iiiiiniiiiiiiiiiii III •■•■■•■■•■••>■*■ ■■■■■■■■'*"" 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 Dept. 
 
 No. 
 
 Columbia ®nitoersiftp 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
ADDRESSES ON 
 NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 'By 
 BISHOP CHARLES H. FOWLER 
 
 With an Introduction 
 
 'By 
 R. J. COOKE, D. D., 
 
 Book Editor of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 ^ 
 
 CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
 NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 
 

 /ifff 
 
 Copyright, 1908, 
 By Jennings and Graham 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction, ------- 5-13 
 
 Problems of the Twentieth 
 
 Century, 15-71 
 
 The Bible and the Public 
 
 Schools, -------- 73-116 
 
 Appeal for Twenty Millions, - 117-135 
 
 Wesleyanizing THE World, - - 137-169 
 
 Fraternal Address to the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, ------- 171-198 
 
 Fraternal Address to British 
 
 Wesleyan Conference, - - 199-243 
 
 The University, 245-332 
 
 The First Conference and 
 Early Methodism in Phila- 
 delphia, 333-365 
 
 The Greatness of Illinois, - - 367-441 
 
 3 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Address on Church Extension 
 
 —Camden, N. J., 443-477 
 
 Address on Church Extension 
 
 — Philadelphia, 479-504 
 
 The Physician Seen from the 
 
 Standpoint of a Layman, - - 505-530 
 
 The Seal OF THE Covenant, - - 531-559 
 
 Dedicatory Prayer at Opening of 
 
 Columbian Exposition, - - 561-573 
 
 Dedicatory Prayer at Opening of 
 
 Pan-American Exposition, - 575-584 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To THE last word said or the last thing 
 done by one whose memory we revere, there 
 is attached for us ever after a peculiar and 
 indefinable interest. In solemn detachment 
 it stands alone, sacred, impressive, silently 
 expressing to heart and mind the final thought 
 or deed of him who has passed into that life 
 where ^'above these voices there is peace." 
 
 The papers and addresses by Bishop 
 Fowler contained in this volume possess such 
 interest. Mortally stricken, and knowing that 
 the end was near, he began to put his house 
 in order, and among the chief things which 
 engaged his attention to within a few days 
 of his death was the revision and arrange- 
 ment of these papers. They are printed just 
 as he left them. We would have arranged 
 them differently; arranged them in an order 
 corresponding to his development, for each 
 address indicates the high reaches he attained 
 
 5 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 at that time in his intellectual growth and 
 spiritual outlook. Dante, awaking in a dark 
 forest, saw far above him a hill on which the 
 sun was shining, and, attempting to climb it, 
 failed. Bishop Fowler was always climbing, 
 and when he died he fell asleep on the slopes 
 of the Delectable Mountains which Bunyan 
 also saw from afar. It is not permissible, 
 however, for us to change the final form he 
 gave this volume, and these addresses, which 
 so mightily stirred vast multitudes, quickened 
 the Church, and contributed in so many ways 
 to the expansion of the Redeemer's Kingdom, 
 are presented to the Christian public just as 
 he left them on the day of his departure. 
 
 Charles Henry Fowler was born in On- 
 tario, Canada, August, 1837. ^^is early life 
 was spent on a farm. In 1859 he graduated 
 from Genesee College, at Lima, N. Y., at the 
 head of his class, and delivered the valedictory 
 address. During his college days, inspired 
 by the love of his mother and an eager desire 
 for knowledge, he was noted for his pro- 
 ficiency and gave ample evidence, both of his 
 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 intellectual ability and of his magnetic power 
 as a public speaker. It is not surprising, there- 
 fore, that, possessing such gifts, he should be 
 drawn to the study of law, but the Spirit 
 which had once spoken to him in conversion 
 spoke again, and now, thoroughly convinced 
 that he should enter the Christian ministry, 
 the possible lawyer abandoned all thoughts 
 of the legal profession and entered Garrett 
 Biblical Institute, from which institution he 
 graduated in 1861, with distinguished honor. 
 For the twelve years succeeding this event 
 Dr. Fowler served as pastor of important 
 Churches in the city of Chicago. In 1872 
 he was elected President of the Northwestern 
 University. In his excellent ^'Life of Glad- 
 stone" Justin McCarthy says: ''Nobody can 
 possibly be called a statesman who starts in 
 life with a pack of political nostrums which 
 he proposes to apply inveterately to the cure 
 of every constitutional malady in the State." 
 And this observation is just as true with re- 
 spect to men who are called to administer 
 the affairs of the Church. A mind like that 
 
 7 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of Dr. Fowler's, however, open to all points 
 of the compass, could not but feel the need 
 of a radical change in the academic atmos- 
 phere of the institution to which he was 
 called. He was what Emerson would call 
 a perpetual force. Built on a large scale, he 
 was ever seeing large things. The college of 
 which he became President was too small; 
 its scope and intellectual sympathies too nar- 
 row — and forthwith he began its enlargement 
 and its future. 
 
 In 1872 Dr. Fowler, then thirty- five years 
 of age, was elected to the General Conference 
 and was nominated for the editorship of the 
 Christian Advocate, of which Dr. Daniel 
 Curry was then the incumbent. Dr. Curry 
 was re-elected, but four years later, at the 
 General Conference in Baltimore, Charles H. 
 Fowler was elected editor of that influential 
 journal on the first ballot. In 1880 he was 
 elected Corresponding Secretary of the Mis- 
 sionary-Society, a providential election for 
 the Society, which at that time demanded a 
 leader who combined in himself business 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 capacity of high order and the power to 
 arouse the enthusiasm of the Church. In 
 1872 Dr. Fowler received eighty-four votes 
 for the episcopacy; and in 1880 he was again 
 prominently mentioned for the same office, 
 but was not elected. No strong force ever 
 operates without strong opposition. During 
 these years, however, he was becoming more 
 widely known. The whole Church had come 
 to recognize his worth and fitness, and in 1884 
 he was elected to the episcopal office, where 
 he found ample scope for his pre-eminent 
 abilities, both as a preacher of the Word and 
 an administrator in the Church of God. But 
 "it is appointed unto all men once to die," and 
 after twenty-four years of laborious service 
 as a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, and after long, weary years of ever- 
 losing struggle with death, he finished his 
 earthly course in the triumph of faith, March 
 20, 1908, comforted by the loving ministry 
 of his devoted wife and only son. 
 
 In a character-sketch of the departed 
 Bishop in the Christian Advocate of March 
 
 9 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 26, 1908, the editor, Dr. James M. Buck- 
 ley, wrote: "If great force, imagination, 
 mathematical power, memory, will-power, 
 friendship, and great deeds make a great man. 
 Bishop Fowler must be adjudged a place 
 among the number who rise high above the 
 mass of mankind." Bishop Fowler was not 
 only a great force, he was an arsenal of 
 forces. His mathematical power to recite 
 whole tables of logarithms as easily as one 
 might the multiplication table; his vivid 
 imagination, on which as on eagles' wings 
 his congregations often rose; his keen logic, 
 his power to will, the utter lack of which is 
 such a plaintive cry in the Journal Intime of 
 Amiel, the warmth of his friendship, the ten- 
 derness of his spirit, and, above all, his 
 mighty faith in the reality of God, each was 
 in itself a radiating energy, and they all sug- 
 gest the number and rare combinations of the 
 intellectual and moral potencies which found 
 expression in the life of this extraordinary 
 man. 
 
 In any public calling Bishop Fowler would 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 have been a conspicuous figure. But as Dr. 
 Charles J. Little, President of Garrett Bibli- 
 cal Institute, said in his memoir of the Bishop 
 at the recent General Conference in Balti- 
 more, ''the pulpit and the platform were the 
 places of his power." The addresses con- 
 tained in this volume will justify that ob- 
 servation as regards his unsurpassed ability as 
 a platform speaker, and the volume of ser- 
 mons which is yet to be published will sus- 
 tain the conclusion as regards his power as a 
 preacher, although we shall miss the flash of 
 his eye, and the music of his voice is forever 
 gone. These addresses will also show that 
 the secret of his power was not, after all, in 
 his splendid eloquence, nor in his intellectual 
 strength, nor in his virile personality, nor in 
 his world-wide scope of thought and experi- 
 ence, but in his all-dominating conviction of 
 the reality of God and his faith in the revela- 
 tion of Him in Christ Jesus, the world's Re- 
 deemer. Without such belief, which was not 
 with him mere intellectual hospitality to a 
 philosophical conception, but a profound 
 
 11 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 feeling, Bishop Fowler could never have been 
 the man he was. 
 
 Some men may be able, perhaps, to 
 shuffle along through life without any par- 
 ticular thought of God, and even brilliant 
 genius, as in the case of Shelley and, for a 
 while, Romanes, may successfully assert its 
 unbelief, but to Bishop Fowler belief in God 
 was a necessity. Hence, it is not strange that 
 he saw God everywhere, saw Him in all 
 world-movements, and with prophetic glance 
 mapped out the probable purposes of God 
 in human history. In all literature possibly 
 there is not a more thought-halting sentence 
 than that of John Henry Newman's in his 
 Apologia, where, having declared his be- 
 lief in the existence of God and yet hav- 
 ing expressed doubt as to the evidence in 
 the world of that existence, he says: "If 
 I looked into a mirror and did not see 
 my face, I should have the sort of feeling 
 which actually comes upon me when I look 
 into this living world and see no reflection of 
 its Creator." To Bishop Fowler the whole 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 world, notwithstanding its discords, and 
 human history, in spite of its sinfulness, was 
 filled with the presence of God, who, back of 
 all Ministerial Cabinets and Parliaments, 
 Revolutions and Programs of Progress, is 
 working out his sovereign will, the redemp- 
 tion of the race in Jesus Christ, and the es- 
 tablishment on earth of the Kingdom of God. 
 This belief underlies all his addresses, this 
 faith inspired his eloquence, and it is there- 
 fore with intelligent interest that we may turn 
 these pages, for in this volume ''he, being 
 dead, yet speaketh." 
 
 13 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH 
 CENTURY 
 
 Delivered on the thirty-eighth anniversary of the San 
 Francisco Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion, Sunday, January 25, 1891. 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH 
 CENTURY 
 
 'But can ye not discern the Signs of the Times?" 
 
 — Matt, xvi, 3. 
 
 Like a belated traveler tarrying in an inn 
 for a time, the Nineteenth Century tarries in 
 this decade on its journey into history. The 
 Twentieth Century is at the door. We must 
 go forth to meet it. When a royal guest is 
 expected with greetings and gifts, everything 
 is put in order for his proper reception. 
 Roads are repaired, bridges are built, palaces 
 are perfected; everything that wealth can 
 command and genius conceive and art pre- 
 pare is made ready, that the distinguished vis- 
 itor may be honored, and that his visit may 
 bless both lands. So it becomes us to treat 
 the coming century, which towers above all 
 preceding centuries, and brings blessings 
 which all past ages have toiled to prepare. 
 
 The supreme scientific idea of this age, by 
 
 which this age will be distinguished in the 
 
 history of thought, is Evolution; not in its 
 
 distorted and exaggerated form as a Deicide, 
 
 2 17 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 but in its Theistic form, having a divine ini- 
 tial impulse to help it up the ascending types 
 of life, such an evolution as can be traced in 
 the luminous teachings of Agassiz. This 
 great order of nature holds ovjer the unfold- 
 ing of human history. The ages behind us 
 have been perfecting the types of our life and 
 maturing results which shall soon greet us 
 with their song and gladness. We start forth, 
 then, with new environments, in the midst of 
 unprecedented advantage, surrounded and 
 served, like the royal heirs ''of all the ages," 
 with vast, multiplied and obedient energies, 
 forces and powers. The race never undertook 
 the work of a new century with such allies 
 and prophecies. 
 
 Review of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 We need but a hurried glance at the Up- 
 lift of the Nineteenth Century. Physical and 
 social conditions a hundred years ago, taken 
 as the standard, would compel the classifica- 
 tion of their most civilized communities or 
 groups of population, as of a lower order. 
 The oyster is lower than the bird; it lacks 
 the higher modes of locomotion. The serf 
 is lower than the freeman; he is fast to the 
 soil; circumscribed by his habitat. In the 
 
 18 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 beginning of this century, unpaved and un- 
 kept roads delayed much of the year, even 
 in England, the tardy, unfrequent and creep- 
 ing coach. Mounted guards splashed and 
 scrambled over the treacherous turnpikes ; 
 but few, and they the wealthy, ventured 
 away from home. To visit another county, 
 made a traveler as famous as the circuit of 
 the globe does to-day. The poor walked, 
 strangers were enemies, and dogs were set on 
 a wanderer from another town. Dim, smok- 
 ing oil-lamps lighted our great cities, heaps 
 of garbage blockaded the sewerless streets, 
 and accumulated filth perpetuated fever, 
 plagues, and pestilence. 
 
 Wages were low. After Waterloo a stout 
 Saxon could earn 4s. 6d. per week, when he 
 could find w^ork. Children six years old were 
 worked sixteen hours a day in the mines. 
 English women clambered up unsafe stairs 
 and ladders on all fours, with excessive bur- 
 dens of coal on their backs. Food was most 
 costly; a little meal once a week was a luxury; 
 meat — never. The law forbade the cutting of 
 bread till it was twenty-four hours old, in 
 order not to make crumbs. This tatter which 
 we call society, this remnant which we call 
 humanity, was pursued by the tax-gatherer as 
 
 19 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 a starving coyote is pursued by a hungry 
 Sioux warrior over the deserts of Arizona. 
 Five-eighths of the products of labor were 
 taken by law before the unjust exactions of 
 power began the search for booty. News- 
 papers were taxed 4d. (equal to 8 cents), 
 equal to eighty cents in our times. Salt was 
 taxed forty times its value. The government 
 collected a revenue equal to £6 (equal to 
 $30), per inhabitant, equal to about $300 in 
 these times. Not long before this, weaving 
 of calico was prevented by statute, and the 
 weaving of cotton goods was punished with 
 imprisonment. 
 
 This century began with nearly all the 
 Christian nations engaged in war. War is 
 the golden opportunity of crime. Sometimes 
 ''Liberty gets on in a powder cart," yet the 
 Christian graces find little room there. When 
 stealing and murder are virtues, the ordinary 
 virtues do not thrive. The fierce passions and 
 lower appetites usurp authority, and society 
 becomes coarse and cruel, bloody and brutal. 
 The long wars that preceded and rushed well 
 up the first quarter of this century left the 
 temper of the people fierce and vindictive. 
 
 In refined society guests were expected to 
 drink to heavy drunkenness. Neither host 
 
 20 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 nor guest had showed proper respect to hos- 
 pitality unless they rolled together under the 
 table. The few Bibles offered for sale at high 
 prices were crowded on the same shelves with 
 obscene books, illustrated with most obscene 
 pictures, which books were the delight of 
 mixed gatherings of elegant society. Pro- 
 fanity was nearly as universal, if not as con- 
 stant, as breathing. Chaplains swore at the 
 sailors to make them attentive to divine serv- 
 ice. Great orators swore for emphasis. Er- 
 skine, the model of his age, swore at the bar. 
 Judges swore on the bench. Lord Thurlow 
 spiced his opinions with oaths. Such courts 
 could easily be bloody. The Georges added 
 one hundred and fifty-seven new capital of- 
 fenses to the calendar, and sent two hundred 
 and twenty- three capital crimes to the jurists 
 and statesmen of this century. In that cruel 
 time, if a poor man stole five shillings' worth, 
 even to secure food for his starving children, 
 he was hanged. If a peasant shot a rabbit 
 he was hanged, sometimes before his family 
 could eat the game. Jailors bought the privi- 
 lege of robbing the prisoners. At North- 
 ampton it cost £40 per year. In the days of 
 Henry VIII sturdy beggars were flogged for 
 the "first asking," had their ears bored for the 
 
 21 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 second, and their necks stretched for the third. 
 Charles Wesley writes: "Have just attended 
 a company of twenty men who were hung. 
 Think most of them were prepared. There 
 are to be twenty more next week." In the 
 first decade of this century a mob jeered at 
 the body of Lord Castlereagh, and another 
 mob bombarded with dead cats the coffin of 
 Lord Chancellor Clare. Trial by combat 
 was practiced in England as late as 1827. 
 Surely we are coming out of a dark and 
 bloody century. When I saw in Stockholm 
 that wonderful work of scultpure showing the 
 Tolke-knife fight, wherein two nude men, 
 bound closely together by ropes around their 
 waists, and armed with a short stout knife, 
 fought to the finish, and then remembered 
 that in those heroic days of Sweden wives ac- 
 companied their husbands to social gather- 
 ings, and, because their fights were so fre- 
 quent, carried their husbands' shrouds with 
 them, then I thought that that was a rugged 
 and bloody time. But the records of our Eng- 
 lish sires in the first of this century are not 
 much better. 
 
 The great societies called nations were 
 all in the iron grip of despotism. England 
 alone had a stable charter to her liberties, but 
 
 22 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 this was chiefly on parchment. What the 
 government granted by wholesale in the 
 charter, extorted by patriots and heroes, was 
 pilfered away in piecemeal by rotten bor- 
 oughs and unscrupulous bribery. Two-thirds 
 of the House of Commons were appointed by 
 peers or nobles. The Duke of Norfolk owned 
 eleven members. Seventy members were re- 
 turned by thirty-five places where there were 
 hardly as many voters. Three hundred mem- 
 bers were returned to the House of Commons 
 by one hundred and sixty persons, while 
 Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester were 
 unrepresented. Julius Caesar awes us by the 
 magnificence of his schemes, when, in the 
 open market, he pays $2,700,000 for a single 
 vote. That vote makes him Consul and gives 
 him the provinces to rob. But George HI 
 inspires our pity when, eighteen hundred 
 years later, he publicly dickers for seats and 
 votes to maintain his petty policies. But with 
 the exception of the infant republic in Amer- 
 ica, founded on a compromise with slavery — 
 a government which could not be classed 
 above a doubtful and untested experiment — 
 this rotten-boroughed England was the only 
 constitutional government known among men. 
 All the rest of the world was under the abso- 
 
 23 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 lutism of despots. Rulers taxed, robbed, con- 
 scripted, butchered, imprisoned, executed 
 their subjects according to their caprices. 
 
 Over most of Europe no man could pray 
 without the consent of the Pope. Not long 
 ago the thumb-screw and the wheel and the 
 iron virgin were the conservators of public 
 morals, and the Inquisition kept the public 
 conscience. We are startled when we remem- 
 ber that these fierce times for nations and des- 
 perate times for liberties, times of slow 
 coaches, bad roads, dark cities, filthy streets, 
 pestilent homes, sparse food, vulgar habits 
 and brutal purposes, cruel laws and bloody 
 administrations, — that these times of accumu- 
 lated horrors were in the full tide of their 
 power and malice in the memory of men still 
 living and active. A single human life has 
 pontooned this gulf between them and us. 
 
 Over this chasm the race has struggled on 
 at the hardest. Poverty, ignorance, despo- 
 tism, oppression, persecution, bigotry, the 
 fierce and yelping litter of Perdition, have not 
 retired from the control of human afTairs vol- 
 untarily. They have disputed every inch of 
 the field. They have gone because they must. 
 They have met a foe too great for them. 
 They have retreated before that awakened 
 
 24 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 something which we call the human mind. 
 In this presence they are as powerless as the 
 hosts of Sennacherib before the awakened 
 wrath of Almighty God. The awakened 
 mind has kinship with God. It can not be 
 captured or crushed by the forces of evil 
 against its will. It is as unapproachable as 
 the sun and imperishable as the throne of the 
 Almighty. You may come with the forces 
 of despotism and assail the homes of awak- 
 ened mind and "rob to the last vault, burn to 
 the last hearth, desecrate to the last altar, and 
 desolate to the last hamlet, and you have done 
 nothing." There will still remain the human 
 mind, the force writing all books and fighting 
 all battles, planting all republics and found- 
 ing all civilizations. This awakened thought 
 has produced the great uplift of this nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Mighty Advancing Strides. 
 
 See with what mighty strides it is march- 
 ing down through these years. It is most diffi- 
 cult to even count the marvelous strides. 
 Watt and Fulton have turned all the currents 
 in all rivers to run according to the wish of 
 every pilot, and have bidden ocean's tempests 
 and angry waves be still, while the peaceful 
 
 25 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 argosies of commerce float safely into all the 
 harbors of the world. Hargraves and Whit- 
 ney have gone into the almost worthless cot- 
 ton field, covered with the unmelting snow 
 of the tropics, and at one gesture with their 
 enchanted wand all the marts, all the homes 
 of the earth, are blessed with raiment from 
 king's palaces. The great deposits of coal, the 
 vast stores of the condensed sunbeams of mil- 
 lions of ages, catch the inspiration of human 
 thought, and now they lift themselves to the 
 surface above the mines, and, harnessed by in- 
 ventive genius, they make one ounce pull a ton 
 to the distant market, and send the weary 
 women and haggard little children away to 
 quiet homes. Franklin and Morse have made 
 the lightning our newsboy, who brings to our 
 table every morning fresh greetings from 
 every family on earth. 
 
 There are now no foreign lands. The 
 dogs no longer have strangers to worry. We 
 sit down with remotest peoples and chat over 
 our morning meal and visit in our evening 
 leisure. We are one neighborhood, one 
 family, all the world over; so much one 
 family that famine hunts in vain for an en- 
 trance into our circle. Want anywhere is 
 filled by the world's fullness. Hungry Ire- 
 
 26 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 land eats the wheat of California and the meat 
 of the Argentine Republic. In central Mis- 
 souri, the center of the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi, I have eaten Scotch potatoes, and in 
 Pekin and Constantinople Norwegian butter. 
 So much are all lands flowing together that 
 want can make a vacuum no more than you 
 can dig a hole in the sea. The world's fullness 
 rushes in to fill it. There are more comforts 
 in the poor man's cottage than there were in 
 the palace of good King Arthur, and the din- 
 ner of the day laborer has luxuries from more 
 lands and climes than great Caesar ever saw. 
 
 This Uplift has Reached the Great Na- 
 tions AND Governments. 
 
 It began with the old Napoleon, who 
 came, as Carlyle said, on a ''Providential er- 
 rand, to teach Europe that the tools belong 
 to those who can use them." His code taught 
 equality. His victories begat contempt for 
 princes. He suggested unity for Germany 
 and the consolidation of Italy. He gave con- 
 stitutions to Spain, Westphalia, and Naples. 
 He broke the charm that sanctioned the tem- 
 poral power of the Pope. He trampled down 
 the privileges of Feudalism. Though he was 
 a practical despot, he scattered the seeds of 
 
 27 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 liberty over Europe, and made France the 
 Continental Mother of Constitutional Gov- 
 ernments. He gave Spain a Constitution, but 
 he held her in his iron grip till all her South 
 American possessions burst from her para- 
 lyzed hand and sprang into republics. 
 
 The first efiforts of Europe were beaten 
 back by military powers after Waterloo. A 
 French Bourbon crushed liberty in Spain, an 
 Austrian Bourbon trampled it down in Italy. 
 Prussia over-rode the German States. Russia 
 devoured Poland and subdued Hungary. Yet 
 the uplift of the peoples was insured. In the 
 last thirty years all Europe has become consti- 
 tutional. Prussia has an authority above Bis- 
 marck and above William II. Austria, stag- 
 gering from Magenta and Solferino, pur- 
 chased loyalty by a constitution. The repub- 
 lic of Sardinia and the battle of Sadowa gave 
 Italy unity and liberty. Spain dismissed her 
 queen and seated the new king on a constitu- 
 tion. France sits a free maiden, rejoicing in 
 her beauty and liberty, and Great Britain — ■ 
 I like to say Great Britain — has purged her 
 governments from prerogatives offensive to 
 the people. Civil and religious liberty walk 
 over Europe as if they owned every inch of it. 
 The cells of the Inquisition are sealed, and 
 
 28 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 Leo XIII, relieved of temporal power, with 
 a princely salary from the Italian govern- 
 ment, poses on the steps of St. Peter's as a 
 prisoner. 
 
 In one short lifetime men have sprung 
 from being the toy for the amusement of 
 princes, and tools for the use of kings, to the 
 front rank of power. The common man 
 plows his field and plays with his babe, not 
 because the king or president graciously per- 
 mits him to do so, but because that is his own 
 wish, because he has a mind to. And the king 
 or president sits on his throne or chair of state, 
 not because of any fiction of a Divine right, 
 but because the common man wants him to 
 sit there, because the common man thinks such 
 a scheme best for the present times. 
 
 We have leaped, in this one century, from 
 a race of princes, on the one hand, and, on 
 the other, materials for the use of govern- 
 ments — food for powder — to the Brotherhood 
 of Man. All the great industries grow in all 
 congenial soils. Every civilization borrows 
 from every other. Primarily we receive our 
 calico printing from India, our silk and glass 
 from Italy, our paper and cotton printing and 
 some silk-weaving from France, our potteries 
 and cloth-dyeing and windmills from the 
 
 29 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Dutch, our linen-weaving from Tuscany, and 
 our ship-building from the Genoese and the 
 Danes, with now and then a monitor thrown 
 in at a critical moment. We receive our pride 
 and impudence, and pluck and patrimony, 
 and our swing of conquest, from Mother Eng- 
 land. We pay them all back in wheat, and 
 beef, and pork, and gold, and globe-trotters, 
 and sturdy love of liberty, and generous defi- 
 nitions of our rights, and manly courage to 
 defend them. 
 
 We have leaped forward into most mar- 
 velous, almost millennial times. We now 
 have rich and rare nutriments for our bodies, 
 remedies and nursing for our diseases, sym- 
 pathies and fellowships for our sorrows, safe 
 and enjoyable gatherings for our sociabilities, 
 and for our citizens open doors and open 
 paths from the poor man's cabin to the pal- 
 aces of wealth and power, open seas and open 
 lands through every zone and under all stars. 
 
 For our minds we have such facts and 
 feats as beckoned to scholars never before. 
 We send the living voice to our friends a 
 thousand miles as easily as our mother's voice 
 spanned the nursery of childhood. We speak 
 round the globe, and catch the click and clat- 
 ter of the copper hoofs of the returning light- 
 
 30 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 ning, before our breath that uttered the word 
 has faded on the frosty air. More than this, 
 we now call back the voices of the dead and 
 hear from our cunning machine the same ac- 
 cents that charmed us before the loved bodies 
 crumbled back to dust. We have stretched 
 our measuring-tape along the diameter of the 
 known universe so far that it would take our 
 fastest express train, running a mile a minute, 
 twenty-four hours a day, without stopping or 
 resting, on and on, one hundred and fifty 
 trillions of centuries, to pass the length of that 
 tape-line. We sweep round after yonder 
 planets in their wide orbits, with such careful 
 and certain step that we can tell, centuries in 
 advance, the time of the crossing a given line 
 within the twentieth part of a second. We 
 can measure distances down to the millionth 
 of an inch, and with the spectroscope catch 
 and analyze the materials that melted on dis- 
 tant stars thirty thousand years ago. We can 
 almost smell the steaks the demi-gods cooked 
 in those distant spheres three hundred cen- 
 turies since. 
 
 It is impossible to look from the poverty, 
 want, narrowness, coarseness, slowness, bru- 
 tality, of the first quarter of this last century, 
 to the light, and speed, and swift mails, and 
 
 31 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 cheap postage, and sulphur matches, and ele- 
 vators, and multiplied newspapers, and tele- 
 graphs, and telephones, and steam presses, 
 and ocean greyhounds, and vast Bible socie- 
 ties, and unbounded missionary societies, and 
 countless organized charities, and common 
 schools, and uncommon colleges, and most 
 uncommon universities, and vast fortunes, and 
 great armies of millionaires, and unprece- 
 dented comforts for the common people, and 
 unexampled luxuries for the rich; it is im- 
 possible to sweep up this uplift of this century 
 and not feel that we are being propelled up 
 and out into the twentieth century with agen- 
 cies, and appliances, and forces, and opportu- 
 nities, and responsibilities, such as never en- 
 vironed the race before. Running down the 
 line of these accumulating,"^ accelerating 
 forces of this century, on to the spring-board 
 of the present achievements, it is most diffi- 
 cult to tell to what point we will leap in the 
 twentieth century, to forecast what the twen- 
 tieth century will bring forth. Geometrical 
 ratios are required for this problem. This 
 much must be evident, that the old methods 
 and plans can not be revived and continued. 
 The wooden frigate must go into dry-dock 
 and leave the seas open to steel cruisers. We 
 
 32 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 are in a new age, with new conditions and gi- 
 gantic energies. We must think, and plan, 
 and give, in keeping with our time. 
 
 There are Some Things that Must 
 Remain. 
 
 Some people fancy that in the pressure of 
 modern activity and of modified agencies, we 
 shall shed all the claims and means of the 
 gospel ; that the Old Testament with its deca- 
 logue, and the New Testament with its atone- 
 ment, must yield to the speed of this age, and 
 leave men to assimilate from the common 
 atmosphere whatever suits them — that a lit- 
 erary club or amusement circle will supersede 
 the regularity and sacrifices of the Church — 
 that a good-natured humanitarian socialism 
 that depends upon good digestion will meet 
 all the requirements of the coming time. But 
 in all this the calculations and conclusions 
 are confined only to a few appearances. It is 
 like sailing a ship on the foam from its own 
 prow. There must remain the great depth of 
 the living, restless, untamed sea, and the re- 
 sistless blows of the propeller. The foam is 
 an incident of the friction. Our speed must 
 not deceive us. It seems almost a mean thing 
 for these clubs to pilfer from the common 
 3 33 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 atmosphere the vitality and fragrance of the 
 gospel, use them under the protecting shield 
 of Christian obligation for selfish and rebel- 
 lious purposes through a whole lifetime by 
 the patient mercy of their authors, and then 
 flatly deny the debt. 
 
 Some Things Must Remain. 
 
 We may be sure of this, that as Nature 
 contains all that our bodies can require or 
 profit by in this life, provided we only have 
 the patience and skill to find and appropriate 
 it, so the gospel contains the supply of every 
 spiritual want, provided only we have the 
 patience to study and appropriate it. The 
 gospel itself, the Good News, Peace on Earth 
 and Good Will toward men, must abide as 
 long as there is a man needing Good Will 
 and the Peace of God. The human heart is 
 about the same in all ages, needing the same 
 cure for its deep malady, sin. Whatever else 
 fails, this foundation of all religions, the need 
 of a remedy for sin, will remain. Any system 
 of religion that omits or makes light of sin, 
 can not suit our case. The blind man scaling 
 the divide, following a dangerous trail, has 
 one supreme want, a guide. Flowers will not 
 satisfy him. Music is not enough. Invisible 
 
 34 
 
PROBLEAIS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 scenery of the rarest beauty will not suffice. 
 He must have a guide; without this nothing 
 avails. Flowers but deck his way to death ; 
 music only allures him to destruction; scenery 
 but mocks his helplessness; cost what it may, 
 he must have a guide. So humanity must 
 have some cure for sin. No system has helped 
 and long held humanity, without this. We 
 can count on this as permanent in spite of all 
 possible changes of methods and machinery. 
 We can also count upon the authority of 
 the Bible as the Book of God. Reduced to 
 the level of mere human productions, it will 
 lose its hold upon man and society. Phi- 
 losophy is only shifting sand. No scholar fol- 
 lows the dictum of any other. It is every man 
 for his own judgment. Then there would be 
 no standard, no authority, no supreme court 
 of final appeal. A religion without an 
 authoritative Word would be no better than 
 a religion without a God. Such is the consti- 
 tution of the human mind that it must find 
 some being towering above the level plane of 
 its finite capacities. And it must have the 
 dictum of such a Being to guide its wander- 
 ings in the untried beyond. The issues even 
 between the priest and the sexton, between the 
 philosopher and the porter, between the sci- 
 
 35 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 entist and his scullion, would be Irreconcil- 
 able in questions of destiny, were there no su- 
 preme authority above all, saying: "Thus 
 saith the Lord." While mortals journey over 
 the sea of probation, this divine Book will be 
 their chart. 
 
 This book has been much assailed. Every 
 weapon known to man has been used against 
 It. Persecution has kindled its fires on almost 
 every page. Everywhere through it you can 
 see where stakes have been driven and fagots 
 lighted. Bigotry has even broken the tablets 
 of the Decalogue for weapons with which to 
 wound it. For almost every verse some heroic 
 soul has dared to die. Every new science has 
 snapped at it. As the offspring of the blood- 
 hound, before Its eyes are open, may announce 
 Its advent Into the world by snapping at its 
 mother, and later, with open eyes follow her 
 in filial obedience, so a new science Is wont 
 to make known Its existence by snarling and 
 snapping at this Word; yet when Its eyes are 
 open and its vision is clarified, then It always 
 follows gladly and renders valuable and filial 
 service. 
 
 Go down to the harbor yonder. There is 
 the City of Peking, a stately ocean craft. Go 
 on board of her. She carries a respectable 
 
 36 
 
PROBLEMS OF THP: TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 little city, and embodies the practical knowl- 
 edge of a whole civilization. Her head is set 
 out for the Golden Gate. She means to pass 
 that, and pass the Great Sea, and go to the 
 docks of populous Asia. But down here at 
 the wharf, while she lingers in the quiet wa- 
 ters by the pier, a little barnacle, without 
 known use or comeliness, attaches to the Pe- 
 king and sticks fast. That is all it does, to 
 stick and hinder a little. The great steamer 
 pushes out through the Gate yonder, and 
 plows through the sea for days, till by and by 
 she comes up to the dock in Hong Kong, with 
 her great cargo of wealth and life. She has 
 borne the products of a great civilization to 
 the shores of heathenism. She has trans- 
 ported the teachers of the living God into the 
 bosom of paganism. She has done something. 
 She has a right to unfurl a Christian flag 
 above her decks. But there, too, under the 
 water, in the filth by a heathen dock, is the 
 barnacle, and it says: "See me. I have navi- 
 gated the great sea — crossed the great Pacific. 
 All this talk about the Peking and its power 
 is vain boasting." Here is this stately old 
 Book of God, freighted with life and immor- 
 tality, navigating the sea of the centuries, car- 
 rying peaceful men, gentle w^omen, happy 
 
 37 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 children, all that is dear to the race. She 
 makes safe landing on our shores, and dis- 
 charges into our bosoms the peace and joys 
 of this life and the hopes and glory of the life 
 to come. Surely she has a right to float the 
 radiant banner of King Immanuel. But down 
 there, fast to her keel, hindering her speed 
 and trying to scuttle her, is the poor skeptic, 
 saying: "See me. I have made this great 
 voyage. The Bible has not done more." 
 Brothers, be not deceived. This old Book, 
 with divine authority, will remain. About 
 once in a generation thoughtful men go down 
 and knock ofif the barnacles, and find that she 
 is always seaworthy and able to sail swifter 
 than ever. With God's cure for sin, and 
 with divine authority in the Book of God, 
 we can sail over any sea and into any storm, 
 without the slightest peril or fear. Narrower 
 creeds may be changed for wider ones, slower 
 methods for swifter ones, the tithing of mint 
 and anise and cummin may be concealed by 
 the weightier matters of the law, justice, and 
 mercy; yet we shall take up the work before 
 us with larger success than in the past. We 
 can take up the twentieth century with the 
 full assurance of faith. 
 
 38 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 Many Problems. 
 
 It is impossible to stand here this day with 
 the accumulated forces of the past about us, 
 and not see much that is demanded of us. 
 We are confronted by a multitude of prob- 
 lems. They stand before us with grim faces 
 and knotted features. They block the way 
 into the future. They must be met and an- 
 swered. Look at them. Some of these prob- 
 lems we can only catalogue and briefly touch. 
 
 Labor and Capital. 
 
 The intense and ever waxing contest be- 
 tween labor and capital towers above us. 
 With its swinging weapons it casts shadowy 
 interrogation marks upon the sky which 
 make fair-minded men meditate. We cry 
 out, ''Commune!" and conjure up the cruel 
 and brutal scenes in Paris from the days of 
 Robespierre to the fall of Louis Napoleon. 
 We repeat the misnomer of the Russian 
 authorities, "Nihilist!" and find ourselves 
 bracing in our minds against a mob of ma- 
 niacs who have declared war against order, 
 and law, and religion, and morals, and all the 
 established rights of men. Clothing our fears 
 in these fearful uniforms, we resort to the 
 
 39 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 means that insure only failure; viz., deceiving 
 ourselves and multiplying our enemies. 
 Stripped of all these opprobious epithets, and 
 calmly clothed upon with the facts, the strife 
 between labor and capital is a real strife, 
 with real rights and forces on both sides. 
 
 Here is a great multitude of fairly edu- 
 cated men, well read in their several depart- 
 ments of industry, engaged in enterprises too 
 vast for a single hand. They are caught up 
 by that immense machine called a corpora- 
 tion. They are pushed back to do some par- 
 ticular part of the work. They find them- 
 selves polishing a pin-head, or threading a 
 screw, or balancing a wheel, or cutting a cog; 
 that is all. All put together, the work of all 
 secures a complete result. That result is not 
 theirs. It belongs to some one else; to the 
 corporation; to the man controlling the cor- 
 poration. Their w^ages are small, enough to 
 keep life and furnish a few cheap papers that 
 discuss their wrongs. They do not see why 
 they should work ten hours, live on coarse 
 fare, wear rough clothing, have no vacation 
 for themselves, no fair chance for their chil- 
 dren, no adornments for their homes, no car- 
 riages for their families, no outlook of little 
 journeys; have nothing but drudgery and nar- 
 
 40 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 rowness, and almost want. They have as 
 much brain, themselves being judges, and as 
 much manhood, and as high honor, and as 
 much domestic loyalty, as have the men who, 
 by some turn of fortune, secure all the great 
 salaries, all the multiplied comforts, and all 
 the leisure. These men, in their one-sided 
 way, look thus at life, and they must ask, Why? 
 They must wonder if it must always be so 
 with them and with their children. Wonder- 
 ing, they think. Thinking, they talk. Talk- 
 ing, they become excited and decided, and we 
 confront the uprising of Labor demanding in 
 some awakened way, yet demanding a fair 
 chance, a new divide. No matter that a di- 
 vide would only aggravate their need in a few 
 weeks. No matter that all strikes always 
 hurt the strikers. There they stand, filling the 
 highway into the future. There is no going 
 round them. There is no cutting a canal back 
 of this Vicksburg with some labor-saving ma- 
 chine. There they stand. It is not possible 
 to legislate them out of existence without first 
 removing their ground of complaint, if they 
 have any. You might as well legislate on the 
 thermometer. There they are, and we must 
 in some way let the light into their darkness. 
 There is room enough on the earth for all 
 41 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 of us, with proper surveys. But if one now 
 has property larger in value than four States, 
 and another owns the equivalent of three 
 more, and then a few hundred seize upon a 
 large per cent of w^hat is left, that survey does 
 not leave room enough for the rest of the 
 people. Crowded on the remnant of the 
 island they are sure to crowd somebody. 
 Then the few must have help to keep what 
 they have. The republic can not help them. 
 For a government of the people and by the 
 people must be for the people, not against the 
 people. Then the few must yield or call for 
 the 7nan on horseback. Somebody must solve 
 this great problem. 
 
 Possible Solution. 
 
 The solution of such a problem can not 
 be found on the surface or in distant regions. 
 It must be found in the elements themselves. 
 It must come from the parties interested. 
 This means thoughtfulness and careful broth- 
 erly consideration of all the interests involved. 
 The method of settlement adopted by the 
 Iron Molders' Union and the Stove Manufac- 
 turers' Protective Society (or some name like 
 this) approximates success. It centers about 
 the principle of arbitration without an outside 
 
 42 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 arbitrator. Experience has demonstrated that 
 the middleman, the arbitrator, can not avoid 
 the gravitation that comes from large num- 
 bers in a community where votes settle public 
 questions. This element of weakness is elimi- 
 nated by referring differences to a commission 
 of five from each interested party and keeping 
 them together till they agree. Contact and 
 personal acquaintance lead to fuller consider- 
 ation of all the interests involved. So far, 
 success has crowned these conferences. It 
 catches inspiration from the brotherly side — 
 the heavenly side. 
 
 I can see but one direction in which to look 
 for a solution. That is where the root of the 
 evil lies; viz., in finding a true standard of 
 values. The remedy must reach the seat of 
 the disease. The spirit of that kingdom 
 which is not of this world, set at liberty in 
 the bosoms of men, will find the brothers' way 
 through it. Nothing less will. The outcome 
 of the lives of Dives and Lazarus, carefully 
 studied, will close this yawning chasm here, 
 and close ''the great gulf fixed" on the other 
 side. Let Capital lay up treasures in heaven, 
 and make for itself friends of the mammon of 
 unrighteousness, and let Labor seek the con- 
 tentment that, with godliness, is great gain; 
 
 43 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 seek that divine charity, that divine love, that 
 seeketh not her own. Capital and Labor must 
 secure a Sabbath for rest and spiritual 
 growth, must give the gospel a fair chance; 
 then six days will be worth more than seven. 
 The sense of eternal obligation will make 
 men free, and capital safe. But who can 
 bring us to this wisdom? It seems too high 
 for us. Hear me, O ye worldly, genial, fairly 
 liberal men ; ye self-complacent men, hear 
 me! The gospel of the Son of God, given a 
 fair chance, will solve this problem. Nothing 
 else can. In forgetting God's claims and 
 alienating Christianity, you drive out the only 
 efficient police. Nobody but God can protect 
 from assassination, and nobody but God can 
 make both life and property safe. Without 
 God we are utterly hopeless in the presence 
 of this problem that must be solved. In Rus- 
 kin's figure we find our helplessness and God's 
 power. I take up a handful of slime. There 
 is nothing I can make of it except filth, which 
 I fain would wash from my hand. It con- 
 tains clay, sand, soot, and water, but all I 
 can make of them is slime. Not so with God. 
 He touches them. Behold the transforma- 
 tion! The clay is pressed into its closest com- 
 pass, its particles brought together become a 
 
 44 
 
PROELE^VIS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 sapphire; the sand turns over an opal; the 
 soot sparkles in all the beauty and power of 
 the diamond, and the moisture becomes a 
 dew-drop. I can make nothing of these but 
 loathsome slime. God has only to touch 
 them, and we have jewels fit to adorn the 
 brow of a royal bride. So it is with these 
 confused elements making up the conflict be- 
 tween capital and labor. The best I can do 
 with them is to make that fearful thing w^hich 
 we call "a strike." But God needs only to 
 breathe upon them, and see, what miracles of 
 power and grace! Each member and element 
 of society finds its rightful place, and together 
 they make up a royal crown worthy of the 
 Redeemer's brow. Give the gospel a fair 
 chance, and it will settle all these great social 
 problems. 
 
 Childhood. 
 
 Another problem standing in the door of 
 the twentieth century is Childhood. It is full 
 of charms and loveliness. But it is also full 
 of interrogation points. Why is it flung into 
 existence among the Hostiles, as if it were 
 sent here only to be scalped? Is it only a 
 tatter to rot in the gutter? Has it not a right 
 to at least a fair start? Is it an enemy that it 
 
 45 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 must be attacked with whole packs of dis- 
 eases, even before it arrives here? If it comes 
 to the service of the State and into the bosom 
 of the Church, born into a Kingdom of relief, 
 no choice of the door by which it shall enter, 
 is not some one under obligations to see that it 
 is not enslaved before it breathes? The 
 Church, the Sunday-school, the Common 
 School, the Kindergarten, do much for it. 
 But they come too late to do the best for child- 
 hood. The twentieth century will develop a 
 perfect manhood by better care for childhood, 
 and by sweetening and purifying the springs 
 of life. The wisdom and care that makes the 
 horses of California the pride of the nation, 
 can make the Sons and Daughters of the 
 Golden West and of the great North Ameri- 
 can Republic the pride and glory of mankind. 
 
 Care of the Bodies of Men. 
 
 Another problem at the door of the twen- 
 tieth century is care for the bodies of men. 
 This is pre-eminently a Protestant Problem. 
 The demand of the age in education is for 
 applied science. The institutions that meet 
 this demand have the right of way. So in 
 religion and sociology there is a demand for 
 applied theology. That system of faith that 
 
 46 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 meets this demand the best will have the right 
 of way. With cities full of unfed, unwashed, 
 unemployed, untaught Americans, there must 
 be less struggling about the infinitely little 
 and the infinitely remote, and more attention 
 to the weightier matters of a chance — not a 
 fair chance — but a chance for this life, and 
 the life to come. The world cares more for 
 what we live than for what we profess. The 
 Mayor of Nagoya, the second or third city 
 of Japan, a solid old heathen, a man of sub- 
 stantial character, who had been mayor for 
 thirteen years, called the ''Grant of Japan" — 
 this man said to me: "I have watched your 
 people, your converts, and if all my people 
 were Christians I would have little to do as 
 mayor — my work would be light." 
 
 We have in our midst a strong Church, 
 with little to commend her in her false and 
 foolish dogmas, in constant antagonism to the 
 educated mind of the age and in mortal com- 
 bat with our free institutions, the old and 
 sworn enemy of liberty, and handicapped 
 with the worst, most cruel, and most bloody 
 history known among men, a Church that has 
 blighted every people she has touched, robbed 
 and ruined every country she has mastered, 
 dwarfed and deformed every race she has 
 
 47 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 taught; yet in spite of her bigotry, and blas- 
 phemy, and hostility to liberty, and bloody 
 history, and boast that she never changes, by 
 the power there is in her apparent works of 
 charity, her care for children, and for the sick, 
 she is tolerated in this free land, and aspires 
 to dominion over the Republic. 
 
 Protestantism must learn wisdom from 
 her; and, remembering that Jesus went into 
 soul-saving through body-saving, she must 
 multiply her agencies for the care of the sick, 
 for the relief of the poor, for the employment 
 of the unemployed, for the care of the or- 
 phans, so there shall be no legitimate want un- 
 met by the Christian Church. Our Protes- 
 tantism of the twentieth century must create 
 these material and merciful agencies, and fill 
 them with sisters and deaconesses, till all men 
 shall see the faith of the New Testament shin- 
 ing in every open door of want. 
 
 Cities. 
 
 Foremost stands the Problem of the Sal- 
 vation of Our Cities. This is the great prac- 
 tical problem which the twentieth century 
 must solve. It is vast. It is complex. It is 
 vital. It is fundamental. It is strategical. 
 It is ubiquitous. It is at hand. Our fathers 
 
 48 
 
PROBLExMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 never confronted it. It did not exist in their 
 day. They were here a century ago to tame 
 a wilderness, not to govern cities. They 
 sought fortunes and power in the country, not 
 in the city. The dominant characters were 
 country gentlemen, not city millionaires. The 
 men eminent for evil were highwaymen, not 
 "slummers." Washington surrendered New 
 York to the British, but he held the country, 
 and saved the cause. Then only one in thirty 
 of our population lived in cities and large 
 towns of eight thousand and upwards, and 
 there were only six of those centers, even as 
 late as 1800. That thirtieth man could be 
 captured or shot, and leave the country free 
 and self-reliant. To-day things are changed. 
 The country has moved into the city. It has 
 been a steady migration, steady gravitation 
 toward centers. Now more than one-fourth 
 of all our people live in cities, and we have 
 four hundred and thirty-seven of these nerve 
 centers, ganglions of peril. The population 
 has increased twenty-fold. But these storm- 
 centers have multiplied seventy-two-fold. 
 The great German statesman Bismarck has 
 described cities as ''ulcers, cancers on the body 
 politic." He made some reputation by rec- 
 ommending that they be disbanded and scat- 
 4 49 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 tered. This was radical; yet the perils are 
 imminent. 
 
 Cities are the forts, strategical strong- 
 holds. Whoever gets in holds the future. 
 They are the objective point to which the 
 great invading army, the army of invasion 
 and occupation, is marching. These foreign 
 forces are marching into these citadels every 
 hour in the day and night, and every day in 
 the year. Since we came from Appomattox, 
 three times as great an army as all the armies 
 of the South have filed in and taken posses- 
 sion; more than five times as many as all the 
 hordes of Goths and Vandals that over-ran 
 and trampled down Rome. They have come 
 with no idea of self-government, no practice 
 in free institutions, no habit of self-control. 
 They bring all the peculiarities and disabili- 
 ties that uncounted generations of ignorance 
 and oppression could engender. They form 
 political muck on which grow large crops of 
 demagogism. They are social swamps ex- 
 haling miasma, generating fevers, distempers, 
 plagues, and pestilences. 
 
 See what our cities are! You can hardly 
 walk a single block on Market Street at cer- 
 tain hours without walking through the capi- 
 tals of all the great nations. You can hear the 
 
 50 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 babble or brogue of many languages. While 
 only one-third of our entire population is 
 foreign by birth or parentage, the proportion 
 in our cities is much greater. Cincinnati has 
 sixty-two per cent of her population foreign, 
 by birth or parentage. Boston, great, patri- 
 otic, revolutionary, historical Boston, has 
 sixty-three; Cleveland has sixty-nine; New 
 York, great cosmopolitan New York, has 
 eighty-eight per cent; and Chicago, young, 
 aggressive. Western Chicago, has ninety-one 
 per cent; and to judge by the gibberings and 
 brogues of the street, San Francisco must have 
 two hundred per cent. Argument, in the 
 presence of these figures, is unnecessary. 
 
 There was in 1880 one evangelical Church 
 to every five hundred and sixteen of the popu- 
 lation of the United States. But in these 
 great centers of life the Church accommoda- 
 tion is much less. In Boston it is one to six- 
 teen hundred; in Chicago, one to two thou- 
 sand and eighty-one ; in New York, one to two 
 thousand four hundred and sixty-eight; in 
 St. Louis, one to two thousand eight hundred. 
 While the population in the United States in- 
 creased in ten years thirty per cent, criminals 
 increased eighty-two per cent. The forces are 
 liberated that will largely multiply this in- 
 
 51 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 crease. In the great section east of the Mis- 
 sissippi there was, in 1880, one saloon to every 
 four hundred and thirty-eight of the popula- 
 tion; in Boston, one to three hundred and 
 twenty-nine; in Cleveland, one to one hun- 
 dred and ninety-two; in Chicago, one to one 
 hundred and seventy-one; in Cincinnati, one 
 to one hundred and twenty-four; in San Fran- 
 cisco, one to less than one hundred. 
 
 It is impossible for a thoughtful man to 
 contemplate these prodigious figures and not 
 see that these cities present the problem of the 
 destiny of the Republic, and of our civiliza- 
 tion. These cities are the passes between the 
 present and the future. These great, undi- 
 gested, un-Americanized multitudes, pressed 
 with evil habits, disqualified with alien preju- 
 dices, burdened with alcoholism, herded and 
 driven with Bossism and armed with ballots, 
 and largely directed by the old man on the 
 banks of the Tiber, form a double peril to our 
 institutions; first a thunderbolt from heaven 
 that shatters the altars of religion, and, sec- 
 ond, an earthquake from beneath, upheaving 
 the foundations of patriotism itself. 
 
 52 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 These Cities are Dictators. 
 
 Whatever these cities dictate, the country 
 must accept. As go the great cities, so goes 
 the State and so goes the Nation. Cities with- 
 out religion mean States without a Sabbath, 
 and States without a Sabbath mean a nation 
 without a God. History reveals but one exit, 
 one road and gate for such a people, and that 
 is the broad road with the wide gate that leads 
 to destruction. When we see a man falling 
 from the roof of a ten-story building toward 
 the pavement, we instinctively and truthfully 
 cry out : "O, he is killed ! He is a dead man !" 
 and that long before he strikes the pavement. 
 We know that the forces are liberated which 
 will kill him, unless some power intervenes 
 in his behalf. So when we look at the evil 
 forces accumulated in these great and rapidly 
 growing cities, we know that destruction is 
 only a question of time, unless some almighty 
 remedial agency intervenes. The great, the 
 all-important problem which we want to 
 solve is, ^^How shall we save these cities F'^ 
 Brothers, are we comprehending our task? 
 Are we accurately measuring its difficulties? 
 Are we equal to the hour of our time? Are 
 we going up to the judgment-seat of Al- 
 
 53 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 mighty God with a report that we stood in 
 our places like men, and answered all the ob- 
 ligations that we met in life? For one, I 
 tremble when I step into the shadow of that 
 Throne. 
 
 The Doomed. 
 
 There is a great and increasing multitude 
 in these cities, and in this city, and in every 
 great city, that are wedged away from past 
 restraints, fenced out of present opportunities 
 for life, shut up to companionship and courses 
 that have no light from above, that are guided 
 only by glaring bull's eyes in the sidewalk be- 
 neath their feet. Their steps take hold on 
 hell. There are young but well-matured 
 Darkest Americas in our great cities, as cer- 
 tainly as there is a Darkest England in Lon- 
 don. There are men who, by bad inheritance, 
 or bad management, or bad purpose, are 
 starved into the fellowship of thieves, and 
 w^omen, who, by forces which they can not 
 now mend, are shut down to the companion- 
 ship and practices of prostitutes. They 
 darken and degrade every great city. We do 
 not count them in as any part of the problem, 
 except so far as the police and the undertaker 
 may take them out of our calculations. But 
 
 54 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 that treatment does not meet the case. True, 
 there is little hope for them. They may prop- 
 erly be called the doomed and despairing 
 class. Yet we can not rid ourselves of them 
 by so simple a classification and so final a 
 treatment. The cobra crawling among your 
 children is not neglected till age or his own 
 venom removes him. A mad dog loose in 
 the street is not passed with the consoling 
 remark that he is past cure, and soon will 
 exhaust himself. These figures are not over- 
 statements. Hardly a week passes without 
 some horror that would shock an inexperi- 
 enced community. This week will hardly 
 pass without the cry of murder on the startled 
 air. Who will the victim be? We are in this 
 vast accumulation of human wreckage. 
 Ought we not to save some of it? Are 
 we saving it? Are we reducing its awful 
 bulk? 
 
 There are many people in our cities — in 
 our city — whose greatest comforts are found 
 in prisons. Some of them would gladly give 
 honest work if they knew how to find it, and 
 how to do it. It seems too bad that a high 
 Christian civilization can not treat honest in- 
 dustry as well as it treats thievery and prosti- 
 tution. It is one shame of heathenism that it 
 
 55 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 treats dogs with cruel neglect. It is the 
 shame of Christendom that we treat men with 
 cruel neglect. Booth says a horse has food 
 and shelter, and a chance to earn both. Yet 
 there are many people in every great city who 
 would be happy to have the same blessings. 
 These doomed classes must come into our cal- 
 culations, and we can not save these cities till 
 we can reach them. 
 
 It is in this city problem that I see the 
 large place for the activities of this Young 
 Men's Christian Association. The cities give 
 me faith in the continued existence of this as- 
 sociation. The great reformatory and saving 
 work in the cities is to be done by the 
 churches. They must take the children of 
 Christian homes and keep them in the way. 
 They must capture the unsaved families that 
 can be found by hunting. The Churches 
 make up the great army with the heavy artil- 
 lery and constant supplies. But there is a host 
 of young men who live on too narrow a mar- 
 gin of resources, and too narrow a margin of 
 morals, to be followed by the army. They 
 must have work and society before they can 
 digest the simplest sermon. They must re- 
 ceive their theology of a brotherly hand be- 
 fore they can receive the theology of the pul- 
 
 56 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 pits. This work can be well done by the 
 Young Men's Christian Association. 
 
 Single churches are not strong enough to 
 grapple with this work. They are doing a 
 vastly more important work than curing 
 drunkards and outcasts. They are keeping 
 the substantial part of the community from 
 becoming such. They are the great physi- 
 cians who keep men from rheumatism and 
 fever and diphtheria, by keeping them warm 
 and dry, housed and clothed, keeping them 
 out of infected malarious air. The Churches 
 send out the men and the supplies for the ad- 
 vancing work. They are doing the greatest 
 work in the world. 
 
 The Lamb's Bride. 
 
 The Church is the Lamb's Bride. Some 
 people think she is not of much dignity of 
 character. They seem to think they can do 
 just as well without her. Some people think 
 they can insult her and treat her as if she were 
 a common street woman. They can not thus 
 treat her without perilous sin. She is the 
 Lamb's Bride. He cherishes her above every- 
 thing else. He is proud of her. He will do 
 everything for her. You remember how you 
 felt toward your bride. You looked at her 
 
 57 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 with joyous, loving eyes. You were glad of 
 opportunities to show your love. She seemed 
 so brave, so heroic, to you. She had given 
 herself to you — had left home, parents, com- 
 panions, all, for you. She committed all her 
 future to your keeping. She dropped her 
 own name and took yours. She weighed the 
 world against you and found it as nothing, 
 and took you and your destiny. How proud 
 you were of her! Woe betide the man that 
 would harm her! She was your bride. The 
 Church is the Lamb's Bride. The great place 
 and the great work in the world are hers. 
 While God is God, and truth is truth, the 
 Church will be like the apple of the eye to 
 God. 
 
 Let no man imagine that any mere organi- 
 zation, mere society, mere association, created 
 by mere human power, and fashioned by mere 
 human skill, with no sacraments, no divine 
 ordinances, no divine authority, can come in 
 and usurp the place of the Church. But the 
 Young Men's Christian Association can do 
 some very important work in the saving of the 
 cities. It can go out as a picket line and de- 
 velop the position and strength of the enemy. 
 It can scour the woods and bring in the gueril- 
 las. It can reach the unhomed multitudes 
 
 58 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 who need help and sympathy and direction. 
 It is a picket line, a skirmish line. It is not 
 intended for more. In one of the consider- 
 able battles of the war, one of the regiments 
 from Vermont was sent forward as a line of 
 skirmishers. They picked their way through 
 a piece of woods and encountered the enemy. 
 They closed with him. With shouts and cat- 
 calls and all manner of hooting, they drove 
 the enemy from his works and finished the 
 work of the day. The general in command 
 praised their courage, but reprimanded their 
 disobedience of orders. There may be in- 
 stances in which this association may overleap 
 its character as a picket line, and think that 
 it is an army, and do the work of an army. 
 But in every such case they show their cour- 
 age at the expense of their obedience. This 
 is the picket line, and behind it are the solid 
 squares of the Church of the Living God, dis- 
 ciplined in the victories of eighteen centuries. 
 This picket line may sometimes be driven in, 
 but it can never be driven from the field. 
 
 While cities continue to attract and con- 
 sume the best products of the country, from 
 beeves to men, while these centers of power, 
 like an engulfing maelstrom, carry down men 
 and women by the thousand, so long there 
 
 59 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 will be large room for this society, and so long 
 as it does a genuine work, so long God will 
 raise it up friends to help it to success. 
 
 Divine Authority. 
 
 As we stand here girding ourselves for the 
 work of the twentieth century, we can not 
 overlook the Problems of Authority in Re- 
 ligion, Schools, and colleges, and libraries, 
 and newspapers, and periodicals, and lecture 
 platforms, and political constitutions, and ab- 
 solute liberty, have thrust the world forward 
 into the fiercest and freest conflict of ideas 
 and opinions that has ever marked any age. 
 The last great battle seems already ordered. 
 Armageddon is located. It is in the Ameri- 
 can skull. Helmets, venerable by antiquity, 
 are cleft like paper caps. Time now sanctifies 
 no wrongs. Both parties have thrown away 
 their scabbards, and are set for strife to the 
 finish. Relics, charms, pretended miracles of 
 saints, utterances of councils, the authority of 
 organizations, are all useless in the field of 
 evidence. If they ever seemed to have any 
 evidential value, that time is past. This 
 thoughtful and practical age demands evi- 
 dence suited to its habit. 
 
 60 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 This age is either practical in business or 
 expert in science. The first class, the great 
 class, the steady common-sense class, making 
 up the overwhelming majority of our times, 
 demands practical proofs of the claims of 
 Christianity. They demand the fruit. Does 
 it do what it promises? Christ is set forward 
 as the Great Physician. Where are the vic- 
 tims of sin Christ has cured? These business 
 men know that Christianity is not a theorem 
 to be demonstrated, but a fact to rest on testi- 
 mony. Jesus is a fact, if He is anything. 
 Pardon is a fact. Salvation is a fact. What 
 is the proof? Where are the witnesses? The 
 world has a right to ask these questions. We 
 have a right to answer. 
 
 Welcome the Strife. 
 
 For one, we welcome the inquiry. If we 
 can not give a reason for the hope within us, 
 we must give up this hope. Christianity is 
 not a cunningly devised fable to be thrust 
 upon us by authority. If it will not stand 
 investigation, let it go to the wall. If you 
 have any dynamite that can shatter the Rock 
 of Ages, I beseech you strike it off. If you 
 have any telescope that can dissolve the Star 
 of Bethlehem, we pray you bring it forward. 
 
 61 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 We are in for the future. We can not let go. 
 We must go to sea for eternity. If Chris- 
 tianity is only an old raft invented by priests 
 as a ferry that simply collects toll and takes 
 us nowhere, then I want it torn to pieces. You 
 can do nothing against the truth. All I want 
 is truth. 
 
 Witnesses. 
 
 The world has a right to ask for the wit- 
 nesses. The gospel means good news. We 
 are to tell it. ^'This is a faithful saying, and 
 woi*thy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners." Now, 
 this is such a statement that, if it be true, it 
 does not matter whatever else is false, and if 
 it be false it does not matter whatever else is 
 true. The Son of Man hath power on earth 
 to forgive sin. Where are the witnesses? 
 This rests on testimony. Every Christian be- 
 comes a witness, and the accumulated evi- 
 dence from the warm hearts of saved men 
 will melt its way into all hearts. 
 
 Lectureship on Evidences. 
 
 There is another class of opponents hang- 
 ing about our schools devoted to science, and 
 they want other evidence because they do not 
 
 62 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 hear the testimony of the witnesses. For these 
 we need to go into the field with additional 
 forces. There should be established in every 
 city a lectureship on Christian evidences. We 
 need some great guns to defend our Golden 
 Gate, but not many. A few will keep off the 
 pirates. So one lectureship in a city is enough 
 for this department of Christian work. The 
 pulpits can not do this to profit. Their hear- 
 ers believe. It seems to them useless to keep 
 the Savior and apostles forever on trial for 
 perjury. It seems better to send them about 
 doing good. But in a city there could be 
 found enough interested in this vital question 
 to justify one series a year, at some central 
 hall. These could stay up the hands of the 
 discouraged and keep many of the young 
 from being carried away into doubt and skep- 
 ticism. This course of lectures could be set 
 forth by this Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion. With this sling Goliath could be felled 
 to the earth. Then, with the sword of the 
 Spirit and the word of testimony his head 
 can be removed, and Israel can go forth re- 
 joicing, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, 
 and terrible as an army with banners. 
 
 63 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Individualism. 
 
 We are in a time of individualism. Na- 
 tions are no longer baptized in their kings. 
 The old centuries recognized no one but the 
 Monarch in the Empire, and the General in 
 the Army. There was no one else in the 
 world. Great nobles went regularly to see 
 Louis XIV dress and undress. It was the 
 only thing worth seeing in France. The ease 
 and comfort and wishes of the nobles were the 
 supreme law in the country. Orders were is- 
 sued forbidding the hoeing and weeding of 
 crops lest the young partridges should be 
 frightened. Fertilizers were modified by law 
 so as not to flavor the game. If my lady were 
 sick, peasants were made to beat the swamp 
 all night to prevent the frogs from croaking. 
 All this is gone. Now we read histories of 
 the people. The individual has come to the 
 front. We live in a manhood age. Who can 
 measure the responsibilities of such opportu- 
 nities as come to individuals in these times? 
 Who can measure what one man can do? In 
 1806 a Prussian boy, Johann Nikolaus von 
 Dreyse, nineteen years old, bred a blacksmith, 
 wandered over the field of Jena, just after the 
 battle. He frequently examined the locks of 
 
 64 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 the dead soldiers' guns, and finally said: ''My 
 countrymen have been slaughtered by Napo- 
 leon because they had inferior guns. I will 
 remedy this evil." He went to Paris, hired 
 to a Swiss gun-maker, Pauli, in Napoleon's 
 employ. One day Napoleon came to the 
 shop, and said to Pauli: "Make for yourself 
 a great fortune, and make for me a gun that 
 will load at the breach. With such a weapon 
 I can conquer the world." They went at the 
 task. Pauli produced a breach-loader, but it 
 was too complicated. Dreyse continued his 
 search for the weapon. By and by, years after 
 the Emperor slept under the willows at St. 
 Helena, he found his secret and carried it to 
 Prussia. Soon the Prussian army was armed 
 with it, and at Sadowa the needle-gun made 
 Prussia master of Austria, prepared the con- 
 solidated German Empire, gave Venetia to 
 Sardinia, and secured the Unity of Italy, and 
 avenged the slaughter at Jena. There may 
 be some lad wandering through the streets 
 of this city whom this society may anchor in 
 an industrious life, whose fortune of genius 
 shall turn the tide of battle for righteousness 
 in the hotly contested days of the twentieth 
 century. 
 
 65 
 
addresses on notable occasions 
 
 Use and Need of Money. 
 
 The question of saving these cities is re- 
 duced to one of dollars and cents. Give me 
 the great fortunes to use and I w^ill take the 
 contract to make this a Christian city in 
 twenty years. I will make the world a Chris- 
 tian world before the death of some children 
 now born. We have the light, we have the 
 Bible, we have the presses, we have the the- 
 ology, we have the experience, we have the 
 men and women. All we lack is the money. 
 That is coming. I begin to think God is get- 
 ting us ready for some great movement in this 
 land, and in all the earth. He seems to make 
 elaborate and far-reaching preparations for 
 great forward movements. He wanted a new 
 Church in the sixteenth century. He could 
 not endure the desolation and corruption of 
 the old Scarlet Church. So He made ready 
 for a new life. He whispers to a boy in 
 Metz, playing with his blocks, and he catches 
 an idea; he sees movable types, and we have 
 this thing which we call the press, this demi- 
 god above all governments, above all armies, 
 above all kings; Public Opinion. Yonder He 
 whispers to another man, and he catches the 
 inner soul of the magnetic needle. It was 
 
 66 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 not much to see that bit of steel point to the 
 North Pole, but it opened the bosom of all 
 the oceans. All ships left the shore and struck 
 boldly across the ocean. He sent His Spirit 
 to Columbus, wandering on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean, and he dreamed — and laid 
 down in the lap of Europe a new world. 
 Why all this? I will tell you. God was 
 making ready for the great German Monk, 
 with his new Evangel, that His idea might be 
 received by a new race of Bible readers, and 
 in a new world in which they might read and 
 be free. 
 
 In this nineteenth century we have had the 
 outcome of another of God's plans. He 
 awakened the idea of freedom in the mind of 
 an orthodox preacher and scholar in Massa- 
 chusetts, and combined it with the speculative 
 gifts of Massachusetts capitalists and with the 
 financial stress of the Federal Treasury in Jef- 
 ferson's care, and with the spirit of the South, 
 which wanted to sell the territory belonging 
 to Virginia, rather than the territory of 
 Maine, belonging to Massachusetts. Out of 
 this combination and the stubborn purpose of 
 the Massachusetts parson to have free soil or 
 none, came the ordinance of 1787, which con- 
 secrated the great Northwest to Freedom, and 
 
 67 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 pushed the line of the free States down to the 
 border of the tobacco and cotton States, by a 
 compact older than the Constitution, and so, 
 irrevocable. 
 
 The same great plan worked over all 
 Northern Europe till those hardy sons of 
 Protestant and heroic sires filled those regions 
 with unorganized forces that only awaited the 
 first tap of the war-drum. But this was not 
 all. In yonder Southland there was a great 
 black force of toil and economy that had sup- 
 ported the real South in the luxuries of home 
 for two centuries, and could easily support the 
 dominant race in the frugalities of camp-life 
 for two centuries more. This must be 
 matched. So, wonderfully, one man came 
 forward with a sewing machine, by which a 
 girl could clothe a regiment; another man 
 with a reaper and farm utensils, by which the 
 girls in the country could feed themselves and 
 their aged parents, and their brothers and 
 lovers at the front. Thus God made ready all 
 the necessary agencies for the great uplift of 
 Freedom in our lifetime. So it seems to me 
 that we are in a wonderful time; that God is 
 making ready for magnificent achievements. 
 When I look down the century now tarrying 
 for a decade, and see what has come to us — 
 
 68 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 free constitutions to all Europe; swift and se- 
 cure passage of all seas; flight over all conti- 
 nents; talking round all the world; general 
 diffusion of knowledge among the people; 
 steam presses that throw off printed pages at 
 the rate of thirty miles an hour; Scripture re- 
 duced to the wage-earning value of ten min- 
 utes of the mechanic's time; the multiplica- 
 tion of the tireless and faithful servants of 
 steel and steam, so that, as in Massachusetts, 
 each man, woman, and child has the service 
 of more than fifty men ; the miraculous ability 
 by machinery to multiply the loaves and fishes 
 till one-tenth of the population can feed and 
 clothe the other nine-tenths; thus making it 
 possible to relieve them for purposes of war 
 as in the past, or for the high purposes of God 
 — when I see the millions of members of all 
 Churches instructed in righteousness, and 
 able to tell the Good News, and that all the 
 doors of the world are open; when I see that 
 we have turned out by our school system mil- 
 lions of scholars better trained than the sages 
 of former generations, tempered in our Sun- 
 day-schools and inspired in our Churches; 
 and see the millions of heroic Christian 
 women coming forward as did the Carthagin- 
 ian women in the time of Hannibal, saying, 
 
 69 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 "Count on us for any service in any field," and 
 then see that by some chance wealth is multi- 
 plying as never before; that it is a poor town 
 that has not men of fortune, a poor city that 
 has no scores of millionaires; that single men 
 in this free land have made in a decade or a 
 generation fortunes larger than the Roman 
 emperors ever commanded; — when I look 
 over these marvelous signs, I can not free 
 myself from the conviction that God is mak- 
 ing ready for some vast forward movement 
 in His moral empire among men. 
 
 Already I catch glimpses of the banners 
 of the coming hosts. Great institutions are 
 being founded and great enterprises are being 
 put forward. They rise round us on every 
 side. There rises a home for the aged; yon- 
 der another. Yonder are the homes for home- 
 less children; and not far away rises that great 
 university that shall carry the name of its 
 author for twenty centuries, and make the 
 soil of California as classical as that of 
 Greece. Godly women of wealth in some of 
 our cities are taking charge of a number of 
 blocks in destitute or crowded sections, and 
 seeing that the gospel has a chance. Churches 
 and every sort of school to meet the needs of 
 the section are provided; scores of workers 
 
 70 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 are employed, in the name of Jesus, to bring 
 the light into these dark places, and great con- 
 gregations are now worshiping where, a lit- 
 tle while ago, sin had open dominion. It 
 must be, it seems to me, that this spirit will be 
 kindled in other bosoms. It may become con- 
 tagious, till great buildings for the use of such 
 societies will be multiplied, till all can have 
 an open chance for heaven. 
 
 All this seems great to me, but my faith 
 stretches a little farther. I see a few great 
 nations and new civilizations rising on the 
 bosom of the twentieth century. There is 
 great, stern Russia, looking into Europe 
 through St. Petersburg, the window created 
 by Peter the Great. Just behind her is the 
 vast empire of China, asking for the gospel; 
 and back of her, cowering in the darkness, is 
 the Dark Continent. While I look the ages 
 roll together at my feet, and I see the great 
 plan unfold before me. There are men of 
 fortune who shall seize upon these cities and 
 give them to the Son of God. There are boys 
 in America to-day, some of whom this associ- 
 ation will yet rescue, whose fortunes will 
 spread the agencies of the Church and the 
 light of the gospel over these great empires. 
 
 And I utter the conviction of my soul, — 
 71 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 before the end of the twentieth century all 
 the cities and all the kingdoms of the world 
 will be given to our God and His Christ. 
 For our God is marching on! 
 
 72 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 Delivered in the Wabash Avenue M. E. Church, Chicago, 
 January 30, 1870, and by special request re- 
 delivered in Farwell Hall, Sabbath 
 afternoon, February 6th. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your 
 heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon 
 your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 
 
 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of 
 them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou 
 walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when 
 thou risest up„ 
 
 That your days may be multiplied, and the days of 
 your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto 
 your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon 
 the earth. — Deut. xi, 1 8-2 1. 
 
 I AM here to-day to plead for the poor 
 man's child. I well remember how, in the 
 winters of my childhood, my father, because 
 he was too poor to buy shoes for me, used to 
 take me up in his arms and carry me to the 
 district school, where, warming and studying 
 by the fire the district furnished, I received 
 a start toward manhood. 
 
 That athlete in the Greek games yonder, 
 goes forth to meet his antagonist on the pub- 
 lic arena with every sign of caution and care. 
 Hope has stimulated his patient preparation. 
 
 75 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Honorable zeal for the repute of his native 
 village has crowded him into the lists as a 
 competitor. Now, in the presence of his foe, 
 in the very hour of destiny, his confidence is 
 concealed and he walked forth anxious for the 
 issue. Every muscle is hardened, every joint 
 is set, every fiber of his being is summoned 
 into service. His eye glistens, his nostrils di- 
 late, his lips close down, and his will is keyed 
 to its highest purpose. He is the picture of 
 resolution in extremity. If I could show you 
 my thought, you would see that I am that 
 athlete. He is but a shadow of the anxiety I 
 feel as I enter into this conflict. The struggle 
 for the life of our public schools is the con- 
 flict of all the ages. We are in the forefront 
 of the field. Every movement in this cam- 
 paign concerns mankind, and shall thrill with 
 the intensity of its interests the remotest island 
 and the last man. As a people, we are at 
 headquarters. Nothing transpires in the 
 world to which we are indifferent. The elec- 
 tion of some interior borough in England 
 transpires to-day. We count the votes in our 
 evening papers, and light our bonfires in a 
 thousand cities. A patriot in the Corps Le- 
 gislatif defies the National Guard, and de- 
 nounces the reticent emperor, and the tri- 
 
 76 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 color of France is u*\furled and carried at the 
 head of processions through our commercial 
 cities. Bismarck goes over to the people's 
 party, and secures the unity of Germany; and 
 all our hills and valleys echo the songs of the 
 Fatherland. A bountiful harvest finds its 
 way to the seaboard of China, and this conti- 
 nent feels the joyous thrill. We are related 
 by blood and marriage to all mankind, and 
 nothing is beyond our sympathies or our in- 
 terest; and nothing transpires here that does 
 not tell upon all peoples. The struggles of 
 this Republic are the struggles of the race, 
 and any question involving our liberties af- 
 fects the world. Now, bring upon this stage, 
 to which all eyes are turned, an enemy of vast 
 proportions, deep as the sea, subtle as sin, un- 
 scrupulous as the arch-fiend, malignant, 
 bloody and blood-thirsty, sleepless as a spirit 
 and persistent as death, and let him swear 
 eternal enmity to all our institutions, our pop- 
 ular education, our Holy Bible, our free press, 
 our free speech, our free thought, our free con- 
 science, our sciences, our gospel — in short, all 
 that distinguishes us among the nations of 
 the earth; put us down before such a foe, in 
 the very act of blasting America with the 
 blight and mildew of Italy, of blotting from 
 
 77 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 our heavens the Sun of Righteousness, of 
 smotherins in our bosoms the faith that works 
 by love, purifying the heart, of eclipsing in 
 our brain the light of activity; compel us to 
 contend for our faith, for our intelligence, for 
 our liberties, for our country, for our lives; 
 in short, for absolutely everything a freeman 
 prizes, even including his honor, and you 
 have this question as it presses upon my 
 thought to-day. Many of you do not see it 
 as thus comprehensive; some of you regard it 
 simply as a trifling question, concerning an 
 indiflferent matter. But I ask you to listen 
 patiently to me. It may grow on your 
 thought till you realize that the battle is ac- 
 tually commenced, for the forces are mar- 
 shaled; the vast legions are in motion; the 
 hour is come; the one war of all time is in 
 progress, and the common school is the point 
 of attack. Here we must take our final stand. 
 Here we must be crowned or martyred. If 
 we can not hold this fortress, we can not hold 
 the open country back of it without this fort- 
 ress. If we surrender this, we make our final 
 subjugation and extirpation only a question of 
 time. In these w^ords I have not overstated 
 by the smallest syllable my solemn convic- 
 tions. Let us advance to the consideration of 
 
 78 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 the facts in the case upon which this convic- 
 tion rests, praying always that He whose wis- 
 dom is incapable of mistake or surprise may 
 guide us into all truth. 
 
 I need not argue the importance of the 
 common school. It would be almost an insult 
 upon your intelligence. You understand that 
 popular government is not possible save in 
 the embrace of general intelligence. You 
 may mass a tribe under a chief, and drive 
 them along the warpath to vengeance, with- 
 out their being intelligent. You may found 
 a despotism upon the muscle of a nation, 
 while its brain sleeps. You may marshal an 
 army that shall stand, a living wall of flesh, 
 without a letter of the alphabet outside of the 
 commander's skull. But you can not main- 
 tain a free government without the general 
 diffusion of knowledge and the spread of in- 
 telligence. It is a question susceptible of 
 simple demonstration. A man, to govern 
 himself, must understand his needs and possi- 
 bilities. To see he must have eyes. In our 
 own land it was the fruitful source of our 
 Civil War, and is now the palliation demand- 
 ing charity that, under the shadow of the do- 
 mestic institution, a large per cent of the peo- 
 ple were unable to read. They were thus in 
 
 79 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the hands of their ambitious leaders the ready 
 tools of despotism. It is so everywhere. Just 
 in proportion as a people comes up in intelli- 
 gence, it comes up in power. The actual 
 power is with the people, and when they 
 think despotisms disappear and constitutions 
 come forward. The activity of the New Eng- 
 land brain, the migrating, ubiquitous Yankee 
 schoolmarm, coupled with her moral and re- 
 ligious strength, made freedom a necessity. 
 It is a simple fact of history, that in the war 
 for national independence Massachusetts fur- 
 nished more men than all the Southern States 
 combined, and it required the presence of 
 New England soldiers to keep down the tory- 
 ism of the South. Two elements in society 
 composed this state of things, the religious 
 thought of the Pilgrims, making their re- 
 ligion and themselves a protest against des- 
 potism; and then their intelligence, making 
 liberty the only state of repose. England is 
 another illustration of this principle. The 
 queen is a figure-head. The people are the 
 power. Year by year, as their intelligence 
 widens and deepens, the old limitations and 
 fetters give way. So that now England may 
 almost be called a republic with a permanent 
 senate and an hereditary president France 
 
 80 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 is no exception. Spread Paris over the em- 
 pire, and even the priesthood could not hold 
 the throne together a single day. But I need 
 not argue this point. We all do understand 
 that intelligence is a necessity to a free gov- 
 ernment. Other things may also be needed, 
 but this is a prime necessity. 
 
 The next question that arises is, Hoiv can 
 this intelligence be secured? History an- 
 swers, By the common school. The school re- 
 ports of the State of New York show that for 
 every child instructed in seminaries, acade- 
 mies and colleges, more than fifty are trained 
 in the common school. The great mass of the 
 people are unable to reach any other school. 
 Close the door of the common school, and 
 you doom our people to inevitable ignorance. 
 Only a small per cent of the people are 
 wealthy. The millions live from hand to 
 mouth. They depend upon their industry for 
 their bread. The day laborer, the mechanic, 
 the great body of the nation, where the power 
 actually slumbers, could not educate his chil- 
 dren but for the public school. These are our 
 hopes for general intelligence, and this is a 
 prerequisite to our freedom. Therefore our 
 common school must be defended at all haz- 
 ards. Let come what will, every lover of 
 6 81 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTAHLE OCCASIONS 
 
 liberty and friend of freedom must guard 
 with the sleepless eye of eternal vigilance this 
 palladium of our power, and strike, if need 
 be, with sword and fagot for its defense. 
 
 I wish now to consider the withdrawal of 
 the Bible from our Public Schools. As we 
 shall see, this means the destruction of the 
 whole public school system. Let me say here 
 that I make no reference to the President of 
 the Board of Education, who puts in his re- 
 port a recommendation for the withdrawal of 
 the Bible from the schools of Chicago. He 
 is nobody^ absolutely nobody, in this struggle. 
 Indeed no man is to be counted. The great 
 forces that come to the deadly embrace in this 
 question are the parties with whom we have 
 to do. The instruments, the tools, the cat's- 
 paws, are only the accidents of the hour, and 
 if the present president had not made that 
 suggestion, somebody else would. 'Tt must 
 needs be that offenses come, but woe unto 
 him by whom they come." The issue is upon 
 us. This problem must be solved. Let us 
 state some facts that indicate this. I am told 
 by a sharp politician who has canvassed the 
 question that the present Board of Education 
 are equally divided on this subject, ten fa- 
 voring the change, ten preferring the present 
 
 82 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 rule. But mark you, five of this Board ex- 
 pire this year. Their successors are to be 
 elected by the Common Council. What will 
 that Council do? Whom will they elect? 
 According to my best information they stand 
 — nineteen Roman Catholics, fourteen Protes- 
 tants, and seven infidels. This is not absolute, 
 but approximate. Another politician states 
 the number of Romanists at fifteen. The dis- 
 crepancy comes from the fact that the second 
 man counts as Romanists only those who are 
 actual members, while the first man added 
 those who associate with and always vote for 
 the Romanists. This does not change the is- 
 sue. We ask, then. Can there be any doubt 
 of the result? If there is, it must be dissipated 
 when we remember that some mind has been 
 at work preparing this combination of cir- 
 cumstances. It is not by accident that your 
 attention was drawn toward a side issue at 
 the last election and you were unwittingly led 
 to elect several Irish Catholics in strong 
 American and Protestant wards, where you 
 had it all your own way and could have 
 elected any good and honest men you might 
 have nominated. Supplant these by your true 
 representatives on this question and your ma- 
 jority is clear. This deep and far-reaching 
 
 83 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 plan has not been matured by accident nor in 
 vain. It has not been brought to this point 
 to be abandoned in the hour of triumph. No, 
 it will go on, in my judgment, to its consum- 
 mation unless the public sentiment shall be so 
 aroused as to make it too dangerous for these 
 public officers to tamper with our present sys- 
 tem. This brings us face to face with the 
 question of throwing the Bible out of our 
 public schools. The grounds on which the 
 act is defended are these: 
 
 /. That the State lias nothing to do with 
 religious education, 2. That the Bible is a 
 sectarian Book. J. That reading the Bible 
 in our public schools violates the rights of 
 conscience which are secured by the funda- 
 mental principle of our government, univer- 
 sal freedom. 
 
 These are the essential points. The ob- 
 jection of the inutility of the exercise is not 
 worth mentioning. To put the whole case, 
 then, in its strongest possible light, let us turn 
 it about. Let these aldermen elect their own 
 Board of Education. Let this Board appoint 
 their own teachers, make their own regula- 
 tions, as in San Francisco, where no book can 
 get into the schools without the consent of 
 the Romish Bishop. Let these ordain prayer 
 
 84 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 to the Virgin Mary, and the celebration of 
 mass as the opening exercises, then let us see 
 how we would like that, whether we would 
 not cry against it as an outrage. Of course, 
 we would cry out against it. But this putting 
 is fallacious. If the Bible was as sectarian 
 as the idolatrous worship of the Virgin or the 
 Romish mass, the case would be even. This is 
 the core of the fallacy, the assumption that the 
 Bible is sectarian. We shall come to this 
 point soon. These considerations have in- 
 duced some leading Protestants to favor the 
 removal of the Bible. Chiefest among these 
 are Greeley and Beecher, though Greeley 
 may be quoted on both sides. These are 
 strong men. But we have known them too 
 long to believe that they are infallible. We 
 recall with too great relief the advice for 
 compromise and the blunders concerning re- 
 construction to accept their opinions as final. 
 Let us rather examine the question for our- 
 selves and expose the fallacies in the argu- 
 ment. The first statement that the State has 
 nothing to do with religious education over- 
 looks the nature of education and the char- 
 acter of the State. The general idea of edu- 
 cation is, ''to lead out" the powers. It comes 
 from a Latin word, "educo," ''to lead out." 
 
 85 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 That is, lead out a man's powers, all his 
 powers. Horace Mann gives the definition 
 accepted by the American people. He says: 
 "All intelligent thinkers upon the subject now 
 utterly discard and repudiate the idea that 
 reading and writing, with a knowledge of ac- 
 counts, constitute education. ... Its do- 
 main extends over the three-fold nature of 
 man, over his body, . . . over his intel- 
 lect, . . . and over his moral and re- 
 ligious susceptibilities." This is what is 
 meant by education. And when the State or- 
 dains a system of education, it is to see that 
 the child has a chance for this symmetrical 
 development. Mark you, there is nothing 
 like a union of Church and State in this. The 
 statement that the State has nothing to do 
 with religious education, overlooks the true 
 character of the State. For religion is neces- 
 sary to good government. By religion is 
 meant "virtue, as founded upon reverence of 
 God, and expectations of future rewards and 
 punishments," a definition in which Dr. 
 Johnson is substantially followed by many 
 lexicographers. This proposition concerning 
 the necessity of religion is so patent that it is 
 aflirmed by nearly all our State constitutions, 
 usually in these words: "Religion, morality, 
 
 86 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 and knowledge being necessary to a good gov- 
 ernment and the happiness of mankind, 
 schools and the means of education shall for- 
 ever be encouraged." 
 
 The statement also assumes that we are 
 an infidel nation. On no other theory could 
 it be true that the State has nothing to do with 
 religious education. We are indeed secured 
 from any established Church by the highest 
 authority of the land. No power can compel 
 our attendance upon public worship or our 
 contribution for its support. Yet we are not 
 an infidel nation. Mark this, the recognition 
 of the authority of religion and the enthrone- 
 ment of a sect are two distinct and almost an- 
 tagonistic propositions. In the very article 
 securing our freedom of conscience one is ac- 
 knowledged, the other is condemned. Look 
 at the proof that we are a Christian nation. 
 
 We were born out of the struggle of con- 
 science, and came here for religious liberty. 
 The Pilgrims were exiles for conscience. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence recog- 
 nizes our inalienable rights as from God. 
 
 The President annually proclaims a day 
 of thanksgiving to God. 
 
 All public officers take a solemn oath in 
 the name of God. 
 
 87 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The convention for framing the first con- 
 stitution was opened with prayer. 
 
 Each house of the government has its 
 chaplain. 
 
 The army and the navy are supplied with 
 chaplains as regularly commissioned officers. 
 
 Churches and property used exclusively 
 for religious purposes are exempt from taxa- 
 tion. 
 
 The old preamble to our State constitu- 
 tion, again adopted by the Constitutional 
 Convention now in session in Springfield, ac- 
 knowledges God in the first sentence: ''We, 
 the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to 
 Almighty God for the civil, political, and re- 
 ligious liberty which He hath so long per- 
 mitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a 
 blessing," etc. So much does the State ac- 
 knowledge God that any man may be pun- 
 ished for profaning the name of God. And 
 the courts hold profanity as useless and only 
 hurtful. 
 
 The State protects the sanctity of the Sab- 
 bath and the peace of public worship. 
 
 The State ordains that licensed ministers 
 of the gospel shall be competent to celebrate 
 the marriage ceremony. 
 
 So much are we a Christian people, that 
 88 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 convicts in our penitentiaries and youths in 
 our reform schools have chaplains and re- 
 ligious instruction. ''Must our children be- 
 come convicts before they can hear the Bi- 
 ble?" More than this, in the case of the poor 
 orphan whom infidelity casts to the jungle, or 
 exposes on the barren moor, or abandons to 
 the slow death by famine, the State appoints 
 a home and requires that the apprentice or 
 servant be taught to read and write, and the 
 general rules of arithmetic, and at the expira- 
 tion of such term of service the "master or 
 mistress shall give the apprentice or servant 
 a new Bible, and two complete suits of new 
 wearing apparel." Is this the action of an 
 infidel nation? No. The State can not exact 
 penalties for the violation of the Golden Rule^ 
 but it does act like a Christian State and ac- 
 knowledges the claims of religion. 
 
 Blackstone says that ''Christianity is a 
 part of the common law of England." Our 
 State law enacts the common law of England 
 as our law, so that Illinois holds Christianity 
 to be a part of the law of the State. Daniel 
 Webster, in his argument in the Girard Will 
 case, said: "Christianity is the law of the 
 land." These are high authorities; surely no 
 more proof of our being a Christian nation 
 
 89 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 can be needed. If it Is, it is at hand. Judge 
 Sharswood, Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Bench of Pennsylvania, one of the ablest jur- 
 ists of this age, has recently decided against 
 the validity of a bequest for the foundation 
 of an "Infidel Society." The supreme tri- 
 bunal will not allow a man to institute a per- 
 petual attack upon Christianity. He says of 
 such a society: "It would prove a nursery of 
 vice, a school of preparation to qualify young 
 men for the gallows, and young women for 
 the brothel; and there is no skeptic of decent 
 manners and good morals who would not con- 
 sider such a debating club as a common 
 nuisance and disgrace to the city." Does that 
 sound as if we were an infidel nation having 
 nothing to do with religious education? The 
 Girard Will, excluding clergymen from the 
 grounds of the college, was allowed to stand 
 by the court because it did not prevent re- 
 ligious instruction by Christian laymen in the 
 college. From all this we are driven to the 
 conclusion that the Constitution, the law, and 
 the courts teach that the State has to do with 
 religious education. It does not establish a 
 sect by law, but it relies upon the great truths 
 of religion. It does not seek maintenance of 
 religion as an end of government, but as a 
 
 90 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 means to another end, the maintenance of lib- 
 erty. The fundamental law prevents reli- 
 gion from leaning on the State. But that is 
 not this case. Here the State leans on re- 
 ligion. Mr. Webster said: "A Republican 
 government must have some religion. It 
 must use religion and appeals to conscience 
 and future retribution, or it can not attain its 
 end in the conservation of the freedom of the 
 people." All this settles the question con- 
 cerning the relations of the State to religious 
 education. 
 
 The next affirmation that the Bible is a 
 sectarian book is easily disposed of. To 
 w^hich sects does it belong? What are its dis- 
 tinctive sectarian features? I know of no 
 Protestant Bible. King James' translation, 
 the English Bible, for those who use the lan- 
 guage, is not Protestant. Dr. Clark, of Al- 
 bany, says: ^'It was begun by Wickliffe in the 
 Romish Church. It was reviewed and con- 
 tinued by Tyndale, Coverdale, and other 
 Romanists. It was printed, published, and 
 circulated by the authority of a Romish king. 
 It is not a Protestant, but an English Bible, 
 pronounced by Dr. Alexander Geddes, an ec- 
 clesiastic of the Romish Church, ^of all ver- 
 sions the most excellent for accuracy, fidelity, 
 
 91 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and the strictest attention to the letter of the 
 text.' " King, of Cincinnati, asks, "If the 
 Bible is sectarian, to which of the sects did 
 Jesus belong?" I like Plymouth Bartlett's 
 putting of the case when he says: "The big- 
 otry and narrowness are with those who 
 would cast the Bible out of the public schools 
 for liberality's sake. They seem to think that 
 God and the Bible belong to their sects and 
 must be condemned as sectarian." (Not 
 quoted literally.) No, the Bible is not the 
 property of any sect. It belongs to mankind. 
 Like the air and the sunlight, it is incapable 
 of being monopolized; and will sooner or 
 later blast and desolate any sect practicing the 
 crime. The charge is groundless. The State 
 acknowledging religion, and God and the gos- 
 pel, acknowledges the religion of the Bible, 
 the God of the Bible, and the gospel of the 
 Bible. 
 
 The third affirmation, that reading the 
 Bible in our public schools violates the rights 
 of conscience, which are secured by the funda- 
 mental principle of the land, universal free- 
 dom, needs careful consideration. In the 
 first place, a law may not be so interpreted as 
 to make it fatal to the State. Self-preserva- 
 tion is the highest law. Therefore, individ- 
 
 92 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 ual conscience must give way to this law of 
 self-preservation. Yesterday thirteen millions 
 of people felt bound in conscience to pray for 
 the Confederacy. But the government said 
 you shall not do it, and shut up their churches 
 and their mouths. They were conscientiously 
 bound to support Davis; but the government 
 said: "Stop it!" and they stopped it. This 
 was no violation of the principle of freedom 
 of conscience, because it did not pursue them 
 for their conscience, but because their convic- 
 tions contravened the good and peace of the 
 Republic. It demonstrates that the principle 
 of freedom of conscience is not the highest 
 law in the land. That is, as the courts have 
 repeatedly held: "If the State, in exercising 
 a necessary power for the good of the public, 
 makes a requirement, without the direct effect 
 of persecuting, punishing, restraining, or hurt- 
 ing any one for his religious opinions, though 
 his religious belief indirectly is the occasion 
 of his being abridged in his civil rights of con- 
 science, it does not infringe upon his rights of 
 conscience as they are recognized in our Con- 
 stitution." 
 
 Chief Justice Shaw holds that this right 
 of conscience is not an absolute but a com- 
 mon right, to be enjoyed subject to restrictions 
 
 93 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and conditions made for the good of all. The 
 Supreme Court of Maine says, ^'that the 
 maxim, Salus populi suprema lex, 'the safety 
 of the people is the supreme law,' is a maxim 
 of universal application." The right of con- 
 science must give v\^ay in certain cases; the 
 man must endure the loss on account of his 
 conscience, as in resisting the Fugitive Slave 
 Law. The law sets apart Sunday as a day of 
 rest, and compels the Jew to respect it by re- 
 fraining from ordinary work or amusement. 
 His conscience claims Saturday as a holy day, 
 so he is robbed of one-seventh of his time. 
 This is no violation of the principle of free- 
 dom of conscience. Quakers are disqualified 
 by law and restrained from all judicial posi- 
 tions because their conscience will not allow 
 them to administer an oath. If Brigham 
 Young should come with his sixty or a hun- 
 dred wives and settle in this State, neither his 
 crying conscience, nor his crying wives, nor 
 his crying infants, would keep him from Jo- 
 liet. His only hope would be in the governor. 
 The highest law is not freedom of individual 
 conscience. It is the good of the State. 
 
 The question thus reduces to one of utility. 
 Is it a fact that a free government can exist 
 only where the people are virtuous and in- 
 
 94 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 telligent? Then the good of the State forbids 
 this change in our present system, and the in- 
 dividual conscience must make room for the 
 general weal. 
 
 Taking as the standard intellectual activ- 
 ity and power, advancement in the varied 
 fields of science, progress in philosophy, ma- 
 terial prosperity, the comforts and Christian 
 adornments of the home and character, the 
 forward and upward movements in civiliza- 
 tion, taking these as the standard, who can 
 point out a single item in which reading the 
 Bible has ever harmed any one? The best 
 philosophy, the most natural characters, the 
 sublimest song, the truest history, the richest 
 literature, the purest morals, the highest pre- 
 cepts that can be found in any language — we 
 can not shut this vast library, this gallery of 
 characters, against our children without com- 
 mitting a crime against them whose penalty 
 will be the downfall of our civil institutions. 
 Nothing that is worth keeping will suffer by 
 retaining the Bible. Only that which is 
 harmful, whose deeds are evil, shuns the light. 
 So we may know, as in the light of all history, 
 that whatever dreads and denounces this light 
 is dangerous to the Republic. 
 
 This brings us to another general prin- 
 95 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ciple of unqualified and universal applica- 
 tion. The Republic, living only in the day 
 and dying in the darkness, is bound by the 
 highest law of self-preservation to tear away 
 everything that obscures the light, and may 
 never under any pretext legislate to conceal 
 and protect that which shuns the light. Agi- 
 tation is our life. Free discussion, the con- 
 stant testing of every dogma and opinion in 
 the boiling cauldron of unrestrained thought, 
 this is the condition of our perpetuity. If we 
 have any errors in our religion that will not 
 stand the test of investigation, the State has 
 no right under the supreme law of the public 
 safety to allow the cry of the individual con- 
 science to shield such errors from logical 
 doom. Applied to the case in hand, it does 
 not persecute or punish a man on account of 
 his conscience. It only brings, in the interest 
 of liberty, a sickly conscience to the light 
 where it may recover its health, if it will, or 
 be confirmed in its old convictions, if they 
 prove correct. Thus the reading of the Bible 
 can do no harm. The point of conscience can 
 not be maintained in presence of the public 
 good. 
 
 On the other hand, to remove the Bible 
 from our public schools will alienate many of 
 
 96 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 the old friends of our system. The present 
 foes will not be appeased, but present friends 
 will be alienated. Thus our system weakened 
 will totter to its fall, and beneath its ruins you 
 will find the fragments of the Republic, and 
 on its ruins will be planted the thrones of 
 despotism or of anarchy — the seat of an un- 
 scrupulous priesthood, or of a godless in- 
 fidelity. 
 
 But there is another side to this conscience 
 plea. Protestantism has a conscience as well 
 as Romanism.. It does not relieve the case to 
 ofifend the conviction of thirty-five millions 
 for the appeasement of five millions. This is 
 not liberty, but despotism. The change is not 
 to neutrality, but to the enemy, to infidelity. 
 
 Again, the thing is impossible. It is not 
 the Bible only, but it is everything religious 
 that must fall beneath this blow. In Cincin- 
 nati the school readers are expelled or ex- 
 purgated. Think of the end of this massacre! 
 Everything that touches on religion, all val- 
 uable history, must be sealed up. The best 
 and purest literature of the world must perish. 
 Newton and Addison die under this rule. 
 There would be left only the multiplication 
 table and the alphabet. Further, this prin- 
 ciple is suicidal and incapable of application. 
 7 97 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 If this loose and false definition of freedom 
 or right of conscience is to obtain, there is 
 absolutely no limit. The Jew's conscience 
 suppresses every mention of Jesus. The Rom- 
 anist says, your Churches are dangerous to our 
 conscience. Build your churches like other 
 buildings, so our people will not be troubled 
 when they walk in processions through your 
 cities. The Mormon in conscience demands 
 the respect of the laws concerning bigamy and 
 polygamy. The Atheist says, change the 
 names in your astronomy. They reveal a 
 Bible which I reject, and a God whom I deny. 
 John Chinaman is taught in his religion that 
 the earth is flat and has a mountain in it six 
 thousand miles high. So your astronomy and 
 geography must be expurgated. No more 
 oaths for witnesses or for installation of pub- 
 lic officers. No more chaplains to accompany 
 our sons and comfort them w^hen dying in the 
 army or navy for the defense of the country. 
 No more prayer in the halls of Congress or in 
 the State Assemblies. No more religious in- 
 struction for the convicts, or reformatory ef- 
 forts in the houses of correction. The prin- 
 ciple can not be applied, and must be aban- 
 doned. With this fails the last objection to 
 our present system. 
 
 98 
 
THE 13IBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 We now affirm another proposition that 
 must settle all trouble on this question in every 
 candid mind. ROME DOES NOT WANT THE 
 REMOVAL OF THE BiBLE FROM THE PUBLIC 
 
 SCHOOLS. She wants and is seeking the 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF PUB- 
 LIC SCHOOLS. I take her on her history and 
 at her words. She claims the exclusive train- 
 ing of children. In his allocution, the Pope 
 denounces the fact that ''the young are nearly 
 everywhere withdrawn from the clergy." 
 The Pope's bull of June 22, 1868, denounces 
 the laws for free schools (not under Romish 
 control), and free speech as "damnable here- 
 sies," in ''flagrant contradiction with the doc- 
 trines of the Catholic religion." A recent 
 trial in Ireland brought out the testimony of 
 a priest, "that he had positive orders from 
 Archbishop McHale to refuse all the sacra- 
 ments, even at the hour of death, to those 
 who sent their children to the free schools." In 
 New York City Protestants offered to read the 
 Douay Bible, but the Romanists refused to 
 do that. Mr. Hurlbut writes to the New 
 York Tribune from Hungary, where schools 
 have been taken out of the priests' hands. 
 He says "they rioted the city and mobbed 
 the teachers and Jewish children." It was 
 
 99 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 no Bible question. It was the simple fact of 
 a public school. The Bible once out of the 
 school, then the cry will ring in the ears of 
 all Romanists, "These are godless schools and 
 must not be touched." Listen to their words 
 of warning. 
 
 The JVestern JVatchman, the Romish or- 
 gan of St. Louis, says: 
 
 "The much vexed question of Bible read- 
 ing in the public schools of Cincinnati is at 
 length settled. . . . Not only is the Bible 
 excluded, but whatever else savors of religion. 
 . . . No vestige of religious truth can be 
 allowed to disgrace the hallowed precincts 
 of the school-room. ... If the name of 
 the author of Christianity is mentioned at all, 
 He must be spoken of as we would speak of 
 Mohammed, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon. 
 Under no circumstances may we hint to the 
 child that the great Teacher and Preacher 
 w^as God. We may not even tell him that he 
 has a soul." 
 
 Now tell me, can you furnish the priest 
 with a stronger leverage with which to over- 
 turn our school system? Read the Romish 
 papers. 
 
 100 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 The JVestern Watchman says: 
 
 ''All we have to do is to break down the 
 irresponsible oligarchy of general school 
 boards, and substitute local boards with 
 power to select teachers, text-books and mode 
 of instruction. Then by proper combination 
 and co-operation. Catholic boards might be 
 secured in many schools, and they, to all in- 
 tents and purposes, be turned into Catholic 
 schools." 
 
 The Tablet, December 25, 1869, says: 
 
 ''We demand of the State, as our right, 
 either such schools as our Church will accept, 
 or exemption from the school tax. If it will 
 support schools by the general tax, we de- 
 mand that it provide or give us our portion 
 of the public funds, and leave us to provide 
 schools in which we can educate our children 
 in our own religion, under the supervision of 
 our Church. 
 
 "We hold education to be a function of 
 the Church, not of the State; and in our case 
 we do not, and will not, accept the State as 
 an educator." 
 
 101 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The Freemans Journal, November 20, 
 1869, says: 
 
 ^'We tell our respected contemporary, 
 therefore, that if the Catholic translation of 
 the Books of Holy Writ, which is to be found 
 in the homes of all our better educated Catho- 
 lics, were to be dissected by the ablest Catho- 
 lic theologians in the land, and merely lessons 
 to be taken from it — such as Catholic mothers 
 read to their children; and with all the notes 
 and comments, in the popular edition, and 
 others added, with the highest Catholic en- 
 dorsement — and if these admirable Bible les- 
 sons, and these alone, were to be ruled as to be 
 read' in all public schools, this w^ould not di- 
 minish, in any substantial degree, the objec- 
 tion we Catholics have to letting Catholic 
 children attend the public schools. 
 
 "This declaration is very sweeping, but 
 we will prove its correctness. 
 
 "First — We will not subject our Catholic 
 children to your teachers! You ought to 
 know why, in a multitude of cases. 
 
 "Second — JVe will not expose our Catho- 
 lic children to association with all the chil- 
 dren who have a right to attend the public 
 schools! Do you know why? 
 
 102 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 ''There is no possible program of common 
 school instruction that the Catholic Church 
 can permit her children to accept. The Cath- 
 olic Church claims no power to force her in- 
 struction on the children of people not Catho- 
 lic. But she resists the assumption of whom- 
 soever to force on the little ones of the Catho- 
 lic fold any system of instruction that ignores 
 her teaching, according to which the whole 
 of this life is to fit children, and older people, 
 for an eternal life. 
 
 "It is not that we declare so. It is the 
 Catholic Church. In the famous 'syllabus' of 
 modern errors, condemned by the Catholic 
 Church, and which neither Bishop nor lay- 
 man can dispute, without the reproach of re- 
 bellion against the Church, is the following 
 condemned as against the faith. 
 
 "The Catholics may approve the man for 
 teaching youth in schools apart from the in- 
 culcation of the Catholic faith, and from the 
 control of the Catholic Church; while such 
 teaching regards only, or at least, chiefly, the 
 mere knowledge of natural things and pur- 
 poses of our social life here on earth. 
 
 "This proposition is condemned by the 
 Catholic Church, and no Catholic is at liberty 
 to hold it. The Express, therefore, may un- 
 
 103 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 derstand how impossible it is for Catholics 
 ever to come to an agreement with persons 
 not attached to any religion, in regard to 
 schools that she requires to be positively and 
 continually dominated by the Catholic re- 
 ligion/^ 
 
 The Freeman s Journal, December ii, 
 1869, says: 
 
 ''The Catholic solution of this muddle 
 about the Bible or no Bible school is — 'hands 
 off!' No State taxation or donations for any 
 schools. You look to your children, and we 
 will look to ours. We do not want to be 
 taxed for Catholic schools. We do not want 
 to be taxed for Protestant, or for godless 
 schools. Let the public school system go to 
 where it came from — the devil. We want 
 Christian schools, and the State can not tell 
 us what Christianity is." 
 
 The Catholic Telegraph, of Cincinnati, 
 organ of Bishop Purcell, says: 
 
 "The secular school system is a social can- 
 cer; the sooner it is destroyed, the better." 
 
 Again: 
 
 "It will be a glorious day for Catholics 
 in this country when, under the blows of jus- 
 
 104 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 tice and morality, our school system will be 
 shivered to pieces; until then modern Pagan- 
 ism will triumph." 
 
 There can remain no doubt that all the 
 cry against the Bible is a hypocritical pretext 
 on the part of the priests. Let alone, the 
 people would not object to the Bible. Let us 
 cry on this with old Charles Pinckney: "Mil- 
 lions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." 
 
 Thus clearly warned, is it not madness to 
 surrender to them with the hope of appeasing 
 them, unless we do actually calculate to re- 
 nounce our faith, our liberties, and our in- 
 stitutions, and embrace Romanism with her 
 infallible despot? Shall we be such slaves 
 as to deny the heroisms of the last two hun- 
 dred and fifty years, and saddle ourselves that 
 the Roman hierarchy may ride us with whip 
 and spur? Shall we be such fools as to cut 
 our own throats that we may fatten greedy 
 Rome on our best blood? She has stood for 
 twelve centuries the personified spirit of greed 
 and cruelty. She can never be satiated till 
 she or the Republic is swept from the earth. 
 
 Take a bit of school history. In Cincin- 
 nati she made her first objection in 1842 be- 
 cause her children were obliged to read the 
 
 105 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Bible. Then they were excused. Did that 
 satisfy her? All she asked was granted, but 
 she doubled her demands. In 1864 a con- 
 clave of Romish Bishops was held in Balti- 
 more, in which our school system was consid- 
 ered, and immediately there was a general 
 attack upon our school system from Maine 
 to California. It is no war with the accident 
 of a version, but with our institutions, that 
 occupies her mind, and we may as well ac- 
 cept the issue as it is. 
 
 Before the coup d'etat of Napoleon, Rome 
 sent a nuncio to Napoleon offering to make 
 him emperor on these conditions: First, he 
 must maintain an army in Rome for the de- 
 fense of the Pope; second, he must appoint 
 as minister of education the nominee of the 
 Jesuits; third, he must suppress the study of 
 philosophy in the University of France. 
 These sworn to on the cross and the Bible, the 
 confessionals over France were set at work, 
 and the Republic sank beneath the empire. 
 Contending with such a foe, shall we forget 
 all history and surrender without a struggle? 
 Shall we deliver into her hands the keys of 
 the citadel? Or shall we learn a lesson from 
 the tragic fate of the French Republic and 
 
 106 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 the melancholy and bloody story of the South 
 American republics? 
 
 Rome wants to destroy our school system, 
 but in the name of God she shall not do it. 
 Freemen will stand about this ark of our in- 
 spiration, and when Rome gets her bloody 
 hands upon it she can carry it away in peace, 
 for then the freemen will be all dead. In 
 peace, did I say? I recall it. Not in peace. 
 For though every freeman swelter in his gore, 
 even then the heroic dead, as when Christ was 
 crucified, on this next crucifixion will leap 
 from their graves and pursue the terrified 
 mobs from this sacred soil of freedom. Rome 
 wants our school money, and we must watch 
 lest she seize it. She only uses it for danger- 
 ous purposes. Go to New York and study 
 her temper. See how liberal she is when she 
 has the power even in America. 
 
 Study the list of the public offices held in 
 that city by Roman Catholics, and published 
 in a late number of the New York Herald, 
 viz.: 
 
 "The sheriff, register, comptroller, city 
 chamberlain, corporation counsel, police 
 commissioner, president of the Croton board, 
 acting mayor, president of the board of alder- 
 
 107 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 men, president of the board of councilmen, 
 clerk of the common council, clerk of the 
 board of councilmen, president of the board 
 of supervisors, five justices of the courts of 
 record, all the civil justices, all but two of the 
 police justices, all the police court clerks, 
 three out of four coroners, two members of 
 Congress, three out of five State Senators, 
 eighteen out of twenty-one members of the 
 Assembly, fourteen out of nineteen of the 
 common council, and eight out of ten of the 
 supervisors! The Papal Church thus con- 
 trols in New York City, first, the taxation of 
 city property, and, second, the appropriation 
 of the millions of revenue received from tax- 
 ation." 
 
 The Christian World, of January, 1870, 
 says: 
 
 "And when Rome gets its hand on the 
 public purse, does it show itself democratic 
 in its administration, recognizing no differ- 
 ence of sects? In 1863, in New York, out of 
 $105,000 distributed, $97,500 went to Romish 
 institutions. One institution received $50,- 
 000. In 1866, out of $129,025 appropriated 
 by the State of New York, $124,174 were re- 
 ceived by Roman Catholic establishments. 
 
 108 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 In 1867 the Legislature passed an act appro- 
 priating $80,000 to the society for the protec- 
 tion of destitute Roman Catholic orphan 
 children, or $1 10 a head for its whole number 
 of members. And the New York common 
 council appropriations for Roman Catholics 
 for that year amount to $120,000 more, most 
 of which was allotted to schools. In 1863 
 Catholic institutions in New York City re- 
 ceived as donations from the city government 
 $105,000; in 1864, $70,000; in 1865, $100,000, 
 and last winter an appropriation of over 
 $200,000 to Roman Catholic purposes was se- 
 cured through the New York tax levy." 
 
 Read Dr. Leiber's report to the New York 
 Union League: 
 
 ''During the last year, out of a total State 
 appropriation for the city of $528,742.47, no 
 less than $412,062.26, or more than four- 
 fifths of the whole, w^ent to Roman Catholic 
 schools, of which eighty are maintained 
 chiefly by this means. The following are the 
 figures showing the amount voted to each re- 
 ligious sect: 
 
 Roman Catholic, $412,062.26 
 
 Protestant Episcopal, 29,335.09 
 
 Hebrew, 14,404.49 
 
 109 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Reformed Dutch, 12,630.86 
 
 Presbyterian, 8,363.44 
 
 Baptist, 2,760.34 
 
 Methodist Episcopal, 3,073.03 
 
 German Evangelical, 2,027.24 
 
 Miscellaneous, 44,085.12 
 
 Total, $528,742.47 
 
 "The Catholic denomination had, in i860, 
 24 churches out of 252, with seats for 33,576 
 persons, out of 234,730 furnished by all de- 
 nominations, and a total number usually at- 
 tending of 78,488, out of 222,550 of all de- 
 nominations. Having one-ninth as many 
 churches as the Protestants, seating one-sixth 
 as many persons, and with but little more 
 than one-third as many attendants upon their 
 worship, they draw four times as much pub- 
 lic money. This is thirty-six times their pro- 
 portion according to the number of their 
 churches, twenty-four times as much as their 
 share on the basis of seats for worship, and at 
 least ten times their quota according to the 
 number of worshipers. Last year they in- 
 serted in the tax levy a clause giving the sum 
 of $2,000,000 per annum, to be distributed 
 perpetually by 'an officer to be appointed by 
 the Board of Education' among the schools 
 'educating children gratuitously in said city 
 
 110 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 who are not provided for in the common 
 schools.' Nine-tenths of this fund will thus 
 go into special Catholic schools, although 
 Roman Catholic officers have almost entire 
 control of the public schools of the city as 
 well, and the latter have 39,000 vacant seats, 
 are better furnished, better lighted, and better 
 taught than the private schools, and are free 
 from Protestant religious instruction of any- 
 kind. 
 
 Besides this, the report alleges that in 
 1866, for one dollar a year, the city govern- 
 ment gave to the Catholic Archbishop half a 
 block of ground on Madison, toward Fourth 
 Avenue, worth now $200,000. In 1852 they 
 gave him, in fee, the whole block lying be- 
 tween Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Fiftieth 
 and Fifty-first Streets, by changing a lease 
 into a fee, for the sum of $83.32. Then, in 
 1864, they paid the same Archbishop $24,000 
 for the privilege of extending Madison Ave- 
 nue across this block, and donated him $8,928 
 to pay all assessments on this block for the 
 expense of opening the street. This gift is 
 now worth $1,500,000. In 1846 and 1857 
 they gave the Archbishop the block bounded 
 by Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Fifty-first 
 and Fifty-second streets, now worth another 
 
 111 
 
ADDRESSES ON xNOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 $1,500,000. The city has thus given $3,200,- 
 000 worth of real estate to the Roman Cath- 
 olics." 
 
 The question comes, shall we surrender 
 everything to Rome? Is she a good foster- 
 mother for liberty? Will she nourish our 
 schools? Is she a good teacher? 
 
 Listen to the words of Victor Hugo to the 
 priestly party: 
 
 "Ah, we know you! We know the cleri- 
 cal party. It is an old party. This is it which 
 has found for the truth these two marvelous 
 supporters, ignorance and error! This it is 
 which forbids to science and genius the go- 
 ing beyond the missal and which wishes to 
 cloister thought in dogmas. Every step 
 which the intelligence of Europe has taken 
 has been in spite of it. Its history is written 
 in the history of human progress, but it is 
 written on the back of the leaf. It is opposed 
 to it all. This it is which caused Prinelli to 
 be scourged for having said that the stars 
 would not fall. This it is which put Campa- 
 nella seven times to the torture for having af- 
 firmed that the number of worlds was infinite, 
 and for having caught a glimpse at the secret 
 of creation. This it is which persecuted 
 
 112 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 Harvey for having proved the circulation of 
 the blood. In the name of Jesus, it shut up 
 Galileo. In the name of St. Paul, it impris- 
 oned Christopher Columbus. To discover a 
 law of the heavens was an impiety. To find a 
 world was a heresy. This it is which ana- 
 thematized Pascal in the name of religion, 
 Montesquieu in the name of morality, Moliere 
 in the name of both morality and religion. 
 . . . For a long time already the human 
 conscience has revolted against you, and now 
 demands of you, 'What is it that you wish of 
 me?' For a long time already you have tried 
 to put a gag on the human intellect. You 
 wish to be the masters of education. And 
 there is not a poet, nor an author, nor a phi- 
 losopher, nor a thinker, that you accept. All 
 that has been written, found, dreamed, de- 
 duced, inspired, imagined, invented by gen- 
 ius, the treasures of civilization, the venerable 
 inheritance of generations, the common patri- 
 mony of knowledge, you reject. 
 
 ''There is a book, a book which is, from 
 one end to the other, an emanation from above 
 — a book which is for the whole world what 
 the Koran is for Islamism, what the Vedas 
 are for India — a book which contains all 
 human wisdom, illuminated by all divine 
 8 113 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 wisdom, a book which the veneration of the 
 people call The Book, the Bible! Well your 
 censure has reached even that. Unheard 
 of thing! Popes have proscribed the Bible! 
 How astonishing to wise spirits, how over- 
 powering to simple hearts, to see the finger of 
 Rome placed upon the Book of God! 
 
 ''And you claim the liberty of teaching. 
 Stop, be sincere; let us understand the liberty 
 which you claim. It is the liberty of not 
 teaching. You wish us to give you the people 
 to instruct. Very well. Let me see your pu- 
 pils! Let us see those whom you have pro- 
 duced. What have you done for Italy? 
 What have you done for Spain? For centu- 
 ries you have kept in your hand, at your dis- 
 cretion, at your school, these two great na- 
 tions, illustrious among the illustrious. What 
 have you done for them? I am going to tell 
 you. Thanks to you, Italy whose name no 
 man who thinks can any longer pronounce 
 without an inexpressible filial emotion; Italy, 
 mother of genius and of nations, which has 
 spread over the universe all the most bril- 
 liant marvels of poetry and the arts; Italy, 
 which has taught mankind how to read, and 
 knows not how to read! Yes, Italy is, of all 
 the States of Europe, that where the smallest 
 
 114 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 number of natives know how to read. Spain, 
 magnificently endowed; Spain, which re- 
 ceived from the Romans her first civilization, 
 from the Arabs her second civilization, from 
 Providence, and in spite of you, a world, 
 America; Spain, thanks to you, to your yoke 
 of stupor, which is a yoke of degradation and 
 decay, Spain has lost this secret power, which 
 it had from the Romans; this genius of art, 
 which it had from God, and in exchange for 
 all that you have made it lose, it has received 
 from you the Inquisition. The Inquisition, 
 which has burned on funeral pile millions 
 of men; the Inquisition, which disinterred the 
 dead to bury them as heretics ; which declared 
 the children of heretics, even to the second 
 generation, infamous and incapable of any 
 public honors, excepting only those who shall 
 have denounced their fathers; the Inquisition, 
 which, while I speak, still holds in the Papal 
 library the manuscripts of Galileo, sealed un- 
 der the Papal signet! These are your master- 
 pieces. The fire, which we call Italy, you 
 have extinguished. This colossus that we call 
 Spain, you have undermined. The one in 
 ashes, the other in ruins. This is what you 
 have done for two great nations. What do 
 you wish to do for France? 
 
 115 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 '^Stop, you have just come from Rome! I 
 can not congratulate you. You have had fine 
 success there. You come from gagging the 
 Roman people; now you wish to gag the 
 French people, I understand. This attempt 
 is still more fine; but take care, it is danger- 
 ous. France is a lion, and is alive!" 
 
 We catch the note. Protestantism is a 
 lion, and is alive. She sleeps, but she may 
 awaken. Beware ! when she awakes and goes 
 forth in her strength, the bulls of Popes, and 
 the anathemas of Archbishops, and the 
 whimpering of priests will be but as dust and 
 ashes. Rome may exaggerate her numbers 
 till she deceives herself into premature at- 
 tempts at despotism, but that will only hasten 
 her final overthrow. While I would counsel 
 Rome to greater moderation, I still thank 
 Father Hecker and the Paulus and the 
 Jesuits, for revealing their designs. The gust 
 of local success in New York city has lifted 
 the silver veil of this prophet — this veiled 
 Mokanna, and we have seen the hideous 
 features of the monster, and with our fathers 
 cry out of our hearts, forever and forever, 
 "No PEACE WITH THE PAPACY, AND NO COM- 
 PROMISE WITH Rome." 
 
 116 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 On motion of Bishop Fowler, the Board of Bishops of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church decided to make an 
 appeal for the raising of a $20,000,000 thank-offer- 
 ing fund throughout the Church. He was appointed 
 by the Board of Bishops to write the appeal, which 
 was done in January, 1899. More than $21,000,000 
 was raised following the inspiration of this appeal. 
 
 117 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS. 
 
 Put thy hands between the King's hands. 
 
 When William the Conqueror undertook 
 a campaign for the conquest of a new district 
 in England, he would send for the earls and 
 lords whose help he especially needed, and 
 ask them to put their hands between his hands 
 for the campaign. They would put their 
 hands between his hands, saying: "We put 
 our hands between your hands, to be your 
 true men and loyal for this campaign." 
 
 The Board of Bishops has called upon the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church to make a great 
 forward movement for widening the kingdom 
 of Jesus Christ in this world, to bring a great 
 offering into His treasury as an expression of 
 our gratitude — a "Twentieth Century Thank- 
 offering" for the rich and unnumbered bless- 
 ings He has poured upon us as a Church dur- 
 ing this nineteenth century now closing. We 
 are called from every plain and valley, from 
 every hilltop and mountain-side, from every 
 city and hamlet, from every home and hearth, 
 to come up to the camp of our King and put 
 
 119 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 our hands between the King's hands, to be His 
 true men and loyal for this campaign. 
 
 Two Million Converts and Twenty Mil- 
 lions OF Money. 
 
 This is the call. Like an electric engine, 
 it can run either end forward. With the con- 
 verts the money will come. With the money 
 the converts will come. ''Bring ye all the 
 tithes into the storehouse, that there may be 
 meat in Mine house, and prove Me now here- 
 with, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not 
 open you the windows of heaven, and pour 
 you out a blessing, that there shall not be 
 room enough to receive it." (Mai. iii, lo.) 
 
 Methodism came into this century few in 
 numbers, poor in worldly possessions, and 
 meager in scholarship, having only two hun- 
 dred and eighty-eight ministers, sixty-four 
 thousand eight hundred and ninety-four 
 members, with but little Church property, 
 and only the ashes of one college. She goes 
 out of the century in sixteen great bands or 
 denominations, having thirty-eight thousand 
 three hundred and fifty-two traveling minis- 
 ters, six million two hundred thirteen thou- 
 sand four hundred and twenty-five members, 
 with numberless universities, theological sem- 
 
 120 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 inaries and colleges, and over $250,000,000 of 
 church property. She came into this century 
 strong in courage, rich in faith, and invincible 
 in sacrifice. It behooves us to see to it that 
 our particular denomination goes not out of 
 this century weak in courage, poor in faith, or 
 covs^ardly in sacrifice. As Paul boasted of be- 
 ing ''a Hebrew^ of the Hebrews," good blood 
 on both sides of the house, so we are the sons 
 and daughters of double martyrs — martyrs 
 for the Church they created and defended, 
 and martyrs for the country they redeemed 
 and delivered — heroic blood on both sides of 
 the house. We have no moral right to be lit- 
 tle or mean or timid. Sprung from a royal 
 ancestry, we must bring royal gifts, like the 
 wise men from the East, and lay them at the 
 feet of our Redeemer. 
 
 Great Forces. 
 
 We are in a great conflict, handling and 
 handled by vast energies. Working with the 
 limitless forces of steam, lightning, and light, 
 and redeeming time down to the millionth 
 part of a second, and measuring distances 
 down to the millionth part of an inch, we can 
 not loiter by the century with Methuselah, 
 nor wander aimlessly in the desert with Abra- 
 
 121 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ham. We are risen into divine times, when 
 a day is as a thousand years. And our 
 achievements must fit into our environment. 
 May the God of our fathers put upon us a 
 just measure of our responsibilities, and help 
 us to put our hands between the King's hands! 
 
 Our Fault. 
 
 Great as have been our blessings during 
 this century, the meagerness of the results of 
 the last years calls us to thoughtfulness and 
 prayer, and to humiliation. God never cools 
 in love, nor lags in desire, nor weakens in 
 power. His arm is not shortened that He 
 can not save. We must candidly look to our- 
 selves for the explanation of our failures. 
 Even Jesus, in His own country, ''did not 
 many mighty works there because of their un- 
 belief." May not the Savior be standing in 
 our midst, weeping and saying, "Ye will not 
 come unto Me that ye may have life?" 
 
 Revivals. 
 
 Methodism has marched up to her present 
 vantage ground on her knees, by the altar of 
 prayer and by the mourners' bench. In schol- 
 arship, in wealth, and in social prestige, she 
 
 122 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 has been surpassed in each of these respects 
 by some sister denomination. These elegant 
 sisters, beautiful in their equipment, like the 
 lithe hare, were well through the race when 
 Methodism, like the clumsy tortoise, was 
 trundling along on her knees. God gave her 
 the secret of success in prayer. Her victory 
 is from supernatural forces. If she exchanges 
 the Word of authority for the rhetoric of the 
 preacher, and the penitent's bench for the pro- 
 fessor's desk, and the faith of the itinerant for 
 the conceit of the higher critic, and the super- 
 natural power of the Holy Ghost for the hesi- 
 tating formulas of mere human reasoning, she 
 must part company with impulsive Peter and 
 resistless Paul, and drop back to sulk with 
 doubting Thomas, or do worse with poor 
 Judas Iscariot. She must persist in her time- 
 honored and God-honored revivals, which 
 have saved her own millions, chiefly captured 
 as trophies from the enemy, and have saved 
 a large per cent of the other millions of Prot- 
 estantism. She must keep her penitent's altar 
 quivering with divine power; for a Church, 
 without saving power, will soon be a Church 
 without a divine Savior. Back to your knees 
 and to your altars, O Methodism! Send up 
 the agonizing cry from every Church and 
 
 123 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 from every family altar. Two million con- 
 verts in the two remaining years before the 
 century closes. As John Knox stood all night 
 on his calloused knees, crying, ''Give me Scot- 
 land, or I die," so let us cry unto God might- 
 ily, "Give us two million converts before this 
 century closes." 'Tut thy hands between the 
 Kine's hands." 
 
 Double Abrasion. 
 
 Methodism is losing parts of her domain 
 on each side. Like an island in a divided cur- 
 rent, she must protect herself on both sides 
 with piers and breakwaters. On one side 
 workers in the submerged tenth are doing the 
 work that once made Methodism rich in con- 
 verts and saints. On the other side, in the 
 upper tenth, many clever souls are satisfied 
 with a system that seems to have but little of 
 the cross in its Christianity, and are thus drift- 
 ing from our altars. Some new baptism of 
 power is needed for these souls, that would 
 satisfy every want of the heart with the full- 
 ness of a perfect redemption and a perfect Re- 
 deemer. Some new baptism of labor is 
 needed to so push our membership out into all 
 fields that there would remain no unreached 
 
 124 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 submerged tenth. Methodism must not allow 
 her candle to be burned at both ends. 
 
 What are the spirit and power of the main 
 body of the Church itself? There are signs 
 for anxiety at the top and at the bottom; is 
 the trunk sound and well? 
 
 The Epworth League. 
 
 The Epworth League, providentially cre- 
 ated, is a great, energetic section of the 
 Church. Full of labor and stirred with zeal, 
 may it not be that a stronger bent toward 
 spiritual results would make the results of this 
 vast machine, in many places, more substan- 
 tial and actual? In many chapters these 
 much-to-be-desired literary and social forces 
 await the touch of a higher life and the light 
 of a more single eye. This vast force may 
 be easily brought into magnificent shape to 
 be used for higher designs. When God made 
 man He fashioned him into beauty, molded 
 the limbs, bored and filled the bones, rounded 
 and stored the skull, stretched the arteries and 
 veins, w^ove the nerves, spread the cuticle, 
 formed the eye, and shaped the heart. But 
 that was not man. That was only the most 
 perfect form of lower animal life. God came 
 
 125 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 down to this shapely form, took it up in His 
 hands, breathed into it the breath of life, 
 and it became a living soul. The dull eyes 
 opened and caught the light from the over- 
 brooding Creator. The heavy heart began its 
 ceaseless beating, and beat back the warm 
 throbbings of the Infinite heart that fash- 
 ioned it. The heavy brain, kindled by the 
 presence of the Infinite mind, sent out its 
 quick and quivering thoughts to run along 
 God's great thoughts. Then man stood up 
 erect on the plane of probation, a possible 
 saint and child of God, with energies that 
 could never waste. So it may be with this 
 Epworth League. It has been fashioned into 
 beauty and symmetry by the great artificer, 
 the Church. But it can have the touch of the 
 Infinite Father and the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit. If in answer to the prayer and 
 faith of the Church it can be filled with the 
 Holy Spirit, it will rise to its highest field of 
 activity and lift the whole Church into a 
 higher life, full of uncounted conquests for 
 the coming century. Sons and daughters of 
 the Church, hosts of the Epworth League, 
 put your hands between the hands of the 
 King, for a new, a spiritual campaign. 
 
 126 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 Witness of the Spirit. 
 
 Let me speak to the great hosts of the rank 
 and file of our membership. Is it not true 
 that many live on and on in the Church on 
 a plane below their privilege? Are there not 
 many who fail of the rich assurance of faith 
 that comes from the witness of the Spirit? 
 They plod on, hoping for a better experience, 
 hungry in heart, yet never actually having a 
 satisfactory experience. Many who would 
 be glad to have the deep certainty of God's 
 witnessing Spirit? The thirteenth chapter of 
 first Corinthians makes this experience abso- 
 lutely necessary. Hear me. This great doc- 
 trine and experience form the purpose for 
 which Methodism was called into being. We 
 are in the world to teach and illustrate a 
 knowable religion. The world was full, in 
 the days of Wesley, with Old Testament be- 
 lievers, who had only a hope of a hope. God 
 wanted a Church with a knowable experience. 
 So He called John Wesley to teach a con- 
 scious salvation. Wherever he and his fol- 
 lowers went men rose up and said: "I feel 
 that I am a sinner." Then they testified: 'T 
 feel that my sins are all forgiven;" "The Son 
 of man hath power on earth to forgive sins;" 
 
 127 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 *'God for Christ's sake hath forgiven my sins." 
 This is the mission of Methodism. And her 
 power is in proportion to the clearness of the 
 testimony of her witnesses. She teaches free 
 agency. She teaches justification by faith. 
 She teaches the necessity of both faith and 
 works ; but these are not the distinguishing 
 doctrines of Methodism. The great doctrine 
 of Methodism is the doctrine of the witness 
 of the Spirit. This is that supernatural fire 
 that strangely warmed John Wesley's heart. 
 This is that inborn sense, down deep in con- 
 sciousness, deeper than logic, more certain 
 than reasoning, that we are accepted of God, 
 whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." This en- 
 ables one who is cast down and penitent, lying 
 on his face and praying for pardon, suddenly 
 to look up into the face of God as to a father. 
 This is that power that banishes fear, and 
 gives one that quiet, cuddling, home feeling 
 down in the heart. This is the assurance of 
 peace that endues with power. This is the 
 supreme verdict which alone can face the 
 judgment bar. Nothing less is safe. Have 
 you this witness? Brother, ask yourself; sis- 
 ter, ask yourself, "Have I this all-satisfying 
 witness?" I am on trial for my soul. My 
 case is being made up. The jury will soon 
 
 128 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 go out. Its verdict is final. I must know be- 
 yond a doubt what their verdict will be. It 
 will either set me free to walk with open face 
 and glad heart about the city of God, with 
 the good and great of all ages forever, or it 
 will assign me to that lone land where mercy 
 and hope never come. I can not trust my 
 own judgment; I am little, ignorant, often 
 and easily deceived, much prejudiced; I may 
 be wrong; I must have an infallible testi- 
 mony. This I may have in the witness of the 
 Holy Spirit. Beloved, have you this witness 
 of the Spirit? You may have. Pray mightily 
 that this may come to you and be the rich en- 
 duement of power for the whole Church. 
 With this clear witness all minor questions 
 will be settled. It will settle all questions of 
 grade in the ministry, except the grade of di- 
 vine power. You will be led into all truth. 
 Your path will grow brighter and brighter 
 unto the perfect day. 
 
 This is the supreme gift. Jesus said: ''It 
 is expedient for you that I go away." What 
 could make it expedient for the infant Church 
 to have Jesus leave them? He had been all 
 things unto them. He had been to them the 
 Peasant of Nazareth, Prophet of God, Son of 
 God, and God over all, blessed for evermore, 
 9 129 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Yet it was expedient for them to have Him go 
 away. For Jesus says: ''If I go not away, the 
 Holy Ghost will not come unto you." The 
 Spirit is the promise of the Father. Let every 
 Methodist, man, woman and child, pray for 
 the personal witness of the Spirit and for the 
 baptism of the Holy Spirit upon the whole 
 Church. This w^ill secure the power of the 
 Church and the supreme and acceptable 
 twentieth century thank-offering. Give your- 
 self, then you will gladly give whatever God 
 wants. Put your hand between the King's 
 hands, and He will secure the rest. 
 
 How Secured. 
 
 Shall I tell you how to secure this price- 
 less treasure, the witness of the Spirit? I will, 
 God helping me. Wherever you are, in pro- 
 bation between the gate of eternal death and 
 the gate of eternal life, God's plan and 
 promise can reach you. His promises reach 
 every inch of the road. If you are so near 
 doom that the ground is already hot beneath 
 your feet, halt, turn, quit your flirting with 
 evil. That is the start toward life. Cease to 
 do evil, and learn to do good. "Let the 
 wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous 
 man his thoughts; and let him return unto the 
 
 130 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and 
 to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." 
 If you are farther up, nearer life, but in cold- 
 ness and heaviness, then take the word: "Let 
 us lay aside every weight, and the sin that 
 doth so easily beset us, and let us run with 
 patience the race that is set before us, looking 
 unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our 
 faith." If you are still farther up the path, 
 then secure that love, that true love, which 
 changes the I, the me, the mine, into the 
 Thou, the Thee, the Thine ; that makes obe- 
 dience spontaneous and service a delight. By 
 surrender, prayer, fasting, if need be — -for 
 there is a kind that goeth not out but by 
 prayer and fasting — secure that supreme love 
 that loves God with all the heart, and thy 
 neighbor as thyself; that love which the thir- 
 teenth chapter of First Corinthians makes 
 absolutely necessary to any hope of heaven, 
 without which everything else is absolutely 
 nothing; that love which sufTereth long and 
 is kind, envieth not, "vaunteth not itself, is not 
 puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
 seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, 
 thinketh no evil," beareth, believeth, hopeth, 
 endurcth all things. Dear Methodist, have 
 you this absolutely necessary love, so fine, so 
 
 131 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 high, so sweet, so divine? Without this love 
 reaching out to your fellow-man and up to 
 God, you arc nothing, we are nothing, the 
 Church is nothing. 
 
 The Leaders are Responsible. 
 
 We must go out of this century as brave 
 and believing and sacrificing as our fathers 
 came into it. Brothers in our pulpits, a 
 stream never rises above its source. Like 
 preacher, like people. How we need to 
 watch and pray, lest our lights should burn 
 dim or go out. 
 
 God Waits for Us. 
 
 God waits on us for power among men. 
 When we insist God answers with all the 
 forces of His government. Moses stands on 
 a projecting table-land of Sinai, overlooking 
 the camp of Israel, in the presence of his an- 
 gered God. God, pointing to Israel bowed 
 before the golden calf, says to Moses: ''Go, 
 get thee down to thy people, for they have 
 corrupted themselves." Moses, who the other 
 day feared to stand before poor little Pharaoh, 
 now, in the hour of trial and destiny, stands 
 bravely before his angered God, and says: 
 "Why is Thine anger kindled against Thy 
 
 132 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 people, whom Thou broughtest out of the 
 land of bondage?" Moses clings, as it were, 
 to the very vesture of the Lord, and will not 
 let Him go. The Lord says: "Let Me alone, 
 that Mine anger may wax hot against them." 
 Moses says : ''What will the heathen say, that 
 Thou broughtest Thy people out into the wil- 
 derness to slay them?" Then the Lord, as if 
 to buy off Moses, says: 'T will make of thee 
 a great people." Moses stands firm, and says: 
 "Where is Thy promise to Abraham, to Isaac, 
 and to Jacob? If Thy word will not hold, 
 then blot me out of Thy book, but spare Is- 
 rael." This heroic man, offering himself and 
 pleading the integrity and honor of God, pre- 
 vailed and saved Israel. Brothers, we stand 
 between God and our Methodism. If we 
 hold on to God with believing, self-sacrificing 
 purpose. He will save and baptize our 
 Church with power, and swing us into the 
 twentieth century for a mightier work than 
 any we have ever seen or of which we have 
 ever heard. 
 
 Hooper Crews was pastor of our Church 
 at Springfield, Illinois. He was awakened 
 one summer by his report to the Quarterly 
 Conference to find that his Church was de- 
 clining. He was sore distressed and prayed 
 
 133 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 much, fearing he had outlived his call. One 
 summer Sabbath night, in the midst of the 
 harvest time, he announced to a little congre- 
 gation a prayer-meeting for Monday morn- 
 ing, at sunrise, for the revival of God's work 
 and the conversion of sinners. Then he gave 
 that night to agonizing prayer. A little be- 
 fore daylight his burden left him, and he fell 
 asleep on a lounge in his study. He awoke to 
 see the first beams of the morning sun. Look- 
 ing down into the churchyard, he saw that it 
 was full of people, and the church was full 
 of people, and the street was full of teams. 
 Men as far as nine miles away from the 
 church had awakened in the middle of the 
 night alarmed, fearing that the judgment day 
 was coming, took their teams, and drove to the 
 church with their families, to see if they could 
 find God and mercy. Brother Crews said: 
 "We went into the church and opened the 
 prayer-meeting; we closed it that night at 
 eleven o'clock with twenty-eight conversions, 
 as the beginning of a sweeping revival." 
 Brothers, if we will consecrate ourselves to 
 God without reserve, and cling to God, taking 
 no denial, He will honor our faith and bless 
 our Methodism with a century of unprece- 
 dented achievements. 
 
 134 
 
APPEAL FOR TWENTY MILLIONS 
 
 Brothers, sisters, Methodists, Bishops, pre- 
 siding elders, pastors, class leaders, stewards, 
 trustees, superintendents, teachers, and mem- 
 bers, listen: Enter into the secret chamber of 
 your own soul; answer to the divine Spirit 
 who graciously meets you there and whispers 
 to you. Tell him: ^T will seek God till I find 
 Him a satisfying portion, and serve Him in 
 all things, great or small, till I die. I will 
 ask for the witness of the Spirit till I receive 
 it, and will keep it every hour forever." Let 
 us put our hands between the King's hands. 
 
 135 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 Delivered at the Wesley Bi-centennial Celebration in 
 
 People's Temple, Boston, on Tuesday 
 
 evening, June 29, 1903. 
 
 137 
 
WESLEY ANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 It takes a big stamp to impress the world. 
 Most men do well to impress their own fami- 
 lies. Few men leave their image and super- 
 scription upon their own nation. It is only 
 once in five or ten centuries that a man comes 
 our way big enough to make a bend in the 
 stream of human history. To look back over 
 the bulge of two centuries and see a man so 
 filling the field of vision that thoughtful men 
 soberly discuss the question of his being a 
 recognized force in shaping the character of 
 the human race, is to settle the question of his 
 phenomenal greatness. He must be tall 
 enough to be an epoch-maker. We may well 
 be content to admire and imitate and run after 
 him and wait for our obscure graves. Such 
 a character calls us together at this time. 
 
 Rightly to measure the spaces between the 
 fixed stars, we must take the wide orbit of the 
 sun as our meter, our unit. Rightly to meas- 
 ure John Wesley, we must take some of the 
 great characters that Time has only dug 
 about, and the dust of oblivion has only fruc- 
 
 139 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 tified, as our standards and units of measure. 
 The multitude of difficulties and antagonisms 
 that hedged his way were only the scaffolding 
 used in building his character. Where now is 
 the scaffolding used in building the Parthe- 
 non? Gone and forgotten, twenty- three cen- 
 turies ago. But there stands that marble 
 temple on the summit of the Acropolis, a 
 thing of beauty, as wonderful as when it came 
 from the brain of Ictinus. Where is the scaf- 
 folding used in piling the Pyramids? Gone, 
 forty centuries ago. But there tower the 
 Pyramids over the sands of Egypt, as grim 
 and grand as when they received the first 
 royal mummy. The scaffolding is nothing. 
 So the creatures and things that assailed and 
 maltreated John Wesley are nothing. They 
 are gone, forgotten. They only give us per- 
 spective. Where now is the guard that gam- 
 bled at the foot of the cross? Gone. No his- 
 torian has rescued a single name or uncovered 
 a single footprint of their journey back to 
 Gaul. The priests and their order, the mili- 
 tary officers and the great Empire back of 
 them all gone, faded from the memories of 
 men, except as they lie like stained and de- 
 caying tatters about the site of that Cross. 
 But the victim on that Cross rises into the love 
 
 140 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 and admiration of men everywhere and for- 
 ever. So the mobs in Cornwall and the 
 clergymen at Epworth and elsewhere that as- 
 saulted John Wesley have vanished, remem- 
 bered only in their offenses. But this apostle 
 of righteousness has seized that eighteenth 
 century, leaving fragments of it for others, 
 and now men are studying the fact that the 
 world is being Wesleyanized. 
 
 There are three great figures in history 
 with whom Wesley may be compared in the 
 structure of his mind and the sweep of his 
 work. They are, taking the one nearest to us 
 in time, first, Napoleon Bonaparte, the man of 
 destiny. Napoleon w^as a colossal figure sent 
 into the world on an errand. Warrior, states- 
 man, organizer, he reconstructed the map of 
 Europe as if it were painted on his private 
 blocks, for his personal amusement. Hostile 
 armies melted in his breath like the host of 
 Sennacherib before the Angel of Death. 
 Thrones toppled at his touch, and kings 
 trailed in the train of his triumph. Himself a 
 despot, he crushed depotism, and gave to 
 Europe constitutional government. But in- 
 spired only by selfish ambition, the star of his 
 empire sank in a sea of blood, and he lived to 
 see the utter failure of all his personal plans. 
 
 141 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Wesley had his generalship and statesman- 
 ship, and had he been armed with a sword in- 
 stead of the New Testament he could have 
 built a temporal empire instead of a spiritual 
 kingdom. 
 
 Second, — Ignatius Loyola, the wounded 
 soldier of Pampeluna, the founder of the Or- 
 der of Jesus, the Society of the Jesuits. This 
 man, commencing with only the elements of 
 knowledge, at the age of thirty-three rose to 
 the control of the educational forces of the 
 Roman Church. The Society he created and 
 inspired, known as the Jesuits, is entrusted by 
 Rome with the task of producing her best 
 tools for her most critical work. They give 
 discipline to the Roman Catholic institutions 
 of learning and they swarm in the courts of 
 kings and in the lobbies of the republics. The 
 spirit of their founder seldom fails them. 
 Starting two centuries later, John Wesley, the 
 student of Oxford, is pursuing this worldly 
 force with a spiritual force scarcely less or- 
 ganized and quite as well fitted to the spirit 
 and requirements of the age. In heroism, in 
 self-sacrifice, in discipline, in high qualities 
 for commanding, in abilities for wide organi- 
 zation, in creative resources for emergencies, 
 Wesley can well confront Loyola in the arena 
 
 142 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 of the world before the eyes of these and com- 
 ing centuries. These are the chiefs of Arme- 
 geddon, whose forces shall settle the battle 
 of the Apocalypse. 
 
 Third, — Another stalwart figure towers 
 yonder in New Testament times, that tent- 
 maker of Tarsus, no mean city. This brown- 
 haired, hook-nosed Jew, Saul, was especially 
 trained for a great work. On the wharves of 
 Cydnus he encountered the traders of many 
 lands. At home, in a Hebrew family of the 
 dispersion, he talked with his father in the 
 language of Abraham and Moses; at school 
 he rolled the rich language of Homer and 
 Demosthenes. In the streets of Tarsus he saw 
 the insignia of Roman power. These three 
 great languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
 united to make Paul the defender of Jesus, 
 on whose Cross they would be again united. 
 Languages were his alphabets. Civilizations 
 were his text-books. Cities were his tutors. 
 Races were his companions. Continents were 
 his opportunities. The God of Abraham was 
 his power. The Cross of Jesus was his in- 
 spiration. This man Paul, divinely com- 
 missioned, widened Judaism from being the 
 religious cult of a subjugated province into 
 the religion for all races and for all ages. 
 
 143 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Wesley may properly be mentioned with 
 Paul, in heroism, in consecration, in wide itin- 
 erating, in scholarship, in authorship, and in 
 holy zeal. 
 
 Wesley surpassed Napoleon in general- 
 ship, for he never found his Waterloo or his 
 St. Helena. He surpassed Loyola in organiz- 
 ing power, for he never needed the backing of 
 the State or the army. He approaches St. 
 Paul in scholarship, for he created his insti- 
 tutions amid the intellectual activities of the 
 eighteenth century, and perpetuated them 
 with a challenge to all comers. These men, 
 taken in the order of their greatness, Paul, 
 Wesley, Loyola, Bonaparte, stand four giants, 
 holding up the four corners of the world. 
 
 Wesley came of Puritan ancestry, that 
 blood that gave England her greatest ruler 
 and her cleanest age. That was a stout moral 
 stock that put conscience above everything 
 else. They were slaves of duty which made 
 them God's freemen. His blood sagged into 
 High Churchism in his father and mother, 
 but back of them wxre the men who were not 
 afraid of stakes and fagots. 
 
 A necessary call to greatness is a divine 
 call to be born of a great mother. Few men 
 ever reach greatness without this divine call. 
 
 144 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 Julius Caesar, the Gracchi, Washington, Bon- 
 aparte, Bacon, Lincoln, and McKinley were 
 born of queenly mothers. Susannah Wesley 
 was easily peer of any in the noble group. 
 She was one of the most accomplished ladies 
 of her time. Adam Clarke says he never saw 
 her equal. Wesley started well. 
 
 He started in the right place, a parsonage. 
 It is good soil that can grow such stalks as 
 Lord Nelson and Henry Clay, Lord Tenny- 
 son and Thackeray, Macaulay and Froude, 
 and Lowell and Goldsmith. Remember that 
 Spurgeon and Beecher, Jonathan Edwards 
 and James Martineau, also enrich the cradle 
 roll of the parsonage. A great host of lay- 
 men sprang from the same nest. One-seventh 
 of our over $21,000,000 Twentieth Century 
 Thank-offering came from a few babes in the 
 parsonage. John Wesley had this royal start. 
 
 It was in his blood to command. His rela- 
 tive, the Duke of Wellington, carried no more 
 authority in his soul than did he. It is easy 
 to obey such men as Caesar and Cromwell and 
 Grant. That made the itinerancy and Metho- 
 dism possible. Lord Macaulay said of Wes- 
 ley: ^'He was a man whose eloquence and 
 logical exactness might have rendered him 
 eminent in literature; whose genius for gov- 
 
 10 145 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ernment was not inferior to that of Richelieu ; 
 and who devoted all his powers in defiance of 
 obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely 
 considered the highest good of his species." 
 
 Oxford was his natural home. Her clas- 
 sic halls, her libraries, her traditions, her 
 memories, her atmosphere, fitted him as the 
 water fits a fish. He rested, he sported, he 
 throve, he grew in it. I went into his old 
 room in Oxford. There was his old chair and 
 desk and the walls and the windows, as they 
 were in his time. I almost felt his presence. 
 It seemed to me that he must be somewhere 
 about, possibly out lecturing in his place. 
 His scholarship was so deep and rich that 
 he embodied the University. He must be 
 campaigning somewhere, I thought, if he 
 does not come home here to the University. 
 
 In his day Latin and Greek were mas- 
 tered. Students handled them like English. 
 Hebrew was a part of his work. Modern 
 languages easily yielded their treasures to 
 him. He knew the mathematics and logic 
 and philosophy of the University. Science 
 was pursued by him to the limit of the Uni- 
 versity's ability to furnish. He specialized 
 in electricity. He was at home in the whole 
 range of literature, reading the classics, pro- 
 
 146 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 fane and sacred and ecclesiastical, in their 
 original tongues. History, biography, and 
 poetry were attractive to him. He prepared a 
 Christian library of fifty volumes, selecting 
 w^ith great care the best parts of the best 
 authors. He w^as voluminous in his author- 
 ship. He prepared and published grammars 
 in five languages, also four volumes of 
 Church history and an English dictionary. 
 He wrote two hundred and thirty-three 
 works, and edited one hundred more. 
 
 His vast stores of knowledge were avail- 
 able for discussions, exhortations, and ser- 
 mons. His sermons are of high order, solid, 
 compact, orderly, Scriptural, luminous. His 
 journal is pronounced among the best ever 
 published. He stands in the first rank as a 
 scholar and writer. He was the first actual 
 University extension the world ever saw. He 
 gave the results of his studying and wide 
 reading to the common people with a most 
 prodigal hand. He inspired a desire for 
 knowledge throughout all his societies. As 
 a scholar, as an author, as a preacher and in- 
 spirer of men, he must forever hold a high 
 rank. Methodism must forever be grateful 
 for his work and his scholarship, and for the 
 work and scholarship of Adam Clarke, for 
 
 147 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the reception of whose most charmed work 
 Wesley prepared the way. Theodore Parker 
 said: "Methodism has produced the greatest 
 scholar and the greatest organizer of the last 
 thousand years." We have a divine right to 
 be proud of Wesley. I have heard of some 
 Methodist fledglings in our pulpits who feign 
 contempt for Wesley and Clarke. I venture 
 they never heard of many of the old manu- 
 scripts which Clarke studied and compared 
 letter by letter from end to end in his patient 
 work. When I hear them lisping and see 
 them drooling, I would like to send them 
 back to Susannah Wesley for training. She 
 would teach them better manners and more 
 wisdom, or exhaust them in the attempt. 
 
 Wesley^s great work was the liberation of 
 spiritual forces among men. His massive, 
 intellectual powers, his acumen, his logic, his 
 scholarship, his wide knowledge, all these 
 were only by-products. The purpose for 
 which his plant was put up and run was the 
 production of spiritual results in the trans- 
 formation of individuals and in the purifica- 
 tion and elevation of society. Methodism 
 was born in Aldersgate Street, London, May 
 24, 1738, when its founder ^^felt his heart 
 strangely warmed, felt that he did trust in 
 
 148 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 Christ alone for salvation," and had "an as- 
 surance given him that Christ had taken away 
 his sin and saved him from the law of sin and 
 death." He then knew that something had 
 happened. 
 
 In January, 1885, I was walking through 
 Aldersgate Street, London, with an old lay- 
 man, George John Stevenson. He was my 
 London correspondent when I edited the 
 New York Advocate. He was Adam Clarke's 
 literary executor. He knew more about early 
 Methodist localities than any other man then 
 living. He stopped and said: "When I was 
 a boy there was a house where this cross street 
 is now; when the street was cut through, the 
 house was taken dow^n. In the upper room of 
 that house was held the meeting in which 
 John Wesley was converted. That is where 
 he felt his 'heart strangely warmed;' 'that was 
 the birthplace of Methodism.' " I took off 
 my hat. 
 
 Before this Wesley had been very High 
 Church, and an extreme stickler for the order 
 of the Church. On March 31, 1738, in Bris- 
 tol, a little time before his conversion, Mr. 
 Whitefield showed him how to preach in the 
 fields. He says: "I could hardly reconcile 
 myself to this strange way of preaching, hav- 
 
 149 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ing been all my life, till very lately, so stren- 
 uous of every point relating to decency and 
 order, that I should have thought the saving 
 of souls almost a sin if it had not been done 
 in a Church." In a most earnest way he was 
 seeking God through all the services of the 
 Church, but all the time failing to find peace 
 and comfort. He said after his return from 
 America: ^'One thing have I learned in the 
 ends of the earth, that I, who went to Amer- 
 ica to convert the Indians, was never con- 
 verted myself." Later he described his way 
 of living in those struggling days as ''a refined 
 way of trusting to his own works and his own 
 righteousness;" that he ^'dragged on heavily, 
 finding no help or comfort therein." He 
 learned on the sea that the Moravians had 
 some religious experience that ''removed the 
 fear of death." By the help of Peter Bohler 
 he was led to the truth and held that "when 
 we renounce everything but faith and get into 
 Christ, then, and not till then, have we any 
 reason to believe that we are Christians." 
 Thus he struggled and prayed and fasted and 
 clung to the Church ordinances and sacra- 
 ments, till at last he let go of everything else 
 and rested down upon Jesus Christ by faith 
 only. Then he ''felt his heart strangely 
 
 150 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 warmed'' and knew by the witness of the Holy 
 Spirit with his spirit that his sins were for- 
 given and that he was accepted of God. This 
 is what the early Methodist called the ''germ 
 cell" of Methodism. The Church was quick- 
 ened into conscious life, spiritual life. It is 
 the common experience of converted people 
 that they feel that they are sinners. That they 
 feel that their sins are forgiven. It is a life 
 of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. It ma- 
 tures into life and peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost. This was proof to the individual 
 deeper than his logic, deeper than his reason- 
 ing, bubbling up out of the very depths of his 
 consciousness, saying itself within him, 
 ''Abba, Father." This is the way they know 
 that something has happened. 
 
 This enables us to understand the state- 
 ment that the Word is spirit and spiritually 
 discerned. The exercise of saving faith is in 
 the spiritual and voluntary nature. This fur- 
 nishes the foundation for that Scriptural doc- 
 trine taught in the New Testament and taught 
 and experienced by Methodists and known as 
 the witness of the Spirit. It is that opera- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit upon the believer tes- 
 tifying to the state of salvation and bringing 
 peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Thus the 
 
 151 
 
Addresses on notable occasions 
 
 believer knows that something has happened. 
 This is the purpose for which Methodism 
 was called into being. Philosophical and the- 
 ological teaching had so deadened the power 
 of the gospel that it had no fair opportunity 
 to manifest its power. The world was sub- 
 merged in doubt. Christianity was dismissed 
 as a worn-out cult. 
 
 Methodism is a new life, and so is an ex- 
 perience. It has God's testimony that some- 
 thing has happened. It is love and peace and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost. A preacher ap- 
 proaching his new appointment, asked a boy: 
 ^'Do people at Millbrook enjoy religion?" 
 The boy struck the central power of Metho- 
 dism when he said: "Them that has it does." 
 
 John Wesley was driven from the com- 
 munion table and shut out of the churches as 
 a fanatic being consumed by zeal, because he 
 preached this doctrine of salvation by faith 
 only and the witness of the Floly Spirit; he 
 proclaimed a knowable religion. It was 
 sometimes necessary to check zeal without 
 knowledge. But that peril has long since 
 passed. In this age, when nearly every street 
 might be carpeted with newspapers, this age 
 of magazines and high schools and colleges 
 and universities and lectures, our peril is 
 
 152 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 from the opposite direction. We are in no 
 danger of too much emotion in religion. 
 When the president of a university not distin- 
 guished for religious emotions, admonishes 
 Methodism about too much emotion, I am 
 persuaded of his kindly intent, but that he 
 misses our present perils. And when any one 
 is reported as saying that ''the statement that 
 we must have an experience in order to be 
 Christians is a religious falsis7n/' I am com- 
 pelled to think that he is misrepresented. At 
 all events an effort to protect our Methodism 
 from too much emotion is a work of superero- 
 gation. It is no wiser than the man who spent 
 his fortune in making a steel umbrella to pro- 
 tect his head from falling meteors. It is con- 
 ceivable that a man might be killed by a fall- 
 ing meteor, but our heads are in greater 
 danger from other causes. It would be quite 
 as wise to build coffer-dams in the midst of 
 the Sahara desert to keep back the sea. As a 
 Church, our peril is greater from the loss of 
 the strange warming of the heart. 
 
 In my early ministry I constructed a doc- 
 trine which I called the geology of character. 
 By it I meant that a man might by faithful- 
 ness and obedience and prayerfulness so round 
 up his character that by and by he would 
 
 153 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 come into a religious life and that God would 
 save him. I did not preach my doctrine of 
 geology of character, because I could not sup- 
 port it by the Scriptures, and I was not com- 
 missioned to preach my own speculations, but 
 the Good News. One day a man came into 
 my home and asked me to come and hold a 
 funeral service over his little girl. I said I 
 would go. As he went out he said to me: 
 ^^Do n't waste any words on me. I have out- 
 grown my superstitions. My wife has not. 
 She was a Wesleyan in Canada and has not 
 outgrown it. It is on her account I want the 
 service." I went and said what I thought I 
 ought to. About three weeks after that the 
 cholera plague struck our city. Several hun- 
 dred died each day. Nearly every person that 
 took the plague died. Early in the time of 
 the trouble a little girl came into my home 
 and said: ''My papa has got the cholera and 
 three doctors have given him up, and he wants 
 you to see him. Will you come?" I was in 
 a tight corner. I instantly thought my ge- 
 ology of character can not reach him. I was 
 also afraid of the cholera. But I thought that 
 any minister that would not go to such a call 
 ought to take the cholera and die. I asked, 
 "Who is your papa?" She said: ''O, you 
 
 154 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 know my papa. You buried my little sister 
 three weeks ago," at such a number, a little 
 over a block away. I said: ''I will go." The 
 cold perspiration started over me. As I went 
 I prayed for help. It came to me in this 
 Scripture, ^'Preach My gospel." I said: 
 ^'That is it. I will give him only the word 
 of God and leave the responsibility with 
 God." As I went into the house the woman 
 fell down and caught me about my feet, say- 
 ing: "O, sir, you must save him." I said, as 
 I lifted her up : ''I can not save him." As I 
 went up by the side of the bed, the man sprang 
 up and threw the stump of his arm about my 
 neck and said: '^O, sir, what shall I do? It 
 is so dark and everything whirls so. I can't 
 die this way." I laid him back on the bed and 
 said: ^'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved." He sprang up and 
 shook his hand and the stump of his arm at 
 me and said: "Do n't you tell me that. Here 
 I am fifty years old, crystallized in sin, and 
 have only an hour or two to live. You can't 
 make me over in an hour." There was my 
 geology of character, face to face with me. 
 I waited. Another spasm took him and he 
 cried out again: ''What shall I do? I can't 
 
 155 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 die this way." I said: ''Believe on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Again 
 he said: "Don't you tell me that;" and I 
 waited. We teetered over that single passage 
 for nearly two hours. I gave him nothing 
 else. At last, fearing he would go soon, I 
 said: "Believe, and do n't you dare to tell me 
 no. You will be dead in an hour. All the 
 people that have gone up to God have gone 
 by this way of faith." Then he began to moan 
 and pray: "Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me." 
 Soon he was praying with all his might. 
 Then I repeated the promises to him. I re- 
 peated that wonderful promise, "Him that 
 Cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." 
 He said: "Say that again, say that again." I 
 repeated it. He said: "I believe it, I believe 
 it. Glory to God, I can die now. I am not 
 afraid to die now. Hallelujah, I can die 
 now!" He begged his wife's pardon for hav- 
 ing been so mean to her. He talked about his 
 business, often breaking out, "I can die now." 
 He knew that something had happened. I 
 left him. Toward morning I returned. He 
 was gone. He went, shouting, "Glory to God, 
 I can die now." He was saved by faith, just 
 as that thief on the cross was saved, just as 
 every man who is saved is saved by faith. 
 
 156 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 Two people were cured of the geology of 
 character that night. 
 
 God made us, and He can remake us in 
 a second, when we believe. We do not do the 
 work. God does it, and He can save at the 
 last moment. That is the power of the gospel. 
 That is the power of Methodism. It has a 
 real gospel, real Good News, that God can 
 save to the uttermost, and even at the last, if 
 only we believe. If I did not believe that 
 that poor creature dying yonder in the alley, 
 scuttled in every virtue, unloved and un- 
 mothered, slipping from the crumbling verge 
 of time into the vortex of perdition, if only 
 she would send one believing cry to Jesus, 
 could be saved, I would never dare to preach 
 again. He saves by faith. He does it. I 
 would to God that w^e might as a Church to 
 the last member take hold of His Almighty 
 and merciful hand and appropriate by only 
 simple faith all that we need, and hold 
 onto Him by faith till He sends His witness- 
 ing Spirit, giving us love, peace, and joy in 
 the Holy Ghost. This is Methodism. 
 
 This great truth is Wesleyanizing the 
 world. I bless God for that fact. I have 
 large charity, large love, for all the Churches 
 that hold to the Bible. I could work in any 
 
 157 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 of them and be happy if I could preach and 
 enjoy these great Methodist New Testament 
 truths. Their prayer and testimony meetings 
 are as clear and definite as our own. You 
 could hardly tell by the experiences that they 
 are not Methodist meetings. But it was not 
 always so. Young as I am, I have heard a 
 preacher in an orthodox pulpit denounce ''the 
 damnable doctrine that a man might know his 
 sins forgiven." In the high days of hard 
 Calvinism men under the reign of the secret 
 decree could not know whether they were of 
 the elect or not. The decree was secret. The 
 witness of the Spirit to adoption put an end to 
 the secret decree and to all the other decrees. 
 The Established Church in England was 
 no gentler on this matter. As soon as Wesley 
 experienced and preached this doctrine he 
 was thrust out of the churches and from the 
 communion table, and was mobbed in the 
 streets and in the fields at the instigation of 
 Churchmen, ministers and laymen, as a fa- 
 natic. That was the state of Christian 
 Churches and of the world when God spoke 
 the Methodist Church into being. We were 
 sent out on a special errand. We were called 
 up into being, to preach a knowable religion. 
 Our fathers heard the Divine call and saw 
 
 158 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 God's beckoning hand, and were obedient to 
 the heavenly vision. Men heard their testi- 
 mony. They wanted their experience. They 
 wanted to know a God that could be found. 
 They came in throngs. The truths reached 
 the multitudes. Earnest souls of all classes 
 found peace in believing. The old Churches, 
 some of which had not had a revival or a con- 
 version for a whole generation, caught the re- 
 vival spirit and experience. The long silent 
 heart began to beat. New life currents 
 coursed through the veins. The dormant 
 bodies roused to activity, and songs of life 
 were heard on every side. 
 
 Multitudes born at Methodist altars went 
 into the Churches where their parents wor- 
 shipped. While Methodism would have 
 been glad to house them, yet she rejoiced to 
 see them carry their new life and testimony 
 with them into their old Churches. If all 
 our converts had stayed with us we would 
 have more than doubled our membership, 
 but other Churches would not have awak- 
 ened. The glad life of Methodism, incar- 
 nated in John Wesley, May 24, 1738, when 
 he felt his heart strangely warmed, flowed 
 over the brim of Methodism, ran into and 
 through the other Churches, making glad the 
 
 159 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 City of our God. It took a century to warm 
 the old altars and hearts, but I thank God that 
 they are being strangely warmed. Our con- 
 verts have not been lost. They have been 
 scattered into good soil as ''germ cells." Sal- 
 vation by faith only, and the w^itness of the 
 Spirit with our spirits that we are adopted, 
 wherever preached and experienced, is Meth- 
 odism, no matter what name it bears. 
 
 The Established Church which drove 
 John Wesley from her altars and pulpits has 
 felt the power of his distinctive doctrines. 
 Blackstone said that he had heard the ablest 
 preachers of the Church and you could not 
 tell by their sermons whether they were Pa- 
 gan or Mohammedan or Christian. I need 
 not uncap that abyss. It is enough to say with 
 the great secular historian that much of the 
 good wrought by Wesley and his followers 
 was found in their quickening of the Estab- 
 lished Church. It is now enough to say that 
 not a small percentage of the evangelical 
 preaching in England and in the world is 
 now heard in non-Methodist pulpits. The 
 world is being Wesleyanized. 
 
 A Christian lady, a little while ago, 
 brought her two sons, young men in their 
 teens, to one of our Churches where a blessed 
 
 160 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 revival was in progress, and said to our pas- 
 tor, whom I know: " I have brought my sons 
 to your services. They are to be confirmed in 
 a few weeks, and I want them converted be- 
 fore they are confirmed." 
 
 A hundred years ago, before the Churches 
 had been Wesleyanized, there were but about 
 a dozen missionary societies. The lifeless 
 forms of Christianity were hardly able to 
 propagate themselves. But now, since these 
 great bodies have felt the new life, these mis- 
 sionary societies are numbered by the hun- 
 dred. This revived and revival doctrine is 
 running throughout all the great masses of 
 Heathenism. Here and there over all the 
 pagan continents you can see the flames of the 
 new life burning on Christian altars, and hear 
 the glad songs of hearts strangely warmed by 
 the love of God consciously shed abroad in 
 the soul. Thus, in this wider range and 
 mightier sweep, the world is being Wesley- 
 anized. 
 
 We are only on the crest of the mountains 
 where the endless plains stretch away into an 
 ever-widening future. This power of a new 
 life spread so widely that it reached the great 
 masses of the English nation, giving the peo- 
 ple a new moral sense, an exalted sense of 
 
 II 161 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 honor, and a resistless patriotism. It rose so 
 high that it bore English statesmanship up to 
 levels it had never approached before. 
 
 Lecky, the philosophical historian of 
 much weight and authority, says: 
 
 "Although the career of the elder Pitt, 
 and the splendid victories by land and sea that 
 were won during his ministry, form unques- 
 tionably the most dazzling episodes in the 
 reign of George II, they must yield, I think, 
 in real importance, to that religious revolu- 
 tion which shortly before had been begun in 
 England by the preaching of the Wesleys and 
 of Whitefield. The creation of a large, 
 powerful and active set, extending over both 
 hemispheres and numbering many millions of 
 souls, was but one of its consequences. It also 
 exercised a profound and lasting influence 
 upon the spirit of the Established Church, 
 upon the amount and distribution of the 
 moral forces of the nation, and even upon the 
 course of its political history." 
 
 This swelling tide has necessarily reached 
 our country and has become identified with 
 our free institutions. 
 
 Touched in this last century and a half 
 with the spirit of personal kinship and fellow- 
 ship with God, these English-speaking peo- 
 
 162 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 pies have risen to the highest civilization 
 known among men, and marching with the 
 swing of conquest they walk over the earth 
 as if they owned it. Like chivalrous knights 
 of high heaven, they feel called upon to right 
 the great wrongs, to defend the helpless, lift 
 up the poor, and establish prosperous peace, 
 or know the reason why. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon integrity, which is 
 stronger than Anglo-Saxon greed of land, and 
 the Anglo-Saxon moral sense, which is deeper 
 than Anglo-Saxon passion for power, is the 
 pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire 
 by night, in which the God of Providence 
 dwells, that is guiding the fugitives from all 
 despotisms to the promised land. 
 
 Brothers, I see more in this federation of 
 English-speaking peoples than the strutting 
 of our proud police of the seas and the bark- 
 ing of our war-dogs. I see, rather, the better 
 chance for perpetual peace and the growth 
 of the gentler virtues. I hate war. 
 
 The time is coming when these two flags, 
 floating together, will make it impossible for 
 a gun to throw a bullet beyond its muzzle or 
 for a soldier to lift his foot unless the order 
 is given in the English tongue. 
 
 Brothers, I am not outside the facts of his- 
 163 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 tory when I say that the spirit which God 
 poured into the world through the lips, labor, 
 and life of John Wesley has quickened this 
 Anglo-Saxon people into power. The Anglo- 
 Saxon stock is the engine, and Methodism is 
 the man in the cab with his hand on the lever. 
 This is the secret why these people are so free, 
 fearless, and loyal. 
 
 Who can measure our responsibility? 
 Our only safety is in close personal work with 
 God, in walking with God as our fathers did, 
 keeping ourselves personally in such fellow- 
 ship that we can detect the least approach 
 of sin, and hear the slightest prompting of 
 the Spirit, and receive constantly new sup- 
 plies of spiritual powxr. The same heroic 
 devotion that made our fathers win in the 
 nineteenth century will make us win in the 
 twentieth. God help us, that we may have 
 not only "the arduous greatness of things 
 achieved," but also the heroic greatness that 
 can do all things through the strengthening 
 grace of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The field for Methodism is wider than 
 ever in the past. Its great need is the old 
 fire, the strange warming of the heart. 
 
 John Wesley grew in a godly family. He 
 went into the Church by the proper cere- 
 
 164 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 monies. He prayed and fasted and worked 
 and watched. He took the vows of the 
 Church and devoted himself to her cere- 
 monies and sacraments. As John Dempster 
 went to South America as a missionary into 
 the perils of Roman Catholic persecution, 
 chiefly to be sure that he was thoroughly and 
 absolutely consecrated to God, so John Wes- 
 ley went into the wilds among the savages of 
 America, as a missionary. But none of these 
 things gave him satisfying peace and comfort. 
 He styles all these things, a "refined way of 
 trusting to his own works and his own right- 
 eousness," "that he dragged on heavily, find- 
 ing no help or comfort therein." But he re- 
 nounced all these things, saying, "When we 
 renounce everything but faith and get into 
 Christ, then, and not till then, have we any 
 reason to believe that we are Christians." 
 Under the guidance of a Moravian Christian 
 and led by the Spirit, he settled down upon 
 Christ only; then he felt his heart strangely 
 warmed and knew that his sins were forgiven. 
 Then he came to his Kingdom. 
 
 Brothers, I will call another great witness, 
 a man of the same rugged, logical, mental 
 structure, only greater, possibly the greatest 
 of all the sons of Adam, possibly the greatest 
 
 165 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 man the great God ever made — none other 
 than Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles. 
 Hear his testimony concerning his labors and 
 sufferings: 
 
 Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I 
 will glory also. 
 
 Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they 
 Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of 
 Abraham? so am I. 
 
 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak 
 as a fool,) I am more; in labors more abun- 
 dant, in stripes above measure, in prisons 
 more frequent, in deaths oft. 
 
 Of the Jews five times received I forty 
 stripes save one. 
 
 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was 
 I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night 
 and a day I have been in the deep ; 
 
 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, 
 in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own 
 countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils 
 in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils 
 in the sea, in perils among false brethren. 
 
 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings 
 often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, 
 in cold and nakedness. 
 
 Besides those things that are without, that 
 
 166 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 which cometh upon me daily, the care of all 
 the churches. — (2 Cor. xi, 18, 22-28.) 
 
 Who shall separate us from the love of 
 Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or per- 
 secution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
 or sword? 
 
 As it is written. For Thy sake we are killed 
 all the day long; we are accounted as sheep 
 for the slaughter. 
 
 Nay, in all these things we are more than 
 conquerors, through Him that loved us. 
 
 For I am persuaded, that neither death, 
 nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 powers, nor things present, nor things to come. 
 
 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- 
 ture, shall be able to separate us from the 
 love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord. — (Romans viii, 35-39.) 
 
 Hear his summation of his claims to self- 
 righteousness: "If any man thinketh that he 
 hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I 
 more; 
 
 "Circumcised the eighth day" — all there 
 could be in early admission to the Church — 
 "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benja- 
 min.'' Royal blood, the blood of the patri- 
 archs, Israel's bluest blood flowed in his veins, 
 
 167 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and the especial favor of Benjamin, with his 
 double portion. "An Hebrew of the He- 
 brews." No alien mixtures, good blood on 
 both sides of the house. "As touching the 
 law, a Pharisee." Orthodox, no materializ- 
 ing Sadducee. "Concerning zeal, persecut- 
 ing the Church." No limp and lazy liberal, 
 but an inquisitor keyed to the highest and 
 hardest duties. "Touching the righteousness 
 which is in the law, blameless/' Nothing 
 could be higher than this; yet hear this wit- 
 ness. It is Paul, the aged. The fires and fan- 
 cies of youth have long ago died out of him. 
 He is in the ripe maturity of his faculties and 
 powers, at the very summit of his great man- 
 hood, tested and enriched on every side. He 
 has tested every weapon and tried every tor- 
 ture. He has confronted the mob in the tem- 
 ple and the inquisitor in the dungeon. He has 
 stood against the bigotry of Jerusalem, against 
 the philosophy of Athens, against the corrup- 
 tion of Corinth, against the rashness of Phil- 
 ippi, against the idolatry of Ephesus, and 
 against the persecutions of Rome. He fled 
 from the mob in Jerusalem to the prison in 
 Caesarea, from the wrath of Derbe to the 
 stoning in Lystra, from the vengeance of Cor- 
 inth to struggle with wild beasts in Ephesus. 
 
 168 
 
WESLEYANIZING THE WORLD 
 
 He struggled out of the surf of the i^gean 
 to stand alone at Nero's bar. Surely if any 
 man ever had whereof to trust in the flesh, 
 this man can well say ''I more." Yet, hear 
 his testimony: "But what things were gain to 
 me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, 
 doubtless, and I count all things but loss for 
 the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
 Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the 
 loss of all things, and do count them but dung, 
 that I may win Christ. And be found in Him, 
 not having mine own righteousness, which is 
 of the law, but that which is through the faith 
 of Christ, the righteousness which is of God 
 by faith." (Phil, iii, 4-9.) 
 
 These two greatest men in the Christian 
 Church, Paul and Wesley, come back to the 
 same sure foundation, faith in Jesus Christ. 
 
 Brothers, this old truth, this simple expe- 
 rience, by which Wesley felt his heart 
 strangely warmed, will warm all our hearts. 
 It has made the nineteenth century the great- 
 est of all centuries, and it will make the twen- 
 tieth century even infinitely greater. For the 
 world is being rapidly Wesleyanized. 
 
 169 
 
FIRST FRATERNAL ADDRESS TO 
 
 THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
 
 CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 This was the first exchange of fraternal greetings 
 between the Methodist Episcopal Church and the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, since the Church 
 South was organized after the controversy of 1844. The 
 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in 1872 authorized and directed the Bishops to appoint a 
 Commission of three fraternal delegates to visit the 
 General Conference of the Church South which met at 
 Louisville, Kentucky, in May, 1874. The fraternal dele- 
 gates were appointed by the Bishops. They were Rev. 
 Albert S. Hunt, D. D., Rev. Charles H. Fowler, D. D., 
 and Gen. Clinton B. Fisk. 
 
FRATERNAL ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
 
 CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 Mr. President and Brethren: 
 
 I need not tell you that I am thankful 
 that in the providence of God I am permitted 
 to stand before you at this hour. It seems 
 to me, that in a clearer and sharper way than 
 ever before, I stand in the presence of the 
 Methodist Church, represented in the dele- 
 gates which you have received and in the 
 great body which is before me to-day. 
 
 Business, like breathing, cares for itself. 
 Friendships have to be protected and fostered. 
 The legislation of this great body may, like 
 the mills of the gods, seem to grind slowly, 
 but it must grind right on. The imperative 
 command of the host behind you is, "For- 
 ward." The hard thing is to tarry a season 
 and give voice and opportunity to our more 
 genial and more distinctly religious experi- 
 ences. It would not be lost time for Baron 
 Rothschild to pause long enough, in the midst 
 of his calculations, to find the pearl of great 
 
 173 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 price. It is not altogether lost time for us to 
 pause, in the hurrying tides of life, long 
 enough to exchange greetings and benedic- 
 tions ; and I comfort myself, in accepting the 
 honor of your attention, that it is no incon- 
 siderate part of a delegate's duty to endure 
 the speeches of his brethren. 
 
 You take Vanderbilt's check in your hand. 
 It is not very heavy nor very large, but it is 
 worth something. There are a stout old com- 
 modore and fifteen hundred miles of railroad 
 back of it, and a great university in it. The 
 speeches we make this day may not be very 
 great or very weighty, but I hope they are 
 worth something. There are a Church and 
 fifteen hundred thousand believers back of 
 them, and peace and good-will in them. In 
 receiving us, you receive not us but them that 
 sent us. A people holding the seal of the 
 Highest, standing to-day in their doors and 
 looking this way, will say. Inasmuch as you 
 have received the least of these our little ones, 
 you have received us. 
 
 I am glad that I am permitted to present 
 to you the fraternal regard of this multitude. 
 There are many reasons why we should find 
 this flow of friendly feeling full of faith and 
 truth. 
 
 174 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E.. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 There are three essential elements in 
 Church life; namely, The creed, the form of 
 government, and the usages. Let us look over 
 our patrimony and see how many of these are 
 common to us as substantial reasons for fra- 
 ternal relations. 
 
 In creed we are one. I know these are 
 days in which it is popular to say: "Creeds are 
 nothing. Men have outgrown creeds. Reli- 
 gion is a life, not some marks on an old black- 
 letter parchment, which few living men can 
 read and fewer care to preserve." But I have 
 not grown to such liberty and looseness. I 
 believe in a creed just as much as I believe in 
 a skeleton. A Church without a creed would 
 be about as helpless as a man without a skele- 
 ton. Nothing but a mass of jelly, which the 
 nauseated swine might trample in loathing. 
 While I believe in skeletons with good spinal 
 columns, like that of Andrew Jackson, yet I 
 can not say that I care to meet naked skeletons 
 on the street or be embraced by them in the 
 house. I prefer them well covered and cush- 
 ioned, padded out into rounded manhood; so 
 I want a creed covered with the muscle, and 
 fiber, and cuticle, and beauty of a holy, be- 
 nignant, loving, working, Christian life. A 
 Church must have the elasticity of youth in 
 
 175 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 her step, the fullness of maturity in her form, 
 the grace of liberty in her motion, the blush 
 of the morning on her cheek, the light of 
 eternity in her eye, and the glory of heaven on 
 her head. She must be like the bow of the 
 archer, an embodiment of beauty and strength. 
 She must be central about some great domi- 
 nating conviction. This means a creed. To 
 my thinking it is no small bond between two 
 societies when they have the same creed. 
 
 We are distinguished by a conviction of 
 the universality of the atonement. Metho- 
 dists, and hardly any other people, can stand 
 in the world's hospital and cry into every ear, 
 "There is none so sick that they must die." 
 We can ofifer hope to the most wayward, to 
 the poor victim nearest perdition. If I be- 
 lieved that there was anywhere a soul on the 
 soil of probation to whom I could not say, 
 Christ died for you and you may live — He 
 that is for you is more than all they that can 
 be against you — I would never open my 
 mouth again in the pulpit. But this great 
 central truth we have in common: ''By the 
 grace of God, Jesus Christ tasted death for 
 every man." 
 
 Not only do we hold this, but, coming 
 over to the human side of the problem of des- 
 
 176 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 tiny, we are liberated into fellowship by our 
 conviction of man's freedom. We see him a 
 monarch. In our view of man's will we arc 
 separated from nearly all others and wedded 
 to each other. I wish I could give you some 
 due conception of what it seems to me to 
 be a man, a moral agent. This kingdom 
 of freedom is separated from every other 
 view of man by the length and breadth 
 of the moral government of this universe, 
 by all the altitude of the great white 
 throne. Intrenched behind, cased about by 
 our freedom, there is absolutely no power 
 in the universe that can crush or suborn 
 us. Even God can not compel us. He may, 
 for all I know, though I do not believe it, 
 drop me out of being, but He can not suborn 
 me. Every time I sin I demonstrate that I 
 can stand out against His great will and resist 
 His almighty power. Incased by my free- 
 dom, I can defy His worst. In spite of His 
 awakened wrath, in spite of all His enkindled 
 hells, in spite of the fiery tempests of hot dis- 
 pleasure, I can plunge on through the eter- 
 nities mocking alike the mercy that saves and 
 the wrath that torments. This is royalty, this 
 is kingship. No brief authority with which 
 we have been clothed by the consent of our 
 12 177 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 fellows or by the incidents of a moment, but 
 actual power, woven into the very texture of 
 our being; a scepter that no power in the uni- 
 verse can bend. We meet on the high plane 
 of freedom and of moral character. I hail 
 you as fellow-princes and potentates, worthy 
 companions of the thrones and dominions and 
 powers of eternity. Such we are distinctively 
 by our common creed. 
 
 We also hold in common the vital truth 
 of salvation by faith; not by works, not by 
 individual merit enhanced by long and faith- 
 ful service, but by simple faith. This was the 
 theory of the Reformation and the dream of 
 Protestantism. Methodism has made it a 
 resistless reality in the world. 
 
 We also rejoice in the witness of the Spirit 
 to every state and work of grace. This is pe- 
 culiarly Methodistic — old as the New Testa- 
 ment, in fact. All our truths are of great an- 
 tiquity, but the dust of oblivion had gathered 
 a yard deep on many of them, and our fathers 
 exhumed them and breathed the life into 
 them. I heard of a Christian brother who in 
 a union service testified, saying, 'T almost 
 hope that God may partly forgive my sins." 
 Methodism says, ''We have peace with God" 
 and ''joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 
 178 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 I find in our common patrimony not only 
 a universal atonement, and free grace and 
 free-will, and a witnessing Spirit, but also full 
 salvation. Salvation to the uttermost, by 
 which we are enabled to walk in the light, 
 even as He is in the light. With such a body 
 of truth held in common it is not difficult to 
 find field for the largest sympathies. Meet- 
 ing you in the vineyard toiling for my Lord, 
 and declaring these great truths from my in- 
 most heart, I say God bless- you, and may the 
 voice of your Gospel reach uncounted thou- 
 sands. 
 
 Besides these gifts, I find also in our com- 
 mon patrimony some wonderful devices and 
 inventions. Here is our form of government, 
 general and particular oversight. In govern- 
 ment Methodism is a vast system of superin- 
 tendencies. There is not a single inch of the 
 whole field of our activity, from the infant 
 class in the Sunday-school to the most difficult 
 work of administration, that is not covered by 
 a watchful eye. There is some one at every 
 point, whose business it is to see that the work 
 is done. A Church, like any great business, 
 must be handled on business principles, and it 
 will succeed best when these are adhered to 
 most faithfully. You must so manage a great 
 
 179 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 plantation, or a great dry-goods house, or a 
 great Church. The most profitable and pro- 
 ductive money the Church expends is that 
 which she invests for superintendency, that 
 which is paid first to the Bishops, next to the 
 Presiding Elders, all up and down the land. 
 This secures Church authority for any needed 
 adjustment at any given point. Change is se- 
 cured without revolution. This superintend- 
 ency involves two momentous results : 
 
 I. The government is thus made most pli- 
 able. It fits down into all the hollows and up 
 around all the knolls. Like the farmer's old 
 sled that broke all the new sleds, there is 
 just give enough to it to avoid the strain. It 
 is in the very nature of the organization itself 
 to constitutionally adjust itself to the new con- 
 ditions of society. We meet statedly every 
 four years for this very purpose. That is 
 what you are here for. It is your business to 
 see that the Church has the best adjustment 
 to the changes in circumstances, whatever 
 those changes may be. Methodist polity is 
 the best agency for to-day. Something else 
 for to-morrow, if something else will do bet- 
 ter. Methodism is sent into the world to 
 save sinners from their sins, and in the spirit 
 of the New Testament she is to become all 
 
 180 
 
ADDRESS TO THE U. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 things to all men, that by all means she may 
 save some. 
 
 2. Her system of superintendency gives 
 her a numerous officiary. This raises up a 
 great multitude under the conviction of re- 
 sponsibility. They feel that they are of some 
 account to somebody. It is something to feel 
 that somebody expects something of us. This 
 pliable system, resting upon the great mass 
 of the Church, and adapting itself to the exi- 
 gencies of the times, w^as not an invention, but 
 a growth in the order of Providence. 
 
 No man sat down and thought out Metho- 
 dism, or evolved it from his inner conscious- 
 ness, as the German philosopher did the 
 camel. It is a growth in things. Believers 
 seeking the way of life met to counsel one 
 another and make their weekly contributions 
 for benevolence ; and, before they were aware 
 of it, there were the class-meetings, with their 
 songs and shouts encircling the world. Men 
 relieved from the load of their guilt, having 
 the peace of God that passeth knowledge, told 
 the wonderful story to their shop-mates, and 
 then to their neighbors. The young disciple 
 thus became a witness, then an exhorter, and 
 then the societies awoke to the fact that they 
 had a great system of lay-helpers, preachers 
 
 181 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 that staid at home, anchored to the cobbler's 
 bench or the blacksmith's forge — local 
 preachers, supplying the work in vast dis- 
 tricts, and preparing the multitudes for the 
 more stately movements of the Church. The 
 preachers met to consult, and pray, and profit 
 by one another's experience, and plan the 
 work for the future, when shortly there was 
 born the vast system of Conferences that finds 
 its consummation of wisdom and of authority 
 in that body. Thus Methodism is a growth, 
 and so is exactly fitted to its place and work. 
 This great system of government, fitted to us, 
 in the order of Providence, as neatly as the 
 lion's skin is fitted to the lion, is our common 
 inheritance. This is a part of our patrimony. 
 As I believe, and as you believe, it is one of 
 God's favored instrumentalities for the cap- 
 ture of a lost race. 
 
 Then there are certain usages we have in 
 common. Methodism has been the champion 
 of congregational singing. Her voice has 
 made village, hamlet, and wilderness joyous 
 with praise and melody. 
 
 Then, too, I find in our patrimony a won- 
 derful use of the gifts and talents of women. 
 Methodism first broke loose from the bonds 
 of heathenism, and gave woman an exalted 
 
 182 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 place among her agencies, not merely to do 
 mission work, and bear the burdens, and do 
 the drudgery, but also to exercise her gifts 
 in public prayer, and testimony, and exhorta- 
 tion. The Church could not do less. For, 
 looking to her origin, then away back in the 
 dark vortex of formalism and practical skep- 
 ticism, standing out at the very head of her 
 human influences, and shining down through 
 all her experiences, she saw the mother of the 
 Wesleys. And after her a goodly company, 
 like the women of the New Testament, wait- 
 ing upon the cause of the Lord, and speaking 
 for His defense in all times of peril. 
 
 Thus, brothers, I find coming up to the 
 very surface, so as to be patent to all, that we 
 have a common heritage in Church life. All 
 the essential elements of such a life are in 
 both of our Churches identical. The founda- 
 tion of our fellowship is as deep as the foun- 
 dation of our religion. On this tide of con- 
 victions we are borne along together; like 
 wrestlers in a floating skifif, we may struggle, 
 but we are borne along on the great tide. 
 Blasts of passion may sweep our seas for a 
 season, and bear us up into the eye of the gale 
 to shiver under bare poles. But the great 
 undertides of conviction sweep steadily on 
 
 183 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 one way. The blast soon spends its fury, the 
 muttering darkness breaks at the coming of 
 the dawn, peace settles upon the troubled 
 waters, the gladsome sunlight pours in upon 
 us, we unfurl our sails to the laughing breeze, 
 and, headed toward the eternal port, make our 
 way together in the joy of our substantial 
 fellowship. 
 
 Beyond all this, I find in our common 
 patrimony a vast overflow of actual Metho- 
 dism into all the Churches of the land. They 
 have received our spirit and truth, and 
 adopted our usages and forms, till now they 
 are almost Methodists. We have received 
 something from other Churches, and we have 
 imparted to them of our treasures. I would 
 not check the largest charity, nevertheless I 
 can see special beauties in my own mother. 
 Methodism is to me among the Churches 
 what my mother is among women. She may 
 be old and wrinkled, and bowed, and feeble, 
 but she is more to me than any other mother. 
 A man may think well of all women, but he 
 must love his own wife more than he does 
 other men's wives, or he is not worthy of a 
 wife. So you will allow me to put Metho- 
 dism above all rivals. There is hardly a doc- 
 trine or a usage of our Church that has not 
 
 184 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 provoked the scorn of the older Churches. 
 Frequently missiles, often mobs, generally 
 ostracism, and always ridicule and contempt, 
 greeted the doctrines, and practices, and 
 usages, and very virtues, of Methodism. But 
 our fathers held right on. The good news w^as 
 wdiat sorrowing men wanted. God was in the 
 work, and it could not come to naught. It 
 took hold upon the common want. It found a 
 mart everywhere. This is its condensed his- 
 tory; first, a truth uttered among threats and 
 missiles, then attention, then desire, next a 
 want, then a conviction, after that a purpose, 
 next a contagion, then a revolution, and, 
 finally, a new civilization with the new evan- 
 gel of peace. Nothing succeeds in this life 
 like success. This has demonstrated the 
 powers of our doctrines and usages, till now 
 a new generation in nearly all the communions 
 about us have adopted our tactics, use our 
 hymns to a great extent, and preach our doc- 
 trines. Men who twenty-five years ago could 
 hardly say that they had even hope of a hope, 
 now testify that on such or such a day God, 
 for Christ's sake, forgave their sins and con- 
 verted their souls. Frequently the new expe- 
 rience or new doctrine is coated over with an 
 old term, but it is the new truth and new power 
 
 185 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 in the world. It is a ^'conference meeting;" 
 but they talk and sing like a class-meeting. It 
 is some new-ornamented word ; but it has the 
 saving truth and the quickstep of activity in 
 the music. It is not a local preacher; but it 
 is a lay preacher, an unordained man declar- 
 ing his experience, and the truth as it is in 
 Jesus. Still old Scotland, hallowed by the 
 memory of grand old John Knox, who on his 
 calloused knees cried all night, ''Give me 
 Scotland or I die!" — stiff old psalm-singing 
 Scotland, has at last received the Methodist 
 fire from a Congregational layman, who a 
 dozen years ago was a poor shoe clerk in Chi- 
 cago, and learned to work and talk in a Meth- 
 odist mission school, and so well has he 
 learned it that Spurgeon wrote him the other 
 day, saying: "Come up hither, for thou canst 
 do it better than I." Call it lay preacher or 
 local preacher — call it Congregationalism or 
 Methodism, or what you will — it is the same 
 living, burning, resistless, almighty power for 
 which your fathers were mocked and mobbed, 
 ostracized and outraged. This is the great 
 overflow of the work of the heroes of Metho- 
 dism. It is in the nature of the case such 
 men must build larger than they know. No 
 man or woman can rise up toward God and 
 
 186 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 not draw others up a little out of their depths. 
 Flash a sunbeam into a rat-hole, and you have 
 spoiled it as a rat-hole forever. The rats must 
 either move out or be transformed. That 
 itinerant preacher declaring that the Son of 
 man hath power on earth to forgive sins, and 
 backing it with the clear testimony, ''My God 
 is reconciled, His pardoning voice I hear," has 
 answered all the doubts of that poor formalist 
 who is mourning and doubting as in constant 
 fear and condemnation. It will not take an 
 honest seeker long to tell where to ask for 
 instruction. The half-witted boy who year 
 by year sat on the pulpit steps in an old kirk 
 in Scotland, when by and by there was an in- 
 quiry about the way to God, stood up before 
 the seekers and said, "Do n't seek Deacon 
 McCool's God, for he has been seeking Him 
 for forty years and has not found Him yet," 
 has sense enough to state a fact. Facts are 
 God's arguments. The great fact of God's 
 saving power among sinners is always sure to 
 make its way. So the sturdy old itinerants go- 
 ing in the face of prejudice must have a hear- 
 ing, and their work must overflow the narrow 
 rim of their own little congregations. Turn 
 such a man as Paul loose in Asia, and idols 
 will fall by the thousands, and Churches will 
 
 187 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Start up like dreams of a night. Turn such as 
 John Wesley loose in Great Britain or 
 Georgia, and his footprints will impregnate 
 the earth with Methodism so that you can fol- 
 low the trail of his wanderings guided by the 
 light of the Churches and the songs of the 
 saints. The overflow of these labors, quicken- 
 ing all communions into life, is the common 
 heritage of Methodism. This honor rests 
 equally on our Churches. 
 
 Brethren, this brings me to speak of an- 
 other common heritage — the heritage of her- 
 oism. How shall I speak of this theme? I 
 approach the monuments of the mighty dead 
 with unsandaled feet and uncovered head. I 
 read the histories of the fathers of Methodism, 
 and their sufferings move my pity, their labors 
 bewilder my computation, their sacrifices stag- 
 ger my credulity, their courage inspires my 
 purpose, and their heroism challenges my ad- 
 miration. Theirs was the age of heroes. 
 
 Hercules performing his twelve labors, 
 and Samson twisting out the pillars of Dagon's 
 temple, were babes compared with Asbury. 
 The courage of Leonidas, by which he won 
 liberty for Greece at the pass of Thermopylae, 
 was a mere shadow compared with the cour- 
 age of the old itinerants. There are Ther- 
 
 188 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 mopylaes and Marathons in almost every old 
 kitchen, and ancient barn, and swamp, and 
 desert of this land. There is hardly a square 
 yard of this civilized continent that has not 
 been consecrated by their tears, and perils, and 
 prayers. Think of such a kingly soul as As- 
 bury, the mightiest organizer this country has 
 ever had, working for sixty dollars a year, and 
 never receiving more than eighty dollars a 
 year. What shall we say of the commanding 
 Soule hunting sinners from the lakes to the 
 gulf for the privilege of suffering with his 
 Master? What shall we say of Hedding 
 working ten years for forty-five dollars a 
 year? Estimated by the arithmetic of this 
 world, that is swimming rivers filled with 
 floating ice and sleeping in the wilderness 
 with wolves to howl him to sleep, and panthers 
 to watch his repose, and all this for about 
 twelve and a half cents a day. O God! that 
 hero's w^ork should be so cheap, and the trials 
 of the saints so abundant. But this now is 
 our common patrimony. 
 
 Such leaders begat a worthy people. They 
 drew around them kindred souls. In the so- 
 ciety of Napoleon we are not surprised to meet 
 warriors. ^Yith these leaders even women 
 were not one whit behind the bravest. Yon- 
 
 189 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 der, in the forest of Georgia, just after the 
 close of the war of the Revolution, two heroic 
 women, living six miles apart, comprised the 
 believers of the entire region. They met 
 statedly for prayer under a tree half way be- 
 tween their cabins, and God heard their 
 prayer. And so did a hunter. That was not 
 the game he was hunting, but somehow he 
 found his way regularly into ambush near that 
 consecrated spot. Soon he was convicted. 
 Good enough for him. He might have ex- 
 pected it, hiding in such a presence. Then he 
 invited them and their meeting into his cabin 
 near by. They went to find it filled with all 
 the people of the region, gotten together for a 
 prayer-meeting. The word of these brave 
 w^omen took hold. As we might expect, the 
 ubiquitous itinerant was soon there. The 
 Church thus begotten has had almost a cen- 
 tury of prosperity. This land is full of holy 
 memories. Its streams and its mountain 
 passes, its ancient forests, and its lonely defiles, 
 its barren rivers and its dangerous morasses, 
 are all luminous with the journeyings of these 
 wandering saints. 
 
 I like to look at these old worthies. Take 
 the average man among them, with his ward- 
 robe and his library balanced on his arm. 
 
 190 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 I wish I could give you a good picture of the 
 early itinerant. Some of you have seen him. 
 He is tall as the sons of Kentucky; spare, but 
 neither lank nor flabby. His occasional meals 
 do not insure corpulence, and his long jour- 
 neys toughen his frame and temper his mus- 
 cles into cords of steel. His step is quick, and 
 his stride is long, like the gait of a messenger; 
 for the imperious "Go" of the Galilean is 
 sounding behind him, and the King's business 
 requireth haste. His head is large, and is car- 
 ried straight up like the head of a prince. He 
 is a son of the Highest. His lips are com- 
 pressed. He means conquest; he expects vic- 
 tory. His eye blazes with the light of unseen 
 worlds. His face is bronzed a little with 
 southern suns and northern blasts, but it is set 
 one way, and that way is toward the future. 
 He is going through the world to heaven. 
 Circumstances are his servants. A stump, a 
 kitchen table, or a manger serve him for a 
 pulpit as well as a box on the shoulders of 
 carved apostles, and better, too; for he has far 
 better use for his apostles than standing in 
 speechless groups in vacant temples. He does 
 not wait for stately cathedrals; a cleared space 
 in the forest or a barn will serve him for an 
 auditorium. A chance companion of the 
 
 191 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 highway, the border family around the rude 
 fireplace, the trapper before his camp-fire; 
 any of these is an audience. Indeed, wherever 
 he can get space to stand and an ear to hear, 
 he has the conditions for answering the pur- 
 poses of his calling. He works from an inner 
 impulse, and so is superior to disadvantages. 
 His resources are within. He is self-reliant; 
 he is in the path of duty, and is in league with 
 events. Alone, he can grapple with fate. 
 With his empty hands he can strangle destiny. 
 Turned into a community, he creates a society 
 and a following. Having nothing to lose of 
 this world's goods, he abandons himself to the 
 one idea of his mission. His voice breaks in 
 upon the public ear like the trump of God. 
 His notes of warning are caught from the lips 
 of inspiration. His weapons are forged on 
 the holy altar. He hastens round the circuit 
 of duties, a messenger from God with warn- 
 ings for the heedless, perils for the obdurate, 
 courage for the timid, arguments for the 
 doubting, peace for the troubled, comfort for 
 the sorrowing, mercy for the penitent, and sal- 
 vation for the believing. 
 
 Toiling amid the scenes of childhood, he 
 is watched like a stranger. Meeting all the 
 duties of a citizen, he endures privations like 
 
 192 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M, E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 a foreigner. Rising above the boundary lines 
 of human geographies, he finds his fatherland 
 everywhere. Poor, he has the pearl of great 
 price, and enriches many. Maligned, he lifts 
 up the fallen, and clothes with righteousness 
 the outcast. Cursed, he changes the maledic- 
 tions of enemies into blessings by the meekness 
 of his endurance and the heroism of his faith. 
 Persecuted, he returns mercy for missiles, and 
 answers the shouts of the mob with prayers 
 and pardon. He is too full of his immortal 
 idea to be killed, and too intimate with God to 
 be hurt. Wearing Elijah's cloak, he rebukes 
 sin; riding in Elijah's chariot, he escapes it. 
 He is to the first century of Methodism what 
 Paul was to the first century of Christianity. 
 
 Behold our vast army of enemies, rational- 
 ism and rum, and a horrid host. Here I meet 
 another enemy — greed of gain, the madness of 
 men for w^ealth ; not so much to hoard it, like 
 old-fashioned misers, but to lavish it on them- 
 selves and on their passions, like old-fashioned 
 prodigals. This ungodly greed must be slain 
 in the Church and constantly rebuked out of 
 the Church. 
 
 Where can we find forces to mass against 
 corruption in office and out of it? Where 
 shall we find a tonic that will tone up the pub- 
 
 13 193 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 lie conscience, and make it fatal to steal from 
 the public treasury or betray the public con- 
 fidence? 
 
 What guard shall we post about the sanc- 
 tity of virtue? With what legions shall we 
 trample out the social evil? By what power 
 shall we shut off the flood of foolish and 
 ruinous literature? How can the hosts of Is- 
 rael be made to check the mighty onrushing 
 tide of worldliness? Surely we are not only 
 born from heroic stock, but we are also born 
 into heroic work. Sometimes, when I look 
 over my appointments, such as are common 
 in these days, with good Church edifice and 
 furnished parsonage, and organized society, 
 and responsible trustees, and certain support, 
 and see these as the fruit of the labors of he- 
 roic, kingly, and godly-anointed souls, who 
 had such kinship with the Almighty that they 
 could speak light out of darkness, call order 
 out of chaos, and create a Church out of noth- 
 ing, I have felt not a little humiliated at not 
 being counted worthy of some more perilous 
 post. Two years ago I stood in the ashes of 
 one of our desolated cities, and saw our 
 Church enterprises prostrate and our brethren 
 pensioners upon public benevolence. I stood 
 there in the little council, surrounded by some 
 
 194 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 of the old veterans who had camped there by 
 the old fort before there was any city; wlio 
 had toiled on through all hardships for the 
 Church; who had prayed at the planting of 
 every charge, and watered each new sprout 
 with anxious tears. I looked upon them — = 
 old, bowed, and trembling — and saw the spar- 
 kle of the old fire in their weeping eyes. I 
 never felt more grateful for anything than I 
 did that hour for the vigor of early life, and 
 for the privilege of trying to repeat the work 
 of the worn heroes about me. Standing where 
 I do this hour, surrounded by the princes of 
 Israel, before this host of skilled and valiant 
 warriors, it seems a poor test of a man's metal 
 to be a saint in these days. But when I look 
 forth upon the enemy, see his hosts moving 
 down upon the Church from all quarters and 
 with all weapons, open infidels charging in 
 solid squares, scoffers over-awing the recruits, 
 scientists trying to cut ofif supplies, naturalists 
 sapping and mining the foundations, liberal- 
 ists spiking the guns, and worldlings poison- 
 ing the rations, then it seems to me no mean 
 degree of strife. John Wesley or Francis As- 
 bury might turn over in their coffins, and be 
 glad to rise from their graves to scourge Dar- 
 win back to his ancestors. Adam Clarke or 
 
 195 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Jesse Lee might count it all joy to cross lances 
 with Huxley. The sainted Fletcher or the 
 saintly Cookman could well afford to be trans- 
 lated over again for the privilege of clasping 
 the arms of their prayer about Tyndall and his 
 prayer-gauge. We are in no mean encounter. 
 The enemies of God in these days must be met 
 foot to foot and hand to hand, as of old. The 
 hosts of Israel, like the squares of Britons on 
 the field of Waterloo, must stand shoulder to 
 shoulder, heeding only the voice of the great 
 Commander. 
 
 Brothers, the one conflict of the ages cul- 
 minates about us. Methodism is in the 
 breach. Around the head of our column rally 
 the moral forces of the universe. The shades 
 of the mighty dead are watching every for- 
 ward step. Hell trembles as we crowd to- 
 gether in the contest. The redeemed shout 
 new victory as we forget self and all but the 
 great cause in the hour of peril. As I stand 
 in this presence — I do not mean this company 
 of itinerants, I mean this cloud of witnesses, 
 these contending hosts, this one imperiled 
 cause of my dying Master — as I stand in this 
 presence I am compelled to ask. What am I? 
 What are you? What is any man, in such an 
 hour, that sufferings and persecutions should 
 
 196 
 
ADDRESS TO THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 
 
 be considered for one moment? The other 
 day in Congress, Lamar, the honored son of 
 Mississippi, said: ''All occasion for strife and 
 distrust between the North and the South has 
 passed away, and there no longer remains any 
 cause for continued estrangement. My coun- 
 trymen, know one another, and you will love 
 one another." Forgiveness and charity must 
 never find better examples and more living 
 embodiments in political parties than in the 
 Methodist Church. Our Redeemer, in whom 
 we are freely pardoned, says, "Freely ye have 
 received, freely give." Brothers, I look at 
 you with straight, honest northern eyes, and 
 out of my inmost heart, in the name of our 
 common Lord, our common faith, our com- 
 mon polity, our common usages, our common 
 experience, our common heritage of heroism, 
 our common inheritance of labor, our com- 
 mon commission from God, in the name of 
 all that a Christian holds sacred, on behalf of 
 the fifteen hundred thousand members of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, I bid you God- 
 speed. One in every essential element of our 
 Church life, let us also be one in heart. 
 
 Leaving organic union as a question of 
 the future, let us make the union of our hearts 
 the question of to-day, and make holy cove- 
 
 197 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 nant that, from this hour, one In sympathy and 
 one In purpose, we will toll on, shoulder to 
 shoulder, waiting patiently for that near to- 
 morrow, when there shall be one Methodism 
 for mankind. 
 
 198 
 
FRATERNAL ADDRESS TO BRITISH 
 
 WESLEY AN CONFERENCE 
 
 By the appointment of the Board of Bishops this address 
 
 was dehvered as the quadrennial greeting of the 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church to the British 
 
 Wesleyan Conference held at Hull, 
 
 England, in July, 1898. 
 
FRATERNAL ADDRESS TO BRITISH 
 WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 ^'Mr. Whatisname" had it as his solitary 
 honor that in their school days he was 
 whipped by the Duke of Wellington. It is 
 more glory than is often achieved by men to 
 have lost Waterloo. So I stand in this pres- 
 ence to-day, content though anxious. Heads 
 I win, points you lose. This is one of the 
 foci of the world's spiritual ellipse. The other 
 is West of the Sea. Fifteen million members 
 and adherents are standing in their doors 
 looking this way to see how you receive their 
 representative. Trusting the Mother-heart of 
 Methodism, they are confident. As a mother 
 easily forgives a daughter for loving her, so 
 you will be patient with my assurance of our 
 affection. 
 
 In the old days when there were foreign 
 nations, before all nations had moved into one 
 dooryard, a king wishing to visit another king 
 would send messengers to that king to express 
 his good will and afTection, and to tell him 
 that at such a time, and with so many ships 
 
 201 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and forces, he would land on his shores to pay 
 him a visit. The king and people to be thus 
 honored would carefully study the bearing 
 and character and culture and utterances of 
 those messengers, that they might judge some- 
 what of the character of the king who was to 
 become their guest. It has pleased your noble 
 body to send messengers from time to time to 
 our far-ofif shores to express your goodwill and 
 affection for us and in their person to visit us. 
 We have carefully studied their bearings and 
 character and culture and utterances. I can 
 but poorly tell you what an exalted character 
 you have in our eyes. I can only, I need only, 
 mention the names, and so call to your own 
 quick memories the forms of some of the 
 splendid messengers that represented you and 
 honored us. We have not yet ceased smiling 
 and rejoicing over Dr. Watkinson and Dr. 
 Johnson, his companion from this side, beauti- 
 fully matched, as fine a brace as any hunter 
 need ever hope to bag. I am sure they will 
 pardon me that figure. I hardly remember 
 how Dr. Watkinson looked; I think he did 
 straighten up and tower up above us. But I 
 remember the wit and wisdom and brilliant 
 utterances that gushed and flashed from every 
 feature and pore while he took us through the 
 
 202 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 laboratory and on into the inner treasury and 
 exhibited to our enraptured gaze the Kohi- 
 noor and Crown Jewels of your wisdom. We 
 are still watching and expecting that through 
 some half-open door or around some corner he 
 will thrust up his head and cheer us all again. 
 He pervades the air; we hope he will mate- 
 rialize again. 
 
 Brothers, I have repeatedly looked about 
 in these honored places for another form, 
 stout, compact, a picture of kindliness. He 
 sat in our midst yonder beyond the Missis- 
 sippi, the Father of Waters, half a dozen years 
 ago, and he seems to sit with us still. In my 
 school-boy days I wandered with him all over 
 Attica digging Greek roots, and all up and 
 down the Promised Land hunting for Greek 
 particles. No young Athenian ever followed 
 Socrates about Athens with greater delight 
 than that with which I followed dear, gentle, 
 scholarly, world-renowned William Fiddian 
 Moulton. He has passed up to be a prince 
 in that land to which earthly pilgrims carry 
 only what they know and what they are. I 
 am sorry that we shall not see him again in 
 these parts, but we shall remember him as 
 long as scholars study the original text or the 
 
 203 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 common people read the Revised English 
 Bible. 
 
 We have not forgotten another prince, 
 William Arthur, who came to us nearly a 
 score of years ago, a citizen of all lands, a 
 herald able to pray in half a dozen languages, 
 and able to preach with a "tongue of fire" 
 in half a hundred more, and able to hold his 
 own tongue in them all. A scholar, a preacher, 
 a sage, a saint lingering a little outside the 
 golden gate, in order to show us what kind of 
 people they have inside and to show them 
 what kind of people we can produce outside. 
 
 Time forbids my lingering with Kelly and 
 Young, and Pope and Rigg, noble workers 
 who left in our land only blessed memories. 
 
 Pardon me, I know you will bear with 
 me a moment while I mention one other name, 
 the first that came our way in my day. It was 
 a generation ago. It seems but yesterday, the 
 vision was so bright and the memory is so 
 vivid. He came to us the Orator of English 
 Methodism, the Orator of the English pulpit, 
 with less than half a score of peers, the Orator 
 of the English tongue, a preacher with a style 
 that would crowd all the streets about Exeter 
 Hall with carriages, bearing crests, coronets, 
 and coats of arms, and with a simplicity that 
 
 204 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 lifted the thatch of the poor man's cabin above 
 the stars and let in the light that is brighter 
 than the noonday's sun, over the altar of whose 
 service the angels of thought and of voice 
 touched their golden wings, William Morley 
 Punshon, yours and ours and God's. He be- 
 longed to three Hemispheres, the Eastern and 
 the Western and the Eternal. As he stood 
 among us we hung upon his lips and wxpt and 
 wondered. We followed him from city to 
 city, and blessed the land and the Church that 
 had sent us such an inspiration. 
 
 Brothers, with such specimens to study and 
 such memories to cherish, you must not be 
 surprised that we reverence your venerable 
 body and esteem it a high privilege to stand 
 in this presence. I bring to you the hearty 
 and most ardent greetings from a Church that 
 rejoices in being your offspring. It is woven 
 into the very constitution of the human mind 
 that we must love those whom we have helped. 
 So we count with certainty upon your loving 
 us. You may want to chasten, "whom God 
 loveth He chasteneth," but you must love us. 
 
 If I were hung on the highest hill, 
 I know whose love would follow me still, 
 O, mother o' mine. O, mother o' mine. 
 
 205 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 If I were drowned in the deepest sea, 
 I know whose tears would come down to me, 
 O, mother o' mine. O, mother o' mine. 
 
 If I were damned of body and soul, 
 I know whose prayers would make me whole, 
 O, mother o' mine. O, mother o' mine. 
 
 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we 
 open our hearts and report our stewardship. 
 
 Strangers among us may think we say too 
 much about ourselves and our achievements. 
 Perhaps we will, but that is our errand. This 
 is our review day. We know more about our 
 defects and needs than any enemy could pos- 
 sibly tell us. But we are not mendicants 
 standing on the highway exhibiting our de- 
 formities, making profit out of our distresses. 
 We are mustering for a continued campaign, 
 and we can win no battles with the flag at 
 half-mast. Please expect chiefly achieve- 
 ments ; we will avoid boasting. A modest girl 
 went to the confessional and told the priest she 
 had kissed her intended. He asked: "How 
 many times, Bridget?" She replied: "Holy 
 Father, I am here to confess, not to boast." 
 Holy Fathers, we are here to confess, not to 
 boast. 
 
 In this time of strife and general anxiety, 
 among the nations of the earth, there are spe- 
 
 206 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 cial reasons adding interest to our expressions 
 of fraternal feeling. As believers in God we 
 rejoice that our most sensitive spirit of rever- 
 ence is never shocked by the purposes of our 
 governments nor by the most private personal 
 characters of our rulers. I utter the convic- 
 tion of the people whom I represent when I 
 say that we regard it as God's richest blessing 
 to England that He has prolonged the glori- 
 ous life of the noble woman whose exalted 
 Christian character has made her reign the 
 most illustrious in the annals of time. God 
 bless Victoria, England's magnificent queen! 
 
 We are sure that you will rejoice to have 
 me say from personal knowledge that an ex- 
 emplary Christian and a Methodist communi- 
 cant occupies the White House, a man who 
 is more anxious to please God than to please 
 any other being in the universe. We know his 
 integrity and honor; we believe in his per- 
 sonal religious experience. God bless Wil- 
 liam McKinley, the honored President of the 
 United States of America! 
 
 We are of one Blood. 
 
 Brothers must stand together. ''Blood is 
 thicker than water." You will remember 
 when this fact counted for something. Lying 
 for a week once ofif the mouth of the Peiho, 
 
 207 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 waiting for a sea breeze to help us over the 
 bar, an old English mariner pointed out to 
 me a spot where he learned this truth. He 
 said: ''It was during the war between Eng- 
 land and China; our ship, a British man-of- 
 war, was decoyed by misplaced buoys out of 
 the channel and left by a receding tide help- 
 less under the guns of a Chinese battery. An 
 American man-of-war lying near saw the sit- 
 uation, and the captain said to his men: 
 'Blood is thicker than water; clear the ship 
 for action.' Swinging into place, he opened 
 a broadside on the Chinese battery, silencing 
 it, till the returning tide enabled us to take 
 care of ourselves." He added: "I shall never 
 forget that blood is thicker than water." The 
 times may not be far off when we can help 
 keep Saxon blood from being spilled. I know 
 not "the mysteries and reticences" of diplo- 
 macy, but I come from among the people be- 
 yond the sea, and I know that Secretary 
 Chamberlain's plain statement, made in Bir- 
 mingham, May 13th, is "understanded of the 
 people." Yonder now we are one people, no 
 North, no South. The grandson of General 
 Grant and the grand-nephew of General Lee 
 are marching side by side under the Stars and 
 Stripes fighting a foreign foe, a foe in whose 
 
 208 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 captured warships of the broken Armada 
 your sires found ail the appointments of the 
 Spanish Inquisition, racks, wheels, thumb- 
 screws, and every known instrument of tor- 
 ture shipped and brought along to torture the 
 life out of Protestantism in these islands. I 
 know the temper of the men whom you bred 
 for battle. If we put four millions of Saxon 
 soldiers into the Civil War thirty years ago, 
 we can more than double that number, we can 
 make it ten millions to-day, if Anglo-Saxon 
 rights need defending. 
 
 We have one Religion, 
 
 In these Christian countries, where the 
 Ten Commandments are law, where the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount is authority, where Deism 
 is tinctured with the gospel, and where even 
 Agnosticism is illumined by the Sun of Right- 
 eousness, it is easier to criticise than to appre- 
 ciate God^s eternal purpose of redeeming love. 
 But go away to the Far East, where idolatry 
 infects the air, where hate and fear are the 
 supreme motives, where corruption is chin 
 deep to the tallest souls, and where the dragon 
 reigns without a rival, there you find that even 
 a Christianity that is only formal is separated 
 from every other religion by the wide diam- 
 eter of the moral government. Pagan and 
 
 14 209 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Mohammedan sink together in the hopeless 
 abyss. A few months ago an English mer- 
 chantman was in the harbor at Smyrna loaded 
 with figs intended for New York, waiting for 
 his clearance papers, when some fugitive Ar- 
 menians, pursued by a band of Turks bent on 
 slaughter and rapine came on board begging 
 for protection. The merchantman refused to 
 let the fugitives be taken from his ship. The 
 Turks said : "We will bring more soldiers, and 
 take you, too." The Briton asked an Italian 
 warship to protect them. The Italian captain 
 coldly replied: "The soldiers of the King of 
 Italy are here to protect only the subjects of 
 the King of Italy." An American warship 
 pushed into the harbor. The English captain 
 appealed to the American captain. The 
 American shoved his war-vessel in behind the 
 merchantman and quietly pushed him safely 
 out to sea, saying: "Get your clearance papers 
 in New York." The authorities in New York 
 remitted the fine, and commended the decision 
 of both Saxons. The bond of religion is 
 stronger all the world over than even the 
 fabled serpent that once encircled the globe. 
 Again, we are one in Faith, the Faith of 
 Protestantism. No argument is needed for 
 this in England, where nearly every great 
 
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TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 family has sometime learned by personal suf- 
 fering what the faith cost, and where the 
 ashes from Smithfield has sifted into nearly 
 every home in the United Kingdom, and 
 where the whole history, from the courage of 
 Henry VIII to the stupidity of James II, and 
 to the wisdom of Victoria, has made it forever 
 possible for every Englishman to worship as 
 he pleases. 
 
 Again, we are one in Denomination. 
 
 This knits us, and knits us in the circle 
 of the family. We understand each other's 
 language, the language of Israel ; we know 
 the accent. The spiritual brogue is music in 
 our ears. We recognize the swing of conquest 
 and the shout of victory. It is hard to find 
 a Church in America that has not a good 
 sprinkling of salt from fair Albion. Once to 
 know a man as a true Methodist is to make 
 assurance doubly sure. Well do I remember 
 once being down in a mining shaft in the 
 far West, when it was necessary for me to 
 climb a perpendicular ladder two hundred 
 feet high. It seemed utterly impossible. Just 
 then a stout Yorkshire man said: 'T will help 
 you." I asked: ''Who are you?" He said: 
 "Brother, I am a local preacher in the Metho- 
 dist Church. I will follow up after you, and 
 
 211 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 if you should faint you can not fall past me." 
 I believed him. His faith kindled mine, and 
 I went up without fear and without nervous 
 strain, but not without weariness. Our very 
 fellowship bonds bind us together. 
 
 One in Blood, one in Religion, one in 
 Faith, and one in Denominational experi- 
 ences. We are woven together by all the 
 strong threads that make up the warp and 
 woof of that wonderful garment which we 
 call civilization. Your literature, your his- 
 tory, your achievements, are ours. Art, sci- 
 ence, commerce, and trade pontoon the sea. 
 American dramatists measure by English 
 standards. Irving and Kipling have the free- 
 dom of every American city. The harvest 
 waves in the valley of the Mississippi, and the 
 bin is in Liverpool. The Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road is an English company. The great Cable 
 Company is owned in New York. English 
 jurists listen to the opinion of our judges, and 
 we study English precedents. At the begin- 
 ning of this century we were a stormy month 
 apart. To-day our borders touch. We talk 
 to each other in our offices, from opposite sides 
 of the ocean, as easily as our mothers chatted 
 in one sitting-room. We are less than forty 
 seconds apart to-day. 
 
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TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 Carlyle said England would sooner lose 
 her Indian Empire than her Shakespeare. 
 I am sure we could not spare Shakespeare or 
 our English libraries. Take away that litera- 
 ture and we would feel unravelled. Had 
 Bonaparte seen our literature, our trade, and 
 ^'ocean greyhounds" and ocean cables, he 
 would not have prophesied that ''the end of 
 this century would see Europe all Republican 
 or all Cossack." He would have said, ''Asia 
 may be Cossack, but Europe must be constitu- 
 tional, recognizing the dominance of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking people." This flowing into one 
 channel is deeper than any after-dinner 
 speech. It is the resistless intermingling of 
 common convictions, common faiths, common 
 mental habits, and common interests, and the 
 working out of a common destiny. 
 
 There are great and resistless rivers, gulf- 
 streams flowing through the bosom of the 
 oceans age after age, carrying the tropics to- 
 ward the poles, changing the climate of great 
 zones, and molding the forms of the conti- 
 nents. I have drifted in one of these streams 
 up into the North Pacific, almost up to the 
 Arctic circle, and have found the tropics so 
 borne along that even on the shores of Puget 
 Sound roses would bloom out of doors eleven 
 
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ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 months in the year, and potatoes, unprotected, 
 could He out on top of the ground all winter 
 and not freeze the under half. And away 
 north in Sitka, in Alaska, the thermometer has 
 been so crippled as to be unable to drop be- 
 low zero more than four times in forty years, 
 and only once as low as eight degrees below 
 zero in all that time. So there are great gulf 
 streams sweeping through all zones of human 
 history, and the business of the political and 
 ecclesiastical statesman is to know the sweep 
 of these streams and mark their influences 
 upon the people and by them mold his policies. 
 
 The power of the after-dinner speech in 
 Birmingham that so shook all Europe consists 
 in the fact that the statesman, with the vision 
 of the prophet, has discovered one of the great 
 gulf-streams and has committed himself to 
 the current of events. Interests and ambitions 
 may spur these English-speaking groups to 
 struggle for the front, but, like wrestlers in a 
 floating canoe, we struggle but we go forward 
 on the resistless current. The most and the 
 best we can do is to take the Son of God as 
 our Pilot and accept the inevitable joyfully. 
 
 I suppose I must report some statistics. I 
 am glad of it, for I like statistics. But I am 
 not here to give you our Year Book. I could 
 
 214 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 have sent that by mail. Statistics tell what 
 has been done. 1 prefer to tell you of the 
 tide of our feeling toward you, the deep cur- 
 rent that underlies all our statistics, that causes 
 our statistics to come to pass. 
 
 PVe are interpreting our errand, trying to 
 find out why God sent Methodism into the 
 world. 
 
 Let me state, or rather intimate, the sub- 
 stances of our faith. I think I could show 
 you my intellectual grip by squeezing the 
 juice all out of my statements, so that if you 
 bored a gimlet hole into it the sawdust would 
 run out, but I am not writing a work on sys- 
 tematic theology; I wish simply to indicate 
 our working theology, so you can judge a little 
 what we are up to. 
 
 We believe in a real Divine, Personal 
 God, able to do things, able to hear and an- 
 swer, and deliver and save. We believe in a 
 Divine Savior, able to forgive sin and regen- 
 erate our natures, save to the uttermost; a God 
 that can make us, can remake us. We believe 
 in a Divine Holy Spirit, able to convict of sin, 
 of righteousness and of judgment, to witness 
 to pardon and purity, to call to the ministry 
 and to the mission field, but who can not be 
 used as an errand boy for indolent saints. We 
 
 215 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 believe in a Supernatural Book, and are not- 
 afraid of science. We take religion to pre- 
 side in the home, and science to work in the 
 culinary department. 
 
 When Wesley came the world was full up 
 to the rafters with old smoke-dried churches, 
 that barely at their best cherished a hope of a 
 hope. Sir William Blackstone, the great 
 jurist, after hearing all the noted and popular 
 preachers of his time, the middle of the eight- 
 eenth century, said: "There is no more gospel 
 in their sermons than in the writings of Cicero. 
 One can not tell by their statements whether 
 they are followers of Confucius, Mohammed, 
 or Christ." We are told that "six under-grad- 
 uates of Oxford were expelled because they 
 prayed extempore and read the Scriptures in 
 private houses." I have heard of no law 
 against extempore profanity in private or pub- 
 lic houses. John Wesley was sent out to 
 preach a knowable religion, that a man might 
 know that his sins are forgiven. There is 
 only one way for him to learn that. Pardon is 
 a change in the divine mind concerning the 
 sinner, whereas God regarded him as a guilty 
 sinner. He now regards him as a pardoned 
 sinner. No one but God knows this change 
 till He tells it. This is the old doctrine of 
 
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TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 the witness of the Spirit. When we get a sin- 
 ner down before the altar we do not tell him 
 that his sins are forgiven. We do not know. 
 We simply hold him to it till God tells him; 
 then the sinner knows it. This is the power of 
 Methodism. It made the cobbler and the 
 tinker mightier than all philosophers. Butler 
 uttered his analogy, and men read it and 
 laughed and scoffed religion out of polite so- 
 ciety. But the cobbler said : 'T know that God 
 for Christ's sake has forgiven my sins. His 
 Spirit witnesseth with my spirit, saying, Abba, 
 Father," and this upheaved all classes. There 
 was no gainsaying the testimony. Our great 
 effort is to hold to this doctrine that called us 
 into being, and see to it that our people keep 
 the witness of the Spirit. If we could only do 
 this with all our members, we would settle all 
 questions about the second blessing, and nearly 
 all questions as to where our converts would 
 hold their membership, and we would double 
 our membership every three years, if not every 
 year. 
 
 We believe much more, which time for- 
 bids my repeating, such as the brotherhood of 
 man without reference to color, and that there 
 are no hard cases with God. We believe that 
 a man has a right to be fairly tried before he 
 
 217 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 is shot, hung, or burned. We believe in a 
 government that can protect its citizens in the 
 swamps of Louisiana, or in the Havana Har- 
 bor, or in the streets of Madrid, or anywhere 
 on the earth, even at all costs. We also be- 
 lieve in ourselves; we do not need to have 
 any one tell us that we are respectable before 
 we can be happy. We are so much like our 
 English ancestors that we believe that we are 
 the lads that can turn the world right side up. 
 Our membership is 2,851,531, and our 
 Sunday-school force is 3,160,000. We have 
 missions on every continent except Australia. 
 We were never so pressed and embarrassed as 
 now by our successes in all fields. I wish your 
 venerable body could have met with us in the 
 last meeting of our Board of Bishops, a few 
 days before I sailed. I am sure you would 
 have wept and shouted with us, as my col- 
 leagues, just gathered in from all quarters of 
 the earth, told what their eyes had seen and 
 their ears heard. From the center of the con- 
 tinent, from the far West, from Alaska, from 
 the South, from everywhere, came shouts of 
 victory and calls for help ; Bishop FitzGerald, 
 from Mexico, showing most inviting fields 
 where the natives, unsatisfied by a dead Rom- 
 anism, are asking for the gospel. Bishop 
 
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TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 Hartzell gave us an inspiring view of Africa, 
 of the old fields and the new, of his journey- 
 ings on the trail of Bishop Taylor, that most 
 widely traveling missionary in the whole his- 
 tory of the Christian Church, and of the fields 
 opened under the British flag, where the 
 ground is black for the seed, and where every 
 effort can be conserved. Bishop Joyce, just in 
 from a two-years' visitation to our missions in 
 Japan, Corea, and China, reported the tri- 
 umphs of the gospel. He applied the old- 
 fashioned methods of revival work and found 
 that in all the fields where the Word had been 
 spoken, even in far-away Sechuen, eight 
 weeks' journey up the Yangtze beyond Han- 
 kow, there was abundant opportunity for the 
 mourners' bench, and hundreds sought and 
 found pardon shouting and weeping and re- 
 joicing in the new life. Bishop Foss came in 
 with the news from India. It is difficult to 
 conceive this field, men and women seeking 
 God by the hundreds, by the thousands, by 
 the village full, by the hundred villages full. 
 Amazed at their numbers, he was more 
 amazed at the thoroughness and depth of their 
 experience. One presiding elder stood up 
 and begged for ^'holders up," men to instruct 
 the converts, to read the Scriptures to them 
 
 219 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and work like old-style class leaders. This 
 elder said: "I have over thirteen hundred vil- 
 lages on my district. We have canvassed the 
 families that w^ant to be received and baptized, 
 but I can not take them, I have no 'holders up.' 
 Give me these 'holders up,' and in twelve 
 months I can have over forty-eight thousand 
 converts by actual count on my single district." 
 When we remembered that two or three dol- 
 lars a month would support one of these 
 ''holders up," we could only weep and ask 
 God to raise us up converted money. One 
 brother, Rev. Dr. Goucher, to whom God 
 has entrusted a fortune, planted one hundred 
 and thirty schools years ago in India and has 
 been maintaining them with small outlay for 
 each. Now the missionaries trace to the 
 teachers and readers and helpers and pupils 
 raised in those schools over twenty-seven thou- 
 sand conversions. Brothers, tell me, did 
 money ever before bring so higli a price, and 
 was grace ever so cheap? If only our well- 
 to-do members could see this. The common 
 day laborer could bring more jewels for the 
 Redeemer's crown than the prayerful, earnest 
 labors of our great metropolitan preachers. 
 God stands in the world's market offering one 
 hundred per cent per month for consecrated 
 
 220 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 money. While we were weeping and praying 
 over these fields, in came letters from Bishop 
 Walden in Europe and from Bishop Warren 
 in South America, reporting success and new 
 fields, pleading for men and money. Brothers, 
 it seemed as if all the great lands of the 
 earth were gathering about us, lifting their 
 lofty fronts and weaving their snowy plumes to 
 catch our attention; FitzGerald calling from 
 the Cordilleras; Hartzell calling from the 
 Mountains of the Moon ; Joyce from the Snow 
 Mountains of Sechuen of far-ofT West China; 
 Thoburn far from the towering summits 
 of the Himalayas; Walden from the peaks of 
 the Alps, and Warren from the lofty passes 
 of the Andes, pleading for the vast continents 
 with their teeming millions. As I had per- 
 sonally toiled and traveled over all these fields 
 except Africa, the conviction put on personal 
 form as it did once at Troas with Paul, when 
 Europe stood by him in the visions of the 
 night, saying: "Come over into Macedonia 
 and help us." I wish all our Methodism 
 could see these fields and hear their calls for 
 help. I am sure we would arise and put on 
 our strength and go forth for the speedy con- 
 quest of the world for our Redeemer. For 
 opportunity is God's promise of power, and an 
 
 221 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 open door is God's command to advance and 
 enter. 
 
 I fear I will not get back to those statistics. 
 As the New Testament Church was strength- 
 ened and served by twelve apostles, so our 
 Methodist Episcopal Church is strengthened 
 and served by twelve apostles. I do not mean 
 the Bishops; we are only errand boys, permit- 
 ted to run on errands for our Redeemer. I 
 mean our twelve great societies or defined 
 lines of work. I will name them. I know this 
 is dry, but do not shiver. I must name them. 
 I would not dare go home if I should omit 
 these important auxiliaries. 
 
 1. There is the Sunday-school, which is 
 the Artist of the Church, putting the impress 
 upon the clay before it is burned. It has 
 3,160,000 lumps of susceptibilities now re- 
 ceiving the Master's image and superscription. 
 
 2. The Missionary Society, which is the 
 gymnasium of the Church, hardening her spir- 
 itual muscles. She can now lift an annual col- 
 lection of $1,131,940. 
 
 3. The Book Concern, which is the Body 
 incarnating the Church, giving it form and 
 local habitation. It has published and sold 
 during the last fifty years, since the division 
 
 222 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONEERENCE 
 
 caused by slavery, over $60,000,000 worth of 
 cheap books and cheap periodicals. 
 
 4. The Church Extension Society, which 
 is the Hand, open and pointing out which way 
 we are going. Old Maximus, a Roman em- 
 peror, was captured by a Goth chief and held 
 for seven years. This chief used his prisoner 
 as a horse block, making him stand on his 
 hands and knees for him to stand on when 
 mounting his horse. He would teeter up and 
 down, saying: ''This will tell which way the 
 battle went, better than all the pictures the 
 Roman artists can paint." The Church Ex- 
 tension Society, having given over $3,000,000, 
 loaned and reloaned $16,000,000, aided 10,000 
 Churches, and now building three churches a 
 day, shows which way the battle is going bet- 
 ter than all the pictures which the skeptics and 
 destructive critics and agnostics can paint. 
 
 5. TJie Freedmens Aid and Southern 
 Education Society, whose eloquent secretary 
 will soon address you. This Society is the 
 nurse of the Church, having her hands now 
 full caring for 9,000,000 of wards, and in one 
 century hence, at present rate of increase, she 
 will have 150,000,000 colored people on the 
 present soil of the Republic. She will need 
 to multiply her 47 colleges and schools, her 
 
 223 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 500 teachers, her 10,000 pupils, her annual 
 gift of over $100,000, and her $2,000,000 
 worth of working property. This nurse, like 
 other nurses, may yet tyrannize the household. 
 
 6. The Educational Society, which is the 
 Tutor, is as important to a growing heir as 
 commas and pronouns are to civilized lan- 
 guage. It has 203 colleges and theological 
 seminaries — 47,830 students, $28,526,889 in 
 property and endowments. 
 
 7. The Woman s Foreign Missionary So- 
 ciety, which is the Intelligence Office, planted 
 in our midst by the Court of Heaven, to keep 
 the men informed concerning God's cam- 
 paign, and to consecrate their money ^'unbe- 
 knownst" to them. The five senses of the So- 
 ciety are intelligence, economy, industry, con- 
 secration, and holy zeal. Like most women, it 
 has a sixth sense, the sense of getting there, so 
 testifies the $313,937 raised and the 60,000 
 women helped in all lands last year. 
 
 8. The Womans Home Missionary So- 
 ciety, which, as usual, is the wisest, the best, 
 the most Christ-like of all the family, the 
 Daughter selected to remain at home, who or- 
 ders the servants, cares for the aged parents, 
 disciplines the grand-children, and maintains 
 the dignities and proprieties of the family. 
 
 224 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 She is the one character without whom no 
 family ever achieves much place in life. She 
 raised. last year $182,216. 
 
 9. The Deaconess Society, which is tJie 
 Woman s Exchange, where the brain and 
 heart and muscle of the unemployed are 
 coined into the circulating medium of heaven. 
 Let me emphasize the brain, for these dea- 
 conesses are nearly all educated. They are 
 not waiting girls. It has 559 deaconesses and 
 owns $257,775 worth of property. 
 
 10. The Hospital Board, which is the 
 New Testament Evangelist, going, like the 
 Master, into soul-healing through body-heal- 
 ing. 
 
 1 1. Homes for Orphans and for the Aged, 
 w^hich are the Divine Baskets, gathering up 
 the fragments on great feast days that nothing 
 may be lost. 
 
 12. The Epivorth League, which is the 
 Volunteer Army, where raw recruits, by much 
 drilling and some skirmishing, are matured 
 into regular soldiers and veterans, who ask not 
 for the number of the enemy, but for a chance 
 to meet them. The League, with its 1,650,000 
 members, is to the Church what the hind legs 
 are to the kangaroo. They make the kangaroo 
 jump, but remember always it is the kangaroo 
 
 15 225 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 that jumps. The League makes the Church 
 go, but it is the Church that goes. The League 
 is the last apostle in the company, somewhat 
 like Paul, not made by the chance of casting 
 lots or flipping a penny, but makes its own 
 way, defends its own apostleship, and, like 
 Paul, if we can get the scales from its eyes, 
 will be the mightiest apostle in the company. 
 We must glance at the Overflow of Metho- 
 dism. The bungling statistics above do not 
 measure Methodism, any more than putting 
 a man's brains onto the scales would measure 
 the man. These figures only indicate Metho- 
 dism. As we come to your great Church for 
 our experimental religion, so w^e come to your 
 great Church and land for units of measure. 
 Green, your great historian of the English 
 people, tells us of Pitt's defects, distresses, and 
 source of power. In one decade by the sword 
 of Clive he recaptured India; with money 
 poured into the coffers of Frederick and sol- 
 diers poured into his legions he checked the 
 game in Europe, saving Germany, and by the 
 sword of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham 
 he took the dominion of the St. Lawrence for 
 England and drove the French out of the 
 valley of the Mississippi, saving that continent 
 for better uses. Now Green tells us that, but 
 
 226 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 for the moral reformation wrought by John 
 Wesley and his followers, Pitt would have had 
 nothing upon which to stand and would have 
 been helpless in the great strife of modern 
 times. But the moral conviction of the Eng- 
 lish people made a sure foundation for Pitt 
 and enabled him to save the three hundred 
 millions of India, making the Indian Empire 
 English instead of French, Protestant instead 
 of Catholic, also to protect Frederick the 
 Great and make possible the German Empire, 
 and to keep the Continent of North America 
 for a Free Republic. These three Protestant 
 nations are magnificent trophies for the little 
 man of Epworth. These indicate some of the 
 overflow of Methodism beyond the statistics 
 in this country and in the world. 
 
 So with us Methodism has a vast residuum 
 of power never gathered in her statistics. She 
 has fought a winning battle against the five 
 points of Calvinism till now those tenets are 
 being trundled out of the back door as rapidly 
 as possible and the communicants of all the 
 orthodox Churches talk of the day when God 
 for Christ's sake forgave their sins. That is 
 Methodism, no secret decree about that; it 
 has run over out of the Methodist cup into 
 other cups, but it is Methodism. It is not too 
 
 227 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 much to say that a large per cent of the com- 
 municants in other orthodox Churches were 
 converted at Methodist altars, and but for this 
 reinforcement of life and power most of those 
 Churches would have been dead and plucked 
 up by the roots. I sat one day in the pulpit 
 of the leading, the most widely known and 
 honored preacher in America. I had sup- 
 plied his pulpit two summers and knew his 
 people well, though of another denomination. 
 He received that day nine persons by letter 
 and five of the letters were from Methodist 
 Churches. He turned round to me and said: 
 "You see what we are doing." I said : ''No, 
 sir, you see what we are doing. You do not 
 know whether you have gained a horse or lost 
 a buggy. You dare not read your old West- 
 minster Catechism here. It would blow the 
 roof ofif from your church." A little shimmer 
 of approval and a wave of applause went over 
 the congregation. Methodism has given new 
 life to all the Churches, and I thank God that 
 they have been so blessed. 
 
 Methodism born with the Republic has 
 taken the State by the hand and has kept even 
 step with her. Mr. Lincoln said: ''It was 
 not the fault of the other Churches that the 
 Methodist Church sent more soldiers to the 
 
 228 
 
TO BRlTlSfi WEST.KYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more 
 prayers to heaven than any other." We re- 
 member with sad and grateful pride that every 
 fifth grave that made the Southland billowy- 
 like the sea was filled with a communicant of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. "Those 
 low green tents whose curtains never outward 
 swing," represent Methodist patriotism and 
 valor. So it seems to us only natural that we 
 should send families to the White House, 
 Grant and Hayes, and that we have to-day a 
 Methodist communicant in President McKin- 
 ley. We have no anxiety about his forgetting 
 God. 
 
 We keep out of politics, but our members 
 take all phases of the disease and belong to 
 ail parties. The Arab says, "Give a horse two 
 sweats, then ask anything of him in the third 
 sweat." We have the third sweat now in poli- 
 tics. The first that would fire a Methodist 
 Conference was Romanism. The second was 
 Slavery. The third is Temperance. We are 
 teetotalers in practice, and prohibitionists in 
 conviction. The General Conference ex- 
 pressed the sentiment of the people on this sub- 
 ject, and every man seeks his own way of ap- 
 plying the doctrine. The overflow of Metho- 
 
 229 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 dism in our land is felt everywhere, from the 
 school-room to the White House. 
 
 It is no insignificant part of the work of 
 Methodism that it furnishes the most vital and 
 crowning element in building a nation and a 
 civilization. Many elements are involved, 
 but the development and dissemination of per- 
 sonal kinship and fellowship with God are 
 absolutely essential to the widest liberty and 
 most exalted character. Study the processes 
 by which the Anglo-Saxon race has been 
 brought on and up to power. Away back in 
 traditional ages the Gaels occupied these 
 lands. Then there came over the Cambrians 
 from the eastern extremities of Europe, and 
 drove the Gaels back into the mountains of 
 Scotland and over into green Erin, and made 
 for themselves homes. About five hundred 
 years later came the Logrians from the south- 
 western coast of Gaul, drove back the Cam- 
 brians and the remnants of the Gaels, made a 
 landing in the south and west of the island, 
 and established themselves. Five hundred 
 years later came the Britons from the banks of 
 the Seine and the Loire, drove back the Log- 
 rians and the Cambrians and the Gaels, and 
 mingling with them, made a landing. Five 
 hundred years later came the Romans, under 
 
 230 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 Caesar, and drove back the Britons and the 
 Cambrians and Logrians and the Gaels, and 
 overran these lands. Five hundred years later 
 came the Saxons, "men with long knives," 
 from the marshes of the Elbe, and slowly and 
 certainly made their way. About one hun- 
 dred 3^ears later came the Angles from the 
 shores of the Baltic, and struggled fiercely for 
 their standing on the island. Four or Hve 
 hundred years later came the Normans under 
 William the Conqueror, and fought their way 
 up to dominion. Thus there has come one 
 people after another, one layer after another, 
 warring, struggling, surging, fighting, sweep- 
 ing over the land from shore to shore, with 
 sword and fagot, baptizing every blade of 
 grass with the blood of their heroes, paving 
 the island with the bodies of their warriors, 
 mingling their blood in their streams and in 
 their veins, till there has been produced the 
 most virile race on the earth. Touched in this 
 last century and a half with the spirit of per- 
 sonal kinship and fellowship with God, these 
 English-speaking peoples have arisen to the 
 highest civilization known among men, and 
 marching with the swing of conquest they 
 walk over the earth as if they owned it. Like 
 chivalrous knights of High Heaven they feel 
 
 231 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 called upon to right the great wrongs, to de- 
 fend the helpless, lift up the poor and estab- 
 lish prosperous peace or know the reason why. 
 
 Sometimes this elevating work seems so 
 slow and so long that men doubt whether the 
 Anglo-Saxon is helping or robbing. But the 
 Anglo-Saxon seldom, if ever, turns back when 
 once he has set himself at a task, no matter 
 how poor or how dark the clay. If the poor 
 fellow will live and not die, work and not 
 faint, the Saxon will put him on his feet, 
 strengthen his knees, lift up his chin, open his 
 eyes, give him a family, a home, a castle, a 
 flag, and a country for this world, and set him 
 up in business for the next world, with a faith, 
 a soul, and a God. The biped is worth more 
 in commerce when he is thus enlarged and 
 set up. As a lump of pagan mud his trade is 
 worth one dollar a year; when the Saxon has 
 set him up in business he is worth fifty dollars 
 a year. It may be the Saxon sees this; never- 
 theless the poor man is elevated and endowed, 
 is set up. 
 
 Kipling caught the spirit when he wrote: 
 
 "Said England unto Pharaoh, 'I must make a man of you: 
 
 That will stand upon his feet and play the game; 
 
 That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian oughtto do/ 
 
 And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname. 
 
 232 
 
TO BRITISH WKSl.KYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 "Said England unto Pharoah, ' Tho' at present singing 
 small, 
 You shall have a proper tune before it ends,' 
 And she introduced old Pharaoh to the Sergeant once 
 for all, 
 And left them in the desert making friends. 
 
 It was not a Crystal Palace nor Cathedral, 
 It was not a public house of common fame, 
 
 But a piece of red-hot sand, with a palm on either hand. 
 And a little hut for Sergeant Whatisname. 
 
 " It was wicked bad campaigning (cheap and nasty from 
 the first) 
 There was heat and dust and coolie work and sun, 
 There were vipers, flies and sandstorms, there was 
 cholera and thirst, 
 But Pharaoh done the best he ever done. 
 
 " Down the desert, down the railway, down the river. 
 Like the Israelites from bondage so he came, 
 'Tween the cloud o' dust and fire to the land of his 
 desire, 
 And his Moses, it was Sergeant Whatisname ! " 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon integrity, which is 
 stronger than Anglo-Saxon greed of land, and 
 the Anglo-Saxon moral sense, which is deeper 
 than Anglo-Saxon passion for power, is the 
 pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire 
 by night, in which the God of Providence 
 dwells, that is guiding the fugitives from all 
 despotisms to the Promised Land. 
 
 233 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Wandering over the Far East, nothing 
 comforted me more than the sight of the Eng- 
 lish flag. I felt the grip of Anglo-Saxon in- 
 tegrity. The flag represented the most stable 
 government and most varied administration 
 ever yet tested by history. It represented that 
 astute statesmanship that keeps the end sought 
 always superior to the means used, and varies 
 the fashion of the administration to fit down 
 upon the human topography of every island 
 and peninsula. It seems sometimes like a 
 world-embracing octopus, with its head upon 
 the cliffs of England and its long arms reach- 
 ing everywhere, drawing the peoples and races 
 up out of heathenism and out of slavery and 
 out of poverty, up into prosperity and into 
 liberty and into civilization. I felt, while un- 
 der the Union Jack, absolutely safe. If any 
 one harmed a hair of my head a British war- 
 ship would push an interrogation mark un- 
 der their eyes, and they must answer or do 
 worse. I am looking at you out of straight, 
 honest, American eyes, and talking out of a 
 loyal American heart, uttering not one senti- 
 ment which I have not uttered at home. I 
 would despise myself more for lying to you 
 than for lying against you. The Stars and 
 Stripes have never been much in the Far East. 
 
 234 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONEERENCE 
 
 Whatever we have done there in our mission 
 fields has been chiefly because the Union Jack 
 has made it possible. We have staid in those 
 Western waters, and expected to stay there 
 forever. But the other day Spain exploded a 
 magazine under our prow and blew us up into 
 our world-wide mission. I now hope for the 
 time when the Stars and Stripes and the Union 
 Jack, side by side, shall make every yard of 
 water and every acre of land safe for prayer 
 or for trade. That nation of assassins, of ship 
 scuttlers, of poisoners of wells, and of murder- 
 ers of women and butchers of babes — Spain — 
 calls us Yankee Pigs and you English Hogs; 
 maybe we will soon be all hogs. They may 
 find us to be the watch-dogs of the world. 
 
 The soft, sleek, smiling races, who had 
 rather lie than tell the truth, even when there 
 is no motive for lying, who lie even to them- 
 selves for the fun of being deceived, say that 
 these Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking people, 
 are bad neighbors. They say the Saxon is 
 the robber of the races. The Saxon is the 
 butcher of mankind. True, our blood has a 
 rough, hard record on the surface. The first 
 clear vision of the Saxon, as he sails into the 
 light of modern history, is yonder on the 
 North Sea, standing on a slippery deck and 
 
 235 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 waving a bloody cutlas. He was a pirate. 
 Somebody gave him a New Testament. He 
 got religion and was baptized, and ever since 
 then he has seemed to be a baptized pirate. It 
 matters not which branch of the family you 
 study, this great branch on the islands and on 
 the sea, or that other equally great branch on 
 yonder continent in the act of going to sea. 
 The record is about equally rough. Take this 
 branch; no, you know your own record better 
 than I do. Take our branch. We have met 
 three races, and what have we done with 
 them? We met the Indian, and he would not 
 work for us, so we killed him and took his 
 pony, and his scalp, and his land. Then we 
 sang the long meter doxology. When we 
 landed on Plymouth Rock, first we dropped 
 on our knees, and, second, we dropped on the 
 aborigines. Next we met the African, and he 
 would work for us, and we enslaved him. 
 Now we have met the Chinaman, and we do 
 not know what to do with him. He will work 
 for us, so we do not want to kill him. But he 
 will not become our slave, so we do not want 
 to not kill him. We tried it; that is, our blood 
 tried it yonder in the islands. We pushed 
 him, and he yielded till he reached the point 
 where to yield again was to become a bond- 
 
 236 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 man ; then he slew his overseer. Then the 
 overseeing business became unpopular. Then 
 we called out the police and the soldiers, and 
 when we cornered him he broke jail and went 
 out into the infinite liberties where our police 
 are very slow about following him. All this 
 seems to be a hard record. But this ought in 
 all fairness also to be said: we have never 
 robbed a people without making them richer 
 than they were before we robbed them. We 
 have never subjugated a people without mak- 
 ing them nobler than they were before we sub- 
 jugated them, and we have never enslaved a 
 people without making them freer than they 
 were before we enslaved them. For, taking 
 the ages through and the world around, there 
 can be found nowhere else such liberties as 
 are found under the Stars and Stripes and the 
 Union Jack. 
 
 Brothers, I see more in this federation of 
 English-speaking peoples than the strutting 
 of our proud police of the seas, and the bark- 
 ing of our war-dogs. I see rather the better 
 chance for perpetual peace, and the growth of 
 the gentler virtues. I hate war. When war 
 makes murder and arson and theft and lying 
 virtues, then the common virtues, such as for- 
 giveness, honesty, mercy, and integrity, do not 
 
 237 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 thrive. War is tolerable only as a peace 
 measure. I once asked General Grant: "On 
 what do you depend most for your kindly re- 
 membrance among men for your fame?" I 
 was wondering which of his campaigns or 
 battles he thought greatest. He had the long- 
 est list of great battles and uninterrupted vic- 
 tories, with the greatest armies and greatest 
 hosts of prisoners of the best fighting race 
 known to history to choose from. I wondered 
 whether he would mention the Vicksburg 
 campaign, or the Chattanooga campaign, or 
 the Virginia campaign. This most successful 
 warrior took the breath out of me by answer- 
 ing, promptly: "The Treaty of Washington, 
 by which we settled by arbitration the Ala- 
 bama claims with Great Britain without an 
 appeal to the sword." Then he added: "Al- 
 ready England and the United States are suf- 
 ficiently advanced to settle their disputes by 
 arbitration ; soon two or three of the other 
 great powers will come up to the same level. 
 Then these great nations will not allow the 
 others to fight." He had so much of the ken 
 of the statesman and of the vision of the 
 prophet that he saw approaching as he added: 
 "That time when wars and warriors would be 
 forgotten and the Treaty of Washington 
 
 238 
 
TO BRITISH wesli:yan confp:rence 
 
 would stand as the first great Arbitration 
 treaty settling most difficult and aggravated 
 claims." I see in such a federation of Eng- 
 lish-speaking people a run into the sunrise of 
 the future. 
 
 I remember a case illustrating the power 
 of such an alliance. An American sailor 
 landed in a seaport of one of the Republics of 
 South America. In old-time fashion he filled 
 up with bad spirit. An officer undertook in 
 a rough way to arrest him, and Jack struck 
 the little officer. The penalty was death. The 
 American Consul protested that the man was 
 intoxicated, and the offense meant nothing. 
 But the little government went ahead and sen- 
 A tenced the poor tar to be shot. The American 
 and English Consuls consulted. But the hour 
 was fixed for the execution and the man was 
 marched out. The English Consul said: 
 "Take your flag quick, and I will take mine." 
 Together they ran to the execution square. 
 The sailor was placed against a dead wall and 
 a file of soldiers were drawn up ready to fire, 
 when the two Consuls stepped forward and 
 wrapped the Union Jack and the Stars and 
 Stripes about the poor fellow and said to the 
 little government: "Fire, and you will take the 
 consequences." The order was given to the 
 
 239 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 squad: ''About face, march!" And the sailor 
 was sent back to his ship. The time is coming 
 when these two flags floating over a sea or 
 over a continent will make it impossible for 
 a gun to throw a bullet beyond its muzzle, or 
 for a soldier to lift his foot unless the order is 
 given in the English tongue. 
 
 There may be some dark hours before that 
 sun rises. We may have to illustrate w^hat we 
 can do together. We have shown our motion 
 running singly. But you know sometimes two 
 fast horses running together bite each other's 
 necks or kick over the pole. Bismarck 
 prophesies we will do that. Maybe the wish 
 is father of the prophecy. But if the other na- 
 tions give us something else to do, we will 
 soon run together like twins and will show 
 them a speed that will make ''all the world 
 wonder." 
 
 In the old strife against the slave trade in 
 your own country, for a time Wilberforce was 
 alone. He had but one friend. Dr. Lushing- 
 ton. One day he said to Dr. Lushington: 
 "There is no one to stand by me in the house 
 except you. So when you make a speech I 
 shall cheer you, and you take care that when 
 I get up to make a speech you cheer me." 
 Thus they braced up each other's spirits. This 
 
 240 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 may be good doctrine for us to practice back 
 and forth across the Atlantic. 
 
 Alfred Austin has shown his right to the 
 chair of Alfred Tennyson, in his recent 
 
 Cry of Kinship. 
 
 What is the voice I hear, 
 
 On the wind of a western sea ? 
 Sentinel, listen from out Cape Clear, 
 
 And say what the voice may be. 
 
 'Tis a proud free people calling loud to a 
 people proud and free. 
 
 And it says to them, "" Kinsman, hail ! 
 
 We severed have been too long; 
 Now let us have done with a worn-out tale 
 
 The tale of an ancient wrong. 
 
 And our friendship last long as love doth last, 
 and be stronger than death is strong." 
 
 Answer them, sons of the selfsame race. 
 
 And blood of the selfsame clan. 
 Let us speak with each other, face to face. 
 
 And answer as man to man, 
 
 And loyally love and trust each other as none 
 but free men can. 
 
 Now fling them out to the breeze, 
 
 Shamrock, thistle, and rose. 
 And the Star Spangled Banner unfurl with these 
 
 A message to friends and foes, 
 
 Wherever the sails of peace are seen and 
 wherever the war wind blows. 
 i6 241 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 A message to bond and thrall to wake, 
 For wherever we come, we twain. 
 
 The throne of the tyrant shall rock and quake. 
 And his menace be void and vain, 
 For you are lords of a strong young land, and 
 we are lords of the main. 
 
 Yes, this is the voice on the bluff March gale: 
 
 "We severed have been too long; 
 But now we have done with a worn-out tale, 
 
 The tale of an ancient wrong, 
 
 And our friendship last long as love doth last 
 and be stronger than death is strong." 
 
 Brothers, I am not outside the facts of his- 
 tory when I say that the Spirit which God 
 poured into the world through the lips, labor, 
 and life of John Wesley has quickened this 
 Anglo-Saxon people into power. This is 
 the secret why these people are so free, 
 fearless, and loyal. Germany accepted Prot- 
 estantism about the same time that England 
 did. Two and a half centuries later England 
 and America received the new life from Ep- 
 worth that quickened into life her formal 
 Churches and moral sense. This century of 
 gospel preaching has lifted both these nations 
 into personal responsibility. Had some Wes- 
 ley arisen in Germany when John Wesley 
 arose in England, or had some Asbury been 
 
 242 
 
TO BRITISH WESLEYAN CONFERENCE 
 
 sent to Germany when Francis Asbury was 
 sent to America, we should not hear to-day the 
 humiliating statement that William sends his 
 budget to the Vatican to have it approved be- 
 fore he presents it in his Reichstag. 
 
 Who can measure our responsibility? A 
 visitor asked the keeper of the light at Calais: 
 "Does your light ever grow dim or go out?" 
 ''Grow dim or go out?" said the astonished 
 watchman, startled at the very suggestion. 
 "Why, man, there are ships yonder at sea, in 
 the darkness. If this light should grow dim 
 or go out, they might go upon the breakers." 
 We are the lighthouse of these ages. If our 
 lights grow dim or go out, the nations 
 freighted with the liberties and destinies of 
 millions and of generations to come might go 
 upon the breakers. Our only safety is in close 
 personal walk with God, in walking with 
 God as our fathers did, keeping ourselves per- 
 sonally in such fellowship that we can detect 
 the least approach of sin and hear the slightest 
 prompting of the Spirit and receive constantly 
 new supplies of spiritual power. The same 
 heroic devotion that made our fathers win in 
 the nineteenth century will make us win in 
 the twentieth. 
 
 243 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 Delivered at Evanston, Illinois, June 26, 1873, when Dr. 
 
 Fowler was formally inaugurated President 
 
 of Northwestern University 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 Time-honored custom requires of me, as 
 I stand this hour upon the threshold of this 
 vast enterprise, some statement of views con- 
 cerning the work here undertaken. It be- 
 comes us to leave boasting to him that taketh 
 off the armor, yet in putting on the armor it 
 also becomes us to spy out the land — measur- 
 ing the giants and counting the cities which 
 the Lord, the Church, and the public judg- 
 ment expect us to possess. Ah institution in 
 a community, that is to occupy the time and 
 thought of scores of cultivated laborers, to 
 control capital by the millions and expend its 
 income by the hundred thousands, to build its 
 walls for the centuries and plan its campaigns 
 by the thousand years, to furnish a home for 
 multitudes of the sons and daughters of the 
 land in a critical time of their life and furnish 
 character for scholars and scientists, preach- 
 ers and philologists, physicians and philoso- 
 phers, jurists and statesmen — an institution 
 thus purposed and intrusted has a right to the 
 public ear. 
 
 247 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Inducted by you into this honorable and 
 responsible calling and office, and for the hour 
 poised between the right of the public to hear 
 and the right of the university to speak, I will 
 sketch some of the reasons justifying the exist- 
 ence of the university — some outlines of her 
 work, some of the agencies and appliances by 
 which she seeks to meet her obligations, some 
 of the results accomplished and some of the 
 demands of the pressing future. 
 
 I. Reasons for the Existence of the Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 I. By way of approach to this subject it 
 may safely be affirmed that universities are 
 the fruit of advanced civilization. Like ab- 
 stract terms in a language, they imply much 
 antecedent cultivation. 
 
 It is a long journey from the Digger In- 
 dian taking his breakfast from an ant's nest 
 with a sharp stick, up to the Christian philan- 
 thropist founding and maintaining a univer- 
 sity. We ascend by many shining steps from 
 savagery to the age of the earliest universities. 
 But for the inspiration and guidance of the 
 great schoolmasters, Thales, Anaxagoras, De- 
 mocritus, Pythagoras, and Zeno the Elean, we 
 had never wandered with the unsandaled Soc- 
 
 248 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 rates, or lounged in the academy with Plato, 
 or contended in the lyceum with the subtile 
 and resistless Aristotle. The great schools are 
 the growth of centuries. In raising them from 
 the seed there is no short cut to maturity, but 
 we may transplant or engraft and so condense 
 the work of the ages into a few generations. 
 We took all the experiences and histories and 
 theologies and literatures of England and 
 Europe, and planted them in our new-world 
 soil. The dews of a single night falling upon 
 them gave us a rich civilization. So we can 
 take the scholarship of the old empires and 
 the faith and activity of the new republic and 
 hasten with them into the public squares to 
 find the great institutions there before us. 
 They seem the growth of an hour, but they 
 trace their pedigree through many centuries. 
 Like great ideas, they must make a footing in 
 the public conviction before they can become 
 great centers of power. Some education, low 
 in degree and narrow in extent it may be, per- 
 tains to intelligent existence. The knowledge 
 of the simplest industries is within the com- 
 mon reach. Fishing and hunting with the 
 simplest devices; agriculture with the crudest 
 implements; architecture limited to the con- 
 struction of wigwams and tents; navigation 
 
 249 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 conducted on bark and skins — all these make 
 up a part of education. It is only the founda- 
 tion, but it is something. This becomes the 
 common property by being a common neces- 
 sity. Widening horizons, extending com- 
 merce, contact with other neighborhoods, 
 varied experience, wars, dense populations, 
 general interests elevate the scholarship. Then 
 the front rank can be reached and held not by 
 cunning but by patient calculation. Organ- 
 ized and premeditated education is then a 
 fact. Elementary knowledge perpetuates it- 
 self as it is forced into existence by the solu- 
 tion of the universal problems of bread and 
 raiment. It descends from father to son with 
 a certainty of existence. Higher knowledge 
 comes through two channels: first spasmodic- 
 ally, by gifted souls, prophets, poets, philoso- 
 phers, or great thinkers. These come one or 
 two in five or ten centuries as samples of the 
 coming generations. They let the light down 
 into the lower levels and set them on strug- 
 gling up toward the larger measure. Second, 
 persistently, by the wise appointments of or- 
 ganized, systematized, far-reaching educa- 
 tional plans that mature into great institutions. 
 The germs of these in different stages of 
 development are found among all thoughtful 
 
 250 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 peoples. The light from the East comes down 
 to us in feeble and broken rays, yet strong 
 enough and clear enough to indicate that the 
 races at the foot of the Himalayas and in the 
 valley of the Ganges had some great institu- 
 tions before Jacob went down into the land of 
 the Nile, or Abraham received the covenant. 
 For these races had mathematics, and astrono- 
 mies, and philosophies, and theologies, and 
 literatures probably centuries before Cadmus 
 brought the fifteen fragments of Phoenician 
 and Assyrian characters into Greece, which in 
 the next thousand years were built into the 
 perfect alphabet and the wonderful literature. 
 The Hebrew law-giver was trained in the 
 schools of the priests of the sun in Heliopolis 
 six hundred years before blind old Homer, 
 wandering along the shores of the Mediterra- 
 nean, sang of Hector and Achilles. The com- 
 pass of this Egyptian instruction is indicated 
 with some uncertainty indeed, but indicated, 
 by the fact that Moses is said by tradition, ac- 
 cording to Manetho, to have attained great 
 proficiency and to have made discoveries in 
 navigation, hydraulics, hieroglyphics, gram- 
 mar, music, war, astronorriy, surveying, politi- 
 cal economy, linguistics, histories, and theol- 
 ogy. He studied botany on Horeb's side, and 
 
 251 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 geology on the summit of Sinai, and social 
 science in the wilderness. This was twelve 
 hundred years before the Museum at Alexan- 
 dria, the oldest State university in the world, 
 had a manuscript, or a student, or a professor, 
 or a foundation-stone. This school at Alex- 
 andria, in Egyptian soil, but made out of the 
 most splendid results of Greek genius and cul- 
 ture, was crowded with chairs in all the 
 known languages and literatures and philoso- 
 phies of the world, from Phoenicia to India, 
 from ^Ethiopia to Rome. Here the Hebrew 
 Scriptures broke out of the sacred language 
 into the tongue of the Greek, three centuries 
 before Paul preached the risen Messiah on 
 Mars' Hill; and this center furnished scholars 
 for the early Church till nearly all European 
 knowledge was consecrated to the cross. We 
 have only to open our eyes on the past or the 
 present, on the old world or the new, to see 
 that the great centers of learning are centers 
 of civilization; and we soon feel that. 
 
 2. Universities are essential to civilization. 
 It may be claimed that Athens reached her 
 glory without such instrumentalities. But 
 then, Athens herself was little less than a uni- 
 versity; her youth were kept in the society of 
 her scholars and statesmen, her philosophers 
 
 252 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 and warriors. There is not, nor has there 
 been, a university under the sun which would 
 not be honored to count among her professors 
 such minds as Aristotle, and Plato, and Soc- 
 rates. In her marts and along her streets her 
 youth were taught philosophy by these great 
 schoolmasters of mankind. Along her docks 
 they were taught navigation, commerce, and 
 naval war. In her streets they were trained 
 to the highest taste in architecture. In her 
 temples they were molded by the chisel of 
 Phidias. In her theaters they were roused by 
 the great tragedies and songs of Sophocles and 
 i^schylus. In her assemblies they were 
 trained in statecraft and oratory by Pericles 
 and Demosthenes. Surely nothing was want- 
 ing in culture, in art, in learning, in patriot- 
 ism, in poetry, in song, in precept, in society, 
 in surroundings, to make the youth of Athens 
 scholars by birth and philosophers by inher- 
 itance. 
 
 It is a significant fact that every people 
 that has made a luminous spot in history has 
 generated its light in the halls of colleges and 
 universities. Rome had the Athenaeum as the 
 head of the schools she scattered with her 
 eagles. Italy, once the mother of letters and 
 of genius, ranked as queen among the nations 
 
 253 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 till her schools lost their power by losing their 
 liberty. In the thirteenth century a school 
 flourished in Bologna. This university was 
 founded by Theodosius in 425, and restored by 
 Charlemagne. Roger Bacon, the good friar 
 known as the admirable doctor who ventured 
 to study natural science and spend his fortune 
 and that of his friends in experiment and in 
 alarming the Church with what they called 
 witchcraft and the black art, who stood as the 
 foremost man of the universities at Oxford 
 and Paris in natural science for more than 
 three centuries, till his great namesake. Sir 
 Francis, came — this man tells us that in 1262 
 there were in Bologna over twenty thousand 
 students. Be it said to the credit of Bologna 
 that a woman, Novilla Andrea, in the four- 
 teenth century, was professor of canon law, 
 and Clotilda Tamproni was professor of 
 Greek in our century. 
 
 The university at Paris was started as a 
 monkish school in 792, and made over and 
 widened into greater usefulness in 1200. It 
 had at one time in the sixteenth century thirty 
 thousand students. Oxford was born in the 
 ninth century, and Vienna in the fourteenth. 
 These have carried France, and England, and 
 Austria up to the summit of their glory. The 
 
 254 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 honor of Germany to-day is not chiefly in the 
 victorious march from Berlin to Paris, but 
 rather in the great universities, from Prague 
 to Berlin, which have been fostered by the 
 national spirit, and have in turn fostered that 
 spirit, and have thus made Germany a syno- 
 nym for greatness. 
 
 Italy to-day has twenty-one universities 
 and two hundred and seventeen seminaries. 
 No wonder that Popery has lost its advantage, 
 and in the light of these cities which can not 
 be hid poor Italy finds her way back to unity. 
 Spain has no great school. The dust of ob- 
 livion is a yard deep and a hundred years old 
 upon her ancient universities. Importing 
 her scholars she must also import her liberties, 
 if she find them. Russia has seven great grow- 
 ing universities. Already the great Northern 
 Bear plays to win. Vitalize that great host 
 with inventive manufacturing brains, and 
 nothing will be impossible for Russia. Swit- 
 zerland supports three universities, Holland 
 three, Belgium four, and Denmark two. Eng- 
 land and Scotland remind us of Oxford, Cam- 
 bridge, and Edinburgh. 
 
 The United States has scattered the seed 
 of universities so thickly over this continent 
 that a Yankee emigrant can hardly stop his 
 
 255 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 wagon to camp for the night but there will 
 spring up from the warm earth where he slept 
 a university, or at least a college. A civiliza- 
 tion without great schools would be as impos- 
 sible as saints without virtues or angels with- 
 out songs. 
 
 It inheres in power to gravitate to centers, 
 and thus by a law as old as the universe it 
 draws all things to itself either to conquer or 
 assist. Turn such a soul as Saul of Tarsus 
 into a city or State, and he will soon find 
 Stephen and the synagogues and the Sanhe- 
 drim. Luther could not break out of his 
 cloister and straighten up under the open sky 
 without seeing Melanchthon and the giants of 
 the earth. Great men and great ideas become 
 centers of power up to which all the ambitions 
 and aspirations in the nation turn their hurry- 
 ing feet. Then you have a school, call it as 
 you may. Mankind will never dream of 
 crediting any people with civilization unless 
 they bring forth the fruits meet for such char- 
 acter. There must be literature; pure, vigor- 
 ous, masterly, elevating. There must be art 
 and art's refinement in taste and manners; 
 humanities that illumine the dungeon of the 
 convict and sweep the alleys of the outcast; 
 charities that light up the wretched at home 
 
 256 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 and give them ideas with which to conquer 
 their wretchedness, and that reaches the sink- 
 ing, no matter how far off, and gives them 
 truths and revelation with which to transform 
 their characters. All this requires cultivated 
 brain. It is impossible to have high civiliza- 
 tion without great universities. 
 
 3. Universities are rendered necessary by 
 the general intelligence. There remains the 
 same demand for leadership if there is to be 
 advancement. 
 
 The sage-brush desert, though far above 
 the sea-level as the summit of Mt. Washing- 
 ton, is none the less a flat, monotonous, and 
 weary waste. The army of lions must have 
 the supreme lion to lead. The herds of wild 
 horses fleet as the wind must somewhere find 
 a leader swift as lightning or the morning 
 breeze. Fill the land with schools and books 
 and presses and free pulpits, and somewhere 
 you must have universities. Power must 
 gravitate to centers. The republic has, ac- 
 cording to the census of 1870, 507 colleges and 
 2,209 schools for higher education, and 125,- 
 059 common schools, employing 221,042 
 teachers and teaching 7,209,938 pupils. These 
 vast figures show but a fraction of the world 
 of education. These children come from all 
 
 n 257 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the homes of the country; they return from 
 the school-room to kindle on the hearth the 
 fires of holy ambition borrowed from the pub- 
 lic luminaries. A quarter of a million of 
 teachers turned loose among forty millions of 
 people must revolutionize every community. 
 Add to this work the faith and heroism of 
 72,459 preachers and you have an army be- 
 neath whose tread the continent trembles from 
 sea to sea. Put into the hands of all these 
 workers 45,525,938 books and 1,508,548,250 
 copies of periodicals, and you have trans- 
 formed the republic into a literary society and 
 the nation into a reading-room. It is the glory 
 of this country that science shines into our 
 common homes and philosophy flourishes in 
 our shops and factories. The path to power 
 runs by the poor man's cot, and the honors of 
 scholarship may be carried ofT by hackmen. 
 All this renders almost imperative the demand 
 for universities and colleges. The school- 
 room, the pulpit, the editor's chair, the Sen- 
 ate chamber, and the Supreme bench must be 
 filled with highest culture and profoundest 
 scholarship, or leaders must be found else- 
 where and the scepter pass from the tribe of 
 Judah. 
 
 We are at the confluence of the great 
 258 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 races; streams of ancient blood are flowing 
 into our veins, and all the literatures of the 
 most varied civilization meet and mingle in 
 our atmosphere. The invading multitudes dis- 
 embark in the darkness of each night and by 
 the light of each new day. They hourly land 
 in every bay and bayou of our ten thousand 
 miles of water front. Capital comes for in- 
 vestment; poverty for bread; light for a can- 
 dlestick; and ignorance comes for light. We 
 have room enough for them; they can not run 
 down our wild herds for many a year yet, and 
 we have single vales that can feed mankind 
 for a thousand years. But the press and the 
 pulpit and the school-house must be manned 
 by trained and tireless brains. This means 
 training-camps, universities, somewhere. 
 
 4. The controlling minds of history have 
 been trained in the schools. True, there are 
 many noble exceptions to this rule. There 
 stand Franklin and Marshall and Washing- 
 ton, who make the republic honorable by their 
 histories. But all these were strengthened and 
 sustained by scholars and books of scholars. 
 There are self-made men who may well be 
 proud of their work. Indeed, I think that no 
 man is more than half made who does not 
 make himself. But not more than one man in 
 
 259 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 a million can do a good job with poor tools. 
 You can get flour out of wheat with a mortar. 
 But I prefer a grist-mill — it grinds finer, 
 faster, and more economically. Thus it hap- 
 pens that nearly all the undying literature 
 comes from polished pens — from the Addi- 
 sons and Miltons, from the Pitts and Sheri- 
 dans, from the Popes and Whateleys. Take 
 out of our own literature the work of our 
 scholars and you open a sad gulf. All but ten 
 of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence were trained in universities and colleges. 
 More than one-fourth of the members of the 
 National Congress from the beginning to this 
 day have been graduates of colleges. This 
 fact, taking the ratio of population and grad- 
 uates, shows that the colleges have given their 
 sons more than thirty chances to one. The 
 histories of the White House and of the de- 
 partments of government and of the supreme 
 bench add emphasis to this statement. These 
 facts call to the aspiring youth, "So run that 
 ye may obtain." 
 
 5. Universities stimulate thought. They 
 create an atmosphere in which a dictionary 
 or a blackboard or a compound blowpipe is 
 necessary to a peaceful existence. They make 
 all the gales and breezes blow toward books 
 
 260 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 and brains. Make public sentiment and you 
 can kindle or quench the fagots, build or de- 
 stroy the Inquisition, perpetuate or extermi- 
 nate the despotisms. Human nature is weak 
 and takes readily to rest; men are lazy. The 
 spur of competition and the sting of threat- 
 ened defeat help flagging zeal and so quicken 
 thought. 
 
 6. Universities are the friends of true re- 
 ligion. They increase and disseminate light, 
 and the truth seeks the light — it needs expo- 
 sure; it has nothing to dread. These schools 
 turn the attention more toward the higher na- 
 ture. In the struggle waged in every bosom 
 they are for the immortal instead of the ani- 
 mal, on the side of the angel against the tiger. 
 There is little trouble about keeping up the 
 low^er industries; there is no shirking them, 
 they must be carried on. Nature guards them 
 under penalty of death. Men will eat and 
 seek eatables urged by no other argument than 
 that nature has lodged in the stomach. But to 
 lift them to higher aims and inspire them 
 with noble purposes is not so easy and is 
 something toward exalting their character. It 
 makes larger footing for the truth. Open a 
 library or a school in a community and you 
 transform the amusements and the industries 
 
 261 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and the markets. The bull-fight and the tour- 
 nament give way to the reading-room and the 
 lecture-hall and the sanctuary. The arrow- 
 maker and the tent-maker are superseded by 
 the architect and the engineer. Men are set 
 on restraining their lower propensities. They 
 see the day-after-to-morrow and plan for it. 
 Soon this checks wordliness and sets them in 
 pursuit of eternal results — tones up society. 
 Thus let one boy or girl in a community start 
 up toward knowledge, and soon a goodly pro- 
 cession will be moving that way. Every step 
 up brings them more clearly within the reach 
 of truth. In a more definite but not more cer- 
 tain way the university furnishes the great de- 
 fenders of the Church. Providence may use 
 weak instruments, but they can not remain 
 weak — the very use builds them into great- 
 ness; so God prepares great workers for and 
 in great work. The schools of Tarsus were 
 not second to those of Alexandria, and the 
 school of Gamaliel was well fitted to continue 
 the training of the great apostle to the Gen- 
 tiles. Clement and Origen studied in Alexan- 
 dria; Luther was a professor in the Univer- 
 sity of Wittenberg; and Melanchthon was a 
 noted professor of Greek. The Reformation 
 was committed to the foremost scholars of the 
 
 262 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 age. Calvin was quite a university in himself. 
 Beza was no mean scholar. John Knox grad- 
 uated at St. Andrews. The late reformation 
 that gave the world a new evangel was mar- 
 shaled by such scholars as Wesley and 
 Fletcher. Their song was taken up by the 
 Clarkes, the Bensons, and the Watsons. A 
 multitude rose up, and, fired by heavenly zeal, 
 ran down to the battle almost as they were 
 when they heard the first blast of the bugle. 
 And there they did valiant service, and the 
 slain of the Lord were on every hand. 
 
 True, these men did not stop to dig the 
 ore out of the mountain and smelt and fashion 
 it in their own furnaces. But they did take 
 the weapons furnished by Wesley and Clarke 
 and Watson and the great leaders. But for 
 these equipments they would have been scat- 
 tered in the first hour of battle like down be- 
 fore a whirlwind. 
 
 7. Universities lighten the burdens of 
 mankind. Most of our heavy lifting and 
 wearisome carrying has come from our dull- 
 ness and ignorance. We have been forever 
 taking hold in the wrong place. It is beyond 
 all computation how we have aggravated our 
 inherited disability. We have thrust around 
 in all directions as if hunting for the laws of 
 
 263 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 our well-being simply, or chiefly, to violate 
 them. If any one can doubt our fall in our 
 great ancestor, it must be because the multi- 
 tude of our falls since leave no demand for a 
 first fall to account for our deformity. 
 
 Doubling the channels of inheritance by 
 each generation as we go backward, it only 
 takes a few centuries to tap all the races and 
 drain in large supplies of distemper and lep- 
 rosy and scrofula and insanity and perversity. 
 I do not wonder that we have dwarfs, and 
 cripples, and idiots, and criminals. It seems 
 a greater wonder that we do not have more. 
 But for the remedial agencies set at work by 
 infinite mercy we might not have had any- 
 thing else long before this. As it is we have 
 reduced our life from nine or ten hundred 
 years to thirty years, and in heathen lands to 
 fifteen years. Just of late, by studying and 
 keeping the laws of our well-being we have 
 turned back toward longer life. The great 
 schools have added fifty per cent to our life 
 and thus doubled our work-day. This has 
 been achieved by three economies: First, by 
 stopping the violation of nature's laws and so 
 diminishing the waste; second, by lessening 
 the strain upon the vital force and so husband- 
 ing our strength; and third, by creating 
 
 264 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 greater supplies of vital force in the more 
 skillful use and production of nutritives. All 
 these economies are the products of cultivated 
 brain. They arc born of scientific investiga- 
 tion and experiment. Since the medical 
 schools introduced the rational system of in- 
 vestigation, and forsook the empirical meth- 
 ods that prescribed by streets instead of by in- 
 dividuals, and bled all in one street and phys- 
 icked all in the next, without the least refer- 
 ence to the disease, age, or symptoms of the 
 patient — since this change, medical science has 
 revealed the secrets of our constitutions, and 
 has put us in a way to resist waste and destruc- 
 tion. The results of careful thought are now 
 abundant in the substitution of machinery for 
 muscle. In Great Britain each individual has 
 the average service of nineteen servants. No 
 wonder they can have better food and raiment 
 and more culture than the Hottentot, who has 
 only his empty hands. Peasants have more 
 comfort to-day than could have been found in 
 the palace of good King Arthur. In the age 
 of Bacon and Shakespeare there was only one 
 pair of silk stockings in England, and they 
 were kept with the crown jewels. Yesterday 
 a respectable copy of the Bible cost twenty-five 
 thousand dollars, and could be owned only by 
 
 265 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 wealthy cathedrals and peers of the realm; 
 to-day you can get a plainer and better copy for 
 twenty-five cents, and the poorest man in the 
 country can have one if he wants it. Thought 
 has entered every field of industry, from the 
 pantry of the housewife to the navy yard of 
 the nation, from the chamber of the sewing 
 girl to the cabinet of the President. It has 
 seized upon all toil, from heading a pin to 
 heading a locomotive boiler, from cutting the 
 eye of the needle to cutting the Mont Cenis 
 tunnel. Where is the speed of Mercury com- 
 pared with the leap of the lightning? Samson 
 is weaker than a babe when contending with 
 a jackscrew. What is Hercules' lifting against 
 gunpowder? What show would there be for 
 David's sling against a needle-gun? This 
 vast multiplication of machinery prepares the 
 w^ay for the multiplication of products. 
 While the earth can produce game and berries 
 only for one ten-thousandth of its inhabitants, 
 the valley of the Mississippi, under the brain 
 of genius and in the hands of skill, can keep 
 in luxury all the sons and daughters of Adam. 
 It w^as a long journey in the manufacture of 
 raiment from the fig leaves of Eden to the 
 seamless garment of the Nazarene; but it was 
 inconceivably further to the weavers from 
 
 266 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 Brabant who settled in York — of whose art 
 King Edward said, "It may prove of great 
 benefit to us and our subjects." The Indian 
 cotton cloth mentioned by Herodotus cost 
 nearly as much as the same number of square 
 feet of the Holy Scriptures before the days of 
 printing. But Gray, and Hargreaves, and 
 Arkwright put their brains at work, and now 
 it is much cheaper to wear cotton than to wear 
 nothing. Attach a bench of sewing machines 
 to those factories, and then throw in your wool 
 and your cotton, and by the time you can wash 
 your hands from the shearing and the picking 
 you can find whole suits of the finest fiber and 
 the fairest fabric fitted to your every wrinkle. 
 Meantime your wife, instead of spinning, like 
 the wife of Tarquin, who made a garment for 
 Servius Tullius that was preserved in the 
 Temple of Fortune; or like the wife of Caesar, 
 who clothed the world's emperor in "home- 
 spun," but was "above suspicion" — your wife 
 can give her time to the government and in- 
 spiration of her sons and daughters. 
 
 Yesterday it required whole years to get 
 word from Africa or Asia, and an infinite 
 faith in the sailors, who described lands with- 
 out touching them, and in the map-makers, 
 who scattered mountains and deserts accord- 
 
 267 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ing to fancy and regardless of fact. But to- 
 day let a duke smite a serf anywhere in Rus- 
 sia, or let an Arab's horse stumble on the des- 
 ert, or let a servant take the plague in Egypt, 
 or let a Modoc shout one note above the 
 regulation in America, and nearly every fam- 
 ily in the civilized v^^orld has all the particu- 
 lars before the next breakfast. 
 
 Communications make communities. This 
 must soon embrace mankind. When we get 
 so close together that no two can fight without 
 endangering all the rest, the rest will not let 
 the two fight. 
 
 The great thinkers have taken hold of the 
 problems of bread and raiment, and distance 
 and time, and government and destiny, and 
 have so solved them that we now have room 
 to grow, and right to spread, and time to think. 
 Thus the outside avoirdupois burdens have 
 been lifted from our shoulders by the forces 
 generated in universities and institutions of 
 culture. But the great relief has been in un- 
 loading the soul from ignorance, and supersti- 
 tion, and bad theology, and bad government. 
 
 Individual culture has made room for in- 
 dividual character. This has brushed away 
 the priests of superstition, and the sacrifices of 
 guilt, and the veil of ignorance, so that each 
 
 268 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 man in the temple of the universe has been 
 taught to come, in the priesthood of his hu- 
 manity, with the offering of his faith and af- 
 fections to the open and accessible mercy-seat. 
 To describe the work of the schools in lifting 
 the burdens of the race would be to write a 
 history of mankind. 
 
 8. Universities are the friends of the re- 
 public. They are the fountains of intelli- 
 gence. They are the great reservoirs that sup- 
 ply the common schools with teachers and 
 text-books and the result of scientific experi- 
 ment and philosophical research. Trained 
 teachers are more necessary than trained car- 
 penters or artisans. We do not let a man 
 bore a board or drill an iron until he has 
 served an apprenticeship, lest he bore or drill 
 in the wrong place. What shall we not re- 
 quire of him who bores or drills the minds of 
 our children? Without universities, institu- 
 tions of high training in some form, we can 
 not long maintain common schools ; without 
 common schools we can not maintain general 
 intelligence; without general intelligence we 
 can not maintain our liberties. The universi- 
 ties of the colonies gave us Jefferson, and 
 Adams, and Hancock. While we owe much 
 
 269 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 for such men, wc owe more for the ideas and 
 schools that came with them. 
 
 These underlie our liberties. Sylla of- 
 fered Rome freedom; but she chose a despot. 
 Cromwell tried to plant a republic; but Eng- 
 land wanted another Stuart. France can not 
 maintain a republic until she educates her 
 peasantry. And our republic will not survive 
 our intelligence. 
 
 The power of these institutions is compre- 
 hended by the despots of the earth when they 
 attach to the sovereignty the control of educa- 
 tion with the power to coin money, issue cur- 
 rency, levy taxes, declare war, accept peace, 
 and make treaties. The study of the history 
 of the United States was suppressed by royal 
 edicts in the universities of Europe. As late 
 as 1858 Prof. Luigi Filippi was imprisoned 
 for commending the study of our constitution. 
 The legates of the Pope conditioned Napo- 
 leon's advancement to the empire on his swear- 
 ing on the cross and Gospels to maintain an 
 army in Rome for the defense of the Pope, to 
 appoint as Minister of Education the nominee 
 of the Jesuits, and to suppress the study of phi- 
 losophy in the University of Paris. Napoleon 
 took the oath, the confessionals were opened 
 for him. The coup d'etat followed, and the 
 
 270 
 
THE univf:rsity 
 
 Republic went down under the empire. This 
 indicates how the world's great intriguers and 
 men who cause things to come to pass have 
 estimated the power of universities. 
 
 9. Universities qualify men for the learned 
 professions. This is done in two ways: First, 
 directly, by furnishing instruction and advan- 
 tages in the specialties of these professions (to 
 this we may refer again) . Second, by prepar- 
 ing and developing the mind to enter upon in- 
 tellectual labors worthy of intellectual leader- 
 ship. It is the old and eternal question of 
 preparation; — Can the eagle mount above the 
 storm without a practiced pinion? There is 
 indefinite and infinite fluttering between the 
 eagle beating about in the nest and the eagle 
 tracing secants on the circle of the whirlwind. 
 The camel is born in the desert. Bred in the 
 valley of the Mississippi, his posterity might 
 not be more enduring than the ox. The racer 
 that wins is petted and practiced, and pruned 
 and pushed. The Arab says, "Steeds are made 
 of barley and the road between Medina and 
 Mecca;" that means the best food and the 
 longest run, 180 miles in one day — preparation 
 and practice. Professional success lies beyond 
 the stormy desert; he who would reach it must 
 soar like the eagle above the storms. Life is 
 
 271 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 not a holiday trip ; the only sure help is ability. 
 Professional men are employed not for friend- 
 ship, but for results. The ministry is the most 
 nearly an exception. And even this becomes 
 a matter of business. If you can succeed you 
 can stay; if you can not, you must make room 
 for some other man with an equally divine 
 and more human call; for the individual is 
 nothing, the cause is everything. Lawyers 
 are engaged only when we can not help it, and 
 few people amuse themselves with doctors and 
 ipecacuanha. Therefore you must beat 
 against the storms. To win in any substantial 
 sense you must mount like the eagle, endure 
 like the camel, and run like the racer. The 
 increase of intelligence will intensify the com- 
 petition. The great work will be given to the 
 great workers. Men will make more careful 
 preparation. I know a youth with rare gifts 
 as a mathematician, and he has gone quite 
 thoroughly into German and French simply 
 to have access to the German and French 
 mathematicians. He must win. What men 
 must have in professional life is victory. 
 What is five or six years additional study com- 
 pared with having the chances all on your 
 side! for it is the last inch that makes the 
 tallest man. 
 
 272 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 lo. Universities are profitable in dollars 
 and cents. Whatever improves the grade of 
 civilization increases the security of society. 
 Whatever increases the security of society en- 
 hances the value of property. In another line 
 the measure of profit is the value of thinking 
 industry. A man with a first-class shovel earns 
 two dollars per day; with a first-class pulpit, 
 twenty dollars per day; with a first-class news- 
 paper, fifty dollars per day; with a first-class 
 railroad, two hundred and fifty dollars per 
 day. This is for management outside of capi- 
 tal. Who can estimate the commercial value 
 of such a brain as Beecher's or of such a head 
 as Mrs. Stowe's? She so enriched the South- 
 ern soil that it will produce one hundred bales 
 of cotton instead of one, and it shall grow 
 school-houses instead of shackles, churches in- 
 stead of slave-pens, asylums instead of auction 
 blocks, college professors instead of criminals. 
 Put all the seaboard cities under contribution 
 to an iron-clad warship, or lay them in ashes 
 at the will of the foe, and you fix some crude 
 estimate of the financial value of the brain of 
 Ericsson. But who can compute the value of 
 Dr. Olin, or Horace Mann, or John Quincy 
 Adams, or John Wesley, or John Bunyan? 
 What shall we say of the multiplied arts and 
 
 i8 273 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 sciences and inventions of civilized life, and 
 of the liberties and institutions of free govern- 
 ment? When we rise into the fellowship of 
 these forces it seems almost blasphemy against 
 the moral sense of mankind to suggest mere 
 commercial estimates. But here stands the 
 great fact: All that a man hath can he give 
 for his higher life. We conclude this branch 
 of the subject, reiterating the facts that univer- 
 sities are the fruits of advanced civilization; 
 that they are essential to civilization ; that they 
 are rendered necessary by general informa- 
 tion; that they have trained the controlling 
 minds of history; that they stimulate thought; 
 that they are friends of true religion; that 
 they lighten the burdens of mankind; that 
 they are the friends of the republic; that they 
 qualify men for learned professions, and that 
 they are profitable in dollars and cents. 
 
 II. What the University is to Do. 
 
 I. We answer in brief — teach all knowl- 
 edge. Possible knowledge is so vast and ap- 
 proachable from so many sides, that we hardly 
 feel enlightened by the answer. It takes nar- 
 rower form in the process for self-develop- 
 ment in all departments of our being. There 
 are two kingdoms over which man must be en- 
 
 274 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 throned — the inner kingdom of powers and 
 faculties and possibilities; this must be sub- 
 dued, organized, developed— made into the 
 aggressive army for the subjugation of the 
 outer kingdom of facts, forms, and relations. 
 The vast amount of knowledge that must in 
 some substantial way be made accessible and 
 available by a university seems too prodigious 
 even for enumeration. Single departments 
 have grown larger round the waist and taller 
 in cubits and deeper in foundation than were 
 all the departments two centuries ago. 
 
 The University of Paris in the sixteenth 
 century, with all her thirty thousand students 
 and corresponding army of professors, would 
 not come up to a first-class preparatory school 
 in the variety and extent of its requirements. 
 They crowded some kinds of work to excess. 
 Think of twenty thousand students, as at Bo- 
 logna, studying the canon law and solving the 
 profound question of precedence! There is 
 more power in a single Why? that may pros- 
 trate a class or teacher in the elements of phi- 
 losophy, than in all the old curriculum. They 
 backed a student up into a corner of his cell 
 and opened his mouth and crammed him with 
 decretals and anathemas and legends and 
 saintly miracles, packing them down with the 
 
 275 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ramrod of authority, till his soul was dead and 
 his heart was dead. There was no room to 
 question but in the dungeon, and no chance to 
 grow but at the stake. A single Why? which 
 would only encourage a professor in yonder 
 citadel of freedom would have split the civil- 
 ized world and have ruined the theologies of 
 a dozen centuries. 
 
 To-day the idea of a university reaches the 
 outer verge of knowledge. Standing on this 
 green sod, beneath these brave old oaks, by 
 day or by night any man or woman can face 
 up to the sun or the stars, or to Him who sits 
 beyond both sun and stars, and ask. Why? 
 concerning any fact or precept on earth or in 
 heaven, in this world or in all worlds, for time 
 and for eternity, and no leaf or speck of mist 
 will fall in wrath, and no blade of grass nor 
 tcnderest violet will wither in dismay. Here 
 standing on this open page of God's great 
 work we can call Him Father and ask Him 
 Why? and He will take our trembling hand in 
 His and gladly lead us into all truth. If the 
 question were what shall a particular student 
 study, it would be necessary to elect for him. 
 For one mind in the short day of this life could 
 no more master all knowledges than one 
 mouth could eat all food. A general acquaint- 
 
 276 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 ance with the whole range of knowledge is 
 consistent with an intimate knowledge of some 
 parts. Because it is general it need not be 
 vague. It may comprise the leading features 
 and be definite and positive. But when the 
 question is, What shall be furnished for all 
 minds? then the answer comes without seek- 
 ing. A college may be built about a single de- 
 partment of truths; but a university must em- 
 brace all colleges, and so seek all truths. It is 
 easy for some men to poise on a point and 
 swing around like a girl making a "cheese, '* 
 till, inflated, they think themselves supported 
 on all sides ; but venturing, they fall down into 
 emptiness and expose their folly. Think of a 
 scholar described by Sidney Smith, whose 
 great ambition was to "detect an anapaest in 
 the wrong place, or restore a lost dative!" 
 One Dr. George declined to admit the great- 
 ness of the Frederick of Prussia because he 
 "entertained considerable doubts whether the 
 king, with all his victories, could conjugate a 
 Greek verb in rnif' He did not see that the 
 king knew "how to illustrate upon the stage of 
 royalty the verb eimi — to be — and bring out 
 its full meaning amid the rout of armies and 
 the ruin of empires. 
 
 A university must make accurate men, but 
 277 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 she must seek to make them men of the cen- 
 tury and of the latest telegram — men able to 
 interpret events, and plan on the field of ac- 
 tion; men whom circumstances can not desert, 
 who can read the handwriting on the wall 
 and dare to translate it in any court. The 
 university can not become a partisan in the 
 controversies of competing studies, but like a 
 mother she must cherish them all, giving each 
 the security of a fair chance, and let results 
 and advancing judgment of the age settle all 
 questions of superiority. 
 
 It is consistent with this impartiality to 
 state the reasons sustaining the several fami- 
 lies or classes of studies. 
 
 2. The Classics demand our first attention. 
 There are worthy scholars and experienced 
 educators who would not admit this question 
 as a debatable one. They say that ''the mem- 
 ory of man runs not to the contrary," and that 
 ''the usage has been sanctified by time." But 
 it is sufficient answer that the old laws of 
 granite give way when the earthquake comes. 
 Nothing is exempt from the law of revolution. 
 Unless the ancient customs can show better 
 reasons for continuing than mere antiquity, 
 they must cease. The classics have held the 
 position of power for centuries ; but that may 
 
 278 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 be a question of age rather than merit. At 
 the revival of knowledge after the dark ages, 
 Latin was the vernacular of the Church and 
 of scholars. There was not much else to teach. 
 There was no science beyond the physical 
 works of Aristotle even as late as the sixteenth 
 century. Clinging exclusively to the classics 
 now because they were once adopted when 
 there was little else to adopt, is like clinging 
 to the crooked stick of Cincinnatus because he 
 chose it for a plow w^hen there was nothing 
 else to choose. It may further be stated that 
 objections have been urged against the study 
 of the classics in every country where they are 
 studied, and often by men familiar with them. 
 In Germany they were for a time excluded 
 from the schools. They have been reinstated. 
 As long ago as 1827, Yale College appointed 
 ''a committee to report on the expediency of 
 dispensing with the study of the dead lan- 
 guages/' They reported adversely, but they 
 reported. Essays and books have been written 
 and published on both sides of the question. 
 To-day the modes of instructing and the ex- 
 tent of instruction are being modified. But 
 the controversy is not a losing one for the old 
 culture. Classics are in more danger from 
 over-zeal than from all other causes. The test 
 
 279 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 that must determine this question is utility. If 
 the study of the classics is useless as an instru- 
 ment of education in completing the character 
 and outfit of a scholar, then it can not hold its 
 place. The danger, then, is in urging it for 
 purposes for which it is useless. 
 
 To crowd the classics upon every student 
 without regard to age or his aims; to hold a 
 smattering of Greek and Latin before a knowl- 
 edge of English, in cases where only a limited 
 amount of that can be taken; to hold that it 
 is better to decline the Greek article or a Latin 
 adjective than to understand the principles of 
 political economy — better to recall the history 
 of the growth of the Greek particle than the 
 history of the republic; better to measure a 
 line of Homer or of Horace than to measure 
 the resources of the continent — all this Is folly, 
 and must work against the classics. To main- 
 tain that there is no door into the world of 
 thought but through these dead tongues ; that 
 the highest mental power can not be approxi- 
 mated in any way except by the study of the 
 remains of these two peoples, is asking too 
 much of the countrymen of Marshall and of 
 Franklin and of Washington. To refuse the 
 honor of scholarship to a man who is familiar 
 with the "unread manuscripts of God," be- 
 
 280 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 cause he is unread in the manuscripts of Plato; 
 to withhold credit from him who can analyze 
 the soil on which we walk, and the food on 
 which we live, because he can not analyze a 
 sentence in the preface of Livy, or a chorus 
 of Sophocles, are decisions that will hardly be 
 maintained by the judgment of this century 
 and of the American people. Danger of error 
 lies in the reaction from those overstatements. 
 Here as in most controversies the truth lies 
 between the extremes. The objection may be 
 reduced to a few general statements : (a) That 
 the classics are Pagan. Yes; but that is only 
 a name. They are from human sources, and 
 full of human power. It is not a question of 
 origin, but of contents ; not whence? but what? 
 The light of the Star of Bethlehem fell first 
 on Pagan eyelids; and the supreme blessing 
 came upon Abraham, the father of the faith- 
 ful, from the hands of a wandering high priest 
 of heathenism, (b) That they are impure. 
 Yes, in places, but not as a law. There are 
 but few passages worse than some passages of 
 Shakespeare, or than some statements in the 
 Bible. The classics as encountered in modern 
 text-books and courses of study are not open 
 to this objection, and scholars roaming at large 
 in the fields of literature can find sewers and 
 
 281 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Gehennas if their taste leads them that way. 
 ''To the pure all things are pure." (c) That 
 they are of no use. This depends upon what 
 you mean by use. If you mean that you will 
 not care to handle them in the counting-room, 
 nor in the factory, nor yet the drawing-room, 
 then they are not of use. But very little else 
 is of use measured by that standard. Reading 
 and spelling, and writing and grammar, and 
 arithmetic through interest and proportion are 
 all that are required. Pat having these usable 
 elements, with his shovel or whip is as well 
 qualified for life as the man in the office or 
 counting-room. The fallacy lies in what is 
 meant by use. Thinking that only those rules 
 which you repeat are of value, is no wiser than 
 the street gamin who wants half-raw potatoes 
 because they do not digest and do stay in his 
 stomach. The food that is of use is that that 
 comes out in bone and muscle and tissue and 
 blood and brains. The knowledge that is of 
 use in training is that w^iich gives compass 
 and vision and judgment and patience and per- 
 sistence and power, (d) That few students 
 like the classics. Possibly; but all like play. 
 Would it do to substitute baseball, boating, eti- 
 quette, and twilight rambles as more popular 
 pursuits? Then those who do like the classics 
 
 282 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 have rights which a university is bound to re- 
 spect, (e) That the classics have only to do 
 with words instead of things, and make word 
 rememberers. Yes; but words are also things. 
 Corner-lots, sewers, tunnels, ships, homes, 
 breadstuffs, shovels, and shanties are no more 
 certainly things than Homer's battles about 
 Troy, or the navigation at Salamis, or the 
 ''Epitaphs on the plains of Marathon," or the 
 spirit that broods over Thermopylae. To re- 
 member the meaning of words in a Latin his- 
 tory or poem is no more an act of memory 
 than holding the names and classification in 
 science. The man who reads and understands 
 the orations of Cicero against Catiline, or of 
 Demosthenes against Philip, is no more a 
 word rememberer than he who reads and un- 
 derstands the oration of Webster against 
 Hayne, or Sumner against slavery. The lim- 
 ited amount of time and attention given to the 
 classics in American colleges removes all 
 ground of objection based upon the practice 
 of English universities. 
 
 The time for study in all our schools is 
 too short. We are in too great haste to suc- 
 ceed in making great scholars. The Greeks 
 in the days of their glory kept their sons in 
 training thirteen years. The Jews under di- 
 
 283 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 vine command kept their sons in school 
 eighteen years, not counting the preparatory 
 work of the first twelve years of their life. 
 It is not uncommon for European universities 
 to require twelve years in Greek and sixteen 
 in Latin. There is a line of argument defend- 
 ing the study of the classics that may justify 
 to the impartial mind at least as much study 
 as we require, which is not more than seven 
 years, including the preparations, and this 
 not to exceed one-third of the time in those 
 seven years. This justification will be the 
 more certain when it is remembered that the 
 scholar is not limited to the classics, but is 
 urged from these and with the power they 
 give into all the fields of knowledge, (a) The 
 use of the classics in discipline is one of their 
 strongest defenses. They are adapted to the 
 earlier stages of mental life. Philosophy, 
 metaphysics, and the generalizations of nat- 
 ural science, all require more strength than 
 the beginnings of language. Our earlier ef- 
 forts after observations are in acquiring lan- 
 guage. The classics take hold upon us with 
 a^ gentle but firm hand, and lead us up into 
 vigor. The variety of action gives strength 
 and nimbleness to the faculties, fitting the 
 square words into the square holes, and the 
 
 284 
 
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 round words into round holes; develops judg- 
 ment. The transferring the thought into good 
 English gives accuracy and taste; command- 
 ing the meanings of the words and the prin- 
 ciples of their government, strengthens the 
 memory. Memory is one of the divinest gifts ; 
 it underlies all scholarship, and progress, and 
 identity, and accountability. Its cultivation is 
 no mean part of education. It is not all of it, 
 but it is involved in all of it. The Latin and 
 Greek are so wonderfully framed together, so 
 complex and logical, that handling them oper- 
 ates on the thought as exercise in the gymna- 
 sium on the muscles. There are certain quali- 
 ties of drill that can be reached better by Latin 
 and Greek than in any other way. Mathe- 
 matics tend to give the faculties point; lan- 
 guages breadth. Mathematics ask the exact 
 point of intersection. Languages ask a dozen 
 questions concerning varied meanings, rules 
 and exceptions, gender, number, case, person, 
 government, and the like. This work is not 
 so fully done by modern languages because 
 they are not so compact, logical, fixed, and dis- 
 similar from our own. The order in which 
 the languages are of service in discipline, it 
 seems to me, is this: Latin, Greek, German, 
 and French, and so down the sunshiny and 
 
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ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 moonshiny tongues of the warmer zones. 
 While mathematics drills to the point of at- 
 tention, natural sciences as a study, as sciences, 
 require more discipline to undertake them 
 profitably. The matter of observation, mere 
 gathering of material, the beginning of nat- 
 ural science, precedes all other training, but it 
 is feeble as a means of discipline. It is shared 
 with the sheep that hunts the gum weed, or 
 the ox that retraces his steps to his master's 
 crib. Language comes in between the ex- 
 tremes of natural science ; /. e., after its instinct 
 of observation and before its generalizations 
 and discoveries as a science. We can hardly 
 overestimate the value of discipline. It is 
 like strength to the productive industries; it 
 is better than mere knowledge, as the ability 
 to create a fortune is greater than the ability to 
 own it when it is given to you. As '^goodness 
 is better than good acts," so mental power is 
 better than mental furniture. Professor 
 Davies, a distinguished instructor in mathe- 
 matics, long at West Point, and author of a 
 series of text-books on the subject, after an 
 experience in Columbia College, said "that in 
 his judgment those young men who had been 
 trained in the classics could master the mathe- 
 matics as satisfactorily in two years as others 
 
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 without the training could in four years." 
 Julian the Apostate forbade the study of clas- 
 sics in the schools of Christians, that the de- 
 fenders of the faith might not be trained 
 scholars. These are windows through which 
 you can get glimpses of their training power. 
 Culture is a good in itself, even though you 
 can not realize on it in Wall Street. Yet in 
 the market of eternity it shall lack no bidders. 
 It is like perfection of muscle or of organiza- 
 tion that never comes to consciousness till some 
 weakness or irregularity manifests itself. A 
 good digestive apparatus never reports its ex- 
 istence because it never reports anything. If 
 it cries out, it is because it can not help it. The 
 more perfect our health, the more unconscious 
 we are of its existence and value. Neverthe- 
 less, health is a good per se. So it is with cul- 
 ture — it is a good per se. It is like beautiful 
 scenery about a city. You may not be able 
 to grow potatoes or barley on the hillsides, yet 
 they are worth having. Go back twenty miles 
 into the level of this over-rich and productive 
 prairie, drop down a mountain with rock and 
 rivulet and with gorge and chasm, and place 
 at its foot a laughing little lake to mirror its 
 majesty and double its beauty and altitude. 
 Or bring the Yosemite Valley into this county. 
 
 287 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Though ''El Capitane" and the "Dome of 
 Liberty" and the "Cathedral Rocks" never 
 produce a blade of grass or a spear of wheat, 
 though the "Bridal Veil" falling nine hundred 
 feet, and the "Ribbon Fall" leaping thirty-five 
 hundred feet, never turn a wheel or drive a 
 spindle, yet I will insure you a city there. It 
 will charm the world like the eye of the desert 
 —that oldest city of the world — Damascus. 
 Men will be drawn there by the magnetism of 
 its beauty. So go into the dead level of our 
 productive industries and create a spirit of 
 advanced culture, plant the graces of beauty 
 and of taste, cultivate the virtues of peace and 
 domesticity, and even though you can not 
 grow potatoes in your parks, or wheat on your 
 lawns, yet I will insure you a city and society 
 there. Men will come for the fragrance that 
 floats on the evening breeze, and for the peace 
 that stands guard over their children. 
 
 The culturing qualities of the classics not 
 only in giving mental discipline, but also in 
 enlarging the student, widening his horizons, 
 making him consciously the heir of all the 
 ages, justify large expenditures of time and 
 money in their study. If Socrates had not for- 
 bidden us to put truth to a vote, this view could 
 be supported by such men as Victor Cousin, 
 
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 Sir William Hamilton, and Dr. William 
 Whewell. But I must pass on, only indicat- 
 ing other arguments developed by the long 
 controversy. 
 
 (b) The classics open our way into valu- 
 able knowledge of the earlier stages of human 
 society. Words are often embalmed customs. 
 An adage may contain whole theologies. An 
 axiom may preserve whole systems of govern- 
 ment. In the search for pre-historic man, as 
 we stand on the most ancient records and peer 
 back into the darkness of savagery, any fable 
 or myth floating by may give us a hint of 
 truth; any song coming out of the gloom may 
 direct us to the secret of our search; any cus- 
 tom or social habit or crystallized prejudice 
 that lies beyond may be of great service. 
 Whoever would search the old regions must 
 take the torch of old languages to read the 
 epitaphs. He must have eyes to see the old 
 monuments and ears to hear the voices from 
 the old sepulchers. For he searches for se- 
 crets which none but God and the mighty dead 
 can reveal. 
 
 (c) The classics enable us to note the origin 
 and descent and growth of ideas. This is the 
 marrow of history and the juice of philosophy. 
 The force of the New Testament doctrines is 
 
 19 289 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 vastly augmented by giving them the advan- 
 tages of their historical growth. The spring 
 that oozed out of the Garden of Eden where 
 Abel offered his lamb grows into a brook, then 
 a river — a resistless tide bearing up the Lamb 
 of God and all mankind. 
 
 (d) The classics give us insight into Greek 
 and Roman forces that largely mold our civ- 
 ilization. This is a Christian civilization, but 
 in doctrine it is grown upon a Hebrew root. 
 Its tone is from the Greeks and its form still 
 shows the mold of the Romans; the old 
 wooden plow has now a steel point, and the 
 coat of mail has grown into a casement for a 
 whole crew. Legislation and government at 
 home and abroad are in the old lines. Greek 
 and Roman thought is woven into all our cus- 
 toms; it makes up a large per cent of our 
 culture. An English statesman might as well 
 be ignorant of the rights that took root on the 
 field of Hastings as for an American scholar 
 to be ignorant of our inheritance from the old 
 civilizations. 
 
 (e) The classics help us to a knowledge of 
 our own tongue. Trench says that thirty per 
 cent of the words used in our literature are 
 derived directly from the Latin; probably as 
 many more are derived indirectly from the 
 
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 same source. Let us not have foreign and un- 
 explorable regions in our own tongue. Our 
 literature is full of classical allusions that can 
 be understood only from the forum near the 
 Tiber and from the Acropolis at Athens. 
 
 (f) The old dead tongues give us finest 
 models and standards of taste. The fathers 
 of English classics lived on Greek roots and 
 wore Roman clothes. Go to the Vatican, com- 
 pare modern statuary with the fragments and 
 specimens of the art that have come down to 
 us from the age of Phidias — that will illus- 
 trate a higher fact in letters. We can learn 
 perspicuity from Livy, compactness and vivid- 
 ness from Tacitus, simple elegance from 
 Ca3sar, life and light from Homer, majesty 
 and dignity from Virgil, and the perfection of 
 art from Demosthenes. He who would per- 
 fect himself in English must have access to 
 these ancient fountains. 
 
 (g) The classics lead us furthest into the 
 philosophy of all languages. Thus it hap- 
 pens that the knowledge of Latin gives us the 
 secret of all the modern languages. With this 
 start a student can acquire a modern language 
 in one-fourth of the time he could without this 
 knowledge. If I had to furnish a lad with 
 four or five modern languages, I would pre- 
 
 291 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 pare him for application by drill in Latin. In 
 building a great temple, the best investment 
 is in derricks. I know an extensive contractor 
 for painting and frescoing who makes his mar- 
 gins out of his complete system of scaffolding. 
 For he says that "a ten-dollar workman soon 
 wastes a scaffolding in clambering up and 
 down ladders." In finishing off this living 
 temple with modern tongues, it pays to hold 
 the workman at advantage with a broad foot- 
 ing in classical culture. 
 
 (Ji) The study of classics aids in mastering 
 many other branches. Strength to handle 
 sacks of wheat can be used to handle sacks of 
 coffee. Every added Church in a city full of 
 material helps all the other Churches. Every 
 branch of industry developed in a community 
 makes work and chance for other branches. 
 Every hundred thousand people added to the 
 population of a city adds another layer of 
 greenbacks to the business property. Almost 
 every science is labeled in Latin or Greek. 
 The very names of classification involve this 
 knowledge. As in the days of the Caesars all 
 roads led to Rome, so in knowledge, if you 
 would go into any field, the shortest route is 
 by the way of Rome. 
 
 (i) The classics lie on the threshold of the 
 292 
 
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 learned professions. The lawyer can hardly 
 enter or open his case without encountering 
 terms that have refused to be translated. The 
 physician can hardly write a prescription 
 without plunging out of sight in an unknown 
 tongue. No matter if the writ of the officer 
 is not more terrible or the mixtures of the phy- 
 sician more abominable on account of the 
 dead languages used in the process, there the 
 facts remain. Whoever will get the kernel out 
 of the nut must break the shell. The theo- 
 logian is sealed up to these languages for his 
 authority. The w^ords he is to repeat and the 
 good new^s he is to tell fall from heaven in 
 a strange language. How^ever little he may 
 care to display the original, he ought to 
 have the key to its secrets. It was not 
 enough for me that a fellow student should 
 read to me my father's letters, I wanted 
 to read them first. It seemed to my 
 young heart, so far and so many years 
 from home, that I could see his form more 
 distinctly w^hile following the lines his aged 
 hand had traced. Now and then my eye 
 caught a dash or a blister on the paper that 
 told me the great truth as nothing else could. 
 I knew as I choked down the unutterable long- 
 ing and turned again to my work that, though 
 
 293 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 I might be shoving up out of boyhood, and he 
 might be bowing toward age, still his love 
 followed me morning and evening and his 
 prayer carried my name into the holy of 
 holies. So with the letters from our great 
 Father; the preacher ought to read them first 
 hand. There are signs, accents, silent letters, 
 finger marks, that tell the story as nothing else 
 can. They open the gates and expose to our 
 longing eyes the streets of gold and the palaces 
 of fire and thrones of light. We gaze upon 
 the King in His glory. He embraces us as a 
 Father. Our hearts feel the new life and our 
 lips touch the holy fire. 
 
 (j) The study of the classics is of efficient 
 service in perfecting the orator. This theme 
 impresses me more profoundly as I advance 
 in years. Speech is a divine gift, the chief 
 characteristic of the human animal. It is the 
 chosen instrument for the evangelization of 
 the world. ''By the foolishness of preaching" 
 is the inspired order. While the Church lives 
 and men and women are assembled once or 
 twice a week to hear, it can never be a sec- 
 ondary matter how the speaking is done. 
 Horace says, "The poet is born, not made." 
 I say of the orator, he ought to be born twice, 
 at least, and then made. It is a significant 
 
 294 
 
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 fact that all the great orators have been great 
 students and deeply versed in the classics. De- 
 mosthenes struggled more to master his dis- 
 abilities than would be required to master any 
 curriculum in the land, and his orations show 
 a thorough acquaintance with all the knowl- 
 edge of his time. Cicero made oratory his 
 chief study, secured the ablest instructors, 
 studied all the models from the past, practiced 
 daily in Greek oratory as well as his mother 
 tongue. Pitt and Fox were both trained by 
 wise fathers who were themselves orators, 
 with special reference to public speaking. 
 They were steeped in the classics from early 
 childhood. Both were almost as familiar with 
 Greek and Latin as with English — reading, 
 criticising, studying the masterpieces of the 
 ancients all through their years. Webster, 
 who has extorted the honor of being the prince 
 of orators, committed Cicero's orations to 
 memory and kept himself familiar with the 
 best classical culture. 
 
 The habits and studies of these men indi- 
 cate on what the great orators feed. In this 
 republic, where all interests of society are to 
 be determined by popular assemblies, it is of 
 the utmost importance that Christians and pa- 
 triots qualify themselves to control these as- 
 
 295 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 semblies. I tarry to add emphasis to the value 
 of this power. I know that its public and os- 
 tentatious character has brought it into dis- 
 favor among many scholars. But I am thank- 
 ful that the Northwestern has made special 
 provision in this department in a way not sur- 
 passed, if equaled, by any of the institutions of 
 the country. As we must have a vast amount 
 of speaking, and increasingly so since the 
 women have found the rostrum, let us see to 
 it that it has the best foundation and divinest 
 inspiration. 
 
 This argument is sufficient to indicate that 
 large room must be made in a university for 
 the study of the classics. Not every young 
 man is adapted to these studies, nor will every 
 young man be greatly profited by them. 
 There is a large demand for cultivated brain 
 and skilled labor in every department of life, 
 and only part of the workers would be advan- 
 taged by the study of Greek and Latin. But 
 there are large fields of mental activity where 
 this training and knowledge is indispensable. 
 When the age and circumstances and gifts of 
 a student will admit of such a course, I would 
 train him in the classical course as a mere 
 culture and preparatory course. After that 
 let him enter upon his professional or special 
 . 296 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 course. Few men have any ability or culture 
 to spare. The great work of life is untouched 
 because no one is found worthy to open the 
 sealed book. Men worry about place when 
 they ought to worry about ability. There is no 
 lack of opportunity. There are fifty pulpits 
 in the land as good as the Plymouth pulpit. 
 But where are the Beechers? Where are the 
 men? There is room enough under this West- 
 ern sky for the tallest scholars of the age. But 
 where are the men? Where is the material 
 out of which to make them? There is no lack 
 of demand and opportunity. There is too 
 much room at the top. Brother, fit yourself 
 for the kingly work, and God will send the 
 anointing prophets. Humanity stumbles on 
 in the darkness. The good cause languishes, 
 and God patiently waits. Where are the 
 workers? I wish I could sound this question 
 into every home in the land, till the dreaming 
 youth and slumbering maidens would leap 
 from their repose and make everlasting cove- 
 nant with heaven, saying, each for himself: 
 "Come what may, wall, or wave, or mountain 
 parapet, or fiery gorge, or rushing flood, or de- 
 vouring death; come what can, I will obey 
 the divine command, and move forward with 
 the pioneers and scouts along all the lines of 
 
 297 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 thought and up all the summits of knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 The world is full of babes and children. 
 We want men — great, stalwart, iron- 
 jointed, BROAD-SOULED, FATHOMLESS, sum- 
 mitless, divinely-aiiointed, God-smitten, kingly 
 men, to whom death or failure shall be for- 
 ever impossible. This will take time, and it 
 can not be done by a short cut It means 
 patient and weary years. But what of that? 
 Have we not all the future? Are we not im- 
 mortal? We start out of the preparation of 
 these years to march along the eternal ages in 
 association and comparison with powers, and 
 principalities, and dominions, and thrones of 
 heaven. When I think of myself poised on my 
 purpose, encased by my freedom, inspired and 
 vitalized by the Eternal Spirit, standing up 
 before God among the ancient ranks of being 
 that rally around His throne and support the 
 pillars of His government, then the chances of 
 this life and the toil of time put on new 
 majesty, and I rise to my kinship with God, 
 and believe nothing impossible to him that 
 willeth and believeth. 
 
 3. Next after the classics it may not be 
 amiss to mention the modern languages as hav- 
 ing a right to a place in the appointments of 
 
 298 
 
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 a university. \'\niilc they are inferior to the 
 classics for drill and in perfection of structure, 
 they still have certain compensating advan- 
 tages. They are the tongues of living people. 
 We meet them in the street and in the mart, 
 and in the caucus and conventions. But more 
 than this, they are crowded with the richest 
 results of research and science. Charles V 
 said: "So often as I learn a language, so often 
 I become a man." Happily there is no need 
 to prepare the public mind for these studies. 
 
 4. Mathematics claims an ancient inherit- 
 ance in the university. It would be difficult 
 to exclude this science if we would. We could 
 find no weapon to smite either student or pro- 
 fessor that did not involve the science itself, 
 for it enters into all our living. Building is 
 preceded by the study of proportions, and 
 quantities and strength of materials. Machin- 
 ery (and everything except breathing is done 
 by machinery) is only solved and illustrated 
 problems. The drill in this'study, from addi- 
 tion to the computation of the orbit of the 
 double stars, in unequivocal. The student 
 who cuts a parabaloid of revolution from a 
 given cone will not need watching while his 
 work lasts. 
 
 5. The natural sciences have crowded 
 
 299 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 themselves into the curriculum, and have 
 maintained the struggle for existence with 
 marked success. They are of nature, and are 
 in league with events. You might as well 
 argue against shadows, object to earthquakes, 
 forbid eclipses, and anathematize comets as to 
 resist natural sciences. The real question is 
 not whether we will admit them to the course, 
 but rather will they leave anything else in the 
 course. Protestantism can not oppose any sci- 
 ence, but superstition may well do it. Like 
 God's revealed Bible, natural science will put 
 down superstition unless superstition puts it 
 down. If her people study science, that will 
 ruin the saints and the decretals. If they do 
 not, that will ruin them, for they can not com- 
 pete unless they have equal chance in discov- 
 eries and appliances. Thus in eithercase the 
 doom of superstition is fixed. The physicians, 
 next after the restless and robbed heart of 
 mankind, have been the great enemies of su- 
 perstition. The new-culture men are now in 
 the field as their allies. The only course for 
 Christian intelligence is to accept the situa- 
 tion, welcome all light, walk down into the 
 new field, and find God back of the last 
 analysis. 
 
 6. The technological courses are the con- 
 300 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 summation of these advancements in science. 
 They are schools of knowledge instead of cul- 
 ture. They aim to apply the sciences ; they not 
 only tell how it has been done, but they do it; 
 they rely upon experiments ; they claim to fit 
 a man for life. As a chemist he can verify 
 all the theories by experiment. In physics 
 and in all departments the student must test by 
 appliances all the theories of science. In nat- 
 ural history he is expected to be familiar with 
 every rock, and stick, and weed, and to have 
 an acquaintance with every bird that flies and 
 fish that swims ; to know intimately or to have 
 been introduced to every kind of reptile and 
 insect. Such an acquaintance can not be 
 gained in the half hours of the old-culture 
 course. Days and years in the midst of the 
 best appliances, under the inspiration of truth, 
 hunting on the fresh track of some new law 
 skulking in some neighboring thicket or glen, 
 these are necessary to give this department an 
 insurance of results. 
 
 This cause needs an advocate no more than 
 the almighty dollar needs one. Courses of 
 training that deal wholly with the arts of liv- 
 ing, with the production and manufacture and 
 transportation of the necessities and comforts 
 of life, can always justify their existence in a 
 
 301 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 practical community. You can not go into 
 your house or into your office without the min- 
 istration of these senses. The proportions of 
 beauty and strength that make your home safe 
 from accident and attractive to your eye come 
 from the appliances of science. Every article 
 of raiment, every mouthful of food, every tint 
 of beauty and form of use, every appliance of 
 comfort and article of luxury, comes from sci- 
 entific skill. Wherein it succeeds it is of sci- 
 ence, knowledge of nature's laws. Wherein it 
 is outside of this knowledge and these laws, it 
 always fails. There is not one question of our 
 well-being in the whole field of our activity 
 that is not touched and determined by science 
 applied. It is estimated that nature unaided 
 would support only one in ten thousand of her 
 children. Think of the machinery that toils 
 for us and carries the burdens of humanity. 
 Yonder island shivers under the motion of six 
 hundred millions man-power of unconscious 
 industry. Not a wheel goes round, nor a 
 punch comes down, nor a hammer falls, nor a 
 saw starts, nor a knife cuts, nor an auger bores, 
 nor a tool moves, nor a shuttle flies, nor a 
 spindle sings, but it is an illustrated principle 
 in science. Do you telegraph to your office, to 
 your factory on the branch, or to your con- 
 
 302 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 sumer on the other side of the world? That 
 is the perfection of science. I never send a 
 dispatch but I feel as if we were leaping the 
 impassable gulf between us and the infinite. 
 But telegraphing is not the whole of science. 
 Your morning paper that brings to your table 
 every part of the known world and reports of 
 the slumber and safety of almost every indi- 
 vidual on earth (for if they are not mentioned 
 we know that nothing has happened to them) 
 needs something besides the telegraph to actu- 
 alize it. The paper must come by machinery 
 that hears and obeys our wishing. Foundries 
 must toil on every hand. Laboratories must 
 experiment and analyze and combine for giv- 
 ing ingredients of this result. Power presses, 
 things of life that could take a distinct piece 
 from each postoffice under our flag and still 
 be short by several hundreds of pieces, these 
 great presses must be fitted into perfection. 
 Then, too, all the gigantic machinery of the 
 railroads must be in perfect order to consum- 
 mate the enterprise. Let a switchman over- 
 sleep or a wheel leave the track, and all the 
 other appliances are frustrated. Li short, 
 your morning paper is a late blossom on the 
 stalk of civilization, and but for the inventions 
 and victories of science it would not be pos- 
 
 303 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 sible. The college of technology concerns it- 
 self altogether with the knowledge of these 
 sciences and their application to the questions 
 of life. It also touches life in a most vital way. 
 We are in the midst of mysteries that are ready 
 to be solved and are surrounded by powers that 
 are waiting to be used. All that we need is 
 to wake the magician that can break the spell 
 of our blindness, and we shall see more helps 
 than we have ever yet mustered. There is fuel 
 in the air, somebody must cord it up. There 
 are railroads and steamships in this sea above 
 us, somebody must build the depots and the 
 docks. There is air for us in the sea, some- 
 body must make us as good chemists as the 
 fish. Provide air and fuel, and the vales and 
 glens of the ocean might make good summer 
 residences. The great truth is this — we are 
 only at the threshold of possible knowledge. 
 This college of technology purposes to fur- 
 nish the keys and lanterns for further dis- 
 coveries. It can also do great service to the 
 State — now requiring more natural science to 
 be taught in the public schools — by opening 
 its laboratories during the summer vacations 
 and giving seasonable opportunities for the 
 great company of teachers to perfect them- 
 selves for their duty. The college of tech- 
 
 304 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 nology offers a course of study sufficiently pro- 
 tracted and searching to justify the bestow- 
 ment of the honors of the university. 
 
 7. School of Theology. This has always 
 had a place in the university. Universities are 
 the outgrowth of more ancient schools for re- 
 ligious instruction. Not only have these 
 teachers been abreast of their times, but in all 
 early ages they have monopolized and con- 
 trolled the learning. To-day the advancement 
 in knowledge gives the ministry no alterna- 
 tive ; they must study or go under. 
 
 8. Department of Law. This needs no de- 
 fense in theory, though it may need emphasis 
 in practice. This profession has always been 
 held in high esteem, and facilities for its im- 
 provement are seldom wanting. But at no 
 period in the history of our civilization has 
 there been greater need of exalting and honor- 
 ing this profession. Possibly the pulpit and 
 the press do most to mold public sentiment, 
 and so make free government possible. But 
 next in power stands the bar. The honor of 
 the country is quite as much in their charge as 
 in any other. The legislatures of the country 
 in their different parts are controlled by the 
 bar. The final appeal is always to the bench, 
 and without an honorable and learned bar it 
 
 20 305 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 will be impossible to maintain a worthy and 
 unimpeachable bench. The weak place, the 
 place of final trust and authority in our gov- 
 ernment, is not in the second term nor in the 
 third term of the executive, nor is it in the 
 conservative Senate nor in the volatile House. 
 But it is in the Supreme Court. We have wit- 
 nessed legislation changed, nullified, extended 
 in the interest of localities and prejudices, by 
 opinions of the bench. We can ill afford to 
 lower the tone of this supreme authority. The 
 streams that fill this sea must be purified and 
 exalted in character and honor. The bar — not 
 second in manliness and honor to any other 
 profession — must be reinforced by scholars 
 and Christian men, men with views of public 
 interest broader than personal ambition and 
 wiser than selfish schemes. Christian patriots 
 can well afford to put their treasures into a 
 college for law in a way to secure the most 
 exalted and honorable management. A man 
 great in his profession and great in his char- 
 acter from the head of a law faculty could 
 make a great impress upon these Northwest- 
 ern commonwealths, and render incalculable 
 service to the republic. From such a throne 
 he might call into being a body of learned men 
 who would so mold the public mind that 
 
 306 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 financial lobbying would be understood to be 
 what it is — not professional service, but brib- 
 ery ; and special legislation would rank not 
 as statesmansJiip, but as treason. All honor 
 to an honorable bar. Let the university come 
 to its steady and persistent support. 
 
 9. The Department of Medicine is one of 
 the essential elements of a university. Even 
 when it had few of the characteristics of a 
 science; when it merely observed and guessed, 
 seeking for arbitrary remedies ; when no small 
 part of professional power was vested in semi- 
 incantations and charms ; and when the wiser 
 men of the profession relied upon nature and 
 nurses on account of their helplessness, know- 
 ing that they really knew next to nothing — 
 even then the schools were founded, and flour- 
 ished. It is the interest in this science, and 
 these the goodly thinkers that have illumined 
 the profession, that have made this science 
 what it is — one of the foremost philanthropies 
 of the age. Though medicine has an ancient 
 and honorable place in the very idea of a uni- 
 versity, yet I can not dismiss this branch of 
 university work without adding my apprecia- 
 tion of a class of men who endure all hard- 
 ships, sacrifice all personal liberty, and brave 
 all dangers for the comfort and well-being of 
 
 307 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 others. Their work allies them to One who 
 went into soul-healing through body-healing. 
 
 lo. Department of Philosophy. This is 
 germane in its construction and history, but is 
 more general in its character. Philology, in 
 which, it has been sarcastically said, "the vow- 
 els are nothing and the consonants not much 
 more," is growing into large proportions. 
 History is enjoying a revival. It is turning its 
 searching glare, not chiefly to what a few 
 kings did and said, but to what was done and 
 said by the people. It is becoming a narration 
 of their customs and codes, a description of 
 their food and raiment, an insight into their 
 houses and temples. Here, too, must be classed 
 English literature, that is forever rapping at 
 the doors of the university, asking to be al- 
 lowed to crowd out the older studies. Politi- 
 cal science, called thus because it usually in- 
 volves neither politics nor science, is studied 
 in every government, and by every man who 
 trades, be it ever so little. 
 
 Moral and intellectual philosophies, chal- 
 lenging the world's thought ever since the 
 world had any thought, still plunge on in 
 fathomless seas, and the fine arts, in all their 
 old and new phases touching the elegancies 
 and melodies and rhythms of life, giving a 
 
 308 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 finish and perfection to civilization, are only 
 in their infancy. All these and many others 
 that might be enumerated make up the depart- 
 ment* of post-graduate studies and investiga- 
 tions that must find a home and advantages in 
 the university. 
 
 III. The Moral and Religious Charac- 
 ter OF THE University. 
 
 This concerns either man or God, and this 
 part of the subject may be arranged about 
 these two centers: 
 
 I. The university must be no respecter of 
 persons. Her advantages can not be condi- 
 tional upon complexion, blood, or sex. Amer- 
 ica has outgrown all doubts on color and race. 
 There may linger some concerning gender. 
 These can not long remain in the increasing 
 light of this age. Nature is older than the 
 oldest American university, and when it be- 
 comes an issue between these parties the 
 friends of fair play need not be in doubt as to 
 what will be the result. This week we learn 
 that Nature has triumphed, and the women 
 enter old Harvard. Co-education begins by 
 God's plan in the family and is continued in 
 the public school, and no one objects. It is 
 
 309 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 folly to fear more as danger diminishes. 
 Without creating distinctions which do not ex- 
 ist except in our thought or in our customs, we 
 will be safe in assuming that there is no dan- 
 ger that our daughters will know too much. 
 We do not need to legislate against their in- 
 telligence. With the doors open before all, 
 there will follow without regard to sex the 
 endeavor of the most aspiring and the "sur- 
 vival of the fittest." Opportunity is often 
 ability; a chance is often a victory. Without 
 reference to the old doctrine of appetency, ex- 
 perience demonstrates that motive and oppor- 
 tunity for a given activity in any class or com- 
 munity develops capacity for that activity. 
 This law holds over the education of women. 
 In 1863 the University of Cambridge reluc- 
 tantly consented to admit English women to 
 university examinations with a view to give 
 them definite standing as teachers. At the first 
 examination ninety-one candidates presented 
 themselves, of whom fifty-seven failed; two 
 years later one hundred and thirty applied, of 
 whom only twenty-eight failed. This suc- 
 ceeding ratio has steadily increased till now 
 the examiners nearly always accredit the girls 
 with the most thorough acquisitions. The de- 
 mand for a fair and equal chance hardly needs 
 
 310 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 argument. The republic says ^'any one that 
 can, may;" experience says intelligent men 
 must have intelligent wives. The mother 
 more frequently than the father transmits the 
 fiber and character; nature requires that great 
 men should be preceded by great mothers. A 
 slave mother in Tennessee by industry and 
 ability purchased her own and her children's 
 liberty. She went to the Methodist preacher 
 in the town and said: 'T am free; I have three 
 sons; where can I make men of them?" He 
 said : "In Liberia." She went ; one of the sons, 
 returning to America, graduated in medicine 
 in New York and became the ablest physician 
 in the Republic of Liberia; a second son be- 
 came the first colored bishop of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church; the third son became the 
 first president of the Republic of Liberia. 
 There was a vast amount of stock in that "old 
 black woman." I recall but two other foun- 
 tains so full of greatness: one on the Island of 
 Corsica — the mother of the Bonapartes, that 
 gave to Europe revolutions and emperors ; 
 the other on the island of Great Britain — the 
 mother of the Wesleys, that gave to mankind 
 new hope and a new evangelist. I crave for 
 my country more than all things else, mighty 
 mothers; given these, and Columbia shall 
 
 311 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Stand a thousand years and nothing shall be 
 impossible to her. 
 
 2. The university must be a Christian in- 
 stitution. Christianity presents a vast array 
 of facts. With but few exceptions, it has writ- 
 ten the histories, inspired the books, sustained 
 the schools, and developed the civilizations of 
 the w^orld. Its sacred books are the noblest 
 and oldest classics, and its conscious experi- 
 ence is as much a subject of investigation as 
 any other class of facts. The reports of con- 
 sciousness concerning conscience and spiritual 
 comfort and spiritual testimony are as worthy 
 of thought as the reports of consciousness on 
 any other state of mind. The facts of prayer 
 are as well established as the fact of gravity. 
 The fact of transformed character, of kindled 
 afifection, of exalted purpose, of heroic living, 
 of triumphant dying, are as much facts as the 
 growth of vegetation or the circuit of the stars. 
 A university must give these great classes of 
 facts a fair chance. While it is demanded 
 that the Church must accept facts and abide 
 by results, it is not too much to expect the 
 same from universities. On the supreme sub- 
 ject there is no excuse for evasion or ambi- 
 guity. The trumpet must give no uncertain 
 sound. While we welcome all facts and all 
 
 312 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 light, we accept Christianity as a fact and 
 Christ as the light of the world. We do not 
 arraign the apostles before the bar of the uni- 
 versity and keep them on trial for perjury; 
 but we send them about their work. The uni- 
 versity stands for the defense as well as for the 
 discovery of truth. In virtue of her charter 
 she is under obligations of loyalty to the inter- 
 ests of the republic. These are the interests of 
 a Christian nation, for such we have been from 
 the beginning. This Christian nation has a 
 right to expect that the educational institu- 
 tions will be Christian. It is difficult to un- 
 derstand how universities can be anything else. 
 They take the youth of the land from family 
 altars in the formative period of their lives. 
 They are under most solemn obligations to 
 shield them as far as may be from the floods 
 of temptation that threaten to overwhelm 
 them. And more than this, the youth need the 
 impartial support of the gospel. For in this 
 land, in the light of the Sun of Righteousness, 
 mere morality divorced from religion has no 
 more warmth than a painted fire, and no more 
 life than a mummy. God's Son came as the 
 revealment; Christianity and knowledge were 
 joined by eternal decree, and it is too late in 
 the centuries to divorce them. Learning has 
 
 313 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 always been the friend of Christianity. The 
 great torches that illumine the centuries be- 
 hind us were kindled by the fire on the holy 
 altar. I would rather lay our foundations on 
 a southward-floating iceberg, or on the crest 
 of a volcano, or on the heaving bosom of an 
 earthquake, than to consecrate them to irre- 
 ligion, immorality, and skepticism. Under- 
 stand me — I lift my voice for Christianity, not 
 for sectarianism. I regard sectarianism as 
 disguised skepticism; it doubts the truth; it 
 rends the seamless garment; it is a whited 
 sepulcher. 
 
 Denominationalism has its place in provi- 
 dence, but not in a university. Inside the uni- 
 versity the religious convictions of every stu- 
 dent must be sacred. The different Christian 
 Churches must be able to send their children 
 here without endangering either their faith 
 or their virtue. 
 
 IV. The Component Parts of a Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 These may be briefly sketched as the agents 
 and the instruments — 
 
 I. The agents comprise the individuals 
 that make up its intelligent force. 
 
 [a) The trustees precede and underlie the 
 314 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 other agents. la the simpler forms of civili- 
 zation and in more genial climes a solitary old 
 philosopher sitting in the shade of a tree, or 
 wandering by the banks of a stream, consti- 
 tuted an institution — a university in a very 
 limited range of the idea, and a very poetical 
 and extended use of the word philosopher. 
 But in this civilization there must be organ- 
 ized and actual and deathless corporations, 
 touching all sides of society and life. This 
 something called a university is incorporated 
 and lodged in a board of trustees. This board 
 receives power and funds in trust for educa- 
 tional purposes. They do their work through 
 delegated bodies under general directions. 
 They commit business to an executive com- 
 mittee that centers around an agent. They do 
 their instruction by another committee known 
 as the faculty that centers around the presi- 
 dent. The trustees are no small part of a uni- 
 versity. They may be open to advice from the 
 president, but the final power of action is with 
 them, and in this power inheres the responsi- 
 bility. If the university fails, they are to 
 blame. If it succeeds, to them will belong the 
 praise. Their committees may do the work, 
 but they are the instruments of the board. 
 Another fact supporting this view of the re- 
 
 315 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTA!]LE OCCASIONS 
 
 sponsibility is this. The final force under God 
 is money. With money competent professors 
 can be secured, suitable buildings can be 
 erected, and all helpful and needful apparatus 
 procured. This money power is vested in the 
 board. They must then be men who know 
 how to create and how to use money. They 
 must call it out of the air, or dig it out of the 
 earth, or pull it out of their pockets, or resign. 
 It must come from somewhere; and they have 
 no more right to hold the post of trustees and 
 not furnish the funds to the extent of their 
 ability, than the professors have to hold their 
 places and not do the teaching. They must be 
 men of courage and faith and ambition; cour- 
 age to undertake great enterprises, the faith of 
 Columbus, and ambition to achieve results 
 worthy of this age and of this latitude and 
 longitude. The first question is money. 
 Brothers, this we must create. There is money 
 enough in the Church and in the patronizing 
 territory. We are to command it. While it is 
 an honor to be a trustee, it is more than honor, 
 it is a holy trust from the Church, which must 
 be met under her supervision and under the 
 eye of God. 
 
 {h) Professors are an indispensable part 
 of a university. Tutors and instructors may do 
 
 316 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 for certain work, but they can not take the 
 place of professors. He must be a man with 
 the sixth sense that will help him always in 
 advance. As Melchizedek met Abraham re- 
 turning from the slaughter of the kings and 
 blessed him, so the student must meet the pro- 
 fessor returning conqueror from advanced 
 fields and so constrained to bless him. He 
 must have but one all-absorbing purpose, and 
 that his work; he must have the light of a sin- 
 gle eye; he must have the vision of a prophet, 
 thus to surprise the secrets of the king's bed- 
 chamber; he must have the scent of a blood- 
 hound, that neither rock nor air and hardly 
 flood can foil, thus to pursue truth ; he must be 
 able to live on promises, for not more than 
 once or twice in a score of years will he find a 
 kingly germ. Like a saint, he must grow 
 richer as he declines in fortune. Like a lu- 
 natic, he must grow happier as he recedes far- 
 ther from his goal. Like gravity, he must be 
 incapable of wearying and sleepless as the tall 
 angels around the throne. It is not necessary 
 that he should go to his recitation-room, like 
 Neander, with a servant following him with 
 his pants ; or that he should go into his lecture- 
 room, like Dempster, with his collar wrong 
 side before ; nor that he should crush his hat in 
 
 317 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 his desk and put his manuscript on his head, 
 like Thomson. But should any of these things 
 transpire, the man, the soul, and the brain 
 must project so far that it shall fill up the 
 omission. 
 
 (r) The students are the third class of 
 agents. The ideal student never comes, the 
 actual student is what we want. He is a com- 
 pound of opportunity, application, and ambi- 
 tion. The chief element in this part of the 
 agency is numbers. Then out of a thousand 
 some will be tall enough to be seen round the 
 world. This tallest one fixes the reputation. 
 This question of numbers is largely in the 
 reach of the trustees. It is under the great 
 law of supply and demand. Make appoint- 
 ments for a thousand students, and soon they 
 will crowd into your halls. It is like any busi- 
 ness — the great fortunes are made by whole- 
 sale dealers. The margins in real estate have 
 been on acre property. You can handle a 
 large Church more easily than a small one. 
 You can handle a great university more easily 
 than a small one. 
 
 2. The instruments onl}^ need enumerating. 
 Foremost is that which is most difficult to 
 command — money. This is as necessary as 
 air. The blessing of God is above all else; 
 
 318 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 without that we had better disband. But the 
 blessing of God is a fixed factor. He comes 
 into all open hearts and upon all helpful insti- 
 tutions. God is all right, waiting for a chance 
 for something to bless. He comes upon uni- 
 versities as certainly as water seeks the sea. 
 This constant factor being present, the first 
 contingent element is motiey. There can be 
 no progress without it. It is the stimulus of 
 this war. But it should always be remembered 
 that it is of value only as a means and not as 
 an end. It is a trust fund — a fund in trust 
 for an object. And its only value is in procur- 
 ing the appliances for that object. This in- 
 cludes buildings. There must be provision 
 for recitation and lecture-rooms and laborato- 
 ries and dissecting-room and observatories 
 and art galleries and conservatories and muse- 
 ums and libraries and chapels and dormitories 
 and other necessary buildings — not last or 
 least among which is an American gymna- 
 sium. All these buildings need furnishing, 
 and this includes a vast amount of illustrative 
 apparatus. Where in the haste of this hour 
 I have failed in asking, the deliberate wisdom 
 of the trustees must not fail in giving. Thus 
 far I have considered some of the reasons for 
 the existence of the university — the work she 
 
 319 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 is to do, the spirit in which she is to do it, and 
 her component parts. Much of the argument 
 has been so condensed as to be but little more 
 than a table of contents. Though the details 
 have hardly been touched, yet a university puts 
 on vast proportions. Only God can measure 
 the privileges and the responsibility. 
 
 V. What the Northwestern University 
 HAS Already Realized. 
 
 We can not avoid asking this board of trus- 
 tees, these professors, and this great company 
 of friends, What has the Northwestern done? 
 Is it justifying its claims to university honors? 
 Let me pause here long enough to say that my 
 sympathies are with weak institutions where 
 noble and godly men are toiling and starving 
 in the interest of the cause of God. Know- 
 ingly I would not add a feather to their bur- 
 dens. I only ask in the interest of young men 
 and of the Church that confides in them, that 
 they will push up their standards to the high- 
 est point, and, when a man graduates, that he 
 shall have had a full chance. An institution 
 has a right to be a college even if it has but 
 one course of study, but one idea; more than 
 this, it has a right to be a university, provided 
 
 320 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 its faith sees in the future the various depart- 
 ments of instruction. Institutions are usually 
 born both young and small; time corrects the 
 first mistake, but the other is too apt to become 
 chronic. I pray God to deliver them all from 
 this calamity. Every institution that honestly 
 does its work helps so much. Every torch and 
 taper helps to confound the darkness. Yet I 
 must ask, Is the Northwestern justifying her 
 university honors? In reply, I will only state 
 what she has accomplished. Her history is 
 brief, measured by the pointers of the clock. 
 It is only eighteen years since she opened her 
 doors to students. There are other measure- 
 ments more just as well as more imposing. 
 The first notable accomplishment was being 
 born. There is hardly a State in the Union 
 that has not great institutions whose first 
 trouble is in failing to be actually born. The 
 Northwestern, carried for years in the brain 
 of the president of trustees, and in the hope 
 and courage of the men I s^ee here to-day, came 
 to individuality in the office of Judge Good- 
 rich, in the city of Chicago, on the 31st day of 
 May, 1850. She was consecrated by praying 
 and devout men to the cause of God, and from 
 that hour has been pushing steadily up into 
 her plans. 
 
 21 321 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 2. She has also a site. Once in the world, 
 the university had to be somewhere, and here 
 she has been for years. If the foresight of the 
 founders had been as good as their judgment 
 and experience, they would not have gone any- 
 where else. Here all things converge. Just 
 out of the great city, and so out of its dust and 
 din and saloons and great temptations, yet near 
 enough to command the springs of being and 
 the sinews of war, we are in the center of the 
 Church and of the continent on this highway 
 of the nations — in this great valley that could 
 feed mankind and yet shall hold populations 
 by the hundred millions. Our climate is cool 
 enough for a summer watering-place. Our 
 little city is both healthful and accessible. 
 Everything in the site is realized. 
 
 3. Foundation. This means in all depart- 
 ments about two million dollars. The ground 
 has grown to such proportions that gravita- 
 tion, shifting, turns toward the university. It 
 is too large to disintegrate. It has now the 
 support of the word "to him that hath shall 
 be given." 
 
 4. The professors and instructors seem 
 quite respectable, both in number and ability. 
 Already the staff contains more than fifty ex- 
 perienced educators — men cultured and expe- 
 
 322 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 rienced in the leading institutions of America 
 and Europe. 
 
 5. The departments or colleges already in 
 vigorous operation or inaugurated this anni- 
 versary, are the first indications of our title. 
 Foremost is the college of literature and sci- 
 ence with a full corps of able professors and 
 with an honorable history among educational 
 men and with a wide variety of culture- 
 courses. 
 
 6. Garrett Biblical Institute. Resting on 
 a distinct foundation, and under a distinct 
 board and separate management but most in- 
 timate relations and interchange of work, it is 
 to the university all that could be asked in the- 
 ology. It gives the Church work of the high- 
 est order. 
 
 7. The Medical Department (the Chicago 
 Medical College) has established a right to 
 first rank of medical schools in this or in any 
 land, by the number and ability of its profes- 
 sors, by the extent and thoroughness of its cur- 
 riculum, by the genuineness and accuracy of 
 its instructions, and by the variety and richness 
 of its auxilaries. 
 
 8. The College of Technology, organized 
 and ordained by the board at this session, starts 
 out with liberal appointments, with a body of 
 
 323 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 eleven professors and instructors, and with all 
 the provisions and appliances in laboratories 
 and instruments necessary for its successful 
 operation. 
 
 9. The Preparatory Department also de- 
 serves mention. Its size, the vast amount of 
 work it is doing, and its importance in its re- 
 lations to all the other departments, make it in 
 itself in many respects not inferior to many 
 institutions of the land with much higher 
 titles. 
 
 10. The Womans College is. an added 
 grace as well as virtue. Their accommoda- 
 tions and achievements entitle them to large 
 credit. This day this fair daughter of the 
 Church comes to this maternal mansion, raps 
 gently on the door, and behold! the door 
 swings round on its hinges, and the Woman's 
 College takes her seat gracefully among the 
 colleges of the university. She comes with a 
 good dowry. Now the homes of the North- 
 west can feel that their sons and daughters are 
 cared for in our literary home. This is a vast 
 and significant movement. It is a prophecy 
 of conquest. 
 
 11. It is our privilege to chronicle still an- 
 other department, long in the plan of the uni- 
 versity, indorsed by special resolution at the 
 
 324 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 meeting that organized the first faculty, 
 but now first realized as a fact. It is an 
 important school for the maintenance of a 
 most learned and honorable profession — the 
 Department of Law. This is achieved by a 
 union with the University of Chicago, thus 
 dividing the expenses and increasing their 
 prospects. I hail this as the dawning of a bet- 
 ter day in the relations of our institutions. I 
 believe the dignity and force of this law- 
 school, a maid nourished by two mothers, will 
 justify the experiment. 
 
 12. The Library of the University forms 
 another argument in vindication of our title. 
 With the largest library west of the Hudson 
 River, and an actual annual income for the 
 library already surpassing that of any college 
 or university in this country, and with funds 
 so adjusted and secured as in four or five years 
 to double the present income, and with pro- 
 visions just ordered for handling this force, the 
 library seems to us a department of no mean 
 proportions. 
 
 13. The Museum, containing more than 
 ten thousand specimens selected with special 
 reference to use for instruction, is another in- 
 dication. It is rich in typical specimens of 
 the large groups of animals and plants. The 
 
 325 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 national reputation of the scholar who is the 
 living soul of this large collection. Professor 
 Marcy, now dean of the College of Technol- 
 ogy, explains its completeness in every depart- 
 ment of natural history. 
 
 14. Here must be added cabinets and con- 
 servatories of art and music. 
 
 15. It may not be amiss to mention six 
 large buildings for the use of the scholars — • 
 four of which are equaled by but few other 
 educational edifices in America. 
 
 16. The fullness of our courses of study 
 and the thoroughness of its work in every de- 
 partment — on this group of colleges and this 
 foundation, and these faculties of instruction, 
 and these honorable actualities I base our de- 
 fense and rest our case before the bar of public 
 judgment. 
 
 VI. What are the Wants and Resources 
 OF THE University? 
 
 The first want is to develop the existing de- 
 partments. We have been foundation laying. 
 The trustees have been toiling on patiently un- 
 derground; they have planned deeply and 
 widely. The basis is certain. The time has 
 come to push forward to larger results. The 
 Church has intrusted us with great interests 
 
 326 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 and opportunities, and she will not allow us 
 to return the intrusted talents without increase 
 — she has a right to demand fruit. She has 
 found that of her children committed to 
 schools outside of the positive religious in- 
 fluence she received back into her bosom and 
 for her use less than one-third of one per cent. 
 Not one in three hundred have come back 
 to her with the fruits and culture needed for 
 her use. She is aware of this, and now de- 
 mands of religious institutions such energy 
 and activity as shall furnish her with skilled 
 workmen. This involves more professorships, 
 more assistants to chairs already filled and 
 overworked. It involves more buildings, such 
 as dormitories, libraries, observatories, chap- 
 els, and gymnasiums. There is no reason for 
 rest or doubt. As I see it, we are in the pass, 
 the strategical point which must be held. 
 Christian culture can not surrender this point. 
 Yonder is the amazement of the civilized 
 world — a city built in a day, burned in a night, 
 and rebuilt in an hour. In this community 
 absolutely nothing is impossible. Any great 
 manly enterprise that comprehends the future 
 and embraces the interests of the people in 
 that latitude never lacks defenders. It is only 
 the timid that are routed; ships are wrecked 
 
 327 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 on shoals and coasts, not often on the open sea. 
 With this stout hulk and well-laid beam and 
 live-oak knees we have nothing to fear but 
 fear. Our resources are not easily computed. 
 The basis or the actual body of our resources 
 is easily comprehended; but outside of these 
 eighteen or twenty hundreds of thousands of 
 dollars there are other forces not a whit less 
 actual, though less measurable. There are our 
 graduates, no small force, all believing in us, 
 all sending here their representatives. Be- 
 yond these is that shadowy something called 
 public sentiment; that atmosphere that fills the 
 public eye and the popular lungs. This is no 
 inconsiderable force. It is the support of the 
 workers, for no man, however great the girth 
 of his brain or chest, can do anything without 
 an atmosphere. That is what ails France and 
 Spain to-day. There is too much oxygen in 
 the air for the health of the despots, and at the 
 bottom of society there is too much carbonic 
 acid gas for the health of free institutions. 
 Public sentiment is the third house. You may 
 improve and direct it, but you can not dis- 
 pense with it or resist it. Institutions, like gar- 
 ments, must fit the spirit and mind of the age. 
 Fitting thus they are as omnipotent as the tide 
 of history. Once in league with events, and 
 
 328 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 triumph is only a question of time. Look at 
 this great Northwest, teeming with the life 
 and energy of ail lands, and see our field. 
 Look at yonder city blazing at one end and re- 
 building at the other; sending in the same mes- 
 sage the news of the loss of old millions and 
 orders for new millions; striking speechless, 
 and so beyond protest, the timid and hesitat- 
 ing, commanding as by absolute authority the 
 approval of the wisest judgment and adding 
 spurs and wings to the progressive and great 
 fortunes to the dauntless. Look at yonder city 
 and take your keynote. This is the age of 
 great enterprises. Wooden shoes and ox- 
 teams have passed away. We ride on the 
 morning light, and whisper in every human 
 ear with one breath like the kinsmen and heirs 
 of the Infinite. We marshal soldiers by the 
 millions; we build railroads by the thousand 
 miles ; we go to war in palace cars ; we fight 
 great battles in the war offices, thousands of 
 miles from the smoke of the battle, and order 
 on maps and by telegraph each charge and 
 change. This age does everything on the most 
 magnificent scale, whether it 's to settle a wil- 
 derness or control a government. There is no 
 advantage for small enterprises. In the field 
 of education men invest in great movements, 
 
 329 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and the spirit of the age is seen in great gifts. 
 In the year 1871, $8,435,990 were given to this 
 cause by a few men. Two men gave over a 
 million each, and twenty-three men gave over 
 one hundred thousand dollars each. I rejoice 
 that our friends are inspired with this spirit, 
 as seen in the new departments which the trus- 
 tees have this week launched for an endless 
 voyage. 
 
 The day that New England crowded the 
 summit of Bunker Hill to see the monument 
 founded and hear Daniel Webster, the multi- 
 tude swayed up toward the platform till those 
 in front were nearly crushed. The marshal 
 ordered the crowd back, when the cry came up 
 from the multitude: "It can not be done. It 
 is impossible." When Webster, stepping to 
 the front, said: "Nothing is impossible on 
 Bunker Hill;" and before the motion of his 
 hand the crowd surged back. Standing here 
 this hour, and in the faces of the men of the 
 Northwest, I say that "Nothing is impossible 
 on this soil." The age, the latitude, the pat- 
 ronage, and the magnitude of the enterprise 
 make success almost as certain as it is neces- 
 sary. The university rises before us in distinct 
 outlines. A figure of power and of beauty, the 
 daughter of the Church and of our civiliza- 
 
 330 
 
THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 tion, she stands among our free institutions to 
 preserve our common schools from stagnation 
 and poverty; to multiply our inventions and 
 perfect our machinery; to stimulate our indus- 
 trial and augment our productive powder; to 
 develop mines and command their precious 
 treasures ; to deepen our channels and lengthen 
 our rivers; to improve our thoroughfares and 
 increase our transporting capacity; to dredge 
 our harbors and signal our coasts and illumine 
 our cities; to save our ballot-box from bru- 
 tality and our juries from bribery; to deliver 
 our courts from partisanism and our legisla- 
 tive halls from corruption; to protect our sick 
 chambers from empiricism and our bar from 
 venality; to exalt our reasons above skepticism 
 and our faith above superstition — thus I see 
 her, with the beauty of the morning on her 
 cheek and the glory of eternity on her brow, 
 quickening our sons and daughters into kings 
 and queens by the light of her eye, by the in- 
 spiration of her smile and the fragrance of her 
 presence. Coming into this work I have little 
 to say that is personal. I stand among my 
 friends. I could not tell you anything new, 
 for I have been in your midst ever since I was 
 here as a student. I am here by choice and 
 with the fullest approval of my judgment. I 
 
 331 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 have no other work or ambition than to do at 
 my best the work given me in the order of 
 Providence. I expect success, for I am sur- 
 rounded, as I know, by a faculty of wise and 
 prudent counselors, and sustained by a board 
 of trustees whose character years ago I learned 
 to emulate, and I know that God always lives 
 and gives wisdom to them that ask. He knows 
 my needs and that I cling to Him. I hesitate 
 to put on a mantle worn by such men as Hin- 
 man, Foster, and Haven — men whose names 
 fill the Church; and I am oppressed with a 
 care of the youth. They are in my heart as 
 if they were my own sons and daughters. My 
 best advice and time shall be given to them 
 individually. This care shall be the last neg- 
 lected. As I enter the solemn responsibility I 
 implore the prayers of the Church and the 
 blessing of Almighty God. 
 
 332 
 
THE FIRST CONFERENCE 
 
 AND 
 
 EARLY METHODISM IN PHILA- 
 DELPHIA 
 
 Delivered in Philadelphia, July 16, 18^3, on the centen- 
 nial celebration of the founding of St. George's 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, the first 
 Methodist Church in Philadelphia. 
 
 333 
 
THE FIRST CONFERENCE 
 
 AND 
 
 EARLY METHODISM IN PHILA- 
 DELPHIA 
 
 The Old Napoleon asked the sculptor 
 Canova how long his best statue could en- 
 dure. The sculptor replied: "Protected and 
 kept from accident, possibly six thousand 
 years." "That will not do," replied the "Lit- 
 tle Corporal," walking out with his hands 
 clasped behind him. As he passed through 
 the door he said : "I must have something that 
 will last longer than that." This is a voice 
 from the universal consciousness. We shove 
 out from the shore of to-day and confidently 
 steer for the day after to-morrow. Men are 
 never wanting to lead the forlorn hope, pro- 
 vided its march is down the centuries. For 
 one, I want to go on record as desiring for 
 every youth some purpose, some ambition that 
 hews away at Fate, determined to make a foot- 
 ing in her uncrumbling walls. Speech and 
 conscience and ambition are the distinguishing 
 characteristics of the human animal. Only 
 
 335 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the sheep and the camel and mere animals are 
 content with food and shelter. The fabled 
 warrior who brushed all resistance from be- 
 fore his arrow and whispered to his bow, "Fail 
 not," and to his arrow, "Stop not," and so 
 sent it round the world, did but twang the 
 bow of the brain and speed the tireless 
 thought. He stands forth, the common type 
 of man. Beneath him you will find beasts, 
 above him God. It is one of the touching 
 pictures of the holy oracles where the saved 
 one, in the wealth of her affection, breaks the 
 costly vase and pours forth the precious oint- 
 ment, while the Infinite Economist commends 
 the waste, bidding the rare fragrance to float 
 into all atmospheres and to all generations, 
 saying, "This shall be a memorial of her 
 wherever this gospel may come." On this 
 supreme authority I rest the case, and say to 
 all souls : "Add wings and spurs to your speed. 
 Let your noble deeds fill all ages with re- 
 sounding praise." I stand by the monuments 
 of the mighty dead with unsandaled feet and 
 uncovered head, and gladly prolong their 
 praise. 
 
 The Past is the depository of all that 
 has been. It may seem a sepulcher full 
 of dead men's bones, yet it holds the re- 
 
 336 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 suits achieved by all the great workers. It 
 furnishes all the ladders on which we mount 
 to new discoveries. We can only build on 
 more ancient foundations with materials 
 which we inherit. The Past often seems 
 slow and conservative. It travels in the 
 tedious coach or on foot. It patiently waits 
 for low water to uncover the fords. It clam- 
 bers up the mountain stream searching for the 
 crest. It pushes into the forest on the trail of 
 the wild game. It descends the farther slope 
 with the devices of the trapper. It struggles 
 on to power under every disadvantage. It 
 cultivates continents without implements, 
 builds cities without tools, and conducts vast 
 wars without weapons. It founds great 
 schools without books, develops high civiliza- 
 tions without newspapers, and carries on vast 
 commerce without ships. In grappling with 
 this huge, sinewy, tireless, old-time giant, we 
 need to be wise as the serpent, swift as the 
 morning, and bold as Providence. The great 
 Past comes to us rich with experiments, wise 
 with experience, full of victories and heroism. 
 So I turn to it for a lamp. I sit at its feet as 
 at the feet of a great teacher, and I accept the 
 living present as its pupil and offspring. 
 
 Not the lightest of our obligations is the 
 
 22 337 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 commemoration of its greatness. Our wealth 
 consists of the toil of the workers, the thought 
 of the thinkers, the songs of the singers, and 
 the creations of the gifted ones that have 
 wrought themselves into human history. I 
 join with this goodly company and with the 
 greater multitude looking this way, in cele- 
 brating the achievements of the men who gath- 
 ered here a hundred years ago, feeling that 
 this may be a tribute of gratitude as accept- 
 able to God as frankincense and myrrh. For 
 it is meet and proper to render honor to whom 
 honor is due. 
 
 Great events and great men are God's 
 chosen teachers. Events show us the hinges 
 on which history swings round to larger apart- 
 ments. Men show us the hands that do this 
 swinging. The dead monotony of animal his- 
 tory may be written on the meadow and on the 
 mountain-side, in the hieroglyphics of nature, 
 but God's great truths come to us incarnated. 
 They are concreted in living, loving, God- 
 anointed, God-smitten, kingly men. Indeed, 
 any truth to make its way to the front must 
 have elbows. It must sparkle in the brain and 
 burn in the heart of some great man. It must 
 have a human heart with which to throb it- 
 self into other hearts, and human hands with 
 
 338 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 which to lay hold of other hands. This makes 
 great men a necessity. In our subject we have 
 both these providential teachers. 
 
 There were assembled here in those early 
 years a little band, few in numbers, poor in 
 this world's goods, chiefly untrained in this 
 world's schools, unsustained by this world's 
 social order, unadorned by this world's phi- 
 losophy, but they were rich in faith, pure in 
 heart, heroic in purpose, inflamed with heav- 
 enly zeal, and in league with events. Their 
 names are worth man}^ repetitions. Hear 
 them! Thomas Rankin, Richard Boardman, 
 Joseph Pilmoor, Francis Asbury, Richard 
 Wright, George Shadford, Thomas Webb, 
 John King, Abraham Whitworth, and Joseph 
 Yearbry. There came after them such men 
 as John Dickins and Richard Whatcoat and 
 Ezekiel Cooper and John Summerfield, a 
 mighty host. It is not strange that Methodism 
 took deep root in this soil. This is the hand- 
 ful of corn on the mountain that now waves 
 like the cedars of Lebanon. 
 
 We can not justly pass this hour without a 
 glance at these men. I wish I could take you 
 into a gallery and show you their faces. But 
 I can not. Some of them do not appear much 
 anywhere except in the Minutes of this First 
 
 339 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Conference. We can track some of them 
 through one or two circuits into location and 
 so into obscurity. The first group were all 
 Europeans, all had the chief characteristics of 
 missionaries. They were of another land, 
 though not of another tongue. They were of 
 other habits and sympathies. They were mon- 
 archists by prejudice and education, and 
 Tories by sympathy. They were unable to 
 read events, and returned to England. By 
 their departure they blessed the Colonies and 
 American Methodism. Most of them, except 
 Asbury and possibly Webb, were only average 
 men and soon accomplished their work and 
 dropped out of sight. Human annals fail to 
 do them great honor. Our hope for them is 
 that God's great book makes no mistakes. 
 They sowed for this spiritual and eternal har- 
 vest, and are not disappointed in reaping what 
 they sowed. One is surprised at the short term 
 of service rendered by our early itinerants, 
 two or three years; only a few endured five 
 years. 
 
 Curiosity might like to put them on the 
 scales and see how they fed and what came of 
 it; put them before the camera and catch their 
 every feature and expression. We might be 
 pleased with their census history. But after 
 
 340 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 all it is of infinitely more value to us to know 
 what they did. Once history was an account 
 of the sayings and diseases of a few royal ba- 
 bies. It was filled with the narration of the 
 most insignificant events in the lives of the 
 most insignificant princes, who had neither 
 wit, learning, courage, nor achievement, 
 whose whole claim to notice rested on the 
 fact that they were nursed by the hirelings of 
 royalty and kept in indolence, ignorance, inac- 
 tivity, and vice. But now history has more 
 to do with the people, with the elements of 
 civilization, with the principles that govern 
 them, with the motives that inspire them, with 
 the forces they have subjugated, with the 
 science they have mastered, with the institu- 
 tions they have founded, and with varied lib- 
 erties they have maintained. So in this work 
 we need not, even if we could, enter into the 
 census story of these men. Their lives are 
 the common lives of men in their work. Go 
 to your parsonage and see them for yourself, 
 modified only with the times, relatively the 
 same. Their chief distinction was their faith 
 in God and in Wesley and in their having oc- 
 cupied space here in that long-ago time. 
 
 George Shadford joined the Traveling 
 Connection in 1768, came to this country in 
 
 341 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 1773, was stationed four months in New York 
 City. That was as long as preachers were 
 trusted among such advantages or temptations 
 in those early times. The year following the 
 Conference of 1773 he was the instrument used 
 in bringing into the Church more than two 
 hundred souls. Hostilities between the 
 Mother Country and the Colonies drove him 
 and all the rest of the English preachers, ex- 
 cept Mr. Asbury, from the country. He died 
 in 1 8 16. He was modest, retiring, yet bold 
 and always successful. He was gentle as a 
 lamb and always sweet tempered. He was oil 
 on the troubled waters of the First Conference. 
 Joseph Pilmoor joined the Traveling Con- 
 nection in 1768, was sent to America in 1769. 
 Flis letters to John Wesley give us good in- 
 sight into the state of the infant Church. He 
 preached in New York City, Philadelphia, 
 Norfolk, Virginia; and in North Carolina. 
 He was studious, ambitious, selfish, and cold. 
 Returned to England to be disappointed by 
 not being either put in charge of the Ameri- 
 can work, or put into the Loyal Hundred of 
 the Home Church. Under the sting of this 
 disappointment he returned to America and 
 joined the Episcopal Church. Be it said to 
 his credit that he always retained a hearty 
 
 342 
 
EARLY METHODISxM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 sympathy for the itinerants. He was tall, dig- 
 nified, and in old age quite stately. He was 
 a preacher of rare gifts and good culture. 
 Was made a D. D. by the University of Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 Richard Boardman joined the Traveling 
 Connection in 1763. Was sent to America in 
 1769, returned in 1778, died in 1810. He 
 w^as pious, simple, earnest, gifted, and had 
 large common sense. Was stationed in Phila- 
 delphia and New York. Went through 
 Northeast, stopping in Boston in 1772. But 
 the way was not open there then. 
 
 We find in this list the name of Thomas 
 Rankin. This man came near wrecking the 
 Church. But by the over-ruling of Provi- 
 dence only good came out of his well-meant 
 but ill-timed work. He came to America in 
 1773, and was, on account of his age, ap- 
 pointed General Assistant, in the place of 
 Francis Asbury. He returned to England in 
 1778, and died in 18 10. He was Scotch in 
 descent and English in character. He had all 
 the high notions of authority that marked Mr. 
 Wesley's actions. He issued his orders with- 
 out explanation or reason. Whatever would 
 not bend must break. Mr. Asbury, with 
 greater will power, had also greater wisdom. 
 
 343 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 He gladly resigned his responsibilities into 
 Mr. Rankin's hand, but he soon chafed under 
 the rule of a man who understood neither the 
 age nor the Colonies. The gathering storm 
 of the Revolution was about to burst upon 
 the country. Rankin, not in sympathy with 
 the Colonies and thoroughly in sympathy with 
 royalty, drew the lines with an unflinching 
 purpose. But God had wiser plans for Amer- 
 ica and His cause than either Wesley or Ran- 
 kin comprehended. The news from Lexing- 
 ton and Bunker Hill threw the molding and 
 guiding of the Church into the hands of As- 
 bury, the only hands that were able to do it 
 successfully, and made large room for the 
 great Apostle of American Methodism. 
 
 The administration of Mr. Rankin was, 
 after all, of great value in establishing and 
 maintaining discipline. He brought over the 
 purely English views of Church order, and he 
 hewed to this line regardless of consequences. 
 Out of this rule came a certain sternness and 
 grandeur of character that permeated the en- 
 tire membership and secured the highest esprit 
 de corps. While Mr. Rankin, remaining, 
 could only have ruined the cause in the new- 
 born nation still struggling against Toryism 
 for existence, his short administration com- 
 
 344 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 pacted the societies where it did not react se- 
 riously. 
 
 As we ascend the line of these worthies, we 
 come to a strange character seated in this first 
 Council. His military uniform and ever pres- 
 ent sword, first catch our eye. There he sits, 
 large, genial, peculiar. A patch over one 
 eye covers a scar of honor. His face glows 
 and gleams as the discussions advance and the 
 plans mature. This is Captain Thomas Webb. 
 His history is brief. Wounded on the Heights 
 of Abraham, where the gallant Wolfe fell, he 
 is retired with captain's full pay. In 1765 he 
 received another wound from the Heavenly 
 Archer under the preaching of John Wesley. 
 Born fully into the Kingdom, he gives him- 
 self to the despised, penniless, and persecuted 
 sect. Providentially crowded into the min- 
 istry at Bath, England, he works successfully 
 in winning souls. Moved to Albany on the 
 Hudson, his house becomes a temple and his 
 family altar a pulpit by the magnetism of his 
 character and the genuineness of his soul. 
 Soon after the organization of the society in 
 New York by Philip Embury and Barbara 
 Heck, the good captain makes his appear- 
 ance to head the subscription for the first 
 Methodist Church on the continent. Giving, 
 
 345 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 working, preaching, he becomes a tower of 
 strength. "Captain Webb, Gentleman," looms 
 up among the poor laborers and colored serv- 
 ants, among whom the cause first took root in 
 this country. To him belongs, also, the honor 
 of introducing Methodism into this great city 
 of machinery and brotherly love. By his per- 
 sonal representation and arguments and lib- 
 erality the Mother Church was induced to 
 send ministers and aid to the Colonies. It was 
 fitting that he should appear in this First Con- 
 ference. Wesley called him "a man of fire." 
 Asbury always expected victory from him. 
 The elder Adams, attending the Continental 
 Congress in 1774, heard him preach and pro- 
 nounced him ''one of the most fluent and elo- 
 quent men he ever heard." It is hard to do 
 justice to such a character. Brave, resolute, 
 progressive, he seemed impatient at delay and 
 unable to endure timidity or half-heartedness. 
 He was eccentric, but he revolved about a 
 fixed point, the Cross. Often he seemed to 
 have broken away on a tangent, but give him 
 room enough and time enough, and, like a 
 comet, he always came back in good order, 
 with trophies for his Master and encourage- 
 ment for his friends. In no small way he 
 represented and embodied the early Metho- 
 
 346 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 dism of America. Wearing the uniform of 
 this world's power and the scars of this world's 
 glory, with his sword by his side and his 
 Greek Testament in his pocket, telling his ex- 
 perience and singing the songs of redemption, 
 he was no mean apostle of a cause that had to 
 make a landing on a hostile shore, with less 
 shelter than the birds and foxes, with no pil- 
 low softer than Jacob's, with no supplies 
 larger than a raven's gift, and with no home 
 but the desert, no hope but heaven, and no 
 friend but God. He belonged to that army 
 of heroes who were taken out of the victories 
 and the honors of this world's campaigns and 
 set on higher war and more eternal renown. 
 Actual men they were, clothed in the raiment 
 of every-day life, and experienced in the 
 shocks of the common strife, but inspired by 
 the Holy Spirit and commissioned by the 
 Eternal King, their work has the seal of 
 heaven and their memories the fragrance of 
 immortality. Captain Thomas Webb in the 
 First Conference stands for a great factor in 
 American Methodism. He was a layman. 
 Philip Embury, a layman, was in at the birth 
 of American Methodism in New York. Rob- 
 ert Strawbridge, a layman, planted Metho- 
 dism in Maryland, which contends for pri- 
 
 347 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ority over New York. Captain Webb founded 
 Methodism in this great city. 
 
 The laymen ordered the itinerancy. They 
 told Bishop Asbury that they would receive 
 his preachers if he would take them away in 
 three months. The itinerancy consists not in 
 the length of the time, but in the power to 
 change the appointments. It has survived the 
 changes of time from three months to four 
 months, to one year, to two years, to three 
 years. So I predict that it will survive the 
 removal of the limit. Let us go slow, trust 
 God, and read events. 
 
 American Methodism, like English Wes- 
 leyanism (like the New Testament Church), 
 seems to have had the especial care of Provi- 
 dence. The apostles were doubtless chosen 
 with special reference to their natural gifts 
 and characteristics. Each helped to supple- 
 ment all the others in the full development of 
 the truth. Wesleyanism was early equipped 
 for a great work. Theodore Parker says: 
 ''Methodism had the greatest organizer, John 
 Wesley, and the greatest scholar, Adam 
 Clarke, of the last thousand years." He might 
 safely have added, the greatest singer, Charles 
 Wesley, and the greatest saint, John Fletcher. 
 
 348 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Such a group secured great success and a great 
 history. 
 
 American Methodism added to this inher- 
 itance all that it needed to fit it to the wilder- 
 ness into which it dropped: the greatest pi- 
 oneer statesman, Francis Asbury; the greatest 
 drillmaster, Thomas Rankin; the greatest lit- 
 erary and theological critic of that time, John 
 Dickins, and the most eloquent preacher of 
 that time, and possibly of any time, John Sum- 
 merfield. 
 
 Any man who has studied the needs and 
 shortcomings of the Salvation Army, is pre- 
 pared to appreciate somewhat the important 
 work done by John Dickins, so long book 
 steward and autocrat of our publications. He 
 was a marked scholar for that time. He was 
 trained under the solid old drill of Latin, 
 Greek, and mathematics. Indeed, one is safe 
 in saying that our modern university develop- 
 ments have added little, if anything, to the 
 drill-power of these old studies. To train for 
 accurate and continuous thinking, mathemat- 
 ics must stand at the head. It is forever find- 
 ing the point of intersection, or an exact equiv- 
 alent. It has to do with definite certamties. 
 It has little room for guessing. It drills in 
 
 349 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 thinking to a point. Latin, with its sentences 
 like Chinese puzzles that can go together only 
 one way, requires careful thought, but it is 
 not so much to a point. It asks half a dozen 
 questions about a word at once, and thinks 
 all about it. Greek, with its particles hooking 
 the sentences together like swivels, demands 
 much thinking. These are the great drill- 
 masters of the ages. John Dickins inspired 
 the first seminary, that materialized in Cokes- 
 bury College. His careful classic training 
 and methodical habits and cultivated taste 
 were great blessings to American Methodism. 
 He made the early literature worthy the name 
 and worth studying. The great Book House 
 of Methodism, the greatest in the world, is 
 the natural outcome of John Dickins' work. 
 No wonder we have hundreds of colleges and 
 hundreds of papers. 
 
 Ezekiel Cooper took this work when Dick- 
 ins dropped it by the side of his coffin, and 
 helped to make this Philadelphia Methodist 
 soil rich by sowing it a yard deep with ideas. 
 
 Another class find here their representa- 
 tives. These are the men who work a little 
 and then grow weary or unacceptable, and 
 then retire from the work and plunge into 
 oblivion. This is a mighty host who had gift 
 
 350 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 enough and chance enough and possibility 
 enough in the beginning to secure a call from 
 Him who makes no mistakes, but experiments 
 upon all mere chances, trying to make the 
 most of all men, but who, through indolence 
 or avarice, backslide and forfeit their chance, 
 miss their day and so sink into uselessness, 
 then into burdens, then into obscurity, and so 
 into oblivion. Of this great host that clog 
 the wheels of the Church, hinder the work of 
 God, and make religion fit to be rejected, I 
 can only say I am glad I am not their judge. 
 I can pity such a wreck as Whitworth, who, 
 caught in the fiery monsoon of hell, was hurled 
 to death. But these creatures who cling to re- 
 spectability and beg for sympathy, when the 
 industry of the common mechanic, who builds 
 not characters but only houses, would make 
 them useful and honored by good men and 
 angels — these creatures can extort from me 
 only scorn and contempt. They are dead men 
 standing in the way of the living. The worst 
 thing about it is this, they do not know enough 
 to know that they are dead. What a pity they 
 would not tumble over into their graves! 
 This time demands living men. This is a 
 mighty age. We do things in a grand way. 
 Men are sinning by wholesale, sin is outting 
 
 351 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 on all defiance and using all weapons. There 
 is no alternative ; we must arm with equal skill 
 and power. The good cause languishes, and 
 God waits for us to put on our strength. I 
 believe that the time has come when we must 
 stir ourselves as ministers even more than ever 
 before. There is no hour for rest or indolence. 
 To pause is to be trampled by the mighty 
 march of events. Sleepless vigilance, unrest- 
 ing activity, are the conditions of usefulness 
 in the ministry. I wish I could cry in the 
 ear of every preacher in the world, ^'The night 
 Cometh!" 
 
 I find among these early men good speci- 
 mens of the great body of the ministry. I ap- 
 proach this class with a glad heart. I never 
 think of them but with profoundest admira- 
 tion. I regard them as the grandest specimens 
 of the race. It is my highest ambition to be 
 counted worthy of their companionship. 
 They are men of the finest metal, men who 
 see life as a great opportunity for power and 
 wealth and aggrandizement, who see most 
 gorgeous pictures on the ever-moving canvas 
 of the future, before whom Fame's shining 
 temple stands with open door, men whom Am- 
 bition calls by their given names, as if they 
 were her only friends. Yet they hear a voice 
 
 352 
 
EARLY METHODISAI IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 from out eternity calling to denial, to duty, 
 and to heroism, and though it blasts every am- 
 bition, abandons every plan, sweeps away 
 every picture, yet they obey the heavenly call 
 and go forth not to be ministered unto but to 
 minister, to be the faithful servants of all, and 
 so, in the fullest service, secure the Master's 
 award of greatness. These are the salt of the 
 earth. These are the men that keep the life 
 in the world, of whom the world is not worthy. 
 There is nothing grander than one of these 
 veterans, counting all things but loss for 
 Christ, taking up His cross, entering into His 
 work, making up what is behind of His suf- 
 fering, and wearing without pride or disgrace 
 the honor He puts upon them in the sight of 
 the angels. Poor, nearly always, they could 
 not be otherwise. They seek other ends. 
 They live on half pay and full disappoint- 
 ments. Learning to live on next to nothing, 
 then on nothing, then on less than nothing, 
 with full heart and empty hands keeping the 
 wolf from the door and educating the chil- 
 dren, thus they journey, rich in faith, sweet in 
 temper, charitable in spirit, anxious only that 
 the cause may prosper. I see these men who 
 take their lives, and, harder still, their fami- 
 lies, in their hand, and go forth to all danger, 
 23 353 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 endure all hardship, and rejoice that they are 
 counted worthy to suffer for Christ, and the 
 world furnishes no nobler heroes. They need 
 no Letters Patent to ennoble them; they be- 
 long to the Peerage of the Eternal Kingdom. 
 They are Peers of angels and principalities 
 and powers and dominions of heaven, and have 
 God's broad patent of nobility. Father Tay- 
 lor called them ''Camels journeying through 
 a desert browsing on thistles and laden with 
 jewels." Paul thought them Christ's slaves, 
 crushed with the sorrows and disabilities of 
 others, and ready to be even accursed from 
 Christ for the salvation of the endangered. I 
 think them genuine Methodist preachers, and 
 I ask no greater honor than to share their 
 toils and join in their triumphs. They are 
 proof of immortality, for God will see to it 
 that they receive their back pay amid the 
 shouts of victory and in the glory of heaven. 
 Let me live and die with them! 
 
 These are some of the classes that met 
 here a hundred years ago — great leaders, great 
 laymen, and great workers, and let us rise to 
 the worth of our inheritance. 
 
 Towering above all others, like Mount 
 Washington above the White Hills, we be- 
 hold Francis Asbury. I hardly know how to 
 
 354 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 approach his character or present his great- 
 ness. Born in England in 1745, he began to 
 preach at the age of sixteen, and was sent a 
 missionary to America in 1771. In 1774 the 
 superintendency of the Church through the 
 troubled times of the Revolution was com- 
 mitted to him. The return to England of the 
 regular missionaries left him almost without 
 an adviser. At the Christmas Conference of 
 1784 he was elected and ordained the First 
 Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 He died in 18 16. It does not disparage any 
 other man to say that to Asbury, more than 
 to any other, does Methodism in America owe 
 its character and power. He first saw the 
 necessity of independence. In the gathering 
 gloom of the Revolution he chose the perils 
 of fidelity to the flock committed to him, 
 rather than safety in his native land. Every- 
 thing was to be done. Without precedents, 
 without resources, without organization, with- 
 out schools, without church edifices, without 
 Church societies, without an ordained min- 
 istry, without the sacraments and without pub- 
 lic sympathy, he was thrown into the sea of 
 revolution, and, single-handed, suspected on 
 account of his nativity, persecuted on account 
 of his faith, hunted on account of his fidelity, 
 
 355 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 he was compelled to gather the scattered frag- 
 ments of classes into societies, to modify and 
 combine the diverging views of rebels and roy- 
 alists, of citizens and subjects, to restrain those 
 who would rush through individualism and 
 Congregationalism into irresponsibility and in- 
 efficiency, to liberate those who bowed in 
 servile submission to the English policy of 
 Wesley, a policy which deprived the Church of 
 organization and of a ministry, and the mem- 
 bers of the sacraments and of a home ; and to 
 create out of the raw materials a membership, 
 a ministry to care for them, and a government 
 to perpetuate them. This problem was to be 
 solved under the most adverse circumstances. 
 The country was distracted by civil war and 
 rendered dangerous by contending forces and 
 wandering bands of marauders. The finances 
 of the country were depressed to the lowest 
 point. The passions of the people were in- 
 flamed to the utmost. The public mind was 
 turned away from religion to slaughter and 
 from righteousness to rapine. The friends of 
 Methodism were bound by deep-seated con- 
 victions to the customs and forms of the 
 Mother Country, and were under the influence 
 of their great founder, which restrained them 
 from this only chance of success. Their very 
 
 356 
 
EARLY METHODISAI IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 piety was thus at war with their peace. To 
 be religious and rise to a conscientious separa- 
 tion from Wesley, was asking more greatness 
 and more statesmanship than could reasonably 
 be expected in the humble ranks of the mem- 
 bership. They were bound to receive the sac- 
 raments from a Church hostile to their expe- 
 riences, hostile to their patriotism, and hostile 
 to their very existence. Trained into holy rev- 
 erence for the ceremonies, it took mighty faith 
 to comprehend these ceremonies as mere hu- 
 man conveniences. In a land measured by the 
 thousand miles, scattered over territory vast 
 enough for a score of empires, traversed by 
 fordless and bridgeless rivers, by mountain 
 ranges whose only passes were the trails of 
 hostile Indians, with no communication 
 swifter than the saddle-beast, with leagues of 
 forest penetrated by no highways wider than 
 a bridle-path that hung on the broken bark 
 of the trees, with a population scattered 
 leagues apart in the wilderness — under such 
 circumstances to create a people, a general 
 conviction, a ministry, a closely compacted sys- 
 tem of government that should at once leave 
 every member a living unit and still make the 
 whole Church a living machine, a government 
 giving room for every conviction and still pre- 
 
 357 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 serving the strength of one purpose — this re- 
 quired the most varied and stupendous gifts. 
 There were needed the industry of the freeman 
 and the patience of the slave, the wisdom of 
 the statesman and the prescience of the 
 prophet, the zeal of the advocate and the de- 
 liberation of the judge, the faith of the saint 
 and the sacrifice of the martyr. There was 
 needed genius to invent, courage to explore, 
 and assurance to wait. There was needed such 
 a combination of gifts and graces as has sel- 
 dom been found among the sons of Adam. 
 Measured by the difficulties he surmounted, 
 by the plans he made and executed, by the 
 statesmanship he exhibited, by the leagues he 
 journeyed, by the exposures he endured, by 
 the dangers he confronted, by the combina- 
 tions he secured, and by the things he caused 
 to come to pass, measured by these results 
 Francis Asbury rises before us, pre-eminently 
 the Apostle of American Methodism. He was 
 adapted to the work he was to accomplish. 
 The distinguishing characteristic of his mind 
 was his practical sense. He saw things as they 
 are. He had little or no imagination. He 
 dealt with facts. Though he often seemed 
 dull of faith in enterprises, the results justified 
 his judgment. Some of his plans swept on be- 
 
 358 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 yond the wildest fancy of the most ardent, but 
 his convictions were deduced from an actual 
 knowledge of the forces in the field. Thus he 
 saw the future republic and the coming 
 Church, when our statesmen were legislating 
 for the Colonies and not for a nation, and our 
 soldiers were fighting for redress and not for 
 liberty. 
 
 He was a man of the people. Sent to the 
 people, his culture and his habits fitted him 
 to his work. By choice and by conviction he 
 carried Methodism out of the cities into the 
 country. He planted it in all the valleys and 
 on all the hillsides of the accessible continent. 
 The marvel of his character is his adaptation 
 to the varied circumstances of his long and 
 eventful life. Everything committed to him 
 found its consummate artificer. See him 
 where we may, yonder in the great Metrop- 
 olis, visiting from house to house, here in the 
 first Council, rebuking the self-indulgence 
 that demanded the ease of the cities, and re- 
 sisting the extremes that threatened on one 
 side to demoralize all discipline, and on the 
 other to destroy all development, or yonder, 
 sleeping in the wigwam of the hostile savage, 
 or waiting in the concealment of the cypress 
 swamp ; or yonder, hunting his lonely way, 
 
 359 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 with his weary horse, from cabin to cabin, tell- 
 ing to the emigrant and the pioneers the story 
 of the Cross and singing everywhere the songs 
 of Zion; or yonder, in the crisis of schism, 
 when the Southern Conference was resolved 
 on separation, by the wisdom of his plans and 
 the moderation of his words, and the omnipo- 
 tence of his agonizing prayer, bringing them 
 as by the Spirit of God into humble mind, and 
 wheeling them into line for a united cam- 
 paign against sin; or yonder, presiding over 
 the Conferences, inspiring new faith in the 
 tired itinerant and new hope in the discour- 
 aged pilgrim; see him wherever we may and 
 in whatever work, as missionary, pastor, exile, 
 fugitive, legislator, administrator, or bishop, 
 we are charmed with the beauty of his char- 
 acter, the simplicity of his faith, the breadth 
 of his plans, the strength of his purpose, the 
 heroism of his sacrifice, and the vastness of 
 his results. 
 
 At the end of this new Evangel stands the 
 one supreme spirit representing that guiding 
 genius that is never wanting in the history of 
 successful reform. It makes holy and repre- 
 sentative covenant with God, ascends the 
 Mount of Sacrifice, and from the supreme act 
 of faith writes its name in history, Abraham 
 
 360 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 the Father of the FaithfuL Again, it leads the 
 exodus of humanity and receives the divine 
 commandments and revelations and writes its 
 name in history Moses or Elijah. Now it feels 
 the heavenly inspiration, sees the boundless- 
 ness of redeeming love, and writes its name in 
 history Paul or Luther. Again, it hears the 
 divine voice, sees the perishing multitudes, 
 catches the martyr spirit, and writes its un- 
 fading name in history Wesley or Asbury. 
 Methodism in America, like all ordained 
 Evangels, was captained for conquest. It was 
 committed to a grand, God-smitten, kingly 
 soul. With such leadership it could not but 
 grow up into a vast region of conquering 
 agencies, a great Church! 
 
 The list of workers in this pulpit contains 
 many of this great host of average men who 
 do the great bulk of the work of this world, 
 and some of the great men whose work and 
 memory are our inheritance and inspiration. 
 Here is the name of Richard Whatcoat. John 
 Wesley wanted the Conference of 1787 to 
 make him Bishop, but the Conference re- 
 fused to do it, fearing lest Mr. Wesley might 
 recall Bishop Asbury. The spirit of the young 
 republic and of the young Church was the 
 same. Li 1800 the General Conference elected 
 
 361 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and ordained him Bishop. He was distin- 
 guished for his saintliness and for the spiritual 
 power accompanying his preaching. The 
 marked demonstrations that characterized 
 Methodism in the early years followed him on 
 many occasions. The statistics show great in- 
 crease in the membership immediately fol- 
 lowing his election to the Episcopacy. His- 
 tory informs us that he had great influence in 
 securing these results. 
 
 The name of John P. Durbin needs only to 
 be mentioned in connection with this Church 
 to establish the lofty standard of pulpit service 
 here enjoyed. This man was one of his kind. 
 He was a student, always at his books; a 
 scholar, mastering the old college curriculum 
 and touching nearly all the round of knowl- 
 edge; a preacher, standing for years at the 
 very head of the American pulpit. At times 
 he possessed 'his audiences and handled them 
 at his pleasure. Once, describing the coming 
 of the Judgment Day in the Church in Car- 
 lisle, he showed them the coming of Gabriel 
 with his resurrection trumpet so distinctly that 
 the entire audience rushed to the windows and 
 tore the blinds from their hinges in their alarm 
 and anxiety to see the coming judgment 
 throng. When his high inspiration culmi- 
 
 362 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 nated and the whites of his eyes were seen 
 round the blazing pupils, then men held their 
 breath and held on to the backs of the pews, or 
 bounded to their feet or fell unconscious on 
 the floor. John P. Durbin was a preacher. 
 
 If anything is lacking to make this city 
 the joy of all Methodism, it is found in that 
 holy wizard of the pulpit, John Summerfield. 
 The best thing that can be said of his elo- 
 quence is found in the traditions that impreg- 
 nate the very air wherever he preached, tradi- 
 tions which no man can define. Multitudes 
 that crowded all the region about where he 
 was going to preach and would not leave till 
 long after he had finished — the weeping, sigh- 
 ing, sobbing, repenting, shouting multitudes, 
 told the story of his pathos and power. I can 
 see him, coming in like an angel through one 
 of these windows, tripping along on the backs 
 of the pews, up to the pulpit, and then letting 
 the light of his holy face shine out upon the 
 expectant multitude. God is v/ith him. This 
 place is changed into the Holy of Holies. 
 Sinners can not long stand under the heavenly 
 vision. They drop under the power of God. 
 Penitents can not long hestitate to believe in 
 this ante-room of heaven. Believers can not 
 long stumble at the exceeding greatness and 
 
 363 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 preciousness of the promises. Brothers, this 
 is the Holy of Holies. Nothing earthly can 
 be more sacred than this old Academy, once 
 called that, and always an Academy in God's 
 spiritual agencies. O, may the spirit and 
 power of John Summerfield's God come upon 
 every one of us! It is something to be in this 
 holy place. I know of a rough, bad man, a 
 carnal man, who came into one of our 
 Churches in Elmira and sought God at the 
 altar with all his might. He was so big and 
 rough and bad that the brethren could not be- 
 lieve that it was really so, even when God 
 blessed and clearly converted him. It seemed 
 too much. The next night he came with two 
 wagon-loads of his family and men, including 
 his mother, two sisters and brother, all bad, no- 
 toriously bad. This staggered the Church a 
 little. It seemed too much of that kind. 
 When the invitation was given they all came, 
 but the Church hesitated. This man stepped 
 round and opened a place at the altar for his 
 mother, saying to the pastor: "Brother, can't 
 I have my mother kneel right there? That is 
 the spot where I knelt last night, and I kind 
 o' want my mother to kneel right there. I 
 am sure she will find Him; I did." Brothers, 
 it seems to me a great thing to stand here 
 
 364 
 
EARLY METHODISM IN PHILADELPHIA 
 
 where John Summer fie Id stood and saw God 
 and showed Him to sinners and saints. Maybe 
 we can see Him too. O, may the spirit and 
 power of John Summerfield's God come upon 
 every one of us, upon all Philadelphia Metho- 
 dism, upon all Methodism! 
 
 365 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Oration delivered at the Centennial Exposition, Philadel- 
 phia, August 29, 1876, at the request and by the 
 appointment of His Excellency, Hon. J. L. 
 Beveridge, Governor of the State 
 of Illinois, to present and 
 represent that State. 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Mr. President, Fellow Citizens of Illinois 
 and of the Republic, Ladies and Gentle- 
 men: 
 
 A peasant espoused a princess. She was 
 heavily dowered and highly endowed. She 
 had genius and culture. Her form was the 
 perfection of symmetry. Her motion w^as the 
 rhythm of poetry. Her face was the beauty of 
 the morning. Her glance was the benedic- 
 tion that follows prayer. In repose she was 
 a model. In motion she was a song. Seen, 
 she was a hope; detained, an inspiration; re- 
 tained, a transfiguration. The peasant went 
 with her to a royal court where the guests 
 were expected to compete for the honor of an 
 hour on the throne by showing their rarest 
 treasures. A high courtier, seeing the peasant 
 empty-handed, yet hopeful, said, "Why 
 hope?" The peasant replied: ''You have not 
 seen her!" That court is this company of the 
 assembled nations. That princess is the 
 Prairie State, in the great valley beyond the 
 mountains. When you have seen her you 
 24 369 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 will not question my presence or my hope. I 
 am here at your invitation, by the authority 
 of yonder commonwealth, to commend to you, 
 and through you to all men everywhere, the 
 great State of Illinois, only fourth in popula- 
 tion and not second in honor or promise among 
 all the States of the great Republic. If you 
 do not grant us this day a favorable verdict, I 
 shall appeal to mankind, to impartial history, 
 and to the next Centennial. 
 
 Name. 
 
 ^'What is in a name?" "Much, every 
 way." It is to character what shadow is to 
 substance. It only needs light to bring it out. 
 It is worth something to be able to cast a 
 shadow. It involves all the difference be- 
 tween a city and a cemetery. If in uttering 
 the convictions of my mind I am compelled to 
 praise Illinois in the presence of these earlier 
 and honorable commonwealths, you must par- 
 don my boldness. For it is for this purpose 
 that you have invited me here. And I trust 
 to pay you fitting honor in the respect be- 
 stowed on one of your daughters. For a 
 mother can not but rejoice in the achievements 
 of her second self. 
 
 The soil seems predestined to greatness. 
 370 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Albert Gallatin, who has prepared the best 
 work upon the Indian languages, says that 
 "Illinois is from a Delaware word, Leno, or 
 Leni, or Illini, which signifies the real or su- 
 perior men/^ 
 
 Some of the vulgar may ask why the sons 
 of Illinois are called "Suckers," which, like 
 nearly all nicknames, from "Yankee" to 
 "Wolverine," is a term of disrespect. The an- 
 swer is found in the jealousies that always 
 spring up in the presence of success. For hu- 
 man nature has one law from which she sel- 
 dom varies; it is the law of the Donnybrook 
 Fair, namely, "Wherever you see a head, hit 
 it." So Illinois could not be expected to es- 
 cape some term of reproach, and that term 
 she must fill with a new meaning. In the 
 early days the settlers were in the habit of go- 
 ing up the river every spring to Galena, and, 
 having worked in the famous lead mines dur- 
 ing the summer, they returned down the river 
 in the fall. This was the habit of "suckers" 
 in the rivers. The transfer of the epithet was 
 easy. It refers also to the poor whites from 
 the South that followed the wealthy, like 
 suckers on the corn. Its transformation has 
 been certain. The nation has had abundant 
 reason to bless the "Suckers." 
 
 371 
 
addresses on notable occasions 
 
 Area. 
 
 In area the State has fifty-five thousand 
 four hundred and ten square miles of territory. 
 It is about one hundred and fifty miles wide 
 and four hundred miles long, stretching in 
 latitude from Maine to North Carolina. It 
 embraces a wide variety of climate. It is tem- 
 pered on the north by the great inland, salt- 
 less, tideless sea, which keeps the thermom- 
 eter from either extreme. Being a table-land, 
 from six hundred to sixteen hundred feet 
 above the level of the sea, one is prepared to 
 find on the health maps prepared by the gen- 
 eral government an almost clean and perfect 
 record. In freedom from fevers and malarial 
 diseases and consumptions, the three deadly 
 enemies of the American Saxon, Illinois as a 
 State stands without a superior. She fur- 
 nishes one of the essential conditions of a great 
 people — sound bodies. I suspect that this fact 
 lies back of that old Delaware word, Illini — 
 superior men. 
 
 Position. 
 
 The great battles of history that have been 
 determinative of dynasties and destinies have 
 been strategical battles, chiefly the question of 
 
 372 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 position. Thermopylae has been the war cry 
 of freemen for twenty-four centuries. It only 
 tells how much there may be in position. All 
 this advantage belongs to Illinois. It is in the 
 heart of the greatest valley in the world, the 
 vast region between the mountains — a valley 
 that could feed mankind for one thousand 
 years. It is well on toward the center of the 
 Continent. It is in the great temperate belt, 
 in which have been found nearly all the ag- 
 gressive civilizations of history. It has sixty- 
 five miles of frontage on the head of the lake, 
 with the Mississippi forming the western and 
 southern boundary, with the Ohio running 
 along the southeastern line, with the Illinois 
 River and the Canal dividing the State diag- 
 onally from the lake to the Lower Mississippi, 
 and with the Rock and Wabash Rivers fur- 
 nishing altogether two thousand miles of 
 water-front, connecting with and running 
 through in all about twelve thousand miles of 
 navigable waters. 
 
 But this is not all. These waters are made 
 most available by the fact that the Lake and 
 the State lie on the ridge running into the 
 great valley from the east. Within cannon- 
 shot of the lake the water runs away from the 
 
 373 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 lake to the gulf. The lake now empties at 
 both ends, one into the Atlantic, the other into 
 the Gulf of Mexico. The lake thus seems to 
 hang over the land. This makes the dock- 
 age most serviceable; there are no steep banks 
 to damage it. Both lake and river are made 
 for use. 
 
 Climate and Products. 
 
 The climate varies from Portland to Rich- 
 mond; it favors every product of the Conti- 
 nent, including the tropics, with less than half 
 a dozen exceptions. It produces every great 
 nutriment of the world except bananas and 
 rice. It is hardly too much to say that it is 
 the most productive spot known to civiliza- 
 tion. With the soil full of bread and the earth 
 full of minerals, with an upper surface of food 
 and an under layer of fuel, with perfect nat- 
 ural drainage and abundant springs and 
 streams and navigable rivers, half-way be- 
 tween the forests of the North and the fruits 
 of the South, within a day's ride of the great 
 deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead and zinc, 
 containing and controlling the great grain, 
 cattle, pork and lumber markets of the world, 
 it is not strange that Illinois has the advantage 
 of position. 
 
 374 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Nativity. 
 
 This advantage has been supplemented by 
 the character of the population. In the early 
 days, when Illinois was first admitted to the 
 Union, her population were chiefly from Ken- 
 tucky ahd Virginia. But, in the conflict of 
 ideas concerning slavery, a strong tide of emi- 
 gration came in from the East and soon 
 changed this composition. In 1870 her non- 
 native population were from colder soils. 
 New York furnished one hundred and thirty- 
 three thousand two hundred and ninety; Ohio 
 gave one hundred and sixty-two thousand six 
 hundred and twenty-three; Pennsylvania sent 
 on ninety-eight thousand three hundred and 
 fifty-two; while the entire South, swept by the 
 flames of war, and emptying her people over 
 the border rather than into the grave, gave us 
 only two hundred and six thousand seven hun- 
 dred and thirty-four. In all her cities, and in 
 all her German and Scandinavian and other 
 foreign colonies, Illinois has only about one- 
 fifth of her people of foreign birth. 
 
 History. 
 
 The history of Illinois is brief. In geo- 
 logical records her northern end stands with 
 
 375 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASION.^ 
 
 New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Min- 
 nesota, forming the original nucleus of the 
 Continent away back in the Silurian age. The 
 body of the State was produced during the 
 carboniferous age, and is thus loaded with vast 
 coal deposits. 
 
 Indians. 
 
 As affected by human history, she bears the 
 records of the activities of the mound-build- 
 ers. Their cities and their sepulchers still 
 keep silent and perpetual guard over her 
 Southwestern border. Next came the great 
 Algonquin family of Indians. Traced by 
 their marks and cultivation of corn, they seem 
 to have come up the western side of the Valley 
 of the Mississippi, through the lower passes 
 of the Rocky Mountains, across the Continent, 
 south of the lakes and north of the ancient 
 marshes, to the Atlantic, up the Atlantic Coast 
 to the St. Lawrence River, westward by the 
 basin of Lake Winnipeg, and then down the 
 Mississippi River to the head of the lakes, 
 making the circuit of the Continent and com- 
 pletely surrounding the territory of the Iro- 
 quois. Measured by cultivation, by the arts of 
 life, by humaneness to captives, and by cubic 
 inches of brain, the Algonquins were far in 
 
 376 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 advance of the Iroquois. But the Iroquois, 
 massed in the center, and given to low bru- 
 tality, had the advantage in position and in 
 elements for a struggle of claw against claw 
 and tooth against tooth. This finally led to 
 the closing tragedy of the Illinois, on Starved 
 Rock, where the entire tribe starved rather 
 than surrender. 
 
 Missionaries. 
 
 The next plateau in the advance of history 
 is the coming of the white race, in the person 
 of La Salle, who discovered the wide prairies 
 of Illinois in 1670. Trained a Jesuit, and 
 leading a business life, he saw at once the fu- 
 ture field of the Church and of commerce. 
 Three years later came two other noted char- 
 acters, who, like La Salle, gave their heroic 
 faith and purpose to the new land and left 
 their names on its early settlement — Joliet, a 
 fur trader of Quebec, and Pere Marquette, a 
 Jesuit of France. Coasting the nothern shore 
 of Lake Michigan, they entered Green Bay, 
 ascended Fox River, crossed over into the 
 Wisconsin River, thus taking France and 
 Romanism into the Mississippi Valley a hun- 
 dred years in advance of all rivals. A mile 
 north of Evanston, on the old Green Bay 
 
 377 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 road, I have stood upon a cleared and barren 
 spot where Marquette planted the cross and 
 built a Church two hundred years ago. Then 
 it was on the shore of the lake; now it is some 
 distance inland. 
 
 It is a good thing to plant in a country 
 first a cross, and take possession of it in the 
 spirit of missionaries and in the name of God. 
 For conscience finally gains all battles. 
 
 The first military occupation was at Fort 
 Crevecoeur, in 1680. 
 
 The first settlement in the Mississippi Val- 
 ley was in Illinois, at Fort St. Louis, on the 
 Illinois River, in 1682. Constructively, in the 
 old way of constructing geographies and em- 
 pires, Illinois was for one hundred years a part 
 of Florida, though no Spaniard ever set foot 
 on it. In 1675 it became a possession of the 
 French crown, a dependency of Canada, and 
 a part of Louisiana. In 1765 the English flag 
 was run up on old Fort Chartres, and Illinois 
 was counted among the treasures of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 In 1779 it was taken from the English by 
 Colonel Clark. This man was resolute in na- 
 ture, wise in council, prudent in strife, bold 
 in action, and heroic in danger. Few men 
 who have figured in the history of America 
 
 378 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 are more deserving than this colonel. Noth- 
 ing short of first-rate, first-class ability could 
 have rescued Vincennes and all Illinois from 
 the English. And it is not possible to over- 
 estimate the influence of this achievement 
 upon the Republic. In 1779 Illinois became a 
 part of Virginia. It was soon known as Illi- 
 nois County. In 1784 Virginia ceded all this 
 territory to the General Government, to be cut 
 into States, to be republican in form, with ''the 
 same right of sovereignty, freedom, anti inde- 
 pendence as the other States." 
 
 Ordinance OF 1787. 
 
 In 1787 it was the subject of the wisest and 
 ablest legislation found in any merely human 
 records. No man can study the secret history 
 of the ''Compact of 1787," and not feel that 
 Providence was guiding with sleepless eye 
 these unborn States. The ordinance that on 
 July 13, 1787, finally became the incorpora- 
 tion act has a most marvelous history. Jeffer- 
 son had vainly tried to secure a system of gov- 
 ernment for the Northwestern Territory. He 
 was an emancipationist of that day, and fa- 
 vored the exclusion of slavery from the terri- 
 tory Virginia had ceded to the General Gov- 
 
 379 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ernment; but the South voted him down as 
 often as it came up. In 1787, as late as 
 July loth, an organizing act without the anti- 
 slavery clause was pending. This concession 
 to the South was expected to carry it. Con- 
 gress was in session in New York City. On 
 July 5th, Rev. Dr. Manasseh Cutler, of Mas- 
 sachusetts, came into New York to lobby on 
 the Northwestern Territory. Everything 
 seemed to fall into his hands. Events were 
 ripe. 
 
 The state of the public credit, the growing 
 of Southern prejudice, the basis of his mission, 
 his personal character, all combined to com- 
 plete one of those sudden and marvelous revo- 
 lutions in public sentiment that once in five or 
 ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country 
 like the breath of the Almighty. Cutler was 
 a graduate of Yale — received his A. M. from 
 Harvard, and his D. D. from Yale. He had 
 studied and taken degrees in the three learned 
 professions, medicine, law, and divinity. He 
 had thus America's best endorsement. He had 
 published a scientific examination of the 
 plants of New England. His name stood sec- 
 ond only to that of Franklin as a scientist in 
 America. He was a courtly gentleman of 
 the old style, a man of commanding presence 
 
 380 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 and of inviting face. The Southern members 
 said they had never seen such a gentleman in 
 the North. He came representing a company 
 of men w^ith Massachusetts capital that de- 
 sired to purchase a tract of land now^ included 
 in Ohio, for the purpose of planting a colony. 
 It was a speculation. Government money was 
 worth eighteen cents on the dollar. This Mas- 
 sachusetts company had collected enough to 
 purchase one million five hundred thousand 
 acres of land. Other speculators in New York 
 made Dr. Cutler their agent (lobbyist) ; on 
 the 1 2th he represented a demand for five mil- 
 lion five hundred thousand acres. This would 
 reduce the National debt. Jefferson and Vir- 
 ginia were regarded as authority concerning 
 the land Virginia had just ceded. Jefferson's 
 policy wanted to provide for the public credit, 
 and this was a good opportunity to do some- 
 thing. Massachusetts then owned the terri- 
 tory of Maine, which she was crowding on to 
 the market. She was opposed to opening the 
 Northwestern region. This fired the zeal of 
 Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, 
 and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The English 
 Minister invited him to dine with some of the 
 Southern gentlemen. He was the center of 
 interest. 
 
 381 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The entire South rallied round him. Mas- 
 sachusetts could not vote against him because 
 many of the constituents of her members were 
 interested personally in the Western specula- 
 tion. Thus Cutler, making friends with the 
 South, and, doubtless, using all the arts of the 
 body, was enabled to command the situation. 
 True to deeper convictions, he dictated one of 
 the most compact and finished documents of 
 wise statesmanship that has ever adorned any 
 human law book. He borrowed from Jefifer- 
 son the term ^'Articles of Compact," which, 
 preceding the Federal Constitution, rose into 
 the most sacred character. He then followed 
 very closely the Constitution of Massachu- 
 setts, adopted three years before. Its most 
 marked points were: 
 
 1. The exclusion of slavery from the 
 
 TERRITORY FOREVER. 
 
 2. Provision for public schools, giving one 
 township for a seminary, and every section 
 numbered sixteen in each township ; that is, 
 one thirty-sixth of all the land for public 
 schools. 
 
 3. A provision prohibiting the adoption of 
 any constitution or the enactment of any law 
 that should nullify pre-existing contracts. 
 
 382 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Be it forever remembered that this com- 
 pact declared thsit /'Religion, morality, and 
 knoiviedge being necessary to good govern- 
 ment and the happiness of mankind, schools 
 and the means of education shall always be en- 
 couraged/' 
 
 Dr. Cutler planted himself on this plat- 
 form and would not yield. Giving his un- 
 qualified declaration that it w^as that or noth- 
 ing — that unless they could make the land de- 
 sirable they did not vs^ant it — he took his 
 horse and buggy and started for the Constitu- 
 tional Convention in Philadelphia. On 
 July 13, 1787, the bill was put upon its pas- 
 sage and was unanimously adopted, every 
 Southern member voting for it, and only one 
 man, Mr. Yates, of New York, voting against 
 it. But as the States voted as States, Yates 
 lost his vote, and the Compact was put beyond 
 repeal. Thus the great States of Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin — a 
 vast empire, the heart of the great valley — 
 were consecrated to freedom, intelligence, and 
 honesty. Thus the great heart of the nation 
 was prepared for a year and a day and an 
 hour. In the light of these eighty-nine years I 
 affirm that this act was the salvation of the 
 Republic and the destruction of slavery. Soon 
 
 383 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the South saw their great blunder and tried to 
 repeal the Compact. In 1803 Congress re- 
 ferred it to a committee, of which John Ran- 
 dolph was chairman. He reported that this 
 ordinance was a Compact, and opposed re- 
 peal. Thus it stood a rock in the way of the 
 onrushing sea of slavery. 
 
 Would you know what this scholarly Di- 
 vinity Doctor did? Go, ride about the South- 
 ern and Southwestern borders of this territory. 
 The style of the civilizations are as different 
 as day and night. The census, up to 1870, 
 has told the story every ten years. Freedom 
 brought forth her legitimate fruits — industry, 
 wealth, intelligence, morality, safety, honor, 
 loyalty, peace, and the evident blessing of 
 God. This man planted the school-house in- 
 stead of the slave-gang, the Church instead of 
 the auction block, the New Testament and 
 spelling book instead of handcuffs and black- 
 whips ; and he needs no monument but the 
 story of his deeds. And we are here, in this 
 company of the original Thirteen, to express 
 our grateful appreciation of what we have in- 
 herited from this minister of the Old Bay 
 State. 
 
 384 
 
the greatness of illinois 
 
 Slavery. 
 
 With all this timely aid it was, after all, 
 a most desperate and protracted struggle to 
 keep the soil of Illinois sacred to freedom. 
 It was the natural battlefield for the irrepres- 
 sible conflict. In the Southern end of the 
 State, slavery preceded the Compact. It ex- 
 isted among the old French settlers, and was 
 hard to eradicate. The southern part of the 
 State was settled from the slave States, and 
 this population brought their laws, customs, 
 and institutions with them. A stream of pop- 
 ulation from the North poured into the north- 
 ern part of the State. These sections misun- 
 derstood and hated each other perfectly. The 
 Southerners regarded the Yankees as a skin- 
 ning, tricky, penurious race of peddlers, fill- 
 ing the country with tinware, brass clocks, 
 and wooden nutmegs. The Northerner thought 
 of the Southerner as a lean, lanky, lazy crea- 
 ture, burrowing in a hut and rioting in whisky, 
 dirt, and ignorance. These causes aided in 
 making the struggle long and bitter. So 
 strong was the sympathy with slavery that, in 
 spite of the ordinance of 1787, and in spite of 
 the Deed of Cession, it was determined to al- 
 low the old French settlers to retain their 
 
 25 385 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 slaves. Planters from the slave States might 
 bring their slaves, if they would give them a 
 chance to choose freedom or years of service 
 and bondage for their children till they should 
 become thirty years of age. If they chose free- 
 dom they must leave the State in sixty days or 
 be sold as fugitives. Servants were whipped 
 for offenses for which white men were fined. 
 Each lash paid forty cents of the fine. A 
 Negro ten miles from home without a pass 
 was whipped. These famous laws were im- 
 ported from the slave States just as they im- 
 ported laws for the inspection of flax and wool 
 when there was neither in the State. 
 
 These black laws are now wiped out. A 
 vigorous effort was made to protect slavery 
 in the State Constitution in 1818. It barely 
 failed. It was renewed in 1822, when a con- 
 vention was asked to make a new Constitution. 
 After a hard fight the convention was defeated. 
 But slaves did not disappear from the census 
 of the State till 1850. There were mobs and 
 murders in the interest of slavery. Lovejoy 
 was added to the list of the martyrs — a sort of 
 first-fruits of that long line of immortal heroes 
 who saw freedom as the one supreme desire 
 of their souls, and were so enamored of her 
 that they preferred to die rather than sur- 
 vive her. 386 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Admitted into the Union. 
 
 The population of twelve thousand two 
 hundred and eighty-two that occupied the ter- 
 ritory in A. D. 1800, increased to forty-five 
 thousand in A. D. 181 8, when the State Con- 
 stitution was adopted and Illinois took her 
 place in the Union, with a star on the flag and 
 two votes in the Senate. 
 
 Shadrach Bond, a farmer, was the first 
 governor, and in his first message he recom- 
 mended the construction of the Illinois and 
 Michigan Canal. 
 
 The simple economy in those days is seen 
 in the fact that the entire bill for stationery 
 for the first session of the Legislature was only 
 $13.50. Yet this simple body actually enacted 
 a very superior code. 
 
 Money. 
 
 There was no money in the Territory be- 
 fore the War of 181 2. Deer skins and 'coon 
 skins were the circulating medium. In 1821 
 the Legislature ordained a State bank on the 
 credit of the State. It issued notes in the like- 
 ness of bank-bills. These notes were made a 
 legal tender for everything, and the bank was 
 ordered to loan to the people $100 on personal 
 
 387 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 security, and more on mortgages. They actu- 
 ally passed a resolution requesting the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury of the United States to 
 receive these notes for land. The old French 
 Lieutenant-governor, Colonel Menard, put 
 the resolution as follows: "Gentlemen of de 
 Senate: It is moved and seconded dat de notes 
 of dis bank be made land-office money. All 
 in favor of dat motion say Aye ; all against it 
 say No. It is decided in de affirmative. Now, 
 gentlemen, I bet you one hundred dollar he 
 never be land-office money!" Hard sense, like 
 hard money, is always above par. 
 
 French. 
 
 This old Frenchman presents a fine figure 
 up against the dark background of most of his 
 nation. They made no progress. They clung 
 to their earliest and simplest implements. 
 They never wore hats or caps. They pulled 
 their blankets over their heads in the winter 
 like the Indians, with whom they freely inter- 
 married. 
 
 Politics. 
 
 Demagogism had an early development. 
 One John Grammar (only in name), elected 
 to the Territorial and State Legislatures from 
 
 388 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 i8i6 to 1836, invented the policy of opposing 
 every new thing, saying: ^Tf it succeeds, no 
 one will ask who voted against it. If it proves 
 a failure, he could quote his record." In 
 sharp contrast with Grammar was the char- 
 acter of D. P. Cook, after whom the county 
 containing Chicago was named. Such was his 
 transparent integrity and remarkable ability 
 that his will was almost the law of the State. 
 In Congress, a young man and from a poor 
 State, he was made chairman of the Ways and 
 Means Committee. He was pre-eminent for 
 standing by his convictions, regardless of con- 
 sequences. It was his integrity that elected 
 John Quincy Adams to the Presidency. There 
 were four candidates in 1824, Jackson, Clay, 
 Crawford, and John Quincy Adams. There 
 being no choice by the people, the election was 
 thrown into the House. It was so balanced 
 that it turned on his vote, and he cast that for 
 Adams, electing him ; then went home to face 
 the wrath of the Jackson party in Illinois. It 
 cost him all but character and greatness. It 
 is a suggestive comment on the times that there 
 was no legal interest till 1830. It often 
 reached one hundred and fifty per cent; 
 usually fifty per cent. Then it was reduced to 
 twelve, and now (1876) to ten per cent. 
 
 389 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The Canal. 
 
 One of the great elements in the early de- 
 velopment of Illinois is the Illinois and 
 Michigan Canal, connecting the Illinois and 
 Mississippi Rivers w^ith the lakes. It was of 
 the utmost importance to the State. It was 
 recommended by Governor Bond, the first 
 governor, in his first message. In 1821 the 
 Legislature appropriated $10,000 for survey- 
 ing the route. Two bright young engineers 
 surveyed it, and estimated the cost at $600,000 
 or $700,000. It finally cost $8,000,000. In 
 1825 ^ l^w was passed to incorporate the 
 Canal Company, but no stock was sold. In 
 1826, upon the solicitation of Cook, Congress 
 gave three hundred thousand acres of land 
 on the line of the work. In 1828 another law 
 — commissioners appointed, and work com- 
 menced, with new survey and new estimates. 
 In 1834-35 George Farquhar made an able 
 report on the whole matter. This was doubt- 
 less the ablest report ever made to a Western 
 Legislature, and it became the model for sub- 
 sequent reports and action. From this the 
 work went on till it was finished, in 1848. It 
 cost the State a large amount of money; but it 
 gave to the industries of the State an impetus 
 
 390 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 that pushed it up into the first rank of great- 
 ness. It was not built as a speculation any 
 more than a doctor is employed on a specula- 
 tion. But it has paid into the treasury of the 
 State an average annual net sum of over 
 
 $111,000. 
 
 Speculation. 
 
 Pending the construction of the canal, the 
 land and town-lot fever broke out in the State, 
 in 1834-35. It took on the malignant type in 
 Chicago, lifting the town up into a city. The 
 disease spread over the entire State and ad- 
 joining States. It was epidemic. It cut up 
 men's farms without regard to locality, and 
 cut up the purses of the purchasers without re- 
 gard to consequences. It is estimated that 
 building lots enough were sold in Illinois 
 alone to accommodate every citizen then in 
 the United States. 
 
 Towns and cities were exported to the 
 Eastern market by the ship-load. There was 
 no lack of buyers. Every up-ship came 
 freighted with speculators and their money. 
 
 Internal Improvement. 
 
 This distemper seized upon the Legisla- 
 ture in 1836-37, and left not one to tell the 
 
 391 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 tale. They enacted a system of internal im- 
 provement without a parallel in the grandeur 
 of its conception. They ordered the construc- 
 tion of thirteen hundred miles of railroad, 
 crossing the State in all directions. This was 
 surpassed by the river and canal improve- 
 ments. There were a few counties not touched 
 by either railroad or river or canal, and these 
 were to be comforted and compensated for 
 their misfortune by the free distribution of 
 $200,000 among them. To inflate this balloon 
 beyond credence, it was ordered that work 
 should be commenced on both ends of each 
 of these railroads and rivers, and at each river- 
 crossing, all at the same time. The appropria- 
 tions for these vast improvements were over 
 $12,000,000, and commissioners were ap- 
 pointed to borrow the money on the credit of 
 the State. Remember that all this was in the 
 early days of railroading, when railroads 
 were luxuries; that the State had w^hole 
 counties with scarcely a cabin; and that the 
 population of the State was less than four hun- 
 dred thousand, and you can form some idea 
 of the vigor with which these brave men un- 
 dertook the work of making a great State. In 
 the light of history I am compelled to say 
 that this was only a premature throb of the 
 
 392 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 power that actually slumbered in the soil of 
 the State. It was Hercules in the cradle. 
 
 At this juncture the State bank loaned its 
 funds largely to Godfrey Gilman & Co., and 
 to other leading houses, for the purpose of 
 drawing trade from St. Louis to Alton. Soon 
 they failed, and took down the bank with 
 them. 
 
 In 1840 all hope seemed gone. A popula- 
 tion of four hundred and eighty thousand were 
 loaded with a debt of $14,000,000. It had 
 only six small cities, really only towns; 
 namely, Chicago, Alton, Springfield, Quincy, 
 Galena, Nauvoo. This debt was to be cared 
 for when there was not a dollar in the treasury, 
 and when the State had borrowed itself out of 
 all credit, and when there was not good money 
 enough in the hands of all the people to pay 
 the interest of the debt for a single year. Yet, 
 in the presence of all these difficulties, the 
 young State steadily refused to repudiate. 
 Governor Ford took hold of the problem and 
 solved it, bringing the State through in 
 triumph. 
 
 Having touched lightly upon some of the 
 more distinctive points in the history of the 
 development of Illinois, let us next briefly con- 
 sider the 
 
 393 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Material Resources of the State. 
 
 It is a garden four hundred miles long and 
 one hundred and fifty miles wide. Its soil is 
 chiefly a black, sandy loam, from six inches 
 to sixty feet thick. On the American bottoms 
 it has been cultivated for one hundred and 
 fifty years, without renewal. About the old 
 French towns it has yielded corn for a century 
 and a half without rest or help. It produces 
 nearly everything grown in the temperate and 
 tropical zones. She leads all other States in 
 the number of acres actually under plow. 
 Her products from twenty-five millions of 
 acres are incalculable. Her mineral wealth is 
 scarcely second to her agricultural power. 
 She has coal, iron, lead, copper, zinc, many 
 varieties of building stone, fire-clay, china- 
 clay, common brick clay, sand of all kinds, 
 gravel, mineral paint — everything needed for 
 a high civilization. Left to herself, she has 
 the elements of all greatness. The single item 
 of coal is too vast for any appreciative han- 
 dling in figures. We can handle it in general 
 terms, like algebraical signs, but long before 
 we get up into the millions and billions the 
 human mind drops down from comprehension 
 to mere symbolic apprehension. 
 
 394 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Coal. 
 
 When I tell you that nearly four-fifths of 
 the entire State is underlaid with a deposit of 
 coal more than forty feet thick, on the average 
 (now estimated by recent surveys at seventy 
 feet thick), you can get some idea of its 
 amount, as you do of the amount of the na- 
 tional debt. There it is! Forty-one thousand 
 square miles — one vast mine into which you 
 could put any of the States; in which you 
 could bury scores of European and ancient 
 empires, and have room enough all round to 
 work without knowing that they had been se- 
 pulchered there. Put this vast coal-bed down 
 by the other great coal deposits of the w^orld, 
 and its importance becomes manifest. Great 
 Britain has twelve thousand square miles of 
 coal ; Spain, three thousand; France, one thou- 
 sand seven hundred and nineteen; Belgium, 
 five hundred and seventy-eight; Illinois, about 
 twice as many square miles as all combined. 
 Virginia has twenty thousand square miles; 
 Pennsylvania, sixteen thousand ; Ohio, twelve 
 thousand. Illinois has forty-one thousand 
 square miles. One-seventh of all the known 
 coal on this Continent is in Illinois. 
 
 Could we sell the coal in this single State 
 395 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 for one-seventh of one cent a ton, it would pay 
 the national debt, at this time $2,700,000,000. 
 Converted into power, even with the wastage 
 in our common engines, it would do more 
 work than could be done by the entire race, be- 
 ginning at Adam's wedding and working ten 
 hours a day through all the centuries till the 
 present time, and right on into the future at 
 the same rate for the next six hundred thou- 
 sand years. 
 
 Great Britain uses enough mechanical 
 power to-day to give each man, woman, and 
 child in the kingdom the help and service of 
 nineteen untiring servants. No wonder she 
 has leisure and luxuries. Think, if you 
 can conceive of it, of the vast army of 
 servants that slumber in the soil of Illinois, 
 impatiently awaiting the call of Genius to 
 come forth to minister to our comfort. 
 
 At the present rate of consumption Eng- 
 land's coal supply will be exhausted in two 
 hundred and fifty years. When this is gone 
 she must transfer her dominion either to the 
 Indies; or to British America, which I would 
 not resist; or to some other people, which I 
 would regret as a loss to civilization. Coal is 
 King. At the same rate of consumption 
 (which far exceeds our own) the deposit of 
 
 396 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 coal in Illinois will last one hundred and 
 twent}^ thousand years. And her kingdom 
 shall be an everlasting kingdom. 
 
 Annual Products. 
 
 Let us turn now from this reserve power 
 to the annual products of the State. We shall 
 not be humiliated in this field. Here we 
 strike the secret of our national credit. Na- 
 ture provides a market in the constant appe- 
 tite of the race. Men must eat, and if we can 
 furnish the provisions we can command the 
 treasure. All that a man hath will he give for 
 his life. 
 
 According to the last census Illinois pro- 
 duced thirty million bushels of wheat. That 
 is more wheat than was raised by any other 
 State in the Union. She raised, last year, 
 one hundred and thirty million bushels of 
 corn — twice as much as any other State, 
 and one-sixth of all the corn raised in 
 the United States. She harvested two million 
 seven hundred and forty-seven thousand tons 
 of hay, nearly one-tenth of all the hay in the 
 Republic. It is not generally appreciated, but 
 it is true, that the hay crop of the country is 
 worth more than the cotton crop. The hay of 
 Illinois equals the cotton of Louisiana. Go to 
 
 397 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Charleston, South Carolina, and see them 
 peddling handfuls of hay or grass, almost as a 
 curiosity, as we regard Chinese gods or the 
 cryolite of Greenland; drink your coffee and 
 condensed milk, and walk back from the coast 
 for many a league through the sand and burs 
 till you get up into the better atmosphere of 
 the mountains, without seeing a waving 
 meadow or a grazing herd; then you will be- 
 gin to appreciate the meadow^s of the Prairie 
 State, where the grass often grows sixteen feet 
 high. 
 
 The value of her farm implements is 
 $2 1 1 ,000,000, and the value of her live-stock is 
 only second to the great State of New York. 
 Last year she had twenty-five million hogs, 
 and packed two million one hundred and thir- 
 teen thousand eight hundred and forty-five, 
 about one-half of all that were packed in the 
 United States. This is no insignificant item. 
 Pork is a growing demand of the Old World. 
 Since the laborers of Europe have gotten a 
 taste of our bacon, and we have learned how to 
 pack it dry in boxes, like dry-goods, the world 
 has become the market. The hog is on the 
 march into the future. His nose is ordained to 
 uncover the secrets of dominion, and his feet 
 shall be guided by the star of empire. 
 
 398 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Illinois marketed $57,000,000 worth of 
 slaughtered animals — more than any other 
 State, and a seventh of all the States. 
 
 Be patient with me, and pardon my pride, 
 and I will give you a list of some of the things 
 in which Illinois excels all other States. 
 
 Depth and richness of soil; per cent of 
 good ground; acres of improved land; large 
 farms — some farms contain from forty thou^ 
 sand to sixty thousand acres of cultivated land, 
 forty thousand acres of corn on a single farm; 
 number of farmers; amount of wheat, corn, 
 oats, and honey produced; value of animals 
 for slaughter; number of hogs; amount of 
 pork; number of horses — three times as many 
 as Kentucky, the Horse State. 
 
 Illinois excels all other States in miles of 
 railroads, and in miles of postal service, and in 
 money orders sold per annum, and in the 
 amount of lumber sold in her markets. 
 
 Illinois is only second in many important 
 matters. This sample list comprises a few 
 of the more important: Permanent school fund 
 (good for a young State) ; total income for 
 educational purposes; number of publishers 
 of books, maps, papers, etc. ; value of farm 
 products and implements and of live-stock; in 
 tons of coal mined. 
 
 399 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The shipping of Illinois is only second to 
 New York. Out of one port during the busi- 
 ness hours of the season of navigation she sends 
 forth a vessel every ten minutes. This does 
 not include canal boats, which go one every 
 minute. • No wonder she is only second in 
 number of bankers and brokers, or in physi- 
 cians and surgeons. 
 
 She is third in colleges, teachers, and 
 schools; cattle, lead, hay, flax, sorghum, and 
 beeswax. 
 
 She is fourth in population, in children 
 enrolled in public schools, in law schools, in 
 butter, potatoes, and carriages. 
 
 She is fifth in value of real and personal 
 property, in theological seminaries and col- 
 leges exclusively for women ; in milk sold, and 
 in boots and shoes manufactured, and in book- 
 binding. 
 
 She is only seventh in the production of 
 wood, while she is the twelfth in area. Surely 
 that is well done for the Prairie State. She 
 now has much more wood and growing tim-. 
 her than she had thirty years ago. 
 
 A few leading industries will justify em- 
 phasis. She manufactures $205,000,000 worth 
 of goods, which places her well up toward 
 New York and Pennsylvania. The number 
 
 400 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 of her manufacturing establishments increased 
 from i860 to 1870 three hundred per cent; 
 capital employed increased three hundred and 
 fifty per cent, and the amount of product in- 
 creased four hundred per cent. She issued 
 five million five hundred thousand copies of 
 commercial and financial new^spapers — only 
 second to New York. She has six thousand 
 seven hundred and fifty-nine miles of railroad, 
 thus leading all other States, w^orth $636,- 
 458,000, using three thousand two hundred 
 and forty-five engines, and sixty-seven thou- 
 sand seven hundred and twelve cars, making a 
 train long enough to cover one-tenth of the 
 entire road. Her stations are only five miles 
 apart. She carried last year fifteen million 
 seven hundred and ninety-five thousand pas- 
 sengers, an average of thirty-six and a half 
 miles, or equal to taking her entire population 
 twice across the State. More than two-thirds 
 of her land is within five miles of a railroad, 
 and less than two per cent is more than fifteen 
 miles away. 
 
 Illinois Central Railroad. 
 
 The State has a large financial interest In 
 the Illinois Central Railroad. The road was 
 incorporated in 1850, and the State gave each 
 
 26 401 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 alternate section for six miles on each side and 
 doubled the price of the remaining land, so 
 keeping herself good. The road received two 
 million five hundred and ninety-five thousand 
 acres of land, and pays to the State one-seventh 
 of the gross receipts. The State receives this 
 year $350,000, and has received in all about 
 $7,000,000. It is practically the people's road, 
 and it has a most able and gentlemanly man- 
 agement. Add to this the annual receipts 
 from the canal, $1 1 1,000, and a large per cent 
 of the State tax is provided for. 
 
 Religion. 
 
 The religion and morals of the State keep 
 step with her productions and growth. She 
 was born of the missionary spirit. It was a 
 minister who secured for her the ordinance 
 of 1787, by which she has been saved from 
 slavery, ignorance, and dishonesty. Rev. Mr. 
 Wiley, pastor of a Scotch congregation in 
 Randolph County, petitioned the Constitu- 
 tional Convention of 181 8 to recognize Jesus 
 Christ as King, and the Scriptures as the only 
 necessary guide and book of law. The Con- 
 vention did not act in the case, and the old 
 Covenanters refused to accept citizenship. 
 They never voted till 1824, when the slavery 
 
 402 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 question was submitted to the people; then 
 they all voted against it and cast the deter- 
 mining votes. Conscience has predominated 
 whenever a great moral question has been sub- 
 mitted to the people. 
 
 But little mob violence has ever been felt 
 in the State. In 1817 Regulators disposed of 
 a band of horse-thieves that infested the Terri- 
 tory. The Mormon indignities finally awoke 
 the same spirit. Alton was also the scene of 
 a pro-slavery mob, in which Lovejoy was 
 added to the list of martyrs. The moral sense 
 of the people makes the law supreme, and 
 gives to the State unruffled peace. 
 
 With $22,300,000 in Church property and 
 four thousand two hundred and ninety-eight 
 Church organizations, the State has that di- 
 vine police, the sleepless patrol of moral ideas, 
 that alone is able to secure perfect safety. 
 Conscience takes the knife from the assassin's 
 hand and the bludgeon from the grasp of the 
 highwayman. We sleep in safety, not because 
 we are behind bolts and bars— these only 
 fence against the innocent; not because a 
 lone officer drowses on a distant corner of 
 the street; not because a sheriff may call 
 his posse from a remote part of the 
 county; but because Conscience guards the 
 
 403 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 very portals of the air, and stirs in the deepest 
 recesses of the public mind. This spirit 
 issues within the State nine million five 
 hundred thousand copies of religious papers 
 annually, and receives still more from with- 
 out. Thus the crime of the State is only one- 
 fourth that of New York and one-half that of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Illinois never had but one duel between 
 her own citizens. In Belleville, in 1820, Al- 
 phonso Stewart and William Bennett ar- 
 ranged to vindicate injured honor. The sec- 
 onds agreed to make it a sham and make them 
 shoot blanks. Stewart was in the secret. Ben- 
 nett mistrusted something and, unobserved, 
 slipped a bullet into his gun and killed Stew- 
 art. He then fled the State. After two years 
 he was caught, tried, convicted, and, in spite 
 of friends and political aid, was hanged. This 
 fixed the code of honor on a Christian basis 
 and terminated its use in Illinois. 
 
 The early preachers were ignorant men, 
 who were accounted eloquent according to 
 the strength of their voices. But they set the 
 style for all public speakers. Lawyers and po- 
 litical speakers followed this rule. Governor 
 Ford says: '^Nevertheless these first preachers 
 were of incalculable benefit to the country. 
 
 404 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 They inculcated justice and morality. To 
 them are we indebted for the first Christian 
 character of the Protestant portion of the 
 people." 
 
 Education. 
 
 In education Illinois surpasses her mate- 
 rial resources. The ordinance of 1787 conse- 
 crated one thirty-sixth of her soil to common 
 schools, and the law of 1818, the first law that 
 went upon her statutes, gave three per cent of 
 all the rest to education instead of highways. 
 The old compact secures this interest forever, 
 and by its yoking morality and intelligence it 
 precludes the legal interference with the Bible 
 in the public schools. With such a start it is 
 natural that we should have eleven thousand 
 and fifty public schools, and that our illiteracy 
 should be less than New York or Pennsyl- 
 vania, and only about one-half of Massachu- 
 setts. We are not to blame for not having 
 more than one-half as many idiots as the great 
 States. These public schools soon made col- 
 leges inevitable. The first college, still flour- 
 ishing, was started in Lebanon, 1828, by the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church and named after 
 Bishop McKendree. Illinois College, at Jack- 
 sonville, supported by the Presbyterians, fol- 
 
 405 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 lowed in 1830. In 1832 the Baptists built 
 Shurtleff College, at Alton. Then the Presby- 
 terians built Knox College, at Galesburg, in 
 1838, and the Episcopalians built Jubilee Col- 
 lege, at Peoria, in 1847. The State now 
 has one ver}^ well endowed and equipped 
 university; namely, the Northwestern Uni- 
 versity, at Evanston, with six colleges, ninety 
 instructors, over one thousand students, and 
 $1,500,000 endowment — a good start. 
 
 Rev. J. M. Peck was the first educated 
 Protestant minister in the State. He settled at 
 Rock Spring, in St. Clair County, 1820, and 
 left his impress on the State. Before 1837 ^^^Y 
 party papers were published, but Mr. Peck 
 published a Gazetteer of Illinois. Soon after 
 John Russell, of Bluffdale, published essays 
 and tales showing genius. Judge James Hall 
 published the Illinois Monthly Magazine 
 with great ability, and an annual called The 
 Western Souvenir, which gave him an en- 
 viable fame all over the United States. From 
 these beginnings Illinois has gone on till she 
 has more volumes in public libraries even than 
 Massachusetts, and of the forty-four million 
 five hundred thousand volumes in all the pub- 
 lic libraries of the United States she has one- 
 thirteenth. In newspapers she stands fourth. 
 
 406 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Her increase is marvelous. In 1850 she issued 
 five million copies; in i860, twenty-seven mil- 
 lion five hundred thousand; in 1870, one hun- 
 dred and thirteen million one hundred and 
 forty thousand. In i860 she had eighteen 
 colleges and seminaries; in 1870 she had 
 eighty. That is a grand advance for the war 
 decade. 
 
 War. 
 
 This brings us to a record unsurpassed in 
 the history of any age, THE WAR RECORD OF 
 Illinois. 
 
 I hardly know where to begin, or how to 
 advance, or what to say. I can at best give 
 you only a broken synopsis of her deeds, and 
 you must put them in the order of glory for 
 yourself. Her sons have always been fore- 
 most on fields of danger. In 1832-33, at the 
 call of Governor Reynolds, her sons drove 
 Black Hawk over the Mississippi. One call 
 was enough. When the Mexican War came, 
 in May, 1846, eight thousand three hundred 
 and seventy men offered themselves, when only 
 three thousand seven hundred and twenty 
 could be accepted. The fields of Buena Vista 
 and Vera Cruz, and the storming of Cerro 
 Gordo, will carry the glory of Illinois soldiers 
 
 407 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 long after the infamy of the cause they served 
 has been forgotten. But it was reserved till our 
 day for her sons to find a field and cause and 
 foeman that could fitly illustrate their spirit 
 and heroism. Illinois put into her own regi- 
 ments for the United States Government two 
 hundred and fifty-six thousand men, and into 
 the army through other States enough to swell 
 the number to two hundred and ninety thou- 
 sand. This far exceeds all the soldiers of the 
 Federal Government in all the war of the 
 Revolution. Her total years of service were 
 over six hundred thousand. She enrolled men 
 from eighteen to forty-five years of age, when 
 the law of Congress in 1864 — the test time — 
 only asked for those from twenty to forty-five. 
 Her enrollment was otherwise excessive. Her 
 people wanted to go and did not take the pains 
 to correct the enrollment. Thus the basis of 
 fixing the quota was too great, and then the 
 quota itself, at least in the trying time, was far 
 above any other State. 
 
 Thus the demands on some counties, as 
 Monroe, for example, took every able-bodied 
 man in the county and then did not have 
 enough to fill the quota. Moreover, Illinois 
 sent twenty thousand eight hundred and forty- 
 four men for ninety or one hundred days, for 
 
 408 
 
thp: greatness of Illinois 
 
 whom no credit was asked. When Mr. Lin- 
 coln's attention was called to the inequality of 
 the quota compared with other States, he re- 
 plied: "The country needs the sacrifice. We 
 must put the whip on the free horse." In spite 
 of all these disadvantages Illinois gave to the 
 country seventy-three thousand years of serv- 
 ive above all calls. With one-thirteenth of the 
 population of the loyal States, she sent regu- 
 larly one-tenth of all the soldiers, and in the 
 peril of the closing calls, when patriots were 
 few and weary, she then sent one-eighth of all 
 that were called for by her loved and honored 
 son in the White House. Her mothers and 
 daughters went into the fields to raise the 
 grain and keep the children together, while 
 the fathers and older sons wxnt to the harvest 
 fields of the world. I knew a father and four 
 sons who agreed that one of them must stay 
 at home; and they pulled straws from a stack 
 to see who might go. The father was left. 
 The next day he came into camp, saying: 
 "Mother says she can get the crops in, and I 
 am going too." I know large Methodist 
 Churches from which every male member 
 went to the army. Do you want to know what 
 these heroes from Illinois did in the field? 
 Ask any soldier with a good record of his 
 
 409 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 own, who is thus able to judge, and he will tell 
 you that the Illinois men went in to win. It 
 is common history that the great victories were 
 won in the West. When everything else 
 looked dark Illinois was gaining victories all 
 down the river, and dividing the Confederacy. 
 Sherman took with him on his great march 
 forty-five regiments of Illinois infantry, three 
 companies of artillery, and one company of 
 cavalry. He could not avoid going to the sea. 
 If he had been killed, I doubt not the men 
 would have gone right on. There was hardly 
 an Illinois regiment in the field that did not 
 have brains enough to set up and run any 
 government on earth. Lincoln answered all 
 rumors of Sherman's defeat with, 'Tt is im- 
 possible ; there is a mighty sight of fight in 
 one hundred thousand Western men." Illi- 
 nois soldiers brought home three hundred bat- 
 tle flags. The first United States flag that 
 floated over Richmond was an Illinois flag. 
 Illinois tested her courage in the supreme 
 trial. She gave eight hundred and seventy- 
 five victims to the fiends at Andersonville. 
 Let us cover our faces as the shadowy skeletons 
 of these silent and uncomplaining heroes — our 
 mothers' sons — pass by to join the company of 
 the glorious dead. The sight is not a means 
 
 410 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 of grace. God grant that just retribution may 
 be averted from the chivalry, w^ho might have 
 prevented this most cowardly and most beastly 
 brutality of all history! 
 
 It is a relief to turn from this scene to an- 
 other, in which the great State of Illinois is 
 sending messengers to every field and hospital, 
 to care for her sick and wounded sons. She 
 said : "These suffering ones are my sons, and 
 I will care for them." 
 
 When individuals had given all, then cities 
 and towns came forward with their credit to 
 the extent of many millions, to aid these men 
 and their families. 
 
 Heroes. 
 
 Nothing can be said or done in honor of 
 Illinois soldiers better than to repeat the story 
 of their deeds. 
 
 I see the women of America, in the per- 
 son of the mother. This is she who was 
 in the heat of battle every hour; who never 
 knew wiiat each caller had come to break to 
 her; w^ho seldom slept on a dry pillow when 
 the babe she had nursed might have none for 
 his dying head; who, with a heroism never 
 needed by the soldier in action, dressed her 
 boy with reference to having his body robbed 
 
 411 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 after the battle, and who said, like the Spartan 
 mother handing her son his shield: "With it, 
 or upon it." When the awards are made for 
 actual service, this one shall not lack monu- 
 ment or crown or throne. 
 
 I do not lose sight of another character, 
 upon whom rested the care and burden of re- 
 sponsibility; who shared the trench with the 
 soldier, and fared on the same half biscuit; 
 who was watching and planning while the sol- 
 dier slept. I do not lose sight of the officer, 
 who deserved all the honor he received. Illi- 
 nois furnished her full share of these burden- 
 bearers. See what a list of heroes; one gen- 
 eral — all the country needed — seven major- 
 generals, eighteen brevet major-generals, 
 forty-five brigadier-generals, and one hundred 
 and twenty brevet-brigadier-generals. See 
 what names they bear to posterity. Two 
 Titans to-day in the Senate; J. A. Logan, who 
 faced twenty thousand majority in his own dis- 
 trict in Egypt, and carried it all over to the 
 loyal cause ; who moved on the field of battle 
 like a thunderbolt; whose voice rings in the 
 Senate with no uncertain sound, who sees the 
 core of things, and calls them by their right 
 names; who first comprehended the situation 
 when restored rebels had seized upon the gov- 
 
 412 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 ernment; who adds to the courage of the sol- 
 dier and the wisdom of the statesman the loy- 
 alty of a patriot and the faith of a Christian. 
 By him stands stout Senator Oglesby, 
 whose victories and wounds do him perpetual 
 honor. Here, too, is the present Governor of 
 Illinois, J. L. Beveridge, who, in the storm of 
 battle, was wont to say as he rode up and down 
 in the thickest of the fight: ''There is a God 
 in Israel," — a man whom the State is glad to 
 honor. May I pause to name such men as 
 Rawlins, who organized the armies and se- 
 cured victory in advance? Governor Palmer, 
 General White, General Wallace, General 
 McArthur, Colonel Mulligan, and William 
 Pitt Kellogg? Party spirit will die, and the 
 future will vindicate this man. Surely this 
 list could be continued with satisfaction, but — 
 I desist. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 I am now brought to another name that 
 needs no mention here. I wish to speak with 
 due deliberation, and for the hour lift myself 
 out of the smoke and heat of party politics, 
 up into the pure air and clarified visions of im- 
 partial history. Studying the theme from 
 that standpoint which respects only achieve- 
 
 413 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ments and weighs only results, I stand in the 
 presence of the one supreme military com- 
 mander of this century, the one supreme field 
 marshal of all time, ULYSSES S. GRANT, the 
 tanner of Illinois. History will not forget 
 that this man fought more than a score of 
 ereat battles, and won more than a score of 
 great victories, before he went to the East to 
 turn the tide there in favor of the Union; that 
 he never turned his back on the foe; that he 
 only, of all our commanders, never lost a bat- 
 tle; that he gained nearly all the great vic- 
 tories that were gained; that he made his way 
 to the supreme command with no aid but his 
 sword, and held it to the end without a blunder 
 or a defeat. 
 
 On these facts impartial history will do 
 what we all did when our brothers and sons 
 were with him in the field — give him the 
 first place of honor and confidence. This is 
 no place for party discussion, and I shall not 
 trespass on the proprieties of this hour. This 
 I will say, that, when the annoyances of the 
 day are passed, and posterity studies our sor- 
 rows, the great outlines of his administration 
 will not dim his military glory; and his Treaty 
 of Washington will be held by the confed- 
 erated republics of all lands, gathered in the 
 
 414 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 coming future, as the first great achievement 
 that made their peaceful relations possible — 
 as we now hold the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Nothing is more useless in the work of 
 life than a hiltless sword. It is all edge 
 and metal, with no way to utilize^ its 
 power. All you can do with it is to hang it 
 up in your Memorial Hall, to await the wor- 
 ship of your grandsons. So it is with ex-Presi- 
 dents. Full of edge and metal, they lack use. 
 Place them, then, in the Halls of History, and 
 a grateful posterity, inheriting liberties so 
 bravely defended, will venerate each scar and 
 niche and rust spot from foeman's blood. Illi- 
 nois turns from the past to the future, confi- 
 dently awaiting that supreme judgment that 
 must place upon the brow of her great Cap- 
 tain the chaplet to which none other has yet 
 attained. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 One other name from Illinois comes up in 
 all minds, embalmed in all hearts, that must 
 have the supreme place in this story of our 
 glory and of our nation's honor; that name is 
 Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. Neither you 
 nor that great Commonwealth beyond the 
 
 415 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 mountains that has sent me here would pardon 
 me for not giving both time and space to this 
 grandest character of American history. 
 
 The analysis of Mr. Lincoln's character is 
 difficult on account of its symmetry. Its com- 
 prehension is to us impossible on account of 
 its immensity, for a man can be comprehended 
 only by his peers. Though we may not get its 
 altitude, nor measure its girth, nor fathom its 
 depths, nor estimate its richness, we may 
 stretch our little selves up against it, and get 
 somewhat of the impress of its purity, the in- 
 spiration of its heroism, and the impulse of 
 its power. 
 
 In this age we look with admiration at his 
 uncompromising honesty. And well we may, 
 for this saved us. Thousands throughout the 
 length and breadth of the country who knew 
 him only as ^'Honest Old Abe," voted for him 
 on that account; and wisely did they choose, 
 for no other man could have carried us 
 through the fearful night of the war. When 
 his plans were too vast for our comprehension, 
 and his faith in the cause too sublime for our 
 participation; when it was all night about us, 
 and all dread before us, and all sad and deso- 
 late behind us; when not one ray shone upon 
 our cause ; when traitors were haughty and ex- 
 
 416 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 ultant at the South, and fierce and blasphe- 
 mous at the North ; when the loyal men here 
 seemed almost in the minority; when the stout- 
 est hearts quailed, the bravest cheeks paled; 
 when generals were defeating each other for 
 place, and contractors were leeching out the 
 very heart's blood of the prostrate Republic; 
 when everything else had failed us, we looked 
 at this calm, patient man standing like a rock 
 in the storm, and said : "Mr. Lincoln is honest, 
 and we can trust him still. He will bring us 
 through." Holding to this single point w^ith 
 the energy of faith and despair, we held to- 
 gether, and, under God, he brought us through 
 to victory. 
 
 He was the representative character of 
 this age. He incarnated the ideal Republic. 
 No other man ever so fully embodied the pur- 
 poses, the affections, and the power of the peo- 
 ple. He came up among us. He was one of 
 us. His birth, his education, his habits, his 
 motives, his feelings, and his ambitions, were 
 all our own. Had he been born among hered- 
 itary aristocrats he would not have been our 
 President. But born in the cabin, and reared 
 in the field and in the forest, he became the 
 Great Commoner. The classics of the 
 schools might have separated him from us. 
 
 27 417 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 But trained in the common school of adversity, 
 his calloused palms never slipped from the 
 poor man's hand. A child of the people, he 
 w^as as accessible in the White House as he 
 had been in the cabin. 
 
 His practical w^isdom made him the won- 
 der of all lands. With such certainty did Mr. 
 Lincoln follow causes to their ultimate effects, 
 that his foresight of contingencies seemed al- 
 most prophetic. While we in turn were call- 
 ing him weak and stubborn and blind, Europe 
 was amazed at his statesmanship, and awed 
 into silence by the grandeur of his plans. 
 He held us by his greatness, inspired us by 
 his gentleness, and brought us ofif more than 
 victors. 
 
 I turn to the past; I see behind me a 
 noble company. ' There is Napoleon, the 
 man of destiny. Armies move at his bid 
 as if they were the muscles of his body; 
 kings rise and fall at his nod; but he 
 lived for himself. His entire life was a fail- 
 ure. He did not accomplish one of his great 
 purposes. I see a Wellington; great as a 
 military chieftain, competent to command 
 armies against a foreign and hereditary foe. 
 I see Marlborough; but on every stone of his 
 
 418 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 monument and in every part of his history I 
 see the frauds by which he enriched himself 
 from the plunder of his country. There is 
 Cromwell — a fine old man, England's noblest 
 son; but his arena was small, the work he un- 
 dertook limited, the work he accomplished 
 ephemeral. The revolution from the heredi- 
 tary kingdom of the Stuarts to the hereditary 
 dictatorship of the Cromwells was not so great 
 as the change from executing the Fugitive 
 Slave Law in Boston to the Constitutional 
 Emancipation of the slave in Maryland. Yet 
 upon his death the government reverted to the 
 Stuarts. But upon the death of Abraham 
 Lincoln Freedom rears a monument, and for 
 new conquests marches boldly into the future. 
 I do see a Caesar yonder; but his power is the 
 purchase of fraud and crime, and falls about 
 his grave like withered weeds. And away 
 down yonder in the dark vortex of history, 
 looking out upon the centuries, is old Pericles. 
 But the thirty thousand citizens of Athens are 
 lost in some inland town of America, with her 
 thirty millions of citizens. There are many 
 noble heroes who illumine the darkness be- 
 hind us with the radiance of some single vir- 
 tue; but among them all I see only one. He 
 
 419 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 is radiant with all the great virtues, and his 
 memory shall shed a glory upon this age that 
 shall fill the eyes of men as they look into 
 history. 
 
 As we to-day think that Athens is Greece, 
 because it was the home of Socrates and of 
 Pericles, so in the future men shall think that 
 Illinois is America, because it is the home of 
 Lincoln and Grant. 
 
 Learned Professions. 
 
 Faulty, indeed, would be the view of Illi- 
 nois that omitted suitable reference to her 
 learned professions, though no more than a 
 reference can be made. The work of her 
 Ministry is seen in the high moral tone of the 
 people. By their fruits ye shall know them. 
 From Pere Marquette to her living pulpit 
 orators, her ministry have always been an es- 
 sential element in any estimate of her forces. 
 
 The Bar of Illinois has been an honorable 
 Bar from the beginning. Few States have 
 equaled it. In many noble respects none have 
 surpassed it. 
 
 It is enough to call their names. They are 
 watchwords of ability and honor. There was 
 D. P. Cook, molding the infant State; also 
 
 420 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Reynolds and Mills. There is Stephen T. 
 Logan, perhaps the best lawyer ever in the 
 State. There is Lincoln and Douglas, and 
 Trumbull and Drummond, synonyms for legal 
 ability. There stand Judges Davis, and Grant 
 Goodrich, and Skates, and Caton, and Law- 
 rence. There 1 see Storrs, and Dexter, and 
 Larned, and Swett, and a goodly company 
 that would honor any bar and any age. 
 
 Nor does the State suffer when we turn 
 toward the iNIedical Profession. Need I men- 
 tion Daniel Brainard, the surgeon whose knife 
 played like a thing of life? Or N. S. Davis, 
 of the Chicago Medical College, creator of 
 the American Medical Association, author of 
 the long and graded courses for medical stu- 
 dents? There is Rutter and Herrick and 
 Thompson of Albion, father of the State Med- 
 ical Society. There, too, is Blaney, the chem- 
 ist, whose very glance seemed to analyze what- 
 ever it fell upon. There, too, I see Byford, 
 and Andrews, and Johnson, and Freer, and 
 Allen, and Gunn, and Ingals, and Ross. Even 
 haste w^ould not justify the omission of Rouse, 
 of Peoria, or Hamilton, of Jerseyville, or Mc- 
 Farland, of Jacksonville Asylum. Here too, 
 I see Jewel, with his nerves, and Cook of 
 Mendota, and Haller of Vandalia. Ludlum, 
 
 421 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and Small, and Shipman, all these are house- 
 hold words. In the great professions Illinois 
 has a crown of unfading glory. 
 
 Inventions. 
 
 Time will not allow me to enumerate her 
 great inventions and inventors, her McCor- 
 mick's reapers and Marsh harvesters, her self- 
 binders and riding-plows, and seed drills and 
 steam wagons, her postal service and fast 
 trains, the creations of her sons. 
 
 Young in years, limited in experience, and 
 raw in culture, Illinois is still exuberant in 
 energy, vigorous in intellect, and aggressive in 
 plans, so that she can afiford to be prodigal of 
 force and of the individual for the sake of 
 glorious achievement. This she has been from 
 the beginning, and to-day she rejoices in the 
 success of her young life. She is a queen, and 
 no widow. The products of her soil, the cre- 
 ations of her industry, and the children of her 
 brain, are the admiration of all lands. She 
 sits in the circle of the States, with the moon 
 under her feet, with the sun in her crown, 
 clothed in the beauty of the morning, patiently 
 watching the flight of the years, knowing that 
 dominion is only a question of time. 
 
 422 
 
the greatness of illinois 
 
 Chicago. 
 
 We may not close this outline of the great 
 State without turning your attention to the 
 great city at the head of the lakes. The sub- 
 ject itself is too vast for the brief moments 
 that remain to this speech. 
 
 Spur your horse for a half-day up the 
 base of ''The Cap of Liberty," in the Yo- 
 semite Valley; stop at noon, worn and weary, 
 on the borders where vegetation ceases; 
 stretch your arms up toward the bold, far- 
 away summit, and then you will feel the im- 
 possibility of compassing that bold old peak 
 in one thought. In like manner set your 
 thought upon the subject before us — this mys- 
 terious, majestic, mighty city, born first of 
 water, and next of fire; sown in weakness, and 
 raised in power; planted among the willows 
 of the marsh, and crowned with the glory of 
 the mountains ; sleeping on the bosom of the 
 prairie, and rocked on the bosom of the sea; 
 the youngest city of the world, and still the eye 
 of the prairie, as Damascus, the oldest city of 
 the world, is the eye of the desert. With a 
 commerce far exceeding that of Corinth on 
 her isthmus, in the highway to the East; with 
 the defenses of a Continent piled around her 
 
 423 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 by the thousand miles, making her far safer 
 than Rome on the banks of the Tiber; with 
 schools eclipsing Alexandria and Athens ; with 
 liberties more conspicuous than those of the 
 old Republics; with a heroism equal to the 
 first Carthage, and with a sanctity scarcely 
 second to that of Jerusalem — set your thoughts 
 on all this, lifted into the eyes of all men by 
 the miracle of its growth, illuminated by the 
 flame of its fall, and transfigured by the di- 
 vinity of its resurrection, and you will feel 
 as I do the utter impossibility of compassing 
 this subject as it deserves. Some impression 
 of her importance is received from the shock 
 her burning gave to the civilized world. 
 
 When the doubt of her calamity was re- 
 moved, and the horrid fact was accepted, there 
 went a shudder over all cities, and a quiver 
 over all lands. There was scarcely a town in 
 the civilized world that did not shake on the 
 brink of this opening chasm. The flames of 
 our homes reddened all skies. The city was 
 set upon a hill, and could not be hid. All 
 eyes were turned upon it. To have struggled 
 and suffered amid the scenes of its fall is as 
 distinguishing as to have fought at Ther- 
 mopylae, or Salamis, or Hastings, or Water- 
 loo, or Bunker Hill. 
 
 424 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Its calamity amazed the world, because it 
 was felt to be the common property of man- 
 kind. 
 
 The early history of the city is full of in- 
 terest, just as the early history of such a man 
 as Washington or Lincoln becomes public 
 property, and is cherished by every patriot. 
 
 Starting with five hundred and sixty acres 
 in 1833, it embraced and occupied twenty- 
 three thousand acres in 1869, ^^^> having now 
 a population of more than five hundred thou- 
 sand, it commands general attention. 
 
 Colbert, of the Chicago Tribune, so highly 
 honored by, and so honoring, our daily press — 
 that strange compound of music and mathe- 
 matics, of the sciences of the books and the 
 items of a daily newspaper — develops the fact 
 that the first white man that ever settled in 
 Chicago was a Negro. He opened trade with 
 the Indians in 1796, and consecrated this soil 
 to the Fifteenth Amendment. But more than 
 a hundred years before that, in 1673, Father 
 Marquette spent some months here, on his way 
 from the North to the Mississippi, and, labor- 
 ing as a missionary among the Indians, conse- 
 crated this soil to Christianity. Old Fort 
 Dearborn, with its wall of piles, sharpened at 
 the top, and its concealed dugway to the river, 
 
 425 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and its officers' mansion of logs, was planted 
 in 1812. The first house was built by H. J. 
 Kinzie in 181 5. A mere trading-post was 
 kept here from that time till about the time of 
 the Black-Hawk war, in 1832. It was not the 
 city. It was merely a cock crowing at mid- 
 night. The morning was not yet. In 1833 the 
 settlement about the Fort was incorporated as 
 a town. The voters were divided on the pro- 
 priety of such incorporation, twelve voting for 
 it and one against it. Four years later it was 
 incorporated as a city, and embraced five hun- 
 dred and sixty acres. 
 
 Produce. 
 
 The produce handled in this city is an in- 
 dication of its power. Grain and flour were 
 imported from the East till as late as 1837. 
 The first exportation by way of experiment 
 was in 1839. Exports exceeded imports first 
 in 1842. The Board of Trade was organized 
 in 1848, but it was so weak that it needed nurs- 
 ing till 1855. Grain was purchased by the 
 wagon-load in the street. 
 
 I remember sitting with my father on a 
 load of wheat, in the long line of wagons 
 along Lake Street, while the buyers came and 
 untied the bags, and examined the grain, and 
 
 426 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 made their bids. That manner of business had 
 to cease with the day of small things. Now 
 our elevators will hold fifteen million bushels 
 of grain. The cash value of the produce han- 
 dled in a year is $215,000,000, and the pro- 
 duce weighs seven million tons or seven hun- 
 dred thousand car-loads. This handles thir- 
 teen and a half tons each minute, all the year 
 round. One-tenth of all the wheat in the 
 United States is handled in Chicago. Even as 
 long ago as 1853 the receipts of grain in Chi- 
 cago exceeded those of the goodly city of 
 St. Louis, and in 1854 the exports of grain 
 from Chicago exceeded those of New York 
 and doubled those of St. Petersburg, Arch- 
 angel, or Odessa, the largest grain markets 
 over the seas. 
 
 Manufactures. 
 
 The manufacturing interests of the city are 
 not contemptible. In 1873 manufactories em- 
 ployed forty-five thousand operatives; in 1876 
 sixty thousand. The manufactured product 
 in 1875 ^v^s worth $177,000,000. 
 
 Railroads. 
 
 No estimate of the size and power of Chi- 
 cago would be adequate that did not put large 
 
 427 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 emphasis on the railroads. Before they came 
 thundering along our streets, canals were the 
 hope of our country. But whoever thinks now 
 of traveling by canal packets? In June, 1852, 
 there were only forty miles of railroad con- 
 nected with the city. The old Galena divi- 
 sion of the Northwestern ran out to Elgin. 
 But now, who can count the trains and meas- 
 ure the roads that seek a terminus or connec- 
 tion in this city? The lake stretches away to 
 the north, gathering into this center all the 
 harvests that might otherwise pass to the 
 north of us. 
 
 If you will take a map and look at the ad- 
 justment of railroads, you will see, first, that 
 Chicago is the great railroad city of the world, 
 as New York is the commercial city of this 
 Continent; and, second, that the railroad lines 
 form the iron spokes of a great wheel whose 
 hub is this city. The lake furnishes the only 
 break in the spokes, and this seems simply 
 to have pushed a few spokes together on each 
 shore. See the eighteen trunk lines, exclusive 
 of Eastern connections. Pass round the circle, 
 and view their numbers and extent: There is 
 the great Northwestern, with all its branches, 
 one branch creeping along the Lake shore, 
 and so reaching to the north, into the Lake 
 
 428 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Superior regions, away to the right, and on 
 to the Northern Pacific on the left, swinging 
 around Green Bay for iron, and copper, and 
 silver, twelve months in the year, and reach- 
 ing out for the wealth of the great agricultural 
 belt in isothermal line traversed by the North- 
 ern Pacific. 
 
 Another branch, not so far north, feeling 
 for the heart of the Badger State. Another 
 pushing lower down the Mississippi — all 
 these making many connections, and tapping 
 all the vast wheat regions of Minnesota, Wis- 
 consin, Iowa, and all the regions this side of 
 sunset. There is that elegant road, the Chi- 
 cago, Burlington and Quincy, running out a 
 goodly number of branches, and reaping the 
 great fields this side of the Missouri River. 
 I can only mention the Chicago, Alton and 
 St. Louis, our Illinois Central, described else- 
 where, and the Chicago and Rock Island. 
 
 Further around we come to the lines con- 
 necting us with all the Eastern cities. The 
 Chicago and Indianapolis, and St. Louis, the 
 Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago, the 
 Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and the 
 Michigan Central and Great Western, give us 
 many highways to the sea-board. Thus we 
 reach the Mississippi at five points from St. 
 
 429 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Paul to Cairo, and the gulf itself by two 
 routes. We also reach Cincinnati and Balti- 
 more, and Pittsburg and Philadelphia and 
 New York. 
 
 North and'south run the water courses of 
 the lakes and the rivers, broken just enough 
 at this point to make a pass. Through this, 
 from east to west, run the long lines that 
 stretch from ocean to ocean. This is the neck 
 of the glass, and the golden sands of commerce 
 must pass into our hand. Altogether we have 
 more than ten thousand miles of railroad di- 
 rectly tributary to this city, seeking to unload 
 their w^ealth in our coffers. All these roads 
 have come themselves by the infallible in- 
 stincts of capital. Not a dollar was ever given 
 by the city to secure one of them, and only a 
 small per cent of stock taken originally by her 
 citizens, and that taken simply as an invest- 
 ment. Coming in the natural order of events, 
 they will not be easily diverted. 
 
 There is still another showing to all this. 
 The connection between New York and San 
 Francisco is by the middle route. This passes 
 inevitably through Chicago; St. Louis wants 
 the Southern Pacific or Kansas Pacific, and 
 pushes it out through Denver, and so on up to 
 Cheyenne. But before the road is fairly under 
 
 430 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 way, the Chicago roads shove out to Kansas 
 City, making even the Kansas Pacific a feeder. 
 It is not too much to expect that Dakota, Mon- 
 tana, and Washington Territory w^ill find their 
 great market in Chicago. 
 
 But these are not all. Perhaps 1 had bet- 
 ter notice here the ten or fifteen new roads 
 that have just entered, or are just entering, 
 our city. Their names are all that is necessary 
 to give. Chicago and St. Paul, looking up the 
 Red River country to the British possessions; 
 the Chicago, Atlantic and Pacific; the Chi- 
 cago, Decatur and State Line; the Baltimore 
 and Ohio; the Chicago, Danville and Vin- 
 cennes; the Chicago and La Salle Railroad; 
 the Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati ; the 
 Chicago and Canada Southern; the Chicago 
 and Illinois River Railroad. These, with 
 their connections, and with the new connec- 
 tions of the old roads already in process of 
 erection, give to Chicago not less than ten 
 thousand miles of new tributaries from the 
 richest land on the Continent. Thus there will 
 be added to the reserve power, to the capital 
 within the reach of this city, not less than 
 $ 1 ,000,000,000. 
 
 Add to all this transporting power the 
 ships, that sail one every nine minutes of the 
 
 431 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 business hours of the season of navigation; 
 add, also, the canal boats, that leave one every 
 minute during the same time — and you will 
 see something of the business of the city. 
 
 The commerce of this city has been leap- 
 ing along to keep pace with the growth of the 
 country around us. In 1852 our commerce 
 reached the hopeful sum of $20,000,000. In 
 1870 it reached $400,000,000. In 1871 it was 
 pushing up above $450,000,000. And in 1875 
 it touched nearly double that. 
 
 One-half of our imported goods come di- 
 rectly to Chicago. Grain enough is exported 
 directly from our docks to the Old World to 
 employ a semi-weekly line of steamers of three 
 thousand tons capacity. This branch is not 
 likely to be greatly developed. Even after 
 the great Welland Canal is completed, we 
 shall have only fourteen feet of water. The 
 great ocean vessels will continue to control the 
 trade. 
 
 The banking capital of Chicago is $24,- 
 431,000. Total exchange in 1875, $659,000,- 
 000. Her wholesale business in 1875 ^^^^ 
 $294,000,000. The rate of taxes is less than in 
 any other great city. 
 
 The schools of Chicago are unsurpassed in 
 America. Out of a population of three hun- 
 
 432 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 dred thousand there were only one hundred 
 and eighty-six persons between the ages of six 
 and twenty-one unable to read. This is the 
 best known record. 
 
 In 1 83 1 the mail system was condensed 
 into a half-breed, who went on foot to Niles, 
 Michigan, once in two weeks, and brought 
 back what papers and news he could find. As 
 late as 1848 there was often only one mail 
 a week. A post-office was established in Chi- 
 cago in 1833, and the postmaster nailed up old 
 boot-legs on one side of his shop to serve as 
 boxes for the nabobs and literary men. 
 
 It is an interesting fact in the growth of 
 the young city that in the active life of the 
 business men of that day the mail matter has 
 grown to a daily average of over six thousand 
 five hundred pounds. It speaks equally well 
 for the intelligence of the people and the com- 
 mercial importance of the place that the mail 
 matter distributed to the territory immedi- 
 ately tributary to Chicago is seven times 
 greater than that distributed to the territory 
 immediately tributary to St. Louis. 
 
 Improvements. 
 
 The improvements that have characterized 
 the city are as startling as the city itself. 
 28 433 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 In 183 1 Mark Beaublen established a ferry 
 over the river, and put himself under bonds 
 to carry all the citizens free for the privilege 
 of charging strangers. Now there are twenty- 
 four large bridges and two tunnels, all free. 
 
 In 1833 the government expended $30,000 
 on the harbor. Then commenced that series 
 of maneuvers with the river that has made it 
 one of the world's curiosities. It used to wind 
 around in the lower end of the town, and make 
 its way rippling over the sand into the lake at 
 the foot of Madison Street. They took it up 
 and put it down where it now is. It was a 
 narrow stream, so narrow that even moder- 
 ately small crafts had to go up through the 
 willows and cat's tails to the point near Lake 
 Street Bridge, and back up one of the 
 branches, to get room enough in which to turn 
 round. 
 
 In 1844 the quagmires in the streets were 
 first pontooned by plank roads, which acted 
 in wet weather as public squirt-guns. Keep- 
 ing you out of the mud, they compromised by 
 squirting the mud over you. The wooden 
 block pavements came to Chicago in 1857. In 
 1840 water was delivered by peddlers in carts 
 or by hand. Then a twenty-five horse-power 
 engine pushed it through hollow or bored 
 
 434 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 logs along the streets till 1854, when it was in- 
 troduced into the houses by new works. The 
 first fire-engine was used in 1835, and the first 
 steam fire-engine in 1859. Gas was utilized 
 for lighting the city in 1850. The Young 
 Men's Christian Association was organized in 
 1858, and horse railroads carried them to their 
 work in 1859. The museum was opened in 
 1863. The alarm telegraph adopted in 1864. 
 The Opera House built in 1865. The city 
 grew from five hundred and sixty acres in 
 1833, to twenty-three thousand in 1869. In 
 
 1834 the taxes amounted to $48.90, and the 
 trustees of the tow^n borrowed sixty dollars 
 more for opening and improving streets. In 
 
 1835 the L.egislature authorized a loan of 
 $2,000, and the Treasurer and Street Commis- 
 sioners resigned rather than plunge the town 
 into such a gulf. 
 
 Now the city embraces thirty-six square 
 miles of territory, and has thirty miles of 
 water front, besides the outside Harbor of 
 Refuge, of four hundred acres, enclosed by a 
 crib sea-wall. One-third of the city has been 
 raised up an average of eight feet, giving good 
 pitch to the two hundred and sixty-three miles 
 of sewerage. The water of the city is above 
 all competition. It is received through two 
 
 435 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 tunnels extending to a crib in the lake two 
 miles from shore. The closest analysis fails 
 to detect any impurities, and, received thirty- 
 five feet below^ the surface, it is always clear 
 and cold. The first tunnel was five feet two 
 inches in diameter and two miles long, and 
 can deliver fifty million gallons per day. 
 The second tunnel is seven feet in diameter, 
 and six miles long, running four miles under 
 the city, and can deliver one hundred million 
 gallons per day. This water is distributed 
 through four hundred and ten miles of water 
 mains. 
 
 The three grand engineering exploits of 
 the city are: First, lifting the city up on jack- 
 screws, whole squares at a time, without in- 
 terrupting the business, thus giving us good 
 drainage; second, running the tunnels under 
 the lake, giving us the best water in the world ; 
 and, third, the turning the current of the river 
 in its own channel, delivering us from the old 
 abominations, and making decency possible. 
 They redounded about equally to the credit of 
 the engineering, to the energy of the people, 
 and to the health of the city. 
 
 That which really constitutes the city, its 
 indescribable spirit, its soul, the way it lights 
 up in every feature in the hour of action, has 
 
 436 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 not been touched. In meeting strangers one 
 is often surprised how some homely women 
 marry so welL Their forms arc bad, their 
 gait uneven and awkward, their complexion 
 is dull, their features are misshapen and mis- 
 matched, and when we see them there is no 
 beauty that we should desire them. But when 
 once they are aroused on some subject, they put 
 on new proportions. They light up into great 
 power. The real person comes out from its 
 unseemly ambush, and captures us at will. 
 They have power. They have ability to cause 
 things to come to pass. We no longer wonder 
 why they are in such high demand. So it is 
 with our city. To the stranger it seems flat, 
 and cheap, wooden. There is plenty of wind, 
 and no lack of dust, and a full supply of mud. 
 There is no grand scenery except the two seas, 
 one of water, the other of prairie. Neverthe- 
 less, there is a spirit about it, a push, a breadth, 
 a power, that soon makes it a place never to 
 be forsaken. One soon ceases to believe in 
 impossibilities. Balaams are the only proph- 
 ets that are disappointed. The bottom that 
 has been on the point of falling out has been 
 there so long that it has grown fast. It can 
 not fall out. It has all the capital of the world 
 itching to get inside the corporation. As when 
 
 437 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 you kill a Chicago rat, a hundred more will 
 come to the funeral, so when one man falls or 
 is crushed, a hundred larger ones leap for his 
 place. 
 
 When we turn our gaze towards the fu- 
 ture — and turn it we must, for we are all 
 prophets, and the sons of prophets — from 
 questioning that which is to come, we are 
 startled with the developments that are insured 
 by the inevitable march of events. 
 
 May I tell you what I see, and be allowed 
 to depart in peace? I must tell you. That is 
 the purpose for which I am here. In the lan- 
 guage of an old hero, I say, ''Strike, but hear!'' 
 
 I see Chicago in the future as the GREATEST 
 CITY IN THE WORLD, with the possible excep- 
 tion of San Francisco. It is in league with 
 events, and must grow to this measure. It is 
 inland, protected from all foreign foes. It is 
 on the productive belts of the temperate zone, 
 where thrive all the aggressive civilizations. 
 It is near the center of the Continent, and the 
 center of the great valley that could support 
 a thousand million people, and it commands 
 as a distributing center more territory than 
 any ten great cities of the world combined. 
 The two great laws that govern the growth 
 and size of cities are, first, the amount of terri- 
 
 438 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 tory for which they are the distributing and 
 receiving points; second, the number of me- 
 dium or moderate dealers that do this distrib- 
 uting. Monopolists build up themselves, not 
 the cities. They neither eat, wear, nor live in 
 proportion to their business. Both these laws 
 help Chicago. 
 
 The tide of trade is eastward — not up or 
 down the map, but across the sea. The lake 
 runs up a wing dam for five hundred miles 
 to gather in the business. Commerce can not 
 ferry up there for seven months in the year, 
 and the facilities for seven months can do the 
 work for twelve. Then the great region west 
 of us is nearly all good, productive land. 
 Dropping south into the trail of St. Louis, 
 you fall into vast deserts and rocky districts, 
 useful in holding the world together. St. 
 Louis and Cincinnati, instead of rivaling and 
 hurting Chicago, are her greatest sureties of 
 dominion. They are far enough away to give 
 sea-room — farther off than Paris is from Lon- 
 don — and yet they are near enough to prevent 
 the springing up of any other great city be- 
 tween them. 
 
 St. Louis will be helped by the opening of 
 the Mississippi, but also hurt. That will put 
 New Orleans on her feet, and with a railroad 
 
 439 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 running over into Texas and so west, she will 
 tap the streams that now crawl up the Texas 
 and Missouri road. The current is east, not 
 north, and a seaport at New Orleans can not 
 permanently help St. Louis. 
 
 Chicago is in the field almost alone, to 
 handle the wealth of one-fourth of the terri- 
 tory of our great Republic. This strip of sea- 
 coast divides its margins between Portland, 
 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
 and Savannah, or some other great port to be 
 created for the South in the next decade. But 
 Chicago has a dozen empires casting their 
 treasures into her lap. On a bed of coal that 
 can run all the machinery of the world for five 
 hundred centuries; in a garden that can feed 
 the race by the thousand years ; at the head of 
 the lakes that give her a temperature as a sum- 
 mer resort equaled by no great city in the 
 land; with a climate that insures the health of 
 her citizens; surrounded by all the great de- 
 posits of natural wealth in mines and forests 
 and herds, Chicago is the wonder of to-day, 
 and will be The City of the future. 
 
 Fellow citizens of Illinois, and fellow cit- 
 izens of the Republic, I am unable to eulogize 
 the Prairie State. I have simply recited some 
 of the facts with which her history abounds. 
 
 440 
 
THE GREATNESS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 I can do no more. There she stands, to speak 
 for herself. Her soil, her mines, her herds, 
 her improvements, her schools, her Churches, 
 her intelligence, her liberties, her learned pro- 
 fessions, her war record, her heroes, her mar- 
 tyrs, her Presidents, and her great citizens — 
 these are her glory, and shall be, so long as 
 the nation endures. While I look into the fu- 
 ture, the ages are rolled together; the Com- 
 monwealth of Illinois puts on purple and fine 
 linen, and Europe and Asia, coming from the 
 East and from the West, find their exchange 
 in her great marts. Brothers, it remains for 
 us to complete the marvelous record by mak- 
 ing Illinois as good as Providence will make 
 her great. Then she will be both the garden 
 of the world and the garden of the Lord. 
 
 441 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Delivered at the annual meeting of the Board of Church 
 Extension held at Third Street Church, Cam- 
 den, New Jersey, Friday evening, 
 November 19, 1875. 
 
 443 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Church Extension inheres in our charac- 
 ters as believers. As believers we are soldiers, 
 mustered in, uniformed, armed, equipped, un- 
 der orders. From yonder drill-camp comes 
 the voice of our great Captain, saying, ''The 
 world is the field;" and from yonder ascen- 
 sion-summit comes His word of authority, 
 saying, "Go." With this divine "go" behind 
 us, there is nothing left us but to run this world 
 down and capture it in the shortest time pos- 
 sible. As believers, we must obey. As free- 
 believers, we must act. As intelligent be- 
 lievers we must think, and, thinking, we must 
 act along the best lines. We must therefore 
 organize permanent victory. 
 
 The world has been captured by Satan, 
 annexed to hell, and garrisoned with devils. 
 Along every mountain side to-day glisten the 
 hostile lines of burnished steel, and in every 
 valley by night gleam the countless camp-fires 
 of sleepless sentinels. So deep is this con- 
 spiracy against God, that the very soil itself 
 seems saturated with sin. In its malignant 
 
 445 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 vitality is chokes down the modest violet and 
 the olive tree with the thistle and the thorn. 
 In all its wide domain, for its coming Lord it 
 can find no mother but a peasant, no cradle 
 but a manger, no protection but the wilder- 
 ness, no welcome but missiles, no witnesses but 
 perjury, no society but thieves, no scepter but 
 the scourge, no crown but thorns, and no 
 throne but the cross. 
 
 The conquest of such a world is not a ques- 
 tion of impulse, but of time. First, scouts 
 must find its trails and passes, and spy out its 
 soils, and streams, and treasures. Then forts 
 must be planted in its strategical points, and 
 send out mounted warriors to protect the trap- 
 per and the pioneer. Then colonies will 
 gather about these forts, to occupy and culti- 
 vate. Then, when harvests are gathered — not 
 with shout and saber, but with song and scythe 
 — then, and not till then, may the world be 
 said to be conquered. This means, then, forts, 
 and time, and funerals, and other generations. 
 
 Church Extensio7i inheres in our inspira- 
 tion as saints. Every inspiration is also a rev- 
 elation. In some form it must declare itself. 
 It can not be shut in. Sorrow sits down in 
 silence and concealment, but joy rushes out. 
 It breaks forth into the highway. It has noth- 
 
 446 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 ing to conceal, and neither disposition nor 
 ability to conceal it. Thus a man with a new 
 invention must tell it. Thus it seems fore- 
 ordained that most great inventors should give 
 away their secret, and lose their rightful for- 
 tunes. A man with a great idea is so ennobled 
 by his possession that he must bestow like a 
 prince. He holds you by the button to show 
 his treasure. It matters little whether it is a 
 new religion or a new dog-churn, a new phi- 
 losophy or a new baby; if only it is an inspira- 
 tion, it must have room and time in w^hich to 
 be seen and heard. Great ideas never die. 
 They can not be killed. They wither all hos- 
 tile weapons. They can not be shut up in 
 any single bosom. If Paul, or Luther, or 
 Wesley, or Moody should shut down the safety 
 valve, and undertake to keep silent, he would 
 fly into a million fragments. The very stones 
 would cry out. I would as soon think of nail- 
 ing up a ton of nitro-glycerine with an old- 
 fashioned trip-hammer, as to stop the safety- 
 vent on such an inspiration. This divine in- 
 spiration has in it the Almightiness of life 
 itself. It is the quenchless flame. Whenever 
 a man feels it and shuts it in, it burns up 
 through him, illuminating the gloom about 
 him, till it consumes his greatness. Then it 
 
 447 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 leaves him like an old dead volcano, a charred 
 and blackened monument of eternal wrath. 
 Thus one cries out, "Woe is me if I preach not 
 the gospel." 
 
 I had rather have the inspiration of a great 
 idea than to w^ear any worldly crown for a 
 thousand years. These divine inspirations are 
 resistless. They are sure to leave visible mon- 
 uments of their power. It matters not in what 
 field of human want or activity they work, 
 they leave the record of their greatness. If 
 the central thought is conquest, it leaves be- 
 hind it gory fields and smoldering cities, new 
 capitals and triumphal arches. If it is gov- 
 ernment or control, it leaves decalogues, or 
 codes, or constitutions. If it is statecraft, its 
 history is marked by great combinations and 
 vast intrigues. If it is holy heroism, it leaves 
 behind it crusades and mighty migrations. If 
 it is enterprise, it bequeaths to mankind new 
 continents. By the same law, if it is the in- 
 spiration of worship, it leaves behind it tem- 
 ples and cathedrals. This highest and mighti- 
 est of all impulses, of all inspirations, is most 
 certain to crystallize in monuments. Thus we 
 are not surprised to find that the oldest songs 
 are hymns and anthems, the oldest manuscripts 
 are divine revelations, the grandest triumphs 
 
 448 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 of sculpture are statues of the gods, and the 
 greatest of all paintings are scenes in the life 
 of the incarnate Christ; and the grandest and 
 most imposing monuments of human genius, 
 involving the perfection of nearly every 
 known art, are the great cathderals at Rome 
 and Milan. It inheres in the inspiration of 
 worship to build temples as certainly as it 
 does in the lark to make a nest. 
 
 Whenever a poor human heart has felt the 
 divine nearness in times of peril or struggle, 
 the first impulse has been to worship, and the 
 first act has been the erection of an altar or 
 temple. Every turning point in Old Testa- 
 ment history is marked as a place of worship. 
 Yonder, on the side of Ararat, Noah came 
 forth from the ark, and the first thing he did 
 was not to hunt for the spoils and treasures of 
 his overthrown enemies, nor was it to build 
 a house for himself and his children, but it 
 was to build an altar unto the Lord, and took 
 of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, 
 and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 
 
 It is not without deep significance that at 
 almost every marked change in the eventful 
 life of Abraham, he built an altar unto the 
 Lord. The Lord called him to go forth from 
 the familiar scenes of his childhood into a land 
 
 29 449 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 which He should show him, and he went, 
 not knowing whither he went, and we read 
 that he builded an altar there and called upon 
 the name of the Lord. Sent away out of 
 Egypt in peace, after the famine, he returned 
 to his altar between Bethel and Hai, and 
 called on the name of the Lord. Dividing the 
 land between his nephew and himself, he 
 dwelt in the plain of Mamre, and built there 
 an altar unto the Lord. God came to him in 
 his desolation, and told him that his seed 
 should be as the sands of the sea, or as the 
 stars of night for number, and that in his seed 
 should all nations be blessed. Enwrapt by 
 this vision of the world's Redeemer, Abraham 
 offers a costly sacrifice, and watches till the 
 night comes down upon him, and a smoking 
 furnace and a burning lamp passed through 
 between the separated parts of his offering, 
 and he knew that God ratified his covenant. 
 Thus it has been in all ages of the Church. 
 Whenever a soul has been exalted by a divine 
 revealment, the first impulse has been to erect 
 an altar or a place of worship. Yonder, on 
 Hermon's side, Jesus goes up from the heat 
 of the valley and dust of the highway, tak- 
 ing with Him the chosen three. There, in 
 the solitude of the mountain, and in the quiet 
 
 450 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 of the evening, He is transfigured before them. 
 He reclaims a little of His ancient glory. His 
 beauty flashes out upon them. His face shines 
 like the sun, and His raiment is white as the 
 light. The whole crest of the mountain shines 
 with the halo of heaven. So near are they to 
 the unseen worlds that Moses and Elias, the 
 chiefs of their earlier dispensations, flit out 
 into open sight. The wondering fishermen 
 fall down before this glory. Peter, bewil- 
 dered in this new revelation of the Galilean's 
 greatness, hardly knowing what he was saying, 
 cried out in the natural impulse of inspiration, 
 ^'Lord, it is good for us to be here; if Thou 
 wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one 
 for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias." 
 Divinely blest, the first thought is to house the 
 heavenly visitant. Build a tabernacle, or a 
 temple, or an altar. Do something, do any- 
 thing, do everything to perpetuate this exalted 
 privilege. 
 
 Thus it happens that Church Extension in- 
 heres in our inspiration as saints. This is as 
 it ought to be. It shocks up the results of such 
 an experience. It crystallizes the glory for 
 future use. Religious glory, like every other 
 glory, is of value only as it can be utilized. 
 Mere sentiment, that does not harden into 
 
 451 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 working purpose, is worse than nothing. It 
 burns out the tissues of the spirit without gen- 
 erating any power. Condense this flow of 
 feeling and gush of sentiment into activities 
 and sacrifices, then the soul grows great as 
 it serves. 
 
 // is a good thing to have a definite cove- 
 nant, and signs of its acceptance. God does 
 not utter His revelation forth into the ether 
 in which we and the stars float alike, regard- 
 less of what its direction may be. But He 
 comes to smoking altars, and consecrated tem- 
 ples, with specific announcements, with a vis- 
 ible and tangible Decalogue, with an inspired 
 Book, with an incarnated Son. Definiteness 
 characterizes His covenants. He intends them 
 to hold the slippery faith. A large per cent 
 of the semi-infidelity of Christians comes from 
 the vagueness of their conversion. I like an 
 even experience, but all the advantages are 
 not on either side of this subject. It compen- 
 sates for hours of struggle to be brought off 
 more than conqueror. The night is remem- 
 bered with joy when our hearts are skipping 
 in the broad sunlight. 
 
 I am not troubled with fatalism. I have 
 no doubt concerning man's awful preroga- 
 tives and grand endowments, but I do believe 
 
 452 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 that a man soundly converted in the good old- 
 fashioned way, with an appalling consciousness 
 of guilt, desperation concerning self-help, and 
 the clear sense of pardon in Jesus Christ, is not 
 likely to backslide so as to cast away his hope. 
 When Satan assails him with doubts and 
 skepticism, he can go back to some given place 
 and time when God for Christ's sake forgave 
 his sins, and he knows that the religion is true. 
 Many of you recall sacred spots in the coun- 
 try, in some little old church, or in some pri- 
 vate house, or in some quiet grove, or at some 
 camp-meeting, where you struggled and found 
 peace, and learned what the brethren meant 
 when they talked about ''getting through." 
 Satan can never drive you from that old spot. 
 You marked it. It is the gate of heaven to 
 your soul. I remember a certain fence cor- 
 ner by the roadside, where I knelt alone in 
 the slush, and told God I would take a circuit 
 or anything else He would give. I know that 
 covenant meant business, and Satan never gets 
 me out of that place. It is a good thing to 
 have definite covenants, and signs of their ac- 
 ceptance. This great law that always de- 
 mands the incarnation or crystallization of its 
 inspiration, makes this temple-building a nec- 
 essary part of the inspirations themselves. 
 
 453 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The value of a church building is found 
 also in the fact that the church becomes a 
 headquarters, a rallying point for all who feel 
 the power of the truth. There is much in hav- 
 ing a fixed habitation. All the great move- 
 ments have culminated around some organiz- 
 ing center. The common politician must have 
 a place that represents his interest, and where 
 he can be found. The organization of an 
 army is chiefly a question of shaping the com- 
 mon feeling and purposes of men. All people 
 bow beneath a common load. They feel a 
 common wrong. They crowd together in the 
 darkness, and mutter in each other's ears their 
 common discontent. By and by some master 
 spirit, with the sixth sense of ability to organ- 
 ize success, speaks up and out, the common 
 want. It is a vent for all hearts. They now 
 have a war-cry and a rallying point. Then the 
 rest of the work is done. It does itself. The 
 army is only the oppressed mass marching 
 around one imperial will. With this center 
 and rallying point, it is a host of conquering 
 freemen. Without this center it disintegrates 
 into a mob of slaves. The Church obeys this 
 universal law, according to which power al- 
 ways gravitates to the centers. Science says 
 that this law is in things according to which 
 
 454 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 the diffused light of "the Beginning" drew up 
 together in masses, forming suns and worlds. 
 So experience demonstrates that social and 
 spiritual powers find centers, and break forth 
 into expressions, and embody themselves. 
 Thus, by a deep order in things, evil spirits 
 must have a prince and a palace. Thus, also 
 the forces of righteousness must have a head 
 and a home. Thus churches, temples, altars, 
 places of worship, are necessary parts of re- 
 ligion. It may seem crude, but it is true, that 
 a religion that can not command an altar can 
 not command anything else. I would as soon 
 think of clearing up a farm in a Michigan 
 forest with a company of disembodied spirits, 
 fed on zephyrs, as to undertake the salvation 
 of this world with a religion that had no 
 shrines or local habitations. The four great 
 conditions for the success of religion are, first,, 
 an arch enemy to fight and fear; second, a 
 creed to accept and defend; third, a priest- 
 hood, to incarnate and illustrate its inspira- 
 tions; fourth, temples, with which to catch the 
 eye of sense, and in which to keep the ark and 
 covenant. 
 
 Religion is like a man in this: It weighs 
 in a community just in proportion as it is 
 rooted into the soil. The man who stays in a 
 
 455 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 boarding-house never weighs much in a com- 
 munity, unless his business leads him down 
 into reliability. Any man who lives in a 
 trunk, and who can consequently be checked 
 to the next station between dark and daylight, 
 never can hold the lines. So it is with a re- 
 ligious society. It must go to housekeeping 
 before it can command the public confidence, 
 and have a fair chance for usefulness. The 
 term ''carpet-bagger" has added ten years to 
 our strifes and sacrifices in the South. A first 
 necessity is to demonstrate everywhere per- 
 manence. That will insure us power, and give 
 us a fair chance. Every church built is an 
 anchor which no storm can drag. The old 
 mathematician cried out: "Give me a place 
 for my fulcrum, and I can lift the world." 
 Jesus, when He went into the synagogue of 
 Nazareth, found that outside spot. The 
 church is the spot where all the elevating 
 power is applied. 
 
 The Athenian theater, which was also the 
 Athenian Church, was the factor in that great 
 city that lifted the people up from the strifes 
 of the prize-ring, and set them on competing 
 with tragedies, orations, and songs. Here the 
 heroism of the country was kindled, and here 
 that elevated taste was fostered that made 
 
 456 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Athens the studio of the world, and the Athen- 
 ians the teachers of mankind. In our day we 
 see a powerful Church, with the most compact 
 organization of all history, with her power 
 condensed like a fist, for the wisest and most 
 efficient use ; with a body of trained diplomats 
 and statesmen in her places of power; with all 
 her mighty purposes unalterably fixed to sub- 
 due all institutions, and absorb all power in 
 her own unscrupulous government, and with 
 plans that are laid and wrought out by the 
 thousand years ; we see this Church so com- 
 pact, so manned, so directed, so purposed, 
 bending her mighty energies for the erection 
 of churches. She purposes dominion. Long 
 ago she sold herself to Satan for that prize. 
 She brings into use her vast experience, gained 
 in the struggles and victories of fifteen hun- 
 dred years. She has all the wisdom of chil- 
 dren of this generation. And she commits 
 her cause largely to her church buildings. 
 With her grand, historic old pile in Rome, 
 that stands the wonder of the centuries, she 
 astonishes and attracts the race, and with her 
 churches scattered in all our cities, she seeks 
 to hold her own people, and capture others. 
 Do you tell me that this false Church is a 
 pirate, cruising the high seas of the nineteenth 
 
 457 
 
addressb:s on notable occasions 
 
 century, defying the Lord High Admiral of 
 the world, and preying upon His peaceful 
 commerce, and is not to be copied? This must 
 answer all cavil. She is a magnificent craft, 
 with stanch beams, perfect proportions, and 
 vast tonnage. She needs little overhauling. 
 The trouble is in her crew, and captain, and 
 flag. We only need to change the murderous 
 crew for honest tars, and throw the bloody 
 captain overboard, and commission a com- 
 mander who is loyal to the court of heaven, 
 and then haul down the black flag and run up 
 the banner of the Cross. That is all we need 
 to change. The ship is good, and rightly 
 manned she can do noble service in the com- 
 merce of the world. Her elements of great- 
 ness can be repeated. Her power can be re- 
 produced for good. The argument is this: 
 Whatever buildings can do for ancient and 
 modern heathenism, they can be made to do 
 for Christ. If Rome can house the multitudes 
 with no spirit, no gospel, no food, by the mere 
 assurances and attractions of her cold temples, 
 surely we may hope that the same agencies, re- 
 inforced by spirit, and gospel, and manna, will 
 succeed. 
 
 A Church in a community wins its way be- 
 cause it is the most efficient police. The power 
 
 458 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 that makes it possible for a number of people 
 to meet in a public assembly and return home 
 in safety and peace, is not the few hired watch- 
 men that patrol your streets, but the spirit that 
 goes out from these Churches. It is this re- 
 straining presence of God that takes the mis- 
 siles out of the air and the bludgeons out of 
 the assassins' hands. It is this that secures your 
 possessions and keeps holy watch over your 
 nightly slumbers. 
 
 A Church in a community wins its way 
 because it is a great educator. Its pulpit de- 
 livers two lectures a wxek on the most vital 
 and most sublime of all themes. The pastor, 
 in intelligence, is above the average of the 
 community. He gives his time to the prep- 
 aration of things new and old for the instruc- 
 tion of the community. I have no manner of 
 doubt that, poor and dull as we often find the 
 preaching, it still imparts more religious in- 
 struction, and builds up the public morals far 
 more than all other agencies combined. 
 
 A Church in a community vindicates its 
 existence even though it does no more than 
 cause the people to assemble once in seven 
 days. It is a good thing for people to regu- 
 larly array themselves in their best apparel, 
 and come together to see and be seen. Even if 
 
 459 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 there is no worship and no instruction in- 
 volved, it is still a good thing for every one, 
 at least once a week, to come under the gaze 
 of the public eye. If you doubt it, go into a 
 community where there are no Sabbaths and 
 no worshiping congregations, and you shall 
 see in the unwashed mob, who seldom find a 
 natural grave, the desperate condition of a 
 Churchless land. 
 
 Every argument for the extension of 
 Churches is a vindication of the claims of this 
 Board. For an obligation to do anything al- 
 ways implies the means necessary for its ac- 
 complishment. 
 
 There comes up an argument in favor of 
 this society from the very enemies which we 
 must antagonize in this country. The devils 
 that seem to have roving commissions, so that 
 they are found wherever humanity exists, need 
 not claim our special attention. We have a 
 trinity of evils, an infernal trinity in this land, 
 that courts the spear of every knight. Rum, 
 Rationalism, and Romanism are the American 
 triumvirate in evil. It is difficult, in this pres- 
 ence, to tell which is Cassar's ghost. Either, 
 studied alone, seems the imperiling horror 
 of our civilization. We have no scales in 
 
 460 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 which to weigh the desolations of nan. The 
 plagues of Egypt were a blessing in compari- 
 son with this monstrosity. Intrenched in every 
 citadel, commanding every street in the land, 
 violating every law, trampling every right, 
 robbing every public or private purse, threat- 
 ening every citizen, and filling the whole air 
 with impending horrors, this mammoth mon- 
 ster, that desolates States where slavery did 
 counties, that tortures its favored criminals 
 into objects of pity, and agonizes its innocent 
 victims beyond all expression of sympathy — 
 this monster makes our utmost resistance nec- 
 essary to our very existence. 
 
 On the right of this central figure, like an- 
 other harpie, stands rationalism, with lip of 
 scorn, and eye of contempt, holding in its 
 hands, like a murderous mob, the broken tab- 
 lets of the Decalogue, with which to wound the 
 face of peace, and trampling beneath its crim- 
 son and cloven feet the sanctity of the Sabbath 
 and of every Christian altar. This monster, 
 taking the inspiration out of the Bible, the di- 
 vinity out of religion, the Savior out of the 
 race, immortality out of the soul, and all hope 
 out of humanity; this monster, tyrannizing in 
 the name of liberty, rioting in the name of 
 
 461 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 order, robbing in the name of honesty, de- 
 bauching in the name of purity, assassinating 
 in the name of friendship, and crucifying in 
 the name of morality — -this monster calls forth 
 every hand that can resist and every voice 
 that can warn. 
 
 On the left of the central figure is another 
 form, Romanism, that defies description. 
 Part mortal, part angel, and part demon. 
 With the face of a woman, but painted and 
 brazoned like a harlot; with the form and 
 robes of an angel, but drabbled and stained 
 in the sewer; and with the claws and teeth of 
 a devil, but concealed with slippers and cov- 
 ered with caresses. A purely temporal and 
 political organization, under the name of a 
 Church, kindling upon the altars of the sanc- 
 tuary the camp-fires for her carnal conquests. 
 She uses all the services of religion, and far 
 exceeds the Lord in instituting sacraments, but 
 she leaves the mass of her worshipers ignorant 
 of the peace of pardon, and strangers to puri- 
 fying power. She seeks to control all the- 
 ology with the thumb-screw and the fagot, 
 that she may substitute the fiction of her creed 
 for the God of Revelation. She grasps after 
 all education, that she may teach the lives of 
 fabulous saints instead of the truths of science. 
 
 462 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 She purposes to corrupt and control the bal- 
 lot-box, that she may enthrone the Scarlet 
 Woman on the ruins of the republic. 
 
 Would you know how she teaches religion? 
 Go study the arguments of the Inquisition, 
 follow in the trail of the Duke of Alva, and 
 listen to the crying blood of the martyrs. 
 Would you know how she teaches science? 
 Go to Italy, the mother of letters and of dead 
 empires, the ancient home of learning, now the 
 block-head among the nations — of all Euro- 
 pean people the least able to read even the 
 titles of her ancient greatness. Italy, the lineal 
 descendant and rightful heir of the world's 
 rulers; rich with the mightiest dust of all he- 
 roes ; ennobled by the right-royal line of Julius 
 and the young Augustus ; inspired by the voice 
 of Cicero; transformed by the death of Paul, 
 and sanctified by the blood of the saints; 
 mournful, melancholy, magnificent Italy, can 
 tell you what a devoted people learns in this 
 school of bigotry. Would you know how she 
 teaches political economy, how a people grows 
 rich with ecclesiastical princes to legislate in 
 the interest of religious orders, and with vast 
 hordes of indolent professional saints to con- 
 sume the labor of the industrious? Go and 
 gaze in pity on impoverished Spain, the beg- 
 
 463 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 gar of the nations. Spain, two centuries ago 
 the banker of Europe, on whose possessions 
 the sun never set, whose people, distinguished 
 in art and in arms, pushed their renown to 
 every zone, and their commerce to every sea; 
 but to-day, by a clerical policy that could find 
 no better use for her prosperous merchants 
 than to torture them in the Inquisition for 
 their treasures, and no better use for millions 
 of her most industrious, intelligent, and honest 
 subjects than to burn them for the gratification 
 of her priests and for the glory of the Church, 
 by this policy reduced to abject penury. 
 Spain, with her ships swept from the seas, her 
 explorers buried in the dust of oblivion, her 
 manufactories consumed in the fires of perse- 
 cution, and her agriculture dwindled to the 
 verge of barbarism; this dying remnant of a 
 nationality can tell you how nations grow 
 rich with the pontifical leech on their breasts. 
 Would you know how Rome teaches civil 
 polity? Go to yonder gem of the sea, green 
 Erin, the Island of the Heart, and study the 
 story of her wrongs and of her ruin. Once the 
 seat of empire and the home of philosophy, 
 the mother of genius and of great institutions, 
 now only a mangled and decaying corpse in 
 the highway along which the nations march 
 
 464 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 up to greatness. With her sovereignty di- 
 vided; part, which she loves, on the banks of 
 the Tiber, and part, which she fears, on the 
 banks of the Thames; leaving only the tomb, 
 which she mourns, on the banks of the Shan- 
 non; with her patriotism, the marv^el of man- 
 kind, kindling and guarding the fires on every 
 national altar except Erin's; with her courage 
 filling every army under the sun except the 
 Irish army; with her heroism emblazoning 
 every flag on earth except the Irish flag; and 
 with her genius guiding to greatness and glory 
 every ship of state except the Irish craft. Go 
 to her native bogs, and weep over her famine 
 and her squalor, then you shall see how Rome 
 teaches civil polity, and fosters freedom by 
 manacle and gag. 
 
 This great enemy, that corrupts the world's 
 conscience; this great highwayman, that blud- 
 geons and robs nations and continents; this 
 masked assassin, that stabs national freedom, 
 has made a safe landing and sure footing on 
 our soil. Already it has seized millions of 
 public treasures, and become an established 
 Church, except in name. Already it dictates 
 rulers to our greatest commonwealths. Al- 
 ready it has put its blasting hand upon the 
 Bible it used to burn, and starts it out of our 
 
 30 465 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 public schools back towards this public bon- 
 fire. Already it rushes to the polls in great 
 States on avowed principles of public perse- 
 cution. Already it demands the destruction 
 of the common schools in the absorption of the 
 funds. The day of her modest concealment is 
 gone, and we shall live because she can not 
 help herself. True, she has lost Louisiana, 
 which was hers when she had twenty thousand 
 or fifty thousand poulation, but she has gained 
 the Empire State. True, she has lost Mary- 
 land, but she has nearly or quite gained Massa- 
 chusetts, and she is intrenched in every city of 
 the land, and hopes through these passes to 
 control the votes and sovereignty of the States. 
 This is no insignificant foe, grown in the short 
 life of our government, from one one-hun- 
 dredth of our population in 1784 to one-sixth 
 of our entire population in 1874. It is a sig- 
 nificant fact that the most sagacious politician 
 of Massachusetts bids for Papal votes, and 
 counts upon the old Bay State, the very cradle 
 of liberty and bulwark of Puritanism, as a 
 Roman State. It is a significant fact that the 
 President of the United States, one of the 
 calmest and greatest of living men; the man 
 of all others who has demonstrated a cool and 
 accurate judgment, who never speaks except 
 
 466 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 in great emergencies, should deliver his first 
 written lengthy speech on this question to the 
 army, and talk to them of war. It is a signifi- 
 cant fact that Grant in the United States, 
 Gladstone in Great Britain, and Bismarck 
 in Germany, the most prudent and powerful 
 representatives of the three great Protestant 
 nations of the earth, should be driven to sound 
 the alarm against this menacing monster. It 
 is a significant fact that just now, when every 
 great power in Europe is circumventing or 
 banishing the minions of this infallible des- 
 potism, as dangerous to the sovereignty of the 
 State, and fatal to the freedom of the subjects; 
 that just now a Cardinal's throne, supporting 
 the rank of a temporal prince, should be 
 planted in our great metropolis, to flaunt in 
 the public gaze titles which are forbidden to 
 every American citizen by the fundamental 
 law of the land. Surely, this is no indifferent 
 foe. Rome lays her plans for a thousand 
 years, and pursues them through successive 
 generations. Her workmen die, but it is her 
 boast that she never changes. She is the same 
 old tiger she was in the sixteenth century. 
 Caged, she seems a handsome creature, with 
 velvet coat and cushioned paws; but out once, 
 among your children, she is the malignant 
 
 467 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 monster of the jungle. Hear me, and I would 
 to God I could cry it in the startled ear of 
 every American citizen, this is our most dan- 
 gerous foe. Rum is branded as a demon, and 
 must fight in the open field. Rationalism can 
 not long keep house, for it has neither food 
 nor fire. But Romanism wears the form of 
 sainthood, and crouches, dagger in hand, by 
 the very altars of religion, to assassinate all 
 who will not accept her temporal authority. 
 By our love of freedom, by our love of truth, 
 by our courage to contend for the faith once 
 delivered to the saints, by our love of mercy, 
 and by our hope of heaven, we must cry with 
 our fathers, "No peace with the Papacy and 
 no compromise with Rome." 
 
 These are our great enemies, and their 
 existence creates an imperative demand for 
 the most vigorous and persistent prosecution 
 of this work. We are shut up to this work. 
 The tiger is at our throat. Hold still, and 
 w^e are dead. The unhoused and dauntless 
 thousands who are out on the border, empire 
 founding, and the unhoused and patient mil- 
 lions just up from the land of Egypt — these 
 hold the key of fate. They are a fort in the 
 pass between the present and the future. 
 Whoever gets in wins, and dictates law to 
 
 468 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 mankind. The Board of Church Extension 
 will put us in the fort. 
 
 The field to be occupied demands this 
 work. The field is this country, on the belt of 
 power, where the conquering races live. It 
 is a land whose productions can not even be 
 computed. It is a land having single valleys 
 in which every member of the human family 
 could be fed for a thousand years ; a land hav- 
 ing single States whose iron mines could an- 
 nually bridge every ocean with iron-clads; 
 whose gold mines could pay every public and 
 private debt on earth; whose silver mines 
 could pave every street in every city on the 
 continent; a land having solitary coal-beds in 
 which Great Britain or many of the European 
 countries could be placed without being in the 
 way. This is the field we are commissioned 
 to capture. This work is thrust upon us, and 
 we must gird on our power or be driven from 
 the field. The United States Census, that 
 Book of Martyrs, in which not individuals but 
 States are the victims, sounds the alarm. In 
 1850 we had 14,234,825 church sittings for 
 23,191,876 people, or accommodations for 62 
 per cent, or nearly two-thirds of the entire 
 population. In i860 we had 19,128,751 
 church sittings for 31,443,321 people, or ac- 
 
 469 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 commodations for 60 per cent of the entire 
 population. In 1870 we had 21,665,062 
 church sittings for 38,558,371 people, or ac- 
 commodations for 53 per cent, or a little 
 over half the entire population. This is going 
 the wrong way. Ruin is only a question of 
 time. Like the man climbing a smooth tree 
 to escape from wolves, this slipping down 
 must be stopped or we will soon be converted 
 into wolf-bone and wolf-blood. 
 
 I need only mention the great fields in the 
 South, with her cotton and easy climate, and 
 in the West, with her agricultural empires 
 and exhaustless mines. The children from our 
 homes are scattered all over these regions. 
 They are often too poor to build churches. It 
 becomes our imperative duty to see to it that 
 the churches are built and paid for. This 
 makes the demand immense and magnificent. 
 
 The glory of this Church Extension work 
 is manifest in the fact that God especially hon- 
 ors His house. The sanctity of religion itself 
 is first embodied and emphasized in the sanc- 
 tity of the place of its celebration. Few scenes 
 recorded in the Book of God are as impressive 
 as the appearance of God upon Mount Sinai 
 for the giving of the law. The very mountain 
 itself was hallowed. It was set about with 
 
 470 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 bounds beyond which the people might not 
 come. For three days and nights the people 
 were compelled to cleanse and sanctify them- 
 selves. Then only the chosen priests and 
 prophets were allowed to go up into the sacred 
 summit. The mountain trembled, its sides 
 were wrapped in smoke and darkness, and its 
 top was capped with light and fire. Every- 
 thing that could impress the sacredness of the 
 event was called into service. Even the 
 prophet, on his return, was so clothed with 
 light and righteousness that the people could 
 not bear the brightness of his face, and needed 
 to be shielded by a veil. 
 
 A little earlier we read, when God would 
 speak with His chosen prophet from the burn- 
 ing bush, the very ground was declared to 
 be holy. 
 
 No man can read the care with which the 
 temple was made and kept by the holy order 
 of the priesthood, consecrated, clothed in clean 
 raiment, adorned with emblematic regalia, 
 and sanctified with the service, and not feel 
 that God's abode is indeed the Holy of Holies. 
 Study the temple and its service, revealed in 
 the mountain, built by special inspiration, hav- 
 ing God to superintend its most minute speci- 
 fications ; with its sacred enclosure, its court of 
 
 471 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the women, court of the Gentiles, place of the 
 Jews, its holy place for the priests, and its 
 inner shrine, where was the shining presence 
 of God, to be approached only once a year, on 
 the great day of atonement, w^ith costly sacri- 
 fices, only by the High Priest — while, with- 
 out, priests and people, far and near, pros- 
 trated themselves before God. Surely if God 
 had desired to impress the sanctity of His 
 house, it is difficult to conceive of appoint- 
 ments more appropriate. 
 
 We can hardly omit the lesson in Jacob's 
 altar-building, on account of the power that 
 followed him for its sake. Jacob had no en- 
 viable character. He was a representative 
 sinner. He had little of his father's nobility, 
 and much of his mother's craftiness. His nat- 
 ural sharpness was too much for his honesty. 
 He was cold-blooded, calculating, unscrupu- 
 lous. By deliberate purpose he over-reached 
 his generous, impulsive brother, taking advan- 
 tage of his hunger to cheat him out of his 
 birthright. He lied to his blind old father, 
 and by fraud obtained his father's blessing. 
 Like all tricksters and villains, he was a cow- 
 ard, and fled from the face of his indignant 
 brother. Alone in the wilderness, with noth- 
 ing but his staff; oppressed with the sense of 
 
 472 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 guilt and exile, he lies down in the deepest 
 gloom, with a rock for his pillow. In that ex- 
 tremity he found Him who walketh even in 
 the deep valleys, and saw the way of prayer 
 and hope; and from the visitation of angels 
 he arose, set up a stone for an altar, and 
 poured oil upon it, saying: "How dreadful 
 is this place; surely God has been here;" and 
 he called it Bethel. Here he made a cove- 
 nant, in this offering, to give the Lord one- 
 tenth of all his prosperity. Years go by — God 
 hears his covenant, and blesses him. By and 
 by his father-in-law oppresses him, and he is 
 perplexed beyond measure, not knowing what 
 to do. He is a poor character, at best. A liar, 
 a swindler, a coward, submitting to every in- 
 dignity. But he had an altar yonder at Bethel, 
 and a covenant, and God remembered him, 
 and appeared unto him, saying: "I am the 
 God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pil- 
 lar, and where thou vowdest a vow unto Me." 
 God remembered this altar-building. This 
 representative sinner, having many vices and 
 few virtues, is, on account of his altar and 
 vow, remembered and delivered in the time of 
 trouble. Let us not push this example too far. 
 But this we may know, that sinners, however 
 great their sins or bad their character, or des- 
 
 473 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 perate their circumstances, who still have 
 faith enough in God to erect an altar and vow 
 a generous service unto God, are within 
 mercy's easy reach. The records of the 
 Church are full of instances where the way 
 into divine favor has commenced, as in the 
 case of the centurion in the gospel, who 
 wanted divine help, and of whom it was said, 
 "He is worthy, for he loveth our nation, and 
 he hath built us a synagogue" — through the 
 building of a church. I know that salvation 
 is not all of works, nor yet is it all of faith. 
 Faith without works is dead, and I have no 
 more confidence in dead faith than I have in 
 dead men. This Board, like every enterprise 
 of the Church, must find living faith, work- 
 ing faith, and living men; then success is only 
 a question of time. 
 
 There is a vast amount of power in this 
 church-building. It is aggressive, and aggres- 
 sion is the condition of life. There is some- 
 thing in the very presence of the church that 
 rallies its friends. Constantine conquered by, 
 the Cross; Christianity is to-day conquering 
 by the Church, as of old. Once, when Israel 
 faltered before the Philistines, Eli sent forth 
 the ark of the Lord. But Israel was routed, 
 the sons of Eli were slain, and the ark was cap- 
 
 474 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 tured by the Philistines — and all Israel wept 
 and mourned. True, when Israel undertook to 
 make the ark fight for them, instead of being 
 ready to die for it, they were disappointed, 
 and their enemies seemed to conquer. But the 
 Philistines had captured their own destruc- 
 tion. They could do nothing with the ark. 
 They put it in the temple of Dagon; but the 
 false gods could not stand before it. They 
 were dashed to pieces. Alarmed at this 
 strange power, they sent the ark from city to 
 city, only to find that it smote them every- 
 where with plague. Amazed and terrified, 
 they could find no place where it could be 
 kept. There was no safety for them with this 
 ark of God, this dwelling-place of the Al- 
 mighty in their land. Heathenism can never 
 stand against the house of God. Even the 
 gates of hell are powerless in this conflict. 
 The Philistines in solemn council determined 
 to send the ark back to Israel. So helpless 
 were they that they were glad to send with it 
 costly gifts and offerings. They would give 
 anything or everything to be rid of it. They 
 made a new cart and yoked up two cows, 
 and sent it away wherever the cattle might 
 take it. In God's good order it was drawn 
 back to Israel. Then wherever it tarried, 
 
 475 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS' 
 
 there the people were blessed and prospered, 
 till the king saw that it was the center of 
 power, and took it on behalf of the nation. 
 
 So it must be in our day. Wherever we 
 plant our churches we are destined to tri- 
 umph. Possibly in the heat of party strife 
 or amid the confusion of intestine war, some 
 may siege our sanctuaries and seem for a sea- 
 son to conquer us by our own weapons. But 
 God's house will prove fatal to them; all 
 party gods must fall before it, and wiser coun- 
 sels will constrain them to return the instru- 
 ments they can not use. Say to the whole 
 Church, go on with this church building. 
 It is a safe investment. It insures victory. 
 Even if our edifices will be captured, they 
 will be returned laden with treasures and 
 peace offerings. If we do not see it under the 
 sun, we shall see it to-morrow in the light of 
 the excellent glory. 
 
 This wondrous Book of God is full of dis- 
 plays of power centered in His altar. Go yon- 
 der to Carmel's summit, and gaze on the gath- 
 ering hosts of Israel. It is a high day. God's 
 prophet has met the apostate king, and has 
 challenged him to a contest of altars. It is 
 not an argument of the theologians. It is not 
 a trial of the logic of the philosophers. It is 
 
 476 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 not a tilt of warriors. It is higher and grander 
 than any or all of these. It is a trial of altars. 
 God's altar is to be tested by the side of Baal's 
 altar. Baal's altar is served by hundreds of 
 well-trained priests, and is encouraged by 
 royal favor. God's altar is served by one 
 solitary prophet, and he not accustomed to 
 serve in the presence of kings. Elijah, the 
 stern old prophet of the mountains, clad in 
 the garb of the desert, with a sheepskin cloak 
 wrapped around his shoulders, and with his 
 black and waving locks streaming down his 
 back, a stranger to the comforts and courtesies 
 of civilized life, familiar with nature in her 
 grandest moods; Elijah, the stern embodiment 
 of justice, who could stand undismayed amid 
 the displays of divine wrath, with his foot 
 on the heaving bosom of the earthquake, and 
 his eye on the whirlwinds of fire that were 
 howling about him — this man came forth 
 alone against all the hosts of Baal to a contest 
 of altars, and the answering fire from heaven 
 declared the power of God's altar. The bat- 
 tle of the "world is a conflict of altars. When 
 our altars are kindled from above, they are 
 as strong as the Almighty. 
 
 477 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Delivered in Philadelphia, at the annual meeting 
 of the Church Extension Society. 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Mr. Chairman: We can not but ask why 
 we are here? What is the object of this or- 
 ganization? What is the reason of this So- 
 ciety? These are questions that the Church 
 has a right to ask and to expect satisfactorily 
 answered. Indeed, I will concede that no 
 society has a right to tax the public sympa- 
 thies, burden the public mind, and exhaust the 
 public pocket, that can not make satisfactory 
 answers at the bar of the public judgment. 
 
 This present time is bracketed by two 
 words — ^'science" and ^'organization." Ev- 
 erything must bear the shadow of both of these 
 terms. I sometimes almost fear that these are 
 the devil's crutches, on which he hobbles into 
 the public sympathy and confidence. Every 
 movement must be chartered and funded. It 
 has come to such a pass that a man can not 
 raise a fast colt or a fat calf without a presi- 
 dent, secretary, and an executive committee; 
 and a woman can not patch a ragged garment, 
 or punish a bad boy without a constitution 
 and by-laws, and the consent of the majority. 
 
 31 481 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Ought it not to be an indictable offense to press 
 the claims of any society that could be dis- 
 pensed with, without substantial loss? Even 
 under this strict rule we have full access to 
 your attention. For we come, as you are al- 
 ready persuaded, with almost imperative 
 claims. I will base my plea for your co-opera- 
 tion on 
 
 The Christly Character of This Society. 
 
 It needs, and must have, divine sanction 
 and authority. Its claims must have the foun- 
 dation of eternal truth. Its voice must pene- 
 trate with the accents of divine necessity. Its 
 first affirmation is, 
 
 I. The Church Extension Society is provi- 
 dential in its birth. It was born in the full- 
 ness of time. It has been said by our press that 
 it came one decade too late. Even if that were 
 so, it would not be outside of providential uses. 
 The great apostle, whose work was only sec- 
 ond to that of the Master Himself, was born 
 out of due time; but he was nevertheless born 
 into a mighty work. So this Society, even 
 though it missed its right decade, was yet born 
 into a mighty work. But I am not persuaded 
 that it did miss its proper advent. In the di- 
 
 489 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 vine economy some things are incapable of 
 being stored. Faith can not accumulate. 
 
 Spiritual power is not reservable. The 
 man with the withered arm had no spare 
 power. He used his mustard-seed of faith, 
 and, in the necessities of time, it was made 
 omnipotent. This Society could not have win- 
 tered and summered in the dry-dock. One 
 year would have made it unseaworthy. True, 
 other Churches were in the field before us. 
 The Congregational Union was launched in 
 1852. The church edifice department of the 
 Baptist Church was organized in 1854. The 
 Presbyterian Church erected this work into a 
 distinct department in 1864. ^^^ ^hey had 
 been long in the field, in the Home Mission 
 work. We followed in the same year with 
 our systematic, recognized labor in this field. 
 But we had all the conditions of immediate, 
 available power in advance of our Society. 
 We are a unit. Any new movement can go 
 from the brain of the Bishops, if it happens to 
 be born there, into the heart of the last mem- 
 ber of our Church in a single moon. We need 
 only opportunity — we have organizations. 
 The decade by which the other Churches had 
 the advance, was their need to organize and 
 get into line. The child was born into a well- 
 
 483 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 regulated family, and had no bad habits to 
 unlearn. True, it had a giant's work to do 
 as soon as it was christened; but it was born 
 a giant, with a giant's strength. It was not 
 like a young kangaroo or an opossum, needing 
 to be pouched for months to be protected, it 
 was born with double teeth all around. 
 
 See the conspiring events in the order of 
 providence that made room and work for this 
 Society. The great "war opened vast empires 
 where Churches must be planted. The 
 school-house must crowd out the whipping- 
 post. The Church must succeed the auction- 
 block and the gang-pen. The war was the 
 great event in the department of government. 
 Then, in the department of science, came the 
 great railroad movement of all times, pushing 
 forth into the wilderness by the thousand 
 miles, and planting cities by the hundred. 
 Before this, civilization had gone forward in 
 the ox-cart, and the border men of the more 
 compact front were in condition to supply 
 their own demands about as well as the 
 churches behind them. Now, civilization 
 goes forward by rail. 
 
 The repulsions of possible slavery and of 
 an unsettled political state being removed, and 
 the attractions of thousands of leagues of free 
 
 484 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 and available soil, brought into the world's 
 market, being put into their places, the tide 
 of emigration pours out into the opening in- 
 finite West, beyond all precedent or dream. 
 
 I spent part of a night last spring in a 
 town well up towards the Sierra Nevadas, a 
 town of twelve hundred inhabitants, where 
 there had not been a sermon preached in more 
 than five years. These towns were planted 
 by the old miners; now they and all the mil- 
 lions of square miles are cast down at our feet. 
 Then in the department of religion came the 
 blessed centenary year. The Church in the 
 first century was but little more than a 
 Church Extension Society itself. It was mak- 
 ing its way out of the barns and kitchens into 
 the school-houses, out of the school-houses into 
 the meeting-houses, and then into churches, 
 and then into cathedrals. The centenary year 
 made us open our eyes and see that we were 
 no longer on the town — no longer living from 
 hand to mouth. We learned that we had 
 some money, some disposition, and we looked 
 for some opportunities. These providential 
 facts called forth this Society in the nick of 
 time. Scripture tells us that a star led the 
 wise men to the infant Christ. Kepler, the 
 astronomer, tells us that the conjunction of 
 
 485 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Jupiter, Saturn, and the constellation Pisces, 
 produced that guiding star. So it seems to 
 me that the conjunction of the great war, open- 
 ing the South to the Church; and of the great 
 railroad opening the West to emigration; and 
 of the great centenary year, opening the 
 pocket-book of the Church of God — this con- 
 junction in our firmament has guided the wise 
 men of the East and of the West to the manger 
 where this Society was born. 
 
 // comes in the order of Providence, like 
 all the distinctive features of our Church. It 
 is a branch on the old vine. We had first 
 the conditions for a work; and then the work 
 has naturally fitted into the place. It is in 
 its anticipations, a growth. You know the 
 Church was not a plan or plot; it was a fact. 
 After awhile it was a recognized fact, and 
 that christened it a Church. Mr. Wesley went 
 about preaching salvation, a knowable salva- 
 tion, and organizing seekers and sending out 
 teachers. That was his work. He never left 
 the old Church, and hardly knew that he had 
 founded a new spiritual empire. Class-meet- 
 ings, in the same way, grew to their place. 
 The system of government also grew from 
 consultations to its present exact, efficient or- 
 ganizations. The itinerancy, the banner of 
 
 486 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 our polity, was no far-sighted purpose. It 
 grew out of events. The Church has always 
 had the advantage of being suited to its place 
 because it has run into the providential mold. 
 It has the advantage of practice over mere 
 theory. The Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the 
 greatest English politicians of the seventeenth 
 century, and Locke, the most celebrated phi- 
 losopher of his age, invented a government for 
 Carolina. It was perfectly modeled, from 
 the laborer to the earl, and in the charter it 
 seemed to organize victory in advance. But, 
 dropped upon the soil of the New World, it 
 was fractured into countless fragments. The 
 laborers took to the woods. The officers were 
 not needed. The high dignitaries came down 
 to the hard scrabble of a new country for 
 bread. To this soil came a common-sense 
 man, with no protection but his broad- 
 brimmed hat, and no government but such as 
 he could dig out of the ground. The theory of 
 the statesman and of the philosopher perished 
 in the very decade of its birth, leaving neither 
 child nor monument to mark its grave. But 
 this government of William Penn, in sub- 
 stance, abides to-day. It was not a plot, but a 
 growth in events. That is precisely the char- 
 acter of the Church Extension Society. It is 
 
 487 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 a growth in events. It is thus a radical part 
 of our Church. It came just as soon as there 
 was room for it. First the Missionary Society, 
 planting the truth, then the other societies 
 that grow out of the truth, then this Church 
 Extension Society, with tools, constructing its 
 temples for the permanent lodgment of the 
 truth. It can not be inappropriate to have a 
 society with its builders and carpenters walk- 
 ing in the train of yonder carpenter's Son. 
 This comes as soon as it has room, and so in 
 the order of Providence. 
 
 2. This Society is Christlike in its foun- 
 dation principles, by which the Church is 
 looked upon as a family with a common in- 
 terest, supplying the wants of the needy by 
 the abundance of the fortunate. While this 
 law is put at its best in Christianity, it still 
 is a law of wide application. Even in the 
 order of nature, supply is forever flowing into 
 the bosom of demand. Thus, an eye argues 
 a sun; lungs pre-suppose air; a hungry man 
 means food somewhere. 
 
 Then, in this body, this universe which we 
 control, how this law holds true! Let one 
 sense give out, and immediately the other 
 senses come up to its support and do its work, 
 and make up what is behind. Your eyes grow 
 
 488 
 
ADDRESS OxN CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 dim, then your ears double their skill. See 
 how subtly this law works among the vital 
 organs. One organ is afflicted; immediately 
 the whole system is in profoundest sympathy 
 with the afflicted one. If one of your fingers 
 is disabled, all the others seem to act for its 
 defense and protection. They do not pick at it 
 and pull it about, and aggravate its inflamma- 
 tion. They become its defenders. These are 
 the rude shadows of the deeper spiritual law 
 that underlies the Church of Christ. Here, 
 it is one all-dominating principle. Self is sac- 
 rificed for others. Christ comes out for us, 
 seeking that which was lost. He comes from 
 the purity of heaven to wade through the 
 sewer of our abominations, that He may help 
 us up to purity. He leaves the glory of the 
 eternal court for a manger in a Jewish stable, 
 that we may be elevated above the beastly to 
 the spiritual. He turns away from the rap- 
 turous songs of the seraphs to be greeted by the 
 yells of the hooting mob, that we may be de- 
 livered from the discords of hell, and learn 
 the melodies of heaven. He exchanges the 
 scepter that waves over all intelligence, for 
 the spikes of a felon's cross, that we may be 
 freed from the bondage of sin, and be set at 
 liberty in the truth. He laid aside the glory 
 
 489 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 which He had with the Father before the 
 worlds were made, and took upon Himself 
 the form of a servant, and became obedient 
 unto death, that by His dying we might have 
 life. He was rich — rich in mines, the original 
 mines out of which the Ophirs, and the 
 Australias, and the Californias were made; 
 rich in navies — navies whose ships are suns 
 and stars, sailing the infinite seas; rich in em- 
 pires — empires whose dominions are whole 
 realms of nature. ''He was rich, yet for our 
 sakes He became poor, that we through His 
 poverty might be rich." 
 
 This Society comes in this same spirit, 
 founded upon the same law, working out the 
 same conceptions. The Church is a family. 
 As the members multiply and colonize, they 
 must have shelter and help ; they must be put 
 on their feet and allowed a fair chance. This 
 does not mean that when a man is down we 
 must go and trample him, as the thieves along 
 the road to Jericho did their victim, nor must 
 we walk by on the other side, as the priest did ; 
 nor must we simply look on him like the 
 Levite; but the good Samaritan must be our 
 model. Our wine must be given to his thirst, 
 our oil must be poured into his wounds, our 
 beast must carry his helpless form, even 
 
 490 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 though we have to walk and lead the beast; 
 our money must pay his charges, even though 
 it takes the last penny; and our credit must 
 secure his future comfort. This is the spirit 
 of this Society. It is the spirit of Christianity 
 itself. It is the well man carrying the sick. 
 It is the man with the eyes leading the blind. 
 It is the brave man encouraging the timid. It 
 is the wise man teaching the ignorant. It is 
 the rich man feeding the poor. It is the 
 strong man helping the weak. This is the 
 foundation on which this Society acts. Hav- 
 ing the spirit of Christ, the Church is sure to 
 do this work as soon as it comes to it. When 
 a man is full of a truth he breaks out first at 
 the thinnest place. He feels, then he talks, 
 afterwards he acts. First, a prayer, then a 
 missionary, then material aid. This Society is 
 Christly in its great principle. 
 
 3. This Society is Christlike in its un- 
 selfish beneficence. It not only cares for 
 the needy and helps the weak, but it does 
 it without reference to the interests of 
 the fortunate and strong. It is not a new 
 thing for the powerful to help the weak. 
 This is an experience as old as society. 
 This is the exact sphere of human govern- 
 ment. Men combine and thus concentrate 
 
 491 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 power for self-defense, for self-aggrandize- 
 ment, or for some selfish end. The old patri- 
 cians and powerful families of ancient Rome 
 spread their strong arm out over the plebeians 
 that gathered about them. They were as 
 ready to work for their retainers as for their 
 kindred. But this protection from the rapac- 
 ity of the avaricious and the outrages of the 
 lawless was repaid by veneration in society, 
 service in labor, honor in legislation, and loy- 
 alty in war. The feudal lords of the Middle 
 Ages acted upon this same principle. The 
 castle on a crag or in a crevice, with its moat 
 and draw-bridges and heavy gates and high 
 w^alls, overlooked the village of the peasantry, 
 and stood like a protecting providence for 
 their defense. In time of war, in hours of 
 peril, they fled over its draw-bridges, through 
 its gate-way, and into its solid embrace for 
 safety. But their presence, their arms, their 
 blood, made it safe for them and for the lord 
 of the castle. The old planter who maimed 
 or murdered his slaves was not only a fiend 
 but also a fool. It was his interest to protect 
 and provide for them. The great problem 
 that agitates Europe to-day, that makes the 
 British ministry tremble, that keeps the Czar 
 writing notes, that arouses Italy, that alarms 
 
 492 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Austria, that amazes Spain, is not so much 
 whether William shall treat with France from 
 the inside or outside of Paris, as it is this ques- 
 tion of where the balance of power will crys- 
 tallize. All the powers cried out for Prussia 
 when France seemed to be on top. It would 
 not be safe in Europe with Napoleon on the 
 Rhine. Now they cry out for France, when 
 Prussia seems to be on top. It would not be 
 safe in Europe with William in Paris. 
 
 Thus they are only too willing to help the 
 weak. All this is human. It is too human. 
 But Christ helped us for the sake of helping 
 us, because we were in great need. He had 
 everything. We had absolutely nothing. He 
 came to us because wc were lost. He became 
 our friend because we were sinners. It is in 
 the very nature of His love to come out to 
 us because we were suffering. He loves us 
 always, loves us good or bad, loves us in our 
 sins or out of them. He loves us any way, tries 
 to love us out of our sins and out of our suf- 
 fering. There is no alloy of selfishness in His 
 love. It is as pure as the light and strong as 
 the Almighty. He stops at no questions of 
 race or family or position or culture. He rec- 
 ognizes no human boundaries, but overleaps 
 all arbitrary standards, asking simply. Where 
 
 493 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 is there sorrow to be comforted, suffering to 
 be relieved, want to be supplied, guilt to be 
 pardoned, corruption to be cleansed; where is 
 there weakness to be walled about by my 
 power? This is the law of Christ. This is 
 exactly the work to be done by this Society. 
 Money comes into this treasury to help the 
 nameless and unknown poor. You know only 
 that it goes to help the weak somewhere, and 
 that is enough. Christ is in it. We see it as 
 His legacy. These, crying in the dark for 
 help, are His children, and we accept the 
 charge. A stranger dashed across the street 
 in front of a team and snatched a child from 
 under the very necks of the horses. The driver 
 reined up, saying: ^Ts that your child?" The 
 gentleman, letting the child bound away in 
 the joy of rescued life, said: ^'No, sir, but it 
 is somebody's." 
 
 This Society, in the spirit of its concep- 
 tions, in the purpose of the men who ordained 
 it, in the thought of that Supreme Power 
 above all Boards, and free from all local 
 prejudice — the High Council, the Parliament 
 of the Church; this Society in that supreme 
 judgment, made its election between that hack- 
 driver and that heroic gentleman, and it can 
 never, never, NEVER, be reversed. No admin- 
 
 494 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 istration that fails to apprehend this good law 
 of unselfish beneficence can abide. The 
 Church will look to it, and God will look to 
 it. So I affirm boldly that the principle under 
 this Society is unselfish beneficence. It is not 
 necessary for a Christian man to expend his 
 money upon himself in order to stimulate his 
 own industry. 
 
 It is not necessary to put one-half of our 
 own benevolent contributions into our own 
 pocket, in order to hire ourselves to give the 
 Lord His dues. Such estimates underrate the 
 intelligence of the Church. The true spirit 
 of this Society is told in the collection taken in 
 this Church yesterday morning. I think I 
 never rejoiced more over any announcement 
 than that. I can go back to my brethren over 
 the mountains and tell them that Arch Street 
 Church, in the midst of its dedication, stopped 
 and gave a large collection to this Society. 
 Though meeting great home obligations, they 
 were ready to heed the cry from the needy, and 
 send away their money to the destitute. I can 
 tell them that our general Church interests 
 are safe, and this Society will revive the spirit 
 of unselfish beneficence. If I mistake not, 
 more strength will come to the cause of God 
 from this example than from any other single 
 
 495 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 act in our history as a Church. If I were a 
 member of this Church, I had rather be the 
 author of this collection than of this church 
 building itself. Like the woman in the New 
 Testament with the alabaster box, you have a 
 memorial, and wherever this Society goes 
 with its blessings, this shall be spoken of you, 
 and the fragrance of your ointment shall be 
 mingled with the fragrance of the gospel long 
 after you are gone. God grant that you may 
 go late home to the angels. 
 
 I wish you could go through the South 
 and West. I wish you could look upon those 
 regions where millions are unable to have any 
 service in the cold months for want of build- 
 ings. Give them money enough to buy the 
 glass, and cheap hinges, and a few nails, 
 and they will hew out logs, and put up 
 churches by the hundred. The loyal men of 
 the South, and the men from the North, and 
 the colored men, are shut out from the shabby 
 churches of the Church South. There is no 
 hope for that country but in the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. Rev. Moses Sullivan, a 
 white member of the Alabama Conference, 
 was beaten with hickory whips by disguised 
 Ku Klux. His skull was fractured by a blow 
 upon the head with the butt of the hickory. 
 
 496. 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 Strokes across his breast were so severe as to 
 cause injury from which he will never recover. 
 His persecutors demanded that he should 
 leave the Methodist Episcopal Church and 
 join the Church South, threatening to murder 
 him unless he should do so. This is the usual 
 demand made by the Ku Klux when they 
 attack our preachers, white or colored. Sen- 
 ator Aikins, of Georgia, a white member of 
 First Church, Atlanta, was assassinated for his 
 loyalty to the Government. Rev. A. S. Lakin, 
 Presiding Elder of Huntsville District, Ala- 
 bama, has been threatened, followed re- 
 peatedly, his house surrounded by Ku Klux 
 in disguise, and shots fired through his rooms. 
 
 Rev. James McHenry (colored), a minis- 
 ter of Georgia Conference, was driven from 
 his circuit last summer, and his home broken 
 up by robbers. Rev. C. C. Johnson (colored) , 
 of Georgia Conference, was shot at in broad 
 day, when returning from his appointment in 
 the country, and again while sitting by his 
 fireside. Hon. Malcolm Claibourn (colored), 
 a member of the House of Representatives, 
 Georgia, an influential and valuable member 
 of our Church, was shot dead on the steps of 
 the capitol. Uncle Peter (colored), an ex- 
 horter, was shot, and his throat cut, and his 
 
 32 497 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 body thrown into a ditch in Grantville, 
 Georgia, because he was loyal to the Govern- 
 ment, and a Northern Methodist. Rev. Mr. 
 Varnel, received on probation in the Alabama 
 Conference at its late session, was shot dead 
 by the Ku Ulux. His body was pierced by 
 forty balls. His son was also murdered. Mr. 
 Randolph, one of the most promising colored 
 men in the South, was shot dead while stand- 
 ing on the platform of the cars. The false- 
 hoods told, wrongs and persecutions inflicted 
 on the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 
 South can not be told. Our people and pastors 
 there have the heroism of the martyrs. 
 
 One-half of all the churches (including 
 town and city) in the Gulf States, have neither 
 windows nor fires. There are about five hun- 
 dred churches of all denominations within the 
 Dalton District, Georgia Conference. The 
 value of these houses does not average much 
 over twenty-five dollars each. Many of these 
 are mere log huts without windows or fires. 
 In the Gulf States but few religious services 
 are held in the winter outside of the towns. 
 Morgantown, Buchanan, Guntersville, and 
 other villages which are county seats, have not, 
 and never had, any church of any sort or de- 
 nomination. 
 
 498 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 The Church South intends to drive us out, 
 but we can not leave there any more than we 
 can leave India. The Church South is to-day 
 not so strong in its members by two-fifths as in 
 1844, nor in moral strength by three-fifths, 
 nor in money by four-fifths. The calm laymen 
 of that Church say we are their only hope and 
 must abide. We have settled in that country, 
 and intend to move from there to heaven — 
 when w^e move at all. Methodism was never 
 known to let go when she once had hold. Our 
 brethren risk their lives, and we must give 
 them forts with which to hold the country for 
 Christ. 
 
 Go into the great West; yesterday a prai- 
 rie, to-day a locomotive pushes by. The snort 
 of the steed starts a city out of the ground. 
 To-morrow there must be a church. The 
 first people will control the community; we 
 must come to their aid if we would hold the 
 country for Christ. This certainly is His 
 cause, to go in His spirit to these His pur- 
 chased ones. 
 
 Standing by His Cross, raised for us, we 
 can not do other than help His children. I 
 read somewhere of two miners in a bucket 
 being hoisted out of the shaft. They had come 
 up several hundred feet, when they heard a 
 
 499 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 sharp twang and felt a little jar on the bucket. 
 By a sort of horrible instinct they looked at 
 the rope; one strand had broken, the others 
 were unwinding. Both could not be carried 
 up; one might. Which should die? That 
 was the terrible question. Only a moment for 
 choice. One of the miners was a Christian, 
 the other was not. The Christian said: 'T am 
 ready to die, you are not; John, do n't let my 
 children suffer," and sprang out of the bucket. 
 The other was carried safely out. Think you 
 he could ever see those orphans go hungry 
 while he had a morsel? Christ, dying, says: 
 ''Do n't let My children suffer." Can we gaze 
 on the Cross and fail to do His work? The 
 work of this Society is backed by this obliga- 
 tion and is Christlike in its unselfish benefi- 
 cence. 
 
 4. There is another argument for this So- 
 ciety in its Results. He that giveth the in- 
 crease must be with it. It is only the good 
 ground that yields thirty or sixty or a hundred- 
 fold. There has been some feeling in some 
 sections that this Society was not doing much; 
 but such feeling must depend upon the views 
 of the demand rather than of the actual work. 
 Too much has been expected and too little has 
 been done. But I would ask, would there not 
 
 500 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 have been much greater disappointment from 
 the old way of irresponsible begging? Com- 
 pare our figures with the other societies. This 
 Society was organized in 1864, in 1869 raised 
 by collection about $60,000 and for the Loan 
 Fund about $114,000 on subscription; aided 
 seventy-nine Churches in about twenty-six 
 States and Territories, and in 1870 over 
 $100,000 aided one hundred and seventy 
 Churches in thirty-six different States and 
 Territories, extending from Maine to Califor- 
 nia, from the Lakes to the Gulf. 
 
 The Baptist Union, with a membership of 
 one million two hundred and twenty- two thou- 
 sand, raised in the first thirteen years only 
 $30,000. In 1869 they raised over $100,000, 
 aided fifty Churches in seventeen States. The 
 Congregational Union, organized in 1852, 
 raised, in 1869, $50,000. The Presbyterian 
 Church, in both branches, raised, in 1869, 
 $73,000; aided one hundred and twenty-five 
 Churches. It seems to me that we have great 
 reason to rejoice at the rapid strides we have 
 made, and take new courage for the future. 
 
 The returns that come in from the invest- 
 ments are marvelous. When $50 will secure a 
 church to accommodate three hundred persons 
 and give a home to a believing society, there 
 
 501 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 can remain no doubt of this readiness of the 
 harvest. Reports from seven charges show 
 that the investment given by donation and loan, 
 $1,417.67, secures $11,430 worth of church 
 property, makes seatings for two thousand 
 one hundred and forty, and homes for seven 
 hundred and twenty-seven members, with one 
 hundred and seventy-four probationers, hav- 
 ing one hundred and twenty-two conversions 
 and two hundred and twenty-five additions to 
 the Churches in a year. Surely this must be 
 good soil. If you want to do good with your 
 money, here is your chance. It could not 
 but bear vast increase. A church is a home, 
 and so must win the homeless. It is a fort; 
 the party within must hold the country. Raids 
 may agitate and alarm a people, but nothing 
 less than well-planted forts can subjugate a 
 land; and our mission is to hold the country 
 for our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 5. This Society is Christlike in the laws 
 of its beneficence. It gives on principle. It 
 does not see the individual hand that is ex- 
 tended for aid; it only knows that aid is 
 needed. It does not dole out its gifts to the 
 pressing solicitor simply to get rid of him, 
 doubting a little his genuineness, and doubt- 
 ing more whether he can raise enough to pay 
 
 502 
 
ADDRESS ON CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 his expenses. It takes the fact of need and 
 pays its money into the hands of men whose 
 business is to know the necessities of each case 
 and see to it that the money has safe transit 
 to its destiny. The great need of the Church 
 is the universal application of this law of giv- 
 ing on principle. Could all Christian men 
 come up to this elevated and simple standard, 
 and the Lord's treasury receive its just dues, to 
 use the peculiar and ultimate argument of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, "Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you," this generation should not pass away till 
 the Kingdom of Heaven would be fully come. 
 We have too little systematic and intelligent 
 giving. We look at the zeal of the beggar 
 and then at the liberality of our brothers. We 
 strike a sort of balance between these, and then 
 extract the cube root to see how little we can 
 give and get any sleep. This Society goes all 
 over the land, from ocean to ocean, from the 
 lakes to the gulf, and hunts out the needs of 
 all the people. It finds out how much is ab- 
 solutely indispensable to the work. Then it 
 goes over all the income reports of the saints 
 to see how much we can give. Then, prayer- 
 fully, and by its best judgment, it divides up 
 this need for this ability, and tremblingly in 
 God's name asks us to give it. Now, it does 
 
 503 
 
Addresses on notable occasions 
 
 seem to me that this is Christ-like in its law. 
 He always asks how much He can do for us; 
 this ought to be our inquiry. You walk out on 
 a beautiful afternoon with your little brother; 
 now he has your hand, next he is running 
 alone, and so you go on together, you two, 
 cradled on one knee, having the same blood. 
 By some mischance he is knocked down and 
 a loaded cart stops on him. There he is under 
 the wheel, sinking into the mud; you look into 
 his face; that is enough; the blackened skin 
 and starting eyes and contorted features tell 
 the story. That cart-wheel must be lifted. 
 Do you say to the by-standers, 'T will lift my 
 share?" Do you calculate how little you can 
 lift, and have the others lift the rest? No, you 
 spring the wheel, crying: "Come here! here! 
 help ! quick ! quick !" You seize the wheel and 
 straighten every muscle and cord, and by the 
 inspiration of your anguish the wheel goes up. 
 Our brothers are being crushed. We have 
 only to ask, "How much can we lift?" This 
 is God's law. 
 
 504 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 SEEN FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A LAYMAN 
 
 Delivered at the Commencement of the Medical College 
 of San Francisco in 1891. 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 SEEN FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A LAYMAN 
 
 A FEW months ago we and our fellow 
 townsmen crowded the shore and covered the 
 bay to see the Charleston slide from the land 
 into the sea. It was a most impressive and in- 
 spiring spectacle. As the steel monster leaped 
 into the waves, shaking the foam from her 
 prow, we held our breath, and our hearts al- 
 most stood still. A new king had been 
 crowned, a new force had been turned loose to 
 roam at large over the high seas, and ask all 
 evil-doers the reason why, and give all enemies 
 the reason why not. It was a short glance and 
 a brief prophecy to see her defending our 
 homes and harbor and coast and honor. We 
 found ourselves poised between the wonders 
 of her construction and the wonders of her 
 mission. Sixty centuries of science were 
 welded into her steel garments and mighty 
 engines and cunning appointments and accu- 
 rate displacements and supple movement and 
 resistless projectiles. From these mysteries 
 
 507 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 our thought sprang forward upon the history- 
 she shall write with her prow. We saw her 
 like a hound running down the fleeing foe, or 
 sinking the haughty invader, or pushing up 
 under the eyes of threatening nations, like the 
 defiant fist of a great free-fighting race. As 
 I gazed at her, lying on the sea, light as a 
 gull, beautiful as a swan, swift as a shark, re- 
 sistless as a leviathan, I uncovered my head, 
 saying: "Wonderful factor of life and death! 
 More wonderful still the brain that created 
 you ! Most wonderful of all the Supreme One 
 who eventuated and potentialized that brain!" 
 So this hour I stand on this honorable and 
 historic platform, gazing at these cruisers now 
 being launched upon the shoreless sea of 
 human weakness and want. As they glide 
 down these steps into the actual storms and 
 voyages of life, my interest is too intense for 
 statement. I am divided between the wonder 
 of the infinite patience and skill of these high 
 workmen who have wrought the common 
 human clay that came into their hands three 
 years ago in these shapely and promising po- 
 tentialities, and the wonder of the all-enduring 
 patience for the patients and the patience of 
 the patients that shall make up the achieve- 
 ments of the oncoming future. I see these 
 
 508 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 men clad in the armor you have wrought upon 
 them, impelled by the forces you have stored 
 within them, and inspired by the spirit you 
 have breathed into them, pushing out into the 
 great currents of life to confront our mortal 
 enemies, to stand in the breach where crowd- 
 ing perils threaten, and sit quietly in the 
 slaughter-pens where deaths reach the famil- 
 iarity of companionship. I am compelled to 
 admire the skilled forces that are here liber- 
 ated in human society, and wonder at the 
 greater skill that has caused and liberated 
 them, and adore the Supreme Wisdom that 
 has made it so great a dignity to belong to 
 a rational race. 
 
 I know that these new doctors are in the 
 soft veal of their profession. Yet I am anx- 
 ious to honor them for what they are to be. 
 For who can say that it may not yet be my 
 highest good fortune to secure their services 
 in that critical hour that for us all is only a 
 question of time. Young men, if we do meet 
 at that Philippi, remember that I want you 
 to come at the top of your possibilities and 
 give me a new chance, a new lease of life. 
 
 With these personal relations settled and 
 established, I want now to tell you what a 
 layman thinks about you and your profession. 
 
 509 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 It is a great and honorable profession. It 
 is great in its great men. It is fair to demand 
 the production of great workers, great char- 
 acters, great leaders, of any profession that 
 aspires to a foremost rank. It would be easy 
 to find great names, from Galen to Harvey 
 and to Lister, but I will not give a catalogue 
 of these worthies. The peculiar studies of 
 this profession cause the profession to overflow 
 into other fields. It not only has a full quota 
 of renowned men in each age and in each 
 generation when there has been any intel- 
 lectual activity at all, but it has given a help- 
 ing hand to lift men into other saddles. Not 
 a few of the great leaders in the different de- 
 partments of science are the just product of 
 the medical profession. They are known to 
 the admiring world by their achievements in 
 some highway or byway of science. But those 
 who come nearest to them know that this pro- 
 fession opened the door to them. It seems not 
 too much to say that the domain of knowledge 
 owes the larger part of its advances to physi- 
 cians and missionaries. These often work 
 back to back, but they work and march into 
 new^ fields and meet in the antipodes. By a 
 curious turn of thought your profession fre- 
 quently kindles great beacon lights that give 
 
 510 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 their radiance to my profession. Among my 
 late great colleagues the renown of Bishop 
 Simpson and Bishop Wiley are enough to es- 
 tablish the claim of the physicians to fair con- 
 sideration. The Great Physician was early 
 followed by Luke, the skillful physician, and 
 He has had hosts of heralds ever since, who 
 widened and strengthened their intellectual 
 forces in the study of medicine. 
 
 This profession is great in the materials 
 used. We have one standard of measurement 
 for men based on what they handle and master. 
 The man who never rises above a saw-buck or 
 a plow-handle is graded by his work. The 
 cowboy is under the same law. The machinist 
 who turns bars and bands of steel into all the 
 cunning utilities of our civilization climbs up 
 the scale of life. The jeweler creating the rich 
 ornaments from the precious metals has a cost- 
 mark of his own. What shall we say of the 
 physician who works on this most wonderful 
 of all substances; viz., living tissue? Nerve 
 tissue is the most costly substance known in 
 the universe. It can be put to more varied 
 and delicate uses than anything else. It takes 
 longer to build it up. It costs most to produce 
 it. It brings the highest price in the mart of 
 Nature. It is difficult to grade too highly the 
 
 511 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 workmen who manipulate these delicate and 
 costly materials. 
 
 The October Harper s gives a detailed ac- 
 count of how a surgeon transformed an idiot 
 into a bright child, with a soul and a chance. 
 A few cuts across the skull not far from the 
 lines where Nature sews her life seams let in 
 the light. The feet and hands straightened out 
 and acted under purpose, the eye caught the 
 light of intelligence, and the thing was 
 wrought over in a single month into a man 
 child, 
 
 A little boy in Brooklyn fell from the 
 dooryard fence. Soon he was changed from 
 the best to the worst of boys. There was no 
 living with him. He was taken to the hos- 
 pital. The doctor lifted out a little piece of 
 his skull. Soon he recovered his former gen- 
 tleness and was as lovable as before his fall. 
 I have seen other children and some adults that 
 ought to be sent to that Brooklyn hospital. 
 
 I doubt not there are scores of divorced 
 and wretched people in our beautiful city that 
 would have been living together in honor and 
 happiness if they could have fallen into the 
 hands of the doctors instead of the lawyers. 
 
 It is too early, I fear it may always be 
 too early, as with Koch's remedy, to say that 
 
 512 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 the bichloride of gold will supplant or super- 
 annuate the Woman's Christian Temperance 
 Union, but this much is manifest, that if any 
 medical treatment will take the fever of liquor 
 out of a man's blood and neutralize his appe- 
 tite for alcohol, then it will restore the victim 
 to a better probation and give him a better 
 chance for achieving moral character. Surely 
 it must be a great profession that works in 
 such costly materials and produces so much 
 like the products from God's workshop, so 
 much like the achievements of His re-creating 
 grace. 
 
 The medical profession is great in its spirit. 
 This, after all, is the supreme test. The 
 quality of one dollar is the same as the quality 
 of a million dollars. The difference is not one 
 of use, but of numbers; not one of quality, but 
 of quantity. Talents, like possessions, receive 
 their moral character not from their greatness, 
 but from their use. Physicians hold a high 
 rank by the spirit of their labor. The Hippo- 
 cratic Oath has run its high purpose through 
 the profession. Not every doctor lives up to 
 it. Not every Christian adorns his Church 
 and honors his creed. But it is good soil that 
 will make such an Oath possible. 
 
 God's order is this: "Judged by the deeds 
 
 33 513 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 done in the body." Applied to physicians, I 
 must give them a high rank in character. 
 They do a larger per cent of purely charitable 
 and unremunerated labor than any other class 
 of men in the round of my acquaintance. 
 They are pulled out of their warm beds and 
 hurried through dark and filthy streets into 
 poor hovels and sheds to perform the most un- 
 pleasant and repulsive duties, at all hours 
 of the night, in all sorts of weather, with the 
 least chance of financial profit. They spend 
 hours and nights in most disagreeable places, 
 laboring with the least desirable people, in con- 
 tact with the most dangerous diseases. Their 
 charities cost them something. The gift of 
 money, if one has much, may not be costly. I 
 never reflect upon the sacrifices and charities of 
 an average physician without thinking of the 
 Great Physician, who went into soul-healing 
 through body-healing. You have a magnifi- 
 cent opportunity for maturing the highest 
 Christian virtues. While I am charmed with 
 the great bulk and abundance of noble work 
 done by physicians, it is not necessary for me 
 to forget that these acts of charity afiford only 
 opportunities for the maturing of virtues, not 
 necessarily the virtues themselves. Let us not 
 be deceived. We are too familiar with the 
 
 514 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 nexus between motive and virtue, a nexus so 
 strong that no power known in the universe 
 can sever it, to find reward independent of the 
 intent. If you will come into my lecture-room 
 as I am now in yours, I will tell you that 
 salvation is the gift of God, and being saved 
 by grace we are rewarded according to our 
 works. Maintaining a life-touch with the 
 Great Physician, you can, through that love 
 of God which "is broader than the measure of 
 man's mind," transform these wondrous works 
 of love and good-will into sources of everlast- 
 ing rewards. This is my sermon to-night. 
 
 You, many of you, remember little "All 
 Right," who traveled with a troop of Japa- 
 nese jugglers. He used to perform on the 
 trapeze, and especially on a long pole which 
 his father held. The performance was made 
 hideous by the pounding and clatter of Japa- 
 nese music. But through all the performance 
 and with all the music, the father gave forth 
 a minor chord that penetrated the boy's ear in 
 spite of all the din and kept his attention. He 
 listened to that, and forgot the perils of his 
 position and the clatter of the Japanese music. 
 It assured him of his father's care and steadied 
 him for every effort. I ask you to accept my 
 little sermon to-night as a minor chord run- 
 
 515 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ning through this talk, that may give you a 
 glimpse of the fact that "the heart of the Eter- 
 nal is most wonderfully kind." 
 
 The average physician stands head and 
 shoulders above men of other secular callings 
 in the faithfulness w^ith which he attends to 
 the poor and rich alike, in the liberality with 
 which he often furnishes the needed medicines 
 which the poverty whose summons he has 
 obeyed is unable to procure. Often these men 
 tarry, in spite of their weariness, in these un- 
 comfortable and pestilent quarters, to act as 
 nurses when other help can not be secured. 
 The appeals to them come, like cries on the 
 field after a battle, as a most exhausting tax 
 upon the nerves. Surely this must be a great 
 profession, measured by its heroic and exalted 
 spirit, and by its opportunities for achieving 
 eternal rewards. 
 
 The medical profession is great in the 
 courage of its membership. Courage is no 
 mean virtue. It is not limited to charges on 
 battlefields. It is not monopolized by the 
 bulldog who takes hold and does not know 
 how to let go. It is not confined to the blind 
 determination of the grizzly bear. It par- 
 takes of a higher element. It rises into the 
 field of moral purpose and personal sacrifice. 
 
 516 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 It is possessed of calculations. It sees the 
 danger and marches up to it. That is the cour- 
 age that characterizes the young man who de- 
 liberately selects the profession of medicine 
 and sits down to earn bread and fame in that 
 field. 
 
 It is the most overcrowded of all the 
 learned professions, if we rule begging and 
 tramping out of the list of the learned profes- 
 sions. To enter it requires the courage of a 
 soldier and the repose of a philosopher. 
 Think of the United States, with only sixty 
 million people, sustaining and operating 
 about twice as many medical colleges as all 
 the great empires of Europe and Asia with a 
 population of one billion. Our sixty millions 
 of people employ over one hundred thousand 
 physicians, one for every six hundred persons. 
 In France, according to Dr. Doering, there 
 is one to two thousand; in Austria, one to 
 twenty-five hundred ; in Germany, one to three 
 thousand; in Italy, one to thirty-five hundred; 
 in Sweden, one to seventy-five hundred. If 
 there is any moral in these figures, this must 
 be true. If Europe is properly doctored, then 
 there must be in America either a great many 
 sick people or a great many sick physicians. 
 The prizes must be very great, though not so 
 
 517 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 numerous. It must be like mining; the one 
 mine in twenty-four hundred must be a great 
 success to float so many corpses. The prizes 
 for the physicians ought to be very great to 
 reward them for their severe labors and nar- 
 row chances. None but heroes need enter 
 this field. 
 
 The medical profession is great in its pos- 
 sibilities. It is the most progressive of the 
 learned professions. Theology does advance, 
 but most of our successful advances are like 
 the apparent advance of the crawfish, back- 
 ward — backward toward the Word of God; 
 forward indeed to better interpretations and to 
 wider and wiser brotherhoods. Law advances 
 only with the state of the public mind. It 
 keeps step with the wish or thought of the 
 people. Medicine seems to push on by a law 
 of its own. It has no supreme authority 
 simply needing interpretation. It has a wide 
 field of experiment. Its experiments are 
 guesses. With so great an army of experi- 
 menters and all the race to experiment upon, it 
 would be worse than the total depravity of in- 
 animate things if double sixes did not come 
 up occasionally. 
 
 I need not take much time in pointing out 
 these fortunate throws. Yesterday doctors are 
 
 518 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 said to have prescribed by streets. All the 
 sick people on A Street must be bled to-day, 
 and all the sick people on B Street must take 
 an emetic. Then to-morrow the order is 
 changed and the streets reversed. Now the 
 physicians prescribe according to the individ- 
 ual case, not for the whims of the patient, but 
 according to the facts of the disease. Not 
 every young doctor can correctly interpret the 
 sounds he hears in listening to the voices from 
 within the physical nature of his patient, and 
 it is often very costly to teach him this new 
 language. It is said that it takes a peck of 
 eyes to make an oculist. Yet that peck saves 
 bushels of other eyes. A worthy doctor does 
 not regard himself equipped till he has 
 learned the language of the healthy and dis- 
 eased nature. In these days he does master 
 that occult language and directs the relief 
 forces along the available approaches to the 
 center of the strife. 
 
 Every yard of the modern journey of this 
 great profession is marked by some wonderful 
 discovery. The stethoscope itself in impor- 
 tance is not much behind the discovery of the 
 circulation of the blood. How many songs of 
 life and death it sings to the practiced ear! 
 Who can estimate the value to the suffering 
 
 519 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 race of the use of the microscope? A single 
 glance at a single tissue from some tumor has 
 given unconditional discharge from the prison 
 house of fear, as the doctor has known with 
 absolute certainty that the tumor is not can- 
 cerous. 
 
 We have no arithmetic with which to com- 
 pute the relief and comfort that have been se- 
 cured by the discovery and use of atKBsthetics. 
 I had rather be the author of that blessing for 
 my kind than of any other physical comfort. 
 The only thing I can place above it is the 
 displacement of a malignant Pagan fatalism 
 by a free gospel of peace. In my youth I was 
 pulled around the office of a country doctor by 
 a stubborn back tooth for two hours, till I tired 
 out the stoutest doctor in the county. Do n't 
 you think I would gladly have given my last 
 penny to have pontooned that chasm with 
 harmless unconsciousness? Not long ago I 
 went into the office of a scientific physician 
 with fear and trembling to have my throat 
 burned out. He swabbed it with cocaine, 
 which only tickled a little. In a few moments 
 I smelt something, like cooking beefsteak or 
 veal cutlet; rather an agreeable sensation, and 
 the trouble was all over. Add to the quietness 
 of the great army of sufferers under the sur- 
 
 520 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 geon's knife the increased certainty of success 
 that the improved conditions give him, and 
 you have a debt of gratitude due from the race 
 to this great profession that even the gold of 
 our beloved California could not discharge. 
 Who can enumerate the blessings to count- 
 less homes in the continued care and love of 
 the mother that have been secured by the tri- 
 umphs in ovariotomy? Think of the faces 
 that have been made presentable and happy 
 by skin-grafting! See the great army of use- 
 ful men and women whose limbs or spines 
 have been straightened and strengthened. 
 Wait till you look upon the apparently warp- 
 ing spine of your infant son, and in one mo- 
 ment see him twisted into an interrogation 
 mark, an interrogation mark which with des- 
 pairing and almost rebellious hand you dash 
 upon the front of the very throne of God, and 
 then feel every drop of your blood boil up into 
 one purpose and every fiber of your being 
 twist up into one everlasting determination at 
 all costs to leave him above want and certain 
 of social recognition; then you will have some 
 faint idea of what this great profession is 
 worth in a life where Nature's defeated har- 
 monies often need restoring. See the advances 
 made in the preparation of the remedies! In- 
 
 521 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 stead of the coarse barks and bitter and flood- 
 ing teas, which made the springtimes of our 
 youth a horrid nightmare, now, when we must 
 be remedied, we have some delicious extract 
 that gives us no trouble. It may be heroic to 
 insist on nasty doses for others, but we would 
 like to have their advocates take them. The 
 doctors and the schoolmasters have advanced 
 a thousand years in my short lifetime. Then 
 we wanted to cry when we saw either; now 
 our children mourn if we are prevented from 
 seeing them. 
 
 The luminous path up which this profes- 
 sion has come to its present character is only 
 a promise of infinitely more useful achieve- 
 ments in the future. The vast storehouse of 
 Nature's resources is at hand. Its key hangs 
 at the belt of the intelligent experimenter. 
 Surely, with such chances for development 
 and with such a momentum of success, this 
 must be a great profession. Honor to whom 
 honor is due! 
 
 Having said so much about your profes- 
 sion, allow me to say something to you — things 
 suggested by my standpoint as a layman. Al- 
 low me to follow the order of a sermon once 
 repeated to me from the text, "Enoch walked 
 
 522 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 with God, and he was not, for God took him." 
 After an introduction on the points that Enoch 
 was no idle vagabond because he walked, he 
 did not ride, and he was a believer in God be- 
 cause he walked and did not run, the preacher 
 said, we will now tell what Enoch was not, 
 for the text says he was not; first, he was not a 
 Baptist, because he walked, he did not swim; 
 second, he was not a Presbyterian, because he 
 walked with God ; third, he was a roaring and 
 shouting old Methodist, because God took 
 him. Without adopting the spirit of this ser- 
 mon, which shows zeal at the expense of 
 breadth, we will only borrow the form and 
 tell you what we do not want in a physician, 
 what our physician is not, 
 
 I. He is not on the side-track. We have 
 seen engines about the great depots that made 
 a great deal of noise, pushing and pulling, go- 
 ing and backing, ringing the bell, and taking 
 on just as if they were actually going some- 
 where. But they are not. They are only run- 
 ning up and down on the side-track behind the 
 depot. They never go anywhere, unless it be 
 when some real engine pulls them into a repair 
 shop. Some doctors are always on the side- 
 track. They are switched off by politics or 
 
 523 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 by some speculations. Back in the old days, 
 when Chicago had only eighty thousand in- 
 habitants instead of its eleven hundred or 
 twelve hundred thousand, I used to see a phy- 
 sician who speculated in canal lands, and he 
 gave his pills on canal time — one quarter 
 down and the rest in one, two, and three years. 
 He made more money out of land than out of 
 pills, but he ceased to be a physician. Our 
 doctor avoids the side-track. 
 
 2. He is no mere hobbyist. I can find a 
 great physician who, they say, will cut your 
 palate if you have the leg ache. I know an- 
 other, who, they say, will cut your eyeballs if 
 you have corns. In old days the physician, the 
 barber, and the midwife were practitioners in 
 separate parts of this great profession, and 
 each was punctilious not to do or know any- 
 thing that belonged to the others. But now the 
 physician is supposed to round up all this 
 knowledge in one bosom. He may not prac- 
 tice surgery and midwifery, but he knows 
 thoroughly about the practice of each. If you 
 perfect yourself in some specialty, let that spe- 
 cialty be backed and sustained by a thorough 
 knowledge of your great profession. There 
 is but one Shasta on the earth, rising out of a 
 plain. The highest peaks rise out of vast 
 
 524 
 
THE THYSICIAN 
 
 ranges. The peaks standing alone are over- 
 estimated. Measured, they are usually only 
 hills or hillocks. 
 
 3. He is not a theologian. Now and then 
 a superior man masters one profession, then 
 masters another, but these are rare exceptions. 
 Our doctor does not dabble in theology as if 
 he were an authority. That is work for all 
 the faculties and all the forces of the greatest 
 minds. The doctor who is to help best in the 
 hand-to-hand struggle for life has not those 
 forces to spare. When I want medicine I 
 want it prescribed by a regular physician. I 
 do not want a quack about me. When you 
 want theology, go to a regular theologian and 
 get a good article. Quacks in theology are as 
 offensive and harmful as quacks in medicine. 
 
 4. He is not a skeptic. There is an opinion 
 abroad in certain quarters that physicians are 
 usually skeptics. This is an overstatement. 
 Many physicians have drifted from their 
 rtioorings on many things taught by theologi- 
 ans. But a large per cent of the leading minds 
 in the profession are in hearty accord with 
 the principal doctrines of the Bible. Many of 
 the greatest lights, like N. S. Davis, of Chi- 
 cago, and leading men in the faculty of this 
 college, have a personal acquaintance with 
 
 525 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 saving grace. In a revival in a community in 
 Ohio a young lawyer professed to be con- 
 verted. At the close of the meetings the pastor 
 was receiving the converts into the Church. 
 The young lawyer did not come forward to 
 unite with the Church. When asked why he 
 did not, he said: ''I can not. You know I am 
 a lawyer." The preacher said: "Come along, 
 you are not lawyer enough to hurt." So it 
 happens in this profession that some who are 
 not doctor enough to hurt or are just enough 
 to hurt count themselves as skeptical. There 
 are some great characters who are not in loyal 
 support of Christianity. It is one of the pen- 
 alties paid by exclusive or exacting attention 
 to one great department of truth. Other de- 
 partments do not have a fair chance. Alexan- 
 der von Humboldt, busy all his life with the 
 scientific study of the material sides of the 
 world, said: "I am of the religion af all men 
 of science," as if all men of science ever had 
 anything in common. His equally great 
 brother, William, studying the problems of 
 life and society, of human wants and human 
 history, bore simple testimony to Christianity. 
 If all the energies are drawn off in one chan- 
 nel, they will not be found in some other as 
 abundant. While this profession furnishes its 
 
 526 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 full share of doubters, yet we do not want an 
 atheist or skeptic as our physician. Approxi- 
 mately correct ideas of God, of accountability, 
 of the moral government, of heaven, of hell, 
 of the judgment and of eternity, can not but 
 enlarge the mind and set it about the work of 
 life with renewed vigor. There is some com- 
 fort in feeling that your doctor believes in God 
 and is in league with his Providence and with 
 events. One feels the steadiness and sustain- 
 ing power of an enlightened conscience to be 
 great allies in the struggle for life, where 
 every atom of energy and every possible ad- 
 vantage must be utilized. It is also assuring 
 to know that the inner and private history of 
 one's family are in the keeping of a conscien- 
 tious man. Build we never so carefully our 
 houses and homes, yet sooner or later we must 
 hand over the key to the family physician. It 
 means much to all of us, Christian or non- 
 Christian, to know that that key is held in the 
 hand of a great moral obligation as under the 
 scrutiny of the Supreme Ruler, to whom a 
 strict account must be rendered. Our doctor 
 is not a skeptic. 
 
 5. He is a man. He is a manly man. He 
 is robust in body and mind. He does not 
 threaten to outrun the patient and get into the 
 
 527 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 grave first. He is a substantial, broad-souled, 
 many-sided man, who is too large for the lit- 
 tle trickeries and pettinesses of life. He im- 
 parts vigor to us by the enswathements of his 
 presence and greatness. 
 
 6. He is a wise, scholarly man. He keeps 
 up with his calling. He keeps in touch with 
 the leaders of his profession. He is at home 
 with all the new achievements in his science. 
 We excuse but few mistakes in him. Napo- 
 leon said a blunder in a field marshal is the 
 worst of crimes. So our doctor must make no 
 blunders, or the fewest possible, none that any 
 one else could avoid. We have too much at 
 issue. We read the little girPs composition 
 on anatomy, in which she says that anatomy 
 consists of three cavities; the first is called the 
 skull, and is intended to contain the brains, if 
 they have any; the second is called the thorax, 
 and contains the heart, lungs, and giblets; the 
 third is called the bowels, of which there are 
 five, A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes W and Y. 
 We smile at this bright ignorance. But when 
 we hear a young doctor say: 'Well, if that 
 patient has caught the convalescence, it will 
 go hard with him, for people seldom survive 
 that complication," then we shudder. Our 
 doctor must not make serious mistakes. Dr. 
 
 52a 
 
THE PHYSICIAN 
 
 Arnold, lecturing before the students of the 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons, of Balti- 
 more, says: "A distended bladder is mistaken 
 for dropsy; a tumor for pregnancy; strangu- 
 lated hernia for colic and constipation; tu- 
 bercular meningitis for gastric derangement; 
 effusion into the right pleura for enlarged 
 liver." Our doctor must have such thorough 
 acquaintance with his business that he w^ill not 
 make such blunders in treating us. We are 
 glad to have him gentlemanly and neat and 
 well dressed and compact and held closely to- 
 gether in his raiment, body and mind, but he 
 must know his business and be able to do the 
 best possible for us every time he does any- 
 thing. 
 
 7. Our doctor must have character. This 
 is the sum of all other gifts, abilities, acquire- 
 ments, appearances. This rounds up all else. 
 I remember to have read in the address of the 
 honored President of this noble institution, de- 
 livered on the occasion of the dedication or 
 this building, these wise words: "Your Fac- 
 ulty strongly believe and diligently teach that 
 the professional character is sadly incomplete 
 unless high scientific training be conjoined 
 with equally high morals." In emphasizing 
 the value of character, we distinguish charac- 
 
 34 529 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 ter from reputation. For reputation is only 
 the appearance; character is the substance; 
 reputation is the dust which frightened swine 
 may start in the street; character is the dia- 
 mond that sparkles on the brow of royalty; 
 reputation is the breath of the mob; character 
 is the verdict of God; reputation is the meteor 
 that flashes a moment athwart the gloom and 
 vanishes in the darkness. Character is the sun 
 that blazes on in the firmament forever and 
 forever. Our doctor must have this divine 
 patent of nobility that will make him the 
 younger brother of the truth itself, so that 
 truth everywhere will be in league with him 
 and adhere to him. 
 
 Gentlemen of this ancient and noble pro- 
 fession, brother toilers on the plains of time, 
 we are all alike sent to till and keep the farm 
 of the world. Some of the workers in their 
 haste about the stumping and clearing of this 
 farm do not come near enough to the great 
 paternal mansion to hear the music and enjoy 
 the feast, but they are helping to subdue the 
 wild farm. It is not the best use of our ener- 
 gies to club each other. Let no worker be 
 clubbed from the farm. God can be trusted 
 ro distribute the pennies, even though it be 
 in the shade and cool of the evening. 
 
 530 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 Written on behalf of a Committee appointed by the Board 
 
 of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 as an appeal for a week of prayer, and 
 
 pubhshed March 1, 1900. 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 We, the Bishops of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, after careful review of the 
 work and prayerful self-examination, ask the 
 Church to unite with us in a week of fasting 
 or abstinence and prayer, that the spiritual life 
 of all our members may be renewed and deep- 
 ened; that the Holy Spirit may be poured 
 out upon us as a Church and as individuals 
 so abundantly that every member may have 
 the witness of the Spirit to adoption, and to 
 fullness and completeness of redemption in 
 Christ Jesus ; and that the unsaved members of 
 our families and our unsaved neighbors may 
 be converted and brought into the Church; 
 and that all our ministers may have such a 
 baptism of power that God's word, spoken by 
 their mouths, may have such success that it 
 may never be spoken in vain, but be followed 
 by results bringing glory to God's name and 
 spiritual power to His Church; and that wis- 
 dom and a sound mind may be given to the 
 General Conference for all its deliberations, 
 
 533 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 and that its decisions may insure the enlarge- 
 ment of Christ's spiritual kingdom. 
 
 The Marquis of Argyll, one of Scotland's 
 noblest heroes, a statesman and a leader, brave 
 and resolute, openly committed himself to the 
 cause of Protestantism and signed the Solemn 
 League and Covenant. He became the recog- 
 nized leader in council and in the field. Cap- 
 tured and imprisoned, he was sentenced to 
 death. He spent the last morning busily at- 
 tending to last things and receiving his friends 
 for the last time. He w^as marching up to 
 the last hour with the courage of a soldier and 
 the quiet firmness of a Stoic. Away in a re- 
 mote part of Edinburgh, in a private room, his 
 devoted wife and pastor were on their knees 
 before God, praying: '^O Lord, seal unto him 
 now Thy covenant, and say unto him, 'Son, be 
 of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee! ^' 
 At this very hour the marquis in his prison- 
 room walked over to the fireplace and was 
 poking the fire, when suddenly he turned 
 round, and, bursting into tears, exclaimed to 
 his friends : ''This will not do. I must declare 
 what the Lord has just done for my soul. He 
 has this very instant sealed my charter in these 
 words, 'Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are 
 
 534 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 forgiven thee/ "' The triumph of his martyr- 
 dom illumined all the sky of Scotland. Who 
 can tell how much Protestantism owes to that 
 devoted wife and pastor? 
 
 Methodism Confronting a Serious Situ- 
 ation. 
 
 To-day our Methodism confronts a seri- 
 ous situation. Our statistics for the last year 
 show a decrease in the number of our mem- 
 bers. Year before last our advance was 
 checked. Last year our advance column has 
 been forced back a little. The lost ground is 
 paved with the dead. We are surrounded by 
 powerful enemies. The attack is on every 
 side. It is high time for every Methodist to 
 take himself or herself to prayer, to call 
 mightily on God for help, that each one may 
 know for himself that he is accepted of God, 
 that in this testing time each one may hear the 
 Lord say, "Be of good cheer; thy sins are 
 forgiven thee." 
 
 Methodism was called into being to teach 
 and illustrate the seal of the covenant, the wit- 
 ness of the Spirit, and that to every state of 
 grace, conviction, justification, regeneration, 
 
 535 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 adoption, and sanctification. As Protestant- 
 ism really began when Martin Luther, on his 
 knees, climbing the Scalae Sanctae in Rome, 
 heard the Lord say, "The just shall live by 
 faith," so Methodism really began when John 
 Wesley, studying the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 "felt that strange warming in his heart," and 
 knew that he was adopted into the heavenly 
 family, having the witness of the Spirit whis- 
 pering within, "Abba, Father." Methodism 
 began in experience. It has been strong in 
 a personal conviction, deeper than logic, more 
 certain than argument, as deep as the very 
 depths of personal consciousness. It has, 
 therefore, never been obliged to go away from 
 home to learn about itself; nor has it ever had 
 schism or quarrel about doctrine. It has il- 
 lustrated the statement, "If any man will do 
 His will, he shall know of the doctrine." 
 There are many saints in the world who have 
 the seal of the covenant and know that their 
 sins are forgiven, who do not know that they 
 are essentially Methodists, and testify that 
 their sins are forgiven. And there are now, 
 unhappily, many Methodists who lack present 
 knowledge of New Testament salvation. 
 They have slipped a cog in their experience, 
 andj like many old families, who have to date 
 
 536 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 back to some buried ancestor to find their 
 virtue and title to their nobility, have to date 
 back to some dead experience to find their as- 
 surance and title to spiritual nobility. 
 
 The Trouble with the Statistics. 
 
 It is this slipped cog in our experience that 
 ails our statistics. We have much else worthy 
 of thought and needing attention. But let us 
 not be deceived or diverted. The difficulty 
 is right here. When we talk about other things 
 and enumerate our hindrances as explanations 
 of our statistics, we are imitating the logic of 
 the old Middle Age theologian who said: 
 "The reason why God did not make the world 
 better was not on account of any lack of power 
 in Him, but on account of certain stubbornness 
 in the materials." In our case it is simply 
 lack of spiritual power, of personal experi- 
 ence, lack of the witness of the Spirit, lack of 
 the seal of the covenant, that makes the diffi- 
 culties so prominent. There are no hard cases 
 with God. Faith, like a grain of mustard 
 seed, removes mountains. The old faith 
 'laughs at impossibilities, and cries, It must 
 be done." 
 
 537 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The Opportunity of Methodism. 
 
 We have much for which we should ren- 
 der glad thanks to God. His providence has 
 given us a great task in this New World civ- 
 ilization. Our opportunity is as wide as the 
 republic, as wide as Anglo-Saxon dominion, 
 as wide as "the world." God has "set before 
 thee an open door, and no man can shut it." 
 Opportunity is power. It is for us to deter- 
 mine whether we will enter in and reign, or 
 hesitate and let another take our crown. We 
 have a great spiritual ancestry; we are born 
 of heroes. We are the heirs of the men "who 
 turned the world upside down." We inherit 
 their weapons, their armor, their defenses, 
 their fields, their foes, their banners, and their 
 obligations. We .must not fail to perpetuate 
 their spirit, duplicate their scars, and match 
 their victories. We have vast resources — 
 church property estimated by the hundred 
 million dollars; Church members, more than 
 two million; Sunday-school children, nearly 
 as many more. We have missions in every 
 quarter of the globe and in almost every im- 
 portant country. We have great organized 
 benevolences in nearly every field of human 
 want. We have successful revivals reported 
 
 538 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 from hundreds of our Churches. We bow 
 with grateful hearts, remembering what God 
 has done for us. But when we see how little 
 we have done for Him, how we are retreating 
 in spite of all our appliances, we feel our lack 
 of power, and we can only fall on our faces 
 and cry to Him to have mercy upon us and 
 ''not cut us down, but spare us another year," 
 and dig about us and fertilize us and see if we 
 will not do better. We can hear Him "who 
 walketh in the midst of the golden candle- 
 sticks, and carrieth the stars in His hands," 
 saying to us, as to the beleagured Church in 
 old Ephesus : "I know thy works, and thy la- 
 bor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not 
 bear them which are evil : . . . and hast 
 borne, and hast patience, and for My name's 
 sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Nev- 
 ertheless I have somewhat against thee, be- 
 cause thou hast left thy first love. Remember, 
 therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and 
 repent, and do the first works; or else I will 
 come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy 
 candlestick out of his place, except thou re- 
 pent." O God, pity us and give us, as far as 
 we can bear it, some approximate sense of 
 our poverty and helplessness and need of 
 Thee! 
 
 539 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The Greatest Need of Methodism. 
 
 Our greatest need Is the sense of our need. 
 Quietness is not security. A man sleeping 
 in his boat drifting in the rapids of Niagara 
 may dream that he is a child again, rocked by 
 his mother's hand. But that dream will not 
 change the fact that he is shooting like an ar- 
 row toward death. It is possible to so em- 
 brace and hug a fatal error that we may carry 
 it in our arms to the judgment bar as proof 
 of the justness of our condemnation. We 
 must take "heed how we hear" and "what we 
 hear," and, hearing, heed. God's Word 
 warns us concerning some who "received not 
 the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 
 And for this cause God shall send them strong 
 delusion, that they should believe a lie; that 
 they all might be damned who believe not the 
 truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" 
 (2 Thess. ii, 10-12). Let us beseech God to 
 show us ourselves as we are, that we may 
 properly realize our need. 
 
 Let us not deceive ourselves. This decline 
 in our membership is not an accident. It 
 comes from a sufficient cause. That cause is 
 the slipping cog in our experience, our lack of 
 spiritual power. 
 
 540 
 
the seal of the covenant 
 
 Spiritual Famine in the Church, and Its 
 Symptoms. 
 
 The heroes who starved in the old prison 
 pens had many signs of their famine. They 
 became thin, raw-boned, stoop-shouldered, 
 hollow-chested, and hollow-eyed. Their 
 joints were stifT, their bones ached, and their 
 muscles were sore. They lost all the signs of 
 youth. These were not distinct disease. They 
 were only symptoms of one awful disease — 
 famine. Suitable and sufficient food would 
 drive away this horrible brood of ailments and 
 restore youth with its beauty and power. So 
 it may be in our Church life. We have one 
 dire disease — spiritual famine — lack of the 
 witness of the Spirit, lack of personal experi- 
 ence, lack of spiritual power. And the symp- 
 toms are many and varied, but the disease is 
 one. We will only enumerate some of the 
 symptoms. 
 
 The gulf between capital and labor threat- 
 ens us on both sides. On one side, ''not many 
 mighty, not many noble, are called." On the 
 other, strange forces are alienating the poor. 
 The labor unions, organized most compactly, 
 are much influenced by men hostile to the 
 Church. Their gatherings are generally on 
 
 541 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 the Sabbath, thus keeping the men out of our 
 reach. 
 
 The submerged tenth has been allowed to 
 pass out to other agencies. We seem in some 
 places above our business. 
 
 One border of this Church has been frayed 
 out by the thin speculations and vagaries of 
 Christian Science. 
 
 The powerful camp-meetings of our fa- 
 thers have been superseded in many localities. 
 
 The literature found in our homes is too 
 often too light to nourish strong religious 
 characters. Books that furnish the compan- 
 ions for our youth are not selected with the 
 same care with which we choose their friends. 
 
 Amusements are sought after as if they 
 were a necessity. Like little children, people 
 of all ages think they must be amused. 
 
 The moral and spiritual forces of the 
 Church, necessary for the building of great 
 and Christlike characters, seem to be side- 
 tracked. In many places the spirit of the 
 world is dominant, instead of '^the spirit 
 which is of God." With some of our people 
 the services of God's house receive attention 
 when it is convenient. Inclination is toward 
 society and its enticements. Self-denial is not 
 always practiced. 
 
 542 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 The searching of the heart, that must pre- 
 cede every great work of revival, is often 
 avoided as the fanaticism of a past age. Re- 
 vivals, studied only in their most ridiculous 
 phases, are sometimes ridiculed as the ephem- 
 eral phenomena of shallow natures. Thus 
 some of our Churches are contented to nurse 
 their dignified uniformity and neutrality, and 
 so fail in their saving work. 
 
 In some sections criticism is extended to 
 everything sacred. The preaching and the 
 preacher are handled in the home circle with 
 severity. The family is trained to regard the 
 services of the sanctuary as common and rou- 
 tine. Our children are robbed of their respect 
 for the Church, and the Church is robbed of 
 their presence. 
 
 Higher criticism attacks the Bible itself, 
 denying its supernatural character and divine 
 authority. While this higher criticism is lim- 
 ited to a few centers, yet its influence is filtered 
 down through much of our literature, taking 
 the authority out of the teaching and the 
 power out of the preaching. The Bible loses 
 its divine authority. Sin loses its fatal sting. 
 The law loses its sanction, and God's govern- 
 ment is reduced to a few rules concerning 
 esthetics. 
 
 543 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 These are among the principal symptoms 
 indicating the famine that enervates our Zion. 
 We are retreating, when we should advance at 
 double-quick to keep abreast of the rushing 
 events of our time. The trouble is in the slip- 
 ping cog in our experience, our lack of power. 
 The old heroes who fought Calvinism with a 
 short sword, and scattered the forces of ridi- 
 cule and social contempt with a "Thus saith 
 the Lord," would have coveted a contest with 
 these little difficulties. 
 
 Methodism Must Not Turn Back. 
 
 With this feebleness upon us we are con- 
 fronting a crisis. Asia is open to us. The am- 
 bitions of the great Powers and the demands 
 for markets wide as the world may master and 
 overlay with "circles of influence" all heathen 
 territory in the next few decades. Our 
 Methodism can not turn back. No matter 
 how much we may covet the more quiet 
 policy, the die is cast. God is asking Metho- 
 dism, "Will you see and seize your day of 
 opportunity?" The Greek Church and the 
 Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran 
 Church and the Church of England have 
 great histories, and have served in the devel- 
 
 544 
 
THE SEAL OE THE COVENANT 
 
 opment of Christ's kingdom, but we do not 
 look to them for the evangelization and spir- 
 itual quickening of the world. In the ma- 
 turing of Christian life we have reached a 
 point where weighty responsibilities rest upon 
 the Protestantism of America. Methodism, 
 born with the republic and strengthened with 
 the nation, can not now break step. She is 
 forced, with the discipline of a century and a 
 quarter, to march with the nation's flag and 
 the nation's commerce. Whatever be the duty 
 of the nation, our duty at least is clear to enter 
 every open door. We are in a crisis. We 
 must carry the gospel into these old lands and 
 new fields. Are we ready? Is our spiritual 
 life up to the requirement? Are we keeping 
 our spiritual life so strong and pure that it 
 can safely and successfully inoculate these 
 great heathen empires? We seem to hesitate 
 on the thresholds. May God give us courage 
 and consecration and sacrifice and heroic 
 leadership! This work must be done by this 
 generation. Soon these empires will be pre- 
 empted. These empires are vast forts; the 
 forms of Christianity first in will have do- 
 minion. In the next generation it will be too 
 late for us. 
 
 35 545 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 The Appeal is to God for Help. 
 
 In the presence of these symptoms and our 
 underlying spiritual famine, and in this stu- 
 pendous crisis, our appeal is to God. He is 
 able to speak us into life and restore our vigor, 
 and restore His great salvation unto us as a 
 people. The Church is the Lamb's Bride, and 
 He is ever anxious to bestow upon her every 
 good gift. Mr. Lincoln, in the dark days 
 of the Civil War, said, "The way to get God 
 on our side is to get on His side." This law 
 holds forever over the Church. 
 
 Brothers in the ministry, the situation 
 presses us to our closets and down onto our 
 knees. The people are what we inspire and 
 lead them to be. We are called of God, 
 anointed of the Holy Ghost, and set apart by 
 the Church to be the leaders in spiritual 
 things. Our lives type the lives of the laity. 
 If we are anxious about personal ends, about 
 place or salary or grade, so as to do less than 
 our best spiritually, the membership will sink 
 to lower levels and become worldly. If we 
 have not a passion for souls, our people will 
 not agonize between the porch and the altar. 
 In the beginning of our Church life the min- 
 
 546 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 isters went out into unoccupied fields and cre- 
 ated a society, and found a preaching place as 
 best they could. The preacher embodied the 
 society. His word was law, his authority 
 was the Bible and his divine commission. If 
 men attached themselves to his society, it was 
 to accept his teaching. His lot seemed hard 
 and full of trials, but sorer trials have come 
 to us in these days. Large churches and fine 
 parsonages and welcoming societies await our 
 coming, and we are spared many of the old 
 cares and anxieties. But with these great ap- 
 pointments have come great influences to 
 modify our work. We still hold our first ac- 
 countability to God, but we are unconsciously 
 pressed with a secondary instrumental ac- 
 countability to the pews. The free lance of 
 the itinerant is in danger of being lowered a 
 little. We need more grace, more prayer, 
 more courage, and more of the spirit of the 
 martyrs than our fathers had, to walk in their 
 exalted and kingly way among men. We 
 have mightier agencies within our reach, 
 mightier weapons to wield, and wider fields 
 open to us than they had, and our responsi- 
 bilities are measured by our opportunities. 
 There never was a time when we had such 
 
 547 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 severe criticisms, such intense competition, 
 such multiplied forms of activity as at present. 
 The ages are rolled together at our feet, and 
 the tide of events, freighted with destiny, is 
 rushing by us. To be ministers for this age, 
 we must be princes in Israel, prevailing in 
 prayer, conspicuous in spiritual power, and 
 ubiquitous in holy activities. 
 
 Brothers, in a critical time like this we 
 must plant ourselves in the breach and call our 
 Churches up about us. Our waving white 
 plumes must indicate where our people can 
 find the front. 
 
 The Church Must Cultivate Faith. 
 
 We must cultivate faith as recruits culti- 
 vate courage. The recruit, by forced fighting 
 and frequent exposures, acquires indifference 
 to peril. So we must cast ourselves upon the 
 sword of promise till we acquire the habit of 
 victory and the habit of assurance. The 
 Spartan mothers inspired their sons with 
 heroism by making them familiar with the 
 achievements of their heroes. We can kindle 
 the spirit of faith in ourselves and in our peo- 
 ple by keeping ourselves and them familiar 
 with the lives and victories of our spiritual 
 
 548 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 heroes. We must have less skeptical inuen- 
 does in our literature and less vagueness and 
 uncertainty in our pulpits, and more of the 
 triumphs of the saints and greater familiarity 
 with the promises. 
 
 The Church is questioning about our re- 
 treat. We must answer with the bugle call 
 to the front. We must lead to the experience 
 of the seal of the covenant, the witness of the 
 Spirit. We must emphasize the old and es- 
 sential doctrines of the Bible. We must ex- 
 hibit sin as the one thing which God hates, 
 which overwhelms the unrepentant sinner in 
 irretrievable ruin, against which the ocean of 
 God's wrath flows forever like a shoreless sea 
 of fire, from which there is but one escape, 
 and that through faith in Jesus Christ. Men 
 must be made to feel that they are lost and 
 need salvation. They must be made to con- 
 front the judgment bar of Almighty God. 
 They must know that a pardoning Savior is 
 only for penitent sinners. The old gospel that 
 has made its way through all the brutality of 
 heathenism and through all the conceit and 
 pride of skeptical philosophy for nineteen cen- 
 turies, has not lost its power. Give it a chance. 
 
 The false prophets in the days of Jeremiah, 
 who prophesied ^'peace, when there was no 
 
 549 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 peace/' though pleasing to the king and 
 princes in Jerusalem, did not save Jerusalem 
 from the armies of Babylon, nor the king and 
 his princes from slaughter. The false gospel 
 of our times, which denies the malignity of 
 sin, abolishes the terror of hell, and neutralizes 
 the work of the Savior as unnecessary in set- 
 tling human destiny, will prove helpless in the 
 path of retribution, and leave its votaries and 
 disciples without escape and without hope. 
 
 The Responsibility of the Laity. 
 
 Dear brothers and sisters of the laity, you 
 are now very largely and increasingly the 
 Church; you have increased responsibility. 
 We are all co-workers with Christ. For this 
 work we all greatly need the seal of the cove- 
 nant, the witness of the Spirit testifying to 
 our adoption into the heavenly family. We 
 bear the name, wear the uniform, and carry 
 the burdens of Methodism. It is our privi- 
 lege to have her joy and assurance and con- 
 quering power. If we are not as useful as 
 we wish we were, let us go into our closets of 
 prayer and settle at once on whose side we 
 are. Ask ourselves. Do we enjoy religion? 
 People who have it, do. 
 
 550 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 Brothers, as you pay the bills with hard- 
 earned money, we ask you not to be content 
 with less than the best of the wine. It is im- 
 portant to have a popular preacher with whom 
 the Church will seem to run easily. But it 
 is also more and supremely important to have 
 a preacher who will give the pure gospel, in- 
 structing in spiritual things. Let us insist on 
 being instructed in the work of God and in 
 the plans and campaigns of the Church. Let 
 us insist on being taught the art and practice 
 of usefulness, of showing the power of grace, 
 of teaching the beauty of this new life, and of 
 soul-saving. True success turns on the spir- 
 itual life of both preacher and people. 
 
 The Priesthood of Believers. 
 
 The next great truth of Methodism after 
 the witness of the Spirit is the priesthood of 
 believers. Great laymen are great in business 
 life, and also in prayer, in testimony, and in 
 good works. As your chief pastors, we feel 
 that we are rich in the material out of which 
 great laymen are made. We appreciate your 
 liberality; we are mindful of your abilities. 
 But we feel that we and you are neglecting 
 our richest resources in your undeveloped and 
 
 551 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 unmeasured capabilities for individual Chris- 
 tian work. Let us obtain and keep constantly 
 the joy of the indwelling and witnessing 
 Spirit. Then love of the great truths and doc- 
 trines of the Bible will make it difficult for 
 any one to waste the too few hours of pulpit 
 instruction with little, trifling themes of the 
 passing hour. Let us insist on a vigorous diet 
 in the presentation of the great truths for 
 which heroic souls in every age have been 
 willing to die. This is the diet on which stal- 
 wart characters are nourished and on which 
 martyrs are matured. It will give a good, 
 strong measurement to start with in the world 
 to come. It will secure eminence in heaven. 
 If you are receiving a mess of pottage for 
 your birthright, the fault is your own. It is 
 for us all to remember that, when the grass- 
 hopper is a burden in Church life and duty, 
 then spiritual famine approaches a crisis. In 
 our retreat in our statistics we must see danger 
 signals. 
 
 It is our hope in such a time as this that 
 we have a God who can do things. He is a 
 covenant-making and a covenant-keeping 
 God. He has a record of prayer-answering 
 running through all the history of man. 
 When we seek Him with all our heart He is 
 
 552 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 found of us. He is anxious to bless the 
 Church, Nevertheless, He will be inquired 
 of by the House of Israel to do this thing for 
 them. 
 
 Conquest by Self-Sacrifice. 
 
 In this contest we conquer by dying. 
 When we are willing to lose our lives, then 
 we save them. Jeremiah was brought before 
 the princes of Jerusalem for declaring that the 
 city would certainly be destroyed, and the 
 priests said: ''This man is worthy to die; for 
 he hath prophesied against this city." But 
 Jeremiah said: ''Amend your ways and your 
 doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your 
 God; and the Lord will repent Him of the 
 evil that He hath pronounced against you. 
 As for me, behold, I am in your hand; do 
 with me as seemeth good and meet unto you/' 
 As God's prophets we must declare the whole 
 counsel of God, whether men will hear or 
 whether they will forbear. Like Jeremiah, 
 we are in the hands of the princes. Let them 
 do what seemeth good and meet unto them. 
 But our accountability is unto God. When 
 we count ourselves out and the success of His 
 cause in, we always win. When with the 
 nervous hands of sacrifice we reach up in the 
 
 553 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 darkness, take hold of His promises, and hang 
 there, letting the world spin round beneath us 
 unheeded, willing to die, if need be, for the 
 triumph of His cause, then we always prevail. 
 That Greek mother from Syro-Phoenicia 
 overcame all obstacles. Her daughter was 
 vexed with a devil, and she cried unto Jesus, 
 ^'Have mercy on me/' Her daughter's cause 
 was her cause. Jesus walked away from her, 
 not heeding her cry. Even the disciples in- 
 terceded for her. Then her courage came up. 
 Jesus rebuked them, saying: "I am not sent 
 but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." 
 The very purpose under His coming was 
 against her, a heathen woman. But, mother- 
 like, she must save her daughter, law or no 
 law, in spite of everything. So she came and 
 worshiped Him, saying, ''Lord, help me/' 
 Strangest words ever found on Jesus' lips! 
 He said to her, as she knelt before Him: 'Tt 
 is not meet to take the children's bread, and 
 to cast it to dogs." This was so different from 
 all that had been told her of Jesus. He had 
 never before refused one pleading sufferer. 
 Yet she must save her daughter, and said, as 
 she fell at His feet: 'Truth, Lord: yet the 
 dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their 
 
 554 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 master's table." Then Jesus said to her: "O 
 woman, great is thy faith : be it unto thee even 
 as thou wilt." And her daughter was made 
 whole from that very hour. Brothers, on our 
 faces before God, confessing our own un- 
 worthiness, willing to be dogs if need be, that 
 some of the crumbs of His infinite table may 
 come to us, we shall certainly be heard for His 
 Church, His bride, and we shall see her 
 clothed in beauty and reigning in power. He 
 will rebuke the adversary and make us a holy 
 and conquering people. 
 
 Jesus came down from the Mount of 
 Transfiguration, where He had talked with 
 Moses and Elias concerning the world's re- 
 demption, to find His chosen disciples, the 
 instruments with whom He was to save the 
 world, defeated, powerless in the presence of 
 one devil. The poor father whose son was 
 tormented came kneeling to Jesus, saying: 
 "Lord, have mercy on my son; for he is 
 . . . sore vexed. ... I brought him 
 to Thy disciples, and they could not cure 
 him." Jesus said: '^Bring him hither to Me." 
 And Jesus rebuked the devil, and the child 
 was cured from that very hour. Like this poor 
 father, if the disciples fail us, let us go di- 
 
 555 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 rectly to Jesus. Every man for himself secur- 
 ing the seal of the covenant, and we shall have 
 a healed and holy and conquering Church. 
 
 We Must Betake Ourselves to Prayer. 
 
 Jesus says: "If ye abide in Me, and My 
 words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, 
 and it shall be done unto you" "Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on 
 Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and 
 greater works than these shall he do." "And 
 whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that 
 will I do." "If ye shall ask anything in My 
 name, I will do it." In one of the fishing 
 seaports of New England the inhabitants 
 gathered on the beach just at sundown to see 
 a whaling vessel in the offing come in from her 
 long three years' voyage. But an adverse 
 wind sprang up and beat back the tacking 
 craft. The wind was soon a gale, and as the 
 night shut down it seemed impossible for the 
 vessel to long survive. The anxious friends 
 walked the beach and waited. But one poor 
 woman, a widow, whose only son was on that 
 craft, went away to her lonely cabin, and there 
 on her knees she poured out her soul to God. 
 She laid hold upon Him by faith, urging His 
 
 556 
 
THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT 
 
 promises. All that terrible night she wrestled 
 with God, and would not let Him go. Just at 
 dawn her cabin door flew open, and in 
 bounded a stout young man, who caught her 
 up in his arms, saying: ^'Mother, I knew you 
 would pray me ashore." Dearly beloved, in 
 this troubled time, when the ship which con- 
 tains all that is valuable to the race, all that 
 makes the race valuable, is being beaten about 
 and driven toward the breakers, we must par- 
 take ourselves to prayer, and plead the prom- 
 ises, and lay hold on God, crying: "We will 
 not let Thee go unless Thou bless us." Then 
 God will certainly bless us. We shall have 
 power with men and with God, and shall pre- 
 vail. And the God of all grace, who hath 
 called us unto His eternal glory by Christ 
 Jesus, will make us perfect, stablish, 
 strengthen, and settle us. 
 
 Brothers, when we count ourselves as noth- 
 ing, as dead, if need be, and cry unto God for 
 Israel, we are always heard and answered. 
 Our Methodism, by her history, by her expe- 
 riences, by her doctrine, and by her past con- 
 quests, stands as a representative of supernat- 
 ural power to save the lost. It is in the world 
 as a convicting power. It means for the sin- 
 ner repentance, faith, salvation, and a new life. 
 
 557 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 It means that God can save the worst, that 
 He can take the poorest human material and 
 make it over into good men, new saints — ulti- 
 mately into angels. It must not be found at 
 our doors that we let this Church die in our 
 hands, and let supernatural power depart from 
 our altars ; that we let sinners cease to fear our 
 gospel, and allow them to sport with us as 
 with their own yoke-fellows, or laugh at us 
 as at straw men. We must not be found dead 
 on the highway, with a card pinned onto our 
 bodies bearing the fingermarks of Satan, say- 
 ing: ''This man quenched the fire on the altars 
 of Wesley and Asbury." O Lord, only if 
 Thou wilt forgive our sins, wx are in Thy 
 hand. Do with us whatever seemeth good 
 and meet to Thee. 
 
 The Week of Fasting and Prayer, 
 March 25TH to April ist. 
 
 Dear brothers and sisters in the Church, 
 we ask you to set apart the days from March 
 25th to April ist, inclusive, as a season of fast- 
 ing or abstinence and prayer. We ask you to 
 assemble yourselves in your accustomed places 
 of worship at least once each day, humble 
 yourselves before God, worship Him, per- 
 
 558 
 
THE SEAL OE THE COVENANT 
 
 sonally lay aside every weight and the easily 
 besetting sin, and make earnest supplication to 
 Him. We ask, also, that in your private and 
 family prayers you will daily implore God's 
 mercy for the revival of His work of grace 
 in each heart and throughout all our borders. 
 Let us implore God for help that a family 
 altar may be established in each Methodist 
 home, where the Scriptures may be daily read 
 and His blessing secured in rearing our chil- 
 dren on His Word for Him, and also that in 
 the time of our thank-offering we may bring 
 to His altars at least two million penitent 
 seekers who shall find peace and security in 
 His Church. 
 
 559 
 
DEDICATORY PRAYER AT OPEN 
 ING OF COLUMBIAN EXPO- 
 SITION 
 
 Delivered at the invitation of the Commission of the 
 Columbian Exposition at the dedicatory ceremonies 
 held in Chicago, on Friday, October 21, 1892. 
 About one hundred and thirty-five thousand 
 persons were present in the Manu- 
 facturers' and Liberal Arts' Build- 
 ing, where the ceremonies 
 were held. 
 
 36 561 
 
DEDICATORY PRAYER AT OPEN- 
 ING OF COLUMBIAN EXPO- 
 SITION 
 
 Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, 
 Thou art the one only true God, eternal, im- 
 mortal, invisible, blessed over all for ever- 
 more. We come before Thee to w^orship 
 Thee, to render unto Thee thanksgiving, to 
 confess our helplessness, and to invoke Thy 
 blessing upon us. Thou art God. Thou hast 
 created all things. Thou hast made the world 
 and all things therein. Thou art Lord of 
 heaven and earth. Thou hast made of one 
 blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth, and hath determined the 
 times before appointed and the bounds of 
 their habitation. As a people whom Thou 
 hast exalted, we worship Thee. Before the 
 majesty of Thy power, and the all-consuming 
 glory of Thy presence, angels and arch-angels 
 veil their faces. Thrones and dominions and 
 principalities and powers prostrate them- 
 selves. Yet we, the members of a fallen race, 
 children of a wayward family, urged by our 
 
 563 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 dire necessities, encouraged by Thine un- 
 breakable promises, emboldened by Thine in- 
 finite love, inspired by Thy life-giving Spirit, 
 and sheltered by the all-sufficient atonement, 
 press our way up to the very steps of Thy 
 throne and worship Thee, because Thou hast 
 told us that in spite of our littleness and in 
 spite of our sinfulness we may come, in the 
 way Thou hast appointed, with boldness, even 
 to the mercy-seat. 
 
 Thou hast that supreme power which is in- 
 capable of wearying, and that supreme wis- 
 dom which is incapable of blundering, and 
 that supreme love which is incapable of up- 
 braiding, and we come unto Thee, asking that 
 Thou wilt strengthen us in our weakness, 
 guide us in our blindness, teach us in our ig- 
 norance, father us in our orphanage, pity us 
 in our penitence ,and save us in our faith, and 
 so help us that we may acceptably worship 
 Thee. We bless Thee, we praise Thee, we 
 laud and magnify Thy Holy Name. 
 
 We thank Thee for the overflowing good- 
 ness which Thou hast manifested to us, ex- 
 ceeding abundant above all that we can ask or 
 think. 
 
 We thank Thee for the revelation of Thy- 
 self in Thy Son to take away all sin, in Thy 
 
 564 
 
PRAYER AT COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 
 
 Spirit to quicken every virtue, in Thy Word 
 to dispel every superstition, in Thy Provi- 
 dence to protect from every peril. 
 
 We thank Thee especially for Thy favor- 
 ing Providence, which has ordered the un- 
 folding of our history as a people and the 
 shaping of our destiny as a nation. Thou 
 didst keep this New World in the thick clouds 
 that surround Thy purposes and didst reserve 
 it for the high honors of Thy maturing king- 
 dom. In the fullness of time, Thou didst 
 bring it to the knowledge of men by Thy wis- 
 dom and prowess and faith of Thy servant 
 Columbus. Thou didst so inspire his mind 
 and direct his thought by signs on the surface 
 of the sea and by the flight of birds through 
 the depth of the air that the southern continent 
 of the Western Hemisphere was open to 
 Southern Europe, and this northern continent 
 was preserved for another people and another 
 destiny. Thus Thou didst launch upon the 
 tide of history in the two continents of the 
 New World tw^o new and great and mutually 
 helpful nations. We thank Thee for Thy 
 favoring Providence. 
 
 Thou didst speak to our fathers, heroic and 
 great men, men of prayer and of power, and 
 bid them come to this open land and plant 
 
 565 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 here in the wilderness great institutions for 
 the elevation of the race, to consecrate these 
 vast valleys and endless plains to freedom, to 
 free ideas and free conscience, to the sanctity 
 of the private home and the inalienability of 
 individual rights. We thank Thee for the 
 glorious history we have inherited; for Crecy, 
 for Smithfield, and for Marston Moor, for 
 Lexington and Fort Sumter, for Yorktown 
 and Appomattox, these throbbing achieve- 
 ments of our patriotism. We thank Thee for 
 Washington and Lincoln, for Webster and 
 Clay, for Jefferson and Jackson, and for Grant 
 — these beacon lights of the Republic. 
 
 We thank Thee for the mighty hosts of the 
 heroic dead and for the priceless lessons they 
 have taught us in patriotism, in valor, in states- 
 manship, and in sacrifice. We thank Thee 
 for sixty millions of free, heroic, patriotic citi- 
 zens; for the open Bible, the open school, and 
 the open church; for unprecedented growth, 
 abundant prosperity, multiplied inventions, 
 unnumbered libraries, countless newspapers, 
 many colleges, great universities, ubiquitous 
 benevolences, universal peace, uninterrupted 
 happiness, and untarnished honor. We thank 
 Thee for emancipated manhood and exalted 
 womanhood. 
 
 566 
 
PRAYER AT COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 
 
 We thank Thee for a free conscience, by 
 a free Church, in a free State, for a free peo- 
 ple. For these precious and priceless bless- 
 ings that make life valuable and kindle 
 quenchless hopes for this world and for the 
 world to come, we thank Thee. 
 
 Now, O Lord, our God, grateful for 
 America, with her great republics and civil 
 governments and free institutions, we ask Thy 
 continued blessings upon us. Bless this na- 
 tion, so heavily freighted with benedictions 
 for mankind. 
 
 Bless the President of the United States in 
 his high official character. Hear us while we 
 tarry to pray Thy blessing on his family in 
 the stress of this hour. While the warm sym- 
 pathies of the nation are poured into this our 
 foremost and representative home, may the 
 comfort of Thy grace abound in that Chris- 
 tian family, and may Thy tender care preserve 
 it unbroken for an example for many years to 
 come. 
 
 Bless the Secretaries, the President's con- 
 stitutional advisers, the Judges of the Supreme 
 Court, the Senators and Congressmen of the 
 United States, the Governors of the several 
 commonwealths, and all in official and respon- 
 sible places. 
 
 567 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Bless the officers of the army and of the 
 navy, and the men who stand for the defense 
 of our flag. 
 
 We pray Thee to bless the women of 
 America. Favored above their sisters in all 
 the world with open doors to varied activities, 
 w^ith honorable recognition in the responsibil- 
 ities of life and of character, and with large 
 room in society for the use and development 
 of their gifts and acquirements and abilities, 
 may they show to all the women of the world 
 the true dignity and glory of Christian wom- 
 anhood. 
 
 We pray Thee to bless the great body of 
 our citizens, that they may improve and per- 
 petuate their patrimony. 
 
 Bless the honorable and learned profes- 
 sions in our land, that we may have wise laws, 
 just administrations, efficient remedies, be- 
 nign faiths, and helpful sciences. 
 
 Bless the great body of the wage-earners, 
 and may labor and capital meet, mingle, and 
 thrive together on the basis of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 Bless all the people from every land that 
 flow into our population, that all, of every 
 clime and color and race, may enjoy the bless- 
 ings of righteousness and justice and protec- 
 
 568 
 
PRAYER AT COLUxVIHIAN EXPOSITION 
 
 tion and security under our flag and on every 
 yard of our soil. 
 
 Bless us as a people with enlarging intelli- 
 gence and widening charities and every im- 
 proving health and abounding liberality. 
 Sanctify our homes, multiply our children, 
 and continue our prosperity. Above all 
 things, make us eminent for righteousness, a 
 nation whose God is the Lord. 
 
 We pray Thee to bless the President and 
 General Manager of this Exposition, and 
 these commissioners, and the men and women 
 who have toiled amid many anxieties and un- 
 certainties for so many months to crown this 
 undertaking with success. May they have 
 such wisdom and help from Thee for their 
 difficult and delicate duties that they may de- 
 serve and receive the grateful remembrance 
 of their fellow-citizens. 
 
 We invoke Thy choicest blessings upon our 
 guests, upon those who come hither from dis- 
 tant lands and climes to unite with us in this 
 great enterprise, whether they come from the 
 rulers of the earth that they may see and re- 
 port what is doing in these ends of the world, 
 or to represent the arts that have matured 
 through the ages, or to set forth the triumphs 
 of genius, the mechanical and industrial 
 
 569 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 achievements that are enriching our times, we 
 pray Thee to bless them and keep them in 
 health and safety while they are in our midst. 
 Keep their families and interests in their dis- 
 tant homes in peace and prosperity. May 
 their return to their homes be in safety and 
 comfort, carrying with them many kindly 
 memories of this land and of this city. 
 
 Bless, we pray Thee, the great nations they 
 represent. Bless the great Republic of 
 France, that rising sun of liberty on the shores 
 of Europe. Bless the Republic of Switzer- 
 land, and the republics of South America, and 
 the Republic of Mexico, and the republics of 
 Central America. May the torches they hold 
 up in the world never go out or burn dimly. 
 
 Bless the free government of Great Britain 
 with her many and vast dependencies. Bless 
 the lands of Scandinavia with their heroic 
 sons and daughters. Bless the Empire of Ger- 
 many with its advancing millions. 
 
 Bless Italy, the cradle of Columbus, with 
 her history and her hopes. Bless genial and 
 sunny Spain, the land of Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella, the helpers of Columbus. 
 
 Bless Russia, the steady and fearless friend 
 of the United States, with her millions of sub- 
 
 570 
 
PRAYER AT COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 
 
 jects and of acres and of wants. Bless Austria. 
 Bless China, populous China and India, and 
 Japan and Corea, and Turkey and Africa, and 
 all the nations of theearth,whatever their form 
 of government or type of religion. JVIay the 
 truths they hold be nourished. May the light 
 they have received grow brighter and brighter 
 to the perfect day. May the liberties they 
 have reached be perpetuated and multiplied 
 till all the nations of the earth shall be freed 
 from error, from superstition, and from op- 
 pression, and shall enjoy the blessing of right- 
 eousness, of liberty, of equality, and of brother- 
 hood, with Thy perpetual favor. 
 
 We pray Thy blessing upon America in 
 an especial manner, according to her respon- 
 sibilities. May she come up to the high char- 
 acter Thou requirest of her. May she accom- 
 plish the exalted work of helping to draw the 
 nations of the earth into a close and friendly 
 brotherhood that shall practice the arts of 
 peace and go forth to war no more forever. 
 May our Republic grow stronger in the hearts 
 of the people and in the respect of sister na- 
 tions as the ages roll by. May she grow rich 
 in intelligence, in educational resources, in 
 the fine arts, in the sciences, in the productive 
 
 571 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 industries, and in that great wealth of noble 
 and righteous character that shall make her 
 the friend of all nations, to whom the needy 
 nations shall turn for help, the bewildered for 
 counsel, the weak for protection, the strong 
 for wisdom, and all for fellowship ; and may 
 she fill the world for future ages with the glad- 
 ness and glory of our Christian civilization. 
 
 O Almighty God, we are gathered here 
 within these walls and within these gates from 
 our National Capital, and from every city 
 and section of our wide domain, and from all 
 the lands of the earth to acknowledge Thee, 
 and in Thy name, and in the name of the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, to dedicate these 
 buildings and these grounds to the uses and 
 purposes of the World's Columbian Exposi- 
 tion. We pray Thy blessing upon this under- 
 taking that it may bring glory to Thy name 
 and benedictions to mankind. 
 
 Now, O Lord, our Father, we pray Thy 
 blessing upon this multitude. In Thy great 
 mercy forgive the sins of each of us and bless 
 us with eternal salvation. As this assembly 
 will scatter and soon be gone, may each one be 
 ready to stand in that great assembly which 
 shall gather before Thy throne and be per- 
 
 572 
 
PRAYER AT COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 
 
 mitte.d to hear the supreme sentence: "Well 
 done, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 And unto Thee, our God and our Father, 
 through Him who is the friend of sinners, will 
 we, with the angels that stand about the throne, 
 ascribe "blessing and glory and wisdom and 
 thanksgiving and honor and power and might 
 for ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 573 
 
DEDICATORY PRAYER AT OPEN 
 
 ING OF PAN-AMERICAN 
 
 EXPOSITION 
 
 Delivered at the invitation of the Commission of the Pan- 
 American Exposition at the dedicatory ceremonies 
 held in Buffalo, N. Y., Monday, May 20, 1901. 
 
DEDICATORY PRAYER AT OPEN- 
 ING OF PAN-AMERICAN 
 EXPOSITION 
 
 Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, we worship Thee, we praise Thee, we 
 adore Thee. Thou art our Father. We bless 
 Thee that Thou hast revealed Thyself through 
 Jesus Christ as our Father. We are gathered 
 here out of all the republics of this Western 
 Hemisphere, out of all the lands of the earth, 
 from under all the governments among men. 
 We are here speaking all the languages in all 
 the families among men, and Thou hast taught 
 us to call Thee our Father. None of us has a 
 monopoly of this inheritance, this childship. 
 But as Thou art our Father, Father of us all, 
 therefore we can each of us plead our sonship 
 and Thy Fatherhood. 
 
 When Thou didst pour out the fullness of 
 Thy Spirit upon Thy people at Pentecost, "de- 
 vout men out of every nation under heaven" 
 received the divine quickening of the lan- 
 guage of the heart, so that 'Tarthians and 
 87 577 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Medes and Elamites, the dwellers in Mesopo- 
 tamia and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus 
 and in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt 
 and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and 
 strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes 
 and Arabians," did all hear, every man ''in 
 his own tongue wherein he was born," the 
 good news of Thine everlasting purpose of re- 
 deeming love. So now as we come to Thee, 
 out of all lands and using all languages, and 
 worship and praise and adore Thee as our 
 Father, may every one of us feel in his own 
 heart and hear in the tongue wherein he was 
 born, both hear and feel the good news of Thy 
 Fatherhood and of our Brotherhood, giving 
 to each the glad sense that we are in our Fa- 
 ther's house. 
 
 ^'Thou hast made of one blood all nations 
 of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth, and Thou hast determined the times 
 before appointed, and the bounds of their hab- 
 itation, that they should seek the Lord, if 
 haply they might feel after Him and find 
 Him, though He be not far from every one of 
 us." Thou hast made the one blood of all 
 peoples to tingle in our veins, and whatever 
 interests any man interests us. Nothing 
 human is alien to us. 
 
 578 
 
PRAYER AT PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION 
 
 Thou hast thickened the one blood of our 
 kinship by the one blood of our redemption. 
 ^'For by the grace of God, Jesus Christ tasted 
 death for every man," and He sends forth 
 all who hear into all the earth to tell the good 
 news to every creature, saying: "The Spirit 
 and the Bride say come, and let him that hear- 
 eth say come, and let him that is athirst come, 
 and whosoever will let him come and take of 
 the water of life freely." 
 
 Thou art Our Father ; help us to rise above 
 the mists and idiosyncrasies of our individual 
 environments into the purity that is in Christ 
 Jesus and into the light that enswathes Thee, 
 that we may be all one in Thee, living "the life 
 which we now live in the flesh by the faith of 
 the Son of God who hath loved and given 
 Himself for us." 
 
 There is a wideness in Thy mercy like the 
 wideness of the sea, which we are utterly un- 
 able to comprehend, we are so little and nar- 
 row, and shut in by such hard limitations. 
 Thy love and favor are a perpetual and limit- 
 less summer, a garden of exotics from the 
 skies, burdening every breath with the fra- 
 grance of paradise. We are the offspring of a 
 race of sinners, deforming and distorting 
 Thine image through an atmosphere of guilt. 
 
 579 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 Yet we have an accessible mercy-seat, and shel- 
 tered by the atonement we come boldly to 
 Thee as Our Father, and undistinguished by 
 blood or race or tongue, untitled and un- 
 crowned, pleading our one blood of kinship 
 and one blood of redemption, we hold up our 
 naked hearts to Thee, and ask Thee to turn 
 aside from the countless ranks of beings that 
 worship about Thy throne and look upon us 
 and hear us and bless us, and accept the little 
 tribute of worship which we offer unto Thee. 
 We thank Thee for this privilege of free 
 worship purchased by our heroic ancestors. 
 We thank Thee for the faith of the martyrs 
 and the courage of the patriots, for the charred 
 stakes where the fagots were kindled, and for 
 the fields paved with the bodies of heroes 
 where patriots' lives were quenched. We 
 thank Thee for mighty warriors, great rulers, 
 and wise statesmen. We thank Thee for in- 
 corruptible judges, honest lawyers, and unself- 
 ish preachers. We thank Thee for a free 
 Government, a free Church, a free Bible, a 
 free conscience, and a free press. We thank 
 Thee for universal prosperity, exalted litera- 
 ture, and a stable currency. We thank Thee 
 for a government that pays its honest debts 
 whenever due, that protects its innocent citi- 
 
 580 
 
PRAYER AT PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION 
 
 zens wherever imperiled, and that makes our 
 flag respected wherever unfurled. We thank 
 Thee for an administration that speaks to com- 
 mand, that moves to conquer, and fights to free. 
 We thank Thee for soldiers that tread the 
 earth in triumph, for mariners that walk the 
 sea in power, and for diplomats that secure 
 justice by the use of simple truth. We thank 
 Thee for our rich inheritance, our vast do- 
 mains, and for our infinite possibilities. We 
 remember that every good gift and every per- 
 fect gift Cometh down from Thee. 
 
 Almighty God, our Father, be patient with 
 us and forgive all our sins and transgressions 
 which we have from time to time most griev- 
 ously committed against Thy Divine Majesty. 
 The remembrance of them is grievous unto us. 
 We are too often selfish and forgetful of Thee. 
 We too often want our own way and do not 
 always heed Thy will. We are alarmed lest 
 we are too much submerged in worldliness. 
 Forbid that under the glare of our civilization 
 we should be too content with merely making 
 ourselves better animals with worldly desires, 
 absorbing appetites, and narrowed brows. 
 Forbid that we should ever be content to dwell 
 forever in the cellars of our being, missing 
 thus the great outlook to Thee. Forbid that 
 
 581 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 we should be content to starve on husks when 
 we may feast at our Father's table. Forbid 
 that, in the search for the fleeting riches that 
 perish with the using, we should become blind 
 to the riches that cost the tragedy on Mount 
 Calvary. O Lord, help us to see and seize 
 upon the great spiritual forces that sweep on 
 through the centuries, lifting men to more ex- 
 alted lives, and races to higher levels. O Lord, 
 God Almighty, our Father, have mercy upon 
 us and forgive us all our sins that are past. 
 Quicken our moral sense, exalt our spiritual 
 nature, reveal unto us Thy pleasure, and help 
 us to serve Thee in spirit and in truth. May 
 Thine infinite and all-enswathing love so 
 warm our hearts toward Thee that we will 
 gladly follow with quick scent Thy blessed 
 will. May the tender pulsations of Thine in- 
 finite heart prove stronger than the coarse 
 gravitations of our lower natures. Lift us 
 into Thy purity, whose fragrance shall charm 
 us out of our lower desires. So inspire us with 
 Thy love that all our selfishness may be 
 smothered and we be not conformed to this 
 world, but transformed by the renewing of our 
 minds, that we may prove what is that good 
 and acceptable and perfect will of God. 
 
 O Lord, we pray Thee to bless the Presi- 
 
 582 
 
PRAYER AT PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION 
 
 dent of the United States and his advisers. 
 Bless our Vice-president, who may become our 
 President. Bless the Governor of this Empire 
 State. Bless all the governors of all our com- 
 monw^ealths. Bless all the presidents of all the 
 American republics. Bless all the rulers of 
 all the nations in any way represented here. 
 Bless our guests from every land. May they 
 have a profitable sojourn in our midst and a 
 safe return to their distant homes. 
 
 Bless this beautiful city of Buffalo, and all 
 the men and women who have contributed in 
 any way to secure this magnificent result. 
 Bless the Board of Directors, giving them 
 quick sight to determine Thy will, and cour- 
 age to do it. Bless all who take part or have 
 interest in these ceremonies. May this day's 
 service and the service of all the coming days 
 of this Exposition be so under Thy favoring 
 care that all patrons and visitors so far as pos- 
 sible may be kept from sickness, from accident, 
 and from too great discomfort. 
 
 O Almighty God, our Father, we are 
 gathered here, within these walls and within 
 these gates, from all the republics of this 
 Western Hemisphere, and from many lands 
 of all the earth, in the name of the 
 people of this beautiful city, and of the 
 
 583 
 
ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS 
 
 people of this Empire State, and of the 
 people of the republic of the United States, 
 and of the people of all the republics of 
 all the Americas, to offer unto Thee and for 
 Thy service and for the glory of Thy name, 
 these buildings and grounds, and to dedicate 
 these buildings and these grounds to the uses 
 and purposes of the Pan-American Exposi- 
 tion. We know that we are not worthy to 
 offer unto Thee anything belonging unto us. 
 But we pray Thee now to arise and come into 
 this place, Thou and the ark of Thy power, 
 that all these displays of the achievements 
 Thou hast granted unto men may redound to 
 Thine honor and to the glory of Thy great 
 name. And we will ascribe all the glory to 
 the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, 
 for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 584 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
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