are."  3Ien are tempted.  Hence,
if men  could not be worse than they are, or less goo(l
than they are, all the common  forms of language on
this subject would be an absurdity.  The devil is said
to tempt men.   St. James say-s, God  does not telnm)t
thlem.  Hence, temptation supplies a susceptibility in
men, to evil, or an evil agency, opl)eratiing within them,
r
7
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TElMPTA'TION.
or upon  them, and tendingr or striviing to make them
bad, or at least, less  ood( than they now are.
On this occasion, I wishl as fa,r as I am  able, to dTevelop tle  philosoph)lly of temptation.   All moral and
relig,ious subjects have a pllilosolphical as well as a sl)iritual side.  No philosophical mind will ever be satisfied
w-ithl any view or treatment of a moral or religious subject, which does not satisfy his reason as well as his
conscience.  None ever orughlt to be.   God has reason1
intelligence, in an infinite degree; Hle has infinite lioliness also.  All Hlis works were created, and  His providence governs them under thle supervision of both these
attributes.   His hloly affections could  have prompted
nothling whvliclh Hlis intelligence lid not ratify, and Hlis
intelligence could have devised or superintende(l nothing  vliose results were not in hlarmony with I-lis love.
Hence, everythling in Hlis creation and in HIlis provridence, must have the sanction, approval, benediction, of
both  H-is reason  and  HIis  affections.  Our race was
created in His image.   If we view things as He views
them, it is proof positive that  we are rilght.  If our
view conflicts withl I'is view, it is proof positive that
we are wrong(.   Hlis works and I-His providence, therefore, must present themselves to us in such an aspect,
that our reason and our conscience, as far as we are
capable of understanding them, will pronounce  them
right, -that is, conformable to truth; and good,-  tlat
is, conformable to love.   If we do not see them in this
double light, as commended to both reason and  conscience; if our views do not coincide, but conflict with
God's views, the presumption is infinitely stroi,ng against
11S.
Temptation is a fearftul  word.   It  in(licattes  tlle be
iii8
t
il 
TEMPTATION.
giinning of a possible series of infinite evils.  It is the
rningi of an alarm-bell, whose  melanchlioly sounds
may reverberate through eternity.  Like the sudden,
;  sharp cry of " Fire " under our windows by  night, it
should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace
every muscle to its highest tension. Nay, it is like the
cry of "Fire" at sea, rather than by land, where, if
we suffer the flames to spread, our only alternative is
death by the fire, or death by the water.  To escape
death, we must leap into the jaws of death.  What
blindness, then,  what fool-hardiness, what  insanity,
voluntarily to expose yourselves to a seductive, incom putable peril, to defy certain temptation, and trust to
chance for escape, to walk unshod over burning ploug(rh shares, without antidote or remedy, to play with fire works over a magazine of gunpowder, in a madman's
hope that when your folly meets the Laws of Nature,
on Godc's highway, they will turn aside, and make
obeisance, as you pass by.
Temiptation is a word of horrid import.  It is obvi OiIS that the word would lose all its force and be dropped
out of the languagre, if evil never resulted firom it. But
while temptations exist; while the word retains its si(g nificancy, nothiing is more f,atally sure than that there
will be a certain per-centage of falls, of victims.   We
cannot tell with certainty, where, or on whom the thun derbolt will strike; but yet we do know that about so
many will strike every year, blasting and consumingii
whatever or whoever stands in their way.
Thlat is a wonderful law, and vet as certain as it is
wonderful, which is most uncertain if predicated of the
ind(ividual, but becomes most certain vwhlen predicated of
masses or communities.   The French statistician will
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T 1TEMPTA.TIO N.
tell you within a few   units how many men will commit
suicide in Paris, next year, and in -what proportions
these suicides will be  distributed among the months of
the year; but he cannot select or desi(,gate the individuals whlo will do it.  So the Britislh statistician will
foretell, almost with thle precision with whllich an astrolnomer predicts an eclipse, how many murders, robberies,
and burg(laries will be commiitted in England next year,
tlioutgh he cannot designate either perpetrator or victim.
AVhlile there is a felonious element in society, somelwhere, at sometime, that element will work itself out
into felonious  deeds; and somebody, in his property,
his character or his life, will feel it.  Until mankind,
thlen, are lifted out of tle sphere of temptation, tlat is,
-whlile temptations continue iand exist, tlhere will be a certain per-centage of acquiescences,* falls, and perditions.
Temptation, then, I say, as it necessarily  imports  a
certain numiber or proportion of yieldirngs, falls, perditions, is a word of hlorrid import.   As I hold it uLp and
gaze on it, it is transformed into a ghastly and terrible
spectre.  LuLrid fires sloot fir om  its eyes.  Demoniac
words burst from its lips, in volleys swift and fearful as
cainnonading(r.   Every  muscle  writhes in ag-ony.  Its
feet have waded thlrough gore.   And what a retinue of
sorrows and agonies, -of sounds that affri'ilgt the ear,
and of spectacles that blast the eye, -  stretch behind
it, beyond where thle eve, beyond  where the imag(ination can reach.
Btut by what means does this gigantic enemy of man
get interior possession of his victim?   Under  what
disguises does a menster so firightfiil in the end, beguile
* Hence, that saying of John P. Hile, - as philosopllical  as it was
witty, -  that of all essences the devil likes acquiescence best.
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us so easily in the b)eginning?   Uinder  what  contractions of size does hle insinuate himiself at first, to grow
into stucli  ugeness afterwards, by  nutriment, too, slucked
firom ouLrselves.  It is, my young friends, by  processes
as ol)vious as those L)y  whichl tile acorns, of whichl I
call liold( twenty in one hland, becomie oaks, each one of
whllichl could crush all of us by its fill.
We have  senses, every one of wvllich hlas its coIrrespondling objects in thie natural world, and of tlhese
obljects w-e imav take too imuchi or too little; we  llave
natural desires for food, for drink, for wealti, for selfdisl)lay, for pride, for power, eacli one of wvlicil we mav
indcltilge to  excess.   Our  moral, mental, and  bodilv
endoiwmenits, lave an order of precedence, of autitioity,
of riank; we may reverse that order; we may entlirone
the subject appetite above the sovereign conscience. On
that whichi shoulcd lave but a titie or a lihuindredth part
of our care, w-e may squand(er the wliole.  Hence it is
easy to see that every one of our various appetites, pro1)ens.ities, and passions, is an  avenue  thiroIIughIl whiiCll
tel-il)tation -may enter.  We are a citadel filled withi tle
riichest of all God's treasures, but hlavinr gates wliici
open toward(s every point of the comipass, tllrog(hl whlii(ci
tile l)eleag,uering hordes of temptation  may enter and
sIlh)(11e us.
Mlen will never  rescue thiemselves, nor be rescued
from temptation, until its niatuire and i,workings are better understood, any more thian a phiy-sician will culre Iis
patients, wlile ignorant of I)otli disease and remedy.
Let ius try, tlen, to understand whiat temptation is,
and hlow it overcomies us.
In all discussions on tlis subject, perpetual r eference
is made to tlhe heart.  It is averred b)  thile  reat ma
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jority in Christendom, that the natural heart of man is
always  wrongc,  wicked,  depraved,  totally  depraved.
Some, however, taking the opposite extreme, maintain,
or at least assert, that the heart of man is naturally
right, but that ignorance, evil examl)le, custom, trainilcg, pervert it, debauch it, satanize it.  There is anl old
Latin and lecgal maxim, which says, "Eriror versatur in
geiteralibus." Error lurks under generalities of exp)ression.  If wve look at all the crimes which have made
earth  an Accldama for the innocent and virtuous, and
scattered Golgothlas of youth and beauty over its surtface; if wNe listen to those groans and shrieks that make
it re-echlo wNith lamentation, and mnourning, and wue,so fearfullvy loud and strong, that they must continue to
reverberate thlrotuglh  the galleries of time for ages to
come; and if we say that all these are but the out-birth
and out-growth of the natural heart of man, then the
phrase "total depravity" becomes stupidly inadequate,
and we want some word expressive of a hunidred-Satan
power, -  some  futlminaiting( word, which, wlhea  sent
into the human brain, will explode there, in the l)resence
of' all the facaltics, and make each one of thein und(lerstand it w ithl all its miihit.
But if, on the other hand, you contemplate tle Divine
senitilmenits, and the God-like deeds whlich  havl e cmnate(d even from lheatlhen, -  firom  persons on wlloln 110
ray of the Div-ine lioght of the Gosp)el ever fell, -tlhe
])iety of Socrates, the fidelity of Retgulus, the continence
of S(-i)io, the subliiiie devotion of id(lolaters whlo sacriifi(e,
not Jew-islh  )easts, nor eveii tleir own Pa(gan clildren,
but themselves, to their g(ods, - if you contelnl)late their
lo-altv to tllheir best idets of trutlh, their fidelity to their
best kinowleldge, poor as that knowNledg(e was, -for we
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must remember that being truie to imperfect knowled(ge
demonstrates high,er merit than beinr true to more l)erfeet knowledge-  the merit being( ill the inverse ratio
of the knowledg(e, and, if we say that these hleathenici
aspirations and elevations of soul came firom a natural,
that is, a totally depraved heart, tihen we are sorely
tempted to wish that we mighit honestly exclang(e some
hearts amongst us, self-boastful of their second birth, for
some of the natural ones of the heathien, and that tlhe
stream of missionaries mighit sometimes flow the other
To see how easy it is to fall into error in usiu,g so
general and indefinite a term as the heart, reflect upon
an analogous case.  Suppose, in contemplaliting some act
of moral heroism, some Chlrist-like self-sacrifice, I should
exclaim, " MAan is the noblest work of God," the idea
would be applauded to the echo.  But suppose, on the
other hand, after the narration of some deed of ineffable
meanness, I should cry out, " MJan is the meanest creature on the footstool; " the same company would say
"Amen."  So, under different circumstances, I mig,llt
say, without being criticised, " Mlan is wise;  or, " lie is
a fool; " or, " lhe is so])hos-nioros," that is, half and half.
Standing before the builder of the Leviathan steamslip,
or the foreteller of eclipses, or the founder of a State,
lwho would contradict me, should I declare man  is
great?   Seeing the Egyptians worship an  ape, who
would contradict me should I say, man is little?  So
von see that I may affirm man to be God-like, or Satanlike, noble or mean, great, or contemptible, a Titan, or a,
w-orm, and the people will shout A))zen.  And tis is
c(uiiallv tnie when we combine thle grandest acnd tlhe
nmei.nest attributes, and assert tliem as the predicate of
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our subject, as when Ralph Waldo Emerson called Napoleon the First, a Scamp-Jupiter.  It is just so when
men talk about the heart, mneaning, thereby to include
the whole of our passional, emiotional, and affcctional,
nature.  Alien, therefore, you hear a man begin to
talk about the heart, and to build an argument upon it,
watch liim, and see if hle does not use the word in oine
sense ill his premises, and in another sense in his coneclusion.  In the sense in which the word is commonly
used in religious writing or speech, all men  have at
least half a dozen hearts, and it is essential to know
whic]l of them is meant.
LThis is the case; God has created men with various
and somewhat numerous organs and faculties, ad(laptiug
them to the external world, Nwhlethler material or sl)iritual -our eve to lighlt, our ear to sound, our senscs
of taste and sniell, to savors and odors, our nerv-es of
touch to different degrees of density, -solids, fluids,
gases.  So for self-1)reserv-ation, we have a feeliing of
lihuLnger and of thlirst, whli(ll vield us a lar(,e amount,
thloughi not the liiglest kind, of I)leasure,wllicll tormne,t
and a(gonize us, whenl, tlhrough  shipwreck or falmine,
they are not obe-ed.  For the same purpose of selfpreservation, we have a sentiment of cautiousness, which
foretells daiioer, an-d( bids us beware of it.  AVWhen dainger actually confironts us, and we must look it in the
eye, then we have a feeling or propensity called Combati-veneSS, which bids us to resist, repel, drive it away,
and if this is insufficient, we have another propensity
called Destructiveness,  which  aimns, not only at  the
removal of its object, but at its extermination,- a profpensity whose whole logical power is confined to this
one syllogism; If nmy- ceemy is de(ad, hle can do1 me no
lalrnl.
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On a somewhat highler plane, but still indispensable
to the same purpose of self-preservation, is the desire of
property.  If a fair day made no provision for a stormy
one, nor summer for winter, nor youth for old age, nor
parents for children, then no second winter, no second
generation would come to mankind. -The race would
die out, not leaving a historian.
And all these wonderful laws of nature, - the organic, the chemical, the vital,-  these tlhoughts of God
materialized throughout universal  nature, so countless, so wise, so subllilne, what would they be to us if
we had not an intellect by which theyr can be discovered,
rousing a veneration by which  their author is adored.
But with the adaptation between those laws and our
capacity to understand them, sweeter are they than honey
to the taste.  Every one sustains more or less of the
domestic relations, parental, filial, fraternal, sororal, and
what a group of domestic affections are impl)lanted in
the most sensitive parts of our nature, to meet the demands and give us the joys of all these relationships.
hIow a father loves son or daugher, the mother still
more; and what delilghts, endearments, ecstasies, hold
perpetual jubileee in a happy family; whereas, if there
were no child, the fountain of parental love would never
be unsealed; if there were no parental or lhousehold
love, infants, instead of being regarded as fresh visitants
firom on high, would be classed under the head of vermin.  So Conscience, which finds its expression in what
is degradingly called the Golden Rule, as if it was not
infinitely more  precious than gold, Conscience gives
us, in a single sentence, more than is contained in
all statutes and law libraries; Do  as you would be
done by.
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TEMPTATION.
13enevolence is queen in the realm where Conscience
is king.  Love is the bride of Duty.  When  Justice
must punish, Mercy follows him with healing and fr'agrant solaces, and by her divine art, abolishes the puilishlment by taking away the evil disposition that merited
it. Benevolence must dwell forever at the right hand
of God.
Another sentiment of the soul is Reverence, veneration for the Power which presides over the universe,
and yet folds an infant in the arms of love; which
wheels the orbs of heaven, and yet watches the throbbings of the human breast, and cares for the lowliest of
mortals.  Our conceptions of this Infinite Father may
be dim, or clouded, or deformed, but no race of men
has ever  yet been  discovered which had not some
faith, more or less shadowy or radiant, of this Infinite
One.  In the Christian plhilosoplher, or the philosophic
Christian (let temperament decide which), how these
attributes gather and glow into exhaustless power, and
unspeakable wisdom, and the adorable effulgence of
holiness.
Now each one of these functional, passional, emotional
attributes of our nature, may be and is called the heart.
What extent and variety, and amidst this extent and
variety, what danger both of misapprehension in ourselves and of misleading others.  Abstinence, or overindulgence in food and beverage, that is, temperance
on the one side, and gluttony and drunkenness on the
other; continence or its suicidal opposite; honesty or
dishonesty in the market place; generosity or selfishness in all social relationships; morality or immorality
before men; piety or impiety towards God; - all these,
a hundred times every day, are said to proceed out of
the heart, and to manifest what it is.
I~
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TEAMPTATION.
As I said before, tihen,  every man llas a (1dozen hlearts,
and tllotiough there is a stroing natural tecllency in all
these hlearts to go together for the rigltt or for the
wroing, yet instances of the contrary are not infrequent.
History relates instances of atheists whlo  have braved
death in defence of their relig,ious belief, so to call it.
InI a ease where generosity was to be appealed to ill
behalf of suffering,, I would fir sooner go to the profli(ate in morals than to the bigot in reliogion.  In a life
of nearly forty years sp)ent in tryiing to reform the common vices of men, some of the toughest cases I have
ever miet with have been cases of generally honest, good,
l)ious, godly men, who had some sweet pet indulgence
they coetld lot part tvith. They could renounce all other
sins easily enough,, but not this darling one.  Tlhey
could say, " Vain pomp and g,lory of the world, I hate
ye," but tobacco, or a night-cap of tod(ldy, how could
they surrender?  " Sorrowing Jacobs, ye have taken
Joseph, and ye may lhav-e the other tel, but will ye
take Benijamin  also?  Alust you divide asunder tlhe
joints and marrow in tbis way?  Leave me at least nmy
brandied coffee to assuag(e my gouit, or the scelptre and
the thunder with  lwhichl  I make the menials  of imy
household tremble.  Caninot the good God leave here
tldl tlhere a loop-hole in H1is law thlro(ugh  which  we
CaIi sometimes creep) out for an hour and p)lay truant?
No, no; proclaim it with the voice of seven tlhuniders,
there is no loopl-liole in God's laws.  Every one must
be olbeyed, and at all timies.  All these hlearts, be they
more or less, must  be converted, must coine, not into
entbfrced, but into loving, exulting conforminty to G od's
laws,- into such  a state that if God had miade no
5
177
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TEMPTATION.
such laws for our guidance as He has, we should make
themn.
It is the same in our spirits as in our bodies.  As we
needed about two hundred and fifty bones in our framework; as we needed some five hundred  and twentyseven muscles for the performance of necessary motions,
God has given us these numbers.  So as we needed the
whole range and compass of our faculties, from the
lowest basilar to the highest coronal, God has given us
these, no more, no less, and to say that we have supernumerary ones, to say that we are destitute of essential
ones, is to impeach our Creator.
Whence, then, comes the evil of the world, the
wrong in men; for that there is evil in the world and
terrible wrong in men, none can dispute. The groans
of sin-caused suffering(r assail ius from every part of the
earth; their echoes reach from every point in the long
track of time.  There are many epochs when it seems
as though the whole human race had set itself in battle
array against Jehovah.
Now these terrible evils and wrongs wlhich men commit and suffer, come not from the possession of any one
of our powers and faculties, nor from the legitimate and
normal use of them, but from their abuse, firom the too
much, or from the too little; from using them at wrolng
times, from not using them at righlt times.  I am no
more responsible for the number of the faculties with
which God endued my spirit, be they more or less,
than I am for the number of bones or muscles which
lie put into my bo([y, be they more or less.  Over
neither had I any control.  RIespecting, neither was
op)inion or consent of mine (asked or given.  I had no
fiee agency then and there; for I di(l not pre-exist to
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give direction or counsel how I should be originally
made. But now, respectilng the manlner in which I use
mlly powers, respecting the special uses to which I put
them; whether they shall wane and perish through my
neglect, or tyrannize and ruin through my indulgence;
for these thling(rs I am accountable; respecting tlhese I
]ave firee agency.  These things do not happen wvithlout
my counsel and direction.
Here, then, temptation  begins  its  terrible  work.
lere it lies in ambLslh, steals upon us unawares, solicits,
fascinates, commands, enslaves, damns.
The imiaoination of man has led him to personify
temptation, to regard it as an evil agency external to
ourselves, to embody it, and call it a Devil.  Gloomy
)octs, and painters, and oftentimes religious teachers,
represent this devil as a huge, stalking, monster, marvellous in bulk, terrific in aspect, a roaring lion.  Iow
amiazingly untrue.  The devil, when hlie first approaches
and besieges us, always comes in the guise of beauty
or lpleasure.   He shows us hope, and promises that
it slhall be enjoyed.  He shows us fear, and offers to
avert it.  Instead of being an Anak  whose shadow
darkens the sun, he dwarfs himself almost to invisibility,
sl)iritualizes lrimself so that the outward organ cannot
discern him.  He may come in the form of some feelingo, improper in kind or in degree to be indulged, some
lleasure or advantage to be gained.  In the little child,
Iiiding behind the door to do a forbidden thliinc,; in
childish games, cheating in the play or in the count, in
order to win; in the student, taking one unlawful peep
into hlis text-book to make up for the ten minutes he
litd( unlawfutlly squandered at play; at tlhe table or elsewhere eatin( to gratify the taste, after the demands of
1,19 
TEMAPTATION.
hlealth are satisfied, or in drinking for the pleasure of a
spot ill the inside of the mouthl not two inches square,
after all the rest of the body, heart, stomacll, lungs,
])rain, has said " enough;" in the privacy of our rooms,
doing what we  knoow  would  disg,race us if door and
window were suddenly opened and tlhe world should
lookl in ll; in trade, the first, smallest fraud in  weight,
or measure, or account; in the young lawyer, espoLsinci  a cause he kinows to be unjust, because hlie cannot
wait for an honest fee; in the young minister, snbscribing
to a creed he (does not believe, to gct an elegible settlemcent; in politics, espousing an  unrigliteous cause, by
voice or vote, in hopes of preferment; in society at
large, refsiing(r to vindicate the cause of truth, because
it may makle one unpopular, or, whlich is quite as bad,
refising to expose offenders thlroug(ll the mean dread of
l)icng called an informer, the very name  of which we
o(ugllt to be emulous, when we look uponi it as a means
of ab)ating evil in the world.   It is in thlese ways, and
in  ten  thousand  ways  like these, subtle, insinuating,
stealthy, under the guise of some form of delilght, or
wealtlh, or fame, or power, that the devil first enters
into child or man.  HIe never comes to uls as a  Ihuge,
portentous, towering Colossus, vast as thlougtll lie had
been carved from  iMount Atlos, but atteinuated(  and
gay, rallying us upon our fears, piquing our pride, enteriing the soul tliroutgi   the  eye amoing tle rlys of
licht, wheni we lookl upon forbidden obl)jects to lust after
tlhem; entering it through the ear, with tllhe vibrations
of the air, whlen we voluntarily listen to obscene song,
o1r profaine words.  It is after we have allowed hiln entrace e, and  residence, and lhospitality, it is after we
liave warmtlned, and nourished, an(l cllerislIe(t wlhat seemed 
iso 
TEMPTATION.
at first so pleasant, or at least so larmless, that he starts
up into gigantic proportions and aggrandizes himself with
power, and usurps the throne of reason and conscience,
and puts on the gorgon head, and shakes terrors firom
his snaky locks, and scourges every limb of the body
and every faculty of the mind to do his accursed bidding.  Then the affiighted soul shrieks out its alarms,
obtests heaven and earth for deliverance in a voice
betokening unspeakable agony, but Apollyon has vanqlislied the angel, and in the victim's inner ear howls
out his triumph.
Do you think that when Temptation first camne to
Ierod, it came to him  in the proposal to kill all the
chlildren in Bethlehem  and in all the coasts thereof,
under two years of age; or that when Telmptation first
came to Judas, it came in the shape of betraying his
miaster for thirty bits of money, an act as mean and
contemptible as it was wicked; or when  it first came
to the Church, it came in the form of the ten great
persecutions, or of wheels to wrench and tear the body
limb from limb, or of fagot fires, or of St. Bartlolenecwv
massacres?  I tell you nay.  It came in the guise of
somie pleasure, advantage, profit; and here are the exact
words it said; " Only this once; you are a fool if you
(aln't try it this once;"  and  the victim, instead of
scornfuilly rel)ly-ing; " I'm a fool if I do," tried it and
tell, and ag(es of ig(nominy and remorse  may not yet
have atoned for the fall.
But when the devil or evil (for it makes not a pin's
practical difference whether we affix the d or omit it),
has once effected a lodgement in a man  thlrought  his
,a)l)etites, prop)ensities, or passions, tlen his lcext step) is
to tampler wital and debase his moral nature.   ite have
,M ii,in MO, i-
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TEM[PTATION.
reason whliclh  not only sees what is ri,lit, and just, and
true, ill common cases, as it sees thle truth of thle AMulltiplication Table, but when trained and practised, it
dissolves the most refiractory compounds of truth and
error, brines out thle pure, crystalline truth, and sluices
away thle foul, fetid error.  We have conscience, which,
so far as its power goes, not only speaks with the voice
of God, but sees with the eye of God.
'What a thlouight!  You carry a compass within you,
and you sail the ocean, you traverse the wilderness, in
storm, in darkness you descend to subl)ten'anean caves
youL consult tllis organism in which God expresses one
of His peirfections, and you know north, south, east,
w-est, lhome.   Conscience is the magnet of the soul.  It
lias a Divine polarity.  Amid the tempests of passion,
in dark hours of trial, that only lie just tllis side of despair, when a liost of fierce temptations beleatguer, then
consult this Divine monitor, and tloulgh its tiny needle
mav tremble amid the attractions of earth, yet, if uncorrupted, its pole-star will be the thlrone of God.
As I saidl l)efore, temptation allures, in order to obtain
foothold witlin Ius; hlaving obtained it, it commands.
It says, omit this iduty, tlhougll(  it l)e but the speaking, of
a word; invade this right, tlhou(gh it be but stealing an
apple firom a rich man's orchalrd; ob)tain tlhat prize or
lhonor, it will cost you only a falselood; gratify tllat
animal passion, the victim is too feeble to call you to
account.  And so, after the sensual and passional nature
i- inflained, the moral nature succumbs, abdicates, rtires, and sin is lcft sole monarch of t]le realnm.
It may aid our conceptions of this sul)ject, to consider
tlhe (difrent degrees of guilt attachling to different persons for yieldinc to the same temptation.  It is obvious
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TEMIPTATION.
tllat the samine bodily act, or mental  desire, may have
diffetrent degrees of  culpability or blmiync —woirtlliness,
according to the differing conditions of the author.  A
deed very venial in a child, may be very criminal in a
man.   A deed which might be a mere peccadillo in a
lheathlen, may be heinously offensive in one living, under
the light of the Gospel.   To  a man  famishing with
lIuiger, and perishling with cold, the tlleft of food, or
of a garment, would be a very different thing from
-whlat the same act would be if the thief were surrounded
with luxuries and wardrobes.  Even  in persons of the
same class, where the temptation is li,ght, and thle knowledge of duty iplain, and the time for deliberation ample,
thle offelee iears a complexion of guilt immensely dif1lrenit firom what it would if the li,ghlt of knowle(lge
were dim, and the assault of temptation vehement and
sudden.  Hence this for2mula in expressinig tlhe magnitulde of an offender's guilt; that it is directly as the
kino?ilecl,ge of daty, and iitversely a8 the strenytlt of the
a(..su(lt. Wicked as Sodom and Gomorralh were, it will
I)e more toleral)le for them tlan for Jerusalem, in the
davs of the Sa-ioutr; and better for Jerusalem thtan for
s, if we repeat their deeds.   That  is, a man's guilt
iises inli heinousness, with the enlargement of his ol)portunities to know, more and do better.  Itence nations
may 1) more wicked now, than they ever could be in
,l,cient times; and our nation more wicked than any
)tlier.  Drunkenness, and the manufieturilng and trt-f
ti(ckingI in intoxicating driinks, are far greater  crimes
now, tllan they were fifty years ago. The man to whom
the beautiful and benigrn laws of Human Physiology
lhave been taugtht, is an  immensely greater offender
wlen lie over-indul(ges his appetites, or takes what  is
(
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injurious either in quality or quantity, than if lie had
always been taught that health is the result of chance,
or of arbitrary, thou,gh Divine  appointment.  Under
wise and Christian training, breathed  upon  by elcvating and spiritual influences, with avenues to hlonor
and duty opened on every side, the backslider and thle
apostate may  become  terribly, gigantically criminal.
God knows our opportunities for light, and  the strcss
of the temptation that beset us, and I-e will judge us.
Even if He did not know it, our own nature is a selfregristcering machine, and keeps the tally, and sooner or
later will be avenged.
The most formidable attribute of temptation, is its
increasing power, its accelerating ratio of velocity.
Every act of repetition increases power, diminishes resistance.  It is like the letting out of waters,  - where
a drop can go, a river can  go.  Whoever yields to
tcemptation, subjects himself to the law of falling rbodies.
Look at the drunkard, the gambler, the libertine.   Do
you need any Atwood's machine to prove that in their
fall, the velocity is as the squares of the times?  Look
into the Police Courts of our great cities, and see the
young men;  alas, the young, women, not going to perdition, but gone!  They all said they could yield once,
a few times, and then resist.  That is, standing on the
brink of a precipice, they said they could p)lunge over,
and  stop half-way.   Incredible  delusion!   Amazing
folly, idiocy!  No man who yields to temptation, comes
out as hle -went in.  Hliere is his besotted delusion.   He
says, I shall mieet tllhe second as I do the first.  Imp)ossible! aWhlen hl e imeets the second, after lhaving yielded
to the first, he is a clhanged man.  Desire is increased.
Power of resistance has decreased.   With  a force of
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T1EN PTATION.
tw\enty l]e  ielded to a force of ten; flattering limnself
t]at afterw-arlds, with a force of ten, he can vanquish a
f'rce of twenty.   When a man crosses the river above
tle Falls of Niaiara, in a firail skiff; does not the first
d-imple of a whrllpool in the stream, or the tiniest hubl)le on its surf-lce, shout to him  of the swifter flow, of
tlme rapids, the verge, the plunge, thle watery Tartarus
ei'neatll, whence li-ving, man never emergecd?  Why, in
(o(l's name, does not the tempted man see, behind, t]e
smilin, daling,   "ay deceiver, that  sports, and wantons, and tim( ns, with music's sweetest stiu,ins, anothler
of sterner miien, and  behinid them the whole retinue of
iufernials, witli Albaddoni in the rear, and Gehlenna at
liis b)ack.  The youuig men before me, who have been,
week  after w\eek, to that rum-lhole, - wly is it tlat
tley cannlot see the bottomless pit beneath it, without
taking, up the floor?
The inquiry, "W \hen is a crime complete?" belongs
to this subject.  In the progress of crime to its consumimation, there are three degrees.
1. Ev-il iian,inations voluntarily entertained.   I have
no ri(ght to lang( licentious pictures aroiund the  cliam])ers of my brain.   Not even in thloucghlt have I a right
to id1ulgre in forbid(1(en pleasures.   All such induilgences debase the mind, pollute it, prepare us to realize in
our conduct, the wicked imagination or conception. For
-Ire such pictures, such impressions upon the tablets of
the soul ever effaced?  Mioral chemistry has no neutralizer that will wlolly extract the stain.   No gmi'ver's tool
can  ever wholly'abnrade it; for it is like tle image
upon the shield of Plidias., graven so deep tlat wlhatever
vwould remove  it, would annihilate tlhe soul itself.  It
may lbe covered tip, and thus hlidden from the common
eve, but a     regent will detect a-ni  expose it.
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In ancient times, when paper or parchment for
writing  was in great demand, professional clerks or
scriveners used to take old volumes of classics or histo ries, and wash out or efface the writing upon them, and
then record, upon the same roll, what they considered
more valuable. The parchments so effaced and re written, are called " Paliinpsests." Many of these pa liuipsests have been discovered in modern times from
which the last writing has been chemically removed
and the old writing restored in full.  The human soul
is a palimpsest. What has been written on it ever will
remain on it forever. That is its law. Hence all evil
imaginations are recorded crimes.
The sinner reaches the second stage of guilt when,
after hlaving luxuriated in the fancied pl)easures of a
crime, or in the profits or honiors of its commission, l]ie
at first harbors his thoughts, and then ventures upon
the terrible resolution to commit it.  This second stage
is the natural outgrowth of the first.  The imagination
gloats over illicit joys. A law of repetition exists in
the mind, and every repetition inflames the desire.
The temptation grows into form, compacts itself into
substance, assumes body, vitality, energy.  It says, I
must, I can, I will; then prepares its plans and watches
for its hour. This is the direful purpose, the resolve.
But dreadful as this is; - this standing with the
body half bent over the precipice, below which blaze
the eternal fires; this poising and balancing where one
inch of voluntary advance will change the centre of
gravity, and precipitate to Tartarean depths, even this
is not quite all. The consummation of guilt is in the
deed. Until this acme is reached, there is a place for
repentance, a chance for hope. Conscience may yet
I
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shriek out a more terrible alarm.   Reason  may discern
some new and feaTrfl revelation of consequences.   The
religious faculties, repulsed and driven from the field,
may rally and rush back to the rescue.  Some mother's
words, dropped in the ear long years ago, -blessed
angel-words of sainted mother now  sleeping in  her
grave,- unheeded while she lived, but now by magic
association, bursting up through layers of impious forgetfulness and wicked pleasures, may thrill and vibrate
through the soul, and rescue the almost victim from
perdition.
I know it is sometimes said that the guilt is complete
when the guilty act is resolved on. Is virtue complete
when a virtuous deed is resolved on?  Certainly not.
The fulness of virtue is not in the intention, but in the
execution. Thle same law governs both vizrtue aend
vice.
But when the consummating deed is done; when the
torch is touched to the magazine; when the dagger is
struck to the heart; when the orgasm of passion is
reached, then all the remonstrant faculties of the soul
have been subdued, then all the conspirator faculties
have triumphed. Then temptation has consummated
itself in crime.
I have spoken of temptation and fall. It may not
be amiss in closing to say a word about repentance,
about that which alone, so far as it can be done, reinstates the offender.
R(pentance  is sorrow  for wrong-doing, - sorrow,
sometimes rising to remorse.   This feeling is ltoo  eoelo
(lifferent from another kind of sorrow,    sorrow for
being found out.  Yet how often is sorrow for being
discovered, mistaken for sorrow for being guilty.
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A crime is coimmitted,-  no matter what.  All good
men, for the common safety, seek to find out the offender.
Weeks, months pass, but no clue is discovered.  Tho
shrewdest conjectures are baulked. Suspicions exist,
but confirmation of them fails. By and by, a sagacious
man, gatheling all the scattered rays of light into a focus,
throws its blaze into the very face of the offender, and
hlie stallnds exposed, revealed, proclaimed. Then see how
suddenly hlie begins to profess sorrow for what he has
done. Oh, he now says, how I lament the deed!
What  anxious days!  What  sleepless nights!  Oh,
what would I not give, do, suffer, to recall the guilty
act!  All, self-deluded mortal!  If you felt any godly
sorrow for it, why did you not confess it, make repara tion for it, before?  Those weeks, those months, when
all good men were searching for the offender, and you
knew who he was, but acted all the time as though( you
did not know who he was, carved and shaped your con tinuing life into a continuing lie, if you were truly
sorrTy for the wroing, why did you not then confess it,
express contrition for it, make reparation for it.  Your
sorrow started up, not when  the deed was (lone, but
when the discovery was made.
Would God that I could illuminate this truth with
such a strong( lilght that moral blindness could not help)
but see it.  The very constitution of human nature is
such, that if a violator of law truly repents, he can find
no rest till he has acknowledged his guilt, and made
all the atonement for it in his power.  If hlie.has stolen  
monev or a watch, he will restore it.  What should we  i
think of thief or robber who should protest to the person
robbed or despoiled, what agony of remorse hle feels
for the crime, witl] the plu(nder a.ll the time  secreted in
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TEMPTATION.
his pocket.  It is just so if one has stolen a man's good
iiamie, or injured the falllily, or the company, or thle
institution to which he belongs.  True repentance necessitates confession. The concealed crime is fire in
the offender's bosom. If he flees across the sea, it will
scourge him home.   If he holds the fatal secret in his
heart during life, the death-bed will wrench it from
him.  Wrung with torture, he is driven to suicide, and
suicide," it has been well said, "is confession."   Bad
as Judas was, he could not help the involuntary confession of suicide.
And look upon this other fact, and tremble.   When
a man sins against God, and repents, hlie must confess
that sin to God before peace of mind becomes possible.
Why must hlie confess to God?   Does  not the Allkinowing  know it already?  Can  the offender's lips
inform the searcher of hearts?  No, not for God's sake,
but for his own sake he must avow the fact.  He must
stand in the presence of the Omniscient, and in the
presence of his crinme, and say, I dlid it, or peace cannot
visit his bosom.
What did the Prodigal Son say, "I will arise and
go       to my  father, and will say, Father, I have sinned
tagai   nst h eaven and before thlee."  Ai-d when he met
his         father,   his first utterance was, " IFather, I have
sinn ed  against heaven and in thy sight."   Did  his
fath ier n  eed anything but inspection to infoim  him of
the Prodi gal's career?  His tattered garments, but half
covering his diseased person; l'is unshod feet, after that
dreadful  journey home; his ghastly face, emaciated )yr
fami ne;  his hollow eye, red with weepl)ing; his voice
choked           with unutterable shame; did the father need
any              desc ription of his condition, any history of his prof              16
189 
TEMPTATION.
ligacy but these?  Yet hlie c LId as well have suppressed the winds or the tides, i to have choked down this
articulate proclamation of Ilis guilt.
This was true repentance.  This was repentance not
needing to be repented of.  This was sorrow for the
deed and not for the discovery.  All other sorrow is
futile and  vain; and if men  are silly enough to be
blinded by it, God is, never.
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MEDITATION.
OUR FATHER, Thou who art near to eveiry one of us,
we would at this time draw near to Thee. We would
banish all selfish and worldly thoughts from our bosoms;
we would contemplate Thee in the immaculate purity
and holiness of Thy nature, in the adorableness of Thy
attributes, in the immensity of Thy works, and in the
wisdom and love and mnercy in which Thou hlast made
them all. Oh our Father in Heaven, we would not
debase our natures before Thee. Ignorance and sin
alone can debase them. We would not exalt ourselves
above those who lived in former ages of the world, or
who are now our contemporaries in other quarters of
the globe.  They had not the blessed Gospel in their
hands; they had not the clear inspiring of the Truth
into their souls.  Of us, to whom much is given, shall
much  be required.   We would not boastingly thank
Thee that we are not as other men are; but if others
in any respect are inferior to ourselves, we would strive
for the spirit and the benevolence that will not rest
until they are reformed, improved, and made partakers
with us in all Thy goodness.   May we think of the
noble men who  have gone before us, prophets, saints,
martyrs, apostles, who encountered temptation and
resisted it; whose souls rose to the glorious region of
magnanaimity and self-sacrifice; who, through tribulation, fought the good fight and caine off conquerors,
and have gone to their eternal reward.  Let us ask our
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MEDITATION.
selves, if we had been in their places, whether  we
should have imitated their deeds; if the toil and struggle of an ascension to the heights of virtue had been
set before us, whether we should have scorned the appetites of the flesh, and held down the wayward propensities of our nature, and preferred the honor of God
to the plaudits of men; or borne imprisonment, and
scourging and death rather than prove treacherous or
neglectful in the holy cause of duty.  Oh let us never
fall into the delusion and fallacy that we have done our
duty, at the time or in the place of any other man,
unless we can do it now, in our own time and in our
own place. And may we never delude ourselves with
the fallacious belief that we  should not have done as
the wickedest of men have done in all parts and ages
of the world, that we should not have fallen as they
fell; that we should not have become tyrants and oppressors and persecutors and wrong-doers in the innumerable relations of life, unless we can now refrain
from the offences, whatever they may be, which we are
tempted to commit; unless we can imitate the example
~ Jesus Christ.
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I,_; *
r
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IX.
RETRIBUTION.
GALATIAN~, Chl. vi., ptrt of 7th anti 8th verses. "- for whatsoever a
mnan soweth. that shall he also reap.  For he that soweth to the flesh,
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit, shall
of the spirit reap life everlasting."
II. CORINTHIANS, ix., 6.  "But this I say, he which soweth sparingly
shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap
also bountifully."
Hosed, viii., 7.  "For they have sown the wind and they shall reap
the whirlwind."
Ix the beautifully planned and skilfully formed universe in which we are placed, great minds have always
observed an order in the arrangement of all its bodies,
and in the happening of all its events.
First, there is an order in the arrangement of all its
bodlies.  Things are not thrown together promiscuously
and at random, piled up in a heap chance-wise, and
without beginning, middle or end.  That is our idea
of chaos.  The planets are arranged in a certain order
in relation to the sun. The different layers of the crust
of the earth have a uniform arrangement which is the
same in both hemispheres and in all the continents.
Hence, in geology, the primary, secondary, and tertiary
formations have such a regularity and uniformity, that
when we see the plan of superposition in one part of
the worl(l, we expect the same general plan in all other
parts.  In the humnan body, why are the arteries which
~tos5
,w, 
RETRIBUTION.
convey the blood outward fromn the heart bedded deeper
down in the flesh than the veins which bring it back from
the extremities? Simply because the blood-vessels are
liable to be cut and ruptured, and as the arteries always
bleed more profusely than the veins, it is best that they
should be placed deeper down, where they will be more
out of harmI's way.  If you were to put iron and glass
illto the same package for transportation, would you
not put the glass into the interior of the parcel, where
it would be less exposed to blows or any form of rough
usage?   That is the  reason why the arteries  are
placed nearer the bones, and the veins nearer the skin.
The human eye consists of above twenty different
parts. In every perfect eye, are not all these parts
arranged in the same order? Examine the interior of
an egg. Are not the albumen and the yolk always
fashioped after the same model? Nay, among animals
in other respects most dissimilar, there is still a secret
reference to the same general type.  The wings of a
bird and the fins of a fish represent the arms of a man.
The fore-legs of a horse or an ox are only the arms
turned down. The mammalia have four limbs; birds
have four also, including their wings.
And, secondly, there is an order in events.  Events
do not occur at hap-hazard. WThen  the sun rises, light
is spread abroad. When the sun sets, light is withdrawn. When the sun approaches the tropic of Cancer,
the temperature of the whole northern hemisphere rises,
and we have the heats of summer; when it rece(les to
the tropic of Capricorn, the temperature falls, and we
have the conelattions of winter.  You do not see boiling
water scald a man one day and freeze him the next.
You do not see fire one (lda  burn more fiercely in a
196
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RETRIB3UTION.
blast of o-xygen, and do the same thing the next day in
a blast of carbonic acid gas. You do not see cork float
on water and lead sink at one time, and then see the
lead float and the cork sink at another. You never see
a man who observes all the laws of health becoming
ill; and another who violates all those laws remaining
well.  The angler baits his hook with curious art for
catching fish, unless when he fishes for gudgeons, which
bite the naked hook; because among fishes the gudgeons
are fools. The devil tempts men thlrough their ambition,
their cupidity or their appetite, until hlie comes to the
profane swearer, whom he catches without any reward.
The profine swearer bites a hook unbaited even by any
seeming good; because among the tempted, like gudgeons among fishes, the profane swearer is a fool.
Now in all these things, Nature, or God acting through
nature, is uniform.  They never happen one way one
year, and another way another year, when the circumstances are the same. They give no sign of being produced by accident or caprice, or by the arbitrary, fitful
interference of a superior power;  but they proceed
onward firom age to age, with a solemn, majestic
movement, an august procession, that strikes the contemplative beholder with awe, and expands and lifts
his soul with indescribable emotions of sublimity and
grandeur.   We  call this the course of Providence;
and in the wisdom that planned it, in the power that
sustains it, in the benevolence with which it overflows,
and in the omniscience which sees the end from the
beginning, it is worthy of a God.
\Ve admire the ingenuity of a timepiece-maker, who
can construct a chronometer so skilfully, that it can
go round the world and not lose or gain more than half
197 
RETrI IBUTION.
a minute. WVhat, then, shlall be said of this great hliorolog,e in the skies, of this sunI and these planets, primary
and secondary, which have fulfilled their mighty circuits since their creation and have not lost or gained a
moment of time, nor fallen out of repair?
Now, having looked outward, around us, let us for
a moment  look inward, into our own consciousness.
Corresponding with this wonderful order of external
nature, this marvellous arnangement of bodies, and this
solemn progression of events in the outward world, we
have a faculty in our own souls, whose special fiunction
it is to take cognizance of the external  arrangement
and order, and to profit bv it; to profit by it in two
ways, first, )by ol)tainingi more benefits and advantages
than we could otherwise do; and secondly, by avoiding,
more evils.
What a miserable condition we should be in, if the
seasons should chang,e places, winter for summer, and
spring for autumn, all at random; if the zones should
(lance about; if the ocean should be sometimes fresh,
and the fountains sometimes salt; if the plants which
had borne healtlhful and delicious fruits should prod(luce
arid and poisonous  ones;  if the specific gravity  of
bodies should chlange, so that stones would sometimes
rise and vapor fall; -in fine, abolish order and adaptation and periodicity firom  the universe, and the only
solace of our miserable lives would be, that they would
come speedilv to an end.
P)tut mark this: just as well might  all these essentials of happiness, and of existence, whlichl  are without
us, be ab)olishe(l, as to abolish our power to recorgnize
their existence.  It is immaterial whether  the sun or
the eve be destroyed, vision equally ceases.  It is the
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same whlethler you destroy outward order, or the inward
power of profiticng by order; in both cases the advan tage is destroved.  Two thil(gs, then, are necessary
the order of the external world, and the power of avail ilug ourselves of that order in the mental world.
This sublime external order we call Cause and Effect.
It is somethiing more than mere sequence, mere juxta position, in point of time.   The night always follows
the day, and the day the night, but the day is not the
cause of the night, nor is the night the cause of the day.
But when I throw a rope to a drowning man, or fasten
a cable and a cannon ball together, and by means of
gunpowder send that ball over a wrecked vessel, I am
convinced that there is a power in my arm, and in the
gunpowder which sent the rope or cable on its benevolent errand.  That power we denominate Causation;
the faculty within us which recognizes the power we
call Causality.
Now the grand order of events in nature, in history,
in nations, and in individuals, is nothing but progressive, and often alternating cause and effect. A precedent event is the cause of one or more subsequent
events. The subsequent event or events, are the effect
of the precedent, and in their turn become the cause of
other events, later in time. The first tree lproduced the
first seed, or, changiTng the priority, the first seed pr(oduced the first tree, that tree another seed, that seed
another tree, and so on, to all the seeds that exist, aind
to all the trees that are growing to-day.   And so, asslimiing the bird to have been first create(l, the first bird
produced the first egg, that egg another bird, that bird
anuother egg, and so on, firom bird to egg, and from egg
to bird, to all the eggs and(l birds lnos in beiing.  Tile
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direction and forces by which the planets were launched
into their orbits, has had a controlling influence on their
motions and orbits ever since; and their course and
velocity are now so certain, that men can foretell day,
hour, and minute, when every eclipse will happen, for
a thousand years to come. Fire produces certain effects
on iron, and boiling water certain effects on flesh and
vegetables, and soft words turn away wrath, and we
are assured, through our faculty of causality, that these
effects will always be reproduced, whenever the objects
to be affected by them are subjected to the same conditions.
Nature, then, is like a vast piece of machinery, contrived by a Being of Omniscience, who could foresee all
consequences; wrought out by a Being, of Infinite Skill,
who could adapt means to ends; worked by a Being of
exhaustless Power, who will never be destitute of energy to drive on the process; and administered by a Being
of matchless Love, who constantly evolves from it the
means of the highest possible good.
In the midst of this wonderful machinery  we  are
placed. If we know its capabilities and their laws, we
can reolate their action, producing vast good, averting
vast evil.  I can rear tares or wheat in all my grounds.
I can make bread or alcohol of all my grains. I can
sow health or disease, virtue or vice, in all my influences upon men.   If I wish to produce given quantities
or qualities of manufactured articles, I arrange certain
cranks,  or wheels, or bands;  I arrange the power,
whether water or steam, and God turns the wheels, and
the result comes forth.  I arrange some pieces of glass
or burnislhed metal in a certain order, for a telescope,
and lo, God's wonders in tle dee) f;,,   I.. "d1,
l
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rank behind rank, burst upon my adoriong vision.  If I
wish to train up children to greatness of mind, and
purity of soul, then I supply the requisite moral and
intellectual aliment; and if I have selected my subject
judiciously, and have followed principles faithfully in
all my course of training, then shall I be rewarded w ithl
that most precious of all earthly rewards, a noble character. Causation, then, the operative power in Cause
and Effect, is a mighty agency, proceeding from God;
and Causality, by which we recognize the law of causation, is a mighty faculty existing in man.  It is the
mightiest intellectual power bestowed on man.   No
such intellectual difference exists between men, as between the man who has it, and the man who has it not.
The extremes of its presence or its absence, mark the
extremes of greatness and of imbecility. Socrates, Lord
Bacon, Dr. Franklin, possessed it in a most conspicuous
degree. Idiots have but a germ or minimum of it, and
hence they are idiots. The great causality, which, on
beholding any particular fact or event, can look back
and divine the cause that produced it, and look forward
and foresee the effects which itself will produce, that
makes the great man, -  the great writer, the great
statesman, the great philosopher. The man who sees
events as mere flcts, but cannot see in the events, either
the causes that led to them, or the effects which in
the order of nature, will flow firom them, hie is the imbecile, the non-witted, the idiotic.   He can neither
arrange things for the production of good results, nor
foresee bad results, and so modify causes as to escape
from them. He is a ship without a rudder on the ocean
of Time, tossed about at the mercy of every wind or tide
of circumstance and chance; and, tllougll  there is a
of eictiii,, 17
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possibility that lie may be driven to the desired  i.ayen,
yet the chances are as infinity to onle that he will be
wrecked.  Even if he should be driven wllhere lie desires to go, every one will know that it was by no skill
of his that he arrived there.   But give a man  this
Causality, and he has a rudder to his ship); and no matter where in the broad ocean, no matter in which ocean
lie may be; no matter which way thle winds may blow,
or the tides may sweep, he moves  his helm so as to cooperate with, or to antagonize them all; and hle doubles
capes, sheers from rocks, threads clhannels, and at last,
jubilanlt with success, he reaclhes his haven in safety and
triumph.
Astronomers saw that Uranus, then supposed to be
the outside planet in our solar system, had irregularities
in its motions which they could not account for. They
calculated the retarding and accelerating forces of all
the other bodies in the solar group, but the gravitation
of these other bodies did not explain the difficulty.  At
last, Leverrier, a French astronomer, conceived that
the irregularities of Uranus in its orbit mighlt be occasioned by the attracting force of some planet beyond it,
thlough no such planet was known to exist.  HIe set
himself, tllerefore, to examnine all tle observations that
had been made ulpon Uranus, found that at such a time
it was so much in advance of its position, and at such
a time so much in thle rear of it, and so firom revolution
to revolution for years and years; and then lie catlculated( that if thlere were such a planet outside and beyond(l
Uranus, and at a certain supposed and prol)bable d(list.llce
from it, whereabouts that planet must have been at diffelent times; that is, if Uraniiu, in  uaking its revolution,
beg,an at any point to g) fartlher tli'll it ollullt to, then
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the supposed planet must be ahead of it, and so draw ing it forward; but if Uranus began to slacken its
velocity, and to fall behind what would otherwise be
its true position, then thie supposed planet must be behind it, and so retarding its motions. At the very first
computation (thlough we can hardly conceive how  laborious such a computation must be), hlie would simnply
infer that the supposed planet must be in advance or
in the rear.  At the second, perhaps he milght conclude
that it was within so many degrees of some fixed point
in its orbit. And so, by computation after computation,
wrouglht out by a degree of labor and learning scarcely
ima(gilnable by us, lie would determine the place of the
supposed planet to be witlhin narrower and narrower
limits, until lie had at last exhausted all his data, or
means of information, and could only say,- the new
planet is to be looked for between two such points.
Leverrier immediately wrote to his firiend, the astronomer Gauss, at Berlin, who had charge of a very superior
telescope, telling him at what point in the heavens to
look for the supposed new world.  Gauss pointed his
telescope as directed, and the first night discovered the
new planet, thus adding another known member to the
solar system.  Now if. causes had not acted uniformly,
or if we had no faculty of Causality, how could this
discovery ever have been made?
Some traveller has given an account of the troops of
monkevs that firequent Gibraltar.  The soldiers often
go out of their camp to cook their food in the open air,
and during cold weather, after they have retired, the
monkeys (olue from their trees and hidin,g-pl)laces, and
gather round the fire for warmth.   But the fire will
soon burn out, and igh ti  monkeys have seen t
soon IEtiri out, andl tlioticli the mnonky,lian-e }lseen'C the
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RETRtI13UrION.
soldiers, scores of times, go to the piles of wood near
by, to replenish the fire, yet they have never associated
the two things together, the wood and the fire, -and
therefore will remain cold or slink away into their hiding
places to suffer, for want of wit enough to know that
fuel is necessary to fire.
Now the greatest difference between these two cases,
between the discover of an unknown planet firom the
aberrations of a known one, and the relation between
fuel and fire when the two are placed close together, is
a difference in the Causality of the two parties.
This case of the astronomer, and this case of the
monkeys, may, perhaps, be regarded as the two extremes. Let me premise a remark or two, and then
refer to a few such cases as happen around us continually, and see whether such cases come nearer to the
pattern of the astronomer, or to the pattern of the
monkeys.
First, then, let me say, that throughout all that part
of the creation of God with which we are acquainted,
He works by Cause and Effect; He works in such a
way that our Causality can understand from what Ite
has done, what He will do. His rules are so uniform
and Himself so reliable, that when we see any cause
put in operation, we know that cause can never be annililated.   With a single exception, that cause will
certainly produce its effect. That exception is this;
we may sometimes modify the effect br setting a new
cause or set of causes in operation. But it is only
through the agency of the new  causes that we can escape from the effects of the old; and then, only because
God has connected the new causes with their effects,
indissolubly, just as Ile had the old ones with thleirs. In
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one class of cases, after hlaving set the cause in action,
we call never prevent the effect, even by any new cause
that we may put in action; because the effect follows
so immediately, so instantaneously upon the cause, that
we have no time to get in between them  with a new
cause; we have no time to tlihist a new cause in to
modify the effect of the old one.  If I hlurl a javelin,
or shloot an arrow, or fire a ball, at a fellow-being, I call
never withdraw the force I have imparted; nor can I
leap in between javelin, arrow or ball, and their object.
On tlhey go and take the life at which I aimed, and no
p)rayers, or tears, or agonies of mine can arrest them in
their course.  There is, however, another class of cases,
where the interval is so long between the starting of the
cause and  the consummation  of tllhe effect, where so
many processes are to be gone  thlrou(gh with after the
hbe(,inning of the cause, and b'lfore the completion of
the effect, that -we can step in between them and modify or intercept the effect.  But, observe here, that this
must always be done, not by destroying the original
force whlich set the train in motion, but by instituting'
a inew cause or set of causes, which slhtll pro(llduce a
n-ew set of effects, superseding the first.  One man may
design to take the life of another, and may mingle some
deadly venoem withl his food to poison him, or he may
resolve to fire his house in the nighi,t to consime him
but before the food has been eaten, or the flames hIave
enveloped the sleeping-roomn, the offender may repent,
and remove the food, or give the life-saving alarm and
prevent the murder.  But here you will observe the prevention is the effect of a new cause; the old cause was
not annilhilatedl; tl-he old crime of designing, to murder
will remailn a fact forever, and its scar, at least, if not
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RETRIBUTION.
its wound, will remain upon the offender's soul forever.
When, therefore, we set a cause in motion, it passes
out of our jurisdiction.  It comes then within God's
jurisdiction. With regard to causes, God seems to
give us, within a certain limited sphere, a co-ordinate
jurisdiction with himself; but with regard to the effects
naturally resulting from those causes, He gives us no
jurisdiction.  These He retains in His own sovereign
hand.
Now there is no more common and few more woful
errors than those which men commit when they neglect
to take care of causes, and then expend their energies
or their lamentations upon the effects of those causes.
We ought to expend our talents and our toils upon
causes, altogether, and then we are certain God will see
that the right effects flow from them. But men neglect
the causes, and then busy, or burden, or torment themselves about effects, which are no longer within their
control.
A merchant is careless about the building of his ship,
works defective materials into its structure, appoints a
captain who is unlearned or intemperate, and then sends
it to sea. A terrific storm arises, and now he can
neither eat nor sleep. He would gladly give half the
value of ship and cargo to insure the rest. Foolish
man! When that vessel was on the stocks, why did
X ou not see that it was well built? Why did you employ that captain when you knew him to be deficient
in skill, or intemperate in habits? Then you had the
causes all in your own hands. You determined then.
God's immutable laws of winds and waves do but execute now what you predestined then, and down she
must go. Your ship shiall be drift-wood upon the
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ocean's  surface.   Your  cargo  shall lie  upon its bot
tom.
In a fiery drought in midsummer, the farmer becomes
most anxious about his crops, mourns, repines, arraigns
Providence, perhaps, because the heavens are as brass,
and yield no rain, the earth is like an oven, and the
corn is scorched as by a slow-consuming fire.  But in
the spring, when the causes were at his control, why
did hlie not subsoil his land, so that the roots could penetrate down to the moisture and draw up the nourishment which would have given him the luxuriant blade
and the full corn in the ear?
The railroad engineer is entrusted with the building
of a bridge, high-poised over deep waters.  He fails to
excavate to the solid foundation, and omits the necessary clamping and bracing and trellis-work. By and
by, the newspapers announce that all is ready. The
Excursion Train takes up the choicest men, the dignitaries of the land, - the skilful, the educated, the
worthy, those to whom it is an honor to pay honor.
On the company speeds, jubilant, exultant. As the
fair-seeming structure comes into view, expectation is
too high for utterance, and silence holds every breath
for the restrained exclamation of triumph.  A  crash,
a plunge, a shriek! Another plunge, a wilder shriek!
And still another, as a third great chariot becomes a
coffin, and laden with humanity, entombs itself beneath
engulfing waters. Silence reigns again, save here and
there
"The bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer I his agony."
So of him who builds a dwelling.   If he builds upon
a sandy foundation,- if he constructs it of materials
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which have no strength or cohlesion, then hlie has neglected causes; and he must expect that the flood will
undermine it, and the winds overthrow it, and hlie has
no right, nay, it is impiety in him, to ask God to interpose a miracle between his conduct and its natural consequences.
In the filthy and reeking, suburbs of a city, from
which all cleanliness and decency have been banished,
where the earth exhales the miasma that scatters pestilence, where, from holes which the disinfecting sunlight
has never shone upon, from crypts and corners which
the purifying breezes have never visited, grim  Destruction breathes out its poisonous vapors, one lung,-full of
which is a death-potion, the alarm of cholera is souiinded.
The residents die by scores.  The contag,ion spreads on
all sides.  The seeds of death are wafted upon evely
breeze, and invade districts where purity and cleanliness reside.  Virtue and piety fatll victims, and inl some
cases, even the stoutest health succumbs. Now what
alairm and consternation, what suinmoning of councils,
municipal and medical, what expenditures, lwhat nuinbers of men abandoning their business, for flight, with
mothers clasping their infants to their breasts, what
stupefying terror among those who remain.  One twentieth part of the pains and expenditure which it now
costs to drive out the plague after its invasion and its
work of havoc, would have sufficed to purify the whole
reg,ion beforehand.   But those who had power over
thile causes lneglected to exert that power. They suffered
the contagion to be incubqed and hatched, and then to
rise and slhake death from its dark wing over hapl)y
and virtuous homes; and thie inexorable law of God
fulfilled the rest.
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A people who enjoy the unspeakably precious prerogative of electing their own rulers, grow indifferent to
their high duty, absent themselves firom the polls for
fiivolous reasons, vote from passion or caprice, or a base
party spirit, and thus suffer demagogues and profligates
to be returned to their legislative halls, there to guide
the ship of state, with all its cargoes of happiness, upon
whatever courses they will. Soon a crisis comes, a momentous crisis, involving, perhaps, the inextinrguishable
ri(ghts of a race, inlvolving the happiness, prosperity
and character of the nation itself, and now those miscreants are treacherous to their duty; the avaricious
see a chance for making money, and directly or indirectly, they pocket bribes;  the ambitious clutch at
power, and thus they sacrifice the dearest interests of
millions, yea, of ages of the unconscious unborn, that
they may obtain wealth without labor, or possess the
insignia of office while conscious that they are destitute
of the merits that deserve them.  The people, stripped
of their earniings, disgraced in character, overwhelmed
with shame, are left to mourn the folly and the fatuity
that promoted such men  to power.   But why did not
the people make it a matter of conscience to give a
vote, and to give that vote for a true man?  Then they
would have escaped loss and calamity and shame.   But
they neglected the preparation of causes, and  God's
laws visit them with the legitimate effects of their conduct.
How strong is the instinct of parental love. Parents
suffer no such agony in their own persons as they can
suffer through the person of a child. Parents can bear
the palpitating hieart, the convulsed muscle, the throbbing lpulse in tliinbelves; but wlgen till( tender organs
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TRETRIBUTION.
of a loved child are torn with these agonies, it becomes
intolerable.  In the  aggregate, parents  suffer more
throug,h the prcfiig,acies and criminialities of children
than throug,h their own.  They may repent of their
own and allay the suffering, but when a chlild's wickedless runs on to ruin and deathl, then, while life lasts,
its torturing fires continue to burn in the parental
b:east. As a general rule,- I do not deny that there
are exceptions, but as a general rule, - children turn
out as they milght be expected to turn out firom the
treatnimnt received from parents.  What untold agonies,
not only in the open day and in the thronged marketplace, but in solitude and at midnighlt, do parents suffer;
whlat soreness of heart, even such that the tenderest
sympathy tortures it like fire, does the mother feel for a
profligate son, while lie, as if urged aloing by some
demon, rushes  on  to darker  shlame and a deadlier
perdition.  Yet the time was when  that chlild's heart
was as soft as wax, when his feelings, like an aspen leaf,
could have been moved by a breath.  Tlhen the mother
could have supplied the very  moral  nutriment  that
should have buen embodied in the growth of its soul,
just as the milk firom her own breast became a part of
its body.  Then she sat upon a throne, and weal and
woe were ministers ready to (do her bidding.  Then she
was, like a goddess, decreeing the future, originating
predestination, tellingIr Fate himself what hle should d(o.
But, for some vanity or frivolity of tlhe hour, she forfeited her queenly prerogatives; she was an idiot in
Causality, and a lost child and a broken heart are her
reward.
But there is one illustration which embraces the
essence of all the illustrations I have given; an illustra
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REETRITIBUTION.
ti()n wlich sh ows more strikingly than any other, tlhat
if we would make sure of the effects we desire, we must
give timely heliced to the causes which, according to the
ordination of God's providence, will produce them.
Youth is a cause, the condition of manhlood and old
age is an effect.  Time is a seed-field; in youthl we
sow it with causes; iln after life we reap the harvest of
effects. God has established no relation more indissoliuble than that between youth and age, between the
spriig-time of causes, and the autumn  and winter of
consequences. Cause, cause, cause, is stamped all along
upon the conduct of youth;  effect, effect, effect, is
moulded and chiselled in upon the results of that conducet, in age.  In youth, the health may be preserved
or ruined, to be rejoiced or mourned  over through all
the remainder of life.  The ample, palace-like apartments of the mind may be filled with the precious
treasures of knowledge, or they may be left vacant, so
that any foot-fall within them, or near them, ever afterwards shlall proclailm  their emptiness by  its hollowsounding vibrations; or, again, those chambers of the
soul, fit for the garneling of gran(nd, and lofty, and reftilgent thoughts, and designed by their Maker for the
(garnering of such thoughts, may be filled with errors
of doctrine, and with schemes of criminality, repulsive,
contaminating, monstrous, and monster-l)e(ettin(.  In
this youtlftil season of causation, too, the heart  may
l)id and blossom with moral amaranths, which, in aftei
lit e, will bear the firuits of paradlise, of lheaven; or it
l.ty l)ecome rank  with noxious hlabits and(l impulses,
-whlose ver-y verdure and flownver will exhale )()ison, and(
wl()sse fr'lit, in years to c()i(, will be like tlh  Dca(l Sea
:ll)le)lc, jil olt' slles, 111(1 l)itt(,raess to thle taste.  IL,ook
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RETRIBIUTION.
at the causes, on one side; look at the effects on the
other; look at the adamantine relation which God has
established between them; -  how one grows out of the
other, as the oak grows out of an acorn, or the bird out
of an egg.
MAy young friends, as it respects manhood and old
agre, you are now in the season of youth, and the preparation of these causes, is, to a great extent, committed
to your hands. As it respects another life, we are all
in the season of youth, and our destiny, to an inconceivable extent, is in our own  hands.   God stands
ready by His laws, that is, by His providence, to affix
the appropriate effects to such causes as we shall put in
motion, good or evil. Let us, then, attend to the causes
on which our futurity of weal or woe, of greater weal,
or of less woe, shall depend. Take care of the causes.
He has predetermined the effects of happiness or misery,
of honor or sliame, which shiall flow from them as the
stream flows from the fountain.
(
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MEDITATION.
MEDITATION.
OUR Father, we thank Thee for the security of the
past night; that during the oblivion of ourselves in sleep,
Thou hast not forgotten us; and that, refreshed and
reinvigorated by grateful repose, we have risen from
our beds, so like a resurrection from the dead, to engage
in the duties and the services appropriate to this sacred
day. Here, bowing our hearts before Thee, in reverent gratitude, may we present ourselves, in Thy holy
presence, as loving children would seek the presence of
an earthly father. Wilt Thou, Oh Heavenly Father,
stretch forth the hand of mercy towards us, and bid us
welcome.  Wilt Thou touch our lips with praise; wilt
Thou kindle the flame of gratitude in our hearts. May
they burn incense to Thee, richer than all the perfumes
of the east. By contemplating Thy Power, may we be
encouraged to obtain knowledge, by means of which
Thou dost invest us with power.  By reflecting upon
Thy Justice, may we learn to do justice to all our fellowmen;-justice to their interests in all our dealings
with them; justice to their characters in all we say or
circulate respecting them; justice to the possibilities of
good in their natures, in all the influences we exert upon
them. And in contemplating Thy Mercy, may we
learn to be mercifuil; may we be mercifuil to the poor,
by helping them, through industry, and sobriety, and
intelligence, to obtain a competency and comfort; may
we be merciful to the ignorant, by giving them knowl
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MEDITATION.
edge, and by devising such measures as shall refine that
knowledge into wisdom; may we be merciful to those
who suffer, by succoring their physical distresses, or by
administering the balm of consolation to the deeper sorrows of the heart, and may we be merciful to those who
sit in the region and shadow of death, by sending civilization and the Gospel to all the ends of the earth. Oh,
Father, may we rise to that highest of all human prerogatives, to that noblest of all earthly dignities,- the
prerogative and the dignity of being co-workers with
Thee in Thy plans for the welfare, the happiness, the
holiness of man. Bless this people and this society, we
beseech Thee. May their light so shine before men,
that others, seeing their good works, may be led to
glorify our Father who is in heaven. Bless him who
ministers to them in sacred things. May he grow
iighty in the utterance of truth.  May he fear God,
and not man. May he speak boldly for righteousness,
for temperance, for equity, and for the universal brotherhlood of the race; and may his labors be blessed in the
gathering and strengthening of a noble people, whose
blessed influences for peace and for purity, shall reflect
the light of heaven into all the paths of the children of
men, and whose lives shall be the visible seal that they
are true disciples of Thy Son, Jesus Christ.
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THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
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I, 
* ~  ~       ~      ~       -    --     2,' —' 
i I. 
X.
THE KINGDOMI OF HEAVEN.
MATTHEW xix, 24.- And  again I say unto you, it is easier for  a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God.
Parallels.  Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25; Luke xvii 21.- For behold,
the kingdom of God is within you. Rom. xiv. 17. - For the king  dom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and
joy in the Holy Ghost. I Cor. iv. 20. - For the kingdom of God is
not in word, but in power.
1 Cor. xv. 50. - But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal. v. 19. -  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20.- Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife,
seditions, heresies,
21.   Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past,
that they who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of
God.
22. - But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gen  tleness, goodness, faith.
23. - MIeekness, temperance.  Against such there is no law.
24. - And they that aire Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affec  tions and'usts.
Ephesians v. 5. - For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean
person, nor covetous man (who is an idolater), hath any inherit  ance in the kingdom of Christ or of God.
THE  Kingdom  of God  is the subject of  this Discourse.
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[217] 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
In considering it, let us first inquire what is meant
by the phrase, "The Kingdom of God."  We  ought
to have, not merely an exact theological, but an exact
geographical idea of God's kingdom.  We must fix its
boundaries. We must draw a line of demarcation between God's kingdom and all other kingdoms, so as to
include within it whatever does belong to it; and so as
to exclude from it whatever does not belong to it.
But you ask; Is not God's kingdom a universal one,
an all-comprehending one? does it not, so to speak,
reach to the very circumference of infinitude? Can
there be anything sheer outside of it?  Nay, if we
could, according to the bold imagination of the poet,
climb those walls
"Whose battlements look o'er into the vale
Of non-existence,.Nothing's strange abode,"
should we not, even in that solitude, and darkness, and
vacuity, still behold God's kingdom?
Certainly, in a physical or dynamical sense, this is
true.  There is no outside to God's power.  If immensity were any less, it would not contain all God's energy,
for want of room. If eternity were any shorter, some
part of the drama of God's providence must be omitted
in the performance, for want of time.
But there is another sense, in which these facts are
almost reversed. To make this more intelligible, let me
resort to etymology and definition. The word kingdomn
is a compound word.  Its first syllable, "king,," means
leader, ruler, sovereign, lord, and the last syllable,
"dom," when used as a termination, denotes jurisdiction
or property, as in the words, earldom, wisdom, freedom,
&c. Earldom is thle dominion of an earl; wisdom is
the power of the wise; and freedom is the liberty of the
free.
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THE KINGDOM OF HIEAVEN.
If, then, the kingdom of God means, intrinsically,
the moral supremacy, the undisputed sway of God's
holy lawt; and, if it means, geographically, the place
where that law is supreme, unresisted, unquestioned,
then the difficulty will consist rather in finding where
God's kingdom is, than where it is not. We shall find
trouble in tracing out the circumference or boundary of
God's law, not because the included territory is so immensely large, but because it is so microscopically small.
Where in the moral world, where in all the realms of
mortal free-agency, of human accountability, is God's
kingdom, or the reign of God's law, absolute, perfect,
perpetual?- not a sin to cloud its cerulean sky, or
curse its flowery earth; not a tongue silent, and every
voice a concord! Alas, my friends, to find such a
kingdom of God as this in our sin-stricken world, we
must have some new geog,rapher, some more successful
explorer than Captain Parry or Sir John Franklin; we
must discover some new region not yet laid down in
any atlas, -  in any terra cognita, or terra incognita of
human history. For myself, I would sooner undertake
to find the Northwest Passage in mid-winter, or to make
a Coast Survey around the Antarctic Continent.
If the kingdom of God be "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;" if it be to love the Lord our God with all
our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves; if it be to
do unto others as we would have them do to us; if,
ill fine, it be to do all these things, and to feel all
these things habitually, systematically, spontaneously, to
practice them without the compulsion of fear, and to
enjoy them without the hope of other reward, then, indeed, there is not a petty prince in Europe, across
219 
THE KINGDOM OF hIEAVEN.
whose kingdom a horse could leap or an unfledged bird
could fly, who has not a wider realm than He, the
Author of all.
Was the kingdom of God established in those belligerent nations of Europe, so lately linked together in a
death-grapple at each other's throats, wielding not only
their own energies, but subsidizing the mighty powers
of nature and the earnings of future generations, and
aiming their blows at each other's hearts? Is the kingdom of God established in those vast regions of central
Asia and Africa, whose deities are stocks and stones, -
some fetich, some reptile, some monster; and whose
worship even of these base deities consists of baser
superstitions? " When the monkey is a God, what
must the priest be? What the people under the priest?"
Is the kingdom of God established in those self-called
civilized nations, whose social condition necessitates
great organizations of legislatures, judicial tribunals,
executive officers, &c., for the punishment of crime;
and even then half the criminals escape? The prison,
the gibbet, the gallows, what loud-voiced witnesses are
they respecting God's reign upon earth! Where is the
community, the college, the academy, the school, in
which it is necessary to promulgate no law but the law
of God, and where that law is always obeyed? Where
is the family in which there is not more or less of discord, of heart-burnings; where there are not many
wills and many interests instead of one will and one
interest? Oh, where is there an individual, - one
man or one woman, - whose  heart always points to
God as the magnetic needle to its pole, and trembles,
ay, quakes with fear, whenever a base attraction warps
it, for a moment, from its true meridian?
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THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
Whlere war is, where slavery is, where licentiousness
is, where fiaud, cruelty, treachery, overreaching are, is
the kingdom of God there? These thrust out that.
The two cannot co-exist. The earth endured Chlrist's
ministry only three years, - not three weeks after his
real character and purposes were generally known.
But salvation for man, in its fullest sense, is only to
be found in the kingdom of heaven; that is, it is only
to be found in acts and feelings conformed to the will of
God.  There may, indeed, be a partial salvation.  Salvation is not a unit from which nothing can be subtracted, and to which nothing can be added.  If I was
once a drunkard or a glutton, and afterwards, ill view
of the calamities and losses of drunkenness and gluttony, I repented, and subjected my life to the laws of
sobriety and temperance, then I am so far saved. I am
saved from the continued accumulation of the evils of
inordinate indulgence; and by a life of rigid abstemiousness, I may from day to day mainly outgrow the
consequences of my former folly and sin. So if I were
once smitten with the insanity of gambling, and in view
of its mischiefs, I disenchanted myself from its strange
fascinations, then I am saved friom the evils of gambling.
Even the worst men may have a certain quantum of
salvation, although it falls far short of being a quantern
siffcit. What else could Christ have meant when lihe
said it should be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, ay,
for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for those who had enj()yed his teachiings and had contemned them?  SalvationII, therefore, in the full comprehensiveness of the
word(l, can only be found in putting ourselves, -  body,
mind and soul,- into entire harmony with the laws of
God.
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But there is always, in man, the intensest desire for
salvation.  When  the  consequences  of our  wrongdoing overtake us in this life, then we desire to annihilate them; and when we look forward with a foreboding sense of the consequences, in another life, of
our misconduct here, then we pray fbr some antidote,
some remedy, some refuge and escape. This grows out
of the very constitution of human nature. We are so
made that we instinctively desire happiness and dread
miser. I think we have an intuitive belief in immortality; that is, when the requisite ideas exist in the
mind, the belief springs up spontaneously. Each man
for himself says, I shall live forever. Education supplies this intuition with arguments, and fortifies and
strengthens it into a firm, enduring conviction. Now,
that immortality of existence, as it first presents itself
to the mind, may be an immortality of happiness, or an
immortality of woe- of rapture or of agony.   The
stronger desire doubtless is to avoid the pain. It is a
less strong desire to enjoy the happiness; but both together constitute a motive of transcendent power; and
every thoughtful human being means, in some way or
another, before leaving this world, to obtain a guaranty
of happiness in the next. With a very few anomalous
cases, which may  perhaps be called cases of insanity,
no one means to cross the river of death without securing a blissful haven to land in on the other side. There
is the most unaccountable procrastination, there is the
grossest superstition in regard to the means; but the
intention is unquestionable.
I propose to consider some of the different plans
which men lay in order to get into the kingdom of
God.
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Heaven is commonly conceived of as a place, a locality,- as we conceive of the District of Columbia,
or London, or Switzerland. Somewhere in God's universe it is supposed there is a spot where elemental
storms never deform the sky; where inward sorrow
never cankers the heart. There is rest after labor,
peace after conflict, smiles after tears, and such happiness as quenches all fiery memories of former pain;
and the common or popular notion is that when good
men leave this world, they are translated, that is, transported to heaven, as an aeronaut sails off in a balloon. By what means, then, can men obtain assurance,
and insurance, that when they die they will be borne
away to the abodes of bliss, and not to the realms of
sorrow?
I think there is one grand principle of human nature,
which underlies all others and co-operates with all others,
for securing a passport and an entrance to heaven. This
principle is a selfish one, and it is to get into heaven on
the cheapest terms practicable. As in common transactions men wish to buy much by paying little; as in
common journeyings or voyagings men desire to get a
railroad ticket or a steamboat ticket on the lowest terms;
so the sinner, conscious that he deserves punishment and
fearing that he shall receive it in some place outside of
heaven, strives to obtain a safe passage to the realms of
bliss with the least possible sacrifice of what he loves
best here; and as the traveller who is about to perform
a voyage across the Atlantic, selects the steamship or
packet which has the best accommodations, the richest
fare, the most comfortable and luxurious berths for his
nightly repose, so many of the self-called disciples of
Christ desire to *worship in the most elegant and luxuri
223 
THE KINGI)OM OF HEAVEN.
ous'chlurches, where they can sleep away the tedium of
their journey to heaven.
The missionaries to the Caroline Islands found a
theology prevailing there, which exempted its believers
from all responsibility about their future condition.
The natives believed that their going to heaven or to
hlell, after death, did not depend at all upon their conduct in this life, or upon the state of the soul at death;
but they held that after the soul had separated from the
body, and wlhile it was on its way to the spirit-land, it
was met by companies of good and evil divinities who
fought over it and for it, like Greek and Trojan over the
dead body of Patroclus; and as one or the other of the
combatants prevailed, the soul was borne away to Paradise or to Hades.  So little idea had they of virtue, of
morality, of duty; so little did they suppose their divinities cared about virtue, morality, and duty, that the
soul's eternal destiny was to be decided by brute force,
in a hand to hand combat, in which the soul itself was
to be a mere looker on; an interested, but a powerless
spectator.
So there have been sects in the Christian world, professing to derive their faith from that most eminently
virtue-inculcating religion of Jesus Christ, who maintain that man's salvation depends exclusively upon what
God does for him, and not at all upon what he does for
himself. They believed that man is born in such a
state of sin and misery, as ensures his ultimate perdition; that he can no more help himself out of that state,
than a lump of lead falling through a vacuum, can unclench gravitation, and stop midway; - nay, to put
his perdition beyond possibility of hope from himself,
they go back and affirm that he was conceived in sin,
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and bro(ught forth in iniquity; - nay, to make his dam  nation a thousand times inevitable, they construct ram parts of impossibility against his salvation six thousand
years off, by saying that he fell when Adam fell, and
has been falling ever since; -nay, again, they affirm
that it was decreed by the Omnipotent and Unchange able God, from all eternity, that human souls should be
forever lost; - so that, if such a man would be saved,
he has got this problem to. work out literally. He
must go back to the time of his birth, and preside over
that event, and not be born in a state of sin and misery;
he must go back and prevent his being conceived in
sin; he must go back to the time when Adam fell, and
by main strength prevent his falling; ay, pre-existently,
and pre-Adamitically, he must go back into those re cesses of etenity when God's decrees in relation to
him were made, and make the Unchangeable God
reconsider, and make those decrees the other way; all these things he must do, as preliminaries, as condi tions precedent, before he can begin to do anything
about saving himself. After he has prevented the im mutable God from making His decrees; after he has
refused successfully to have Adam for his great pro genitor, and been born of some outside lineage that
exists nowhere; after he has been present at his own
formation, and  birth,  and  compounded  the  moral
elements out of which he should begin to be, then, and
not till then, will the impossibilities be removed from
his path, so that he can begin to take some measures
towards effecting his own salvation. I am not now
impugning this faith; I am only attempting to state it.
But these two cases, - the case of the Caroline
Islanders, whose chance of entering heaven  dependis
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THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
upon the gladiatorial and pugilistic skill of friendly or
adverse divinities; and the case of those Christian sects
who believe they are saved without reference to their
voluntary actions and affections in this life;- these
two cases, I say, are exceptional, and by no means
represent the religious faith of the mass of mankind. I
know of no other heathen nation that leaves the moral
nature and the moral character of man wholly out of
account in their estimate of his future condition.  All
other heathen, all Mohammedans, and most Christians,
set too high a value upon man's moral nature, and his
virtuous conduct, not to affix future rewards and punishments to his present observance or violation of duty.
It is only when some dogma of exclusive grace, or
exclusive fatality, or exclusive luck, comes in, that a
man's future destiny is supposed to be determined, without reference to his earthly merits or demerits; -  that
is, wholly independently of his moral character.. Indeed, it is the general opinion, that if man's evil propensities are subdued wholly by a foreign force, not only
without co-operation, but in spite of resistance from
himself, that hlie might as well have been made virtuous
by machinery, or gravitation, or steam-power.
If, then, we should for a moment recognize the poplular belief that heaven and hell are places, geographical
localities, as much so as Ohio and Missouri, how the
one appeals to our hopes, how the other rouses our
fears. These present transcendent motives for the
practice of virtue, for abstinence from vice.
But, on the other hand, when we reflect upon the
tremendous energy and vehemence of men's passions
and appetites, how in the climax and madness of their
paroxysms, they rush to their gratification, forgetful of
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all restraints, defiant of all consequences, - peril, tor ture, or death, - the ever revolving wheel of Ixion,
the eternal thirst of Tantalus, the gory beak of the vulture of Prometheus, forever plucking at the culprit's
heart;-  when, I say, we consider all this, how infinite
the good to be obtained, how horrible the woe to be
avoided, and how fierce and fiery the earthly lusts to
be gratified, what wonder is it, if men do try ten thousaniid schemes, and exhaust all human ingenuity, to
obtain that fuiture good, and to avoid that future evil,
both at the least possible sacrifice of this world's gratifications?
The conqueror, to whom a city turned to ashes, and
strewn with the dead, seems more valuable if he can
say, "It is mine," than the same city, though vocal
with prosperity and joy, if not his own, says: "Can
I not indulge my rage for conquest on earth, and still
win admission to heaven at last?"
The avaricious man says: " Can I not hoard treasures
in this world, and still, near the close of life "-  (not too
early, because treasures laid up in heaven are unproductive capital)    " financier so shrewdly as to have
treasures laid up for me in heaven also?"
The polygamist says; " Can I not have my harem
here below, and still find Cyprian chambers among, the
Houris above?"
The intemperate man says: "Can I not revel in the
intoxicating draught while 1 live upon earth, and then
sit down with Jesus Christ to drink wine with the redeemed in the New Jerusalem above?"
The kidnapper says: "Even though I do rob men of
the right to their own bodies and their own souls, and
women of the right to their children and their virtue,
227 
THE KINGDOM OF HIIEAvEN.
yet, if I repent on my deatlh-bed, will not the Infinite
Redeemer give me, too, a passport to heaven; nay,
have I not been told all my life longT that Christ came
from heaven, and died on the Cross to meet just such
desperate cases as mine?"
The veteran sinner, his heart concreted of guilt, and
his hands clotted with innocent blood, - the cosmopolite in the world of crime, at home everywhere, who
can speak all its wicked languages, and is dextrous, ambidextrous, at all its infernal acts, cannot he, too, rely
on the mercies of the same Redeemer, and when about
to be launched from the gallows into eternity, use these
very gallows as his pedestal, and so reach the realms
of glory by a shorter flight? Does not much of the
doctrine we hear from the pulpit sanction all this?
But selfishness and ignorance have invented even
cheaper ways than these of getting to heaven  easy.
Some people expect to cajole St. Peter, and "run the
gate" which leads to everlasting bliss, by tricks and
shams, that would not deceive the meanest toll-collector
on the meanest bridge or ferry in this world, - the
Catholics, by saying prayers in an unknown tongue;
the Orientals, by winding off written prayers from one
cylinder into another; the Jews, among whom domestic
animals were plentiful, by offering sacrifices of lambs,
or doves, or bullocks; the Chinese, among whom provisions are scarce, by offering the less costly incense of
peiftmed paper and contemptible toys?  A  few years
ago, a violent feud spriung up, which split in two a religious sect in Pennsylvania, on the question whether
their garments should be fastened by hooks and eyes, or
bv buttons and button-holes; and in the State of Tennessee, within the last two  months, a question was
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apl)ealed to the Presbytery, whether the bread of the
Lor(l's Supper should be cut or broken! Kneeling or
standing in prayer; marrying a deceased wife's sister,
&C., &c., are also subjects of difference of opinion. And
how universal the practice of seeking heaven by the
persecution of others, instead of self-repentance and re formation; of burning heresies out of other men, instead
of extin lishing evil passions in ourselves.
Now there is one deep' and deplorable falsity, lying at
the bottom of all expectations of getting to heaven in
aiey of these ways. That falsity Christ exposes, when
le says, "For the kingdom of heaven is within you."
Yes, the kingdom of God is within us, or for us, my
friends, or it is nowhere.   It is not afar off, in some
stariy realm; in some distant temple, floored with gold,
canopied with glittering gemns, adorned with divine arts
beyond Phidias and  Praxiteles, beyond Raphael, or
Wren, -  the Vatican, or the Alhambra.  The kingdom
of heaven is not in any externals of pomp or dominion,
of luxury, or of fame. It is in our own hearts, I say,
or, for us, it is non-existent. What, then, is this kingdom of heaven, which must exist in our own consciousness, or have no existence?  Let me answer in the very
words of Holy Writ.  It is to fear God, and keep His
commandments. Is is to love the Lord our God with
all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves.  It is to
(lo to others as we would be done by. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. We are not,
then, to go abroad, exploring after the kingdom of
heaven.  That kinildom must be inanugurated in ourselves, -in our feelings, thoughts, lives, in all our
asl)irations for fiiture excellence, in all visions of future
bliss, - in what we do when  alone, in what  we  do
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TIlE KINGDOM OF IIEAVEN.
before our families, our neighbors, the world. All else
is fable. One man cannot have this kingdom for
another man,- husband for wife, nor wife for husband,
father for child, nor child for father, minister for people,
nor people for minister. Go round the world, then,
and shout it in thie ears of all living men; rouse heathen,
Brahmin,  Mohammedan, Christian;  make  the dead
hear, - the dead in trespasses and sins, - command
them no longer to explore the realms of space, in quest
of the kingdom of heaven; no longer to seek for watercarriage, or air-carriage,- for canvas, or for wings by
which to sail or soar to some lofty heaven, or seventh
heaven, high up in the zenith, or far away beyond Arcturus, or the Pleiades; for know, that the first truth of
all truths, and the greatest truth of all truths, is this;
that heaven must be in our own thoughts, affections,
and conduct, or, for us, there is no heaven anywhere.
"The mind is its own place,
And in itself can make a heaven of hell,
A hell of heaven."
Is not tile argument that leads to this conclusion,
founded on the primitive rock?
The ancient heathen, the neighbors and contemporaries of the Jews, believed they could propitiate their
gods by sacrifices, bv human sacrifices, by sacrifices of
their own children, whom  they made  pass thlroughl te
fire to Moloch.  They were conscious of sinning ag(rainst
their gods.  They feared their avenging wrath.  How
could they appease them?  By a sacrifice of something
they loved.  Thley love(l their children, and so, on
bloody and on feim y altars the children were  offered uip.
The innocent babe, the noble boy, the beautiful girl;
the priests thrust or lurled them, shrieking, into the
40
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flaines, as they would cast in billets of wood. See here
the iniquity of a wicked heart. They did not offer to
the gods that for which  they cared nothing.  They
were not so imbecile, or idiotic, as to suppose that the
gods would accept as an atonement, what to them had
no moral value in affection, nor any market value in
cash. Hence thev sacrificed what was really dear to
them, their offspring.'But they did not sacrifice what
to them was dearest of all,- the sin itself.  They gave
up) the child, but held fast to the sin, because the sin
was dearer than the child.  When mariners  find their
ship ill peril of sinking, they lilghten her by throwingc
the least valuable part of the cargo overboard. So the
hleathlien hurled a darling child into the fire, hu,ggred the
more darling sin to his breast.  They could give fatliei,
or mother, or wife, or child, to God, but could not give
Him their heart.
Moses thought he made a great advance, and he
did make a great advance, in that dispensation which
symbolized repentance and reformation by the sacrifice
of animals,- of doves, and pigeons, and goats, and
rams, and bullocks,-  for the  sacrifice of chlildren.
There was no inhumanity in this; nothling, that makes
us shudder and recoil, as we should do, at seeing a
beautifiul, innocent child tossed into the flames, or into
a dlen of wild and hungry beasts; but the same failse
idea was liable to be propagated  )by this dispensation,
as by thie heathen rite, - the idea, namnely, that there
is, or with a holy being, can be, any-sacrifice or atoneimenit for sin, which can take the place of the repentance
anid reformiation of the siinner himself.  IHence, with
what eloquent and vehement delnunciations did  the
sages and prophets of the Hebrews iiinveig,h against the
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THE KINGDOMN OF HEAVEN.
substitution of an  outward  form for inward purity;
until Christ came and swept away the old dispensation
altogether.  Hear the Psalmist; Ps. L. 9, &c., " I will
take no bullock out of thy house, nor hle-goats out of
thly folds.  For every beast of the forest is mine, and
the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls
of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are
mine. If I were hunnrg, I would not tell thee; for
the world is mine, and-the fulness thereof.  Will I eat
the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?"  Here
the key-note changes from denunciation to promise, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver
thee."  "Whoso offeretli praise, glorifieth me; and  to
hint that ordereth his conversation ariyht, will I show the
salvation of God."  In what plaintive, yet indignant
tones' does Isaiah repel the preposterous supposition that
there can be any sacrifice for a sin but the sacrifice of
the sin itself. " To what purpose is the multitude of
your sacrifices unto me?  saith the Lord; I am  full
of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts;
and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs,
or of he-goats."  "Bring no more vain oblations.  Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and
sal)bathls, the callingr of assemblies, I cannot away with.
It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new
moons and your appointed feasts my soul hatethl; they
are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them."
Here, again, the key-note changes.  "Wash you, make
-ou clean, put away the evil of your doings from before
mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek
jld(,rInent; relieve the oppressed; judge the fathlerless
plead for the widow." * But Christ was greater tlhan the
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THE KINGDOM OF IIEAVEN.
Psalmist, greater than the prophet, and hlie abolished a1
this subterfuge of substitution; and the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews condenses the whole philosophy
of the thing into a single sentence, when he says; "For
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
should take away sins."
What, then, must be done, not to secure us a travellcr's passport into some yonder kingdom of heaven, but
to introduce, to naturalize, to domesticate the kingdom
of heaven in our own hearts? My friends, one thing
is certain;-before we can get the kingdom of heaven
in, we must get the kingdom of Satan out. All arrogance, all haughtiness, all envy, all malice, all cLruelty,
all evil concupiscence, of whatever kind, must be rooted
out of the soul. We must hunt evil passions out of our
bosom, as pioneers hunt out noxious animals from a
newly settled territory.
I pass by such gross offences as robbery, bribery, perjury, theft,  embezzlement,  peculation,  &c.; - these,
even the blear-eyed goddess of the law denounces,but if I have an account to settle with a man, and he
has forgotten an item of debit, or overstated an item of
credit; if he should make an error in my favor in countimg money, or in any way is unintentionally about to
give me one cent, one mill, one infinitesimal, over and
above my honest due, I must swallow arsenic illto my
stomach, or shoot lead into my brain, sooner than drop
that money into my purse. If I have a rival for public
honors, and see that the votes are passing over from my
side to his side; if I have a neighboring farmer or merchlant, and he is making money faster than I; if I have
a college mate, or a school mate, whose  talent and(l
attainment are eclipsing mine, and their merits are
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brought into discussion in my presence, I must do them
justice, full justice,-  such justice as brightens out of
justice into generosity, into magnanimity; and then,
though I lose the earthly office for the next year, or
four, or six years, yet I obtain an office in the celestial
kingdom for eternity; instead of Califbrnia gold, I get
treasures that are incomputable, incorruptible, and for college honors, I get a moral diploma that admits me to the
society of angels. If I am well-born, as the phrase is,have parents of respectability, -wealth, education, social
standing, and my  classmate,  neighbor, fellow-citizen,
was born of infamous progenitors, for ten generations
back, without a single break in the base lineage; - was
taken from a Foundling Hospital, or dropped in a sty;
was born black, or red, or copper-colored,- all these
give me no sanction for one emotion of pride or vanity,
on account of my better fortune in these particulars.
If it could have been submitted to him and to me beforehand, under what circumstances we should be born,
and he had chosen his fortune, and I had chosen mine,
then I might have some reason for self-gratulation or
complacency. But when such a man looks at me withl
respect and appreciation, and I look at him with derision
and scorn, then it is that we do choose our circumstances; then it is that our souls do determine whether
they will be high-born, or low-born; whether they will
be bred up in a palace, or in a sty; whether they will
be clad in garments of beauty and purity, or in rags of
meanness and filth. If I exercise acts of cruelty, and
indulge feelings of contempt towards a good black man,
because his skin is black, and my skin is whlite, then
my heart is bla(ck, and his heart is white, anid I carry
mv  bla(ck heart about,  IIand show it as a foul bHggar
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shows his sores.  It is of comparatively little consequence where a man was born, but it is of infinite consequence what sort of man he is, twenty years after
lie is born. If my neighbor is unfortunate, and I do
not pity and succor his misfortune to the extent of my
ability, then it is I who have suffered the greatest misfortune.  My want of pity is a greater privation than
his want of prosperity. A man had better be burnt out
of house and home, than to have all the generosity and
nobleness of his nature consumed by pride or envy.
The one loss consists in money, stocks, goods.  The
other loss consists in high thoughts, angelic emotions,
god-like deeds, and the everlasting peace of soul that
flows therefrom, like the river of life fromn the throne
of God.
But you say the loser does not know his loss, and
therefore it is no loss to him. But he will know it, and
when he does find out, he will then also find out that
his loss has been accumulating at compound interest all
the time while he was ignorant of it. It is not pleasant
for a man to discover, late in life, that through all his
previous years lie has been a dunce; that hle has been a
pauper, when there was an inheritance of wealth lihe
might have had for the claiming. In God's moral universe, the selfish man is the miserablest of all dunces,
and all paupers.  The selfish man lives on the most
nauseous food, when he might regale himself with
heavenly repasts. He lives in basement stories, instead
of in those chambers where he could look out upon all
the glories of nature, and where the purity and freshness
of nature could flow in upon him. The selfish man
dresses himself in rags, instead of in royal robes, and he
is the serf and slave of the hardest master, instead of
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THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
investing his capital in heavenly treasures, and being, admitted as co-worker and co-partner with God.
Now our human passions and propensities are inexpressibly strong, and it is these which keep the selfish
man in chains. We have them in common with the
brutes, and with an intellect to enlarge their indulgence,
which the brutes have not.  These passions and propensities are not only strong by nature, but they have
been hereditarily inflamed, for generations and centuries
past, by ancestral folly and ignorance. Their natural
force has been reinforced.   They have accumulated
momentum in the descent. They are blind. They
are atheistic. They mutiny and rebel against all higher
law than their own; and they wage the war not only
with their own but with ancestral rigor. Owing also
to the vicious customs of many households and of
society at large, even the hereditary force of passion
and propensity which we inherited from our progenitors has been aggravated in our own persons. When,
then, at the age of discretion and self-consciousness, we
wake up to find the impetuosity and vehemence, the
recklessness and defiance of our passional nature, we
find that steeds of hell have been harnessed to the chariot of heaven. Conscience, then, must be a puissant
charioteer, or the team drives home to its own place,
and bears passengers with it.
My  friends, I need not speak in metaphor.   The
solemn and eternal truth is that our appetites and passions must be subjected to the sway of conscience, of
benevolence, of a holy reverence for our Creator. We
must do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with
God; or, whatever we may say about conversion, or regeneration, or redemption, or even salvation itself, is all
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fiction and a silly romance. Here comes the conflict.
Here the nether and the upper powers battle for their
throne ill the heart; - the love of God and the love of
man, on the one side, fleshly lusts, pride, avarice, ambitionI, on the other. Here in the moral realm, in the soul
itself, are victories to be won or defeats to be sustained,
infinitely more glorious or more disastrous than those of
Trafalgar or Waterloo. Here, if need be, right hands
are to be cut off to destroy the very instrument with
which we procure the indulgence of a darling sin; and
right eyes plucked out, to close up the avenue by which
licentious images invade the soul. In these contests,
bloody sweat must flow, like that shed in the garden of
Getlhsemane. Yes, here the sovereign soul may have
to stretch its body upon a cross to be racked with unutterable agonies within, and to bear scorn and mockery
firom without, for days and for nights; but if the contest be nobly maintained, if, in the lanLguage of that
beautiful Hebraism, we " unsin the sill that we  have
sinned," then the kin(gdom of heaven,  ay, hleaven's
King Himself will be within it, and He will strengthen
it with the resources of omnipotence, and illumine it
with the splendors of celestial light, and clothe it with
that highlest of all conceivable beauties, " the Beauty of
Holiness."
Listen to me, my young friends, one moment more,
while I ask the question: "Who has this kingdomn of
heaven within him, and who has not? What is the
test?"  If there are infallible tests by whiclh we  distincguisli the different races of men from each otherthe Caucasian from the African, or the North American Indian from the Malay; if there are obvious tests
by which we distinguisli the different temperaments
In
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THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
of men,- the sanguine firom the nervous, &c; if there
are tests by which we know the healthy and the diseased, the consumptive and the dropsical, then there
must be tests, criteria, still more evident and decisive,
by which we can distinguish those in whose hearts
the kingdom of God bears its benignant sway from those
where the kingdom of Satan holds its direful reign.
From the metropolis of the soul, as the centtre of these
opposite kingdoms, the celestial or the infernal light
shines beyond the frontiers. It gleams out through the
face, it proclaims itself in language, it demonstrates
itself in deeds, in the life. What are these tests?
Christ has given us one of them ill these words: " The
tree is known by its fruit."  He has given us another
in these words: "Herein is my father glorified, that
ye bear much fruit." Most impressively, most sublimely,
has hlie given another of them, - a universal one, - in
those immortal words which breathe the music of heaven,
-when lie identifies himself with the hungry, with the
thirsty, with the stranger, with  the naked, with the
sick, with the imprisoned, and declares that those who
have fed and clothed and visited and succored them, in
their poverty, their loneliness and their abandonment,
have fed and clothed and visited and succored him.
My young friends, who can doubt that the kiiigdom
of heaven was in Christ's bosom? If then we would
have that kingdomn in our bosoms, let us identify ourselves in spirit and action with him.
1".)38
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MEDITATION.
MEDITATION.
OUR Father who art in Hleaven, may Thy kingdomn
come and Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.
And to effect this great and divine purpose, may all
governments be conformed to Thy attributes of justice,
and love, and mercy, firom the governments of parents
in their families, and teachers in their schools, to the
governments of states and nations, and to those great
principles which govern communities of nations. May
parents so wisely administer their parental authority,
that they may rear their children in the nurture and ad  monition of the Lord; may they train them to such habits
of wisdom and goodness, that when emancipated from
parental control, they will not cease to walk therein.
IIMay all teachers, while they instruct their scholars in
the elements of worldly knowledge and science, also
imbue their minds with that fear of the Lord which is
the beginning of wisdom; may they lead them to cast
away all evil habits, to keep the tongue pure from pro fanity and falsehood, and all irreverence towards sacred
things; to train them to true manliness of conduct, and
to all the virtues and graces of true womanhood.   May
all governments be established upon the basis of equal
laws and equal rights, and may no distinctions be known
in their administration but that of merit and demerit,
of a desire to do good or a disposition to do evil.
Our Father, we would thank Thee for those events
in Tllhy Providence which have led onward towards the
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MEDITATION.
education, the advancement, the freedom of the world;
for those noble sentiments of ancient poets and moralists, which still kindle the sacred flame of liberty whenever they fall upon the hearts of the young; for those
events which roused the souls of men to demand from
their rulers the just and equal rights which Thou dost
bestow upon all. We thank Thee that when oppression covered the eastern hemisphere as the waters cover
the sea, the cloud which had hung for ages over this
western hemisphere was removed, and this vast expanse
of lands, with its immense capabilities of supporting
human life and ministering to human happiness, was
revealed to the knowledge of men. We thank Thlee
that the Pilgrim Fathers were inspired by a zeal that
led them to abandon their native land, to encounter the
perils of a wide ocean, and to fix their abode on a soil
so ungenial, under a climate so severe, and with surrounding perils of savage beasts and more savage men, so imminent, that ambition, and wealth, and luxury, and the
love of power, had no disposition to pursue the flugitives.
Oh, Heavenly Father, may we never repeat the
wrongs from which they fled.  May we never light the
fires of persecution by which they were burned.  While
the law of the land secures to every one the right to
worship Thlee according to the dictates of his own conscience, may we carry out that law in its spirit, and may
we never visit with revilings, with uncharitableness, or
with coldness, any one of all our brethren of the human
race, because he does not see Thy paternal love or Thy
Character as we see it.  We  thank''liee for all our
means of moral, literarv and religious instru(tion, for
the school, the college, and the church.  hIeavenly
Fatlihei, under Thy providence, and under the auspices
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of good men, a college has been founded in this place,
and a great company of youth, the pride and the hope
of the land have been assembled,- the only depositaries
into whose hands the mighty interests of the earth for
the coming ag(e can be devolved. They left the homes of
their childhood, - may they find here another and a
more instructive home.   Oh, how many fathers, how
many mothers are looking hitherward to-day!  If any
soilns, if any daughters of this flock are tempted to wander
from the path of duty, may they feel the motherly arm
stretched around their neck, may the strong paternal
hand be laid upon their breast, holding them back firom
the way of evil. Oh, may they not wait for the external force, but may the inward law of right, written
upon their hearts, restrain them from wrong. And oh,
if any of these children are orphans, if father and
mother have gone to the better land, and they, left
without parental guidance, are tempted to sin, may they
see, as it were, a mother's arm stretching down from the
realms of bliss, may they feel her celestial cheek laid
upon their chleek, while her angel voice whispers into
their ears; "My son, my daughter, if sin entice thee,
consent thou not; "and may a father's sterner voice send
a thrill of horror through them, as he announces the
dreadful, the immortal truth; " The waly of the trans,qressor is hard."  And oh, Heavenly Father, if they
are not melted by a fathler's or a motler's love, may
they  be  melted by  Thy  Infinite Love.  HIeavenly
Fatlher, Tlhyv true disciples are already blessed more thitan
tongue of mortal can tell, but bless, we pray Thee, our
enemies and those who would persecute us and desp)itefilly use us, and let Thyv kin(Igdom come, and Tlhy will
be done on earth as it is in Ifeaven.
20 *
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I MII 0 R T A L I T Y.
PSr.LM viii. 5.-" For Thou hast made him a little lower than the
angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor"
6. " Thou madest him to have  dominion  over the works of Thy
hands; Thou hast put all thllings under his feet."
2 TIMIOTUY i. 10.(   "Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath
brought life and immortality to light,-"
ECCLESI.VSTES xii. 7.-" Then slhMll the dust return to earth as it was,
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
ONE of the grrandest and most precious doctrines of
the Christian religion, is the doctrine of human Immortality.  Tlie meaning of this doctrine is, that there is
sometliingr in us all, which fire cannot consume, nor
waters drovwn, nor deathl assail; that each one of us has
an individuality, an identity, a personality, which is unsusceptible of decay, impregnable to corruption, without possibility of perishing.
Christ tau(,gt that we should live after the death of
tlhe body; and his disciples reiterated his teaclings.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, promised " eternal
life " to all those who should patiently continue in welldoing.  In the 1-thl chapter of his First Epistle to thle
Coriutluians, lie tvwi(e  declares, in the most  exl\licit
manner, that thiis morital slall put on Imnmortality; an(d,
in ],is Seconi EI1)istlc( to Tinmtliy, he affii'n- tlhat Crlrist
[215]
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IMMORTALITY.
"abolished death," and "brought life and Immortality
to light through the Gospel."
The idea of Immortality differs from that of Eter nity. We conceive of Immortality as having a begin ning, but no end; but we conceive of Eternity as having
neither beginning nor end.  Hence it is proper to speak
of eternity as the attribute of God; but of immortality
as the attribute of man.
This doctrine of Immortality, though under the most
various forms, has constituted a prominent item in the
faith of almost all religions. It seems, therefore, natural to man. We say that vegetation is natural to the
earth, because, whenever the requisite conditions coexist, there vegetation springs up.  So this idea  of
Immortality, with very few exceptions, seems to have
sprung up spontaneously in the human mind. The
ideas of the eternity of God, and the immortality of man,
go naturally tog(ethler. As soon as the conception of a
FutuTe Existence is once formed, then the sentiments of
Hope and Fear fortify and deepen it. Men, too, have
a natural expectation of reward for doing well; they
have as natural a sentiment of Fear, of Retribution for
doing ill; and if they are to be rewarded or punished,
this necessitates the idea of a time in which they are to
receive their deserts.
Most nations first conceived of the World of Spirits
as subterranean. Here we must recollect that in ancient times, and before the globular form of the earth
was known, the best geographers supposed the earth to
be an extended plane.  The firmament was an indefinitely vast space above it; and, of course, there was an
indefinitely vast space below, or under it. Some of the
ancients supposed that the place of happiness was above,
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and  the place of retribution below.  Others, as the
Romians, enliclghtened, or comparatively enlightened as
they were, placed both their Paradise and their Hades
below. Some nations have but one place, occupied in
common by all the dead, though with different fortunes
for the good and the evil. Most religions have, at least,
two such places. The Persians had seven different
reg,ions, adapted, of course, to seven different grades of
moral character. The Hindoos had twenty-four, thus
making provision for still further discriminations in re gard to human deserts. I think the New Testament
teaches an indefinite number of degrees, or gradations,
in the fuiture condition of mankind; not seven only,
not twenty-four only, but just as many grades as there
are degrees of merit, or demerit.   How else are we to
understand what Christ says of its being more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon, and even for Sodom, in the day of
judgment, than for the cities where he had preached,
and which refused to hear?  How otherwise are we to
understand his words, "In my Father's house are many
mansions?" and the parable of the talents; that those
who had been faithful over a few things here on earth,
should be promoted to the command of many  things
hereafter. The inevitable implication is, that our condition hereafter is to have relation to our character
here.
Another doctrine which has gained almost universal
acceptance throughout Christendom, is closely allied to
this parent-doctrine of a Future Life,- namely, the
doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection, a belief that the
very body which dies, is decomposed, is restored to
its original chemical particles, and  mingles its solid
parts with the solid material of the.earthli, its ga.ss with
':..-" -."
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the winds, and its fluids with the waters,-  shall come
together again, atom to atom, bone to bone, fibre to
fibre, and reconstruct the body which the spirit left.
The common idea of Christendom has been, that the
spirits of all the millions and millions of men who have
ever lived, would, at the Judgment Day, by some mysterious affinity, find out the particles of matter from
which they had been separated at death, gather them
illto a body, and then re-enter that body, in order to
receive, in the very body which they had inhabited,
while upon earth, the rewards or punishmnents of the
Future Life. In Cruden's Concordance, a work in
almost universal use as a book of reference, under the
word "Resurrection," we find the common belief of
the age thus stated:
"The Divine Laws are the rule of duty to the entire
man, and not to the soul only; and they are obeyed or
violated by the soul and body in conjunction. The
soul designs, the body executes. The senses are the
open ports to admit temptations.  Carnal affections deprave the soul, corrupt the mind, and mislead it. The
heart is the fountain of profaneness, and the tongue
expresses it.  Thus the members are instruments of iniqtity.  And if the body is obedient to the holy soul in
doing, or suffeiing for God, and  denies its sensual
appetites and satisfactions, in compliance with reason
and grace, the members are instruments of righteousness.
Hence it follows," says he, " that there will be a universal resurrection, that the rewarding goodness of God
may appear in making the bodies of his servants gloriously happy with their souls, and their souls completely
happy in union with their bodies, to which  they have a
naturala. lination;.and IHis revenging justice may be
!':':.!.'.
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manifest ill punishing the bodies of the wicked witI
eternal torments answerable to their guilt."
This idea continued to prevail even among learned
and philosophic divines, until recently; and even now,
I suppose, it is held by a great majority of the Christian
Church.*
In modern times, however, science has asserted its
claims to be heard on this subject, in the same way that,
heretofore, it asserted its right to be heard on the questions of Geology, and Astronomy, and Psychology, &c.;
and, at last, after almost incredible opposition and obloquy, has made itself heard, and respected.
Science asks such questions as these: Suppose some
portions of the world to have been so populous, that,
already, some of the identical material which has been
incorporated into the bodies of one generation, has decayed, passed into the great laboratory of nature, been
used again for the growth of fruit or vegetable, and
from these has been re-incorporated into the bodies,
l
* I have a very vivid recollection that in one of the school books
most extensively used in the public schools of New England, when I
was a boy, there was a description of the Resuirection, in poetry, in
which the air was represented as filled, and the sun as almost darkenedl, by the parts and fragments of men,-heads, arms, legs, &c.,
on their way across continents. and over oceans, to meet and join the
bodies to which they respectively belonged. And so deeply did that
affect my mind, that I remember distinctly the old school-house in
which I was sitting, and all the attendant circumstances, as clearly as
if it had been but yesterday. And though I accepted the general
statement as true. with childish trustfulness, yet it did puzzle me. even
at that tender age, to conceive, if one member had been lost in one
country, and another in another; if a soldier or sailor had lost an arm
in one battle, and a leg in another, on another continent, or on a distant ocean, how the scattered fragments would know which way to
steer to find their fellows!
21
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IMMORTiALITY.
and made part of the living tissues of another generation.  Suppose the world should continue for such a
round of ages, that this should be true of all its hliabitable regions? Or, take the case of the cannibal nations,
where neighboring tribes are constantly making war
upon each other, and where the universal custom is,
and we know not for how many ages, has been, for the
victors to banquet on the vanquished; where, among
themselves, when a malefactor is put to death under the
law, it is a part of his sentence, not only that he shall
be executed, but that his body shall be given up to be
eaten, as some of our laws give up the body to be dissected; and where, as late British travellers tell us, in
regard to the Caroline Islands, female children have
been considered so great a delicacy for epicures, as seriously to diminish the number of adult women, and
where, therefore, the only method to save them was to
pass laws for their protection, as we pass laws for the
protection of useful birds. In all these cases, and cases
like these, do not the plainest facts of Physiology and
growth assure us that the same particles of matter must
have successively formed the tissues, the heart, the
blood, and the brain, of many different persons? To
whom, then, in the resurrection, shall the materials,
which constituted a part of so many different bodies,
belong? Or, if a devoted missionary, fill of that zeal
for the spread of Christianity, which bears him, like
wings, across continents and oceans, to preach the Gospel to the heathen, shall himself be devoured by the
heathen hle went to save; and by the common law of
assimilation, shall find himself distributed in particles
through the substance of the bodies of a dozen maneaters, shall he, at the resurrection, according to the
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quotation which I read, go with the cannibals to perdition, or they with him to glory?
Suppose a man, like St. Paul before his conversion,
goes mad against Jesus Christ and his disciples, assists
in the martyrdom of Stephen, drags men and women
to prison, punishes them whenever he finds them in
the Synagogue, compels them to blaspheme, and persecutes them into strange  cities; suppose that while
in this rabid and tigerishl state of mind, he loses  the
very right arm with which he is wont to execute his
ferocious will; and then, like St. Paul after his conversion, concentrates all the energies of his life for the
cause of Christianity, braves the dang(ers of the sea, and
the more formidal)le dangers of cities on the land; submits to hunger, to imprisonment and stripes, and at last
to death, and never shrinks, under any circumstances,
from fidelity  to truth; in the resurrection  shall that
sinful right arm  be joined to that sainted body; or,
according to the doctrine I cited, shall it suffer forever
in the future world, because it had been the "instrument of evil" in this?
Besides, if there is a foundation for the common notion that all the particles of a man's body change once
in seven years, (and there is no doubt that the greater
part of them clhange much oftener than that), then
what is to prevent soin, of these particles, evene  in commutnities not cannibal, fromn belongring successively to different persons?  And of all the sets of particles which
have successively belonged to the body of an agted man,
with which set shall he re-habilitate himself at the resurrection,-  with those of which he was composed in
infanc(y, or in middle life, or in old ace?-  if he weine
seventv -ears old  when he (lied, with whi(h of the
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seventy sets of which he consisted in the seventy years
of his earthly sojourn?  If not with the whole, which
would be enormous, then there must be a selection; and
if a selection, then which shall be taken and which re  jected?   Is it answered  that those particles only of
which a man consisted at the moment of death shall be
borne by his spirit into the next life? Shall this be
literally true in regard to persons who have perished by
starvation at sea, or in deserts, or in besieged cities, or
by emaciating consumptions, or other wasting disease,
which has left nothing but skin as a vesture to nothing
but bones? -or would the soul have a choice; and
could it select those which had clothed it in its moments
of highest virtue?
Shall the smallest infant that dies, in this world, be
only an infant in stature at the resurrection, and the
largest Anak an Anak by his side?
To meet these and similar objections which will not
be silenced, that learned philosopher and divine, Dr.
Edward Hitchcock, the late President of Amherst
College, Massachusetts, suggested and maintained a per fectly revolutionary idea. He said that every human
l)ody is composed of a certain quantity of carbon and
nitrog,en, mingled with a certain quantity of water, and
that to constitute the identity of any individual, - to
constitute the same body of the same person,- it was
not necessary to have the same, but only so mucih of the
ingredients of which the body was composed; that is,
if a man  at the time of his death should  weigh  one
hundred and sixty pounds, and should, therefore, speaking in the languag(e of chemistry, consist of about " fifty
pound(ls of carbon and nitrogen diffused tlhroughol six pailfils of water," tlhen, at tlhe r'surrection, it would only
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be necessary to put the same amount of carbon, nitrogen
and water into an exactly similar form, no matter where
the ingredients came from, in order to make the same
man.  According to this view, a man might die and
leave his body in North America, but at the resurrection,
the body of that man might be recreated out of chemical
ingredients taken from Australia or the Sandwich Islands, and he would be the same man.
Such is the doctrine, not long since put forth by that
eminent evangelical divine and scholar, Dr. Hitchcock,
in order to reconcile the current interpretation of the
Bible with the present condition of science.
I have been led into this digression, because the idea
of the resurrection branched so naturally out of the
doctrine of a future life.
It is a curious and somewhat unaccountable fact that
the earlier Jews had a less clear, definite and vivid conception of a future state of existence, than other ancient
nations. It is the belief of many, perhaps of most
theologians, that the Pentateuch, -  the five books of
Moses, -the first five books of the Old Testament,
contain no reference whatever to the doctrine of a Fiture life. Even in the second commandment of the
Decalogue, as it is found in the 20th chapter of Exodus,
one of the threats denounced  against the  fathcrs for
their iniquities, is, that the consequence of those iniquities shall be visited upon their children unto the third
and fourth generation, that is, upon children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, at least; but not that
those iniquities should be visited upon the offenders
themselves in a future life.
Afterwards, however, the idea cleared up, either into
a more positive denial, or a more positive affirimation of
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thle doctrine.  The fact seems to be both affirmed and
denied in the Book of Job.   What can be  a stronger
negation than when  Job says (xiv. 7), " For  there is
hope of a tree if it be cut down, that it will sprout
again, and that the tender branch thereof will not
cease.  Tihough the root therefore wax old in the earth,
and the stock die in the ground, yet thlrough the scent
of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs  like  a
l)lant.  But man  diethl and wastetli awayv; yea, man
giveth up the ghost and where is lie?  As the waters
fail from the sea, and the flood decayethl and drietli up
so man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens be
no more, tlhey shall not awake, nor be raised out of
their sleep."   And  again, a little further on;" If a
man die, shlall he live again?"  He may, however,
mean, shall he live again upon this earth? while lie
inav still hav-e held to the doctrine of a shadowy  spiritlandl, somewhere outside of this world, or perhal)s inside of it.  How emphatic is the denial in Ecclesiastes
iii. 18 - 22!
"For I said in mine heart concerning the estate of
thle sons of men, that God  mi,ght manifest them, and
that thev might see that they themselves are beasts.
For that which  befalleth the sons of men  befalletli
1 easts; even  one thing, befallethl them; as the one
dieth, so diethli the other; yea, they all have one breath,
so that a man liatll no pre-eminence above a beast; for
all is vanity. All go into one place; all are of tlhe
(lust, and all turn to dlust again.  Who  knowetli thle
slirit of a man that goeth upwvard, and thle sl)irit of a
!)Wast that goetli downward to the earth?  Wherefoi,e
I perceive thlat there is nothing better than that a man
slo1(il( rejoice in his own works'iio     for that is llis p)ortion;
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for wlo  slihtll briing  him  to  see  what  shall be  after
hIim?"
In the Apocrypha, the idea of Immortality is set
forthl with great clearness. It seems that the Jews,
during the Babylonish captivity, must have become familiar with the views on this subject then prevailing in
the East.
But in the New Testament, as was before intimated,
the doctrine of Immnortality is stated with great empliasis, in the most explicit manner, and with an earnestheSS and solemnity which shows it to have been one of
the principal facts in the consciousness of both speaker
and writer.  When not expressly affirmed, it is constantly assumed.   Eveiv thing, -  parable, narrative,
doctrine, exhortation, -becomes disproportionate and
preposterous, without this.  The idea of Immortal life
is the grand reconciling idea of the New Testament.
Having now considered the meaning of the doctrine
of Immortality, - that it implies the existence of something within us which is indestructible, something that
not only mnay live, but muist live, I proceed to the consideration of the proofs of this doctrine which may  be
(lerived from reason and conscience, - from what is
appll)ropriately called Natural Religion.
And in the first place, it seems to me  that no little
wei(ght should be attached to the almost universal instinct, or conscious expectation of Immnortality in the
human mind.  This is nearly or quite universal.  Does
any one say it is universal, because it has been universallv taught?  But who taughlt the first teacher? And
what gave this belief such amazing force that it has
been able to brave all the  repulsive and abhorrent
doctrines whichl have been connected  withl it, or en
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IMMORTALITY.
grafted upon it, in different  ages of the Christian
Church? I suppose I should hlave the concurrence of
all the sects in Christendom to the proposition, that
there have been times when the prevalent ideas appertaining to this doctrine were so dishonoring to the character of God and so repugnant to the reason of men.
that if any plausible pretence for denying it could have
been seized upon, it would have been denied.  Nay, I
can conceive that at some periods of Christian history
good men might have been tempted to inculcate a belief
in annihilation and to preach annihilation, as a pious
fraud, in order to escape the remorseless views of a
future life which were then current.  Why then has
the common instinct of mankind fastened with such
tenacity upon the idea of an interminable future for us
all, if that was not only an error, but such a repulsive
one?
It is an idea now almost universally prevalent among,
thinking men, that the world without us and the world
within us, have, by divine wisdom and skill, been so
adapted to each other, that each of them wceans, signites, implies, preftyures the other;- that our perceptive
faculties import or suggest, so to speak, all their related
objects in the properties and qualities of the external
world; that our reflective faculties in the same way
imply the wonderfil  laws and adaptations of nature;
and that our relations to our fellow-men and to God
might l)e inferred from our moral and religious nature
by a being of a sufficiently penetrating and compreliensive intellect, in the same way that a man, who should
see from day to day and from year to year how a chlronometer works, would at length come to the conclusion
that it was made to measure time.  All wise systems of
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education are founded upon this principle. For one
who fully comprehends the human lungs to deny the
existence of air, or who fully comprehends the structure
of the human eye to deny the existence of light, is as if
a mall should deny that he ever had a mother. Now,
why should there not be a related object, namely, Im mortality, as the correlative, or correspondent, of this
general instinct or expectation of Immortality?
It is objected that, though the belief in Immortality
is general, yet that this belief has assumed and still ad vocates the most contradictory forms; and that these
forms have been nothing more than an embellishment
or exaggeration of the good or ill learned from experi ence; and therefore, that heaven or hell'is nothing more
than a Camera Obscura reflection of this world, without
any independent existence, and therefore perishing or
ceasing to be, as soon as the objects are removed which
produced it; - I reply that the Form of the belief, the
Concrete of it, is of no consequence.  We  should ex pect beforehand that this belief would contain error,
more or less. Perhaps all error has not yet been elim inated from any one science; but this does not destroy
our faith in the sciences.  So neither should the ah
surdity, preposterousness, or monstrosity of the notions
associated with the belief in a futurity impair our faith
ill the doctrine; nay, the historical argument becomes
stronger, when we consider how men have clung to it,
in spite of all the enormities associated with it.
Without the Love of Life, or Vitativeness, as Phre nologists call it, man would not be fitted for a world
like this.  The accumulation, at certain points, in per sonal experience, of disappointments, pains, or calamities,
would be too strong for us (for the link once broken
2,5 T 
IMMORTALITY.
could not be restored), and therefore the world would
be depopulated by suicide, were we not fastened to it
by a special instinct.  And this Love of Life was given
to us to carry us over those dangerous places where
neither present nor prospective enjoyment could counterbalance the pressure and vehemence of present ills.
Now, as this Love of Life implies the fact of Old Age,
(unless some foreign force intervenes), and as Old Age,
when it comes, quietly relaxes and unclasps this Love
of Life, while it increases the hope of future existence,
(if the life has been worthily spent), why, I say, by
parity of reasoning, does not this instinct of Immortality
imply, nay, why, in logic, does it not necessitate Immortality?  I do not see how those who understand
and adopt this doctrine of complete and systematic
adaptation of one thing to all, and of all to each one,
throughout the universe, can bore a hole through  the
bottom of this argument without scuttling  his own
ship.
If the theory of several modern etlinologists should
prove to be true; of whom, perhaps, Agassiz is the
principal, who is earnestly supported by the traveller,
Bayard Taylor,- namely, that the races of men have
had a various origin; it seems to me that such a conclusion will add not a little force to the argument in
favor of Immortality, which is derived from the common
belief of mankind.  How did peoples springing from
various stocks, all come to concur in this faith? If it
might have sprung up by accident in one race, could
accident have originated it in all?  On what other hypothesis then, than that the sentiment is a natural one,
can the existence of it, so nearly, or quite universal, be
explained?  And if the sqntimcnt be a natural one, and
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a natural one in all the races of men, how forcible the
inference that it will have its corresponding fact in the
histoiT of man.
But I proceed to other considerations, which seem to
me even more conclusive than this.
We have learned so much of the order of Providence,
both in the natural and moral world, that where there
are strong analogies in the circumstances, we expect to
find analogies in results.
Think, then, for instance, of all the incomputable
number of seeds that have ever come to maturity; of
the specific principle of life which each contained; of
the salient point where that life would begin its work of
organization, just as soon as it should be subjected to
the requisite conditions of moisture, and warmth, and
air; and when the seed is subjected to those conditions,
think of the radicle and plumule drawing their nourishmeniit, first from the seed, and then pressing against its
rind, or bark, or shell, and ready to burst from its confinement, - the radicle to penetrate into the earth in
the form of roots, the plumule to ascend into the air in
the form of stalk or trunk; and now what should we
suppose if a man should rise up and tell us that every
seed which had ever been subjected to these conditions,
and had been broughlt to this point in the processes of
germination and growth, should be forthwith annihlilated? - that the radicle should never strike into the
earth, that the plumule should never ascend into the
air; that all should, at this expectant, prophetic point,
be obliterated from existence.  What should we think
of the Contriver of such an order of nature, if he were
the Destroyer also?
Think of all the eggs that have been formed by all
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IMMORTALITY.
the oviparous races, -  bird, reptile, or ijisect, - each
egg supplied with the ingredients necessary to the formation of another individual of the same race. Take
the egg of a bird; see, after one or two, or two or three
days' incubation, according to its kind, a little spot
where a heart begins feebly to beat. From this vital
centre, see tissues beginning to radiate in all directions.
The bones begin to appear. A ganglion of nerves indicates the future brain. The great system of bloodvessels is formed. A dot shows the place of the future
eye; a point the place of the future ear. Phosphorus
has been deposited in the yolk to yield phosphoric acid,
from which to form the bones. Legs and wings at last
spring out, supported by the complement of bones, and
strung with the requisite muscles, and made sensitive
with ten thousand nerves. The embryo bird has now
exhausted its supply of food; it has outgrown its narrow limits; its legs are cramped by restraint; its wings
struggle for expansiont; and now, using its sharp bill
as a pick, it begins to make a breach in the walls of its
prison; and now it is ready for  egress, fitted and
equipped to walk on the ground, to swim the water,
or to waft itself through the air, according to its kind.
In an hour it shall be enlarged, and the horizon and the
zenith shall be the only boundaries to its fieedom.  No,
it shall never be enlarged; it shall be annihilated. That
curious mechanism, those hollowed bones, fitted to take
in the air, and buoy it aloft, that haiklike throat, instinct with song, which the greatest musician that ever
lived would give all his fortune if he could call his
own; those webbed feet, perhaps all ready, without anl
hour's apprenticeship, for perfect navigation; or that
subtle instinct, by which, through a presentiment of
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unseen da,ngers, it can lang  its nest away from hlarm;
-  all these are only a ridiculous toy, not made to ex emplify wisdom and skill, or to confer happiness, but
only to gratify whim and caprice, and back to nothling ness they must go!
But what seems, to my causality, conclusive upon
the subject, is a consideration whichl I need not enlarge
upon  before reflecting men.   Such  men  must  have
thought out the relations of things so fully, that I need
do but little more than to place premises and conclu sions side by side, and they will see the logical relations
between them.
)  If a human embryo,-  the infant before its birth, could know and comprehend its structure and functions;
if it could ask such questions as these: Why have I two
hundred and fifty bones (or the beginniiings of bones)
all articulated and jointed in so curious a way, with
bands for streng(th, with braces against antagonistic
force; with hinge-joints in one  place, and ball-andsocket-joints in another, &c., &c.; why have  I four
lhundred and fifty muscles, all fastened to these bones,
all prospective of motion? why am I fitted with an eye,
and so wonderfully arranged as to be capable of producinc all the graces of motion, in this darkness where
no light comes, or with lungs where there is no air?
why have I the rudiments of social organs and loviig,
fa:.culties, when I am  here all alone? why have I the
faculty of calculation, able, if developed,  to weigh
planets, and measure the distances of the stars, when I
shall never see planet or stars? why have I the sentimelit of ideality, where there are no elements of form
or color to be combined into beauty? &c., &c., thllrouglh
the whole gamut of plhysical, intellectial, and moral
22
1-1161 
IMMORTALITY.
endowments; - I say, if such questions could be put
by an embryo-child, could any other answer be givenII
than that they were all created in mere wanton waste
filness and nlonsensicality, or, on thie other hland, that
the being who hlad been endowed with them was yet to
be ushered into a sphere of light, and air, and motion,
and beauty; of friends to be loved, and of a God to be
worshipped?
Or suppose the embryo-child were submitted autopsically to a being of so hicgh an order of intelligence,
that, at a glance, hle could comprehend all its adaptations and significations, to what conclusions must such
a beholder come in regard to the aim and purpose,
the final cause, as the logicians say, of existence?
Would he, or could hlie conclude that its then present
condition of darkness and circumscription was its final
and ultimate condition also; that when its period of
gestation should have passed, this being itself, with all
its powers and faculties, should perish from animate
existence?
On the other hand, would not suchI a sagacious and
far-seeing beholder as I have supposed, look on all these
powers and faculties in their ante-niatal state, as a
prophecy and a promise, yea, a covenant, not made
with sign-mainual and seal only, but with an oath, that
such a being, in some sphere of valleys and hills, of
winds and streams, of colors and songs, of natural law,
and of moral law, of kindred and friends, of love to
inan, and love to sod, should find "ample room and
verge eniou(h " for the ascending struggle, the expansion, the glorification of all its wonderful endowments?
And after arriving at such a conclusion, on principles
of unmistakable logic, and lhaving his whole emotional
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and devotional nature set ag(rlow towards the Contriver
and Perfecter of such a beautiful work, were lie then to
be summoned into the august presence of that Contriver
and Perfecter, and to be told by Him that the work
which had so kindled his admiration, and stimulated his
homage, was designed only for a nine months' toy in a
prison; that there was an atmosphere, but those lungs
should never respire it; that there was a world of pearls
and shells, of flowers and fruits, of rainbows and auroras,
and a firmament strewed with suns, but those eyes
should never see them; that there was a sphere for sacred affections, for holy sympathies and loves, for virtuous ascension along an upward path-way that had  no
culminating point, but forever rose higher and higher
into the zenith of excellence; but that this being, so
qualified and equipped for that ascending career, and
with its wings already outspread for the flight, should
never soar one inch into that upper realm; - suppose,
I say, that all this were announced to the before delilghted, but now astonished beholder, would he not look
upon the wonderful workmanship with pity, but upon
its Author with contempt?
Now the display of such wisdom, and skill, and power
as were necessary to create the senses, limbs, and faculties of the unborn child, viewed in connection with the
extinction of that child's life at the very moment when
prepared to enter upon its higher and ampler sphere,
seems to me but faintly and remotely to typify the
f(ituity, the demientia, of creating such a universe of
splendors, and loves, and beatitudes, as we suppose this
to be, and of creating human beiings capable of ecijoying
it forever and ever, with more and more adequate coinprehension, and with more and more extatic bliss, and
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NIMMORTALITY.
then, after an average life of only about thirty years,
and such a life too, - to sweep the whole away into
nonentity and oblivion; -  I say the folly of the first is
but finite, compared with the infinite folly of the last.
Illdeed, if the aimlessness of the nine months ante-natal
life, without the average thirty years' life to redeem it,
would be justly stigmatized as folly, the contemptib)lness of man's achievements, and the horribleness of his
crimes and sins, during his average thirty years' life,
without a subsequent Immortality to justify it, - ay,
not merely to justify, but to glorify, and to beatify it,
mi,lght justly be stigmatized and derided as idiotic.  Is
the great God a mere blower of soap-bubbles, that He
creates the universe to which we belong, which is sulposed to consist of forty millions of visible stars, and
has created, as is believed by astronomers, five thousand
other universes withini the  boiunds of our imperfect
vision, each as large as this, and( creates man more wonderful, and more precious, because he can think and
feel, than all these universes put tocgether, and gives
him a life of but thirty years duration, and then extinguishles him altogether?  No! the argument that such
a being as man shall live forever, is as much stronger
than the argument that the embryo sliall live its thirty
years, as eternity is grander than our life-time.
To me, the negative facts that the human race, with
all their capabilities of achievement, have as yet achieved
so little, and with all their susceptibilities of enjoyment,
have as yet enjoyed so little, and suffered so much, is a
proof that the orbit of our being, is not yet filled, that it
has not vet reached the goal of its destinv.  I should
demnand, at least, a few centillions of constantly impr.oving ages, to make the plan of our existen(e reputable to
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its Author; and after this grant had been meted out
and filled up, I think the argument for Immortality
would then become so strong, as to preclude all scepticism.
Is there not something almost ludicrously incongruous in this Sadducean creed of the soul's non-existence
after death, when we reflect that, if it be true, the works
of man live so much longer than the spirit of man, that
MAoses goes on to this day, not only directincg the cut of
beards, and the style of cookery, but holding Jesus
Christ himself in abeyance, in reg,ard to a numerous
body of men scattered over all the earth; that John the
Baptist should still go on plunging the converts to the
church into deep water, or, more economically, sprinkling them with a few drops; that the names of Leonidas, and Wallace, and Tell, should still ring through
the hearts of men, as a clarion rings in their ears; that
Alfred and Washington should inspire millions of souls
with great ideas of social organisms and amieliorations;
that the written words of ancient orator and poet should
be re-written upon the minds of each new generation,
as new foliage clothes the forest with each returning
spring; —that all these things should be done, through
such a course of ages, after the authors of them all have
passed into non-existence? And. is there not a sardonic
horribleness in the idea that the magnificent scoundrels
of olden or of modern times, the scamp-Jupiters of mankind, who have  organized  polygamy,  or  extended
slavery, or made intemperance and debauclhery ftshlionable, -  that these, I say, should be suffered to skulk and
sneak away into nonentity, without either being made
better by  repentance and reformation, or punished for
being so bad?
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IMMORTAiLITY.
Let us examine this subject in another of its various
aspects.  Should I see a man building and filling tlle
most capacious storehouses with food that never was to
be consumed, and he knew it; or wardrobes with mnyr iads of nicely wrought garments that were never to be
put on, and he knew it; or constructing a city of splendid edifices, fitted with all the comforts and adornments
that philosophy or art could prepare, which hie all the
time predestined that no mortal should ever inhabit; or
preparing the most splendid ship, whose keel he had
predetermined should never touch water; still, I could
call such a man economic, I could call him  frugal of
resources, I could call him wise and benevolent in his
expenditures, compared with a Being who, after having
made all these geologic, telluric, pneumatic, astronomic,
preparations, which we see about us, and then - after
having also made such an intellectual and moral race
as we are, and put it in possession of the whole - could
then destroy the race, but yet preserve the machinery;
could demolish the edifice while he let the staging
remain; could annihilate the jewels, but save the casket.
Oh! is not the man sordid and material, is he not absorbed and smothered in matter, who can imagine that
the heavens will stand, while the souls that inhabit them
will die?
Why do we apprentice a child to a trade, but that he
may follow it when he becomes a man?  Why do we
send( a child to school, or to college, but that he may be
fitted to act in the wider sphere, and to perform the
nobler duties of manhlood; and wvhy has God placed us
in this world of preparation, of probation, if there be no
hicgher life for which we are to be prepared and proved?
If the doctrine of Imiuortalitv be not true, then, con
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IMMNIORTALITY.
sidering the size of the mountain, no mouse so small
ever derided a birthl-pang.
I can understand why our Heavenly Father should
cover the earth with flowers, and then suffer them to
wither and decay; why he should strew the bottom of
the ocean with pearl and many-colored shells and per mit them to radiate all their beauty away in the deep;
why He should span the dark cloud with double or
triple rainbow, and in an hour melt them into air; why
ie should shoot up the northern auroras and quench
their glittering flames; why all the glories of the sunrise and of the sunset should hold their perpetual circuit
around the earth fiom east to west, all of which are to
be swallowed up in the brightening morning or in the
darkening night; why, with the annual ascension and
declination of the sun a vast wave of beauty and luxuriance should perpetually vibrate between the summer
and the winter solstice, between the temperate zones of
the north and of the south, to be followed at each extreme by wintiT  fiosts and desolation;    I say, I can
understand all this, for these hues and forms of beauty,
these grandeurs and splendors of nature, have no conscious existence; they did not know they lived, they
do not know they die; no song of exultation ushered
them into being, no hopes died when they departed
firom it; and God is so rich that He can afford to cover
the firmament from horizon to zenith with the most
gorgeouLs tapestry, and tear it down and replace it with
new, evei-, minute while we gaze; Ie can afford to
load every tree in the forest and every tiniest spire in the
field with his icy regalia- such as all the monarchs in
the world cannot buy - during the night, and then
nmelt themin down in the mnorning, and then produce new
I 
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IMMORTAI,ITY.
charms and wonders from the old. But I cannot understand why our conscious being just awakened here
into life, and capable of such keen and unending gratification; why our virtues purchased by heroic struggle
or endurance, yielding such intense subjective enjoyment aVd longing for a career of immortality; - I cannot understand why these should be dissipated like the
morning cloud, or expire like a vernal flower, by some
inherent law of limitation. I cannot explain or conceive why it should be, when, perchance, I have inherited excessive and exorbitant propensities from my
ancestors; or find myself, when first awaking to selfconsciousness and self-comprehension, already in the
grasp of demoniac passions, by reason of some crime in
my progenitors or mischance in my organization, or
mal-adjustment of my powers; and when, after making
myself fully acquainted with the full compass of my
heritage of woe, or the full calamity of my unhappy
constitution, I address myself, in a life-long struggle to
the work of self-recuperation, and one after another I
do battle with these fiends of evil dispositions that have
been incarnated in my person; I cut off, one after another, the hundred hydra-heads of each monster appetite and passion and lust, and like the hero in the old
Grecian myth, I apply a eautery of red-hot iron to the
quivering flesh of every wound, though that wound is
in my own soul, and hold it there through wildest and
fiercest agonies, until the living fibre is crisped and
charred too deep to allow life ever to spring fromn it or
visit it again; and when, at last, I have achieved the
mighty victory, and stand in majestic and glorious
proportions, hero and conqueror over that late domain
of sorrow and of sin, and am now ready to enter upon
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those sublime realms of splendor and beatitude and to
wing my celestial course upward, through cycles of
time and spirals of ascension all the more vigorously
because of the strength wherewith I endued my soul in
the aforetime contest with my satanic foes; that there,
at the very apex and crown of all my past endeavors
and achievements, with my soul purified and rcuvenated, with my heart panting to run the new career,
with my aspiring eye fixed upon the zenith, and feelingo
the grand momentum of progression lifting in every
atom of my being; that then, I say, instead of the victor's palm and the triumphal entrance, and the "Well
(lone, good and faithfuil servant," I must be struck illto
annihilation, changed into a vacuum, reduced to that
idealess, conceptionless state, if such a state ever was
or ever could be, anterior to Nothing. Let us exclaim
not only " 0, what a lame and impotent," but what a
contemptible and blasphemous conclusion! The Creator of such a world has made a systematic business of
fattuity, and given an eternal organization to infinite
folly!
How strong that desire of improvement in the human mind, which is the companion, if it be not the con(lition of Genius! - that Ideality, I mean, that always
runs ahead of Actuality.  Achievement is only the
eminence whence we survey something better to be
achieved. Ideality is only the Avant-Courier of the
mind, and where that, in a healthy and normal state,
goes, I hold it to be a prophecy that realization can
follow.
Ilow strong, too, the desire of perfection in the heart
of a good man; what grief over error; what delightfil
anticipations of improvement!  These, too, I hold to
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be prophecy; just as the embryo lungs prophecied the
air, and the embryo eye, the light. Without Inmortality, well did Lord Bacon say,
"The world's a bubble, and the life of man
Less than a span;
In his conception wretched, from the womb,
So to the tomb,
Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years,
With care and fears; Who, then, to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust."
How pertinently it may be asked
"Shall Spring the faded world revive?
Shall waning moons their light renew?
Again shall setting suns ascend,
And chase the darkness from our view?"
But
"In those lone, silent realms of night
Shall peace and hope no more arise?
No future morning  shed its light,
No da,v   - -:ld the darksome skies?"
270. 
M I R ACLES. 
k. 
XII.
M I R A C L E S.
MATTHEW vii. 21.-" Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lordl,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of
my Father who is in heaven."
MATTII. ii. 28, 29, 30, and part of the 31st.-" A certain man had
two sons, and he canme to the first and sai], Son, go, work to-dav in
my vineyard.
"He answered and said, I will not: but afterwards repented and
went.
'And hlie came to the second and said likewise.  And he answered and
said, I go, Sir, and went not.
"Whether of the twain did the will of his Father?
THE  texts selected unavoidably suggrest the highlest
ideas of human duty. The highest human duty COnisists                     in an intelligent obedience t o  God's will.  I say in
an intelligent obedience to God's will; for a blind obedie     n     c     e       worships God only with a  part of our nature,
an intelligent obedience, with the whole of it. All the
intimations  anywhere or i                    n any manner revealed, assure
us that God likes works better than professions, practice better than theory, deeds better than creeds. Christ
d       i       d not go about throwning written or printed tracts
into people's houses                          whic h  inc ulcated the Calvinistic
F     ive                 Points, or the Episcopalian Thi rty- nine Articles,
or the U,iiversalists' Universalism, or even the brief
1t.t         i tforin   on wiCich we of thie  Christian  Connection pro                      23as~~~~ [2731
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MIRACL(ES.
fess to stand.  He went about ",:i;g yood; " aiil  all
eloquence, and all poetry, may expend themselves forever
on eulogy, and all they can do is to unfold and blaze,
one after another, upon human eyes, the infinite refulgencies of those two simple words.
Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine,
Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing,
of system-building, and hireling service, into the region
of beneficent activities. It is well to think well; - it
is divine to do well.
How far then can man, - this frail, feeble child of
clay, as he is so often called, this worm of the dust, this
shadow, this vapor, or by whatever other contemptuous
appellations any one may choose to malign or belittle
him, - obey God, imitate God; obey and imitate the
Divine Christ.
And here, my young friends, I am not about to discuss the softer and tenderer parts of this subject.   I
shall venture at once upon the toughest, the most indigestible, insoluble portions of it; for I feel like the brave
old knight of the tournament, who had such confidence
in the justness of his cause, that he gave his adversary
the advantage of sun and wind.
How far can we obey God and imitate Christ? which,
indeed, is the same thing, for if we imitate Christ, we
are sure we shall obey God.   We  can imitate Christ
so far as those outward acts are concerned, by which he
ministered to his own personal necessities. He ate, he
drank, he slept, as other men.   "For  John came,
neither eating nor drinking, and they say, lie hath a
devil. The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and
they say, Behold a man, gluttonous and a wine-)ibber! "  So fiar, the imitation is not withlout danger of
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running into excess.  But can we imitate him  in his
self-denials! In the midst of Oriental luxuries, surrounded by royal magnificence, which lie might have
made his own by flattery, or even by acquiescence;
can we imitate the moral heroism and intrepidity with
which lie denounced the iniquities of those who had
power over him of life and death?  Can we  imitate,
and by some close degree of approximation, too, the
miracles he is recorded to have wrought?  I say, we
can. It has been done, and it can be done again.
Not that I think the excellence and preciousness of
Christ's mission are half so well proved by the recorded
miracles, as by the spirit of purity and beneficence that
governed his whole life; yet I desire, if possible, to
suggest a new use to be made of these narratives, and
to turn them to practical account in the amelioration of
ihuman calamities, and the elevation of men. The mere
mechanical power of interrupting the course of nature,
of hushing, the rage of storms, of stopping the sun in
his course, of turning water into wine (though I think
if lie were on earth now, the miracle would be the other
way, and he would turn wine and all alcoholic drinks
back into water), - this dynamical or chemical power,
may exist altogether independent of any moral attribute.
But to subdue a passion or propensity that miy natural
organization, or early education, may have planted in
my bosom; to subject myself to toil, and privation, and
self-sacrifice, for the well-being of others, even of my
enemies; and to count it as so much gain to myself, if
I can avert calamity from them,- this is divine. To
woo a wandering brother back to the path of rectitude,
to remove one obstacle that obstructs his return to virtue, I should reg,ard as an infinitely greater achieve
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MIRACLES.
ment than if I could arrest the motive power that
wheels the solar system.
Can we not, then, make some better use, or, at least,
some further use of Christ's miracles, than has hitherto
been made of them? They have been supposed to be
inimitable; things to be wondered at, and almost worshipped, but not copied; challenging our admiration as
marvels, but not encouraging or stimul ating our efforts
as examples; -in fine, occupyilng  a sphere of active
beneficence inaccessible to man.
But are the recorded miracles of Jesus Christ, these
lofty, unapproachable achievements, standing not only
far above present actuality, but future possibility, with
which, indeed, man's powers are incommensurable?
In a word, if Christ did possess miraculous power, and
did work his recorded miracles by virtue of that power
alone, cannot we, without any miraculous power, produce results partaking of the same divine, beneficent
character?
Every one understands what is sometimes called the
Doctrine of Compensations.  In Mechaniics, for instance,
in order to produce momentum, velocity may be substituted for weight. That is, a small body moving
swiftly, will strike as forcible a blow as a large body
moving slowly. One man, by means of tackle and machinery, will exert the equivalent of a hundred menpower.  So in the mental realm, mediocre ability, with
perseverance, often overtakes and outstrips the most
splendid talent; and even our nursery-books told us
how the slow-moving snail reached his journey's end
before the swift-mov'ing hare with his loitering.  Intensity and concentration of thought often effect  what
neither genius nor intuition can do, as the strokes of the
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MIRACLES.
feeble but long-repeating mattock dig, deeper than the
thunderbolt. Give us time, say the water-drops, and
we will bore a hole through your thickest strata of
granite. Give us time, say the coral insects, and we
will build up another Australasia.
Christ's miracles are sometimes spoken of in a gen eral way, as that hlie healed all manner of diseases; but
the specific instances, the most remarkable illustrations
of his recorded power, consist in his enabling the dumb
to speak, and the blind to see, and in casting evil spirits
out of demoniacs. Here were cases of terrible infliction,
or of terrible privation; - the privation of some bodily
sense, whose loss subtracts so much from the enjoyments
of life, and whose restoration would affect beholders
with such wonder and awe. Let us examine, then,
some of those narratives, and see how far forth wise
and good men may go in imitating them. The desire
to do so is the first step, and this is kindled by the
example.
One of the earliest accounts describes his quieting the
storm on the sea of Galilee. Here he asserted his power
over the elements of Nature.
But what was the scene of this demonstration?  It
was the Sea of Galilee,- sometimes called the Sea of
Tiberias, or the Sea of Gennesareth. This body of
water was but fourteen miles long,  and only seven
broad in its widest part. Situated between what were
then called mountains, both on the east and the west,
it was liable to gusts and squalls; yet it could never
experience anything of the elemental violence or commotion which rage in the Atlantic or Indian Oceans.
Twice the quantity of water it contained would not be
eno,ughl to make one respectable, heaving, mid-sea wave
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of the Atlantic.  Whence, then, came their d(langer?
It came from the frailty and insignificant size of the
boats which they dignified by the name of ships. The
cry was, "Lord, save us, we perish." Tile peril threatened life.
It is easy to see that the danger is as certainly warded
off by increasing the power of the craft to defy or endure the storm, as by parrying the blows of the storm
itself. Life is equally saved, the sense of security is
equally enjoyed, whether God enables me to sing a lullaby to the tempest, or to fasten my cradle with such
moorings that tempests shall only rock, but cannot overturn it.
Would it not at that time have appeared in every
way as great a miracle, if, when the sky was overspread
with  blackness, Christ had looked up into it, and
watched it till the moment when a bolt of lightning
leaped from its cloudy throne, straight at that boat
whose freight was the Christianity of the world, and in
an instant, in a thousandth part of an instant, had
waved it aside harmless? Yet this is only what every
one can do now.
Another instance of man's power over the elements,
is exhibited in the Miner's Lamp, the invention of Sir
humphrey Davy.  In the mines whence  Englishmen
draw the fuel which preserves their personal existence,
and through which come all those wonders of mechanical production, said to be equal to the labors of six
hundred millions of men, - in those mines an explosive
gas is exuded, invisible, unremovable, and when ignited,
unquenchable, and destructive of all life within its
compass. The miners must carry down lights; for how,
otherwise, in that solid darkness, could they work?
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liere, tlhen, the two laws confiront each other, faice to
face,-  the law which necessitates light, and  the law
by which the flame begets earthquakes.  Sir Humplhrey
Davy, - not by any fiat of power, it is true, but by
toilsome study, by sagacious and persevering experiment, found that this explosive gas would not permeate
a gauze-wire network, whose meshies were reduced to a
certain fineness. He therefore fabricated a gauze coverinug, lantern shaped, in which to enclose the lamp.
This lanmp the miners carry into the mines, and destruction, awed and abashed, retires before it.  Particles
of the gas, it is true, do flow in through the meshes ot
the network, but so few, that they only feed the flame,
and increase its light. Thus Genius and Power make
the very breath of the monster, that stands ready to
devour them, contribute to their welfare.
Here, then, are cases where the skill and perseverance of man, working rejoicingly by noble means to
noble ends, imitates-  I do not say equals-  the grandeur and the sublimity of Chlrist's power, when hlie laid
his hand upon the stormy air, and upon the tempestuous
sea, and bade them be still.
Another of Christ's wonderful works is alleged to
have consisted in his feeding and satisfying multitudes,
- on one occasion five thousand, on another four thousaid, besides women and children, with a quantity of
food amazingly disproportioned to the company.  How
beautifully this is paralleled, in a moral sense, by those
missionaries who take a few Bibles and books of religious literature and science, and carry them across oceans
to heathen lands, where a moral dearth prevails, where
the people perish for lack of knowledge; and with these
few books, what multitudes do they feed with Divine
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knowledge; and the greater the numbers they feed, the
more overflowing baskets they have left; out of wlich,
not only contemporary multitudes - ay, contemporary
nations -  may be fed, but of which the teeming millions
of posterity may eat and live.
Is it a poor or unworthy imitation of the Saviour,
when famine sminites a whole people, when among thou sands, and tens of thousands, pallor unhumanizes the
fae; when the fever of famine burns away the body,
atom by atom, with its inward fires, and atrophy de nudes the frame; when famishlling infants perish upon
famiishing mothers' breasts; when hope dies, and the
grave opens; then, to see a sail, a fleet, now on the
horizon, now in the offing, at the wharf- and sud  denly, as if by some mysterious attraction, food leaps
from the crowded hold to the perishing victim; the
pulses swell with returning strengthi, and the reviving
heart shouts its hosannas of joy; oh, is not this a splen did imitation of the feeding of the multitudes?
Who shall contradict the saying of Adam Smith,
that "hlie is a public benefactor who makes two blades
of grass grow where but one grew before?"   This the
scientific man does. Wherever the intelligent and in dustrious man goes, though it be to bairen waste, or
pestilential morass, health and abundance follow, if any
reg(ard for the common weal sanctifies the civilization.
Those divinities whom the ancients worshipped, Ceres, Pomona, and Flora, who strewed and beautified
the earth with grain, and fruit, and flower, have in
modern times domiciled themselves among men, and
have exchanged their Divine titles for plain Professors
of Chemistry, and we now call them Agriculturists and
IIorticulturists.
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Another class of Christ's miracles consisted in enabliing
the dumb to speak.  To give the power of speech to
one who never had it, or to restore it to one who has
lost it, is, indeed, a wonderful work. Can this work of
Christ be imitated by common men?  We all know
that it can.  Maany of our States, especially the Free
States, are beautified and ennobled by Institutions, where
the power of communication, of free, large, learned communication, is bestowed upon the victims of such privation.
There are two modes in which this beneficent work
is effected.  One of them  originated in Paris about a
century ago, in 1755, under the auspices of the Able
de l'Ep6ee, one of Christ's true followers. It was copied
fiom France into England, not long, after, and into this
country in the year 1817, by the Rev. Thomas H.
Gallaudet, of Hartford, Connecticut. The method of
cominmunicating, almost exclusively used in France and
England and in the United States, is by Dactyology, or
Finger-speaking,, by which certain positions of the fingers
become signs of certain letters or words, so that one
mi,ghlt say the pupil hears with his eyes.
But in Germany and some other countries of Europe,
where language is more phonetic than in France or
Engiland, the dumb are really taught to speak, to articulate, to uitter words themselves,- perfectly intelligible
words too, and they understand those who speak to
them by the motions of their lips. Wonderful as is the
thlought, it is nevertheless proved that there is a laiingliage of muscles as truly as of voice.
Peter Ponce, a Spaniard, in the 16th  century
Wallis, an  Englishmian, in about 1660; the Swiss
physician, Amman, in 1692 and 1700; The German
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clergyman, Raphlael, in 1715; the Jew, Paveira, in
France, in 1780; and the German Cantor (singingmaster) Heinicke, at Eppendorf, near Hamburg, the
fitther of all the German deaf and dumb institutions,
in 1770, have each and all taught their mute pupils to
speak, eachi of themn in his native tongue.
The emotions never will grow old in my heart which
were called into vivid consciousness, when, for the first
time, in Magdeburg, in Prussia, I visited a school where
deaf-mute children were taught to speak,- to speak as
other children speak. I had heard of this method before; it was a thing outside of me; but here I heard
itself, and it became a part of me.
The very phrase "A school for the Deaf and Dumb"
awakens in the mind the ideas of a silent, soundless
life, of a world voiceless as the grave. In this respect,
death has nothing to deprive them of. But here, these
privations were supplied. Human benevolence, Christlike, divine, had achieved the triumph. Friendship, sympathy, and those cooperative joys which so multiply'eachli
other by their thousand reflections from heart to heart,
- all these lost delights, by this divine art, had been
restored. It was a spectacle of the moral sublime. I
thought of him, the Saviour, who had raised the dumb out
of the grave of silence.  I walked forth with those wondering multitudes who followed him into the mountain,
"ni,gh  unto the sea of Galilee," to have their sick
healed, their dumb made to speak, their deaf to hear.
I heard the promises made to his disciples, that if they
would cherish his spirit and obey his colmmands, they
too should lay hold on these miraculous gifts. I understood not the law of his power, but I blessed God that
it was also in other men, to be developed( in more intel
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ligible forms.  Tile spirit of Christ hltad, for some rea son, evaporated firom his disciples; the power of succor
had been lost for centuries. But, here was it not re newed? or, at least, was there not the closest imitation
of it, and in a form to benefit all the sons and cldauglh ters of Silence? The dumb spake as in the time of
Jesus, but, by this means, not a few in Judea only, but
all the deaf and dumb in all the world could be enabled
to speak. Thus the delights of social converse, the instructions and the consecrations of private and of public
teaching are poured upon
"The ear sequestrate and the tuneless tongue."
In Germnany alone, there are now not less than
seventy-five of these deaf and dumb schools where chlildren are taught to speak. I commend others to the
enjoyment  of the thrilling  happiness with which  I
witnessed the wonderful spectacle.
If we are bound to suppose that Christ regarded with
joy the few opportunities he had of supplying these
privations, with what delight, with what approval he
must now look upon all his followers and imitators in
this blessed work!
The Gospels describe another field for the display of
divine power acting in man,-  the restoration of sight
to the blind. What Almighty power it was, when all
the universe was solid darkness, to call the sun and
stars into existence! But the effect is the same on our
sources of comfort and of joy, to call into being the human
eye without which we could see neither sun nor stars.
A  sun without an eye, and an eye without a sun, for
all human purpqoses, are the same.  The privations of
the l)li(nd are as different from those of the deaf-mutes
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in substance as ill form.  Thllough the blind are generally objects of greater compassion, from their peculiar
dependence, yet the deaf-mute is by far the greater
sufferer. A blind person is more immediately dependent upon others for his subsistence, but the deaf-mute
is farther removed from knowledge and sympathy.
The sight of all objects within the circle of vision is
lost to the blind; but how narrow that circle is.  By
the loss of eyes hlie loses the sight of all objects within
the visible horizon only; but by the possession of hearing, hlie can become acquainted with all events not only
within but without that circle. The ear has no horizon
to bound it. And this is true, not only in regard to
contemporary matters, but in regard to all history.  So
that, although the blind man cannot see things immediately around him, yet he can hear things from all lands
and times.  On the other hand, though the deaf-mute
can see the things immediately around him, he cannot
hear of things anywhere. The blind can profit by
all the wisdom he can hear, the deaf-mute only by the
ol)jects he can see. Hence the sight is more necessary
to the comfort of the body, hearing is vastly more so to
the growth of the soul.  The consequence is, that the
number of distinguishled and learned men  among  the
blind, as compared with those among  the deaf and
dumb, is fifty to one.  The ear has been happily called
the "vestibule of the soul."
Tile systematic instruction of the blind is of very
modern date.  The author of this noble, I might almost
say this divine art, was Valentine Haiiy, of Paris.
ll.tiy had become acquainted with the baroness Von 
P'aradis, a blind German lady, who visited Paris as an
organist, and pe,-fo,med with great applause.  About
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this tinie an event took place at the annual fair of St.
Ovide, which fully roused his comnmiseration.  An innkeeper there had collected ten poor blind persons, attired them in the most ridiculous manner, garnishiing
them with asses' ears, peacock's feathers, and spectacles
without glasses, to perform a burlesque concert.
What therefore was desi4ed for the tlhoughtless or
wanton amusement of others, only kindled Haiiy's benevolence.  He resolved to do for the blind, through
the sense of touch, what the Abbe de l'Epe6e had done
for the deaf-mute through the medium of sight.  Accordingly he founded an Institution for their instruction
in Paris, in 1784; and in 1786, public exercises were
performed by his pupils, at Versailles, in the presence
of the king(r. This gave the school great eclat.
Next to France, institutions were established for the
blind in Great Britain; in Liverpool, in 1790; in Edinbur,gh, in 1791; in London, in 1800; and afterwards in
Bristol, Norwich, Dublin,  &c.  But all these were
private institutions, maintained by private endowments
and contributions.
After establishing his school in Paris, Hauy was
invited to St. Petersburg, and established one there in
1806; and, in the same year, another in Berlin, in
Prussia.
The first Institution for the Blind ever established on
this C    ontinent, or, indeed, in this Western hemisphere,
was         the New England Asylum, in Boston, Mass., in
1829. This, now, for twenty-seven years, has been
und(ler the care of that distinguished man, Dr. Samuel
G. Hor   we,  even then known  as the  Plilliellene, or
Lover      of Greece; but now, by the broader title of Philantliroplist,  or Lover of Mankind.  Under the sulperin              24
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MIRACLES.
tendence of Dr. IHowe, this Institution has made more
improvements in the methods and instruments of teaclh ing the blind, than all the other schools ill the world
added together; and its efforts have been  atttended
with a proportionate success.
Dr. Howe has also introduced into this country, of
late years, the still more difficult instruction of Idiots.
The success of this last and most astounding work of
benevolence, proves incontestably, that in every human
being exists the germis of faculties, and that the divine
spirit of Christian love will find the means of discovering and fertilizing them, even when they have been so
covered up by the sins of disobedience to God's laws,
that the very semblance of humanity is lost. iere,
indeed, is the literal fulfilment of Scripture. The sins
of the fathers are visited upon the third and the fourth
generation. But the blessed law of recuperative force
is visible even here.
As Dr. Howe now does, and always will occupy a
conspicuous place in the Annals of Benevolence, it will
not be inappropriate to give a brief sketch of his life.
There is a large number of men, who, on account of
his differences from them in religious views, thrust him
out of the pale of Christianity. Passing by his belief,
let us see if, in his life, he has not imitated the Saviour as much as they.  I have known him long,.  Perlhaps few have known him as intimately.  We were in
college together, and for twenty years I was officially
associated with him in the administration of that InstitutionI with which his name  is now imperislhably coInnected(. For a great deal of that time, there was
scarcely a day in which a personal interview did not
give inm  some new proof of his wisdom and goodness.
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At the time when the Greek war of Independence
broke out, Dr. Howe was a student of medicine in Bos  ton. Even then, his youthful heart was an altar already
loaded with incense.   The  sight of a brave people
struggling for liberty, kindled that incense into a flame;
-a flame which has burned uninterruptedly, for
Greece, for Poland, for Hungary, for Italy, and for
those in this country who are under direr oppression
than Greek, or Pole, or Hungarianl, or Italian.  lHe
flew to Greece, and for six years, a part of the time as
a surgeon in the army, or on board the fleet, a part of
the time as a volunteer, like Lafayette and Kosciusko,
ill our Revolutionary war,    heli devoted himself to the
liberation of that people. He adhered to their cause
until he left them free.  Then  he taught them some  thing of the arts of peace.  The first cart made  in
Greece was made under his superintendence.  The old
ancestors of that people had made chariots for battle,
but not carts for agriculture, and their descendants in  hlierit a sufficient degree of the old org,anization to shape
a graceful boat with a jack-knife, while so little were
the useful arts cultivated,  that they needed instruc  tion in fabricating the most common utensils of life.
The Egyptians had overrun the Peloponnesus, ravaging,
and destroying all fruit and harvest, and the people
were reduced almost to starvation. At that critical
moment, Dr. Howe returned to this country, preached
a crusade through all New England and New  York,
j  raised some sixty thousand dollars in money, and an
immense quantity of clothing, with which hlie relieved
the mnortal necessities of the Greeks, and sustained tlemi
until the final hour of triumph'. Twenty years after,
when he rode alone into Greece on horseback, one day,
287 
MIRACLES.
an accidental travelling companion was astonished to
see him recognized by a peasant woman, who spread the
glad intelligence, and he was immediately surrounded
and borne into the neighboring city, nolens volens, on
the shoulders of the people. Such joy was manifested
at the sight of him who had founded a village on that
spot in the days of stormy trial, that his accidental compa.nion was moved to tears at the spectacle of the enthusiasmi, even before he knew the details of the history.
At that point of time, thie Greeks were just again triumplhant over oppression, and  his  friends ruled  the
ascendant, and were glad to do him honor. They also
sent a Greek newspaper to his friend Charles Sumner,
in which the incident was related, or probably we should
never have had the pleasure of learining it, for Dr.
Howve is never the hero of his own story.
To return to his early history. At the time of his
return friom his Grecian expedition to Boston, Dr. John
D. Fisher, who had just completed his medical studies
in Paris, came home to Boston, also, with his great
heart filled, brimming, with the project of establishingr
an Institution for the Blind, like that of the Abbe6
Hauvy, with which he had become familiar in Paris.
In a city so renowned for its charities as Boston, the
bricks and mortar for such an establishment could
easily be obtained. But where could one find the great,
organizing, executive mind to be put at its head, and
to be its sensoriumn?
The most sagacious turned to Dr. Ilowe as the man
above all men -for tihe place,'and he was appointed. Ile
accepted, and immediately  embarked for Eur(-)pe, to
visit the institutions at Paris and elsewhere.
It was while in Paris, on this nmission, that his cliiv
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alrous spirit prompted him to accept a trust whlicl well
nig,l proved fatal, not only to the enterprise in which
he was embarked, but to his life. This visit to Paris
was during the Polish insurrection of 1830 - 31.  A
thrill of enthusi,.n  in behalf of the Poles, as a few
years before in behalf of the Greeks, ran throt,ugh this
country, and large contributions of money and clothing
were made in their behalf.  These donations were forwarded to General Lafayette in Paris, to be remitted
by him to their suffering objects. General Lafayette
despatched two agents, a French and a German officer,
with the succors. One of them was taken prisoner by
the enemy; the other was baulked in his purpose and
returned. Who nowv had the bravery and the skill to
carry the needed relief to the perishing army?
It should be stated here that- a large, perhaps the
largest body of the Polish insurgents, had just  been
driven across their frontiers into Prussia.  Prussia stip  utlated( that if they would surrender their arms and dis  miss their officers, she would afford them a refuge. But
hlaving, for some reasons of state, changed her policy,
and become more fiendly to Russia, she surrounded
the Poles with a cordon of soldiers, and attempted by
starvation on her side of the line, to drive them into
the jaws of the Russian bear on the other side.  It was
at this perilous juncture, when, guarded by Prussian
soldiers on one side, and watched by Russian victors on
the other, and perishing from want within themselves,
that Dr. Howe undertook to carry the nee(ld  assistance
to this hunted band of patriots.  lie was  then on  the
point of startino for Berlin, to visit the Blind Iistitil  tion,  estabulished there by the Abbe6 Iuiy, a quarter
of       a century before, and lie accepted this perilous coin         24*
289 
IMIRACTLES.
mission as an episode.  As soon as wheels could carry
him, hlie stood within the Polish cantonments, ground
consecrated by the presence of patriots, desecrated by
the rule of tyrants. The Poles had been quartered
among the peasants, and they were scattered over a
space a dozen miles in extent. By the terms of capitulation, their officers had been i moved.  One officer,
however, having determined to abide the fortunes of
his companions, remained; and the more securely to
cover his concealment, feigned illness; and from his sick
quarters, unknown except by a few trusted ones, all
necessary orders were issued. Over this extended
space, and among this large number, Dr. Howe  began,
personally, the distribution of his alms, by travelling
tfrom huLt to hut, scattering gladness wherever he went.
Soon he came to a peasant's rude hut, where, he was
told there lay, in an upper loft, a dying Pole.  He ascended to the apartment, which bore all the evidences
of a sick man's chamber, -the attendants, the silence,
the medical paraphernalia; and by the dimn light firom a
darkened window, the form of a man  was seen prostrate upon a pallet of straw.  Dr. Howe explained his
errand, assured him that hle came as a friend to help,
and not as an enemy to betray. Convinced of this,
the feigning sick man sprang upon his feet, and stood
before him a tall, gigantic grenadier, ready, as chance
might offer, for friendship or for battle, - ready for any
thing but to live a slave. It was their commander.
The sulplies came at a moment wlhen the Polish
army was at the point of despair. They were promptly
delivered and joyfully received; and Dr. Howe, having
fed the hungry and clothed the naked, started immediately for Berlin, to learn how to give eyes to the blind.
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Immediately after arriving at Berlin, hlie accidently
met an American citizen with whom hlie exchanTgedt
cards, giving, most fortunately, the name of the hotel
where he lodged.  The next miorning, that citizen called
at the hotel and inquired for Dr. Howe, but was told
that no such person was, or had been there. Appear ances, however, excited suspicion, and by adroit and
persevering inquiries, this gentleman found that a
body of the police had visited the house during the
night; but Dr. Howe, for six weeks, was nowhere to
be found by any friendly inquirer; nowhere to be seen
by any friendly eye.  The facts were, that no sooner
had Dr. Howe distributed his succors among the Poles,
than they were changed as from dead men to live ones.
A new soul had been created within them, and all indications pointed to him as to the Creator. Now let
us see what has been the fortune of the moral hero.
In Prussia, every traveller must go from place to
place by public conveyance. All public stag(es are there
truly public ones, for they are owned and driven by the
government.  However ur,gent one's business may be,
whatever emergency may arise, no private man with
private horses or private carriage is allowed to help
one on one's way. The government, for police purposes, transacts all this business.   They  register the
name of every passenger, note where they take him up,
and where they set him down, so that they can tell the
outgoing and incoming of every traveller who passes
through the kingdom or moves from place to place in
it.  Hence the blood hounds easily tracked Dr. Howe
fiom  the camp of the Poles to his hotel in Berlin;
and at midnight, on the first night of his arrival in the
city, they knocked at his chamber door.  On opening,
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AMIRACLES.
it lie saw three men.  They were clad in citizen's dress,
and at first only asked him the news from the camp,
and requested his attendance before some civil conmmissioners.  On his declining to go, he was told he must
go; and on his demanding by what authority, the captain of the band unbuttoned and laid open his citizen's
coat, and showed the uniform and the badge that has
all the thunders of the government at its back. He
parleyed; and finally, by promising to attend them in
the morning, he gained a respite for a few hours during
the residue of the night.   Availing himself of this
critical period, he selected what valueless and insignificant papers he had which he tore into shreds, shuffled
and threw into a basin of water, but all his valuable
ones and such as might connect him with the transaction, he hid in the hollow of a bust of tile king of
Prussia, which is almost universally found in all public
rooms and places of resort throughout the realm.
With early dawn  reappeared the police, who  had
watched all night at his door, to conduct himi, as they
hlad intimated, to some tribunal or company anxious to
hear the news.
Whoever has been in Berlin will remember a vast
stone building in one of the most conspicuous streets,
nearly in the heart of the city, obtrudiing its silent horrors upon the sight, and striking with fiercer horrors
all the recollections and associations of men. It is the
government prison, the Bastile of Prussia.  There, in
a stone room eight feet by six, without fresh air, witllout light, Dr. Ilowe was thrust, and there began a
night of darkness, equally impervious to the light of
day and the light of hope, and which lasted six weeks.
Of all men and their con)federatcs in the underworld,
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none but the princes of police, and the prince of dark  ness, knew where lie was. No communication by letter
or speech Was allowed, none save that unseen coinmu  nication with the great Father of us all, which all gTood
men have, and of which no earthly or infernal foe can
rob them.
At the end of two days lie was taken before a kind
of commission (somewhat, perhaps, like a certain kind
of commission in this country, only in that mere des potism, I believe, the base hirelings did not have double
the fee for convicting, which they did for acquitting, as
is the case in this land of boasted freedom). That tri bunal conducted his examination on some atomic or
infinitesimal theory; for they read to him not less than
three hundred written questions, beginning,, with the
names of his father and mother, and evincing the most
extraordinary interest in every event that had happened
from the day of his birth, and taking down all his an swers in writing.  At the end of two days more, lie
was taken before the same officers again, and the three
hundred and more questions were all put to him again,
and again were all his answers taken down in writing.
At the close of the second examination, he was re manded to his dungeon, too small to welcome friend or
comforter, but large enou,gh to hold all the spectres of
hlorror or despair, that can ever visit a good man's heart.
There, in utter solitude, within stone walls, hard as
thlough each granule in their structure were a tyrant's
lheart, as thloug,h they had been constructed of tyrant's
hearts as coral insects build coral reefs, hle remained six
weeks, havig, no expectation of anv other home  or
tomb but that, unless, indeed, hlie might be( surrendered
to Rtsisia, and doo(med(l to SiJ)eriain niinces.
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MIRACLEIS.
One circumstance which transpired, marks the untiring industry of the Prussian police. At his first
examination, he saw that the whole mass of papers
which he had torn up and thrown into the water, had
been taken out, dried, and readjusted, part to part, as
one readjusts the dislocated pieces of a Chinese puzzle.
But they did not discover the important papers in the
old king's head, - not being Yankees.
At his arrival in Berlin from  the Polish camp, as I
before mentioned, he met an American gentleman, who
made a call of civility upon him at his hotel the next
morning.  The denial that any such person had been
there, and the fact that the police had visited the house
during the night, aroused suspicions of foul play.   This
gentlelman, therefore, immediately wrote to Mr. Rives,
then American Minister at Paris, communicating his
apprehensions. Mr. Rives made inquiry of the Prussian government concerning the matter, and was officially informed that no American had been there, only
a Frenchmlan, a confederate of the Poles, vlwho pretended
to be an American.  But he persisted, and finally, after
six weeks of negotiation, and to avoid a threatened collision with the United States, the Prussian government withdrew its retractile fangs from the flesh of its
victim.  At night his prison door was opened; lie was
put into a carriage, and supposed hlie was doomed to
Siberia; but the rising sun reassured him, for hlie rode
in an opposite'direction.  He was driven six liundred
miles without stopl)l)ingc, and tossed across the Prussian
fi'outier with an admonitioil never to set foot within it
ag,ain.  tis trunk and effects were there all restored
to him, except forty-tw,o dollars, retained for prison
charg(es, after the manner of South Carolina, when she
imprisons northern colored seanmen.
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Wlhen I went to Europe witlh Dr. Howe, in 1843,
his name was found still standing on the proscril)ed list
in all Prussian firontiers, and hle was still forbidden to
enter the kicngdom.
The King of Prussia has since relented, for lie sent
Dr. Howe a gold medal for his wonderful aclievement
in educatiing Laura Bridginan, -the medal being of a
class bestowed only upon those who have performed the
most distinguishled philanthropic services.  It is a curi ous fact tlhat this medal was of precisely the value of the
prison fees above mentioned!
I presume you  have all heard  somethingi of Laura
Bridgman.  She was a child, blind, deaf, dumb, and
almost utterly destitute of the senses of taste and smell.
here was this glorious world, -  Nature, Beauty, Love,
Humanity, without; there, within, brooded, and slept,
and moaned,  an immortal soul.   What  North-west
passage, or any other passage, shall be opened to that
hidden, spiritual continent, more valuable  than any
new-discovered continent upon the earth, or any newdiscovered star in the heavens?   Who shall enter and
gather the fruits of this new garden of the HIesperi(les?
What angel shall convey a spark to kindle the incense
already laid upon that lovely, but lonely, sequestered
altar?
There was but one man who knew how to open that
Farcoplhagus, and bring to life the immortal spirit within
it,- and that man was Dr. Howe.
With wlat deep emotions do we look back  to the
moments whlecn  great events were preparing for their
birtll, -to Christopher Columbus wooing firom Nature
the secret of another continent; to Sir Isaac Newton,
recog,nizilng the inv-isible l)ond of attraction  that holds
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the Utiiverse in its beautiful order, or to Di. Howe,
with  Laura Bridgman  upon his  knee,  opening  an
avenue to her soul, and bringing out the captive into
the lig,llt of day, and the' more precious lilght of knowledg(e, -into the truths that pertain to time and to eternity.   Then she was a blank, - voiceless, thoughtless,
seemingly inaccessible.   Now she is learned, sensible,
beautiful, and far more intelligent than the average of
young ladies, who have had more than her advantages,
without suffering any of her privations.
Now, I suppose, Dr. Howe has given an equivalent
for the sense of sight to more persons, ten to one, than
all the Apostles put together.  How nobly has he imitated the miracles!
Although, as Tacitus said of Seneca,  "he would
make a fit tutor for a prince," yet for more than a quarter of a century he has spent his noble and beneficent
life among the blind.  His last Annual  Report  was
numbered the twenty-fifth.
Dr. Howe is now in his fifty-fifth year.  Naturally of
a fibrous, most enduring, and resilient temperament, his
health was broken down by exposures while in the
army of Greece. He is the best specimen extant, of all
that was noble and valiant in the old chevalier, and in
their day he would have been as terrible and as generous a warrior as Godfrey, or Amadis de Gauil. He is
a man capable of all moods of mind, from the stormiest
to the gentlest; with a voice that could shout on a
chlarge of cavalry, or lull a sick infant to sleep.  When
that ocean of feeling( hlie carries in his breast is calm, the
halcyon bird mighit there build her nest, and brood her
young; but whlen the tempest of a holy indignation
r(ouses it, navies could not survive its fury.
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Tliougl  devoting himself primarily, and mainly, to
his speciality of benevolence, yet, when that work is
done, he engages in other philanthropies.  To whom is
education indebted more than to him?  He and Charles
Sumner did more than all other men to correct public
sentiment on the subject of solitary confinement in prisons. And the same hand that carried succors to the
Greeks in 1826, and to the Poles in 1831, carried them
to Kansas also, last year.
When any benevolent enterprise is undertaken in
Massachusetts, his leadership or counsel is always invoked; and if he be absent in any critical juncture, or
desperate emergency, men cry out as the host of Clan
Alpine at the battle of Beal an Duine,
"One blast upon his bugle horn
Were worth a thousand men!"
One of the most striking traits in my hero's character,
is its simplicity; -not merely an absence of pretension,
but a lnegration of it. Unlike many truly great men, he
has no particle of self-show, or self-demonstration; and
a stranger might ride with him a thousand miles without being informed that he had ever been anywhere
that every body else had not been, or seen anything
that every body else had not seen. Like an unpolished
diamond, the surface is the only unbrilliant part of
him; though dim without, all luminous within.  When
hle writes, or when he fights, the beholder is not dazzled
by the sheen of the battle-axe, but the antagonist dies
under the weight of the metal, or by the precision of
the blow.  Like the Arab's sword which had shivered
every sword it had ever struck,
"Ornament it carried none,
Save the notches on the blade."
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Another leadingr class of cases respectingr which the
Gospels record displays of miraculous power, refers to
demoniacs. I do not propose here to discuss what was
the nature or character of this alleg,ed demoniacal possession. One class, and a large class of commentators
on the Bible, believe that many of the demoniacs were
cases of actual diabolic possession; that a real spirit of
evil or devil, one or more, had power to get inside of
a man's brain, and take the reins of thoughlt and feeling
out of that man's hands into his own hands; dispossess
the true owner, and enter illto possession himself.
They believe that, in some way, the foul spirit got hold
of the cerebral ends of the man's nerves, and through
them worked the muscles of his arms, legs, tongue, and
the rest of his physical machinery, so as to make the
body and the organs of the victim obey the spirit of the
fiend.
Another class of commentators maintains that all
these cases were simple cases of what we call lunacy,
insanity, or madness, like those we have now amongst
uIS, so many of which are successfully treated at the
hospitals; and experienced physicians say that if you
wish to see a case of madness, worse even than that of
the man who had his dwelling, in the mountains and in
the tombs, and whlom no man  could bind withl fetters
and chains, -  they say if you wish to see a man worse
than this man,- you have only to give a drunkard a
quart of whiskey, and the devils will need no further
invitation, or license, to act "for the public good."
Now what could be more natural for such a tender
and compassionate nature as Christ's, than to take pity
on these demoniacs, and to exert his hilghest power for
their relief?  But from his time, down to at very recent
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period, this deplorable class of our fellow-beiings has been
abandoned to their terrible fate.  Their case has not
been understood by the doctors patlolog(ically, nor by
the ministers psycllologically, and  the almost universal
public sentiment has been, tlhat insanity was a direct
v-isitation firom  heaven, and  that he alone who lhad
stricken, could heal.  The insane endtang,ered the property and life of others, and, therefore, they must be confined.  Those whlo confined them, reg,arding their own
safety alone, and not the welfare of the victims, have
shut them up in garrets and in cellars, in outhouses, or
in pits, excavated firom the hill side; have disposed of
them anywhlere, and in any mainner, except by outright
murder, which would have been merciful when compared
to the slow tortures to which heart and brain were
doomed by man's selfishness or superstition.   In the
most exposed places, they have been kept, winter after
w-inter, without fire, and in nakedness; and even those
who called  themselves  physicians,   have  prescribed
scouriging, and starvation, and suffocation in w-ater, up
to the nearest point this side of drowning, and frigits,
and pretended visitations of evil spirits! Oh, it is incredible what men have done under the selfish impulse
of self-protection, unhumanized by any touch of sympathy for the welfare of others. And this was the universal treatment of the insane, tlhiroug,hout all Christendom,
until a very recent period. Three or four sporadic
c(ases are all that can be found, in the history of this
wretched class of beings thlrou(rlghout all Europle, where
such abhorrent treatment as I have described was not
their common lot, until the (lose of the last celntury.
IHluman  love, God(-like by its intensity, has somnetimes
dared to act fiom  its own impulse to save a beloved
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friend from the common  fate, and if knowledge  had
come to its aid, a deeper insight into the power Jesus
Christ exercised for good might have ameliorated their
condition earlier; but how superstition chains the souls
of men!  What is Christ as an exemplar to man, if his
power is regarded as superhuman, rather than as divinely human? Would God require man to do that
which man cannot do? -not the God whom I worship!
Esquirol was the first man  who made any impres-.
sion upon the public in favor of better treatment of the
Insane.  In one place he found some twenty of these
supposed deinoniacs manacled, caged like wild beasts,
furiously mad, nestling in their own  filth, deserted
by relatives, and by all human kind, agonized by the
tortures of a malady whose very nature excluded consolation, and so goaded into hostility to the human race,
that the sight of a keeper threw them into paroxysms
of rage. Into these dens of despair Esquirol entered.
HIe unfettered their limbs. He led them out into the
pure air and ligoht of heaven.   He spoke to them  such
divine words of sympathy as melt ferocity as fire melts
iron.  Htis soul transmigrated, as it were, into their
bodies, and he proved that if the devil can get possession of a human organism to torture it, an angel also
can take possession to bless it.
In this country, Dr. Todd, of Hartford, Connecticut,
was the first man who ever treated the insane, on a large
scale, on humane principles.  He was a chlarming man,
-a man to love at sight, -  genial, warm, slinny, tlhe
benevolence of his heart shone out through his flce, as
the light shines tllhrough a vase of alabaster.
But the man who made the delpest inmpression upon
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the American mind, in this sphere of benevolence, was
his pupil, Dr. Woodward, who, for thiirteen years, had
the superintendence of the Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, Mfassachusetts, which was opened in January,
1833.
On this subject, Dr. Woodward gave a new direction
to the whole public mind of America; and wherever you
now go, the best hospitals, in their organization and managemient, are but little more than a reproduction of him.
He was a noble man, with an Herculean frame,- a
great soul in a great body. I have seen that sinewy
hand of his, which could break an iron bar an inch
square, wipe the tear from the eye of a hypochondriac,
tenderly as a mother caresses an infant. While others
would take a company of sane men and turn them into
maniacs, he, in the same time, would take a company
of maniacs and restore them to sanity.  His gigantic
frame and his gentle bearing inspired at once both awe
and affection.  His tremendous physical strength, with
his affectionate demeanor, was like an iron hand in a
velvet glove. Hie walked the halls of his asylum like
a god. In his presence the most ferocious relented, the
most melancholic smiled. As if the all-claspinig zone
of attraction that binds the stars in their places were
broken, and suns and planets should "shoot madly from
their spheres," and fly careering through the skies, and
some god should emerge upon the scene, and with allpotent voice should arrest their centrifugal fli,ght, and
reduce them to their rilghtful orbits, and send them
round again upon their appointed circuits, so he, when
reason was dethroned, and each faculty was a maniac,
and anarchy raged through the soul, could speak peace
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to all its troubled elements, and  bring the  chaotic
realm to order.
Dr.  Woodward  had a right to his loftiness  and
breadth of stature, and to a body that wei,ghed nearly
two hundred pounds, without an ounce of adipose ba,gging down anywhere;  for he was born of healthy
parents, and from his birth had been treated and had
treated himself physiologically. He ate according to
his exercise; hlie had never tasted ardent spirits; in
wine he was a Nazarene, and he hated tobacco with all
his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.
But in this special form of "good will to man," the
greatest ornament of human nature the world has yet
known, is a woman,- Miss Dorothea L. Dix, who began her career of benevolence about twenty years ago.
She was a young lady of Boston, who taught a private
school for a livelihood. Being very successful, she accumulated a little competence, which was augmented by
the legacy of a relative; and was meditating some enlarg,ed sphere of usefulness.  As she was walking home
from meeting, one Sunday, after having  heard  Dr.
Channing preach one of those sermons that made the
v-icious envy the beauty of virtue, and sent men and
women  into the various spheres where suffering huinanity needs aid, whether it be to the prisoner shut
up in solitude by his own crimes, or to the destitute
who suffer from the crinies of others (and Boston can
show many such men and women, so sent and heavenrecorded), she accidentally heard some one describing
the suffering condition of some insane people at the jail
in the adjoining town of Cambridge.  It was a wind.wafted seed, but into what celestial soil did it fall!
Her resolve was instantaneously made, in pursuance of
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whlich, the next morning she visited the insane in the
Camnbridge jail, found their condition deplorable, and
forthwith began a system of measures for their imme diate relief, and, if possible, their ultimate cure. But
before this work could be accomplished, she heard of
others in a distant part of the same county, in a similar
condition. These also she visited and succored. As
her thoughts were now flowing in this channel, her ear
was quick to hear what otherwise would have passed
unnoticed; for we hear and see the things we care
about, and but little else. Then her visits extended to
a neigcliboring county; then to another and another,
until she had examined every prison, jail, house of cor rection, poor house, suspicious-looking barn or outhouse
ill the State, where an insane person was confined.  Indeed she penetrated farther; she descended into cellars,
knocked at closed arch-ways, opened trap-doors; but
when she stood on the borders of the State, here was a
limit. She had done what she could for her native
State; let others take care of theirs. Not so did she
conclude.   Her benevolence poured out, like God's,
wherever sorrow held out its supplicating hands to receive it.  In her heart, the map of the world had no
state or national lines. Soon she was accidentally in
Newport, R. I., where a lady of her acquaintance took
her out shopping.  While abroad, she heard the cry of
anll insane person. She rushed forth to find the victim,
and having found him, she never stopped until she had
found all the insane in the State.  Then she was really
abroad on a voyage of discovery, with the whole world
before her.  She visited State after State as swiftly as
the wings of a strong compassion could carry her.  Sho
learned the number and inspected the condition of all
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the insane in their jails, prisons, and other receptacles.
She prepared, printed, and circulated memorials at her
own expense. She besieged governors and legislatures.
She caused committees to be appointed, and wrote the
eloquent reports which they read.  She kindled sym  pathly in human hearts;  even misers gave of their
stores to her importunity. She chanted, at least for the
hour, politicians into men.  She  obtained grants for
hospitals, selected  sites  for their location,  prepared
plans for  their  structure, found superintendents for
them, and set them in motion.  Not content with this,
she caused them to be embellished with libraries, music
rooms, and means of varied emiployment, so that sane
faculties might be worthlily employed to disarm the ac  tivity of insane faculties. She travelled from one end
of the country to the other, taking journeys of a thou  sand miles alone, supplying knowledge to meet new
emergencies, and subduing sinister opposition, until, in
the States this side the Mississippi, including one in
Canada, she established nineteen hospitals for the insane.
1 say she did it.  She did it just as much  as God made
the stars, or Christ worked miracles.
After she had founded all these hospitals, she con   ceived the grand idea of obtaining a grant of public
lands from the government, sufficient to endow them.
Accordin,gly she took up her residence in Washing   ton, and attempted the great missionary work of con   verting the members of Congress to humanity and duty.
She presented a Memorial, embracing the whole statis   tics of insanity for the United States, mostly collected
.# by her own  indefatigable  labors.  Then, with infi   nite perseverance, she began the agg(ressive, creative
work of enlightening the memlbers, espeeially those of
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the south, south-west and west, one by one,   transfer ring, her thoughts into their mindis, and infusing her
benevolence into their bosoms.   Almost  always she
could convert the man; oftentimes the politician was
intractable, - insoluble by any intensity of heat, un mnalleable by any weilght of blow.  I said she began
the creative work.  It was  more.   Creation is one,
isingle, sovereign operation.  She had an equal preparatory labor to perform in removing old prejudices, political fossil bones, petrifactions of old dogmas with an
enamel.  Hence, in her case, annihilation of the bad
had to precede creation of the good, - a double
miracle.
The first session after presenting her M\emorial and
preparing her Bill, she carried the House of Representatives in its favor, but the Bill failed in the Senate for
want of time.   The next session, with almost equal
labor, she carried the Senate, but failed in the House,
for alleged want of time. At the first session of 18534, she carried both Senate and House, but the bill was
vetoed by the President.
When one considers the moral charm and beauty of
the work proposed, the heavenly disinterestedness with
which it had been prosecuted, and the ever-renewing
fruits of blessedness which would attend its consumnmation, one could not believe, one would feel authorized
to denyv, tlhat if the momentous alternative of perfecting
or destro-ying this enterprise could be brought ]iome to
anv one individual; if any one person could be ma(le
to see, what a hell of agonies he could close up, what a
hleaven of jovy he could open, by ratifying that measure,
no mortal could be found who would not shut that
door of agony, who would not open that door of joy.
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Tile thiunkard w-ould set down his intoxicating cup to
seize the pen  for approval; the miser would  stop
counting his hoards to give his assent; ny, the pirate
would have dropped his tiller in a storm, to give his
signature to so blessed a law. But one man was found
vwhlo could nullify, veto that Bill,- and that man was
President of the United States.
Failing thus, MAiss Dix felt the hopelessness of her
case  for  the remainder of  that  Presidential term.
She therefore went to Europe, and has been travel ling in Great Britain and on the Continent, where
she has found access to all Institutions of the same
nature, pouring out, the blessing of her counsel and
her consolations on those that were ready to perish.
I must not tell her beneficent plans for foreign lands,
nor what high places she has beseig,ed, nor left till
they surrendered in favor of their own suffering subjects, who were left in groans and bondag,e till she
passed by to succor and to save,-  for I might stand
in the way of the accomplishment of that for which
she labors.  When asked in those sad days of trial
and disappointment what she should do next about her
American  Bill, she quietly answered, " try it again
everv session while I live," - but she was soon convinced that this would  be useless.   If a beneficent
change ever takes place in the administration of our
government, from  which the very soul of humanity
seems to have departed, we will hope, that, wh-ethler
-shle lives or (lies, the change will be sanctified  by the
law that she in her Chlristian love conceived.
What can I say to you, my young firiends, to deepen
the implression I would leave upon yoltr niinds of the
character of Mliss Dix?  HIer life is her loig,, lollg
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eulogiumi.   Out of thle abundance of thle heart not
only does the mouth speak, but the llands act.  To
those who have never seen her, however, I may remark
that she is a person of singularly modest anld reserved
demeanor.  It seems to require as great an eflort ill her
to appear before committees, or assemblies of men, as
for a soldier to volunteer in a forlorn hope.   Again and
aagain have companies of distinguished ladies, her co ol)erators  and admirers, requested  her to sit for her
picture, or at least for a daguerreotype, but she always
declines.  Her voice is woinanly and low, with deep
tones, but never loud ones.  An  instinct teaches her
that a loud-laulghing, shouting(r, screaming lady is as
gross a contradiction in terms as a white blackbird, a
square circle, or a six-sided triangle.  No person has as
yet been able to obtain from her any memoranda  for a
biography, or sketch of her life.  So wholly is she de voted to doing, she has no time for displayingr.  Yet
with all this retiriilg sensitiveness, which recoils firom
public assemblies, she always addresses prisoners when
she can, and she will speak to hundreds of them till the
sun goes dowti, and show them how they can transform
the Hades of a penitentiary into a mere stopping-pl)ace
on their way to glory.  In such a time-destroying, manner is she importuned with confessions and requests
firom prisons for advice, that she once wrote and caused
to be printed a circular letter which she sent to all the
prisons where she had tau(ght and counselled.
In her peregrinations she has always travelled alone,
carried often by rude drivers in the night time  over
unfrequented roads, to reach some special destination
at an appointed time.  Once in passing through  the
wvarls of a prison in MIichigan, a youing man  caught
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si(ght of her through the bars of his grate, and made
known his wish to speak with her.  He asked if she
did not remember being taken firom such a place to
such a place, quite a distance, in all open wagon, by
night.  On her replying in the affirmative, he said. "I
was your driver."  "But why are you here?" she
asked.  "I robbed a man of his money," lie replied,
"when driving him shortly after."  "But I had money
at that time," she said, "and a gold watch; why did
not you rob me?"   "Oh," said hlie, fetchingr a deep
breath, " I wasn't devil enough for that."
I said she had travelled her tens and her hundreds
of thousands of miles without accident and without injury. I might have added,- without insult. In the
perfect virtue of woman there is a defensive armor
which is villain-proof.  It is doubtless a harsh judgment  to say that no woman is ever dishonorably approached who  has not first signified her permission;
that no man ever dares to invade her sanctuary unless
he first finds the enclosures down and sees a beckoning hand across the line. Sometimes a heart that
knows no guile, an innocence that knows no evil is so
far betrayed as to be insulted; but there is plausibility and  verisimilitude even in the former postulate. For there is always a battle of spirits fought in
the air before a foot approaches or a hand is raised.
It is in this preliminary battle of soul with soul, of eye
with eye, of the celestial aura and effluvium radiated
bv virtue against the Tartarian exhalations of vice;
-it is this preliminary battle that prophecies the fate
of the other. Hence there is a female purity that no
villainy can invade, for though its weapons are an
etlierial essence only, yet tlley are swift as lightning
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and solid as porphyry; and whoever dares encounter
them, perishes like the Israelite who trod upon the
foot of Sinai when Jehovah thundered on its summit.
Her sanctity was her shield. She demonstrates how
moral beauty eclipses all other beauty. The charms
of nature and of art become wearisome and tedious
in the presence of such moral glory.
The benedictions of thousands whom she has re deemed from misery descend upon her, like perpetual
hymns of joy. Oh, the sin of envy and coveting, if
her consciousness were its object, would be transmuted
into a virtue. Though her body yet dwells upon
earth, yet the soul of such a being must forever walk
up and down the streets of the New Jerusalem; and
though she declines all worldly honors, however brilliant, yet the light of the seven golden candlesticks
forever shines in her face.
Who then shall say that man cannot imitate Christ in
his grandest works?   All  acts of truly disinterested
benevolence, however lowly the sphere in which they are
exercised, be they but truly self-sacrificing, irrespective of reward, born of the love implanted by the
Creator in the soul of man, are real imitations of the
miracles of Christ, awakening human sympathies to
apprehension of the Infinite. The wild Indian, when
made thoroughly to understand that Jesus Christ was
willing to suffer that all men might believe his inculcations of duty, lays down his weapons of revenge
and ceases to kill except in self-defence. The apostle
Eliot made  them  understand  this, for he acted  it
out; many a devoted Catholic priest who has reiiounced the world for their benefit, has made them
believe it.  But it is difficult to  make  an Indian a
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bigot, and who can wonder that the work is often
undone  when they hear the strife of sectarian hate
drown the voice of Christian love?
I should rejoice, my young friends, to speak to you
of some others of those glorious names that constellate
the firmament of benevolence, and to show in what
ways they, too, animated by the spirit of Christ, have
worked his miracles; of Howard, and Mrs.  Fry, of
Oberlin, and Felix Neff, of Lord Shaftesbury, and above
all, of Florence Nightingale, who outqueens a thousand
Victorias, and for the transcendent beauty of whose
character God seems to have been willing to pay all the
horrors and wretchedness of the Crimean war. But I
have spoken of a few whom I know, and I might add
such examples as of those who, by the successful experiments of many years, have proved that for every orphan
child there is a childless home; of those who have taken
prisoners from the hands of the municipal law, and becoming surety for them, have redeemed them from the
law of sin itself; of noble spirits who have set the bondsman free, although impoverishing themselves by so
doing; who have made the middle passage of the emi grant ship, in order to know and rectify the abuses
therein practised.   These  do the  "more  wonderful
works" which Christ predicted to those who were wor shipping his miracles. And they have not done these
things merely because Christ pointed the way. They
have done them because they, like him, had Divine
natures wrapped up in their human natures.
But I will pass to what I deem far more vital imita tion of Christ's example, one involving a far higher
appreciation of his character; for after all, his allevia tion of outward suffering is not to be compared with his
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removal of spiritual evils. It is true that the ameliora  tion of physical evils does minister to the spiritual needs
of man; for while the soul is imprisoned in a useless
body, it is often crippled in its ascension to practical
virtue.
It is narrated that Christ, by the touch of his hand,
could annihilate the heavy afflictions of blindness, deaf ness, dumbness, insanity, but these were not his greatest
achievements, nor his peculiar work.    His  eye was
ever upon the immortal soul. It was that he loved
above all other things, himself included. This healing
of the sick, the maimed, the blind, was but a preliminary
work, a by-play, in comparison with what he called
"My Father's work."   His compassionate heart could
not see suffering in any shape without wishing to relieve
it; but he would purchase good for the soul at the
price of pain to the body, or mortification to the feel  ings. He could scourge the money-changers from the
temple; he could upbraid the Pharisee, as well as cheer
and encourage the woman who was taken in the "very
act" of crime.  He looked to the motive and the hope
of reformation. He knew that the woman who bathed
his feet with ointment, expressed in so doing a loftier
sentiment than those who reproached her for not saving
her money for the poor. We are not all so situated
that we can perform the great achievements that immor   talize a few historic characters, but there is not one of
us, not the humblest, who cannot imitate Christ every
day in our lives.  There is not one of us who  has not
a brother, or a sister, a friiend, or a school-mate, whomn
we can make better, as well as happier. Every day
calls upon us for sacrifices of small selfishness, for for  bearance under provocation, and for the subjugation of
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evil propensities. Drop that stone you were about to
throw in retaliation for insult; unclench that fist with
which you were about to redress some supposed, perhaps some real wrong; silence that tongue about to
utter words which would poison like the venom of asps;
expel that wicked imagination that comes into your
thoughts, as Satan came into the Garden of Eden, for
if you do not drive that out of your Paradise, it will
drive you out.
While you are passing these years of study in college
halls, you cannot go forth, seeking the maimed, the
blind, or the insane, in distant cities, or on the mountain tops. While I am here, I cannot, like Howard,
visit all the prisons of the world; or, like Oberlin,
plunge into Alpine fastnesses, where the Gospel and
the schoolmaster never were heard of, and, beginning
with the spade and mattock, as he did, introduce comfort and purity, and set the people forth on their way to
everlasting life. But you can watch over yourselves,
and over one another; if you see a companion indulging some vicious habit, you can check him, and lead
him by the light of your better example; nay, you can
spend a week or a month in winning his regards and
good will, and then, through friendship and affection,
find an avenue to his heart, otherwise never opened.
And I, in my sphere, if years have given me any advantage over inexperience, I can watch and warn, and
counsel, ay, if need be, reprove, though every word
draws a drop of life's-blood from my heart, and thus prepare you for the inevitable trials, the glorious duties, of
life. We can thus do as much good in our respective
spheres, as if we crossed lands and seas in search of
the suffering and ignorant.   We  have only to follow 
MIIRACLES.
Christ's law of life, " Love one another."  "Do  unto
others as you would that others should do unto you."
Here is the whole duty of man.
Probably there is not one of the generous, liigh-souled
youth before me, who would not plunge into the water,
or rush into the flames, to save his friend,- to save a
child, - not necessarily his own, but somebody's child.
We feel within ourselves the power to die for others as
Christ did. But can we live for others as he did? It
is far more difficult, I assure you, to live for the truth
than to die for it. I have seen the time when, if that
would have answered as well, I could have died for a
cause as easily as a babe falls asleep; but to live for it
- that is the cutting off of the right hand, that is the
plucking out of the right eye. Patient perseverance in
well-doing is infinitely harder than a sudden and impulsive self-sacrifice. And hence this "patient continuance" is the brightest jewel in the diadem of
Christian virtues.
How infinitely better then, it is, to imitate Christ's
miracles than to wrangle about their nature, or the
means by which they were wrought. They are not
inimitable. He has sympathy for us, and looks upon
our humblest efforts approvingly.   He was "touched
with the feeling of our infirmities." He was "' in all
points tempted like as we are." He was virtuous, and
virtue implies a struggle, a choice between the evil and
the good. We are moved to a noble emulation of him
by his exercise of moral power, not of supernatural
power, for there we cannot follow him. We have seen
him taken up of the devil into a high mountain, and
we have seen him prostrate in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It was Christ himself who said, the "spirit
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indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," and it may be
that he said it of himself too.
My children, begin ~arly this imitation of Christ.
Lose no time. Habit has tremendous power. Good
and evil grow in us with animating, with terrifying
rapidity. Those tottering feet of infancy shall soon
traverse continents, its lisping tongue command senates.
The resolve to be virtuous, therefore, to be Christ-like,
which your heart makes now and here, -oh, what
grandeur and glory may it quickly reach; though feeble now as the wing of unfledged bird, yet from day
to day it will gather strength, will learn to wheel in
wider and wider circuits, and to essay loftier and loftier
flights; -it soars, it soars, - it shoots beyond  the
stars;- swift and strong as an angel's pinion, I see it
cleave the etherial realms; - it passes mid heaven;it has blessed man, and thereby been sanctified; it has
alighted at the throne of God.
THE ENI).
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