DELIVERED IN THE PAYILION *AGTONi^ SAMP GROUND ACTON, IND NDEK THE Al'SPlCES OF THE CAMP-IEETIM ASSOCIATION, Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. U. of I. Library MAP ^ ^'^^ JUL HOV 2 1 '^^^ ASTON LE0TURES 1881. AUG 3 0 1234 U^;!VERSiTY OF ILLINOIS LE0TURES AND SERMONS DELIVERED IN THE PAVILION AT Acton Camp Ground, ACTON, INDIANA, ^TJO-TJST 1st to IOth. 1881, I'NOER THE Al'SPICKS OF THK CAMP-MEETING ASSOCIATION PUBLISHED BY GEO. L. CURTISS. J. B. CONNER, LEE PITTISON, WILL CUMBICK, Committee kok the Acton Camp-Meeting Association. INDIANAPOLIS: Central Printing Company, Printers and Binders, 34 east market street. 1881. 2. o2 TO THE PUBLIC. At a called meeting of the Acton Caaip-Meeting Association, held August, 1880, it was agreed that ten days of the Annual Camp-Meeting for 1881 should be devoted to a series of scientific, literary and philosophical lectures, and discussions on subjects of interest and profit to all who might attend. This proposition was sug- gested and heartily advocated by Col. Cumback, of Greensburg, and a number of other members of the Association, who saw in this move- ment a means for elevating the public taste, cultivate habits of careful study, and meeting the wants of many young men and women who are inquiring after knowledge. A judicious committee, consisting of Col. Cumback, J. K. Pye, F. C. Holliday, R. Andrus and J. G. Chafee, were appointed to prepare a programme and secure lecturers, and see to the general execution of the plan. This committee, after careful thought, engaged a number of com- petent men and women to appear on the rostrum, and deliver suitable lectures and sermons. Most of those so engaged met their engage- ments in a highly satisfactory manner. The greater part of the lec- tures and sermons were placed in the hands of the committee for pub- lication. It is to be regretted that the others were not also presented. Those not published were equal in merit to those published. The good already accomplished by this lecture course can not be estimated- It has quickened thought, stimulated desire to know more of the hidden things of nature, and confirmed all in the belief that science and religion are not antagonistic, and that the author of Na- ture's book and the Bible is the same person. As arrangements are being made to continue this course from year to year, all lovers of the true and the good can not but bid it God's speed. May this book find a hearty welcome among all its readers. GEO. L. CURTISS, HISTORY OF THE Acton Camp-Meeting Association In the Spring of 1859, the subject of a Camp-Meeting, to be held somewhere contiguous to the city of Indianapolis, was agitated. A meeting of those interested in such an enterprise was called, and met in a grove near London, Shelby county, Indiana, June 16, 1859. The meeting was called to order by Rev. John A. Brouse, and Rev. F. C. Holliday was chosen President, and Rev. R. M. Barnes, Secretary. There were present six ministers and eight laymen. At this meeting it was resolved to form a Camp-Meeting Association, purchase lands, and enter at once upon the prosecution of the work. A Committee on Constitution and Articles of Association was appointed, consisting of J. A. Brouse, C. W. Miller and F. A. Hester. A committee, consist- ing of Bros. Bran ton, of Southport, Wm. Hacker, of Shelby ville, A. House, of London, T. Tull and S. Worth, of Indianapolis, were appointed to locate grounds for the Association. The second meeting was held June 23, 1859, with twenty-four persons present, representing Robert's Chapel and Asbury in Indian- apolis. Southport, London and Palestine Circuits, and Shelbyville Station. The Association received the report of the committee on location, and determined to purchase twenty acres of a forty acre lot belonging to Rev. J. V. R. Miller, adjoining Farmersville, now Acton, at $35 per acre. At a later date the entire lot of forty acres was purchased by the Association, and is still used for Camp-Meeting purppses. The objects of the Association were set forth in the ist and 2d articles of the constitution, to-wit : " This association shall be denominated the Indianapolis Dis- trict Camp-Meeting Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church." ACTON LECTURES. 5. " The object of this association shall be to purchase, improve and hold a tract of land in the vicinity of Acton, for camp-meeting pur- poses, Sunday school celebrations, and other meetings of a strictly mor- al and religious character. " The articles provided that " the members of the association shall be the tent-holders, the pastors (including the presiding elders, Uhe preachers in charge, and the assistant preachers) of the several charges represented, and of all other members of the church who shall sign this constitution.*' It will be seen that the organizers of this enterprise intended that it should be a Methodist camp-meeting, controlled by Methodists alone. The officers elected under this constitution were . F. C. Holliday, President, Wm. Hacker, Vice-President, A. Worth, Treasurer, J. J. Dumont, Secretary. At the meeting of the association, held on the camp ground July 14, 1859, Alexander Worth, Wm. Hannaman, James Brenton, Thos. Wray and Wm. Hacker were elected trustees for the ensuing year. The committee previously appointed to solicit subscriptions reported, cash and subscription for purchasing and improving the camp ground, to the amount of $860.00. At this time it was determ- ined to hold the first camp-meeting commencing August 29, 1859, and the trustees were authorized to complete the purchase of the grounds, and prepare for the coming meeting. The trustees immediately put forth great efforts to have the grounds in suitable condition for the meeting in August. They accom- plished this work well. August 29 came, and with it a respectable number of tent-holders, who entered with zeal upon the spiritual work of the meeting. This was the first of a series of annual gatherings, only interrupted three times up to the present. Subscriptions were solicited and collections taken for the camp- meeting association, which, at the close of the meeting, an^ounted to $1,050, while the outlay had been $1,500. The association met at the camp ground April 24, i860. The second camp-meeting was ordered to begin August 16, and hold over two Sabbaths, "if the interest justified." Friday preceding the camp- meeting was recommended as a day for fasting and prayer for ' ' the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the meeting." The Association adjourned until July 16, i860, when the following were elected offi- cers for the year: F. C. Holliday, President, W. M. Moore, Vice- President, J. A. Brouse, Secretary, A. Worth, Treasurer. 6 ACTON LECTURES. The election of trustees was deferred. The trustees were author- ized to employ two policemen to serve during camp-meeting, to aid in preserving order. • Originally the control of the camp-meeting while in operation was placed in the hands "of the presiding elder of the district within which the camp-ground shall be situated, provided that the presiding elder may authorize any other itinerant preacher of the M. E. church to take charge of the meeting," but at this session it was placed in the control of a committee of four ministers and three laymen, all mem- bers of the M. E. Church, of whom the presiding elder was chairman. This method of conducting the meeting proved defective and unsatis- factory, and in 1863 was abandoned and the old plan adopted. Camp-meeting commenced August 16, i860, with a fair attend- ance. The committee of control did not succeed as admirably as its friejids and supporters hoped. It was found that one head was better than seven in such a place as this. At the business meeting held August 20, the Treasurer's report showed that he had e.xpended -"Si, 972. 12, being S22.64 more than his receipts. A proposition was made to invite the German Methodists to unite in the camp-meeting, but they declined. The association met June 14, 1861, and elected its officers, to-wit : T. H. Lynch, President, J. W. Mellender, Vice-President, J. A. Brouse, Secretary, A. Worth, Treasurer, and Thos. Wray, Wm. Han- naman, Wm. Moore, Wm. Grosser and A. Worth, Trustees. The camp-meeting commenced August 1.5, 1861, and continued over two Sabbaths. Although it was amid the mutterings of the slave- holder's rebellion, it proved a glorious success. About fifty souls were reported converted, and the church much blessed. The tents were all occupied. Large congregations were present on week days. Good order prevailed during all the meetings. Collections were taken for the benefit of the association, amounting to S107.00. During this camp-meeting Bishops Ames and Scott, Drs. Kingsley and Bowman, afterwards bishops, and Drs. E. G. Wood and Locke, Revs. Beharrell, Falkenburg and Heath, were present, and.did effective preaching. The first Sabbath Father Havens, Bishops Ames and Scott and Dr. Kingsley preached. Their sermons were strong presentations of the truth of God, and many felt the power of the truth. The annual meeting for 1862 occurred July 14. The officers elected were: T. H. Lynch, President, J. W. Mellender, Vice-Presi- dent, J. A. Brouse, Secretary, A. Worth, Treasurer, and Wm. Han- naman, Thos. Wray, William Grosser, A. Worth and Wm., Moore, Trustees. T ACTON LECTURES. 7 At this session a sermon was preached by James Havens. This was followed with speeches b}' Judge McDonald and Wm. Wallace on the state of the country. The country being auich disturbed by war, the camp-meeting was not as great a success as it had been in previous years. May 26, 1863, the association met and determined to hold the camp-meeting commencing August 13, 1863. It had become neces- sary to rebuild some tents, especially the preacher's tent, the preacher's tent and pavilion having been burned. The railroad com- pany for the first time appear officially concerned in the camp-meeting. It seems they had made a proposition to give $100 towards repair- ing tents, which the association accepted. Through the Treasurer, A. Worth, who was also Secretary and Treasurer of the I., C. & L. R. R., there had been a good deal of unofficial connection, but this was the first official recognition of a connection. Treasurer Worth reported. having received of the I., C. & L. R. R. Co. a collection on tickets of $253.35. There was a verbal con- tract that the company should pay the association some amount, and Bro. Worth added 10 cents to the price of railroad tickets, and gave the sur- plus to the association. This grew into a custom, and the association received the money thus offered until 1881, when it resolved that it would not receive the 10 cents on each ticket sold and used on Sunday. Officers were not elected until a called meeting July 9, 1863, when there were elected : E. G. Wood, D. D., President, F. C. Hol- Hday, D. D., Vice-President, R. Roberts, Secretary, A. Worth, Treas- urer, and Wm. Hannaman, Thos. Wray, S. Stewart, Wm. Grosser and A. Worth, Trustees. The fifth camp-meeting was held commencing August 13, con- tinuing over two Sabbaths. During this meeting there was considera- ble disturbance from ungodly roughs, which caused uneasiness and a sense of insecurity among the tent holders, and led the Trustees to take summary means for safety. It was again demonstrated that when the sons of God came together, satan came also. The year 1864 was a disasterous one to this association. Several regiments of troops from Marion and Shelby counties had been hur- ried into the field, and met with a disasterous defeat at Cumberland Ford, and many were wounded. The officers of the Camp-Meeting Association tendered the use of the Acton Camp Grounds, to Govern- or Morton for hospital purposes, especially for these regiments. This so enraged the enemies of the county that the entire encampment was burned, and the trees destroyed by the intense heat, on the 14th of s ACTON LECTURES. August, 1864. rhe tents and pavilion were insured to the amount of $855.00. When the Association met in June, 1864, they were unable to arrange for a camp-meeting that year, and devised ways and means for planting out shade trees to take the place of those destroyed by fire. So, because of misfortune, 1864 passed without a camp-meetmg. The Association met June 7, 1865, at the grounds, to take into consideration the rebuilding, and re-occupancy of the grounds. 'I'he grounds were carefully examined and a suitable place determined u]> on for a new encampment. The Association ordered the purchase of canvas tents in place of board tents. It was hoped thereby to be able to prevent another disaster by fire. The canvas tents could not be se- cured in time for the camp-meeting, so the year 1865 passed without a meeting. There was not held any further meeting of the Association until August 28, 1866. During the summer of 1866, Mr. Hannaman and the treasurer, A. Worth, had purchased army tents to the amount of $600.00, which were erected on the grounds, together with a shed for a pavilion. The camjj-meeting commenced xVugust 15, 1866, and held over two Sab- baths, proving to be a good and profitable occasion. The Association met July 9, 1867, I^^^'- }• ^- i-athroj). Presiding Elder, being President. .Arrangements were made to hold the camp- meeting in August. The meeting consequently commnnced August 17, proving to be one of usual interest. There were again some roughs and ungodly characters, who sought to do mischief and terrify people, but these were brought under control by the power of law. The Association met July 9, 1868, with sixty persons present. Dr. Holliday preached a sermon on Ez. xxxiv, 25 and 26. "And I will make them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beast to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods, and 1 will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing: and 1 will cause the shower to come down in his season; then shall be showers of blessings. " The association elected officers: Dr. F. C. Holliday, President, J. H. Lozier, Secretary, A. Worth, Treasurer, and Wm. M. Parish, A. Worth, A. May, G. H. McLaughlin and P. R. Stage, Trustees. The camp-meeting was held, commencing August 13, 1868. June 20, 1869, the association met to hold the annual business meeting. The association by a large vote resolved, "That it is the sense of this association, that it is improper to run railroad trains on, the Sabbath." ACTON LECTURES. 9 Camp-meeting commenced August ii, 1869, and held two weeks. At a meeting held August 18, 1869, the following officers were elected: R. D. Robinson, President, S. T. Gillett, Secretary, A. Worth, Treasurer, and W. H. R. Reed, A. Worth, Sidney Robinson, Omer 1 ousey, and P. R. Stage, Trustees. There having been rioting of roughs at a former camp-meeting, a committee of three, consisting of J. H. Lozier, S. T. Gillett and Fred. Baggs was appointed to prosecute them. They succeeded in vindicating the rights of the association, and bringing the disturbers to justice. Money was ordered to be paid by the treasurer for this prosecution. The tenth camp-meeting on Acton Camp Grounds, was held com- mencing August 10, 1870, under the direction of Rev. R. D. Robinson. During the progress of the camp-meeting, a business meeting was held, where, after earnest prayer for Divine Guidance, the following l)reamble and resolution was adopted. "Whereas. God hath commanded us to remember the Sabbbath day to keep it holy, and "Whereas, The running of trains to and from the camp ground on the Sabbath day, is not only a clear violation of (iod's command- ment, but is also productive of much evil influence in every commu- nity reached by these Sunday trains; therefore, "■Resolved, That a committee of four from each charge re|)resented in this association be appointed to prepare and submit a plan, whereby all funds necessary for the use of this association, may be secured without any partnership on the part of this association, in the proceeds of rJlroad trains run on the Sabbath day, to the business meeting to be held in May next, and also an estimate of the cost of a fence to enclose these grounds, or so much of them as may be necessary, and that said committee be authorized to submit to said business meeting, a plan for securing such funds as may be required for the construction of said enclosure. "' So much was the camp-meeting disturbed by the discussion on this and kindred subjects, that the associadon passed a by-law, that hereafter all such questions should be presented at the annual meeting. Bro. A. Worth tendered his resignation as Trustee and Treasurer, to take effect at the annual meeting in May. Dr. Merrill, now Bishop, delivered on the Camp Ground a most powerful sermon on the char- acter of Future Punishment. At the meeting of the association May 13, 1871, the committee on ways and means for getting out of debt, presented their report. They recommended the appointment of a committee to make such ; lO ACiON LECTURES. rangements with the railroad, as may result in participation by the as- sociation with the road, in the fores of persons attending the camp- meeting, provided no trains he run on the Sabbath. Alexander Worth, after long and faithful service as a Trustee and Treasurer, having previously resigned his offices, retired from connec- tion with the Cam])-Meeting Association. The association at a meeting held August 9, 187 1, determined to consider the feasil)ility of enlarging the design of the camp-meeting, so as to make it a state instead of a district association. The subject caused considerable discussion, and finally a committee of fifteen were appointed to thoroughly canvass the subject. This was done, and the next year they reported adversely, and there the niatter ended. The officers elected were: R. I). Robinson, President, J. H. Lo- zier. Secretary, Omer 'i'ousey, 'I'reasurer. and Omer Tousey, 1. J. Armstrong, R. T. Wharton. John T.. Miller and N. N. vShipman, Trustees. 'I'he religious services of the camp-meeting commenced August 15, and lasted over two Sabl)aths. In many respects the meeting was one of success. In attendance it exceeded anything ever held, and was productive of good. On the last day of the camp-meeting, Aug- ust 25, the committee appointed to confer with the .ailroad reported that the officers of the railroad would hereafter insist upon running Sunday trains to and from the camp ground. August I, 1872, the association elected Omer Tousey, Thos. Wray, I. G. Armstrong, John W. Ray and Jacob Jamison as Trus- tees. For two years the question had been agitated of selling the camp grounds and investing elsewhere. x"\uthority to sell had been given. But at this time this authority was rescinded. 7 he camp- meeting commenced August, 1872, and was fairly attended, and with moderate success. The discussions of former times detracted from the spiritual interests of the meeting. The association met May, 1873. An invitation, through a com- mittee, was given to the National Camp-Meeting Association to hold its session for 1874. on the Acton grounds, in hopes that the spiritual interests of the association might be quickened. In 1873 the association entered into a solemn contract with the I., C. cSr I.. R. R., to be in force for twenty years, as follows: " For the purpose of making a permanent arrangement between the Indianapolis District Camp-Meeting Association of the South-East Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the IndianapoHs, Cincinnati & Lafayette Railroad Company, in regard to the running of trains to and from the camp ground, as also for the con- ACTON LECTURES. veyance and accommodation of the members of said association, and visitors to the camp-meetings, the following rules have been adopted : 1. No excursion trains whatever will be run to and from the camp ground on Sundays. 2. The company are to place on sale at the different stations on their road what are known as ''return tickets,'" and to furnish to all proper persons desiring to attend camp-meeting such tickets at a tixed price, not to exceed the price heretofore charged, such tickets to be good on any trains designated by the superintendent of said road, passing over the road l)etween the office where sold and the camp ground, to go and return. 3. All accommodation passenger trains are to stop at the camp grounds during the continuance of the meeting. 4. The company will have on the camp ground, during camp- meeting occasions, and furnish to one person from each tamily of tent holders, who shall have procured a return ticket as aforesaid, a free pass that will enable such person, during the continuance of the camp- meeting, to go to his or her home and return with provisions and other necessaries for the use of his or her family, but for no other purpose. 5. I'he company will carry to and from the camp ground, on any camp-meeting occasion, free of charge, and without unnecessary delay, all cooking utensils, bedding, baggage, provisions, etc., that may be required ])y the tent-holders for their comfort and convenience. 6. Such light baggage, bundles, provisions or other packages as is usually carried on passenger trains, may be carried to and from the camp ground with a passenger on such train. ' 7. The company will allow^ to the association a royalty of ten cents on each camp-meeting ticket sold. 8. The company will co-operate with the association so as to prevent, as far as possible, any and all persons from taking intoxicat- ing liquors to the camp ground at any time, and the company will not knowingly carry im])roper persons to the camp ground. 9. The company will furnish free passes to the members of the camp-meeting committee to attend the annual meeting of the commit- tee at the camp ground. ID. In consideration of the above the association grants unto the company the free use of their camp ground and pavilion for Sunday school picnics and all other moral gatherings. The company to allow the association ten per cent, of the gross earnings of all excursion trains when such trains are chartered by the car. 12 ACTON LECTURES. II. This agreement shall continue and be in force, unless mutu- ally rescinded, for a period of twenty years from date. Indianapolis, Cincinnati & Lafayette R. R. Co., By M. E. Ingalls, Pres't. F. C. Wo\AAV)k^ ^ President of Assoc iaiion. J. H. Bayliss, Sec7'etary pro tern. Indianapolis, Ind., August i, 1S73. During the camp-meeting of 1873 the contract was fully complied with, and no trains were run to the camp-meeting on the Holy Sab- bath. Since that year the trains have been run, and the agreement in that particular been wholly ignored. May, 1874, the association met on the grounds. Ur. F. C. Hol- liday was elected President, Geo. P. Jenkins, Vice-President, J. B. Lathrop, Secretary, Omer Tousey, Treasurer, and J. M. W. Langsdale, J. P. Dunn, Omer Tousey, Sim. J. Thompson and W. H. R. Reed, Trustees. After carefully viewing the grounds, which had been greatly injured by indiscriminately cutting down the timber, the invitation extended to the National Camp-Meeting Association was recalled. It was determined, however, to hold a District Camp-Meeting, beginnhig August II, 1874. The Camp-Meeting Association met May 15, 1877, and elected T. FI. Lynch, President, J. W. Mellender, Vice-President, ]. S. Tevis, Secretary, W. H. R. Reed, Treasurer, and F. C. Holliday, J. M. W. Langsdale, L. W. Knobe, J. M. Clark and M. C. Dawson, as Tru.s- tees. The control of all improvements was placed in the charge of \V. H. R. Reed. Many new tents were erected, the boarding tent put in , good order, and when the people assembled, August 8, 1877, for ^amp-meeting, they found all things ready. The meetings were not f largely attended during the week days, but on Sunday the throng of people was great. On the eighth of May, 1868, the association elected T. H. Lynch, President, J. W. Mellender, Vice-President, J. S. Tevis, Secretary, W. H. R. Reed, Treasurer, and T. H. Lynch, J. M. W. Langsdale, L. W. Knobe, J. M. Clark and M. C. Dawson, Trustees. Phe camp- meeting commenced July 31 and continued over two Sabbaths. Dr. Lynch was early called away from the meeting by sickness, when J. S. Tevis took charge for three days, and was succeeded by S. Tincher. Dr. Tincher having been attacked with sickness, the charge of the meeting was placed in the hands of Geo. L. Curtiss, who remained in charge to its close. ACTON LECTURES. 13 The association, May 13, 1879, elected T. H. Lynch, President, S. Tincher, Vice-President, J. S. Tevis, Secretary, W. H. R. Reed, Treasurer, and J. W. Langsdale, L. W. Knobe, F. M. Weeden, J. M. Clark and Milton Robbins, as Trustees. The camp-meeting was held August 6, 1879. It was now resolved that some Hterary exercises should be held in connection, with the meeting of r88o. Col. Cum- back was active in this movement. At the May meeting, 1880, arrangements were completed to devote the first week to Sunday School and Temperance work, and to lectures on Literary and Scientific subjects. At the camp-meeting commencing August 3, 1880, lectures were delivered by Dr. Alex. Martin, Judge Hagins, of Cincinnati, President White, of Perdue University, and the Sunday School day was under charge of Geo. L. Curtiss. The officers for the year were : T. H. Lynch, President, S. Tincher, Vice-President, J. W. Dashiell, Secretary, VV. H. R. Reed, Treasurer, and j. R. Budd, J. M. W. Langsdale, F. M. Weeden, L. W. Knobe and M. T. Sorden, as Trustees. The association met May 10, 1881, and elected J. K. Pye, Presi- dent, Geo. L. Curtiss, Vice-President, G. C. Clouds, Secretary, W. H. R. Reed, Treasurer, and J. R. Budd, P. J. Beechbard, J. M. W. Langsdale, Dr. Bracken and L. W. Knobe, as Trustees. It was resolved to spend the first ten days in a lecture course. The Committee on Programme was Col. Cumback, F. C. Holliday, J. K. Pye, R. Andrus and J. G. Chafee. J. B. Conner offered the following resolution by instruction of the Quarterly Conference of Central Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, in Indianapolis : ''Whereas, This association disapproves the policy which has heretofore prevailed, of so far sanctioning the running of Sunday trains as to share the profit of the same, thus participating, solely for gain, in Sunday desecration, therefore, ''Resolved, That the Board of Trustees be, and the same is hereby instructed, to notify the railroad company of this action by furnish- ing the proper officers thereof with a copy hereof, and that the officers of this association are hereby directed to decline hereafter, the prof- fer of any money accruing from the running of Sunday trains." The resolution was adopted by a large vote. The camp-meeting commenced August i, 1881, and spent ten days in hearing literary and scientific lectures, sermons, Sunday school work and a young men's day. The grounds and pavilion were very beautifully illuminated by four electric lights. This was a vast improvement over the old time lamps. ACTON LECTURES. Rev. Thos. Harrison, the Evangelist, was present four days. The entire camp-meeting was more than usually successful. On the first Sabbath, Prof. John, of Moore's Hill College, and Dr. Gobin, and Dr. Marine, of Greencastle, preached excellent sermons. On the second Sabbath, Rev. E. A. Campbell, Dr. J. W. T. McMuUen, J. V. R. Miller and Dr. Curtiss, preached. The attendance was much larger, than ever before, during the week. The tents now number one hundred and forty. The boarding tent has been enlarged to double its capacity. A baggage and check room has been built, by means of which safety for small parcels can be had for a trifle. At the business meeting held during the camp-meeting, it was de- termined to hold a week of scientific and literary work at the next camp-meeting, and a committee was a})pointed. Feeling the need for some protection from fire, the trustees were instructed to arrange an artificial lake, if it were in the least practical. THE COMMITTEE. 1 i CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF THE ^ INDIANAPOLIS DISTRICT CAMP-MEETING ASSOCIATION OF THE SOUTH-EAST INDIANA CONFERENCE OK THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Ditly Incorporated under the Laius of the State of lndia?ia. The Indianapolis District Camp-Meeting Association of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, an organization already in existence, for the more thorough and successful furtherance of the purposes and objects set forth in its original articles of association, and acting under author- ity of said articles of association, does amend and alter said articles so as to make them read as follows : ARTICLE 1. This association shall be denominated the Indianapolis District Camp-Meeting Association of the South-East Indiana Con- ference OF the Methodist Episcopal Church. ARTICLE II. The object of this association shall be to purchase, improve, and hold, a tract of land for camp-meeting purposes, Sunday school cele- brations, and other meetings of a strictly moral and religious character. ARTICLE III. The officers of this association shall be a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer, five Trustees, and a Camp-Meeting Commit- tee, consisting of the Presiding Elder of the district, and ail the Preachers in charge of churches patronizing said camp-meeting by having members who are tent-holders, and every methodist tent-holder ACTON LECTURES: of said encampment, each tent having hut one vote. In addition, each patronizing church may elect one lay delegate, who shall also l)e members of said committee. The Trustees shall be ex-ofificio mem^ bers of the Cam)>Meeting Committee. The Trustees shall be elected annually Ijy the Camp-Meeting Committee. The Presiding Elder of the Indianapolis District shall be ex-ofificio President of the association. The other officers, except' Trustees and Camp-Meeting Committee, shall be elected from time to time as the members of the association may direct. ARTICLE IV. The Camp-Meeting Committee shall determine from year to year the question of holding a camp-meeting, and shall be charged with the responsibility of arranging for the same, but shall have no authority to arrange for the running of Sunday trains, but shall use their utmost influence and authority to suppress this evil. ARTICLE V. The Camp- Meeting Committee shall meet annually upon the grounds of the association, or at such place as a majority of the com- mittee may agree upon, or at the call of the President at the regular place of meeting. ARTICLE YL The Camp-Meeting Committee shall organize at its first meeting. The officers of the committee shall be a President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer, who shall be elected annually, at the regular meeting of the committee. The first meeting of the committee shall be called by the Presiding Elder of the district at the camp ground, in May of T 874. ARTICLE VII. 'Hie members of this association shall be the Presiding Elder of the Indianapolis District of the South-East Indiana Conference, and the preachers in charge and assistant preachers, and all members of the Methodist Episcopal Church of full age on the district. Charges outside of Indianapolis District of South-East Indiana Conference, may secure representation on the Camp-Meeting Committee, and mem- bership in the association as above, provided the Quarterly Conference by vote express such desire, and ajjpoint a member of the Camp- Meeting Committee, as provided for in Article lit of this constitution- ARTICLE VIII. The Cam[)-Meeting, Committee shall have power to ordain by-laws so that nothing shall be done contrary to this constitution. 2 i8 ACTON LECTURES. ARTICLE IX. The Trustees may dispose of property belonging to the associa- tion, but only upon the following conditions, viz: The association shall be notified by its President and Secretary of any proposed sale or purchase of real estate, or dissolution of its organization, at least one month before the date of the proposed meeting for the considera- tion of the subject, and the President or Secretary shall call a meeting for the consideration of the subject, and the President or Secretary shall call a meeting of the association to rtct upon the matter, the notices to be given in all the charges represented in the association. The association shall meet on the camp ground, and a majority of those present and voting may authorize action on the part of the Trustees. In case of the purchase of other property by the associa- tion, it shall be used exclusively for objects set forth in this consti- tution. ARTICLE X. This constitution may be altered by a two-thirds vote of those present and voting at auy meeting of the association called as provided for in Article VIII. ARTICLE I. The duties of the President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treas- urer shall be such as usually devolve upon these officers, and such as the association shall require. ARTICLE II. Section i. The Trustees shall hold in trust for the benefit and under the direction of the association all the property, real and per- sonal, of the association. Sec. 2. They may make fences and other impro\ ements on the ground, such as they may deem necessary, and sucb, as the associa- tion, or Camp-Meeting Committee, may require, provided that they shall not incur a debt except by permission of the Camp-Meeting Committee. Sec. 3. It is understood that the several charges represented in this association will annually hold camp-meetings conjointly, but the Trustees may permit a camp-meeting to be held whenever the pastor of a6ton lectures. Kny circuit or sta tion represented in the association shall signify a desire to hold such a meeting, pt-ovided no meeting shall conflict with the general' camp-meeting, and th^y may permit other religious meetings when similarly requested. Sec. 4. Thty may permit Sunday school picnics and other moral' and religious celebrations 6h the ground, and they may allow, in con- nection with thes'e meeti-ngs, amusements not inconsistent with the precepts and spirit of the Christian religion. But dancing and other improper amusements shall neVer be permitted on the ground. Sec. 5. I'hey shall not allow any other meetings 0I1 the land belonging to the association un'less with the cons'ent ot the association or the Camp-Meeting Committee. Sec. 6. They may permtit boarding tents to be kept on the" ground, provided that unreasonable charges for boarding shall not be made, and provided that no person shall be allowed to keep a boarding tent, or other place of resort, who shall be unwilling to submit to the rules governing the meeting, or who shall keep for sale any intoxicat- ing liquors, tobacco, or anything except food for man or beast, provi- ded, moreover, that persons may be permitted to sell religious books. Sec. 7. They shall present annually to the Camp-Meeting Com- mittee, or its president, a written report of their acts and doings for the year, and of the condition of the property held in trust for the association. ARTICLE IIL Section" 1. The camp-meeting shall be under the control of the Presiding Elder of the district within which the camp ground shall be situated, provided that the Presiding Folder may authorize any other itinerant minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church to take charge of the meeting. Sec. 2. Collections may be taken either privately or publicly for improvements on the grounds, for expen.ses of any of the meetings, for any liabilities of the association, and for benevolent and religious purposes. Sec. 3. The Trustees shall have power to employ such police force as may be necessary to enforce a due observance of order on the camp ground during any and all meetings. ARTICLE IV. These by-laws may be altered by a two-thirds vote of those pres- ent and voting at any meeting of the association, or of the Camp- Meeting Committee. F. C. HOLLIDAV, President. SAMP-MBBTINGS OF THE OLDEN TIMES. BY F. C. HOLLTDAY, D. D. Delivered on the Acton Camp Ground, August 2, 1881. Christian Camp- Meetings are an American Institution. God's ancient people were required annually to keep the "Feast of Taber- nacles," which was a National Camp-Meeting, "for seven days, and the eighth day was a holy convocation, in which no servile work was to be performed." This annual National Camp-Meeting was observed with great regularity and joyousness by the Israelites, from the settlement of Canaan under Joshua, down to the time of their overthrow by the Romans, after the death of Christ. They cut down branches of trees and made them booths and tents, and the feast was one of joy and gladness. The first camp-meeting in the United States was held in 1799, ^^"^ the banks of the Red river in Kentucky. Two brothers by the name of McGee, one a Presbyterisn and the other a Methodist, being on a religious tour from Tennessee, where the former was settled, to a place called "the Barens," near the Ohio river, stopped at a settlement on the river to attend a sacramental occasion with the Rev. Mr. McGreedy, a Presbyterian. John McGee, the Methodist, was invited to preach, and he did so with great liberty and power. His brother, and Rev. Mr. Hodge followed him with sermons with remarkable effect. The spirit was graciously poured out upon the people, and produced tears of contrition and shouts of joy. Revs. Messers McGreedy, Hodge and Ranks, all Presbyterians left the house, but the McGees were too powerfully affected them- selves, to flee under circumstances of so much interest. John McGee was expected to preach again ; but when the time arrived, he arose and informed the people that the over-powering nature 22 ACTON LECTURES. of his feelings would not allow of his i)reaching, and exhorted them to surrender their hearts to God. Cries and sobs were heard in every part of the house. The excitement was indescribable. When the noise of this extraordinary movement reached the surrounding coun- try, the people rushed to see what these things meant, for they had never heard of the like before. The meeting house could not contain the people. An altar was erected to the Lord in the forest. This gave a new impulse to the meeting, people came from tar and near, bringing with them provisions, and other necessaries for encampment, and remained several days dwelling in tents. It was a memorable oc- casion, and the power of God was wonderfully displa)'ed in the awak- ening and conversion of souls. Sectarian differences were forgotten in the effort to promote spiritual religion. These services were con- tinued by Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. The result was unparalleled, and suggested another meeting of the kind, which was held on Muddy river, three miles east of Russelville, and was con- ducted by the McGees. The attendance was large, and about forty souls were converted. This was the origin of camp-meetings in the United States. The next camp-meeting was held in Sumner county, Tennessee, ten miles west of Galatin, and a little south-east of the Cumberland Ridge. This meeting was largely attended, and for intensity of feel- ing, for extraordinary displays of Divine power, and for the amount of good accomplished, surpassed the former two. It was estimated that at least twenty thousand people attended this meeting. In a letter under date of June 23, 1820, to Rev. Thomas L. Douglass, then -Pre- siding Elder of Nashville District, Rev. John McGee, gives the follow- ing account of the camp-meeting at Cumberland Ridge. "The next meeting was on the Ridge, where there was an in- crease of people, and carriages of differrent descriptions, and a great many preachers of the Presbyterian and Methodist orders, and some Baptists, but the latter were generally opposed to the work. Preach- ing commenced, and the people prayed, and the power of God attend- ed. There was a great cry for mercy. The nights were truly awful ; the Camp Ground was well illuminated. The people were differently affected all over the ground, some exhorting, some shouting, some praying and some crying for mercy, while others lay as dead men on the ground. "Some of the spiritually wounded fled to the woods, and their groans could be heard all through the surrounding groves, as the groans of dying men. From thence many came into the camp, rejoic- ing and praising God for having found redemption in the blood of ACTON LFXTURES. 23 the Lamb. At this meetiing it was computed that one hundred souls were converted from nature to grace. But perhaps the greatest meeting ever witnessed in this country, took place shortly after, on Deshae's creek, near Cumberland river. Many thousands of people attended. The mighty power and mercy of God were manifested. The people fell before the word like corn before a storm of wind, and many arose from the dust with Divine glory shining in their coun- tenances, and gave glory to God in such strains as made the hearts of stubl)orn sinners to tremble; and after the first gust of praise, they would break forth in voUies of exhortation. The revivals thus begun under the labors of John and William McGee, soon spread over southern Kentucky, and through what is now known as middle Ten- nessee. The Presbyterians gradually retired from the field, but the Meth- odists not only continued camp-meetings, but they carried them into other parts of the country, till they became general in the connection. Thus we have seen that camp-meetmgs were born of a revival, and for many years they were looked to, and relied upon as a great agency in promoting revivals of religion. At one of these early camp- meetings, while a son of thunder was pouring out the terrors of the law, and describing the torments of the damned until one could almost hear their groans of dispair, an old revolutionary soldier, who was standing in j:he rear of the congregation, came rushing towards the preachers standing, crying at the top of his voice, "quarter I quarter! quarter!" and falling on his knees said, 'T am an old soldier; I have fought through the Revolutionary war; I have heard the cannons loud roar, and have seen blood and brains flying all around me ; but since God made me, 1 never heard such cannonading as this. I yield! I yield!" The first cainp-meeiing ever held in the territory of Indiana, was held on White W'ater, between Brookville and Harrison, and was un- der the supervision of Rev. Hezekiah Shaw, in 1808. At this camp- meetmg, Allen Wiley, whose ministerial labors subsequently did so much to bless the state and build up the church in Indiana, was, for the first time found as a penitent at the mourners bench, seeking sal- vation. Early m the fall of the same year. Rev. WilHam Burke, then a Presiding Elder in Kentucky, and Moses Ashworth, who was on Silver creek circuit in Indiana, held a camp-meeting in the Robertson neighborhood in Clark county. The novelty of the meeting attracted large numbers, although there was no special revival of religion. The third camp-meeting in the state was held in the summer of 24 ACTON LECTURES. 1810, in what was then Dearborn, now Wayne county, about midway between the city of Richmond and the town of Centerville. Rev. John Sale was the Presiding Elder: and Samuel H. Thompson ana Thomas Nelson were the circuit jjreachers. At this camp-meet- ing a goodly number were converted. From this place the camp- meetings were removed further east, and located on the farm of Rev. Hugh Cull, where they were continued for several years and were in- strumental in the accomplishment of much good. Rev. Hugh Cull was perhaps the first Methodist jjreacher in the territory of Indiana. He was a member of the convention that framed the first constitution of our state. He settled a few miles south of the present city of Richmond. Camp-meetings were held on his farm for a number of years, and the regular circuit preaching was at his house from 1805 to 1824. He was a man of sterling integrity, of considera- ble ability, an industrious local preacher, and earnest and zealous in his religion ; a weeping, shouting Methodist. He continued to preach until within a year of his death, which occurred, August 30, 1862, in the one hundred and fifth year of his age ^ and the sixty-fifth of his ministry. In 1803, the first camp-meeting was held east of the mountains. Rev. Nicholas Snethen, a man of superior preaching abilities, had been traveling with Bishoj) Asbury in the west, and had had an op- portunity of attending several camp-meetings in the course gf the jour- ney. He became fully convinced that they might be introduced with great advantage east of the mountains. Accordingly on his return he determined to have one near Baltimore where he was then stationed. Joshua Wells was in charge and was opposed to the measure, but finally "yielded so far as to allow Mr. Snethen and his other colleague, Samuel Coats, to do as they pleased, but he himself stood entirely aloof from the meeting. Robert R. Roberts, afterwards Bishop, at- tended this meeting. He was then a young circuit preacher. At this meeting, Mr. Snethen preached with great power, and sinners fell under the preaching of the word. In 1817, there were two camp-meetings held on the Lawrence- burg circuit, which that year enjoyed the labors of Russel Bigelow and x\llen ^Viley. The first was held on Crooked creek, within the present limits of the city of Madison. The results of this meeting were truly glorious. Many substantial citizens who lived for years as ornaments of piety, and earnest workers for the Lord, were added to the church. The revival did not close with the camp-meeting, but continued with unabated interest for some time. The local preachers in the vicinity, in the absence of the traveling preachers, kept up the ACTON LECTURES. 25 meetings, and the work went gloriously forward; and mnny were con- verted at their homes, as well at the place of meeting. The other camp-meeting was on the bank of South Hogan creek, just at the foot of the hill, between Aurora and Wilmington, in Dear- born county. The meeting closed on Monday in a most impressive manner. Bigelow formed the congre';ation into a company like sol- diers in double file, and marched around the encampment, singing a]j- propriate farewell hymns, after which the preachers took their stand at some convenient point, and bade them all farewell by shaking hands with eacji of them, and getting pledges from as many as they could, to meet them in heaven. It was truly a heart-melting time. Bigelow Avas bidding adieu to his flock, for this was the close of his labors on I.awrenceburg circuit, and he exhorted the people in touching strains to meet him in heaven. There were perhaps as many souls converted during this meeting as there had been during the one at Madison, but the work did not extend so far beyond the meeting, and the perma- nent results were not as great. In 1826, a memorable camp-meeting was held by John Strange, in what is now the center of the town of Moores Hill, Strange then being Presiding Elder of Madison District, Illinois Conference. The meeting closed on Monday forenoon, with a ])owerful sermon by the Presiding Elder, founded on Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. At the close of the sermon, Strange proposed that those who would promise to meet him in heaven, should form in a procession, and march around the encampment, and those who would not so promise, should remain in the center of the encampment while the others march- ed around them. In the summer of 1829, there was a glorious camp-meeting held on Fall creek circuit, in the vicinity of the present town of Pendleton. Charles Bonner was in charge of the circuit. He had just been admit- ted on trial into the conference, and the name of the circuit appears for the first time in the minutes. Young Bonner was remarkably zealous and the year was one of great success. Fall creek circuit was then in the Madison District, and Allen Wiley was the Presiding Elder. At this meeting more than fifty souls were converted to God. A part of the sermon by the Presiding Elder at 11.00 a. m. on Sunday was devoted to the subject of Baptism, and at the close of the sermon, between forty and fifty adults and children, were solemnly baptised. After the public baptism was over, the Elder was informed that there was a poor afflicted man in a wagon, whose body was to a considerable extent de- cayed by some kind of abscess or ulceration; but that there was yet body enough left to hold the soul, which could not stay much longer on the 26 ACTON LECTURES. earth, as disease was rapidly approaching the vital parts of the system. This poor Lazarus with all of his stench of disease, heard the sermon and felt its force, and desired to ht baptised before he died, and his wish was met in the wagon. [f baptism were confined to immersion alone, this poor man must have died unbaptised. for the. most zealous immersionist would not have attempted to put the fragments ol his decaying body under the w^ater. But the water sprinkled on his brow, was to him the valid sign of Gods covenant of grace, and in a few days his peaceful spirit left the decaying tenement, for the heavenly rest. The first camp-rneeting in LaPorte county, was held in 1832, on the farm of j. Osborn, while James Armstrong, who was then in charge of the Mission District, was on his death bed. He was unable to leave his room, l)ut he gave directions for the management of the meeting. Boyd, Phelps. A. Johnson and E. Smith were the preach- ers at the meeting. Armstrong was a born leader; his organizing and magnetic power were conspicuous in his management of camp-meetings in this new country. He came to Indiana in 182 i, and in the fall of the same year united with the conference, and continued an able and effi- cient minister till the close of life. He was a man of immense power — strong, logical and conclusive. He threw his whole soul into his work, and if sometimes he was not altogether precise in his style, yet at others he seemed almost moved by inspiration, so completely were his words expressive of his correct thoughts. When he intended to strike a hard blow he never failed to make it terriffic, shivering the helmet of whatsoever adversary dared in his presence to assail the citadel of Christianity. In the early history of the state it was common for each circuit to have its own camp-meeting, generally beginning in the middle of the week and closing on the following Monday. There was little financial expense incurred in their management. The tents were made of cotton cloth or sheets sewed together. Others were built of poles and cov- ered with clapboards, and others lodged in their covered w\agon-l)eds. Each family brought their own provisions, did their own cooking, and exercised a generous hospitality, often inquiring around the encamp- ment for any that had not been fed. Often the preachers stand, and the preacher's tent, which was built in connection with it or right in the rear of it, were the only permanent structures on the ground, the others all being removed at the close of the meeting. Not un frequently there would be six or eight camp-meetings in a presiding elder's district, and the last round of quarterly meetings for the year would l)e mainly camp-meedngs, requiring the Presiding Elder ACTON LECTURES. 27 to spend six or eight weeks continuously in the woods, going directly from one camp-meeting to another. There were a number of locali- ties in the state where camp-meetings were permanent, or where they were held on the same ground from year to year, through a series ot years. Such was the ground known as Doddridge's Camp-Ground, m AVayne county, near the present site of Doddridge's meeting house. Here Strange, and Wiley, and Havens used to marshal! their forces; and here man; hundreds, who have been useful on earth and are now happy in Heaven, were converted. For several years camp-meetings were held on the ground ot Mr. Lowry, in what is now the south-west corner of the town of Knights- town', in Henry county, which was then in Rushville circuit. The first of these meetings was held in the summer of 1837, under the su- perintendency of James Havens. Nearly thirty ])reachers attended this meeting, among whom were James Havens. Augustus Eddy, E. R. Ames, J. C. Smith. Elijah \Vhitten, C. B. Jones, G. M. Beswick and Robert Burns. The religious interest of the meeiing was excellent from the first. On Sunday night, just after the lamps had been lighted and the audience called together for public worship, there burst suddenly on the encampment one of those feartul tornadoes with which our country is occasionally visited. In an instant every light was extinguished and the audience left in profound darkness, sa\'e when it was relieved b}- the flash of the lightning. The wind leveled a track through the forest, just across one end of the encampment, as eftectually as the mower cuts' the grass with his scythe. The audience had been gathered just out- side of the track of the tornado. A beach tree of considerable size, standing within the circle of tents, was blown down right toward the altar, which was covered with a frame shed. Large numbers were knocked down, either by the force of the wind or the branches of the tree, but no one was hurt. Two men, who were standing under the tree, fell into the hole where the tree had stood, a faUing tree knocked a tent over them that was just in the rear of where they stood, and yet they were rescued unhurt. One entire row of tents was prostrated by the falling timber, but none of the inmates were injured. A large tree- top broke off and lodged right over the top of a tent crowded with people. So numerous and marvelous were the escapes that they made a profound impression upon the minds of the people. The work of God broke out with increased power on Monday, and many, doubtless, owed their awakening to the incidents of the tornado. The first person to come to the altar for prayers on Monday was a man who had compelled his wife to leave the altar on Sunday after- 28 ACTON LECTURES. noon. At the close of an earnest appeal from Elijah VVhitten, on Mon- day morning, many came to the altar as seekers of religion, and that man, with his wife, led the way. Jacob's camp-ground, in Clark county, was another rallying place of Methodism for a number of years. In 1819 a memorable revival of religion prevailed throughout that part of the country. It began at a camp-meeting held on Jacob's camp-ground. The good work con- tinued long after the camp-meeting closed, and extended to every neigh- borhood throughout the old Silver Creek circuit. A number of memorable camp-meetings were held withni the pres- ent limits of the city of Indianapolis, and not a few of the old members of the churches in the city now were converted at these meetings. The one held by James Havens in 1836, during which he had the memorable rencounter with the desperado, Burkhart, is still remem- bered by many. Burkhart had threatened to break up the meeting, and all of the civil officers stood in fear of him. Burkhart came on the ground fully armed and bade defiance to all authority. Mr. Havens said to a magistrate: "Swear me in as a deputy constable, and I will arrest him." He was accordingly sworn in, and immedi- ately started for his man. Having overtaken him, he locked arms with him and asked him to take a walk, and, while walking. Havens quietly transferred several stones from the side pocket of Mr. Burkhart's blouse into his own. Burkhart soon refused to go further, when Havens in- formed him that he was a prisoner and must go with him to the mag- istrate's office. Remonstrance and opposition were alike unavailing. When m the magistrate's office, and while some of the witnesses were giving in their testimony against him, Burkhart suddenly sprang to his feet, and, brandishing a large knife, swore he had bought it to cut Havens's heart out, and started for Mr. Havens, but, when he came in reach, Havens dealt him such a blow with his fist as sent him to the floor on the opposite side of the room, when the ruffian was se- cured and taken to jail. But, in spite of this little episode, the work of the Lord mightily prevailed, and many souls were-converted. The early camp-meetings were not regarded as seasons of rest or recreation. They were not looked to as health resorts, or as affording opportunities of literary or social culture. But they were regarded as seasons of special religious effort ; and these meetings were character- ized by earnest, concentrated effort and intense zeal on the part of both preachers and people. They preached and prayed for immediate re- sults, and (rod honored their faith. Multitudes who were unaccustomed to hearing the gospel were brought under religious influence at these meetings, and multi- ACTON LECTURES. 29 tudes fell to the ground under the preaching of the word. 'llie cries of the penitents and the shouts of the converted were such as would now be regarded as the height of extravagance. As these meetings increased in size the labor of cooking became an intolerable burden and prevented many of the women from attend- ing the religious services. As a consequence, camp-meetings became less frequent. Ot late years they are being revived in a form that relieves tent-holders not only from the burden of setting public tables, but from much of the labor of ordinary housekeeping. ^'Why should we, in the world's ripe years, neglect God's ancient sanctuaries and adore only among the crowd and under roofs that our frail hands have raised.'' No narrative of early camp-meetings would be complete that did not contain a sketch of some of their more prominent leaders. At the head of this list, at least in the order of time in our own State, stands the name of Rev. John Strange. He was in many respects a remarka- ble man. He evinced a singular deadness to the world and a remark- able trust in Divine Providence. He was a man of slender form, black hair, keen, penetrating eyes ; a rich, musical voice, clear and dis- tinct in its tones, rising from the lowest to the highest key without the slightest jar. He was a charming singer. His power over an audi- ence was wonderful. In voice and gesture he was faultless. Oratory was natural to him. No man was ever more truly l)orn a poet than John Strange was an orator. Often, in his happiest flights of elo- quence he would lift his audience from their seats, and hundreds would find themselves unconsciously standing on their feet and gazing intent- ly at the speaker. His descriptive powers were fine. When he was preaching the funeral of Rev. Edwin Ray, in Indianapolis — the father of Col. John W. Ray — who had been his intimate friend and associate, towards the close of the sermon, while describing the second com- ing of Christ, he represented Him as descending in the clouds, bringing the saints with Him. He stood erect a moment, and cried out: Where is Edwin Ray I " Still looking up, he exclaimed . "I see him ! I see him I " and then, with both hands raised as if welcoming him, and with a voice that seemed to reach the Heavens, he cried! Hail, Edwin! Hail, Edwin I Hail, Edwin!" The effect was thrilling, and never to be forgotten by those who heard it. On one occasion, when Strange was preaching on Sunday at camp- meeting, the tide of feeling rose higher and higher. He took one of his wonderful flights of eloquence, which lifted the congregation, and a general shout arose. Hearing the great shout which arose from with- in the circle of tents, a crowd of persons, who had been wandering ^0 ACTON LEiCtURfeS. about on the outside of the encampment, came rushing through ari opening into the circle of tents and down the central aisle towards the stand. Seeing the coming throng, Mr.. Strange stopped short, raised himself to his fullest height, and, standing tip-toe, threw his hand for- ward, pointing directly toward the crowd, and exclaimed with a voice which startled the people : " Here they come now ! My Lord, shoot them as they come!'" At once, scores of loud "amens" rolled up from the congregation. Instantly, as if smitten by lightning, the whole crowd of sinners, who were pressing down the central aisle, dropped into the seats, or to the ground, and from that moment the congregation seemed spellbound to the close of the sermon. Rev. x\llen Wiley, who, perhaps, presided over as many camp- meetings as any other man in the state, was systematjc and logical, a great lover of order, and he took pains to secure it without any osten- tatious display of authority. His voice was monotonous and heavy, yet such was his abilit}' and learning, and the freshness of his matter, that his sermons were entertaining and popular, as well as instructive. His camp-meeting sermons made a profound impression on the thousands who heard him. He discussed the great questions of Christian theol- ogy, as well as the live issues of the times, with an ability and thor- oughness that went far to mould public opinion and strengthen public morals. His style was perspicuous, and persons were never in doubt as to what he meant. On all questions of public morality he exerted a wholesome and wide-spread influence. He was a prince and leader in our Israel. Rev. James Havens was at home, and i)ractically in his element, when conducting a camp-meeting. On such occasions his great power over an audience and his ability to command were conspicuous. He seemed born to command. By his bold and positive manner he seemed to sometimes invite opposition. He meant just what he said — no more, no less — and those who attempted to trifle with his author- ity soon found that he was master of the situation. He never suf- fered defeat. (Jn one occasion, when he was holding a camp-meeting on the southern border of Marion county, a huckster had established himself with his articles of traffic a short distance from the encampment, in vi- olation of the laws of the state. Mr. Havens w^ent to him and re- quested him to leave, or to remove further from the encampment, where he would produce no disturbance. He not only refused to go, but threatened, if not let alone in his business, that with the whiskey he had brought with him, he would make enough men drunk to go to the encampment and drive the Metnodist preachers and people from ACTON LECTURES. the encampment. Havens returned to the camp ground, had the trumpet blown, and the people collected at the stand as quickly as pos- sible. He told them what the huckster had threatened to do, and called upon the young men in the congregation to know if they were going to allow their mothers, wives and sisters to be insulted and driven off the ground in that way. " No I No! was responded from every part of the audience. One young man said: "Mr. Havens, we will rout him. Come on boys!" and, leading the way, some two hundred young men followed him. They proceeded to the huckster's establishment and informed him that he must leave immediately. He said he reckoned not. They told him it was even so. He proposed to go in a few hours. They said now, immediately, or we will tramp your traps into the ground beneath our feet. They made him pack uj) and leave without waiting to deliberate on the manner of his going. Havens was rich in expedients in the management of a camp- meeting. He was holding a camp-meeting in Hamilton county. It had been in progress for several days, but the church had gained no decided victory. I'he camp ground had been occupied for several years. Some of the camp-meetings held there had been very success- ful. Havens said to the preachers : We have fought the Devil here until he understands the ground as well as we do. We will take him by surprise to-night." His plan of battle was agreed upon. The en- campment was large, the tents enclosing much more space than was filled with seats. He ordered some posts ])lanted in the open space, upon which to place lights, and a quantity of straw to be spread on the ground enclosed with these posts; then a number of benches were brought and placed upon the straw. These movements excited some curiosity, and many were the inquiries as to what this meant, but no explanation was given. About sundown Havens ordered a number of prayer-meetings commenced in tents at different points around the en- campment, and appointed skillful men to lead them. After night had closed in, and while the prayer-meetings were in full blast, he formed a circle of men joining hands, around where the benches were placed, directing them to admit no one within the circle but penitents, preach- ers and such other persons as he might direct, to pray with and instruct the mourners. He then appointed men to go to the different prayer-meetings, and, at the sound of the trumpet, bring out the peo- ple and come singing to the circle, and if there were any penitents, to bring them and seat them on the benches. By this time the excite- ment was running high. At the sound of the trumpet the people came in from every direction from the prayer-meetings, their songs ringing out on the evening air and causing the forest to vibrate with sounds of ACTON LECTURES. almost heavenly melody. The wicked were awe-stricken. Several penitents were brought inside the circle. Havens mounted a bench and gave a most powerful exhortation, at the conclusion of which the con- gregation sang that appropriate hymn : "Come ye sinners, poor and needy, WeaK and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready stands to save you; Full of pity, love and pov»rer, He is able, He is willing — doubt no more.'' Between sixty and seventy penitents came to the altar. The services continued till a late hour, and many were converted, and the shouts of victory were heard afar. The next night Havens conducted the services back at the old altar. Said he : " I'he Devil expects us to fight him up yonder where we did last night, but we will take him by surprise again." Havens's Hterary advantages were poor, but he was a great reader, and was well informed on all the current topics of the day, as well as general literature, and was an able defender of the doctrines of Christianity. He proclaimed Gospel truth and declaimed against sin equal to any man of his day. During the years of Edward R. Ames's Presiding Eldership in Indiana, extending through a period of twelve years or more, he was a prince among camp-meeting preachers. In person, above the average in size, dignified and cultured in his bearing, easy in all his move- ments ; in the enjoyment of perfect health, possessing a strong, though not very musical voice — ^yet one of great flexibility and compass, and well adapted to out door preaching. His camp-meeting sermons on the Crreencastle, New Albany, Indianapolis and Jeffersonville Districts did much to advance the cause of Christianity. He handled the great problems of theology and the current topics of the day with ability and force ; and during his ministry in Indiana he was not only successful in promoting the spiritual interests of the Church, but he took broad and statesmanlike views of all public interests, and did much to en- courage education and develop a spirit of Christian benevolence. Many of his camp-meeting sermons were specimens of a high order of forensic eloquence. The physical phenomena attending the early camp-meetings ex- cited much attention and was variously commented upon at the time, and demand at least a passing notice. The most common of these was the loss of muscular power. It was very common for sinners to fall under the preaching of the Word, and not unfrequently to lay for ACTON LECTURES. hours without the ability to move a muscle. When they regained their strength — or came to, as the phrase was — they generally came to, shouting and praising God for His pardoning mercy, and continued to give evidence of genuine conversion. Sometimes Christians lay in the same condition for hours, and, on reg^ning their strength, usually shouted the praises of God aloud. Leaping, literally jumping, over the benches, and continuing to jump until their strength was exhausted, clapping their hands and praising God with a loud voice were of very frequent occurrence. In the great revival in Kentucky, in the early part of the century, the people were exercised with what was known as "the jerks." They would be taken with a twitching and jerking of their muscles and limbs in an uncontrollable manner. For instance, a lady's head would be- gin to jerk, presently her bonnet would fly off, then her combs would fly out of her hair, then her head would jerk back until her hair would straighten out and crack like a whip lash. These exercises were con-^ fined to neither sex, and not exclusively to any phase of Christian ex- perience. They were most common among those who were just awakened to a sense of their sinfulness. But persons of undoubted Christian character were sometimes subject to them ; and persons who resisted their convictions and continued in sin often had the jerks, but only when under strong religious influences. The jerks were chiefly confined to the "New Lights" but occasionally appeared in Method- ist meetings. These physical manifestations were doubtless the result of deep emotion and a state of high nervous excitement. Persons who had never been trained religiously, to whom the truths of religion came with the freshness and power of a rmv revelation, and who had not been accustomed to rigid self-control of their emotions, yielded unresistingly to the new and strange power which they felt to be upon them. Others were affected sympathetically, for feelings are contagious. There is an atmosphere of religious emotion which at times pervade religious assemblies, and which is as perceptable and distinguishable as that of a cold or hot atmosphere. These physical manifestations, whether seen in the loss of muscu- lar power, or hi jumping, shouting, clapping of the hands, or jerking, were no essential part of Christian experience. They constituted no standard of Christian attainment, and whether they resulted from the impressability of their natures, from nervous sympathy, or from the ab- sence of the habit of self-government and control, we leave each to judge. 34 ACTON LECTURES. Such physical manifestations are rare in communities that have grown up under the influence of rehgious truth, and where people have been educated to control their emotions, instead of yielding a loose rein to them. But in the most cultured communities, and among those best trained to self-control, the Gospel produces conviction for sin and such a discovery of the vileness of our nature as causes men to loath themselves as unclean, and earnestly seek the fountain of cleans- ing. The spirit does witness with our consciousness to the rising of the new creation in all the elements of a spiritual Eden, where the fruits of the spirit, like trees of righteousness and plants of the Lord's right hand planting, flourish in perpetual beauty and fragrance. The Gospel is still the power of God and "the wisdom of, unto sal- vation to every one that believeth." 0ONFUeiUS AND SOLOMON. A LECTURIS DEI.IVKRED AT THE ACTON LECTURK COURSEj- Bf WILL CUMBACK, LL. D., August 3, i88i. Confucius may be justly regarded as the founder of the peculiaf civilization of the Chinese. His voluminous writings bear the same re- lation to the Chinese that the Bible does to the believers in Christianity. His disciples number more than one-fourth of the human race. The Confucian code is accepted by more than ten times as many people as constitute the population of the United States. By the most of his followers he is deified. One of his most learned disciples thus eulogizes him: '"Confucius handed down the doctrines of Yaon and Shin as if they had been his ancestors, and elegantly displayed the regulations of Wan and Woo, taking them as his models. Above he harmonized the times of Heaven, and below he was confined to the water and the land. He may be compared to Heaven and earth in their supporting and containing — their overshadowing and containing all things. He may be compared to the four seasons in their alternating progress, and to the sun and moon in their successive shining. All embracing and vast, he is like Heaven. Deep and active as a fountain, he is like an abyss. He is seen, and all the people reverence him ; he speaks, and the people all believe him ; he acts, and all the people are pleased with him. Therefore, his fame overspreads the middle kingdom and extends to all barbarous tribes. Wherever ship and carriage reach, wherever the strength of man penetrates, wherever the Heavens overshadows an^ the earth sustains, wherever the sun and moon shine, wherever frosts and dews fall, all who have blood and breath unfeignedly honor and love him. Hence it is said he is the equal of Heaven. Call him man in his ideal, how earnest is he ! Call him an abyss, how deep is he ! Call him Heaven, how vast is he 1 36 Acton lectures. Who can know him but he who is indeed quick in apprehension, clear in discernment of far-reaching intelligence and all-embracing knowl- edge passing Heavenly virtue ? " In the sacrificial ritual of the Chinese there may be found a short account of the life of this wonderful personage. This ritual closes with these words : "Confucius! Confucius! How great is Confucius ! Be- fore Confucius there never was a Confucius! Since Confucius there has never been a Confucius I Confucius! Confucius! How great is Confucius ! " Many more such extracts could be given of the same character, showing the depth of the adoration of his numerous disciples ; but this will suffice for the point. It might be proper to add that, although twenty-three centuries have passed since this wonderful man lived, and during that time many an ambitious leader has arisen, and for a time flourished and is now forgotten, yet there is no abatement of zeal of his followers. The peaceful valley where he died has been for all time since then, and is now, a sacred spot, a resort, a place of pilgrimage for the learned and superstitious. More than two hundred years ago, when seventy-four generations had passed away since his death, there were twelve thousand of his de- scendants who bore his name. There are over forty thousand now. It is an honor that gives them all high rank among the people and ex- empts them from taxation. Over sixteen hundred temples are dedi- cated to him, and annually over sixty thousand animals are immolated on the altars of sacrifice to the memory of the great philosopher. His voluminous writings are committed to memory by thousands of his followers so perfectly that if every book of all his works were destroyed they could all be restored from the memories of his disciples, word for word. Confucius was in the height and zenith of his glory about five hundred years before Christ. His ethical writings are the wonder of the world, when the age in which they were written and the opportunities he had are taken into consideration. The infidel writers, especially those of France, have gone wild in their admiration and eulogium of his proverbs, and have boldly asserted that they excel in wisdom those of Solomon, and go so far as to declare that the teachings of Jesus are but a repetition of the maxims of Confucius. The appreciation of the maxims of the great philosopher and the depreciation of the proverbs of Solomon is one of the modern modes of warfare of the skeptic in his assault on the Bible as an inspired book. f Let us briefly compare these men and their writings. Both of them were of distinguished parentage. ACTON LECTURES. 37 Confucius was the son of the Prime Minister of the kingdom of Loo. Solomon was the son of the great warrior king and sweet singer of Israel. Solomon was the ruling monarch of Israel, and by his wisdom and the splendor of his court was the wonder of the surrounding na- tions a little more than one thousand years before Christ was born. Solomon, therefore, preceded Confucius more than five hundred years. Both of them were animated with the same ambition to stand in the very front rank with the wisest men of their times. Both of dis- tinguished parentage, were alike determined to add to the glory they inherited the grander fame of great personal achievements. Confucius rejected all idea of a divine revelation, and groped his way along without the Hght of the. word of God. Solomon went to the Lord and asked not for long life or riches, but prayed for Divine help in searching for wisdom. Confucius lived in a land where the light of the knowledge of God had never penetrated the darkness and gloom of heathenism all around him. Solomon was the great and wise king of the very nation which had been so miraculously preserved by the interposition of the Almighty, and who had in past times given to the leaders and rulers the laws for the government of the people, and whom He intended to honor by making one born of that nation to be the Savior and Redeemer for all mankind. The writings of Solomon, therefore, in all things recognized God and the future life, while those of Confucius were confined to the nar- row circle of human life and the duties and obligations arising from man's relation to his fellow man. It is true that Solomon also discoursed largely on all the relations of life. In his proverbs may be found the purest ethics, the grandest poetry, the profoundest philosophy. It discloses him to have been a great statesman, a wise king and law-giver. His pen has written him on the imperishable pages of Divine history as a philosopher, a states- man, a poet and a sage. He not only advocated the right for its own sake, but he also, with the authority of one inspired, proclaimed what God required of men. The ethics of Confucius is the production of a great mind unaided by any true conception of divinity, while that of Solomon, written more than five hundred years before, rises so far above him in moral grandeur as to compel mankind to recognize therein the utterings of the omnicient and infinite. Solomon announces in the very beginning of his Book of Proverbs ^hat "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 38 ACTON LECTURES. Confucius commences his book of maxims, put in the form of a question : "Is he not a man of perfect virtue who feels no discompos- ure, though men may take no note of him ? These two maxims may justly be taken as key notes of the writings of these great men. The one lifts man up to the consideration of the grandeur and immortality of his being and existence ; the other makes perfect virtue to be a placid state of mind in which stupidity is the most prominent feature. This will be found to be true all through the max- ims of these great proverb writers. While in the Proverbs of Solomon it is sounded out loud and clear that God is the father of us all, and that we are all bound, for his sake and in obedience to his command, to love, cherish and protect each other, in the maxims of the Chinese philosopher the practice of virtue is urged because of the good that will come to him who practices it. The one inculcates the higher love to God and man ; the other makes an appeal to the selfishness of human nature as an incentive to virtuous actions. The one teaches an active principle of good, conveying blessings to all around, while the other simply enjoins a mere passive or negative condition of the human mmd. The one looks to the good of others, and the other to what is best for self. It would not be just or honest to say that the whole code of Con- fucius is as narrow as human selfishness, for in his teachmgs we find many noble and generous things that cannot be too much commended, yet he did recognize selfishness as the main-spring and motive power of human action. The writings of Solomon were the exact reverse in this regard. In corroboration of this view of the case let us take two statements that these great waiters have made on the same subject— a subject that seems to have engrossed the profoundest consideration of both. I mean the correct conduct of human life. Confucius says : ''To be able to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue." When asked what these five things were, he said : Gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.'' As a reason for the practice of these five essential things, he says : 'Mf you are grave, you will be treated with respect. If you are generous, you will win all. If you are sincere, people will repose trust in you. If you are earnest, you will accomplish much. If you are kind, this will enable you to e7?iploy the service of others.'' Had he been content to merely state the elements that compose perfect vertue, his case would have been stronger. He weakened it by giving the reasons, and in that it must be regarded that in so doing he gives us the animus of his phylosophy. Perfect virtue, according ta / ACTON LECTURES. 39 this Confucian code, has its foundation and origin in human selfish- ness, and to that, and that alone, he makes his appeal in urging its claim.s on his followers. To practice his five things, good as they are, no reason is given that in doing so the good of others will be promoted. This is not even hinted at. The whole argument is as narrow as human selfi-shness would desire it to be. He promises to pay heavy dividends of per- sonal benefits to all who will invest in his scheme of perfect virtue. He says: "When one gives few occasions for blame in his words, and few occasions for repentance in his conduct, he is in the way to get emolument." He thus commends his philosophy on the ground that it will pay. No higher or broader ground is mentioned. Even gen- erosity is commended not because its practice will scatter happiness all around and make mankind better, and life sweeter, and existence more tolerable, but because, by so doing, it will win others to your interest, and will pay cash down for all you invest in it. Kindness is recom- mended because by it you can attach others to your service, and thus promote your own interest and make more headway in the world. It might be proper to remark right here that this idea of perfect virtue prevails to some extent in this Christian land. The practice of just the amount of virtue that will pay good dividends in duty dollars or personal aggrandizement is, by no means, confined to the "Heathen Chinee." It must be confessed that, while we claim to believe Solo- mon, not a few follow Confucius in this regard. In contrast with the five things and reasons given for them by Confucius, to make a man perfect, let us hear a kindred declaration of Solomon. He says : " These six things doth the Lord hate, yea seven are an abomination unto the Lord: A proud look, a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood ; an heart that deviseth wicked imagin- ation, feet that be swift in running into mischief ; a false witness that speaketh lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren." In the above seven things that wise king said were abhorrent to the Lord, it is manifest that their practice is condemned for the reason that such evils are against the general welfare. For this reason these practices are denounced. The requirement is made that these things shall be avoided on the higher and broader ground that the general good requires it. No mention is here made that the man who observes these precepts and obeys them will have personal gain by so doing. It was deemed sufiicient that others would be the losers, and for this reason he must obey. W e cannot fail to observe that in these seven things that Solomon says are so hateful to God, that a majority of them are against lying 40 ACTON LECTURES. and slander. All through the Book of Proverbs of Solomon we can find the most terrible denunciation of the liar and backbiter. He seemed to hold these sins in special abhorrence, and to regard all those who were guilty of them as being very detestable in the sight of a kind and loving Father. Not only is the life of others to be regarded as sacred in Solomon" s code, but their character and reputation is to be equally free from assault. The slanderer and the murderer are alike hateful in the sight of God, and are put in the same category. Man- kind are not promised personal reward if they will not shed the blood of others or slaughter their good name. The good of society demands their obedience to the laws of right. The eulogists of the Confucian code, while they may agree that the great philosopher in all cases did not place the practice of virtue on the proper ground, yet it is insisted that the code itself contains the purest morality, and that its practice will work as great, if not greater, reformation on society than the observance of the proverbs of Solo- mon. This position cannot be maintained. Many of the maxims of Confucius are positively bad and vicious, and must be condemned by the moral sense of mankind. They positively uphold and sustain what the civilized world would pronounce to ,be evil, without any help to reach such conclusion from Divine revelation. It is said that the Duke of Stiea, one of the provmces of China, once went to Confucius for counsel and advice, and told the philoso- pher that in his part of the country there were those so upright that if the father had stolen a sheep, the son would bear witness to the fact. Confucius replied : "Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the miscon- duct of the son, and the son the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in t/iis.'' From time immemorial the sheep-thief has been regarded as the meanest of thieves, so that "as mean as a sheep- thief" has become one of the sayings of the world; yet this great teach- er lays down the principle for the acceptance of his followers, that even this crime must not be exposed if the witness has to bear testi- mony against a relative — that uprightness consists, in all such cases, in concealing the crime and protecting the criminal. His code of morals — if it may be so called — was not even and well adjusted. It was not consistent with itself. It does not contain the elements of pos- itive, active virtue. It is a fact in the history of the Chinese that such is their character — selfish, cunning and deceitful, they fairly reflect in their meanness the points of the code from which they find the rules for their conduct of life. Let us take another of the sayings of Confucius. In speaking of ACTON LECTURES. 4 1 the character of Huey, who seems to have been one of the notables in China, Confucius said: ''Admirable, indeed, was the virtue of Huey. With a single bamboo dish of rice, a single gourd dish of drink, and living in his mean narrow lane, while others could not have endured the distress, he did not allow his joy to be affected by it. Admirable, indeed, is the virtue of Huey. " Who this model of perfection was, or what other characteristics he had to challenge such admiration and eulogy, we know not. The thing that seems to call out the praise of Confucius was that his hero, without sufficient food or shelter, could live in the dirt like a hog and be happy. We are at liberty to suppose that this pink of perfection was a lazy loafer, too indolent to work for suffi- cient food — a kind of unwashed dead-beat, who had not sufficient en- ergy to be a tramp, and, content in his filth, was as jolly as Mark Tap- ley. That this dirty model has millions of followers in China the history of that country and the specimens who come to our shores furnish con- clusive evidence. Confucius has made virtue cheap — as cheap as dirt. The Chinese being the earnest and sincere followers of Confucius, their civilization and condition in this regard are fair types of his phi- losophy. It seems to us a strange sort of moral philosophy that the sweet flowers of virtue may be best cultivated in the soil of filth and indolence. Solomon says : ''Seest thou a man dilligent in busmess, he shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean men." As a people, the Chinese are avaricious. In this they follow the teachings of their master. In the biography of this great philosopher it is said that at one time he went to dispense wisdom to the people of the kingdom of Wei. Yen Yew acted as the driver of his carriage. While on the way, the sage asked Yen Yew : " How numerous are the people of this kingdom? " and when told that they were very nu- merous. Yen Yew asked that since they were thus numerous, what more shall be done for them? ''Enrich them" was the reply of Confu- cius. "And what more shall be done after they are enriched?" was the next question put to the sage. "Teach them" was the reply of Confucius. It must be constantly borne in mind that all these sayings are like Holy Writ to the devotees of this great leader. Whatever he did say they make the rule of their lives. Riches first and intelligence afterward. Riches before righteousness, before justice. This is the model code that infidel philosophy presents to the world for man's ac- ceptance in the place of the teachings of Solomon, and the words of him who spoke as never man spake. Hear Solomon : "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." "The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the 42 ACTON LECTURES. Maker of thenr all. " By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor, and hfe." "Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is perverse in his way, though he be rich.'' It will scarcely be questioned that in all places and in every con- dition and degree of progress and civilization, the mercenary spirit has ever been found to be the chief hindering cause to the elevation and improvement of the human race. It is so in all Christian countries where the Bible is read and believed. If this evil spirit is found so formidable among people whose religion condemns it, how much more powerful must it be for evil under a system that fosters and encour- ages it. On the subject of parental authority, Confucius was almost, if not quite, a monomaniac. Absolute and unqualified submission to parents was his hobby, and connected with that, and as a corroUary to it, he inculcated the most slavish submission to superiors. It will be found in his writings that, after" discoursing most voluminously on the different sorts of crime and the proper penalty due to each offense, and after classifying and enumerating them, he lays down this maxim as a well-considered conclusion of the whole matter: -'Of the three thou- sand crimes included under the five kinds of punishment, there is none greater than disobedience to parents.'"' In all cases it was the absolute right of the parent to command, and the imperative duty of the child to obey. To this rule there was no exception. It did not altar the case that the son had reached mature manhood and the mind of the parent had been enfeebled by age or disease. The wickedness of the order of the father, a command at variance with all sense of right or decency did not modify the rule. Rebellion against parental authority in any case was, in his mind, the darkest of crimes, and could not, under any circumstances, be tolerated. IVj prevent the ex- excise of private judgment on the part of the son, and to make the rule absolute, he made this declaration : " When his parents are in error, the son, with an humble spirit, a pleasing countenance and a gentle tone must point out the error to them. If they do not receive his re- proof, he must strive more and more to be dutiful to them and respect- ful toward them until they are pleased, and then he must again point out the error. If a son, in performing his duty to his parents, has thrice endeavored to correct them without their listening to him, then, weeping and lamenting, he ninsi follow their commands.'' To further show how absolute was the authority of the father over the son, allow me to quote from his sacred book of poetry, in which he often recurs to this subject. In that book he teaches by questions and answers. He asks this question: 'Tn marrying a wife, how ACTON LECTURES. 43 ought a man to proceed?"' His answer is: "He must consult his parents." If the father consented to the marriage of the son, he could marry ; if he refused, then he dare not disobey. If the father agreed to the marriage of the son, the son was not ])ermitted to go in searcli of a wife congenial to his taste, or in ac cordance with his notions of what constituted female beauty and accomplishments. That whole business was done by the father. It is the rule yet in China. The bridegroom is never permitted to see his bride until after they iire married. While the Chinese have made a great many wonderful and beauti- tiful fabrics, and have constructed the most elaborate and intricate specimens of mechanism that have puzzled the whole world, they are not permitted, under their code, to engage in that delightful, yet dif- ficult business oi making love. The iron code of Confucius on the sub- ject of parental authority has been so rigidly enforced that the manu- facture of this precious article by the boys and girls is strictly forbidden and prevented. It is, indeed, a sad thing to consider, when we are brought face to face with the fact that all the many believers of Confucius — more than one-fourth of the whole human race — of all that are now living, and of all those who have died in the last twenty odd centuries, not one man of all that coundess throng has ever had the sweet experience of court- ing the girls. In our civilization, that most delightful portion of our life's experience is the last to depart from our memories, and in the evening of life is most frequently recalled. When the weight of many years, and the numerous sorrows of life so press us down as to make even the grave look inviting, then these sweet memories of our youth come again to cheer and brighten the .winter of old age, and, for a time the recollection of these joys chase away the griefs that in later life fasten themselves to our life's experience. These tender remem- brances not only cheer old age, but they soften the withered hearts, and fill them with love and charity for the young. Without it, the old age of the Chinese must be cheerless and gloomy. This brings us to consider one of the most fatal defects in the whale Confucian system. I'he great philosopher took no account of wo- man. She was nothing in his estimation. Not only was this his theo- ry, but he put it into practice by abandoning his wife and child because they diverted his mind from his studies. As a result, women in China are but little more than chatties. They are the slaves of the men. The girls are sold to those who are looking for wives for their sons. To have a large family of handsome and accomplished daughters is a source of great profit to the father. He disposes of his fine stock to 44 ACTON LECTURES. those who will bid the most for them. I have not been able to find a single word of condemnation in all the fine philosophy of Confucius against this brutality — not one word. Low, indeed, is the type of civilization that excludes the wives and mothers from all social position. Blunted must be the moral sense of a people who treat women with no more consideration than they do animals. Yet such is the civilization of China. Women have no so- cial position there. They are not allowed to attend the theater or any other public assemblage. Even among the best and most polished in Chinese society, women are not, in any sense, regarded as the equal of men, nor is she permitted to enjoy with him even the society of their own home. When a manderin gives an entertainment to his friends, his wife or wives, as the case may be, may be permitted to invite a few of her female friends to witness the games and revelry of the men from a lat- tice gallery. Neither the wives nor the friends invited are allowed any other participation in the festivities. F^ven this much is regarded as a great condescension and concession to the women. In order to a fuller and clearer appreciation of the point here made against the Confucian system, it must not be forgotten that he undertook to discourse on the whole round of duties and obligations of human life. Ethics was his principal theme. He pointed out the remedy for abuses in society and to reform the civil government. With the greatest particularity he made and proclaimed rules to meet every condition of man, communities and states. He not only laid down the law for sovereigns and rulers — the treatment due the governed, and the duty and conduct of the governed — but he enters the family circle, and, with tedious particularity, tells what the child must be taught at this age, and then what it must learn when it is a year older, the kind of garments they must wear and how they must be made. He has a code of etiquette, the mode and manner of sacrificing, the duty of parents, the obHgations of children — until One becomes wearied with its long drawn out prglixity. He seemed to fear that he would omit something that would leave the world in doubt as to what should be done in some new relation that might arise in the various phases of life. Being a sage and counsellor, in his later life we find him visited from all parts of the Chinese Empire by those who had heard of his wisdom, asking him all manner of questions covering every conceiva- ble case or condition in human life. To all these questions, many of which were very shallow, he gave his answers with all the pomp and circumstance of an oracle. All of his replies to these interrogatories, ACTON LECTURES. 45 whether they were wise or foolish, were recorded as wise maxims, and are to-day a part of the proverbial teachings of this philosopher, which are like Holy Writ to the millions who take him for their guide. But in all this vast mass of ethical law, the rights of woman are entirely ignored. Not a sentence demanding her elevation ; not a proverb denouncing the brutality of man's treatment; not a word of denunciation of the despotism that made her a mere chattle and a slave. Yet the evil was constantly before him. Even a generation or two after he died another great teacher of the Chinese, and a most fulsome eulogist of Confucius, gave the rule that should govern the conduct of the wives. It is a most shameful, one-sided argument in favor of oppression, and a peremptory demand of women to submit in all things to their husbands. He closes his ap- peal in these words : -'Wives, we cannot but impress these words on your memories. For the male to be firm, and the female to be flexi- ble is what reason points out as a proper rule." " But," he adds, ''in this world you constantly meet with a class of husbands who foolishly love and respect their wives too much as if they were more honorable or superior to themselves. If anything occur, they are afraid to go before them, and thus the woman becomes the roaring lioness of Hotung, or the female fowl that announces the morning." The heart sickens and we turn away with loathing from a code of ethics so utterly heartless and inhuman. We become weary with its mere platitudes. A civilization that robs woman of her rights, that banishes her gentle influence from the social circle, that makes one- half of the human family — and that the best half — mere chatties and slaves, is not worthy of the name. The degradation of the wives and mothers will have a terrible reflex influence on the sons and husbands, robbing them of true manhood, producing a race of cowards and pal- troons. And such are the Chinese. Their soldiers wear quilted petti- coats, satin boots and bead necklaces, carry umbrellas and fans, and go a night attack with lanterns in their hands, being more afraid of the darkness than of exposing themselves to the enemy. We turn, therefore, with relief and delight from the Confucian code to the proverbs of Solomon. In the very conclusion of that won- derful book, and as the climax of his poetic eloquence, he commends the viruous woman. He exalts her in his grand and wonderful eulo- gium as he does no other personage of whom he discourses. Fully comprehending all the excellencies of her nature and the beauties of her character, with the skill of an artist forms them into a chaplet of beauty and with it crowns her the queen of society, demanding for her the homage and admiration of the world. Such homage she has 46 ACTON LECTURES. ever received in all lands where the Bible is the cdde, and not that of Confucius. I cannot refrain from a few quotations from his grand eulogy. After stating that the virtuous woman is of more priceless value than rubies, he says: "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She riseth while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household. She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands to the distaff. She stretcheth out her hands to the poor. Yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household is clothed in scarlet. Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth with the elders of the land. Strength and honor are her cloth- ing and she shall rejoice in the time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom and her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed ; her husband, also, and he blesseth her." Had Confucius, in like manner, exalted woman — had he, when he became the ruler of the Chinese mind, broken the shackles that bound her, and denounced the tyranny that oppressed her, and called her forth from her prison, and crowned her the queen of the social cir- cle, invested her with equal rights with man, the higher civilization of China 'would then be the enduring monument to his glory and real greatness. The rank of his greatness would have been as much higher as justice is higher than oppression, and as Christian civilization is above barbarism. That he did not do so is a matter of surprise and regret, for it must be confessed that there is much in the maxims of the philosopher that show that he was animated with a high sense of justice. His system of political ethics and his code of morals, imperfect as they are, were far in advance of his people. He was, doubtless, the chief instrument in lifting the Chinese people to a higher plane, and in infusing into the Chinese mind a love for learning that has resulted in a better civilization than can be found in any other portion of eastern Asia. While all this is true, yet his writings do not shoAv him to have possessed the elements of a radical reformer. He was not a bold and heroic man. His idea of a virtuous life was of a negative and con- servative type. He was manifestly a very vain man. His frequent allusions to himself show him to have been a most pronounced egotist. He says, in regard to himself: "At fifteen I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty I stood firm. At forty I had no doubts. At fifty ACTON LECTURES. 47 1 knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of the truth. At seventy I could follow what my heart desired without transgressing what was right." His claim that he knew the decrees of Heaven was a bid that he should be worshipped as something more than human — as a sort of deity. From one end to the other it is a bold and unqualified claim of his excellence and God- like perfection. The delight with which he received the flattery that was so boun- tifully bestowed on him discloses the fact that he possessed this frailty, so common to mortals, in no common measure. As it is impossible for an egotist to become a great reformer, it is more than probable that his strong desire to 7'eform his fellow-men was largely modified by the more powerful motive to be popular. And while he, doubtless, saw the oppression of women in every household in the land — and, from his apparent kindness of heart, it is but fair to presume that he de- plored it — yet it was an evil, the correction of which would have wrought a revolution in every household, and he dare not risk his rep- utation as a sage and counsellor in attacking this popular crime. In further corroboration of the fact that he was an exceedingly vain man and an unblushing egotist, I may be permitted to give a few more of his sayings in regard to himself. He says : "In a hamlet of ten families there may be found one as honorable and sincere as I am, but not so fond of learning." At another time and place he said: ''After the death of King Wan, was not the cause ot truth lodged i?i me ? If Heaven had wished to let the cause of truth perish then, / a future mortal should not have had such relation to that cause." Again he says: My studies lie low, but my penetration rises high." His disciple, Yen, returning from the Court, Confucius asked him: "How are you so late?" and Yen replied : "We had government business." Confucius replied: " It must have been family affairs. If there had been government business, though I am not now in ofiice, /should have been consulted about it." We find all through his sayings this same offensive self-conceit. In his conduct, by his eccentric bearing and huge assumptions, he was constantly making the effort to convince those about him that he was something more than mortal, and he could not conceal his satisfaction when he found that his followers acceded to his pretentions. Let us turn again to Solomon, and draw a parallel between him and Confucius in this regard. Solomon, when he wrote his proverbs, was the great king of a mighty nation, at a time when she was in the very zenith of her glory — a peerless monarch, whose wisdom was the magnet that drew all the wise men and philosophers of the world to his 48 ACTON LECTURES. capitol. The dazzling splendor of his court, and the grandeur and magnificence that seemed to gather about him and attend him all through his reign, excited the wonder and envy of every other mon- arch of his time. The exalted position he held, and the honors that were conferred upon him, only served to make him more humble. Not only did he have all the glory that gathers about the throne of a great monarchy, but the distinction that has secured the immortality of his fame was awarded him to build a temple, which was to be the ad- miration of the nation and the wonder of the world — a temple around which would gather all the tribes of Israel in mass, once each year, for the celebration of the great feast of the passover — a temple which should thus be surrounded by his whole people, and while the mighty hosts sang and shouted praises to God for the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, the great throng at the same time would gratefully remem- ber their great king, who had thus magnified all the ceremonies of Jew- ish worship. Few are the men in history, either sacred or profane, who have been so honored, and none who have shown such humility from such an exalted position. In his Book of Proverbs not a boastful word can be found — not a sentence indicating any assumption of superiority. He seemed intent only on calling the attention of his fellow-men to such precepts and principles the practice of which would make the world better and their own lives happier. In all his' proverbs we do not find the misty and negative philoso- phy of Confucius, but a bold and manly assault on sin and iniquity wherever it might be found, or by whom it might be practiced. To call attention to himself in the spirit of self-adulation seemed to be no part of his purpose. In the Book of Ecclesiastes he speaks of his high position, not in terms of self-praise, or in a spirit of vain glory, but to enforce the great truth that no mere earthly honors or pleasures are sufficient to satisfy the immortal mind of man. He frankly admits that, while he had reached the very topmost round in the ladder of human promotion, that all earthly greatness was but vanity and vex- ation of spirit. He gives to the world this chapter of his experience in the following words : "I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I made me great works, I builded me houses, I planted me vineyards, I made me gardens and orchards and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit, I made me pools of water to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees, I get me some servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house ; also, 1 had great possessions of great and small cattle, above all that were before me in Jerusalem ; I gathered me also silver ACTON LECTtJkES, 49 and goidj and the peculiar treasure of kings and of provinces ; 1 got me men singers and women singers^ and the delights of sons of men as musical instruments, and that of all sortS; So I was great, and in- creased more than all that was before me in Jerusalem ; also, my wisdom remained with me • and whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them ; I withheld not my heart from any joy^ for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do, and behold! all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun/' These words, thus quoted from this book in the Bible, show the spirit and tenor of that wonderful sermon of Solomon. After consid- ering every phase of human life, and the many things that excite the passionate ambition of men, at the very end of the book he says : "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."* It is claimed by the admirers of Confucius that it was he, and not Christ, who first proclaimed the Golden Rule. This is not true. The maxim of Confucius, upon which this claim was based, is not a golden rule. He says : "What you do not want done to yourself, do not to others/" It is only the negative side to the principle of reciprocity. It is not golden, because it is negative. The Golden Rule of Christ is : "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.'' This, the grandest maxim of Confucius, falls as far short of that of the Savior as the sluggish, stationary civilization of the Chinese is in- ferior to the active, positive and progressive civilization of the follow- ers of Solomon and Christ. The style of the writings of Solomon is much superior to that of Confucius. That of the former shows him to have been possessed of a mind with clear, well-defined and positive convictions. The writings of Confucius disclose that his great mind was inclined to soar away into the misty regions of mere sentimentality. Many of his maxims are so airy and extravagant that it is impossible to compre- hend their meaning. In some instances, if the translation of his writings be correct, it is impossible to believe that he himself under- stood what he wrote. His meaning is very often exceedingly obscure, and is frequently entirely incomprehensible. In his book entitled "The Doctrine of the Mean" this defect m style is the most observa- ble. In his argument in favor of the practice of sincerity he says "Hence, to entire sincerity there belongs ceaselessness. Not ceasing, it continues long. Continuing long, it evidences itself. Evidencing 4L So ACTON LECTURES. itself, it reaches far. Reaching far, it becomes large and substantial. Large and substantial, it becomes high and brilliant. Large and sub- stantial, this is how it contains all things.^ High and brilliant, this is how it overspreads all things. Reaching far and continuing long, this is how it perfects all things. So large and substantial, the mdividiial possessing it is the co-equal of Earth. So higli and brilliant, it makes him the co-equal of Heaven. So far-reaching and long continually, it makes him infinite. Such being its nature, without any display it be- comes manifested, without any movement it produces changes, and without any effort it accomplishes its ends. The way of Heaven and Earth may be completely declared in one sentence. They are with- out any doubleness, and so they produce things in a way that is un- fathomable." Had Solomon or Christ in their teachings said anything in their writings so silly and mysterious, what a point of assault it would have been for the ftifidel! How would such transcendent nonsense been held up by the skeptic as conclusive evidence that the claim of the Divine inspiration of the Bible is a fraud ! Yet they send forth their polished eulogium of the Chinese philosopher, who utters these airy nothings, as the very embodiment of wisdom and philosophy. The result of the teachings of Solomon and Christ is a Christian civilization. The result of the teachings of Confucius is the civiliza- tion of the Chinese — a civilization like that produced by the system of Buddha, of Brahmanism, of Mahomed — a stationary civilization. What China was a thousand years ago, it is to-day. There is no pro- gress. There is no reasonable hope that, so long as she clings to the doctrines of Confucius, and rejects the Bible, that she will ever move upward to any higher plane. Her only mark of distinction will con- tinue to be the almost endless number of her people. The men of China will remain the enemies of progress, with no true conception of human duty or destiny ; the women will remain mere chattels and slaves, and the sombre mantle of superstition will continue to envelop the whole race in the darkness of heathenism. What our Christian religion is, and what it is donig for the eleva- tion of the human race, presents such an incontrovertible array of facts that they are silencing the enemies of the Christian system. It is over- throwing the thrones of despotism; it is dispelling the dark clouds of superstition that had settled down on the human soul ; it is awakening in the mind of man a proper conception of its powers and capabilities ; it is calHng into exercise all those great gifts, with the inspiring faith that God has impressed His own image on every soul of man, and in- vested him with his own immortality. OUR BOYS: WHO SHALL HAVE THEM, THE CHURCH OR THE WORLD? GEO L. CURTISS, D. D., Pastor of Fletcher Place Church, Indianapolis, Ind. Can a Christian heart give any other answer than that the Church should have our boys, and Christ should indeed be their elder brother ? I will define three terms here employed. "The Church" is the organized assembly or collection of God's people — the terrestrial dwelling place of Christ, by means of which the Savior designs to lead men from the low grounds of sin up to Heaven. Lying along in the Church is "the way, the truth, the life," and in this way is safety, and its term- ination is eternal glory. "The World" is the sinful life, which, by its pleasures, allure- ments and delusions leads souls down to ruin. It is treacherous, de- ceitful and corrupting. In it is the broad road which leads to eternal destruction. " B03 s," in general, are the male portion of civilization, anywhere from six to twenty-one years of age. They are the incoming genera- tion, the hope of the world, the pride of their parents, the men of Church and State. A portion of this period is the awkward age of boy life — the age of easy embarrassment. "Our Boys" are peculiarly that portion of this male gender that we, as parents, suppose are a little better, a little brighter, and a little dearer than anybody else's boys. We think so because they are "our boys." " Every crow thmks her own the blackest.'' The solemn question is, who shall have our boys, and what shall our boys be ? Shall our boys have good or bad habits ? Shall our boys be cultured or uncultured ? Shall our boys drink wine, beer, gin and whisky ; smoke, chew and snuff tobacco ; play cards and games of 52 ACTON LECTURES. chance, attend horse races and bet on speed, live in chambering and wantonness, bow at the court of Magdalenes, and pay tribute to im- purity and impiety, and run riot in sin and folly, in violation of law and good order ; shall they be profane, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, dessecrators of the Sabbath, liars, adulterers, covetous ; or shall they become pure and holy, cultured and Christian citizens, excellent husbands and superior heads of families, and yield every power of body and soul to the excellent glory of God ? Which of these lines shall your boy, shall my boy, shall ''our boys" follow ? I answer — as a Christian, a father, a citizen — the Church, for Christ's sake, ought to have, and must have our boys, if we are true to ourselves and God. Why? 1. Because our boys belong to Jesus by right of creation and pre- servation. 2. Because Jesus gave Himself to purchase their pardon. This is the right of redemption. 3. Because Jesus has provided for our boys such splendid oppor tunities for work in His vineyard, for the ekvation of the world of man. Man is made the educator of man — the lever is in his hands to overturn the enemies of Jesus. 4. Because Jesus has such unbounded glories in store for those who are brought to Him, in the Heavenly world. "Our boys" have mental and spiritual capacities for highest enjo} ment. God has de- signed them for it. Not one of "our boys" was ever designed for dwarfage or perdition, and if any one unfortunately reaches there, he will be an interloper. Hell was not made for "our boys," but for the Devil and his angels. Heaven was made for pure angels, and re- deemed men and boys. Our boys were made for Heaven, and Heaven for our boys. The Church is the earthly preparation place for Heaven. So our boys ought to be in the Church, preparing for a place in Heaven. 5. Because of the influence our boys are to bring to bear on the generations to come. They are the hope of the country, the make-up of society, the coming statesmen and legislators of the Nation, the preachers and teachers of the Church. Our boys are to be the fathers of the succeeding generations. If they are churchless, Godless, Christ- less, what will their boys be? Posterity demands that the Church should have all our boys. We owe it to posterity that the Church should have them. 6. "Our Boys" should be the property of the Church, and of Christ, because of the necessity for the moral, social and political pro- tection of society. Who will be society's best protectors, "our boys" ACTON LECTURES. 53 in the Church and loving Jesus, or ''our boys" as "street Arabs," moral outcasts, physical lepers ? The tendency of unchristianized so- ciety is toward ignorance and barbarism, terminating in dark heathen- ism and moral death. The question, "Our boys: who shall have them?" presupposes that "our boys wander away and do not enter the Church, or are in danger of so wandering. That this supposition is not baseless, and to be carefully studied, church records show. On an average, two-thirds of the membership of all churches are women. Illustrated by the church of which I am now pastor: Of men, there are 154; of women, 245 ; a total of 399, or two-thirds are women. There are in the same church 19 bo} s and 71 girls, or nearly four-fifths are girls. This ought not so to be. The boys ought to equal the girls. A boy is a curious piece of mechanism. He is a compound of flesh and blood, l)onc and sinew, mind and soul, human nature and self-will, love and stubbornness. When young and small, he is under fair control, provided his father and mother have sense enough to con- trol themselves. The boy often needs correction, but oftener gets it in the wrong spirit. The ways of a small boy are inexplicable, and remain so until he is a man. He is pleased with a noise, pleased to put in an appearance just when not needed, loves to do for bidden things simply to show that he can do them, bears himself un- graciously toward younger sisters, revels in tormenting dogs and cats, and can forget things he don't want to remember the easiest, and then think of things you wish forgotten just at the most unwelcome time. Who knoweth a boy? What boy knows himself? What man ever knows he was a boy ? Boys are as various as the blades of striped grass, no two of which can be found exactly alike, or as the varied tints of a mountain sunset, ranging through all the colors and shades of the rainbow. Boys are vivacious or sluggish, enthusiasiic or lifeless, brave or cow- ardly, studious or indolent, precocious or dull, loving or hateful, and sometimes seem to be a strange mixture of many of these most diverse characters at once. It is for this reason boys in general are so hard to manage. It is a mistake to suppose the boy who is so quiet, and precise, and lovable, and never in mischief is, after all, the greatest and best boy, and destined to become a remarkable man. The precise, quiet boy may have his lessons well learned, may recite superbly, may give the teacher but Httle trouble, but he seldom moves anything. He has not the elements of grand things and magnificent enterprises in him. He is too slow. He is often tardy, sluggish, and waits to be roused. He lets opportunities slip. 54 ACTON LECTURES. But, that rolicking, jolicking, somersault-turning, pin-sticking and fun-loving boy, if he is free from viciousness, get him once converted and started on the right track and he will most likely stir the world. Such was Luther, a great rogue and funstick when a boy — such are most great men, when their boyhood is properly known. It is the restless boy, rangiitg anywhere from six years up to twen- ty-one years of age, of whom 1 am speaking, and for whom I plead. The boy between these years is greatly misunderstood. Many call him an unmitigated nuisance, and so hurt his feelings and do him an injustice. When small, his mother, by dint of hard work and mother- ly authority, keeps him somewhat clean and tidy, but from thirteen to seventeen years he is, as a general thing, a sloven. Now is a very trying time. This is the vealy age. It is an age of awkwardness; the boy does not know what to do with either his hands or his feet. It is the age of running away. Nearly every boy has an attack of this disease once in a lifetime, known as the ski}jping-out sickness. Cure a boy of this disease, and keep him in good, religious society through this period, and employ his mind profitably, and make him in love with home, and half the battle is fought. During this period the mother ought to lead her boy to become a lover, while she is his model lady-love. At about seventeen years the boy is liable to an attack of a new disease, which needs to be carefully dealt with. The disease won't hurt him, if he has sensible treatment. Indeed, it will, do him good. It is a heart disease. It's attack is usually sudden. He suddenly comes to think that some - precious little piece of femininity in calico is just the sweetest thing on earth. Every time he sees her there is a sort of warming sensation right under his vest and in the region of the hearty and ablush mantles his cheek. That blush is worth more than money can represent. When the boy can't love and blush he is in danger, if not already ruined. It is not a misfortune that the boy has such feelings. If good and judicious parents will now seek to control and train that tender emotion in lines of right, and not try to crush it out, or ridicule it, they have a lever that will lift the boy out of his boorishness into gentility. He'll spruce up, brush up his clothes, hang up his hat, tidy his room, learn the ways of polished society, cultivate his taste, and take a new bearing. He breathes the air of a man, and his heart beats like a man. It is a fortune to a boy to love and be loved, provided he has sensible parents to teach, counsel and help, or elder sisters to be constant friends, to whom he can unbosom mind and soul. When the soul is susceptible to these tender emotions and influ- ences, it is also susceptible to religious impressions, and may be brought into the Church, ACTON LECTURES. 55 ''i)uY boys" are of the type I have been describing — no better, no worse. We may make them ahnost what we will. They are like plastic clay in the potter's hand. Is there any necessity for our boys to "sow wild oats?" Must they run into sin and folly, and become corrupt in order afterward to become pre-eminently good ? I answer, none whatever. However good and pure may be middle and old life, the effects of sowing "wild oats" can never be effaced. 1 saw at the Union Depot, at Indianapo- lis, not long ago, a man now prominent in civil life, who, for many years was dissipated and sinful. He has since reformed, and is a mem- ber of an Evangelical Church. But he never can efface the evidences of his wild life from nose, eye and cheeks. Have not clergymen, in expounding the parable of the prodigal son, dwelt on the glory of the prodigal's return until it has stood out in fanciful elegance and resplendent excellence, and minified the integ- rity, stability and virtue of the elder brother, who remained in the Church, until "our boys" have thought that to be esteemed and honored in after life they must in early life be prodigal ? "Ah," somebody says, "bad illustration; for the elder brother got angry because his father was lavishing so much on his profligate brother." True, the elder brother got angry, or showed that he was not perfectly equable in temper and was really indignant. But where is the sin in a righteous indignation ? He had never left his father, nor spent his father's hard earnings in riot and abandonment until he was burned up and eaten alive with his sins. I repeat it: The elder brother is the model man, not the w^ild and profligate prodigal. "The indiscretions of youth are drafts to be paid at maturity." Doubtless I should speak of the antagonizing forces on the battle- field of the moral and physical nature of our boys, and point out as to which shall ultimately become the conquerer. 1. THE FORCES OF SIN. 1. Forces working internal — as Frivolity, hilarity, evil thoughts, vain imaginations, etc. 2. Forces external and internal — Alcohol, tobacco, dancing, lust, appetite, etc. 3. Forces external — (yaming and betting, horse-racing, ambition for power, greed for wealth, etc. Do not these include all great evil forces contending for the con- trol of our boys ? II. FORCES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. I. The force of the Church in its moral and religious influence. It is the salt of the earth, the preservative of society. 56 ACTON LECTURES. 2. The force of Christian culture. Inhere is no solid culture \Anthout the pure Christian element. 3. The force of personal purity — leading to sobriety, carefulness, purging of deadness, stimulation of nobler and purer emotions. I.ike begets like. As the forces of righteousness operate and sensibly move towards God, they gain acceleration of force. Just as when a body is* falling toward the earth, it is accelerated by force of gravitation the nearer it approaches the great fountain of gravitating force, so the young man or boy who begins to turn to God and feels the force of His power, as he draws nearer, this Divine force is accelerated. These, the forces of sin and of righteousness, are constantly an- tagonized, and the hearts and lives of our boys become the battle-field. In my judgment, the forces of righteousness will ultimately be victorious. While many may fall before the forces of sin, ere the hnal tri- umph, yet 1 believe there are to-day evidences that the boys will yet be saved. To-day a greater number of our boys are in the Church, and actively religious, than ever before. The attention of the Church and parents is being called to the boys more than in former years. When ought "our boys" to be in the Church? Ought they ever to be out? I presume that all will recognize the fact that in some wa}- every church ought to recognize children and childhood conversion. 1 think that "our boys," when boys, ought to become members of the Church. When very small they may become personally acquaint- ed, by a saving knowledge, with Jesus. "The promise is to you and to your children, and to as many as are afar off;" to you as parents, to your boys, and to those unfortunate ones who have grown up with- out any acquaintance with Jesus. The boA S may be in the Church when very young and be true and faithful servants of God. How can we get our boys into the Church and to Christ? I. By the power and influence of Christian culture in the family. 71ie family! I emphasize this. Family religion must be the most prominent factor in this work of boy saving. We need a reformation in home government. We need the exercise of wholesome home dis- cipline to lead "our boys" to attend church. It does not* tell much for the piety or anxiety of parents for the welfare and conversion of their boys if they are found at church singing and praying to bring the Spirit down, and the boys are left at home to raise the Devil up. All your singing of p.salms, and holy groans, and pious desires, and sol- emn, anxious longings avail but little if your boys are not with you. " But my boys don't love to go to church," says a father. "They on't like the preacher. He preaches too long, or too loud, or too ACTON LECTURES. 57 plain." Who has helped to create this dislike? Who hrst taiKed in the family of dislike ? Oftimes the sinful carelessness and unguarded words of the parents caused al! the dislike. The growling and grum- bling of parents has fostered and perpetuated the dislike. It is some trouble to take the b.^ys to church, and so they are left at home — left to the cruelties of hired help and irresponsible persons, and the quick suggestions of the adversary of souls. How many famiHes teach "our boys" the catechi.sm ? How many instruct "our boys" in Bible knowledge? How many carefully devote one hour a week to home religious instruction ? How many f[uestion "our boys" as to the emotions and desires of the soul? How many have taken "our boys" to the place of secret prayer? Nearly thirty years have passed since my father died. One of the pleasantest memories now graven on my heart and mind is of the times when he used to take me to a place of secret prayer. Oue special occasion now comes before me, of thirty-five years ago. My father, in my boy- hood, was a farmer. That particular year he had cut and put up one hundred acres of hay. The last stacks had been made. The sun had been down about half an hour. He sent the men with the teams to the barn. J, a little boy of about ten years, remained with him at the stacks. He looked around and saw that everything was secure. Turning to me. he said: ' 'G eorge, it is my habit every time I close a day's work, to pray, and when I get through a special piece of work, I pray and thank God. To-night I have finished my haying and harvesting. I want to pray here." There we kneeled together. What a scene! I can never forget it. Away to the west were a few lingering rays of the de- parted sun. To the east the large farm house and barns, and the men putting away the teams. We were l)y the great stacks ot hay in the midst of the meadow, and father was praying. Oh, bow he prayed! What thanksgivings ! What pleadings ! How he pouied out his great soul for his family ! Blessed be God fof such a father ! Brethren, Parents, the family is God's greatest instrument for bringing "our boys" into the Church and to religion. Home religion is the strong right arm of the Church in the world's evangelization. 2. Our churches need to take a deeper interest in "our boys" than they do. Give those who are in the Church something to do. Put them at work on committees. Make the boys of the Church feel *\ey have some personal responsibility. l.>ead them to talk and pray, LO sing and read. As they are stimulated to action, they will influence others. A hundred ways for utilizing boys will suggest themselves to a pastor alive to this interest. 58 ACTON LECTURES. 3. Our Sunday-schools must have a definite aim, viz,: the con- version of the boys, and bringing them into the Church. Anything less than this is not in any sense worthy of the Sunday-school. Con- version and church membership are objective points. I do not believe very much in the conversion of people and they remain unconnected with some church. The Sunday-school must seek to lead "our boys" to conversion and into church membershi]j. 4. Preachers and people need to be in a deeper sympathy with "our boys'" and their conversion than they are. We need to study their habits, dispositions, susceptibilities to wholesome influences. Preach- ers need to teach and preach the pure, sound gospel to boys as well as to others, and then, by friendly recognition, win them to a pure life. The Church, the Sunday-school, the people and preachers must bring all their prayers, tears, cries, sympathies, teachmg, influence — everything to bear upon the minds and hearts of our boys, to win them to Christ and the Church. THE BPO0H OF INTEGRATION. BY J. C. RIDPATH, LL. U. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentle men : — ■ I have a conviction that we are now face to face w^ith one of the the most important epochs in the history of civilization. I will not say the most important, the most momentous era of the w^orld ; for all men in all ages have considered their owm day and generation moment- ous and sublime. The laudator teniporis acti is, as a general rule, the shallowest among mortals. But I say one of the most important ep- ochs ; and I am persuaded that, viewed in the "high and dry light" of clear reason and calm philosophy, few, if any, of the past periods of history have been fairly comparable with the present era in civilization as it respects the momentous results which our times are whirling into view. The highest source and fountain of the interest, and value, and im- portance of our epoch is found, I believe, in the fact that we have reached what may be called the beginning of the integration of man and his works. I am as painfully impressed as you are with a sense of the vague- ness and formality of these words, "the integration of man and his works," yet to my apprehension there is a meaning hidden in them, clear, and full of the deepest interest ; and, with your leave, I will at- tempt in the present hour to develop and to illustrate the thought so vaguely outlined in the expression, "the beginning of^ the integration of man and his works." To proceed, then, w^ithout tielay, to the consideration of the theme before us, what is the meaning of the term integration, in its applica- tion to man and his works ? When we speak of an epoch of integration in history, what are the ideas, the thoughts wdiich the expression, justly considered, may be said to convey ? 6o ACTON LECTURES. The word ' 'integer" means one zvhole fhi?ig, a unit, a complete and perfect unit, wanting nothing in its essential oneness and entire- ty. The sense of the term, however, is by no means that of homo- geneity or sameness throughout ; for the parts which make up the unit may be ever so heterogeneous as it regards each other ; but the idea is that over these parts and through them a principle of unity so obtains as to bind them all in one, perfect, entire, indissoluble. Now, the process of becoming an integer or whole thing is called integration. It is the tendency towards the unit — the gravitation of multiplicity into oneness — the flux of the heterogeneous into homo- geneity. It will be seen at a glance that the term integration is set over in a precise antithesis against another term much used in the philosophy of our times, namely, differentiation, or the process by which one thing becomes many things. Here the mind separates into multiplici- ty; the integer divides into parts, and these into other parts, until that which was one thing presided over by a single principle, becomes many things presided over by a thousand conflicting and irreconcilable forces. In the beginning, the universe which we inhabit was a unit. It was one thmg, having in it the splendid potencies of whatever has been, and is, and shall be. It began in an integer, and it will end in another. Somewhere in the fathomless infinity of the past there was a limitless oneness; and somewhere in the abysmal depth of the future, there is another. Between these sublime and solitary units — standing so far, so infinitely far, apart — spreads the wide domain of the things that are and the things that seem to be. Here in the midst, between the integer that was and the integer that shall be, passes the great drama of the worlds. Spheres roll and shine. Suns burst out of the soli- tudes. Planets, rings, and satellites whirl forth to view. Nebulae lie floating white on the outer skirts, and comet wanderers dive up and down. Here, too, is the abode of life, the domain of rational action, the field where Thought and Matter struggle in an everlasting broil. Here, too, on an insignificant globe, half-cooled from mcandescence to a clod, are fought the mighty battles of Will and Fate, of Design and Chance, of Necessity and Freedom. The brain of man fires with the frictions and perplexities of the problem. His soul tosses in a perpet- ual fever. He takes the torch of reason, the lamp of philosophy ; he glances backward and sees, just behind that part of the universe which he li\ es in, an ocean of flame. It is the fire-mist of Laplace — the star-dust out of which have sprung the worlds. He looks around him and beholds organism everywhere, system and counter-system, ACTON LECTURES; 61 poise and equipoise, motions and processes, laws and relations wide as the vault and dome of nature. He glances to the future and sees in the distance the dim shadow of a consummation, a catastrophe per- haps, not exactly a ruin, but a resolution, under the inevitable opera- tion of law, of all organic forms into the solemn oneness which stands, statue-like and still, far off in that cloudy horizon. Now, the process, or modus opera7idi, by which the solitary unit, the infinite oneness of the past has rolled out into the teeming universe of organic forms, in the midst of which we hang suspended is differ- entiation ; and the other process, or modus operandi, of the after part, whereby the infinitely diverse forms and facts which we discern swim- ming in the deep blue ocean around us are pressed downwards in con- verging lines towards unification in a single result which is to consti- tute the integer of the hereafter — is integration, or the tendency of the multiform into one. And these two processes, the one of differentia- tion and the other of integration, taken together, constitute one complete process, which, so to speak, swells out in the middle and converges to the close ; and this one complete process embraces in its almost limit- less sweep the destiny, not only of our own sphere and planetary sys- tem, but of universal nature and of man. But look still further and more closely. Does it not appear that this vast process which I have described as being in its first half a pro- cess of differentiation, and in its after part a process of integration, must, in the very nature of the case, have some point in the middle where the differentiating forces expend themselves, cease to operate, and die ; and where the new integrating forces, now fine and filmy, take hold of the analyzed results and naked elements of things, and begin to press them together into oneness ? Such is undoubtedly the case. Just at that point where the differentiating tendency, by the sheer dissipation of its energy, falls exhausted, the new process of making whole again begins to be efficient. But I might reason long in this abstract way without making suffi- ciently clear the thought I have in mind. So let us take a familiar ex- ample from nature. Here is an apple seed. It is an integer — a unit presided over by a single force ; not homogeneous in its substance, but still a unit. I plant it. What happens? A germ within bursts forth. A stem shoots up. Branches appear. Then leaves. Winters and summers go by ; and this organism, under the dominion of the differ- entiating forces, growing constantly more and more multiplex, thrusts out and out, renewing and struggling, until finally forth burst the blos- soms. Up to this time it would be impossible to tell what the tree, so to speak, has been driving at — towards what its energies have been di- 62 ACTON LECTURES. rected. But mark this with particularity, that just as soon as the blos- soms are perfected the differentiating process, which had thus far pre- sided over the organism, falls exhausted ; and the tree, as it were, be- comes suddenly possessed of the thought of making an apple. To do this is a work of integration, and to accomplish the result the tree all at once settles down to sober bus'ness. It had been hitherto gay and profuse. There is no more of that. Every energy is bent appleward. Every force bears down in that direction. Blossoms are sacrificed. Leaves are sacrificed. Bark, and fiber, and sap are sacrificed. Every impulse within the organism converges to a single point ; and there in the days of the autumnal frost, swinging ripe and red at the end of the leafless bough, hangs the golden trophy of the great integrating en- deavor. This same thing, with infinite variation but singleness of pur- pose, is perpetually repeated in all those multiform processes of growth and development which we behold in the world around us. The idea is now before you. The current of the thought which is to bear us forward in the discussion is fairly in motion. And the thought is this : The human race has a. career. That career has an origin, a tendency, a middle climax, a convergence, and an end. This is the one great thought of history. Philosophy teaches it. ^Science pro- claims it. Nature indicates it. All things point it out. The great thinkers of all ages pass before us and repeat it. Swedenborg, with his splendid imagination, flies hitherward on mystic wing to tell us that the universe, with all its activities and glories, was breathed out — ex- pired from the bosom of the infinite, and that by and by it will be re- breathed into that same bosom again. Asiatic philosophy echoes the thought. Without it, all the teachings of the Buddha vanish into air. The great (kiizot, from the heart of the buzzing and passionate capital of Europe, looks out on the aspect and says: 'Tt has been asked whether there is a general civilization for the whole human race — a course for humanity to run — a destiny for it to accomplish ; whether nations have not transmitted, from age to age, something to their suc- cessors which is never lost, but which grows and continues as a com- mon stock, and will thus be carried on to the end of all things. For my own part," he continues, "I feel assured that human nature has such a destiny; that a general civilization pervades the human race, and the history" — of this civilization — "is the most noble, the most in- teresting," the most comprehensive of all works. Our own great and venerable poet, now dead— peace to his immortal memory I — looking f ACTON LECTURES. 6^ down from his high window upon die surging and vagrant currents of humanity in Broadway, cries out: — These struggling tides of Hfe that seem In wayward, aimless couise to tend. Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end. All things, I say again, indicate as clearly as can be, that there is for the human race in the world a career, and that that career has its modes and processes, its beginning, its middle, and its end. What, then, are the modes and processes by which the race of man goes for- ward to its destiny ? I answer that the career of man, like the career of all things else, is divided into two parts, the first half being his differentiation, and the other half his integration. The first part embraces the analytic, and the other the synthetic half of the complete humanity. Up to the middle, the process is one of separation, of divergence and dispersion ; and down to the close the process is that of synthesis and integration. The middle crisis is reached whenever the differentiating forces, thrust- ing out and out, have laid apart by evolution and analysis the ele- mentary substances, if I may so express it, of civilization and of man ; and the final crisis will be reached when man rt:;/^ civilization, gathering up in themselves the elements produced by differentiation, shall stand forth as perfect integers, wanting nothing in their unity and complete- ness. Now, I am here to express the conviction, or rather to repeat the thought which was outlined in the beginning, namely, that we are now standing somewhere about or near that supreme middle crisis in the ca- reer of the human race, where and when the old, exhausted, differen- tiating tendencies expend themselves and die, and where the new in- tegrating tendencies begin to appear. I believe that this thought is not without its value and importance. To me it appears a sublime concept of the order of the world. It puts him instantly, who grasps its force and import, into a new and extraordinary relation with the in- finite order of things ; and 1 am persuaded that the more this thought is examined, and reviewed, and subjected to critical analysis, the more clearly it will seem to express the true present attitude of mankind to the general aspect of the race. I repeat, then, that we are now somewhere in that marvelous epoch wherein the differentiating forces which have so long played upon man \ and his works, driving them outward and outward by divergence and separation, have exhausted themselves and can go no further, and where the new forces of convergence and integration begins to operate. Meanwhile, for a moment, here we lie becalmed. The sails of our 64 ACtON LECTURES. ship hang flapping. The clouds are still above, and the ocean beneath is tideless. The old winds blow no more. The old forces are dead We and all of our deeds, like the magical fret- work of a cavern, hang iot the hour in perfect stillness. The star-light of the ages gone, stream- ing up the long lines of diverging and widening waves, glint upon us here on the crest ; and in a moment more we shall turn to the other side of the billow to gather up the converging splendors (jf the stars be- yond. This is the general outline of the scene. I have thus far proceed- ed deductively, laying down such propositions as have appeared to me to be warranted by right reason and the principles of a sound philoso- phy. I shall now, however, turn the inquiry about, and begin with the facts of human history. And I beg you to believe me that I shall not distort these facts with a view to bolster up a foregone conclusion, but shall use them fairly and without prejudice, as they seem to bear upon the subject before us. Let us, then, for a while enter the do- main of fact. Man began his historic career in the earth i?y formulati7ig institu- tiofis. The production and establishment of institutions is the sum and substance ot history. It is in and through these institutions that man has manifested himself, and not otherwise. He is known by his works ; and the modes and processes, the peculiarities and tendencies of his career are to be gathered from the institutions which he has created. Whatever they have been he has been, and without them his record is unknowable. Now, the institutions which man has created may be grouped under three general heads : 1. Institutions of Religion. 2. Institutions of Society. 3. Institutions of Language. Under the first of these heads I mean to embrace not only religion pure and simple, but all the moral and ethical endeavors of the race. Under the second head are included all institutions having distinct reference to man associated, rather than to man individual ; and under the third head — tliat is, institutions of language — are embraced not merely the linguistic developments of the race, but also the literatures, philosophies, and indeed all those phenomena which have language for their origin and bottom fact. First, then, of the religious institutions of mankind. What have been their character and tendencies ? Religion began in monotheism. You may be sure of that. Mon- \ ACTON LECTURES. 65 Dtheism is the integer which stands at the beginning. 1 care not where that beginning is, or when. That question belongs to historical criticism. I speak only of the fact — a fact which is now quite beyond the region of dispute and cavil. Back of all the religions of the world stands the austere and sublime figure of monotheism. It is the unit and germ of oneness, out of which have sprung all the aspirations of the human soul in regard to the supernal. ?]ack of the Vedic hymns, back of the Indic philosophy and ritual rises a shining figure, oudined in the glorious effulgence of sunlight, bright, immortal, and almighty. It IS the Dyaus Pitar, Lord of the sky land and Father of Heaven. He is one, not many ; single, not multiplex. He is the integer upon which the thought and hope of the old Aryans, of the valley of Indus, rested at the beginning. Zeus Pater of the Greeks was not at the first the Olympian hierarch of impure life and doubtful wisdom, but the omnip- otent Father of the skies, serene and glorious. And the post-heroic Jupiter^ the Jupiter of the poets and wits, the Jupiter of Roman skep- ticism and mockery, was only a grotesque caricature, a coarse mounte- bank and clown, a mere shadow in rude outline of the old sublime god- hood of Jove. He, too, at the first, was one — the integer of the faith and hope of the Italic races. Woden, also, the mi,o^hty and somber deity of the North — Woden, chief god of the Teutonic nations, sitting ■enthroned above the Norwegian fogs, looking solemnly down upon the vast Yellow Baltic, roaring and bellowing along the shore, gazing cold- ly on the glaring mountains, the ever-frozen bogs, and solitary forests buried in endless snows — Woden, too, was one, not many. He w^as single. He was undivided. Turning to the Semitic family of man, it is hardly necessary to re- assert the singular and tremendous monotheism with which the religious history of that family begins. In all the branches of the Semitic race the monotheistic idea, in its essential oneness and personality, was assert- ed with unparalleled vigor and vehemence. It was shouted from the summit of Moriah. It was thundered from the cliffs of Smai. It echoed in the deserts and reverberated against the walled towns of the Jebusites. It was sung in exile by the banks of the Euphrates, and cried aloud in raphsody and song by all the savage old bards and prophets of Israel. And centuries afterward, in the' blasted deserts of Arabia, the camel- driver of Mecca came out of his cave with the same vociferous outcry; while far and wide, with sword and fire, through smoke and blood and desolation, the flaming banner of Islam carried the terrific challenge of the oneness and indivisibility of God to the idolatrous tribes of Ish- mael. 66 ACTON LECTURES. Everywhere the story is the same. Everywhere, behind the fe;- ligious thought of the human race, rises the sky-towering and subhme figure of the One, the Integer, the Undivided, wherefrom have flowed the streams of theism into all lands and nations. Let us, then, briefly trace the history of this monotheistic idea with which the religious thought began. What became of the grand Integer, the Unit, the Undivided, the One of the beginning? I answer that the human imagination, under the dominion of the differentiating forces, divided the One into many. And if anywhere in the world the distinctly monotheistic idea has been preserved — as it has been — it has been through the agency of forces peculiar and extraordinary. The general direction of the religious thought of mankind has been di- vergent. It has widened, parted, separated by repulsion and analysis. It has radiated, scattered, flashed outward Uke the dispersed and splintered radiance of a torch. This is the history of theism; hrst, one God, supreme and high, above nature and beyond ; then, the sec- ond stage of God, manifested in and through the varied aspects and * forms of nature ; then, the third stage, in which the forms and aspects of nature appeared as God or gods. This last is the epoch of poly- theism, with its attendant phenomena of art and idolatry. Then the final stage, in which nature is God, and God is nature — one and the same, interconvertible, merely a difference of expression for a common fact. And this is pantheism, the last aspect of the theistic evolution. When this is reached the differentiating tendency can go no further. The tremendous frame and substance of nature at the last absorbs the shivered and splintered radii of the god-thought, and with this absorp- tion the really theistic concept of the universe expires. The analytic force, as applied to the Infinite Unit, can work no farther outwards ; it falls exhausted ; it ceases to operate and dies. Such is a'general outline of the course which the speculative religious thought of mankind has run under the influence of the differentiating ten- dency. I do not mean to say that in all ages an^ among all peoples the pro- cess has been so exact and logical as I have here drawn it; but the general course has ever been in the direction indicated. From the singleness of monotheism to God displayed m nature; from that to polytheism, idolatry and art ; from these to the pantheistic concept of the universe, outward and outward by the diverging and dispersing tendencies of analysis, until only the absolutism of nature remains in our clutches and crucible of that great Integer whose supernatural effulgence over- shadowed us at the beginning, — such has been the seemingly natural course of theism during the first half of the world's history. From the great Father of Heaven, displayed in such grandeur in the hymns of A(;TON LECTURE??. r>7 Ihe dlder Veda all the way down to Buddhistic liihilisnl ; fVoiii the per- sonal almightiness of the Scandinavian Woden \.6 that thing called the Absolute in the philosophy of Mill and Spencer; ft-om the Jehovah Elohim of Moses to the atheistic rationalism of the Rabbi Wise; and from the one high God believed in by Socrates tO the pantheism of Goethe, it is all one story — the story of a divergence, a differentiation — a process outwards by resolution and analysis whereby the mighty monotheism of the past has been reduced to the half-pantheistic and half-nihilistic absolutism of the current philosophy. Such, according to my opinion, has been the general effect of the differentiating ten- dency as applied to the central idea in religion. I shall refer to the subject again, by and by, and can not even now proceed to a different aspect of the question without calling your attention to a very signifi- cant fact. The fact is this, that the preservation of the monotheistic idea in modern times, is by no means to be set down to the credit of the Hebrew race. In ancient times it was different ; but since the ad- vent of Christ, since the Jews in that advent mi.ssed their golden op- portunity of incorporating humanity with the austere elohistic concept of the Pentateuch, the tendency toward pantheism in the Jewish specu- lative theology has been as manifest as in any other in the world. The most noted Hebrew teacher in the United States is notoriously a skeptic of the pantheistic school. • Turning, then, from what may be called the central thought in religion, and entering upon a review of religious institutions as contra- distinguished from the ideas which they are intended to embody and preserve, w^e find the same analytic and differentiating tendency every- where prevailing. The ancient oracles which were in some sense the glory of anti(juity, parted in the lapse of time into a thousand local fountains of imaginary inspiration. There were twenty sorts of Apollo and fifteen different Zeuses, and ten times as many shrines and temples to each. To understand the theological intricacies of Egypt required the study of a life-time, so much were the institutions and ceremonies of religion ramified and tangled. 'I'he i)riests of the Eternal city could never sufficiently vary and inflect the religious system and ceremonials of the republic. And if we pass from these obscure and mythological forms of faith to the establishment of an actual, concrete religion, by the introduction of Christianity at Rome, we shall soon find the .same tend- ency towards divergence and differentiation at work among the organic forms and rituals of the new faith. Crlance back, for a moment, to that time in the history of the Roman Empire when the solidarity of the Papal church was at last an accomplished fact. You may say it was in the reign of Theodosius, just before the beginning of the bar- 68 ACtON LECTURES. barian inroads; or, taking another view of the case, you may set the epoch at the accession of Hildebrand, in A. D. 1073. It is only a dif- ference of dates. I say that the solidarity of the Roman church be came an established fact. But how well w^as it maintained ? What has been the history of the Christian organization (observe I say organ- ization, not idea,) from that far day, when Rome was an integer, down to the present, when the world is filled with sects ? I answer, it has been a history of endless insurrections, divisions, and divergencies. Through the long, black nights of the Middle Age the schismatic tend- ency was always rife in the very heart and core of the Papal power. It was ever ready to burst forth and split the Romish See into fragments. There never was a day in the history of the Church when insurrection- ists and rebels were not busy, when reforms were not openly preached, when protestantism was not proclaimed and practiced. Now it is St. Ambrose boldly crying out for the freedom of reason and of conscience. Now it is St. Hilary and St. Martin openly denying the right of the Church to enforce belief by compulsion. Now it is Hincmar, the French archbishop of Rheims, declaring his purpose to make the Church of France independent of papal authority, and, when the Pope threatened the vengeance of excommilnication, indifferently replying, si exco7nniunicaturus venefit, extommunicatus abibit — if he comes here ex- communicating, he will go away excommunicated ! It was an epoch of schisms. Heresy followed heresy ; and all the compressive and irpn despotism of the central ecclesiastical power could not prevail to hold in one the hostile organic elements. Now it burst out in southern France, and now in Bohemia. Anon the resolute monk of Witten- berg renewed the battle for liberty. Rome lost a third of her heritage at one blow. Wickliffe fought also in England, and Calvin at Geneva. It was an era of insurrections and war. Germany was emancipated. England was emancipated, in part. The oneness of Rome was gone forever. The unit burst into multiplicity — the elements were freed by dispersion. But the tendency stopped not with a mere emancipation from papal despotism. In liberated England and Germany the schismatic force worked on and on. New sects burst out of the side of sects, and out of these still newer, until there were almost as many warring parties and institutions in religion as there had been rival, Apollos and Zeuses in the old Greek pantheon. It was a jargon of Arminian and Calvinist, of High-churchmen and Dissenters, of Presby- terians and Independents, of Baptists and Quakers. It was Gog and Magog in the earth. The Puritans were thrust into exile. The New World rose out of the waters. At last the voice of one crying in the American wilderness was heard. It was the outcry of young Roger ACTON LECTURES. 69 Williams by the Bay of the Narragansetts. There he stood. In him the differentiating tendency exhausted itself and died. He was the last result of the analytics of religious warfare. In the Southern col- nies, Whitefield and the Moravians were kindred spirits with the great protestant of New England. From Constantine to George Fox ! From Hildebrand to Roger Williams! What an abyss! What a scene ! What a transformation ! Such is a sketch — the merest sketch — of the course and tendency of the institutions of religion under the influence of the differentiating process. I pass, then, in the second place, to the consideration of the an- alytical or divergent force as applied to the Institutions of Society. Hu- man society — all social institutions, I may say — at the first were 07ie, an Integer. It was a family vvith a patriarch standing in the midst. The whole social system consisted of so much and no more. Outside of this patriarchal germ and nucleus there was no society at all. Neither was there any state except the patriarch. He was the state and it was he. L Etat c' esivioi, said Louis XIV., I am the state. The assertion of the grand monarch was a falsehood, but the patriarch who stands back yonder as the Integer of the institutions of primitive society might have truthfully said, 'T am the state," for he gathered up and represented in himself all the social, civil and political functions of his age. He was executive, judge and law-giver. He was general and army. He was secretary of the exchequer and collector of customs. He was minister plenipotentiary and commissioner of agriculture ; at- torney-general and posse comitatus. He was, to say nothing of his ec- clesiastical office, the germinal unit of primeval civilization. But what has been the history of the multiform institutions which sprang from the oneness of the patriarch? I answer: It is a history of divergence, of separation, of analytical processes and differentiating tendencies. Outward and outward like a fan have spread the radii of social organism. Further and further apart have the diverging forces of civilization carried the various civil, political and governmental in- stitutions of mankind. Every epoch in history has been marked with a renewal of social analytics. Every generation has witnessed new rami- fications, new departures and new divisions in these lines of force whereby the organic forms of human society have been carried forward; until to-day, after the lapse of thousands upon thousands of years, after the struggles and storms and fiery vicissitudes of ages, we stand at last face to face in this broad arena of the Western World — aye, in the heated and smoking arena of the Eastern World as well — with the tremendous and all-absorbing problems of socialism. From the patri- ACTON LECTURES. i arch to the socialist ! That is the history of mankind reduced to a caption of six words. That is, it is the history of f/ie first half of the career of the human race — for I am just as sure as I can be of any- thing that still lies half-hidden under the curtains of the future that just as soon as the differentiating and divergent tendency which has so long held sway over the institutions and movements of mankind has done its work, we shall enter upon a new and marvelous epoch of con- vergence and integration. I'his is the manifest destiny of the great to- come. Out of the oneness and simplicity of the patriarch arose the rude tribal and aristocratic institutions of antiquity. Upon the ruins of these were built up the storied and colossal monarchies and empires of the old and later ages. Out of the wrecks of these, slowly wrought by centuries of devastating wars and shattering revolutions, have emerged the liberal structures of quasi-monarchy, of repubhc and de- mocracy, with powers proceeding from the people and exercised by their authority. Through these the leaven of socialism, working down to the capillaries of society, portend an imminent crisis, not to say a shocking catastrophe, throughout the world; and over these all, from first to last, from patriarch to communist, the presidency of a differ- entiating force which will, in the very nature of things, exhaust itself and die with the accomplishment of socialism. Such is, in a single synopsis, the history of those institutions which man, in his associated capacity, has projected in the world. Socialism is, in the political world, pr.ecisely what pantheism is in theology. Now it is under cover and protection of the institutions of society that the ordinary affairs of human life are carried forward. It is within the social compact that men plow the fields and bridge the rivers, level the hills and dyke the ocean. Here they build their towns and erect their barricades against the encroachments of barbarism. Here they rear their embattled palaces and play their games and celebrate their victories. Here they cultivate the arts of mechanism, contrive the engin- ery of war, invent the implements of peace. And it is evident that the order and tendencies of the institutions of society will, in a large measure, determine the order and tendencies of physical contrivance and the mechanical applications of force. Where these institutions are in a process of differentiation and analytical divergence, the genius of mechanism and contrivance will also work outward by divergence and "analysis. In fact, the whole physical side of civilization takes the form and fashion of these social and political institutions under which the arts and sciences are called into existence. I pass on to the consideration of the histitiitions of Language. Here, first of all, we come to the wQrl.d-wi4e fact of language itself — language 4 I ACTON LECTURES. /jf the product of human reason, the distinguishing mark and faculty of man, and the test, no doubt, by which rational being throughout the universe is discriminated from all other forms and grades of intelli- gence. What, then, has been the history of language from the beginning until now? I answer that of all the facts brought out in the career of the human race, no other so succinctly and lucidly illustrates the di- verging and analytical process as does the fact of language. The whole history of linguistic phenomena and tendencies is summed up in a dia- gram with trunk and spreading branches, parting, and dividing, and bursting out in bloom and leafage, until it fills the world. Scarcely can you illustrate the simplest process in the development and history of human speech without adopting the analogy of a tree ; for that is the one fact taken from external nature which gives a true similitude for the growth and tendency of language. But to be more specific, — in the beginning the language of man was one, not many. It was an integer. All the tendencies of linguistic science run clearly in this direction. Every index on the sign-board of language points silently backwards to the one speech of the beginning. Professor Max Muller, the prince of scholars — after years and years of the most patient research and reflection, and as the conclusion of the whole controversy — makes this sterling declaration : " We have now examined all possible forms which language can assume, and it only remains for us to ask, Can we reconcile with the three fundamental forms of language, namely, the radical, the terminational, and the inflectional, the admission of one common origin for all human speech? I answer, decidedly. Yes.'' • That settles it so far as the highest authority known to scholarship is concerned ; and it only remains for us, beginning with that far-qff unit, the integer of human speech, to note the processes whereby language and linguistic mstitutions have grown outward, filling the world. In this case, also, as in the case of the institutions of religion and society, the process has been one of analytical divergence and differ- entiation. From the far beginning until now, or, at any rate, until a time within the memory of men now living, no tendency other than that of separation and dispersion may be recognized in all the history of language. Back yonder afar, below the horizon of history, we see reflected in the clear mirrors of induction, held up between us and the dawn, the old strong tongues of Arya, struggling away from the tri- literal dialects of the Semitic tribes. They part company. They di- verge. The differentiating power is upon them. They scatter to the corners of Asia. Then out of ancient Bactria pour the famous streams of Aryan speech, first into the valley of Indus and then into Persia. 72 ACTON LECTURES. All the Southwest, down to the rocky barriers of Arabia, is flooded- with Sanskrit and Iranic tongues. Over the Bosphorus and island- wise, across the Archipelago came the. vanguards into Greece and Italy and Spain. It is the Pelasgic current of speech ; then the Etrus- can ; then the Celtic — all one. perhaps, in their original structure and^ volume. Then the Hellenic branch shoots off, and then the Italic radicles, first set at Alba Longa, and soon to bud with the praises of "the Roman race, the Albanian fathers and walls- of lofty Rome."' Last ot all, and swinging vine-like around the Caspian,- the snow-hard- ened stem and branch of Teutonism with its sprouts of Maeso-Gothic and Old Norse, curving into Europe by the Danube, and filling the- coasts of the Baltic with dialects hardy as the ivy and odotfo-us as the mountain-green that grows on the cliffs in winter. By and by,, in the- later historical era, the Latin oi the classics divides into six great conti- nental tongues; and the Teutonic with its German and Englisi^ off- spring takes half of the world for its inheritance. And here ayc stand to-day, at the tip-ends of things, half-hiddeS,- half-smothered, among the leaves and blossoms of this infinite out- branching of human speech ; and what is it all ? — what but the form- and likeness of a vine, growing and widening, and clambering through the world; sprea'ding, and dividing, and twining; laying a tender leaf on the gently closed eyelids of every sleeping hope, clasping a tendril around the throbbing heart of every swelling aspiration, and putting a fragrant hly on the snowy bosom of every holy love ? The story of human speech, in the first half of the world's career, has been a story of outbranching, of separation, of divergence, of dif- ferentiating forces working ever through the noisy tongues of men. The same is true of all those institutions which have language for their basis and beginning. How is it with science ? What is the in- ductive method but an application and interpretation of the differen- tiating force working among the phenomena of nature ? What has been the movement and general direction of science for the last two centuries and a half? What, but a universal analysis, a resolution of all things into their elementary forms by the process of differentiation ? Science began with the consideration of an integer. The integer was nature ; nature was one. But under the scrutiny of induction and experiment nature divideid into parts. The earth was one part and the heavens the other. The earth also divided by analysis. It became earth proper and water, and air and fire. The heavens divided into sun and moon, and stars; afterwards into suns, and planets, and comets, and ne- bulae. Again the earth, and the air, and the water, divided into oxy- gen, and hydrogen, and nitrogen, and carbon, and iron, and the metals,. ACTON LECTURES. 73 and tiie earths. And then a second time the heavens opened, through the spectroscope as at first they had opened through the tele- scope, and, lo ! the self-same elements again. The identity of the fundamental structure of universal nature flashed out like a revelation. Science saw that she had grasped the bottom facts of cosmos, and if she saw wisely she noted the fact that in that direction she could go no further. So far as the analytical process was concerned she was at her journey's end. ' When Priestley discovered oxygen the pick of philosophy, for the first time in the history of the world, went through to hard- pan. When a chemist has hydrogen in his receiver that ends it. His vocation is gone. As an analyzer he feels and knows that his work is up. He has the bird there in his cage, and the question is no longer — What is it? but, What am I going to do with it? Just there, in that moment, the differentiating force in science dies, and the integral cal- culus of nature sets in. It is a grand epoch, a crisis of intense inter- est, when the chemist arises at last from the completed processes of an- alysis with the elementary substances of nature all safely set apart, aad says: "Now, here they are. What shall I make? How shall I com- bine? What are the possibilities and potencies that lie hidden in these sixty-four elements? Farewell analytics! Farewell, differen- tiating experiments and tedious process of chemical resolutions! Wel- come, instead, O, genius of Integration. I seat you here to preside over the creative works of the hereafter." Such is the language of science and philosophy to-day. She knows that the old work is ended and that the new era is upon her. Only a quarter of a century ago the differentiating force in scientific investigation was still working as vigorously as at any time since the epoch of Bacon. To-day I do not hesitate to assert that that force is expended, and that physical science has little further need for the fiery heats that have burned so long under the crucibles of analysis. The scientist everywhere feels the fine forces of integration taking hold of him and his work. His career as a destroyer is ended and his career as a maker is begun. I have now completed that part of our inquiry which bears rela- tion to the history of the past. The remainder must in some measure be prophetic. I turn from that part of the career of the human race which is already accomplished to look at the present with its tendencies and the future with its hopes. I say with W^hittier : Clasp, angel of the backward look, The brazen covers of thy book." Let us gaze no longer upon the old diverging forces of civilization but rather on the new creative impulses of to-day. ;4 ACTON LFXTURES. I ventured to assert at the outset that the chief interest and, 1 may add, the glory of the present epoch in civihzation is found in the fact that we have reached the beginning of integration. I now repeat that statement. I declare, as a deliberate conviction, resulting from not a little study and reflection on the subject, that we have but recently passed, or, perhaps, are now passing, that supreme middle crisis which marks the point of greatest divergence in the history of the human race. Geographically, the world is all known. It is inhabited. Fur- ther ethnic and tribal divisions of mankind are not suggested by the situation. Human institutions — institutions of religion, institutions of society, institutions of language — have filled our planet. They have widened, divided and spread to the utmost limit of their tendency in that direction. The repulsive disposition is appeased. The dispersive forces, like the liberated gases of an explosive compound, are satisfied and sink to rest. And so we enter upon that new era which I have called the Epoch of Integration. The proposition that we are now entering upon the second half of tl"re one complete career of humanity may be established with a multi- tude of proofs. No fact in the whole range of philosophy is more clearly indicated by the signs and tendencies around us. Everywhere the thoughtful man can see the fine converging lines of the new era flashing like the faint pencilings of sunlight through the mists and clouds ; and as he lies awake in the cool shadow of the summer night he feels what he can not see — the drawing of strange forces and the drifting of new tides on whose bosom he is borne onward toward the mysteries and realities of the future. The facts toward which we are drifting are integers. The realities of the hereafter are units. They are not phenomena outbranching and spreading like the aspects of the past — not flashing divergent like the widening glare of a head-light down the track — but phenomena con- verging and tending downward towards results that gather up all pre- ceding results and are themselves in turn absorbed in the still greater and more singular results beyond. In the future there are no facts that are not whole ; and in Heaven there are no decimal fractions ! It is time for humanity to bear some fruit. The efflorescent age o. man is past. It is about the season for him to do something — to make something that shall bear a relation to the destinies of the time to come. It is evident that man has his hand in and his eye out to catch the general tendency of the epoch. He is up and doing, half consciously and half unconsciously working out the problems of the age he lives in. But to be more specific — what is the present general course and tend- ency of religious affairs in the world ? I answer, without hesitation, ACTON LECTURES. 75 convergent^ synthefic, centralizing. This could not have been truthfully said a hundred years ago. It can be truthfully 'said to-day. Every- where a disposition can be plainly noted on the part of those who give direction to the religious beliefs and practices of men, to neglect the non- essentials of religion and to combine on the line of the essentials ; and it seems not improbable that the essentials will be reduced to the soli- tary and sublime principle of behaving yourself I The process of creating a new sect is already, in these first days of integration, an up-hill and strenuous, if not an impossible, work. When a man undertakes it he soon finds that he is pulling against the whole spirit and gravitation of his times. Mankind will no longer agi- tate for the sake of a windy theory. Sectarian prejudice and bigotry are well-nigh broken down. Thoughtful men have come to doubt whether, after all, it requires some peculiar, complicated and well-pronounced denominational shib- boleth to open the gates of the crystal skies. The old antipathies of sects, once bristling in armor, and too often smeared with blood, are no longer able to quench the rising spirit of generous brotherhood which inspires the breast of every really good man in the world. The spiritual leaders of mankind all around the horizon are fraternizmg. Calvinist, Arminian, and Quaker do really clas]) hands across the bloody chasm of ages. I confess that they sometimes do so as if they feared an earthquake. But there is no cause of fear. The earth will not open to swallow them up for such a trifle. The Church of En- gland is taking shelter under the very eaves of the Vatican. And it is even hoped that Rome herself will, on some fine day, take down the pictures of her saints and rush forth into the arms of protest- antism. What does it all prove? Simply this: It proves the abolition of non-essentials. It proves the presence of a generalizing and inte- grating tendency even in theology, the most conservative of all the sciences. It proves the rallying of forces long divided, around the central lines and ideas of religion. It proves the rapid abatement of sectarian prejudice, and the softening of denominational animosities — the gradual merging of the beliefs and practices and institutions of the religious world into one phalanx for the defense of a common fortress. Whoever will put himself into harmony with the spirit and genius of the age must recognize and accept in full measure this integrating and synthetic tendency among the institutions and ceremonials of religion. The same law holds with equal force among the Institutiojis of So- ciety. Look abroad at the civil governments and political structures of the world. Whither do they tend, and to what? I answer: They 76 ACTON LECTURES. approximate. They assume a common type. They converge. They come together. The two extremes of unHcensed despotism and unli- censed democracy are hardly any longer to be found in the earth. The great consolidated and unlimited empires of eastern Asia gradually re- lax. The iron form of rigid tyranny unbends. The ferocious aspect of absoluteism softens, and the stony face of the sphinx puts on a smile in the glow of the new morning. On the other hand, all the forms of irresponsible democracy and pseudo republicanism vanish in smoke and vapor. Somewhere along the middle line of rational self- government the political institutions of mankind are certainly and silently converging. ^ Down the close of the eighteenth century the analytical processes were still potent among the forces of government, driving the elements asunder. The American colonies, already bristling with animosities and antagonism, and flying further apart with every breath of agita- tion, burst off from the side of monarchy. There was fighting and bloodshed in the cause of the rebellion. Peace came ; but union- seemed impossible. The confederation was ?i pis-aller — a go-between. As a government, it was *a sham and a mockery. Jefferson, and Han- cock, and Henry were under the dominion of the old forces of differ entiation. To them, government meant tyranny and the loss of human rights. On the other hand, Washington — peace to the majestic shade of the hero and statesman ! — and Adams, and Franklin felt the virtue and beauty of the new forces of integration. The last years of their lives were devoted to the work of building a union. The Constitu- tion was a product of the integrating forces — not perfect, indeed, else Grant had never fought, or Lincoln died a martyr. About this idea of self-government, I repeat, the political institu- tions of the world are steadily converging. The England of to-day is not the England of the Stuarts, not the England of the Georges. She is more like the United States. The United States of to-day are not the United States of Jefferson, or of Polk. They are more like En- gland. We have somewhat strengthened our shaky republicanism — at what a cost. Heaven only can contain the record ; and the peoples abroad have abated, in no small measure, the sham pretences of feudal monarchy. The kingdoms of the world approximate a common type — a type of limitations and defined prerogatives. This type, when once it shall be perfected, is the destined unit of the hereafter ; and it is no vain Mattery of ourselves to say that this imperial Republic, standing glorified at the end of the ages, is the shadow of that unit. The forces of integration are working upon and through the so- ACTON LECTURES. 71 cial structures of the world; and the integer that is to be, the govern- ment of the great to-come, already stands half revealed in the shadows of the nearer future. In like manner the law of integration is working steadily, towards the production of that ideal citizenship which the poets of philosophy, from Plato to Robert Dale Owen, have sighed for in their visions and dreams. This ideal is no chimera, no whim of the heat-oppressed brain of enthusiasm. It is a reality — or will be. The future holds in her apocalypse the figure of a man \n\\o makes his own laws, and keeps them ; who serves the state, and yet is free ; who keeps his covenant without a bond, and his word without an oath ; who signs no contracts and breaks no pledges; who lives for himself without selfishness, and dies for others without regret. In the memcry of such a man the story of thugs and constables, of tax-collectors and hangmen, of detectives and vigilantes, and all the race of quacks and cormorants and vampires, will linger in the form of a tradition, which he recites as a legend of antiquity to his wondering and incredulous children. And towards this type of ideal citizenship the integrating tendencies of civilization are gradually converging. They who will may despise and deride it as a dream, but they will awake by and by to find the fulfillment of prophecy. To what extent the socialistic agitations of the world may tend to produce the man of the future, I do not know. One thing is certain : he will never be born of despotism. Out of the brazen loins of tyranny never has anything good arisen. Absoluteism is the mother of all slaves. There are two kinds of socialism in the world — the one rational, the other irrational The one is the socialism of the philosophers and sages; the other, the socialism of the rabble and the mob. The one is above the present level of American citizenship, and the other below it. The one by constant approximations brings us nearer and nearer to the standard of a universal and ideal manhood ; the other gravitates ever downward toward the howling canaille that runs with bloody jaws to devour and kill. There is as much difference between the lofty and philanthropic socialism, toward which we all aspire, and the destroying mobocratic socialism that roars beneath as there is between the angel of the sun and the devil. The socialism of the future is not the social- ism of the incendiary, the robber and the assassin. I rejoice that in American society there is not much mobocracy. I know we have a bugbear called communism, but it is mostly con- structed of straw and paint. It is raw-head and bloody-bones set up to ACTON LECTURES. scare. The politicians are shouting socialism in order to frighteii th6 average citizen into voting the straight ticket. The candidate wakes up out of a discordant dream in the stillness of midnight and sees an enormous bat with bloody eyes and satanic wings, ten feet from tip to tip, hovering above his couch. He leaps out of bed, runs into the alley and sets up a shout of coNunnnisni ! coniniunisni 1 and when the startled neighbors come in to see what the. matter is they find no bat at all : it is a goblin of the brain. There may be a socialism of the future, but if so, it means not a rabble, not a mob with torches and bludgeons and swords, but a higher, nobler and purer citizenship than we have ever yet attained. It means exact justice and equal rights before the law for all men — white men, red men, black men, yellow men and 7<;'^?-men! It means not the de- struction of property, but an equitable distribution of the proceeds of labor. It means, mark it well, not the establisment, in our country or in any country under heaven, of an aristocracy and landed peerage on the one hand and a degraded peasantry and ignorant horde on the other, but the creation of a single order of nobility in all the earth — the nobility of worth and virtue. To the establishment of this one grand order, the Knighthood of Man, the integrating laws of human society are inevitably tending. Finally the law of integration is working marvelously among all the Institiitons of Language. I have already had occasion to call your attention to the fact that science — every kind of science — has entered upon the synthetic phase of investigation. The chemist and the phil- osopher alike begin to build, to construct, to create. I do not know, but I will venture the assertion, that in the last ten years every profes- sor of natural science in this Nation has observed in himself and in his students a marked disposition to pass over from the difter- ential to the integral side of science. Let every student who feels and recognizes that tendency know that in obeying it he passes through and over the most remarkable crisis in the history of human thought, for in so doing he emerges swiftly from the differentiating and analytical processes of the past and enters the converging and synthetic processes of the future. The destructive analysis of material forms has ended, and the grander epoch of construction has begun. This is an age of invention, and invention is integration. He who walks by the light of differentiation and analysis may be a dis. coverer, but he can not be an inventor. To invent is to combine the elements and forces of nature in an integer — an integer that will work for its creator and carry the burdens of the world. The iron Hercules that comes panting, and roaring, and smoking around the curve, out- ACTON LECTURES. 79 howling the blasts of the winter night, and looking steadily with his great lidless eye down the track, is one of the living units of the New Era. The locomotive is the first benificent giant to issue from the loins of integration. So, also of the telegraph, along whose slender nerve the first of the mighty jmponderables came down from Heaven to flash on its swift-winged mission. So, also, of the floating palace of the seas, im- pelled at the will of the master against the impotent bluster of the winds and tides. So of all the infinite applications of steam to turn the mul- tifarious enginery of progress. Under the old regime, when the forces of human thought spread outward by divergence, invention was im- possible. Under the dominion of the new forces it is impossible that men should not invent. And, to all human appearance, we are only now in the beginning of what the inventor's genius is destined to ac- complish for the further amelioration of the condition of mankind. Jablochofif, the Russian scientist, more than a year ago planted an en- gine among the broken stones in the basement of the old temple of Neptune, at Rome, and, with his wires stretched along the Via Nazio- nale, set the Eternal City blazing with the splendors of the electric light. Marquis of Vienna has been riding back and forth through the night on the Austrian locomotives with a headlight of his own inven- tion glaring down the track, with the vividness of day, for more than seven miles. And Edison — our own Edison, born of an American father and an American mother, son of the people, modest and calm in his confidence, taking both praise and censure with the same unwaver- ing mood, working by night and by day with undiminished patience, while the devils of neuralgia have gone tearing through his face and head ; Edison, hard-handed child of toil and genius now grown to the stature of a philosopher, will yet make the night-time of all this New World blaze with the glories of the aurora borealis. The end is not yet. Even as I -write the story comes that Profes- sor Lamb, of New York City, has discovered and made available a new form of vulcanite, whereby all the textile fabrics of the world are to be rendered absolutely impervious to the action of water. It is con- fidently announced as the greatest discovery of the age. The finest and most delicate fabrics — so the legend runs — when treated with this wonderful compound, which is produced from the common milk-weed of the fields, come out in a state which, though unchanged and unmod- ified so far as the testimony of the senses is concerned, is utterly be- yond the influence of any form of moisture. Henceforth man is to be drenched with the elements no more. Out of doors and indoors are to become all one. No man is to be wet any more forever. The storm- 1 8o ACTON LECTUKES. beaten tramp is to get up dry as powder. Soldiers will sleep all night ill the rain, on the ground, in swamps and lagoons, and rise as if from beds of down in the fourth story oi a ])alace. Longfellow's mon- ody on The Rainy Z><^>- will become a joke which lad nnd lassie will re- pt^ai in merry jest as they sit courting in the storm. The junior's beaver, erewhile the envy of all things bright that cover the dome of reason, gloss> as the wing of a crow, will glisten alike in rain and shine ; and the princess of Broadway, queen of the promenade, gor- geous in the splendor of satins and pearls, rich in the glory of nodding ostrich plumes, will defy the elements and go unwet through the storm, while the saucy cataracts of April rain dash through her plumage, roll over her shoulders, and rebound from her untarnished silks like showers of quicksilver poured over the feathers of a bird of para- dise: If Professor Lamb has really succeeded in his invention, he has done so by synthesis, by bringing into combination those facts and forces which have been revealed by long ages of anylilical investigation, but which arc now, for the first time, turned to good account by the inte- grating process. Analysis, I repeat, never made a machine. Differentiation has never been the mother of a mechanical contrivance. In all that won- derful domain where mind has mastered matter, where thought has tri- umphed over nature and compelled the obdurate forces which hold the world in equipoise to become the ministering angels of man, integra- tion has been the torch-bearer of progress. The same thing, the same law of the integrating forces, holds true in the still wider domain of abstract philosophy. Man himself is be- coming a unit. He was formerly made up of parts. Physiology claimed a part of him. Psychology claimed a part of him. Theology claimed him all, but disposed of liim in parcels. He was regarded as a mixture of human orders, profanely reared without regard to style or unity. Now, in the concept of philosophy, he is becoming an inte- ger. Materialism has very properly taken some of the vanity out of his pretensions, while, on the other hand, the new ideas of the tran- scendental nature of matter have lifted him up more than he has de- scended. The high sky of spiritism comes down in the distance from above, and the low plane of matter rises to the sky ; and there, far off in the horizon, where earth and Heaven meet, stands the figure of the man of the future. All the laws which govern human life, all the principles which relate to human conduct, all the tendencies which press us into the forms we bear, are in a process of synthesis, of con- vergence and simplification. Around the central paths that lie straight ACTON LECIURES. before us and towards the integers that stand focus-Uke afar, the con- verging lines of all the moral and biological forces are bearing us steadily onward. But lastly, as to language itself. x\mong all linguistic phenomena the law of differentiation has completely exhausted itself. There are no more dialects. The useless ones are dying, or dead. Every gen- eration witnesses the decay and extinction of some of the idle peculiari- ties of human speech. Everywhere there is convergence, centraliza- tion. The linguistic tree, the diagram of the hereafter, will have its branches toward us and the trunk in the distance. And that trunk — mark the prophecy — is to be the powerful language of England. The tongue of Chancer triumphs and bears the palm. It is Goethe, and not Shakespeare, who will have to be translated for the swarming mil- lions of the future. It is Milton and Bacon whom the children of the promise shall read in the vernacular. It is Hume and Macaulay whose wisdom the after ages shall drink up without interpretatiqji. It is Barrow, and Taylor, and Farar whose pulpit themes shall thrill the unborn nations. It is Burke, and Sheridan, and Webster whose elo- quent words shall roll and echo through the corridors of the ages. It is Blackstone, and vStory, and Kent whose untranslated wisdom shall survive the wreck of races and the collapse of nations. It is Scott, and Byron and Tennyson, and Bryant whose harps breathe out im- mortal sounds, quick with the accents of a deathless speech, into the listening ears of ages. It is the sterling and hardy Bible of Wickliffe and King James that shall bear to posterity the message and visions of life, wooing and comforting in the tongue of the English martyrs, exhorting in the accents of Hooker and Whitefield, and firing the human soul with the sublime apostrophes of Spurgeon and Beecher. The tongue of our fathers is to be the tongue of the hereafter. 6 0OMPARATIYE THINKING. AN ADDRESS DEIiIVBilBD AT THE ACTON CAMP GROUND, BY AUGUSTUS L. MASON, AUGUST 3, 1 88 1. In every age men think. No matter if the forehead is but an inch high and the teeth are an inch long, to be human is to have ideas. More than this, the subjects of human thought are always substantially the same. The problems of life, society and worship, which occupy us to-day, are substantially the same problems which have, in every preceding age, environed and tormented the human mind. The insti- tutions which we inherit from the past are the solutions which men of every age have made of these universal problems of existence. Every law, every dogma, every philosophy has been constructed by men as an answer to some of these universal questions. The law of property is an attempted solution of one great problem which has disturbed and tormented men wherever toil was known. The dogma of eternal pun- ishment is an answer of the human mind to another question, and the philosophy of the Stoics was an attempted solution of another problem. Many solutions have been given to the same problem. Take the funda- mental questions of food, clothing and shelter. For food, every thing has been tried, from Mongolian rice and rats to Carolina hog and hominy. For dress, all the way from a fig leaf to a "swallow tail." For shelter, everything from a cave to a castle — from a snow hut to a marble palace. Everywhere and always are the same problems pre- senting themselves to mankind. A court house is a modern reply to the same question which the tournament answered. Our common schools and compulsory education fill the same place and purpose as the Indian custom by which no young savage might don the war paint till he had killed a certain number of bears. The difference between a Tartar tribe with its chief, a Roman Empire with its Ceasar and the American Republic with its President, are those of plan and method and not of pur- 84 ACTON LECTURES. pose. Modern churches grow out of the same doubts and needs which gave rise to the ceremonies of the howhng dervishes, the mythologies of the Greeks or the human sacrifices of the Druids. The subjects of human thoughts are the same, and the continuity unbroken from age to age. But, while this is true, while the minds of men in every age and under every sky are directed along the same general channels of in- vestigation, it is also true that there are changes in the method of thinking. There is a growth in the human intellect. It has its changes and therefore has its history. One generation views the landscape from a different stand-point from its predecessors. The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. Superstitions, mistakes and formulas die out. Men get to know more and think better. The history of intellect is one of epochs. Each epoch is characterized bv a different method of thought. If this age is to pass into history as marking an epoch in the history ol mind, as you and I believe it will — if the Nineteenth Century is to stand as a granite wall between the barbarism, the cruelties and the mistakes of the past, and a new and glorious era in the fortunes and destinies of mankind in the future, as you and I believe it will — it must be because we have discovered and attained a new way, a different method of thought. Everybody knows that a mind has many faculties. It can remember, imagine, feel, ob- serve, will, compare, calculate and so on. But the mind is not a bun- dle of different organs. It is one organ acting in different ways. With my one hand I can touch, rub, push or strike. And just as it is one hand acting in different ways, so it is the one whole mind which acts in these different ways, at one time willing, at another loving and at another reasoning. Now the epochs in the history of mind are marked by changes in the general method of human thought. There comes a time when men strike out in a new way of thinking which lifts the chariot of progress out of the ruts. A new faculty of mind rises into prominence and becomes the controlling influence in human progress. Thus there was a time when the imagination became intimately re- lated with human progress. There was another era when the logical faculty was the master in human thought ; and still another time, when the faculty of observation, of gathering together facts, changed and brightened the destinies of mankind and opened the way for the splen- did era of the present age. To illustrate the changes in men's way of thinking, take a single natural fact — a summer thunder-storm. The day is oppressive and sultry. As it advances, a bank of silvery clouds pile their white masses above the horizon. Higher and higher rolls the fleecy mountain, till the ACTON LECTURES. 85 sun at last is covered with a purple veil. The darkened air is close and still. Wagons and drays thunder along the stony streets of the city. The ragged storm-Hne advances swiftly. The air, before so breathless, is swept by a rising wind. Signs creak; papers fly; windows come down with a bang ; clouds of dust are caught up and swept through the streets, blinding the eyes and choking the throats of hurrying men. A moment more — great drops of rain blur the window pane ; the noise of the thunder, at first only a mutter, increases to a roar. The Demon of the Tempest is unchained and rushes forth to battle with ungoverna- ble fury. Flash after flash of red lightning rends the dark, bosom of the storm. Peal after peal of thunder shakes the earth like the iron trum- pet of Doom. The bravest groM^ thoughtful, and the gentle heart of woman trembles with anxiety. At last the floods descend. The earth is drenched, and men turn to their work again. Half an hour later the sun breaks through the clouds in smiling joy ; the fresh pure air pours in through the open window ; and but for the broken branch of some tree or the full flow of the drains, the picture of the storm would be forgotten. Now ask an old Athenian .sophist what that storm was. He will say : Without doubt, it was a quarrel among the gods. The jealous Hera, discovering some new debauch of Zeus, has raised a quarrel about it; and the latter, to quiet Heaven, let fly the angry thunder-bolts of his wrath." If we ask a schoolman of the Middle Ages, what the storm was, he will say : "It was sent by God, either to bless or curse. A blessing may be a curse, and a curse a blessing. Whichever this thunder storm was, if it was one it may be the other ; if either, it may be both." If, notwithstanding this pleasant and complete explanation of the storm, we now ask an American school-boy, he will say : *T do not know what the storm was, but when my teacher charged a Leyden jar with electricity, and I held my finger near it, it went off with a flash of light and an explosion. May be the cloud is full of electricity, and when it comes near a tree or church steeple, it goes off like the jar." Here are three characteristic answers; three different methods by which the three minds dealt with the question. The Athenian settled it by imagination ; the schoolman tried to determine it by deduction and dry logic ; the school-boy tried to study it out by comparison, by thinking what the storm was like. Thus the mind grows. It has its phases. It changes its methods, and its epochs are marked out by its changes in the method of its general activities. Once more, in the course of history, a change has come over the method of men's thought. We have all the old forms of thought, but now a new way of thinking, a new process is upon us. In the labora- tory, in the workshop and study a new method is being used. 86 ACTON LECTURES. From the standpoint of thought it seems to me that this is pre-emi- nently an age of Comparison, a time when the minds of men are busy with comparing things which are separate. It is the purpose of this address to glance modestly at the reasons and results of this new phase of the intellect which we have called Comparative Thinking. What is meant by Comparative thinking ? It means the study of any problem, institution, thing or subject by means of comparison. At the State Agricultural School is an eighty acre wheat field, which is di- vided into squares like a checker-board. On one .of these squares is sprinkled bone dust ; on another, guano ; on a third, blood and bone ; on the fourth, no fertilizer at all. A record is carefully kept of each square, and at harvest .the yield of each is separately weighed- and the results compared. More can be learned in this way in one season of the relative value of fertilizers, than in two hundred years of old fashioned farming. This is the comparative method applied to agriculture. It is a new thing. It belongs peculiarly to this age. It is nothing unusual for a farmer to use fertilizers, but to compare the results of a dozen dif- ferent kinds was new. Again: here is a country divided into thirty-eight States. Each State has its own legislature, makes its own laws and conducts its own experiments. New York makes a wife equal in law to her husband ; Kansas tries prohibition ; South Carolina institutes slavery ; Wyoming tries universal suffrage. The results of these experiments are com- pared by the people, and the best survive. In this way, more progress, socially and politically, can be made in fifty years, than in a thousand years of the old way of each country shutting eyes and ears to the rest of mankind. This is the comparative method applied to law making, and it belongs exclusively to this age. Every one sees at a glance that before things can be compared they must be brought together, either in fact or in thought. It is not the fact that each State makes its own laws that is new, but it is new for the results of the experiments to be brought together in the mind of the people. It is a law of mind and a result of culture that when two or more things or ideas are brought together in thought they may be compared, may be viewed in relation to each other. When- ever an individual or a community receives a large accession of ideas or knowledge, when thought has a wider range of observation, when the means of communication between the mind and the world are in- creased, there is a corresponding increase in the comparative element of thought. It is precisely this bringing together of widely separated things and institutions, which distinguishes and separates this age from every ACTON LECTURES. 87 Other. The ear can recognize the tick of a watch at three or four feet. But we have an instrument which enables us to hear just as well if the watch is ten miles off. This is an extension of the sense, a multiplier of the means of communication. The avenues of communication be- tween the mind and the world are, in the Nineteenth Century, multi- plied a thousand fold. Along them armies of facts and ideas press and throng their way to the individual thought. On the great and novel fact of infinite communication the very fabric of the age, its in- stitutions, its character, its works, are based. I. For sixty centuries men were fixtures. They saw little more of the world, than a tree does. The Israelites wandered forty years in a desert, not much larger than Shelby and Marion counties, hopelessly lost. Among the Greeks a man who had been abroad was called a phil- osopher. It is hardly so now. Only for war did men travel. So lo- calized were men that America was not discovered till fifteen hundred years after Christ. In the past men never looked outside of their own city, or god, or institution. Florence and Pisa were two neighboring cities. The only use they made of each other's society was to hate it. The past has been deep, but intensely narrow. You would have in- sulted a Roman by offering to compare his city with some other. The crusades were indirectly the source of the first comparative thinking. They turned the thought and eyes of Europe to the East. For the first time the human mind really knew what comparison was. The crusades were followed by the revival of art and letters — that mountain land of intellect and literature from whose perennial springs many a weary age shall draw inspiration and delight. If now the clumsy physical communication, incidentally opened by the crusades, was followed by such an awakening of thought, such an enlargement of vision, who can measure the far-reachmg power of the communica- tions of the Nineteenth Century — the railroad, the steamboat and the telegraph, all of them inventions of the last fifty years. The continent is tremulous with the thundering tread of the locomotive. Day and night the people of America are in motion. Not a hamlet but ex- periences each day the electric shock of arriving or departing trains. The stagnant pond of village life is each day shaken. More and more people travel each year. Cheap excursions multiply. Men, for the first time in history, are really looking outside of themselves. The mind broadens ; prejudice disappears. What an enlargement of vision to a boy is his first trip to the city ! Communication or the bringing together of many things before the mind is the basis of comparative thought. Every time a man gets on a railroad train his thought is busy with comparison. Sometimes he compares wheat fields; sometimes ACTON LECTURES people ; sometimes school houses, and sometimes pigs,- bat each time he is thinking comparatively. Jt is a step forward when a farmer ex- amines the pigs of other regions than his own. It is a progress whicb not only expands the mind of the farmer but results in better pigs. Side by side with the railroad runs the telegraph with 500,000' miles of wire In the United States. Instant communication with the" entire globe, and hence constant comparison with the entire globe. At every joint in the telegraph line a printing press I The American me- chanic of to-day knows more than Cicero did. The marvels of the telegraph can never be told. The smallest telegraph station in Texas- knows the state of the President's pulse as soon as the anxious crowd around the White House. The practical genius of the age is comrnuiiication. Our trains fufy from thirty-five to forty miles an hour. The Lafontaine engine, which has just been invented, doubles that speed. It used to take a month' to cross the Atlantic. A steamer is now building which will make the trip in five days. Everywhere we hear of Mont Cenis tunnels, of Brooklyn bridges, of ship railways over land and car railways under sea. The world has gone mad on the subject. Telephone, telegraph, telescope, the penny newspaper — these are the myriad avenues of com^ niunication which this age has established between the mind and the world. As the practical genius of the age is communication, it should fol- low that the intellectual genius of the age is compariso}!. The facts support the theory. Every argument of the last campaign was an ar- gument from comparison. It was understood that that method was the only way to reach the minds of the people. Whether the question was the tariff or civil service reform, or public economy, the method was the same. It was the comparison between the free and slave States, by means of statistics, which really broke up and destroyed forever the po- litical grounds on which slavery was based. The census, that triumph of the century, is comparative thought itself. Our postal system estab- lishes a continual comparison and fusion of sentiment and opinion be- tween distant parts of the globe. Postmaster General James says that if the postal system had attained its present state of perfection twenty- five years earlier the Civil War would have been impossible. Every postal ear is a chariot of culture. The tendency to comparative thought may be seen in the conventions of the day. Every county and State has its regular teachers' institute for the comparison of methods. The State Bar Association is an association of lawyers for the same purpose. Short Horn conventions, wool grower's associations, poultry exhibitions and trade soci^tie? of every kind are essentially comparative., Ev^ry county^ ACTON LECTURES. 89 fair is a product of the same general intellectual tendency of the age, Because it is a comparison of pumpkins and pigs instead of literatures and religions it is no less comparative thought. The Centennial Expo- sition was the magnificent blossom on the century plant of com- parative thinking. Wherever we turn we see men comparing things, and selecting the best ; wherever we look men form their judgment by comparison. When the Czar was killed the mind of this people was in doubt as to whether it was really wrong. The dreadful state of Russian society we felt was partly his fault. Even with the fresh memory of Lincoln's death, when despair drove its dagger into the very heart of victory, we were in doubt; but when, in a time of peace and prosperity, when every hand was busy and every table in the land sup- plied, when the wounds of Civil War were healed, when peace smiled over every fireside and men were happy as well as free, when, at such a time, red handed crime fired at the heart of the man we loved, then in two hours after the shot one-half of America had changed its mind about the Czar. Men saw the great political truth, that crime is crime ; that murder is not a redress of wrongs, but everywhere and always the black deed of an infamous heart. It is thus that the infinite physical communication of the Nineteenth Century leads the minds of men to comparative thinking. Every express train, every fast freight line, every telegraph wire tends to turn the eyes of men away from their own little life to the broader scenes of the world. Every thundering locomotive, as it tears down the slender curving track of steel in the darkness of midnight, with a single eye of flame and its lungs of fire, obscuring the quiet stars with a curtain of smoke and shaking hill and hamlet in its fearful race, is a helper of humanity — is an arch enemy of narrow mindedness, of illiberality and of bigotry. The ocean steamer, passing its life amid storm-tossed seas, struggling forever in mighty conflict with the tempest, is a champion of an enlarged vision for mankind, a friend of liberal thought, a very Ajax in the cause of comparative thinking. II. I have dwelt long on the physical means of communication, because we are apt to forget that they belong only to this century, and because they are lifting the people, the masses, into such an enlarged view of life and the world. But a second form of communication, which is peculiar to the age, is that by reason of our institutions. On opposite corners of every town are churches of opposite creeds. The two congregations are neighbors and friends. They look at each other's creeds not as things to be hated, but to be compared with their own. When sects cease to be isolated and shut off from one another, you may toll the knell of dying bigotry. Wherever there is isolation go ACTON LECTURES. there is jealousy ; wherever there is communication you find calm, ra- tional comparison going on in the minds of men. Pure comparative thought in religion is a new thing in the world. Sects have always been isolated from each other heretofore. Predestination cut the Calvinists off from the rest of the world. The Baptists shut them- selves up in the briar hedge of close communion. The Church of En- gland had an exclusive governmental patent right sort of religion. The Reformation so isolated the two great branches of Christianity that the breach still continues deadly and terrible. Not one Protestant in ten can look at the Catholics fairly. I can't do it myself! So long as one country is CathoHc and another Protestant; so long as one stratum of society believes in Pope, and another stratum believes in anti-Pope, so long will this prejudice continue. But as communication opens up be- tween the two sects, as their churches are placed side by side, as their people intermingle, a Catholic will view Protestantism not as a thing to be hated, but to be studied, and a Protestant will view CathoHcism merely from a standpoint of comparison, as a mere matter of intellect, not of passion. This is a part of the general intellectual tendency of the age toward comparative thought, of which communication is the reason and breadth of mind the result. But there are other chasms just as terrible as those of sects. It is possible for the separation, the social distance which lies between the home of a rich man and the hovel in the alley back of it, to be wider, more impassible than the Atlantic ocean. It is possible for the dis- tance between the employer and employe to be greater than between New York and China. The isolations of society and caste are more permanent and more impassable than the Alps themselves. It is a part of this age, however, to antagonize this tendency to separation by institutions. The ballot box brings men together. The communi- cation causes comparison. In the city is a great foundry, but though it is a working day the wheels are still ; the furnaces dark and cold ; the vast rooms are silent. In the street is gathered a crowd of angry strikers. They curse capital, and threaten to burn and kill. In the upper end of town, in his luxuriant parlor, sits the capitalist. They bring him news of the strikers and their threats, and he curses labor. What is the remedy ? Social science and common sense alike say: "Let there be communication instead of isolation between the classes of society. Let the rich and poor, employer and employe, know each other and compare their situations, duties and hardships," and low wages and strikes may be forgotten. III. We have spoken of the physical communication, of the communication which our institutions open, and of the comparative ACTON LECTURES. 91 tendency in thought which arises therefrom. There is a third source of comparative thinking. I mean the communication of language and literature. For a few cents one may have a translation of Homer or Virgil, or he may buy a novel of Dickens, which will forever furnish his mind with a picture of lower English life, or a translation from Vic- tor Hugo, so that he can know French manners almost as well as American. The observed tendency of the English language to swallow up and supplant all other languages is another opening avenue of com- munication. More important, however, as a source of comparative thinking is History. In the last twenty-five years history has been re- written. The idea of it has changed. Popular history, or a history * 'of the people and for the people" is a product of the present genera- tion. Hardly a school boy who does not know more of the past than Shakespeare did. In former ages men have lived and died, hemmed in by the horizon of their own age. They awoke to find themselves on a stair. Below were steps which humanity seemed to have climbed, and above steps yet to ascend, but the past and the future were alike a mystery. Nations did not know their own history. You and I know more about the institutions of Athens than the wisest Athenian that ever lived. We understand the decline and fall of the Roman Empire bet- ter than the proudest Roman that ever wore a toga. In this age, for the first time in the world, the minds of men are dilated and over- whelmed by the sudden lifting of the curtain of history. The past rises before us not like a dream, but like a drama. Everywhere new methods of investigation are used. Buried cities are disinterr.ed. Mounds are tunneled and caves explored for historic traces. Troy, the scene of Homer's Illiad, is laid bare to the eye. The crude and mysterious hieroglyphics of a forgotten age are tortured into a revela- tion of their secrets. The study of language has thrown light upon vast historic periods which have hitherto been abandoned to the do- main of night. Not only are the materials of history just being dis- covered, but the spirit and purpose of history are just beginning to be understood. We are beginning to get a history of the people instead of bloody stories of faithless kings. The Nineteenth Century cares more to have a picture of the peasant's fireside, with his rustic family about it and the story of their simple life, than to know the history of the proudest king, with the most brilliant court that ever dazzled the eyes and corrupted the manners of men. The result of this new communication with the past is comparative thought in the present. In politics men compare the present with the past, and cast their votes by the result. The Greenback question brought to light the exact history of every issue of paper money in 92 ACTON LECTURES. modern times. The Republic rests on comparative thought. The tendency to comparative thinking arising from our communication with the past is shown in the revision of the Bible, in the growth and pop- ularit)- of the ''historical novel," and in the universal study of social problems, such as the labor question and socialism, by the light of his- tory. It is remarkable that the two books which have latey attracted the most notice are Arnold's "Light of Asia," containing a poetic view of the origin of Buddhism, and Wallace's "Ben Hur," containing a pic- ture of the origin of Christianity. Still more fully and magnificently is comparative thinking shown in the rise of comparative sciences. Comparative philology is achieving more than all the other sciences. Comparative mythology is also a distinct department of human thought. Edward Freeman, in opening his work on "Comparative Politics," de- clares that the introduction of the comparative method into historical studies ranks among the most important events of the century. Com- parative theology, or comparative religion, is a science yet in its infancy, but the eyes and hearts of many thoughtful earnest men are turned to it with hearts full of hope. There have been pointed out three sources for comparative think- ing — the opening of physical communication between different places, the communication between sects and classes by means of our institu- tions, and, lastly, the communication of language or literature. It is evident that we see but the feeble beginnings of comparative thinking. As human experiments become more complete, and as communication becomes more perfect, comparative thinking is destined to ascend, and supplement more and more powerfully the progress of men. The old- est and richest civilizations of earth are hitherto shut off from us. The intimate communication between America and Europe has wrought wonders. Suppose that the discoverers had had to populate this conti- nent without any more communication with Europe than we have had with China. It would have been filled with savage tribes 3,000 years from now. But who can imagine the result of a comparison of the re- sults of Chinese civilization with our own? Wendell Phillips, in his famous lecture on the "Lost Arts" gives us a hint of the matchless wonders that are hidden by the wall of China, Who can tell what changes will come when we know India as well as France ? Suppose, now, that we are satisfied that the tendency to compara- tive thinking is shown, and that men are really going to do much of their thinking by comparison. What of it? How will it effect us? To what purpose is so much talk about the thing? Three results may be looked tor : AdfON LfeCTtjkkS. 1. In practical affairs ihe survival of the fittest. In farming, the result of comparison will be to use the best fertilizer. In politics, we may confidently expect as a result of comparative thinking, that the best form of government wrll survive. The age brings communication slowly but surely to every nation. Just as certainly as effect follows cause, comes comparison, and, under this view, it is absolutely certain that in Russia and China, as well as America, the best form of gov- ernment must ultimately prevail. And so in religion, no matter if the King of Siam now buries two hundred people alive to secure his recovery, we rest on the absolute certainty that, as the epoch of com- parative thinking reaches even Siam, there, as well as here, the best religion is bound to be adopted and survive. 2. In the department of thought it may be expected that the leaders of the immediate future will be comparers rather than discover- ers, theorists rather than reformers, generalizers rather than inventors. In the mechanic arts, such as that of making an electric light, we will not only see private experiment and isolated invention, but we will see one man bringing together and comparing the results of electric light experiments made all over the world. This is really what Edison has done. As I speak, the World Electric Exposition with acres of inventions is open m Paris. In a great patent suit recently it transpired that the machine in question was not an origination of the inventor, but a combination of a French, a German and an American machine. This thing is common. In literature we will see criticism and comparison rather than the founding of isolated schools of a new kind of literature. In religion, the great men that will arise will not be the founders and reformers of special sects, but will be men whose chief work will be to compare and har- monize the existing religions of the world. They will not so much hate Buddhism as explain it. They will not so much fight a doctrine as study it in comparison with the doctrines of other times and places. It is, in my opinion, beyond the wing of the boldest imagination to conceive the results which are to come from a comparative study of re- ligions. Comparative philology has discovered the common origin of languages. Is it impossible that comparative religion as a science should discover the common origin of religions ? 3. I think the rise of comparative thinking is to mark an epoch in the history of intellect by a widening of the minds of men. The in- tellectual vision is henceforth to turn outward rather than inward. With the progress of comparative thinking, the zealot as a leader must pass away. The day of Luthers, of Calvins and of Knoxes is forever gone. We are entering upon an era of uncertainty in opinion. When 94 ACTON LECTURES. a man has reached the point where he looks on all forms of government and religion with a view to honestly comparing them and selecting the best, he has reached a point where bigotry and zeal of opinion are im- possible. In politics it is undeniable that the body of men who are without prejudice for or against either party, but who vote after a can- did comparison of platforms and candidates, is growing larger every year. This liberty, this lack of zeal, has its dangers, but for my part, I welcome the day of comparative thought. I have faith to believe that after a period of comparative thinking, of uncertainty and of se- lection, the best will survive, and the falsehoods, superstitions and mistakes of men perish from the face of the earth, "unwept, unhonored and unsung." Microscopic glimpses OF GOD AND IMMORTALITY. BY REV. J. P. D. JOHN, A. M., President of Moore's Hill College. Three thousand years ago the Patriarch of Uz propounded the universal human question : " If a man die, shall he live again? " In the heart of every human being of normal development, as he has stood face to face with the inscrutable mystery before him, spontane- ously has arisen this question of questions: " If a man die, shall he live again ? " Inscribed on the tombstones of unseen graves in human hearts, wherein hope lies buried, and over which love weeps its holy grief, is this ever recurring question: " If a man die, shall he live again?" With comparatively few exceptions, there has been but one answer to this question. The gireat heart of humanity, speaking forth its in- nermost instinct, proclaims with unfaltering tones, " If a man die, he shall live again." The philosopher of Athens said before his death: ' ' You may bury me if you can catch me ; to-morrow I shall be with the immortal gods." Such has been the general though not universal answer to the question. When you go through the forest you will find here and there a tree of monstrous growth whose gnarled trunk bends from its upright course, and whose leaves look back upon the earth ; but the ten thou- sand trees of the forest look toward the heavens. Now and then, in human history, an instinct of abnormal growth fixes its expressionless eyes on the earth beneath; but the unfettered instinct of humanity looks towards the stars. ACTON LECtUkEs. Materialism fixes its eyes upon the earth, and even when looking starward seems to get no focus. What is materialism? It is Christianity's most formidable exter- nal foe. What does it teach ? That thought is a function of matter. There are schisms in the materialistic schools, but they all agree on this central proposition : Matter thinks. There are atheistic material- ists, who hold that there is but one substance in the universe, and its name is matter. A spiritual God is dethroned ; a spiritual soul is an- nihilated. There is no such thing as spirit independent of matter. Then there are theistic materialists who believe in a spiritual God, but not in an independent spiritual soul in man. All that is ascribed to human mind is merely the result of the clash of molecule with molecule. When the body dissolves the spirit dissolves. Again, there are indif- ferent materialists who claim that if there be a spiritual God we can not know it. We find ourselves here in the world. How we came here it matters not; whither we are tending it matters not. " The key- board, with its black and white keys is before us for our use. What came before the bass we do not know or care; what comes after the treble we equally httle know or care." "These are essentially questions of lunar politics." 'Tt is no less impious to declare that there is a God than to deny his existence." These schools of materialists — atheistic, theistic and indifferent — all unite on this common ground : Matter can think ; and all our thought is the result solely of molecular action. When the matter dis. integrates, the thought must cease. When the body dissolves, the soul vanishes ; for all the soul that man possesses is a complex chemical compound. Spirit does not exist apart from matter. If materialism in this broad sense be true, there can be no per- sonal God, no personal soul and no personal immortality. I propose to lead you along the path of science until you stand face to face with a spiritual God, a spiritual soul and a spiritual immortality. I shall not on this occasion elaborate the usual arguments in favor of immortality. Substantially, they are these : God's revelation in the Scriptures and in human instinct teaches it. But neither of these arguments is accounted valid by the materialist, since he denies the supernatural revelation of the Bible and the natural revelation in in- stinct. To him the inspiration of the Bible is a superstition, and in- stinct, like mind itself, only molecular action. Is there, then, any common ground on which we can stand with the materialist? I shall lay down one proposition which every man of sound mind is compelled to accept. In addition to this one proposition, I shall ACTON LECTURES. 97 present one dogma of materialistic science. Upon this one necessarily accepted proposition and this one certainly accepted dogma, and upon facts which the materialist himself shall furnish me, I propose to rear the structure of independent spiritual existence and immortality. Proposition. — The whole can not be greater than the sum of its parts. It is impossible to stretch two and two into five. Dogma. — Force is indestructible. This proposition, which is universally admitted, and this dogma, which is admitted and glorified by the materialist, form a two-edged sword which, wielded by the facts of the microscope, pierces the vitals of materialism, but leaves unscathed the existence of God and the im- mortality of the soul. Mark, I do not say that the immortality of the soul can be absolutely demonstrated outside of God's written Word; but its demonstration is absolute upon one self-evident proposition, and one claimed to be true by materialistic science. In other words, materialistic science grants enough to destroy materialism. It holds in its own hand a sharp weapon pointed towards its own heart. The facts that I shall present are not theological dogmas. They are in substance universally admitted by materialistic as well as spirit- uahstic physiologists. They are the facts of the microscope. The compound microscope had been invented two hundred and fifty years before any clearly defined ideas of the unit of the body were devel- oped. Since the year 1838, however, remarkable advances have been made in biology, or the science of life. The views that I here present are substantially those of Dr. Lionel Beale, who is recognized as a high authority in histology, not only in the United States, but also in Great Britain and Germany. If we place a piece of living tissue under the microscope, we shall see three things : I. Nutrient ^natter. — This is the food that we have eaten. Through the process of digestion it has been reduced to a state in which it is capable of being converted into muscle, bone, nerve, and the other tissues of the body. 2 . Formed matter, or the characteristic substance of muscle, bofie, nerve, and the other tissues. 3. Germinal or living matter. — This exists in countless minute particles diffused throughout the entire body. These particles vary in size from 1-100,000 to 1-120 of an inch in diameter. The usual diam- -eter is from 1-6,000 to 1-3,000 of an inch. A conception of the minuteness of these germinal points may be formed from the statement that an army of ten thousand of the smallest of them would have camp- 98 ACTON LECTURES. . ing room on the point of a sharp needle, and at least that number ot the average size could march and counter-march on the point of a darn ing needle. One-fifth of the entire mass of our bodies is made up of these germ- inal points. How many needle points are there in a mass one-fifth the size of your body ? Multiply that number by ten thousand, and you. approximate the number of the minute, independent germinal masses in your body. Or, again : How many needle points in a body two thousand times as large as your own ? That will be the approximate number of these germinal masses in your body. Each of these has a separate, independent existence. What are these infinitesimal germinal points ? They are the builders of the body. They build the brain, the eye, the nerve, the bone, the muscles, the veins, the arteries, the lungs. Fasten your attention on this fundamental fact : They build the body. These germinal masses are of the same chemical composition in every part of the body. Further, they are of the same chemical com- position in all living bodies. The living matter in the tree, the flower, the horse, the man, is, according to Prof. Huxley, identical in chem- ical composition. This germinal matter frequently exists by itself, and it is often found in connection with formed mattter. These elementary, living units are called cells. A complete cell has a wall of formed material within which is the germinal matter. The formed material, or cell wall, is supposed to- result from the death of the germinal, or living matter. Conceive a minute, rounded mass of pure living matter. It be- gins to die at its surface, and in its death is converted into formed ma- terial, which remains as a thin shell around the remnant of living mat- ter within. If this process should continue without a fresh supply of living matter to the interior, the cell would soon become entirely formed matter, all the living substance dying, and being thus con- verted into formed substance. But when the cell wall begins to formi by^the death of the adjacent living matter, the nutrient substance from the blood vessels permeates the cell wall, flows to the center of the remnant of living matter and is converted from dead nutrient ma- terial into fresh germinal or living material. The cell will, therefore,, increase in size by the addition of formed material to its surface, and the creation of living material at its center. When it reaches a certain size, it begins to subdivide ; a minute peninsular mass begins to form, joined to the mainland, or continental cell by an isthmus of living matter. The peninsula increases in size ACTON LECTURES. 99 and the isthmus diminishes until the peninsular mass is set free and becomes an island cell in all respects like the mainland from which it was produced. This cell, like its parent, grows to a certain size and then throws off another cell like itself. Thus the process continues. In some cases the cell wall becomes so thick that the nutrient matter can not penetrate it. Under these circumstances the wall con- tinues to increase by the death of the living matter within, until the latter completely disappears and the entire cell dies and is removed from the body. Whence do these cells originate ? It is the verdict of the micro- scope, whether before atheistic, theistic or indifferent eyes, that every cell comes from a pre-existing cell. Fasten this fact in your memory — no cell except from a cell. Whence the first one ? Trace our cells back to those of our pro- genitors. Trace theirs, if you wish, by a long and tedious journey down the declivity of evolution to those of their hypothetical progen- itors — the lower animals. Trace the cells of the animals down the steeps of evolution until you arrive at the simplest form of life, out of which, by hypothesis, the whole world of hfe has been developed. Whence came those original, cells ? Had they existed forever ? Ma- terialistic science itself says no. Materialistic as well as theistic science asserts that there was a time when no life could exist on the earth. There was a time, then, when by the admission of materialism not a cell existed. Look again upon that fundamental fact : No cell ex- cept from a cell. Whence, then, came the first cell ? At this point materialistic science does what it unequivocally con- demns in Christian science. The plank of knowledge being too short to bridge the chasm between livmg and unliving matter, it deliberately steps out on the plank of faith. ''Who," says materialistic science, will set limits to the possible play of molecules in a coofing planet ? " Somehow, in the turmoil of a cooling planet, the atoms may have for- tuitously rushed together in such proportion as to give birth to- the primordial cell ! Can there be a more notable exercise of faith than this ? If the fortuitous concourse of dead atoms could give birth to life, much more ought the skill of modern chemistry to be able to produce it. But materialists as well as theists claim that there are now no cases of the spontaneous origin of life ; that is, there is no life except from pre- existing life. Dr. Maudsley, a materialist of the indifferent school, says m sub- stance : lOO ACTON LECTURES. It is not necessary that life be born now from dead matter. If nature, originally, by a mighty effort gave birth to life from dead sub- stance, it is as unnecessary that she continue this process now, as that the savage should continue to rub his sticks together to produce fire after he has obtained' the spark. The spark being obtained by the unusual effort, new fire may be easily kindled from the existing fire. Life being born by an unusual throe of nature, new life may be more easily begotten from the existing life. Now, is it not true that sticks when rubbed together produce the spark, even though the world be full of fire? And when the molecules of dead matter clash with each other they ought to give birth to life, even though the world be full of life. But the stern word of science still is : Life from life only ; a cell from a cell only. Physical force, then, being unable to produce living from not liv- ing matter, the question again recurs : Whence the first cell ? And, also, whence the Force in an existing cell that can raise dead matter to life? Matter says: "It is not in me." There is such force. If it is not in matter, it must be out of matter. This force is in man and all living organisms. Therefore, there is something in living organisms that is not matter. Return to our fundamental proposition : ' 'The whole can not be greater than the sum of its parts." You can not stretch two and two into five. Put two and two together, and before you can get five you must add one. Put matter and its laws together, and before you can get life, you must add One ; and that One is God. I propose to lead you another stage along the path of science, and again bring you face to face with God. ^ If the time shall come, as materiafistic science hopes, when spon- taneous generation of life shall be shown to be possible, the fact will not in the least invalidate the preceding argument. Nevertheless, our second stage along the path of science shall be independent of the first. I shall not, in this stage, make any assumption concerning the origin of the cell. Let its origin be as it may, does it behave like matter ? By matter, I mean what is generally understood by the term. If you define matter differently, you do not gain your point. I can prove anything if you will give me unbridled liberty in my definitions. If you define matter as a substance that thinks, I shall not raise serious objection, except on etymological grounds. Let that be the definition if )'OU wish : then a rock, a book, a chair, are not matter, for they do not think. What I urge is this, — there are two substances in the uni- verse, antipodally unlike each other, and absolutely incapable of grada- tions into each other. If you call one of them matter, you do not an- ACTON LECTURES. lOI nihilate the other. Established usage calls the rock, the chair, the book, matter. So let it be. Then the other substance I call mind. Now, I repeat the question: Let the cell originate as it may, does it behave like matter ? Fix your attention once more on the na- ture and functions of germinal matter. 1. It is absolutely identical in composition in all parts of the same body, and in all bodies. In man, lion, bird, fish, reptile, tree, shrub, flower and lichen, the germinal matter is chemically the same. 2. It is the builder of the body. 3. It is apparejitly structureless; that is, there is neither muscle, nor bone, nor nerve, nor brain in it. It is totally unlike the tissues which it builds. Now, from this substance, common to all animals and plants, and chemically the same wherever found, come forth muscle, nerve, brain, bone, tendon, artery, vein, capillary, horn, wood, bark, flower, leaf, and the countless products of Hfe. Imagine a number of undeveloped babes in all respects alike. Let it be the first moment of their existence. They are totally desti- tute of knowledge. In this condition of intellectual blankness they ac- complish wonders. Out of this emptiness one gives to the world Homer's Iliad; another, Milton's Paradise Lost; another, Cicero's Orations; and others, Hamilton's Philosophies, Mill's Logic, Butler's Analogy, Newton's Principia, La Place's Mecanique Celeste, Beetho- ven's Ninth Symphony, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Creation, Mozart's Twelfth Mass, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, the print- ing press, the steam engine, the telegraph, the telephone, What do you say ? It can not be. There is some unseen hand be- hind those unknowing babes that has brought forth these w^orks of im- mortality. And when you tell me that from the same mass of mere structureless matter the countless forms of life have come, I say it can not be. There is some force behind the cell but not of the cell that builds up the infinite varieties of life. Do you call it molecular machinery ? But can the same machine turn out pins, needles, watches, plows, household furniture, railroad iron, nails, horse shoes, pianos, French harps, printing presses, books, pen knives, reapers, and the million products of art ? Further, can a machine of its own power turn out innumerable other similar machines with similar powers ? Still further, can any machine turn out even its appropriate product without a machinist ? Molecular machinery and physical law can not turn out a single tissue. They lack a machinist. Two and two can not make five. Two and two and one make five. Structureless germinal matter and physical law can not build the tissues; they lack One, and that Oi\e is God. 102 ACTON LECTURES. Let us advance one stage further along the scientific pathway that leads to God. Here let us be independent of both the former steps. In this stage I shall not question even the power of the cell to build the vari- ous structures of life. ^ I question merely its infaUibility of knowledge. I question merely the proposition that it can never make mistakes; that it is so far reaching in its wisdom as never to build a leaf where there ought to be bark ; a root where there ought to be a trunk ; a fin where there ought to be a gill ; a nerve where there ought to be a bone ; an eye where there ought to be an ear. My credulity is not so great that I can readily beHeve that ten million million ^vorkers in different parts of the same body and in different bodies, should, without a superintendent, be so harmonious as never to clash. It is said that no sound of instruments was heard in the erection of vSolomon's Temple. When the materials were brought together al- ready wrought out, stone corresponded to stone, archway to arch, cap- ital to shaft, column to pedestal, temple to foundation. Did the work- man in the different parts of the quarry and forest have no concert of action? Did they have no plan ? Did they hew out their timbers and cut out their rock with no forecast ? And then, fortuitously, did rock fit rock in the magnificent structure? -Or was there a master architect in whose mmd the whole plan of the temple was pictured before the first blow was struck? Who taught tlie nerve builders the nature of muscular fiber that they should build nerve with the power and for the purpose of sending impulses ? Who taught the muscle builders the nature of nervous in- fluence that they should put contractility into muscular fibers ? Who taught the army of opticians the nature of light that they should con- struct an eye adapted to receive it ? Who taught the eye builders of the finny tribes the physical truth that light passing from water into the eye is not bent from its course so much as when entering it from the air, and charged them to make the crystalline lenses of the aquatic animals so much more convex than those of land animals? Who taught the heart builders the principles of hydrodynamics ; the lung builders the principles of osmose ; the ear builders the principles of acoustics ; the gland builders the principles of secretion ; in fine, who taught the countless procession of germinal workers the vast fund of knowledge that touches upon infinity ? The workmanship of the ger- minal artisans gives unmistakable evidence of far reaching design. Whose design? Not that of the workmen, for every moment they are falling at their posts by the million. The cathedral at Milan has been five centuries in building, and may not be completed for centuries to come. The workmen who laid ACTON LECTURES. 103 the first stone were long since put in their graves. Fifteen generations have put their hibor in the imposing structure. And still the work goes forward, but with a plan. Whose plan ? That of the workmen who fell at their posts? In the year 1387 the picture of that building in its completeness stood out before the mind of the master architect. What Architect laid the plan of our bodies, and of every living .thing on the land, or in air, or ocean ? Who teaches the life builders which every moment come upon the scene of labor to take the places =of their predecessors, when, and where, and how to work Whose de- sign ? Not that of the life builders. Two and two can not make five. They lack one. Life builders and physical law can not build the organism. They lack One. That One is a Designer, and that Designer is God. There is, then, in the universe a substance external to matter. That substance is what we call spirit. That Spirit is God. This being demonstrated, it is logically possible that there may be a substance in the human body external to its material organization. If so, it is the substance we call soul. Is there a soul in man ? Or is there nothing of man but the clash of atoms ? Are reason, choice, love, hope, pity, sympathy, joy, sorrow, grief, remorse, but the off- spring of molecular commotion ? Does the brain secrete thought as the stomach gastric juice? And when the brain, like the stomach, •disorganizes, will thought, like gastric juice, cease? In short, is there nothing in man but what we see ? I might at this point logically pursue the path that is frequently trodden, and demand the expression in physical terms of the various products of thought. I might demand the color of judgment, the weight of a volition, the shape of love, the length of a choice, the elas- ticity of despair, and the ductility of hope. For if thoughts, feelings and vohtions, like gastric juice, are physical products, they must, like gastric juice, be capable of physical measurement. Molecular motion in the brain may be converted into heat, and this heat in turn, when .thrown back upon the brain, will be reconverted into molecular mo- tion. Now, if molecular motion, alone, produces thought, where is the chemist that can bind that thought and hurl it back upon the brain to be reconverted into molecular motion ? But I shall not pursue this path. What does the microscope see behind the molecules in man ? It sees enough to justify the unequivocal declaration that there is a soul in man, external to his bodily organism, and essentially distinct in its nature from the atoms of his body, or from any possible combination •of those atoms. 104 ACTON LECTURES. The immovable foundation on which microscopic science builds the distinct existence of an immaterial soul in man is the continuity of consciousness. I am the same person to-day that I have been at every point of my life. I remember what occurred ten years ago. What is an act of memory ? It is the calling up of a former conception. What is my act when I remember? I call up a former conception. Whose con- ception ? My own. Then 1 must have lived at the time when I held this conception. Memory, then, necessitates self-consciousness. Self- consciousness necessitates self. The self of ten years ago and the self of to-day are one and the same. What constitutes the self? The clash of atoms ? Let the micro- scope respond. At no two successive moments in a man's life is his body the same. Several times a year some of the tissues of his body are completely changed. Every year he enters on his work with a body entirely new, unless we except a small portion of extremely durable substance ; and if he lives to a ripe age he changes his body a great number of times. What constitutes the self? The clash of atoms? But a new combination of atoms arises at each successive moment of life; and if the atoms that formed my body ten years ago were brought face to face with the present generation, they would be strangers to each other. But I recognize my former self as being absolutely my present self. During all this period the self has not changed. During this period the atoms have changed. Therefore the atom,s are not the self. This incontrovertible declaration of the microscope the materialist attempts to answer thus : The cells in which memory and conscious- ness are located, although being constantly removed from the body, are replaced by other cells that are in all points like their predecessors. The quality in a cell which constituted memory is reproduced in suc- ceeding cells. In reply to this I have to say : 1. It is mere dogma, for the microscope does not reveal its truth. 2. If it were fact, the successive cells are not identical but merely similar. I am not the similar self that I was ten years ago, but the same. If the cells were formed in perfect copy of their predecessors, they would still be different cells. I tear a page from this book and substitute another in its place. It is not the identical book. I remove page after page, and insert page after page, until the entire book has been replaced. It is a different book. What matters it though every new page have the same print on its face ? It is a different book^ ACTON LECTURES. What matters it though every new cell have the print of its predeces- sor ? It is still a different cell. But self is the same that it was ten years ago. Does the brain secrete thought as the stomach secretes gastric juice ? Then the new brain must secrete new thought. For the gas- tric juice secreted by the stomach is not identical at any two periods. The only case in w^hich it could be identical would be when in the course of one's life the identical elements might fortuitously return to the blood and be again combined in the exact order of their previous composition. But my thoughts to-day on this topic are identically what they were when I meditated upon it in my study. I have to-day the identical thoughts that I entertained twenty years ago. But my gastric juice of to-day is different from that of twenty years ago. It is an axiom of mathematics that a constant product can not result from a variable multiplier. Thought, a constant quantity, can not be the product of molecular action, a variable multiplier. In 1683, Roger Williams died, and his body was buried in the fam- ily cemetery. A few years ago, when the grave was opened, a strange transformation met the eye. An apple tree growing in the vicinity had sent its root down deep into the earth. The root pressed open the coffin lid. It grew along the form of the dead body, spreading out into arms, fingers and lower extremities, and silently robbed the coffin of its former inmate. The body was transformed into the root of an apple tree. Was that root Roger Williams ? Up through the sap went the atoms from the body of Roger WilUams and appeared on the branches as apples. The grave digger ate the apples, and a part of the molecular machinery that ceased its work when Roger Williams died was again set up in the brain of the grave digger. Suppose every atom from the coffin had been transferred to the body of the grave digger, would he have become Roger Williams ? Would the con- sciousness of Roger Williams have reappeared, and the consciousness of the grave digger have disappeared fn this exchange of molecular machinery ? The continuity and inexchangeability of consciousness in the presence of a ceaselessly changing molecular organism are Gibraltars overhanging the sea of thought, upon which an immaterial and un- changing soul walks with Godlike tread. Two and two and one make five. Molecular machinery and law and one make man, and that one is the soul. I shall present you one more glimpse of the soul. I shall lead you into the holy of holies of the human temple and bring you face to face with the glory that dwells between the cherubim. The body's io6 ACTON LECTURES. holy of holies is the nervous mechanism ; the cherubim are the cerebral hemispheres of bram, and the glory that hides there by night and by day is the soul. If it were necessary in the interests of science I might present be- fore you to-day a living frog with its brain removed. It would be ut- terly incapable of movement unless acted upon by an external agency. Imagine it here in the palm of my hand. Unless disturbed from with- out it will quietly sit there without the slightest movement. As I turn my hand it gradually climbs the inclined plane. When my hand reaches a vertical position, the frog is found quietly seated upon the edge. I continue the motion until the back of my hand is uppermost, and the frog gradually goes down the inclined plane until it secures a permanent footing. If I reverse my movements, the frog does like- wise, but it makes no motion whatever, unless it is stimulated from without. I put a drop of vinegar on its right thigh. Instantly its right foot moves to the point of irritation and rubs off the vinegar. If I hold its right foot, the other is drawn around to remove the irritant. When I remove the vinegar, the frog is quiet. In other words, a brain- less frog is a mere automaton. If I could replace the brain and restore the frog to its normal condition, it would immediately leap from my hand of its own accord and without any external excitement whatever. It would then be capable of self-movement. In other' words, a frog with brains can originate movements, while the motions of a frog with- out brains are purely automatic. A similar experiment with a bird would result similarly. A brain- less bird will be motionless unless stimulated externally. Throw it from" your hand and the resistance of the air will excite motion in its wings. It will fly directly forward till it meets some impediment. When the new external resistance gives it a new impetus, it will either drop to the ground or continue its flight in a direction determined by the impediment. A brainless bird is an automaton. A bird with brains flies, ceases flying or Changes its course without any external stimulus. You all know how a headless chicken behaves. Its violent con- tortions, which are usually, though incorrectly, supposed to be the re- sult of pain, are entirely automatic. If its head could be quietly sev- ered without disturbing the other portions of its body, the headless chicken would make no manifestations whatever. It is only when some other portion of its body is irritated by external pressure that the violent muscular action is manifested. But a chicken with a head is master of its muscular apparatus. A brainless man would also be an automaton. He would act only when acted upon by external agencies. Many of our actions are purely ACTON LECTURES. 107 .automatic. Crently touch on the l)Ottom of the foot a man who is asleep •or intently engaged upon an interesting topic of thought. He will quietly withdraw his foot without being aware of the act. (lently touch with a feather the back part of the ear of one who is wrapt in contemplation, and instantly, yet unconsciously, the hand will fly up to the ear to ■brush away the intruder. These, together with thousands of our un- perceived motions, are completely automatic. Indeed, acts that are voluntary may, by long habit, become automatic; such as the enunci- ation of sounds in talking, and the actions of the muscles in standing •or walking. Our actions, like those of the lower animals, are both • automatic and volitional. Our automatic action is less varied; our vo- litional action is more varied. We are poorer automatons than frogs, ibut much higher volitional agents. What does the microscope see of these automatic and volitional sys- tems in man ? It sees enough to place an immaterial and immortal soul between the cherubim in the holy of holies. The microscope reveals two systems of nerves, wdiich I shall term the automatic and the volitional systems. Let me first describe the automatic system. I shall substantially follow Dr. J. W. Draper, who •can not be suspected of being tinged with theology. I find a nerve at the surface of my body. I trace it through the tissues until it comes to a small knot of nervous matter. This knot is called a ganglion. The nerve leaves the ganglion, and I continue the trace until I find the other extremity •attached to a aiuscle. One extremity of the nerve is free at the -surface of the body; the other extremity is fastened to a muscle, and along its course it has passed through the ganglion of nervous substance. Keep these three things clearly before the mind: The ganglion, and "the two parts of the nerve. The portion of the nerve between the sur- face of the body and the ganglion is called an afferent nerve ; the por- tion between the ganglion and the muscle is called an efferent nerve. If that nerve be excited by electricity on either side of the ganglion, in either the afferent or the efferent portion, the muscle to which it is attached will instantly contract. The ganglion does not change the nature of the nervous force passing through it, but merely retains a portion of it, and thus becomes a reservoir of nervous influence. In some of these ganglia the force is retained permanently, and this permanent retention of the force is supposed to be the physical basis of memory. We need nothing, how- ever, for the argument but the elementary facts. Stimulus at the free extremity of a nerve appears as motion at the other extremity. External •irritation here causes motion yonder. io8 ACTON LECTURES. But this system of nerves never originates motion. Motion in the- muscles, through the automatic system, must be originated without. This system, in itself, is absolutely inert. Thus far man is only an. automaton. Do not lose sight of the fact that the automatic system is motionless and passive in the absence of the proper external agency to excite it. The apparatus of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch is. wholly automatic. It must be excited by the appropriate external agency. Light sets in motion the automatic machinery of the eye; sound, that of the ear ; odor, that of the nose ; and resistance, that or touch. By no possible means can these agencies exchange functions. Waves of light will not affect the ear ; waves of sound will not aifect the eye ; and neither of these will affect either taste, smell or touch. Let me again insist that these external systems are automatic and be- yond the reach of the will. We can not see in the darkness nor hear silence, however vigorously we may will to do so. These mechan- isms are passive, and only to be set in motion by the appropriate external causes. This, then, is the automatic system in man, consisting of free af- ferent nerves, ganglia and attached efferent nerves. Does the microscopic vision cease here ? No. It peers behind the brain itself and finds the other system of nerves that I have called the volitional system. Now, mark ! There is a similarity between the mechanism of the volitional and that of the automatic system. In botli systems there are free afferent nerves; there are ganglia; there are at- tached efferent nerves. The resemblance is complete. Now, if the automatic system is inert, ' so is the volitional system. If the automatic system can not originate its own motion, neither can the vo- litional system originate its own motion. If the automatic system be- fore it can manifest any change must be acted upon by an external agency, so must the volitional system be acted upon by an agency ex- ternal to itself before it can manifest change. For one is no more inert than the other. Facts demonstrate that the automatic system is. inert without an external stimulus ; therefore, the volitional system, which is no less inert, and yet which manifests movements, is acted upon by some external agent. We call that agent the soul. Its dwell- ing place is between the cherubim in the holy of holies. Pass a current of electricity through the automatic system : you produce muscular motion. May it not, then, be electricity that excites, the volitional system to action ? Test it. Put your battery in opera- tion. Carefully make your connections. Send the swift current through the brain. Lo ! the muscles of the volitional system do not ACTON LECIURES. respond. They have been accustomed to receive mandates from a higher and holier voice. A mightier power than electricity sits between the cherubim. It is the soul. As Lazarus came forth from the grave, not at the tears and cries 3ind words of his stricken sisters, but at the Divine Voice that in the beginning said, " Let there be light," so the motionless muscle in the volitional system springs into life, not at the clash of atoms or the elec- tric flash, but at the Godlike voice of the soul. An external agent is necessary to set in motion the automatic mechanism of the eye. That agent we call light. An external agent is equally necessary to set in motion the equally inert mechanism of the volitional system. That agent we call the soul. From the convex- ity of the eye, its humors, its retma and other portions, the physicist -determines, in part at least, the nature of light. From the structure of the volitional system, the physiologist no less certainly demonstrates, in part, the nature of the soul. As the convexity of the eye demon- strates the refrangibility of light, so the complicated structure of the volitional system demonstrates the intellect, the feeling, and the will of the soul. The soul must have intellect to perceive the intricate rela- tions of the mechanism ; feeling, as the spring of action ; and will, to carry into execution its purposes concerning the mechanism. The microscope, then, furnishes the same evidence of the exist- ence of the soul that our senses furnish of the existence of an external world. Is there an external world acting upon the eye, the ear and the various organs of sense ? Then there is an external essence acting upon the brain, and that essence is the soul. But what of its immortality ? Will the agent that sets in motion the volitional machinery continue to exist after the machinery has been taken down? Do waves of light cease when the eye is closed in death ? Does the air cease to vibrate when the ear has decayed in the grave ? Does the external world rush into non-existence when the automatic nervous mechanism is taken apart ? Then by analogy — which is, after all, mankind's universal mode of argument — the substance that sets in mo- tion the volitional machinery may exist after the brain has returned to aggage is too difficult to encourage luxury. I have known gentlemen to travel hundreds of miles with no other impediment than a satchel con- taining a change of linen swinging over the shoulder. There are three regular lines of steamers from England to Nor- , * way. One goes to Christiania on the southeast. Another goes at long 1 12 ACTON LECTURES. intervals to Trondhjem on the northwest coast. A third goes to Bergen on the west coast. We chose the last of the^e routes, and on the evening of the 20th of July we went on board the litde steamer Argo at Hull on the northeast coast of England. When the sun went down we were out on the yellow waters of the Humber, and the next morn- ing, we were far out of sight of land on the North Sea, bound on a journey of several hundred miles. As we progressed we entered the open Atlantic where it sweeps almost unbroken between British America and Norway. These are the waters over which, a thousand years ago, the Northmen sailed to Greenland and to what is now New England, or swept down upon the coasts of England and South- ern Europe with their viking expeditions. Now they are peculiarly lonely even for the sea. Between land and land we scarcely saw a craft of any kind. Seldom was even a sign of animal life visible, except on our own ship. The sea, which in that region is often the scene of terrific storms, was as calm as a river, and so continued throughout the whole journey. This gave the passengers a better opportunity to become acquainted with each other. These vessels are often crowded to excess, in the midsummer, with English and Scotch people who are going to Norway for rest, recreation or business. We had a full quota but were not crowded. All except my companion and myself were either Britons or Norwegians. The quantity of roast beef, mutton, beer and brown stout which they made away with was a sight to behold. But I must say that they were as courteous and kind as could be wished. Some of them were men of culture and wide information. Our pleasant talks about America, Britain, Norway, the questions of the day, and the literature of the past and present are among my most cherished memo- ries of the whole journey. I would like exceedingly to see some of those robust forms and faces again in this world. But that is a wish not likely to be gratified. We meet and pass each other like ships at sea, not to cross each other's tracks again on this side of eternity. On the forenoon of the third day we came in sight of the land for which we were bound. The Norwegians have a myth of this kind : They say that when the Almighty was making the world, the Devil be- came very angry ; and in his wrath he gathered all the stones which he could find and threw them there. They fell into the ocean in the neighborhood of Norway and made the west coast of that country. I am sure that the appearance of things is in favor of this myth. The greater part of Norway consists of a connected mountain mass, which in the southern and western parts constitutes one continuous tract of rocky highlands with steep declivities dipping into the sea, and only ACTON LECTURES. here and there a tract of arable land. This southern and western coast must be well nigh fifteen hundred miles in length. Along it are scat- tered several millions of islands, varying in size from a few feet to many square miles. They are simply fragments broken from the mountain range of the mainland. .Steamers, when passing along the coast, usually take an inside course which is often fifteen or twenty miles from the ocean ; so that although storms may be rolling the waves mountain high out there, they are traversing waters which are as smooth as a pond. These islands usually are barren rocks with pre- cipitous and even perpendicular sides, sometimes rising to a height of several thousand feet. This sort oi scenery culminates among the Lofodens just within the Arctic Circle. There the islands greatly in- crease in number and size, and extend in a group out an acute angle with the mainland for about one hundred and forty miles to the south- west. It was near the extremity of them which jUts the farthest into the Atlantic that the geographers used to locate the marvelous whirl- pool known as Maelstrom. They described the process by which logs, boats, bears, men and even ships were there ruthlessly swallowed. The maps even pictured the scene. It seems almost a pity to be compelled to say that the only foundation for these stories is a rapid and noisy, and somewhat dangerous passage between two of the islands. Here, however, are other sources of interest. This is, and has been for seven centuries, the great fishing-ground of the Norwegians. In the early spring the waters are darkened with cod ; and as many as three thou- sand small vessels, with an average of five men on each of them, come to take the harvest Here was the home of Hans Egede, who has be- come so widely known as the founder of the mission in Greenla'nd. Here, too, the island scpnery reaches its climax of grandeur. Some of the islands are four thousand to five thousand feet high, with sides so steep that not even the snow can find lodgment on them, and are of the most fantastic shapes. Together with the waters which they em- bosom, they present scenery the like of which is not to be beheld else- where in the world. At first sight it seemed to be a land of desolation which we were approaching. Here and there a few firs clinging to the mountains, or a little meadow of an acre or two in extent could be seen. A rude house now and then is visible, but mostly built on the rock with- out a speck of vegetation. A scanty subsistence is obtained for the occupants by fishing. Occasionally a clumsy, high-proned water craft comes into sight, and by its appearance, excepting the absence of oars, reminds us of the pictures of vessels which sometimes illustrate ele- U4 ACTON LECTURES. mentary histories of ancient Greece and Rome. As we coast north- ward, with the telescope and even with the naked eye you can catch a glimpse of vast snow fields, with glaciers which sometimes approach within two thousand feet of the level of the sea. But in spite of its desolation, on this coast three of the four prin- cipal cities of Norway — Stavanger, Bergen and Trondhjem — are lo- cated. They owe their existence to the fisheries and the commerce of the sea. It was not long until our steamer made its first landing at Stavanger, a place of about ten thousand inhabitants, and in appear- ance a fair sample of these cities. The houses are mostly of wood, — weather-boarded, and painted red or white. The roofs are covered with red tiles. The streets are steep and often crooked. Some very pleasant looking residences, and a venerable church with a handsome yard about it, stand at one end of town. The Norwegians are passion- ate lovers of flowers. The pots filled with various species of them in the windows of the better houses are an attractive indication of re- finement. Having resumed our voyage, we passed a monument recently erected to the memory of Harald Haefagr, who, about the year 860, by a great naval victory in the neighborhood, defeated the petty kings among whom Norway hitherto had been divided, and united it under himself in a single kingdom. Near midnight we cast anchor in the harbor of Bergen. Late as it was, there was a beautiful twilight, so dis- tinct that it would have been easy to read any ordinary print without a candle. This absence of any real night affords one of the strangest im- pressions received by visitors from more southern regions. The sun at Bergen in midsummer does not really set until about nine o'clock, and it rises again at three. There is no real night in the interval, but only a sort of mellow twilight. The opposite of this, the long night of mid- winter, is the feature of their country concerning which the Norwe- gians are most disposed to admit its inferiority. Even they have to acknowledge that it is gloomy. In the twilight of midnight we chaffer with the boatman who takes us ashore for a few copper coins — skillings — and are soon in a room at the hotel. There, one of the things which strike the eye is the im- mensely high and elaborately ornamented stove. But the beds are still more odd. There is one apiece. Imagine an old fashioned cradle, minus the rockers, and you have a picture of the contrivance in its height and breadth and general appearanee. The pillow is wedge- shaped and is calculated to give anybody a stiff neck who lays his head upon the inclined plane which it presents. Blessed be the man who AdTON LECtURfeS. invented sleep, as Sancho Panzasays; but this does not include the man who nivented the Norwegian bedstead. Bergen is an old town, having been founded about eight hundred years ago; and it has been very prominent in the past governmental and commercial affairs of the country. It was out of the harbor of this city, also, that Hans Egede sailed for Greenland one hundred and fifty years ago. This was the birth-place of Holberg, the dramatist, and J believe also of Dahl, the great landscape painter. This also is the original home of Ole Bull. His father was a chemist at Bergen. He sent his son to Christiania to be educated for the ministry, but the heart of the young man was set on the violin and his musical proclivities so far in- terfered with his studies that when, in an emergency, he took charge of the orchestra in a theater, matters came to a crisis and he left the uni- versity for a southern clime. After passing through many hardships he finally rose to fame and fortune. Then he came back to Bergen and brought his Parisian wife with him with the intention of making that city their home, but he got into difficulty with the powers that be and left for a home in our own country. Bergen has about 35,000 inhabitants and, in point of commerce, is the first city of Norway. Its trade is various, but it consists more largely in dried fish and cod liver oil than in any other articles. It is said that in the harbor in the early spring as many as six hundred small vessels may be seen which have come hither with the fish, peltry and feathers of the winter's harvest at the north. The export of stock fish— dried cod — alone is said to amount in value each year to four or five millions of dollars. Perhaps the most remarkable thing in Bergen is its two hospitals for lepers. This terrible disease prevails to a considerable extent in these northern regions. Its existence is attributed to the almost ex- clusive use of a diet of salt fish by many of the people. It may be that this is in part the cause, but it is probable that the dreadful filth in which many of the poorer classes live is at least an aggravating if not a producing cause. To these hospitals at Bergen the sufferers are brought. One of them is for those who are in the more advanced stage of the disease, and the other for those in whom it has only begun its ravages. It is noteworthy that it is claimed that cures have been wrought in recent years. If so, this is indeed a triumph of medical skill. Once it was said by a King in Israel, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy." When John the Bapdst asked of Jesus whether he was the Christ, he sent him word that by him "the lepers are cleansed." If now medical skill has triumphed over leprosy it does not invalidate the u6 ACTON LECTURES. proof to which Christ of old appealed to convince John of his deity, but it does show the wonderful advance which this science has made in modern times. When we awoke in Bergen the sun was shining brightly into our room. This was a pleasant surprise, for it is wise at that season always to expect rain there. The waters of the ocean come up from the south and are comparatively warm even in winter. The average temperature on the Haidanger and Logue Fjords, which are not very far away, is about forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. But the mountains clad with per- petual snow descend to the coast, and Bergen is set down in the midst of them. The consequence is that the atmosphere is so humid that Bergen weather is a by-word. Bayard Taylor says that when a Dutch skipper meets a Norwegian captain, he asks, *'Is it still raining at Ber- gen?" The usual response is, ^'Yes ; is it still blowing at the Texel? ' The average of rainy days is set down at two hundred. The climate of the whole of the west of Norway is of the same character, so that an India-rubber overcoat and hat are an almost indispensable outfit for a tour. It so happened that this season there was a drouth, the effects of which were bitterly felt in the interior. As we passed along the people were gathering the leaves of the birch to feed the cattle in the winter on account of the scanty yield of hay. The day was the Sabbath. The religion of the country is, with very slight exceptions, Lutheran of the old and high type. The church is established by the government. At the head of the clergy are five bishops who are presented to their sees by the King, through the Min- isters of Ecclesiastical Affairs, and with the consent of the Council of State. These bishops are located in different parts of the country, and have the oversight of religious affairs in their respective dioceses. Un- der them are the clergy at large, who are also nominated to their liv- ings by the government, and are supported by tithes. The whole country is divided into 341 parishes. Inasmuch as the population approximates to one million and three-quarters, it will be seen that the average of people in each is 5,000. In some parts of the country these are scattered over immense regions. On the west coast there are churches which are not considered to be neglected if they are visited by the pastor four times in a year. The first religious service for an orthodox Norwegian is baptism in infancy. Between the age of fourteen and sixteen every youth is expected to be confirmed, unless he is excused on the ground of dissent from the national church. Confirmation, although in itself a purely religious rite, and supposed merely to complete the induction of mem- bers into the church, really extends its influence far into secular affairs. ACTON LECTURES. 117 Without it no official position can be held under the government. The King himself must be a member in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and no Norwegian can hold the humblest office unless he has been con- firmed. The rite is regarded as a passport to the humblest positions of private trust. It is not uncommon to see in the newspapers such an advertisement as this : ^'A confirmed cook wanted!'^ The ceremony of absolution also is retained, and always precedes the administration of the Lord's Supper, though no confession of sins is required. When in the Supper the pastor gives the unleavened wafer, which is substi- tuted for bread, he says: ''This is the true body of the Lord Jesus Christ ; " and when he gives the wine, he says : * * This is the true blood of the Lord Jesus Christ." In other words, they have retained the doc- trine to which Luther so strongly held, that the real body and blood of Christ are in with and under the substance of the bread and wine which still remains. In foreign lands it has always been my custom to go to church on Sabbath when practicable. Inasmuch as there was no English service, I made my way to the cathedral. The Sabbath in Norway is regarded as beginning on Saturday evening and extending to the following evening. The mass of the people go to church, when they have the opportunity, in the morning. The cathedral was crowded. Some were compelled to stand in the aisles. The singing was led by an or- gan, and was greatly prolonged. The tune was in a minor key, and often had a singular wailing sound. There was not much harmony among the voices, but there was plenty of volume. In front of the pulpit burned two huge wax candles. Around the sides of the church were placed figures of Christ and of other sacred persons. The minis- ter was dressed in a black gown, with a white frilled ruff about his neck, such as were worn in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The afternoon of the Sabbath seemed to be almost universally employed for the purpose of a holiday. There were a few stores which were open for business. The multitude were out upon the hills, or on the water, or on the streets. This is the custom of the country. The morning of the Sabbath is given to worship, and the afternoon to pleasure. The clergy follow the same rule as that of the people. One thing I was glad to observe. The tippling-places were all closed. The law of Norway requires that they shall be shut on Satur- day evening, and not opened again until Monday morning. In that particular this far-away land is in advance of the rest of Europe, and even of our own country. When, on Monday, I was making preparation for our journey through the interior, I was brought into contact with some phases of Il8 ACTON LECTURES. Norwegian character which are very striking. A sturdy independence is perfectly apparent. You meet with none of that crouching subserv- iency of manner which is so common among the humbler classes in' many parts of Europe, and which is often so disgusting to an Amer- ican. The Norwegians in their whole manner show that they consider that one man at least may be as good as another, no matter by what they may be distinguished as to worldly position. There is no obse- quiousness among them ; but they are as polite as they are independ- ent. This quality is carried to an extent which is a constant surprise to most foreigners. When a shop is entered by a gentleman, he re- moves his hat and does not replace it until he is again on the street. When two gentlemen pass each other they salute — not with a tip of the hat, but by a complete removal of it from the head. Even the ragged little urchins, whom you pass on the roads of the remote in- terior, remove the covering of their heads to you. The Norwegians, when treated with proper courtesy, are as kind as they are polite. Our landlord spent hours in traversing Bergen in order to provide for the little things which his guests would need for their comfort when trav- eling in the interior. They also are an intelligent people. The num- ber of those who have received a very high degree of education is not very large. But the proportion of these is fair; and rudimentary ed- ucation is almost universal. It is a rare thing to meet a Norwegian who can not read and write. Their independence of character is native to those mountains and seas. The Norwegians never were slaves or vassals, although they have had their periods of subjection to foreign powers. To-day their government is one of the most democratic in all Europe. They have a king — the same who rules over Sweden. But they acknowledge no subjection to the stronger country. The tie which binds is a mere confederation, and the power of the king is hedged on every side. All the males who are over twenty-five years of age, and who own one hundred And fifty dollars' worth of property, are voters. They choose a legislature, which is able to pass laws over the veto of the king. There is a Council of State, consisting of eight Norwegians. Only with their consent can he declare war or make peace, or exercise other executive functions. The one dark spot on the record of Liberty here is the absence of complete religious toleration. The Lutheran is the established church, and it is only within very recent times that dis- senters were allowed to be recognized as having any legal existence. Even now, they labor under numerous disadvantages. No one who is not a member of the established church can hold even the humblest office. ACTON LECTURES. 119 — not even that of a policeman. In a multitude of ways, dissenters — of whom there are a few, principally Baptists and Methodists — are sub' jected to annoyance and restrictions. The popular intelligence is due to the system of public instruction which is established by law. It is made compulsory that from the seventh year of age until confirmation the children shall be sent to school a part of the time. The instruction may be given privately, but if not, they must go to the government school. These last are supported partly by an assessment on property and partly by a fee paid to the teacher. One curious feature of the system is an itineracy, by which, in the sparsely settled districts, the teacher goes from house to house to give instruction. At each house a room must be furnished for the purpose and he must be properly entertained. By such means it has come to pass that there is less abject ignorance in that wild, moun- tainous wintry land than in almost any other in the world. The next stage of our journey lay up the fjords toward the in- terior. These fjords are arms of the sea which reach back from the main ocean into the heart of the land. It will be borne in mind that on the west coast the whole country is a mountainous range pushed up against the sea. The islands are merely fragments broken away from it. Na- ture in thc-^e convulsions, to which she has been subjected in past ages, has caused to be made in this range wide rifts, which, in their general course, are from east to west, and which, as to their depth, extend down to the level of the sea. These being filled with the waters of the ocean constitute the fjords. Now, of these we had our choice of the Haidanger or of the Sogue. The Haidanger is the most frequented by visitors. The Norwegians admire it because of the green vales which are scattered along it, and which, to them, present an attractive contrast with the usual ruggedness of their country. Their poets sing about it. Their wedding parties go to it as ours go to Niagara. In its appearance there is also much wonderful scenery. The English go thither to see the scenery arid to hunt and fish. But the Sogue is the longer of these two fjords. It also, at its head, presents some of the most marvelous veins on earth. Nowhere is there any more character- istic Norwegian scenery. Besides, it put us well on our way toward Christiania. In length the Sogue must be altogether near one hundred and fifty miles, so we selected that fjord. The course of the little steamer Fjallr was first to the northwest for several hours before the mouth of the Sogue was reached. This part of the journey differed from that over which we had passed to the south, before reaching Bergen, only as to the still more rugged appear- ance of the islands and the extreme narrowness of some of the chan- I20 ACTON LECTURES. riels through which we made , our way. We had on board, besides ourselves, a young Scotchman bound on a hunting e.xpedition in the interior. Everybody else was Norwegian. The captain, however, had been in the United States and spake good English. Among our Nor wegian passengers was the highest military officer in the country, and Bergen being a fcjrtilied town, as we left the harbor we were saluted with gun after gun until it might have been supposed that we were startmg on some modern viking expedition which had for its object the the conquest of England or the discovery of America. it was about noon when our steamer entered the Sogue and headed toward the east. With noon came dinner. It consisted in part of dishes which were strange to me, but as is the case on all the west coast, very largely of salmon. We had smoked salmon; we had pickled salmon ; we had plenty of boiled salmon with the usual sauce of melted butter. It is a dish fit to set before the king. Cold water was to be had as a beverage. Norwegians, however, largely use the mild beer, which is brewed in the country. Wine also is common, though, of course, it is im])orted. Custom requires that the passengers should wail before taking their seats until the captain enters. He bows to them and they bow to him. Then he says, " F^r so goot,'' (be so good) and motions them to be seated. His place is at the head of the table. When the dinner is over custom requires that the pass- engers should say to the captain as they rise, ''Tak for fuead'' (thanks for meat), and to bow to him and to each other. Of course where there is much foreign travel these customs are not fully observed : still, as far as practicable, they are not ignored. The afternoon and night were spent in ascending the Sogue. The mountains in its lower course come down so abruptly to the waters that little vegetation is visible. Savage precipices of solid rock rise on every side, destitute almost entirely of trees unless it be here and there a few firs, and tipped with perpetual snow. Few people live along the fjord. Only at long intervals could a house be seen amid a speck of green. The waters of the fjord are constantly broken by promontories and islands. Our young Scotch friend joined with us in puzzling ourselves often to know whither the way of the steamer led. Sometimes it would seem to be impossible that there was any exit, but suddenly we would turn a corner and be out on a lake which would spread itself in every direction. The little village of Laerdalsoren, where we disembarked, owes its existence to the fact that it is the point at which one of the two wagon roads across Norway strike the navigable waters of the west. It contains, perhaps^ a couple of hun.dred inhabitants, which is. a large ACTON LECTURES. 121 number to be collected together in that region. There are in it a half- dozen neat looking little weather-boarded houses, painted white. The remainder of the dwellings are miserable log cabins, scattered, without any regularity of streets. L am bound to say that in them and outside of them there were signs of filthiness which was appalling. Bayard Taylor pronounces the very poor people in the interior of Norway the dirtiest in all Europe as to their mode of living. My own observation is quite in harmony with this opinion. For their poverty they can not be blamed, but for their filthiness there is no excuse. The only miti- gation which the traveler finds is here and there a little hotel or station, or private house, which is neat and clean, and which, by its contrast, is like an oasis with wells and palm trees in the midst of a desert. About Laerdalsoren there is a narrow valley consisting of a few acres of tillable land shut in by savage mountains. The products are oats, barley, potatoes and grass. It was harvest when we were there, and men and women were busy in the little fields. The sun is not hot and the air is humid, and, as a consequence, it is not easy to dry the hay or the grain. In order to assist the process little frameworks of poles, like the panels of fence, are set up in the fields, and the grass is hung loosely over them. Stakes are driven into the ground and about them the barley and oats are tied and so cured by the sun. As I watched the harvesting and saw the difficulty with which a scanty subsistence was wrung from the soil, I wondered that the people did not, in a body, forsake such a country and seek a new home in some region of the world where nature repays human labor with a more bountiful hand. Yet the Norwegians have an intense love for these fjords and mountains and narrow valleys. Multitudes have emigrated to the United States and could not be persuaded to return to their old homes; but 1 have also met there intelligent men who have visited America and various other parts of the world, and yet have come back because they preferred to spend their lives in that lonely and desolate land. From Laerdalsoren we made an excursion up the arms into which the Sogue divides itself at its head. A little steamer in the season for travel plies backward and forward* That day I shall never forget, for it enabled me to see some of the most stupendous scenery in all the wide world. As you proceed the mountains become higher and higher, and their sides are constantly nearer to an absolute perpendicular. By and by, it is not often that a house can find a place where it can cling to the rocks. Somewhere here is the Valley of V'ettie Giel. It is so inaccessible that the path which leads to it is called the Dead Man's Ride," because, when any of the inhabitants die, the corpse can not be carried along the narrow paths by which it must be taken to the t22 ACTON LECTURES. place of burial. Instead of this the dead body is mounted on the back of one of the Httle ponies of the country, the legs are tied under the horse's belly and so the funeral is accomplished. In some places there is not even a path for a horse. When one of the inhabitants die they have to lower the dead body by means of ropes. I have in that region seen wires stretched from the sides of the mountains to some level spot below, and I discovered, after a good deal of puzzling, that by them the grass was brought from the mountain sides. The bundles are fast- ened upon them and then slid to the bottom. But we come at length to a point where human habitations are no longer possible. The fjord, in the direction in which we are going, separates into two branches — the Aurlands and the Noereus. At the point of division, and in the angle between them, springs up a single rocky buttress a thousand feet high. We turn up the Noereus. Higher and higher rise the mountains, and become, if possible, nearer perpen- dicular, not on one side alone but upon both, and in an unbroken chain in either direction. Here and there only is a lonely fir or a tuft of grass. On the heights are vast fields of snow. Immense glaciers for a moment reveal themselves in the distance. Now we reach a point where the scene is such that no words can give any conception ot its aw- ful grandeur. On either side the bare mountains of solid gray rock rise to a height of perhaps five thousand feet. We turn a slight bend and there is the Keel Foss, a water-fall, which, in three leaps, comes down two thousand feet. It is not a large stream, but it is one of the marvels of earth because of its height and the beauty of its descent. These fosses, or water-falls, are among the greatest attractions of Norwegian scenery. All along the Noereus the snows melt on the plateaus above and spill themselves over the precipices into the fjord below. The Voring Foss, in the region of the Haidanger, is one of the grandest on earth. A vast volume of water descends in a sheet by a single leap of eight hundred or nine hundred feet. Bayard Taylor has pronounced the Rinkan Foss. which is half way across the country between the Haidanger and Christiania, the most beautiful cataract in the world. % We landed at Gudvaugen, where there is a neat little hotel, and where, among other delicacies, we had the wild red strawberries, which are found here just as among the Alps. We wandered up the valley known as the Noerdal — one of the most famous in Europe. It is what wc would call a canyon, a continuation of the rift which below consti- tutes the fjord. The sides rise two thousand feet. Beautiful cascades leap down these precipices for hundreds of feet. Below is space enough for a foaming stream and a road, strewn, however, with vast ACTON LECTURES. 123 pieces of rocks. This canyon continues for miles, and at last, by a triumph of engineering, the road overhanging fearful precipices, leads up to the plateau above. The only drawback to this stupendous scenery is its savageness and solitude. These at times become oppressive. One misses the softness which steals over the most rugged peaks and precipices of Switzerland. Savage, awful, overwhelming is the prospect. And oh, how lonely ! Norway is a land of silence. Even the people seldom speak loud. The steamers on the fjords are landed almost without a word. It would break one of our Western captain's heart to see the thing done so quietly. And among the mountains there is the stillness of death. I wonder that some of the people do not become insane. But in spite of all this, earth does not afford scenery more worthy of a visit. The third stage of our journey was from the head of the Sogue at LaerdaLsoren to lake Mjosen, on the east of Norway — a distance of about one hundred and seventy-five miles. The road leads across the mountains — one day up the western slope, another to traverse the broad plateau on the top, to which the name of Fille Fjeld is applied, and another to descend the eastern declivity. Between the two extrem- ities which I 'have mentioned there is now a highway, which, with the exception of the unavoidable up and down grade, has not its superior in all Europe, in view of the region through which it passes, it is a constant marvel. Along its whole length there is not a village ; and for the greater part of it. only at long intervals can a human hal)itation be seen. Often the bed has to be hewn out of the solid rock of the mountains. For long distances the whole surface of the earth is such a mass of rock that the telegraph poles are fastened in a framework of masonry, because they could not be inserted in the ground. The road was built by the government, and was designed to connect the West with the capitol ; very much as the great National Road of our country was intended to unite our West with the Eastern cities, and especially with Washington. It is free from toll. Rut marvelous as is this high- way, it is about to be eclipsed by a railway along the same general route. Already a good deal of the work has been done. The cost will be enormous; but it is an enterprise of the government, and will be carried to completion. Over this road, no line of public conveyances runs. This is true also of all the other roads of the country. But the government has made provision of another sort for travelers. Certain of the little mountain farm-houses along the route are designated as siations. They are separated from each other by distances varying from six to twelve 124 ACTON LECTURES. miles, according to circumstances. Each of these must be provided with a few carioles and horses. When the traveler enters one of them he finds a book in which he writes his name, and the number of horses and carioles which he needs, and the time of his departure. In the same book also he can enter complaint, if he chooses, for any fault in his treatment during the previous stage of his journey; and it is sup- posed that it will be duly considered by the officials. If the station is designated as fast^ he can not be detained longer than half an hour, unless all the horses and carioles are on the road. Then he must wait until they return, and must give half an hour for rest. At a slow station, the limit of the law allows him to be detained three hours. It will be seen that to get started from one of these stations is at best a tardy process. But there is not much use to try to hurry the men. They will be ready strax — immediately ; but that may mean not less than half an hour. After the preparation is completed, you mount the cariole. It is a two-wheeled conveyance, drawn by one horse, and liolds one person. The fore part of it stretches out upon the shafts and attempts to furnish room for your legs in that direction. If you do not like to have them cramped, you can allow them to hang over the side. The back part of the cariole contains a single seat, and is shaped very much like the end of a canoe. You drive yourself. There is a little board behind where you can fasten a vahse, and on it the boy who goes with you to bring back the horse sits or stands. You ■drive to the next station, and there pay the boy for the conveyance ; and he, having first shaken hands with you, goes back with it to the place from which it came. At each station the same process which I have described has to be repeated. When there are many travelers, a little cart is called into use in order to supplement the deficiency in carioles. It was our good fortune to be able to hire a small Norwegian car- riage, which had been sent out to meet some person who had failed to come. Our driver was a good-natured Norwegian, whose English vocabulary consisted of the words stoppen a leetle. Stop he did, whenever he could find a countryman who would halt to listen to him. The horses were rested at every station ; but whenever he came to the top of a hill, he was sure to make up the delay. The horses were small and hardy. The carriage was light. Down we would rush at a speed which was astonishing to us, but which seemed to be hugely enjoyed by both the driver and his team. On the way the first day we passed the old Borgund church — an exceedingly quaint structure, said to have been erected in th.e begin- ning of the Eleventh Century. It is constructed of the red Norwegian ACTON LECTURES. pine, and is thickly coated with tar. In appearance, it is exceedingly grotesque — not unlike a Chinese pagoda. On the roof are horns, which are said to be traces of the old mythology, which was just disap- pearing when this church was built. Toward the top of the mountain, occasionally a saeter may be seen. In the summer the cattle are driven up the mountains, as the snow melts and the grass grows. The population in part goes with them, to care for them and to make the butter and cheese. In the evenings the cattle, by the sound of a long horn, are collected and driven into an enclosure, where they may be safe for the night. Con- nected with this enclosure is a rude structure in which the people tem- porarily live, and where the milk is manufactured into its products. I have read some very romantic descriptions of the scenes to be wit- nessed at these mountain abodes in summer, particularly as beheld on a Saturday evening, when the young men come to dance with the young maidens. I can only say that so far as I observed them, they exhibited an appalling want of neatness. If cleanliness there is next to godliness, I am afraid that godliness is in a very low condition. There was not even any music in the cow-bells. The sweetest sounds which one can hear is the tinkling of the many-voiced bells on the necks of the cows among the Alps. Here they give forth nothing but a dull sound. But the men and women who spend the summer in these lonely solitudes ought not to be too swiftly condemned. They deserve our sympathy. The wonder is that they are willing so long to exile themselves for the small remuneration which they receive. There are no hotels on this road; and the stations furnish the best accommodations which can be had. The food is always plain, and not always the best. As soon as the fjords are left behind, the salmon ceases ; though brook trout can sometimes be had. Commonly, the only meat is venison, which has been killed in the season and potted for use when foreign travel sets in. It occasionally is a little high in its flavor, but it is tender, and not unpleasant to the taste. Eggs can nearly always be obtained. Black Norwegian cheese is usually on the table, but it is so wretchedly strong that the natives themselves cut in very thin sHces and eat it on their bread. White bread can be had along the great highway, but with it is always placed before you the black bread, which is made largely of oat meal, rolled into sheets and baked at long intervals. Tea and coffee are always available. The majority of the stations are clean. Very few of them are neat. Some of them compel you to hold your nose when you enter. Usually they consist of one or more low log or weather- boarded houses, with numerous rambling out-buildings, among which 126 ACTOK LEClURES. carts and carioles are strewn in delightful confusion. Sometimes yolf will see nailed up the skins of bears and other wild animals, which re- mind the traveler that there are seasons of the year when he would need to be properl}' armed to })ass through portions of this region in perfect safety. In summer there is no danger. Sometimes you will see a pair of leather breeches, which, by tlie accumulated filth of years, convince you that they must have come down from other gen- erations. But the people are always kind, if you treat them properly. Often they will astonish you by speaking English. Prices also are marvelousl}- low. A dollar and a half a day will cover all expenses, except your hire for conveyance, which is also cheap. The scenery on the Fille Fjeld is seldom striking when compared with that of the fjords. On the top of the mountains there are often considerable areas of comparatively level ground, rarely, however, under cultivation. Usually a line of rugged hills is near at hand on either side of the road. There are numerous small lakes — some of them so deep that no bottom has ever been found by sounding. I re- member only one view which was really very grand. It is at the point where the top of the mountain in the ascent from the west is fairly reached. It is between the sixty-first and sixty-second degree of north latitude, and about four thousand feet above the level of the sea. A little companv of us. from different parts of the globe, who happened to be thrown together to spend the night at the lonely station, climbed the mountain — Skaggenosen — close at hand, to behold the setting sun. It was a steep ascent of another thousand feet. By hard toil we reached the desired point. About us the ground was pardy covered with snow and partly with the luxuriant growth of moss on which the reindeer feed in winter. Trees there were none. A sprinkling of flowers was visible, among them a delicate forget-me-not. A little further away were some miniature lakes. Beyond, in the distance, was the great Joteen Mountain and its companions — one of them lifting its head more than eight thousand feet abo\ e the level of the sea and all of them clothed with perpetual snow. It was about nine o'clock. As we looked the sun descended behind those distant mountains, itself a glorious sight. But for that occasion he added other splendors. As he went down he lit those snow-clad peaks with the real Alpine glow. It burned as in the fire. It was yellow like gold. It changed from hue to hue. I saw that ineffable sight first from the top. of Righi in Switzerland. 1 saw it last frqm Skaggenosen in Norway. Never shall I forget either view. As soon as those splendors faded away we were glad, in all haste, to escape from the w^intry winds which were blowing on those heights. ACTON LECTURES. t27 On the eastern slope of the mountain the rocky precipices and snowy peaks of the west gradually are left behind. Vast forests of pine and fir, among which the winds make mournful music, clothe the hills and valleys. The stations improve. At last, as you approach the Mjosen, many a pleasant landscape variagated with woods and fields and comfortable dwellings meets the eye. The Sabbath we spent at a little village called Gjorik, by the shores of the Mjosen. 'Thence the next stage of our journey was partly by steamer over the lake, and partly by rail, onward toChristiania. The Mjosen is a handsome sheet of water, about fifty miles in length, and in breadth from two to twelve miles. The shores slope gradually down to the water, and are studded with comfortable looking farm houses, mostly painted a reddish color. Occasionally a bit of woods comes down to the water. At Eidsvold one of the four little railroads of the country begins. The cars are after the usual European pattern — separated into apartments and marked for different classes. In one point they excel. Ours was a fast train. From Eidsvold to Christiania the distance is about forty miles, and we made it in three hours. But, after a trip over the North Sea, up the fjords of Norway, across the i mountains and down the lake, it was a joy to be in any kind of a rail- way car, and to travel even at such comparatively slow speed. There was something home-like about it. So we jogged along, among hills, sometimes rugged and sometimes gently rolling, until toward evening, when we disembarked at the capital. Christiania is a city of seventy thousand people. It has some fine buildings and streets. The scenery has a mixture of both land and water. It is the capital of the country, the seat of the university, and a gr^at commercial center. I would be glad to speak at length of it, and then of a journey onward to Stockholm, and thence to Copenha- gen and Hamburg. But, for the present, I shall bid you a kindly adieu. THE MICROSCOPE ITS REVELATIONS. WITH SOME OF THEIR BEAR- INGS UPON CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. Lecture delivered at Acton Camp Meeting, August 5, A. D. 1881, by HON. THOMAS B. REDDING, PH. D. , OF NEWCASTLE, INDIANA. There is that in man that seeks to know the unknown ; to extend the boundaries of his knowledge. To do this he climbs mountains and wanders in caves and darkness ; travels in far and distant lands ; endures suffering, perils, conflicts, death itself ; he travels thousands of miles amid Arctic snows or over burning sands, among savage and wild beasts and men, yet, with all his care, labor and suffering, he sees but a point here and there. In a gallon of water, taken from some ditch or pond near his own door yard, are more unseen living beings — beings full of life, of marvelous structure, moving, acting, sentient beings — than he sees in all his weary travels ; beings that may be studied as no other beings can. Many are transparent, and we can see through and through them ; see the blood coursing through its channels; the heart pulsating ; the digestive organs working ; co-ordinated life performing its varied functions. By their study we attain new ideas of life ; of vital power ; of that wonderful force or energy called life. And there, too, hidden away from the unaided human eye, we shall find plants that move and travel from place to place ; that swim in the water, and divide and multiply with great rapidity, till we shall become confused and can not tell where plant life ends and animal life begins. So in the air we breathe, the earth we live upon, in our houses, upon every plant, flower and blade of grass, we shall find unnumbered billions of animated beings which the unaided mortal eye has never seen. Above us, too, is a universe of sublime existences; suns, planets, 9 130 ACTON LECTURES. Stars, comets, systems of suns and worlds innumerable as the sands of the seas. These are the things to be seen and studied when looking upon this wonderful home of ours that God has given us. The Psalmist says : " Come and see the works of God." Oh ! what a wondrous, glorious vision hath our God prepared for us. *'Sing forth the honor of His name; make his praise glorious. Say unto God, how terrible art Thou in Thy works ; through the great- ness of Thy power shall Thine enemies submit themselves unto Thee. All the earth shall worship Thee and shall sing unto Thee." — Psalm Ixvi. Man is an atom placed between two infinites — the infinitely great and the infinitely small. He knows not, he can not, will not, know the beginning nor the end. They reach back and" forward into eternity. He knows but little of that within these extremes. With the aid of the telescope he extends his vision far into the realms of space and beholds a universe of worlds and systems of worlds, but they remain far, very far, away. With the most powerful telescope that has been made, or that can be used, he brings the moon, our nearest neighbor, to within a little less than 240 miles arid the sun within about 1,000 miles. What can be seen at a distance of 240 miles, with unaided eyes, with such a telescope, we can see upon the moon. The largest building upon earth could not, probably, be seen at such a distr.nce; hence, with the telescope, we only see aggregations of matter of large extent. If we come nearer home and examine the things with which we come in daily contact, things that we can handle, dissect and tear to pieces, still the unaided eye sees only aggregations of matter ; particles of matter made up of vast numbers of smaller particles. , If I now take that wonderful instrument, the microscope, with its marvelous range of magnifying powers, and examine thin and delicate sections of the tissues, of man, animals and plants, still, I shall find aggregations of matter, even though I should magnify the object 10,000 diameters (which would make men more than eleven miles in height and proportionately broad). The smallest point that can be seen with such a power is still made up of many smaller particles. We can not, never have, and probably never will, get down to the simple ele- mentary unit entering into the composition of these things. We have approached it, it may be very nearly, still there remains a chasm we can not pass, a step we can not take, but what we can see and learn is well worth the seeing and learning. The microscope brings us face to face with life, with living matter, with forces and energies, with God, as no other instrument can or does. ActON LECTURES. Through its revelations we are led to the conclusion, that physical and chemical laws act specially in the plane of elementary, inorganic units, and in the plane of compounds; vital laws in the plane of organ- ization ; sentient laws in the plane of animal life ; mental, moral and spiritual forces in the plane of man and soul. The microscope enables us to study the manifestations and properties of matter in many o{ their relations. It is the only instrument that reveals the great facts of biology, and makes us acquainted with living matter, and enables us to differentiate it from formed, non-living matter. The microscope has its place in all the sciences. Many can be but very imperfectly studied without it; all can be better studied with its aid. A mere catalogue of the wonders it has revealed, the facts it has made known, would fill many volumes. Take away what has been made known by the microscope of anatomy, disease and biology, and the profession of medicine would be relegated back to where it stood in the dark ages. It is indispensable to the physician who desires to be well and thoroughly equipped for his work. By studying charts, descriptions and pictures of what others have seen, he might get along without entering the dissecting room, but he would be very inade- quately prepared for his work. So he may get along without using the microscope himself, but no better than in the other case. He simply, studies the description of what others have seen. When he looks for himself he will know much more and knoiv it ?nuch better. The chemist, the geologist, the botanist, the zoologist, the biologist, the student, the merchant, all men, need to use the information it brings to us. To-day, all over our land, our orchards are being deso- lated by a living being that only the highest powers of the microscope can make known to us, and if any remedy can or ever shall be discov- ered, it will be made known through the powers of this instrument. I can not, on this occasion, go into any detailed statement of its revelations in these various fields, but shall endeavor, in the short time allotted to me, to describe a few of the revelations the microscope gives us in relation to life, and the evolution of life in individuals from pre-existing bioplasm, or living matter. This field alone furnishes material for many lectures. The microscope has revealed to us a wonderful builder in this world - — a thing that has neither organs, nor structure, yet is the builder of all organs and of all o?ganic structures — a builder that, on the one hand, erects the most delicate and minute plant, and all the myriad forms of plant life up to the mighty oak of the forest; and, on the other hand, the smallest animalcule that floats in water or air, and all the thousands ACtON LECTURES. of animal existences, and man himself. Without this builder's aid, not a particle of matter can enter into the structure of plant, or animal, as a part thereof. This builder is living 7natter^ variously called bioplasm, protoplasm^ etc. All living existences, whether plants, animals, or men, are the product of previously existing living matter. Each, and every one of them, commences existence in a particle of living matter so small as to be utterly invisible to the unaided eye. From this minute germ, ova, or particle, as a center of growth and development, is evolved the pecu- liar existence from which it descended, be it plant, animal, or man. This living matter, that has such marvelous powers, is a viscid, transparent, colorless, semi-fluid, structureless substance, capable of movmg in all directions of itself, when unconfined ; of taking up nutrient matter and converting it instantaneously into matter like itself, and from itself, and the matter thus vitalized by itself, of weaving all the tissues, cells, and structures of all organisms. No examination which we can make, whether it be physical, chem- ical or optical, can show us any differences in the appearance, structure, or constitution of the living matter that builds the plant from that which builds any other plant, or animal, or man. Vet we find that this builder never makes any mistakes ; that the germ of the oak always produces the oak ; that the germ of the grain of corn always produces corn; that the germ of the serpent always produces the serpent; that the germ of the horse always produces the horse, and that the germ of man always produces man. Having said this much of this master builder, to which all living existences owe their structure, let us take a few simple examples of plant and animal life and analyze them, as we may do, with the aid of the microscope, and see how they are evolved from this germ, or particle of living matter, so small yet so full of potencies. In every form of life we find design, plan, purpose, function, and absolute, persistent obedience to law; like producing like, and each and all working to certain definite ends and purposes continuously, persistently, through ages. We can not divest our minds of the thought of plan, design, purpose and function in connection with these, and the most experienced and logical materialist can not write or talk about them, nor even think, without using terms that represent these thoughts. The first example of life development shall be from an object you have all seen — common mould, such as is found about the stable, in pastures and many other places.* Upon examining a plant of this under '■-■The objects here and elsewhere described were illustrated by a large number of drawings made from actual observation, which are not reproduced in this book owing to the expense of so doing. These drawings greatly assisted the audience in understanding the subject. ACTON LECTURES. the microscope we find a little tree-like stem rising up from a general surface. At the top of this stem is an enlargement, nearly round, scarcely visible to the unaided eye. At the base is a network of fine thread-like roots. The litde head, before spoken of, is filled with one or two thousand jelly-like particles, about 1-3000 of an inch in diameter, each being composed of almost pure bioplasm enclosed in a thin wall of celulose. When the plant is mature these little heads open and these little bioplasts, as we shall call these small particles, fall out and find a new resting place, and, if the surrounding be favorable, grow and produce new plants like that from which they came. Each of these bioplasts has all the possibilities and potencies of a new plant. Each has, within itself, a mysterious, charming, forceful life. If we take a little taftarate of ammonia and some of the fertiHz- ers, such as some of the phosphates or those substances which contain oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and small traces of phosphorous, potash, sulphur, magnesia and Hme, all elemental in their nature but associated as compounds, and put ihem into pure water, we shall have a mineral water not containing any of the compounds composing our plant. We shall have C. O. H. for the cell wall ; we have C. O. H. N. out of which to make the bioplasm ; we have P. S. K. MG. and CA., which make the ash, etc. If we drop into this water, thus sup- plied with the elements necessary to plant life, but destitute of all or- ganic matter, a single spore, or bioplast, 1-3000 of an inch in diam- eter, and give it a temperature of about 80 degrees, it will grow and produce a new plant like the plant from which it derived its existence. While it grows let us look at it through the microscope. Presently we see a delicate, fine filament or thread start out in this direction, then one in that direction, and then another, and another, and, finally, a little star appears upon the bosom of the water. It is now a million times larger than the little bioplast we started with an hour or so ago. It continues to grow ; a little stem starts upward in disobedience to all laws of gravitation; it goes on climbing up, up, till it finally begins to swell out and enlarges into a litde head, like that of the mother plant, in which we shall find one or two thousand bioplasts like the one we sowed upon the water. Here we have, in twenty hours or less, a single particle of living matter — a single utiit of life, without structure, producing by subdivision of this bioplasm, and by its marvelous formative powers, formed material millions of times larger than itself, and thousands of bioplasts like itself, and, in twenty hours more, each of these may produce their .millions, and the third generation no arithmetic can enumerate. Again, take the bacteria and their allied forms, always found 134 ACTON LECTURES. wherever putrefaction is going on, one of the most universally diffused organisms in existence. Millions of them may be seen in a single drop of purifying liquid. Their examination and study requires a good microscope and high powers. All human beings and, probably, all ani- mals furnish homes for some of these minute organisms. . The bacteria termo is about 1-30,000 of an inch in diameter. Take a single one of these living creatures and introduce it into a drop of liquid, containing the proper food, and in a few hours it will have multiplied into millions. You may see them wriggling, darting about here and there with great activity, showing life, power, purpose and function. They eat, digest, divide, multiply, grow, move, convert non- living material into living matter, and then die. Whether they be plants, or animals, is not fully settled. Many eminent scientists believe that our contagious and zymotic diseases owe their origin to some form, or condition, of these low organisms overcoming the vital powers. Hog cholera, chicken cholera, the cattle disease, and many others', are found to be attended with countless numbers of these. So the disease that is spreading such desolation among our fruit trees, is probably due to a similar organism, which, entering the cells of the true bark of the tree, causes a destruc- tion of the starch laid up for its food, and thereby starves tl'ie tree to death. If these be the cause of these diseases and this wide-spread ruin, what a vast interest and importance they have for us. But on the other hand we can not do without some of these low forms of life, for they are the scavengers of the earth. But let us examine- a higher form of life. Take from the wayside pool a drop of water and examine it under the microscope, with a power of 250 to 500 diameters. Here we find a little, cell-like structure, with a name many times larger than itself, the protococcus phiviaUs. This plant is composed of but a single cell, which is composed of two parts, the cell wall and the contained bioplasm. The first is the product of the latter and is CQm- posed of a combination of materials called celulose. The materials entering into this combination are C. 12 ; H. 10;' O. 10. It is organ- ized, but lifeless, matter; the product of the bioplasm and its forces contained within the cell. Upon this living matter, contained within these walls of its own building, depends the continued existence, growth and multiplication of the plant. This living matter, as near as can be ascertained, is, chemically, composed of C. 40; H. 31 , O. 12; N. 5. These are the elements of dead bioplasm, but living bioplasm has never been analyzed. Through this living matter all nutrition, assimilation, gro\vth and development ACTON LECTURES. 135 must take place. Soon we find our little plant begins to enlarge, and then the contents divide, and, directly, we find two litde cilia protruded through the wall; and, finally, two new plants escape from the walls and swim around actively in the water for a while, in the meantime secreting or building a wall around themselves similar to the one from which they escaped, and soon assume the quiet state. While swimming around you would very naturally conclude they were animals, had you not learned better from observation. This simple plant may multiply into countless millions, yet every one of them proceeds from a microscopic, invisible particle of bioplasm, and though arithmetic may be wholly inadequate to express the number of our plant in its order of succession, one plan has been adhered to in every case. This particle of living matter takes the food, suitable for its nourishment, from the fluids in which the plant is bathed. And by some instantaneous process, wholly unkoivn to chemistry and physics, and of which science knows nothing, converts that food into living matter, and that living matter spins and weaves the various tissues of the plant from itself. Tissues are never formed by food till that food has been vitalized into living matter. This is true of all tissue, whether animal or vegetable. All plants, whether simple or complex, small or large, are living beings — organized beings, composed of living and non-living matter — ALL the product of bioplasm and the vital forces. But that which builds up the plant and continues its existence, is the structureless liv- ing matter contained within the various cells. If we ask whence this power? What is life? What is plaitf We can only answer: What is life?" has never been solved. Yet we know that in the pres- ence of this mysterious force in plants, carbonic, dioxide and ammonia (C. O. 2 and 3 H. N.), when brought in contact with living matter, in the presence of chlorophyl and sunshine, is transformed into living matter, and thence into plant tissue; and, that while the living matter of all plants, and of all animals is exactly the same in its apparent chemical constitution, and while chemistry, nor physics, nor optics, nor any other scientific test can detect any difference, we know, by their products, that there is an impassable gulf between them, and that the differences are radical and great. The processes of growth and multiplication in plants and animals is wonderful and full of interest. They both multiply in some of their lower forms, by division merely; in others by germmation or budding; in others from spores and alternate generation ; in others through sex- ual processes ; but, in whatever way the growth and reproduction take place, they all, alike, start in the invisible, i^microscQpical particle. oX 136 ACTON LECIURES. living matter that can not be discriminated the one from another. The orders, genera, species and varieties of plants and animals number hundreds of thousands, but this living matter in each works after a method and plan of its own. Their powers differ widely. If we plant in the same soil wheat, peas, buckwheat and beans, we shall find that the wheat makes a special selection and use of the silica ; the peas will select the lime ; the buckwheat will select the magnesia, and the beans will select the potash, and in each case widely different plants are pro- duced, each after its kind, yet we can not discover any differences in the living matter of these. We have seen how some of the simpler forms of plants develop, as individuals, from a single particle of bioplasm. Let us now examine a more complex structure and see how beautiful, how wonderful, what skillful, complete, perfect plans are provided — plans which the plant never forsakes; neither adding to nor subtracting from. We will commence with the spore, which is not, botanically, a seed, but answers, in some respects, the place and purpose of a seed. If you will examine the leaves of the various ferns you will find little dots on the underside of some of them ; a point here and there turned down upon others ; the edge turned over and folded back upon the under side of others. The fern here represented is called the ptcris trtmula, a variety of the break fern. The edges of the leaf are folded back upon the underside like the hem of a garment, and in that fold the spores are developed, all along the margin of the leaf. This edge, reflexed back upon the under side, is called the indusium or covering ; under this are the sporagia or spore cases, containing a great number of very minute spores, scarcely visible to the unaided eye. If we make a section of the spore, by cutting through it, and examine it under the microscope, we shall find that it is composed of two parts, the cell wall and contained bioplasm, or living matter. In this bioplasm is a nucleus or center of growth, and, sometimes, a few oil globules may be seen here and there. This living matter has to accomplish the work of building up a new fern. If this spore is sown upon moist earth and kept at a proper tem- perature it will begin the process of producing a new fern like its parent. The outer wall of the spore becomes soft and the force of the living matter within breaks this outer wall and the bioplasm pushes out the inner wall and flows outward into a kind of tube or root, called a hypha; this takes another step, and divides into two, three, four and more cells, at first transversely and then longitudinally, and, at the same time, sends out, near the spore, a little root in quest of food. The expansion produced by these successive divisions of cells is called ACTON LECTURES. «37 a prothallus, and is only preliminary to the future processes of growth. This prothallus sends out a number of little roots from its under side, and, at the same time, the green coloring matter of plants is developed by the bioplasms of the cells, and here and there a cell begins to develop into other cells at right angles to the under surface of the prothallus and produce two new kinds of c.ells of vast importance and of great interest, which are called antheridia and archeg07iia. To see these and fully make out the parts requires a pretty high power, say an 1-8 or i-io objective with such eye pieces as will give us from 500 to 2,500 diameters. In these cells, called antheridia, are developed what are called antherozoids, which answer to spermatozoa or life seeds. These are very minute elongated particles of bioplasm possessing extremely deli" cate cilia. These cilia enable them to swim through the moisture on the underside of the prothallus to the archegonia, which they enter through a canal provided for the purpose and there mingle their bio- plasm with that of a cell developed in the archegonia, called the em- bryo cell, where they find suitable food and conditions for further de- velopment. As soon as the antherozoid enters the embryo cell the latter is said to be fertilized. The embryo cell, after it is fertilized, divides into two, then into four cells, still remaining in the archegonium, which remains attached to the prothallus. Two of these cells become firmly imbedded in the prothallus and act as roots, drawing nourishment from the prothallus. One of the remaining cells develops into the stalk that is to constitute that part of the fern that is above ground, and is to bear leaves and future spores ; the other develops into roots proper. Grad- ually the stalk of the fern works upward, against the law of gravi- tation, and grows into the beautiful, completed plant as we see it, and beneath the ground are its roots, all performing their re- spective functions. We have now gone through the process of making a fern, in brief, and a wonderful process it is, and this is the way ferns of this kind always do. The single embryo cell will produce only one fern, but that fern will produce millions of spores, each capable of going through the same process. If we go to the higher forms of plant life, there, too, we shall find that the plant is developed, as an individual, from a microscopic parti- cle of structureless living matter. Take, for example, our common Indian corn. We find the ma- tured plant composed of many parts, made up of many millions of cells, all of which were derived from and are the product of a single cell or particle of bioplasm. Each grain of corn, which is a seed, is capable 138 ACTON LECTURES. of producing a plant like that from which it came, but where is the life of that grain ? What is there within this little seed capable of growing and producing all the varied phenomena of stalk, blade, silk, tassel, root and the ripened ear of corn? Most of this grain is dead matter, such as starch, oil, etc., provided as food for the hidden life within, and, as long as that life remains, it is all the time, slowly or rapidly, appropriating that food according as it is in an active state of growth or dormant ; but the process of life development in the germ hidden away in this grain has already made considerable progress while the seed was maturing, and the embryo is now composed of, not one, but quite a number of cells, though yet very small. Therefore, we must go back somewhat to the very beginning of this life to find the single, individual cell — the unit of life. We go back to the time when the silk and the tassel of the corn stalk appeared. The nest, or ovary, in which each grain of corn is to grow is situated in a little cup, in which a silken thread has its origin. Here, at the attached end of this thread, will be found the embryo cell. On examining the tassel we shall find a great number of little sacks, containing a great many par- ticles of small dust or pollen grains. Each of these pollen grains is filled with a particle of living matter, or bioplasm. Here we find the particle from which the future grain of corn is to develop — that without which there can be no future grain developed. Here is the single cell from which our plant is to evolve. But this germ, this living matter, must have a suitable place and proper food for its development. It must get into the little cup, or ovary, situated on the part called the cob ; but that is covered over with many folds of husk, and is, seem- ingly, inaccessible to thing so small and fragile as our pollen grain. But we find ihe silken thread, already spoken of, arising in that ovary, running along the cob, under the husk, till it reaches the air and is fully exposed to view. It is moist and penetrable, and the grain of pollen falls upon this delicate thread and immediately the living matter within the walls of the pollen grain, thrilling with the marvelous life- force, pushes out a process from the pollen grain, a pollen tube, and penetrates, as an exceedingly minute thread, through the length of the silken thread and enters the ovary and mingles its bioplasm with that of the embryo cell contained in the ovary. The embryo cell is now said to be fertilized and the progress of development begins. Had not the living matter of the pollen grain entered this cell there never could have been any development there. This cell, thus fertilized, divides into two, four, eight, many cells, till the completed development is effected, and the perfect seed is produced with its supply of food for future use. ACTON LECTURES. When that seed shall be planted, and given proper environments of moisture, heat, light, food, etc., the processes of growth will be repeated, and like seeds will be produced, and so on to the end of time. The circle of life is completed in the production of other lives like its own. As we have seen, this life bejm in an invisible, single cell, the vital power being associated with a minute, structureless, p;irticle of matter, in no way differing in appearance from that which any plant, animal or man grows. Yet we know, as before said, there is a radical difference. This particle of living matter, from which our grain of corn develops, always works in the same way, after the same plan and methods, always bringing forth the same results, and never produces an animal, or a different species of plant. • Many other interesting lessons might be drawn from the vegetable kingdom, but let us now turn our attention to the animal world, one step higher, for awhile. One of the most universally diffused forms of animal life, one of the lowest forms, is the amceba. It is found in our ditches, ponds, and all stagnant waters, and in many other places. It may be very readily procured by infusing some hay, horse droppings, cow droppings, or almost any vegetable or animal matter, a short time in some water, pouring off the water and setting it a few days in a warm place exposed to the air. In a day or so, it will literally be alive with amoeba and many other forms of living beings. I'his amoeba has figured very extensively, of late years, in scien- tific discussions. It may be said to be the simplest form of animal existence. It is, therefore, regarded as a kind of morphological unit of organization, or the first step in animal form. It is also considered the unit of physiological function, or the starting point of differentation of functional organs. It is an animal ; it requires read;; -made, organized matter on which to subsist. It is without structure, a mere mass of living matter, often extremely small, requiring high powers to see it. It is transparent, semi-liquid and has no parts that can properly be called organs; it has no mouth, limbs, stomach, muscles, lungs or nerves, yet it moves in every part and in any and all directions. It takes into its body, at any point, food, in the form of lifeless matter, and assimilates and converts it into living matter. It becomes hungry, craves food, and adopts means to obtain food. A particle, suitable for its sustenance, lies near it, in the same drop of water ; an arm of bio- plasm flows out toward the particle of food from the amoeba, envel- ops the food and flows back again to the general mass, where the food is assimilated and is converted into living matter. It grows, divides and multiplies, yet it always produces the same low form of hfe, and I40 ACTON LECTURES. never rises any higher in the scale of being. The white blood corpuscle of man resembles the amueba in its structure and motions ; so do all free plant cells, and the germs of eggs and of animals. No test has yet been able to distinguish the bioplasm of any one of these from the others in its pure and free state, yet we know that there are differences, radical and wide. The materialist claims that the simplest form of the amoeba had it origin by some accidental, spontaneous molecular action of the elements — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen composing it — in the remote antiquity of the past, and that all other animal forms, and man himself, have evolved from this ancestral form of animal life by gradual and long continued variations and accessions, but there is no proof for such a position anywhere to be found. The fact that we have this same form now, in all its simplicity, still producing the same low form of animal life, without change, or variation, or improvement, is strong evidence to the contrary. But we can not discuss the que.s- tion of evolution in this lecture. Let us take another step higher in the animal kingdom, and ex- amine how the individual is there derived and developed. Go to one of our ponds and dip up a glass of water, in which are suspended some light forms of plant, or floating matter, set it in a place exposed to the light — a window for example — an hour or more. Upon examination you will probably find a number of little particles, resem- bling very minute palm trees with the roots, attached to the sides of. the glass; or to some floating object in the water, with the top, com- posed of five, eight or more branches, reaching downward or swaying around in the water. Some of these animals may be 1-20, and others 1-2 an inch in length. Some are of a greenish color, and others are nearly white; others are brownish. The white varieties predominate in the waters about our place. These little creatures will be found to be living beings; they are animals and are^called polypes, or hydras. They belong to the sub-kingdom of radiates; they are of the same order as the coral insect. [The complete development of the hydra was here illustrated by drawings.] You see branches coming out from the side of the old polype, and again branches from some of these branches. This is one mode of reproduction, called germmation or budding. A cell begins to develop into a side branch, and progresses sometimes till it is nearly as large as the parent hydra upon which it is growing, and then separates from the mother hydra and fastening its little tail to some object com- mences housekeeping for itself. The stomach and digestive organs of hydra consist only of a simple sack. The body is composed of two layers of cells — a kind of two-ply arrangement — the inner cells, con^ ACtON LECTURES. 14! stltutlng the lining of this sack, take up the food necessary for its nour- ishment by imbibition, and, in the Hving matter of these cells, this food is converted into living matter, and that living matter is by itself spun into the various parts of the being, producing new cells, etc. But the hydra multiplies in another way also. Near the base, on one side, will be developed a large cell or kind of sack, called an ovary, in which an embryo cell is formed and fitted for fertilization. Near the mouth will be also found another cell or sack, in which spermatozoa are produced and matured. These escaping from this cell, one of them passes down to the ovary and enters it, and there mingles its protoplasm with that of the embryo cell, and it is then said to be fertilized and soon escapes and is developed into the perfect hydra. The impregnated ovum by division becomes a mulberry, like mass ; this becomes hollow by accumulation of fluid withni it, and this, by gradual thinning, opens at one end and forms a sack, and soon the tentacles are produced and we have the perfect hydra. It has been said that the hydra may be turned inside out and go on Hving and digesting its food as w^ell as ever. I have never been able to effect this turning process, and can not speak from experience. The hydra may be cut into halves or quarters, and these parts will pro- duce perfect hydras from the cells composing them, and repair ail damages: This tends to show that the hydra is an aggregation of liv- ing cells, having nearly similar powers, and that there has not been a very great differentiation of function in this form of life. The outer cells and inner cells of the hydra are very beautifully interlaced together, and in their union we get our first hint of animal muscle. It has not, in the true sense, any muscles, but there appears to be the material for the muscle, and to be so interwoven in the cells as to produce the effects of muscles. The two coats, or walls of cells, continue into the tentacles of the hydra. A careful examination of these cells, under the microscope, will show that they all have a neu- cleus, or center of growth and life, and that the outer cells, many of those in the tentacles also, have another very peculiar kind of cell w^ithin the cell proper. These are called nematocysts, or stinging cells, which consists of a capsule, in which, when at rest, a very delicate thread, or piercer, is coiled up and turned inward, which, upon suffi- cient provocation, is rapidly everted, or thrown out, piercing the ob- ject with w^hich it comes in contact. This thread is supplied with three barbs at its base. These enable the tiny creature to capture its prey and to defend itself. The amoeba, of which we have before spoken, probably defends its life by the secretion of a viscid substance, capa- ble of withstanding adverse conditions, in which itself is enfolded and ACTON LECTURES. where it remains till favorable conditions exist for its further develop- ment. In the hydra we have a far more complex structure than the amoeba, yet it commences its life as an individual in a single cell. It always develops on the same general plan, and, probably, has so done in all ages. It has never been known to produce any thing else than the hydra. It has its own plan of life different from all other plans of life, and works after a method and for a purpose, and with results differing from all other living beings. The particle of living matter from which it takes its individual origin, like all the others we have noticed, can not be distinguished by any test from any other bioplasm. As we rise from lower to higher forms of life we hnd new and ad- ditional forces unfolding themselves, such as nerve force in sentient beings, and still higher, rational and moral forces produce their phe- nomena. As we tend upward there is a constant increase of power, of energy, of force and capacity, a fact that we will have use for as we proceed. Not only do these lower forms of existences, which we have de- scribed, commence their individual existence in a microscopical par- ticle of bioplasm, but that wonderful organism, called man, commencs his existence in an invisible particle of living matter. As an indi- vidual he begins existence as a simple germ, without structure, and in no way distinguishable from that of any other living being. But that single, invisible bioplast has a marvelous work to perform ■ — a work far more complicated, requiring more precision and more skillfully laid plans than ever was required in workshop or laboratory of man. A man — a grand and glorious man — whom the world shall look upon and call great and good; a being in whom^all heaven and earth is interested; a being for whom all else exists; a man, with high resolves, noble purposes, large capacities, grand and majestic forces; with all the passions, loves and hates posjsible to his nature; with burning, persuasive words of eloquence and marvelous powers and in- fluences ; a man that shall rule nations and lead armies ; one who can weep with the weeping and comfort the sorrowing ; one who shall with one hand hold the lightnings and with the other lay hold upon the mighty forces of nature and make them tributary to his purposes and obedient to his will; one possessing every other power it is" possible for man to possess or wield, is to be formed, fashioned and brought into existence. There are to be developed in darkness and silence — long before they can be used— from the little bioplast, muscles and nerves; arteries and veins; skin and bones; lungs with which to breath, and a heart to pump the living stream of blood to every part ; i ACTON LECTURES. 143 eyes to see and weep; ears to hear; a tongue that can taste and speak, bless and curse, praise and pray ; a brain for a home for thought ; a soul to think, contrive, will and perform ; feet to walk and hands to minister ; all these, and many other organs and parts and a vast army of millions or billions of bioplasts, to be harmoniously, wonderfully co-ordinated and set to work in the same organism. This being, thus endowed, to be brought into life, into the world, the weakest of the weak — a poor, little, helpless babe, to be trained, educated, developed ; to work, labor, and sail across the ocean of life to the farther shore, a distance of three score and ten years, more or less — and then, what? Consult your Bible, it alone has answer ; the skeptic has none. An enor- mous task, truly, has our little bioplast before it ; but there is a pov/er that impels it on to work. It commences in littleness and weakness, and proceeds for years, day and night, every moment, ceaselessly weaving and spmning and fashioning this wonderful being, called man, till he stands before the world in all his majesty, glory and power. The original bioplast has divided many billions of times, and has con- verted many tons of food into living matter and that into tissues, and has made no mistakes. Now all this growth and multiplication, and all these formative process, can not be accounted for by any known or discoverable prop- erties of matter, nor by any chemical, physical or mechanical laws, • nor by any hypothesis invented by materialists. There is a marvelous mystery here. The portals of life have not been opened wide. They have only been left ajar that we might look in and behold the hem of her gar- ments. Beyond there is a something that is not involved in matter, and can not be evolved from matter ; a power that is superior and external to, yet intimately associated with, the little particles of bioplasm ; a grand and mysterious force that has neither form nor extension; a soul ; a spirit; '*a sublime and heaven-given grace of God." Looking a little farther into the holy of hohes, through the door ajar upon a shoreless sea, faith sees a power still superior and external to all that we hitherto have seen ; an Almighty power that originates, arranges plans, co-ordinates and presides over the weaving of all these mysterious threads into countless fabrics existing on this earth of ours, and that knows before hand what the beauteous web shall be. What, then, is matter ? Shall we not conclude that it is an expres- sion of God's thought? God's will rendered apparent, permanent, opera, tive? Does not matter seem endowed with properties befitting its I author? Does not God tell us 'Hhat the worlds were framed by the 144 ACTON LECTtJRES. word of God, and things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear ?" God's relation to matter is wonderfully intimate. All forces re- spond to His will, if not, in fact the mere expression of His will; and as God draws matter nearer to Himself and endows it with more of Himself, in the way of marvelous forces, the more exalted it becomes. In the simple cell of the microscopic plant; in the motions and life of the amoeba; in the activities of the infusoria; in the instincts of the animals around us; in every particle of life, faith beholds modes of Divine action. And as we look around us and consider the work of His hands, like the inspired men and prophets of old, we see in the clouds the dust of His feet; we hear in the thunder His voice; we see in the flash of the lightning the light of His eye; we see Him clothing the forest and fields in verdure and bloom; we behold Him feeding the sparrows, and we see all the multitudinous lines of the universe converging to a mighty center and resting safely in the hands of God; and as we rise, step by step, from one form of life to another, we hear them singing the song, "Nearer, My God, to Thee." "Blind unbelief is sure to err, A«d scan his works in vain." As to the order or succession of creation, and the steps by which we arrive at man and his place in the universe, I can only say a few words at this time. I believe that all the laws, and forces, and energies, found in na- ture, had their origin in the will of God; that what we call natural laws are modes of Divine action; that back of and behind all law stands God, the author and executive of that law. The Bible tells us that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," by which we understand all material elements in exist- ence as elements, and that at this time "the earth was without form and void," and darkness was " upon the face of the deep." In a drawing, which is not reproduced in this work, I have at- tempted to diagrammatically represent the thoughts here and elsewhere presented. A broad line proceeding from God represents the energy and force, or will of God, proceeding from Him in the beginning, speakmg into existence the heavens and the earth in their void, dark, and elemental state. How long this period continued we are not told. But, at a time after this, "the spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep," as the elements are termed, and God said, "let there be light, and there was light." This act of God is represented by another broad line proceeding from God and covering the first, and shows the introduction of those ACTON LECTURES. M5 forces and energies known as light, heat, electricity, chemical affinity, etc., which acted upon and dominated over the elements, and out of them caused to arise various compounds and combinations found in the inorganic world. These two acts of creative power result in the crea- tion of the inorganic world. Without these last forces, this second creative act, the elements could never have united and entered into the state of compounds. The existences represented by the first line could never rise to the second step or plane of compounds except under the forces represented by this second creative act. Probably this second line should be divided into two. Again, we read that another day came in the annals of creation when God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed," etc., "after its kind." This epoch we represent by a third line proceeding from God and covering and dominating the other two, and represents the introduction of the laws of vitality, that power by which the inorganic is taken and converted into vitalized matter, or bioplasm, and by which that bioplasm, of itself, produces tissues and organic beings as found in the vegetable world. Out of this arises the differ- entiations of all the varied hosts of plant life. There was no power inherent or prior existent in the lines one and two representing the creation of the elements and the formation of these into compounds by which either of them could possibly be raised into the plane of vitality. A new force, power or energy, a new creative act of God or expression of His will, had to proceed from God to effect this lifting up from the plane of inorganic compounds to the plane of organic life in its lowest form. To reach this plane the elements must, first, pass into the condi- tion of compounds and thence into plant life and structure. The plant does not take oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen as simple ele- mentary substances, but takes them from compounds, as, for example, carbonic dioxide (C. O. 2) and ammonia (H. N. 3) in solution are taken up by the bioplasm of the plant, and in the presence of that bioplasm, and in the presence of sunlight and other favorable environments, are converted into bioplasm, and thence into celulose and other parts of the plant. Out of these elements, taken from these and other com- pounds, the organism is constructed by this master builder, bioplasm, in which, and through which, this vital energy coming into our world, in the third act of creation, finds means of work and manifestation. Plants in this plane become differentiated; live their period; are subject to the laws of vitality but do not rise as independent beings out of that plane ; they are ever of that plane and can never evolve into anything above that plane ; no higher force than that that brought them into existence is found in their plane. Plant life precedes animal life. 10 146 ACTON LECTURES. It is below animal life, and, as yet, no animal life has had a place on earth, for that is the result of another creative act, as will be seen. Plants come into existence and die and sink back into the great mass of force from which they came, according to the laws of conservation of energy. In their differentiation they do not become completely in- dividualized and independent beings, but are subject to invariable and controlling laws and act invariably in the same way, and are thus tied down to nature — to that plane in which they have their origin — and, hence, in death, are not immortal. We take another step down the corridors of time and we hear the voice of the Almighty, saying, "Let the waters," etc., "bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life," etc. This period we represent by a fourth line proceeding from the Almighty, which repre- sents the introduction of sentient life, of mind, of what is called in- stinct and those forces and energies found in the animal kingdom and not found in the vegetable kingdom. These forces dominate and rise above all the preceding forces and energies, and utilize them. We find all the forces, operating in the several successive stages of creation, acting in this plane, but the last dominates all the others; animals, sen- tient beings, come into existence and are higher, superior, to all pre- ceding existences, but sentient life can not exist without plant life preceding it; plant life can not exist without compounds preceding it; and compounds can not exist without preceding elements. Each suc- cessive step rests upon that immediately preceding it. Animal life can not take the simple elements and convert them into tissue, or living matter ; nor can it take of the inorganic compounds and convert them into living matter and animal tissue, but can only subsist on organic matter, that which has first been vitalized by plant life and has thereby been converted into plant tissue, and then directly or through some other animal, passes into animal organism. Animal life becomes more completely differentiated than plant life and becomes freer, has the power of moving, willing, acting, yet is not completely individuated. Animals run in certain channels, or upon tracks laid down for them; they are the subjects of instinct. The ani- mal never rises any higher than the power of instinct can lift it. In- stinct is said to be a mode of Divine action. The animal commits no mistakes ; its life fulfills most perfectly its mission, so far as not inter- ferred with by dominant powers. But why does the animal commit no mistakes? Why do animals live on, age after age, without any ad- vance or improvement ? Because God has appointed to them modes of action. They do not become perfectly free agents, do not become perfectly individuated ; hence, the animal, at death, merely sinks back i ACTON LECTURES. 14/ into the plane of force or energy from whence derived, and is not im- mortal as an individual. The law of conservation of energy here asserts itself again. I do not believe that God created all these existences and estab- lished certain laws by which they should ever work out their purposes, and then retired and left them to themselves, but that God is ever ex- ercising a supervising care over all his creatures. Just how direct that supervision is we do not know. That vital activities, sentient activi- ties, physical and chemical activities, are modes of Divine action, we can not doubt. It affords a satisfactory explanation of phenomena otherwise inexplicable. (That step in creation relating to the relations of cosmical bodies, and their co-ordination, I can not discuss irt this lecture.) But God does not stop at the plane of sentient life in the processes of creation. We find, that at the close of this period, when the earth had obeyed his Divine commands and had brought forth the myraid host of living creatures of land, sea and air, he again exercises his cre- ative energies and sends out forces and energies that dominate and cover all others, and he tells us he made man of ' ' the dust of the earth," and "breathed into him the breath of life," and made him "in His own image and likeness,", and blessed him and gave him power and dominion over every living thing. This act and epoch we represent by a fifth line proceeding from God, and covering all others, and this extends beyond all the others into eternity. In this plane, the plane of free will, of spiritual and moral life, we find man becoming perfectly individuated ; a perfectly free being as to will, having an independent existence and power of choice; a complete, separate existence, which may be represented by a circle, rismg out of nature, slightly attached to nature by chords of physical, vital and sentient existence, which death at last cuts asunder and sets him free. In his free will, in his perfect individuality, in his spiritual and moral nature, he is in the image and likeness of his Maker. The force and energy that enters into the structure of man enters him for all eternity. It sinks not back into the great mass of force from whence taken. He comes from God, but he never becomes a part of God; does not sink back into God and lose his individuality. He ever preserves his per- sonal identity, and if sinless and living in harmony with God's will, when cut loose by death from nature, on whose bosom he is nursed, he rises upward toward his origin, up toward God ; ever approaching God, but remaining eternally a son and child of God; or, on the other hand, dropping down into sin, antagonizing God's will, becoming debased and degraded, drifts away from God forever. 148 ACTON LECIURES. As bodily death is separation of soul and body, so spiritual death is a separation of the individual soul from God. The creation of man is the last and crowning act of God's creative power. He closed up the great work of creation by sending out all those forces, energies and powers that distinguish man from all below him; that make him dominate all below him; those elements that we call intellect, soul and the moral nature of man. All others shall cease to exist and shall end in man, and man shall pass on through eternity, the glory of God and the consummation of His powers. In man we have all the preceding energies and forces. We have the elements; we have compounds and physical and chemical laws op- erating within certain limits, the servants of the higher nature with which he is endowed; we have vitality; we have sentient life; we have instinct and the animal elements of man's nature, and we have, crown- ing all, the soul; the reasoning powers; the moral nature; the sense of right and wrong, justice, mercy, love and truth; the glorious image of God. Man stands related to all creation the crowning glory of all cre- ation, and when death cuts loose the sands that tie him to the planes below him, he soars to and near God, or drifts forever away from God, as he may have elected, an eternal, individual existence. May we drift to and near God. KNOWLEDGE OI^GOD IN CHRIST. By Rev. Newton Wray, A. M., Spiceland, Ind. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent — yohn xvii, 3. In religion, knowledge embraces two elements — theory and ex- perience. There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as theoretical religion. This, itself, is not a theory. We speak of the different religions of the world, meaning thereby systems of belief. But the belief which constitutes the religion goes deeper than theory. It strikes to the heart of man, and thus we have the element of experi- ence. It owes its origin to the spiritual nature ; its home is in the soul. The various false systems' are outgrowths of this fact. Human nature demands rehgion ; and if this want be not met in the right way, the soul will endeavor some how to meet it, and will evolve a belief, how- ever false and pernicious. Christianity is the Divine answer to the soul's inquiry, and a knowledge thereof means more than the mere theory, which is but the mental assent. This is the first step. Theory comes from the head, experience from the heart. Theory is the flower, experience the fruit. The former is the intellectual, the latter the spiritual element. We may have the former and yet be ignorant of spiritual religion. But the latter presupposes and includes the former, hence we may say that the knowledge referred to in the text is that ^' full experimental know- ing, which, being commenced by the believer on earth is consummated in eternity." Alas ! how many, for the lack of this knowing, have not the life eternal. They accept Christianity as a theory. The proof of its truth ^convinces the judgment, but there they rest. The conscience is not rquickened, the affections are not purified, the intellect is not ennobled. They have the theory without the experience, the body without the soul ; and they have no life. The objects of this knowledge are stated to be the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. ACTON LECTURES. The history of the world demonstrates that without a revelation, it is impossible to know God. When the light of the Divine presence was withdrawn, the soul of man was filled with darkness. The fall darkened his mind and depraved his heart. He lost his knowledge of God because he lost his communion with him. By the very tendency of his fallen nature he would continually get further from, become more ignorant of Him. Simple tradition would not suffice to hold in check this tendency, and at the same time his religiousness would lead him to create objects of worship. Thus the primitive belief, which de- pended for its existence upon tradition, would gradually be lost or so ob- scured by the darkness of an evil imagination that it would not amount to any certain knowledge of the Divine Being. Accordingly we find that the whole world was, in the course of time, given up to ignorance and idolatry. In this condition it was morally impossible for men to find out God, especially since the tendency, as just remarked, was in the opposite direction. If it be said that the minU could know that He exists by reason and the works of creation, the facts are against such a theory. The reason itself is darkened, and can not act correctly with- out the light of revelation. God certainly known is the fundamental postulate of all right reasoning. If this be wanting, how can the mind arrive at any definite conclusions concerning Him ? It seems clear enough to us that His existence is thus shown. But we have the light of revelation and we know not the extent and power of its influence on our thinking. We are born and reared under it; our earliest thoughts take shape from its silent, unseen moulding. Those who had not this light, failed in their highest forms of thought to attain to any knowledge of Him. All nations, it is true, believed in some Supreme Power or Divinity, to which human nature instinctively felt itself ac- countable. And this belief was doubtless a product, partly, of the yearning in the soul, and of the mind's reasoning on the world of nature, but who or what that Supreme Power was, they could not tell, as their mythologies, their superstitions and idolatries plainly evince. The profoundest heathen philosophers never evolved in their systems the pure, perfect idea of God. ''The world by wisdom knew him not." Nor does it know Him by wisdom to-day. Blot from your memory what you know of Him from the Bible and how much knowl- edge have you left ? Had you the mind of Plato your reasoning would go no further than his. It would begin and end in uncertainty. The only nations which now have any knowledge of Him are those which have obtained it from the Scriptures. Thus is established the necessity of a revelation, embodied in such .a form that it would be a Jperpetual light-house to the souls of men ; i ACTON LECTURES. 15 I an eternal standard to which they could bring their^conceptions, and by which they could be controlled. This we have in the Bible. Its inception was at the call of Abra- ham, who obeyed the voice of Jehovah, and became the father of a nation. This nation God subjected to a course of discipline, knit to- gether, and made the depository of His truth. Through it this truth was preserved, developed, and the way prepared for its universal dominion. The Jewish Church became an organized fact, and in its bosom the Divine oracles lay secure for centuries, uncorrupted by the idolatries that prevailed around. Meanwhile, the world was gradually preparing for the reception of the truth. In the course of Divine Provi- dence, the Jews were brought into contact with various nations, but not until they had been so disciplined and indoctrinated in the knowledge of God, that they could not lose sight of Him, and so they carried with them those Divine ideas which slowly, but surely, found their way into the thought and language of the people among whom they dwelt. By the conquests of Alexander, and the spread of the Greek language, an- other marvelous step in this preparation was taken, for this language became the channel in which the stream of Divine ideas was to flow. Wherever this stream coursed its way, men drank of its water and new life throbbed in their souls. Hope sprang up, and faith in better things to come was born. The subjection of the known world to one tem- poral authority was another condition for the quick spread of the truth. Thus, in His own way, God was getting all things ready for the perfect disclosure of Himself. That which He made to the Jews was, from necessity, partial ; but a beginning and a preparation. He first revealed His existence, then, by a process of education. He prepared their minds for the conception of His hoHness and justice. But that conception lacked completeness, and of his other attributes they had very imperfect ideas. The inspired writers rose to a much higher idea of the Divine character, because they saw something of the glory that was revealed ''in the fullness of time." But the people had need of a better teacher than the law which must then cease. While the depository would fail, the truth itself would shine brighter and be more clearly seen by reason of the increased light that would gather around it and the new form it would assume. The progress of revelation, under the old dispensation, was like the gradual advance from darkness to sunrise. There are first the faintest streaks of white, dappling the sky; twilight appears, merging into dawn ; the horizon reddens, beams of fire flash up, and the burn- ing sun bursts upon the vision in unclouded splendor. Thus the ey? is prepared for the blaze of day. So was it in the advance from the 152 ACTON LECTURES. darkness of human apostasy to the glorious day of perfect revelation, the first streaky of which began to break the gloom at the call of Abra- ham. The dawn came with the Jewish economy ; the skies began to redden with the first notes of prophecy; rays of brightness beamed forth telling of the effulgence that should follow, until the Son of Righteousness arose to fill the earth with His glory. • We see how the mind's eye was educated to endure the light of this sun. It could not behold the full-orbed splendor at once. At first it saw the existence of God; it was soon enabled to look at some of His attributes, but it could not compass them as yet, nor discern plainly His declared purposes; greater light gave it clearer vision, but not until the sun rose in the person of Jesus Christ, himself the perfect revela- tion, could it behold the meaning and greatness of the Divne character and purposes. There is said to be in Rome a beautiful fresco, by Guido, ''The Aurora." It covers a lofty ceiling. Looking up at it from below your neck grows stiff, your head dizzy, and the figures indistinct. The owner of the palace has placed a broad mirror near the floor. Looking into this mirror you can see the fresco that is above you with perfect dis- tinctness and enjoy the sight without weariness or dizziness. So, other- wise unattainable celestial truth has been brought down to us through Jesus Christ. In Him as in a glass we behold the glory and truth and grace of God. He is "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." Like that mirror beneath the "Aurora," He reflects all the excellencies of the Divine character. He is the end and perfection of all revelation. Only through Him, therefore, can men know God. Hence he prays that they should know Him. He is "the way, the truth and the life." Comprehensive utterance! It shows that "all things pertaining to man's life, present and future, to his salvation and spiritual interests in time and eternity, are connected with His person and manifestation," and that "nothing beyond Him has any vital concern for mankind." Containing in Himself all that is worth knowing, our knowledge must be of Him. I. We are to know Him as Teacher. He taught with authority. There is in all His words an absolute finality. They are the springs from which others draw. Neither before nor after Him is there another who hath the " words of eternal life." He is the life. He alone gave truth its sanction. Himself is the truth. The human conscience will act only under His teaching. This is true even in ethics. And here is the answer to those who seek to derogate His teaching b^ asserting that others, before He taught, enjoined His precepts. Granting this, what was the effect of such injunction? If men ACTON LECTURES. could discover a perfect rule of conduct among themselves, it would have no power to bind the conscience which will not recognize any system of ethics, however perfect, that comes from merely human sources. It acts only under the sanction of Divine authority, and where the belief of this is wanting the precept amounts to nothing so far as having any restraining or reformatory effect is concerned. Some of the ancient precepts sound very much like some of Jesus; but the people looked upon them as things spoken by ?nen, their equals, and they could obey them or not just as they pleased, as it made no difference in the matter of obligation. Now, Jesus first gave ethics the sanction of Divine authority, and hence, then, the conscience felt its obligation. A precept was to be obeyed because it came from God, and the soul obeyed because it beHeved this. Thus, after all, is Jesus the true teacher of morals. There are, however, many things set forth among His precepts that had no place in the thought of the ancients. The command, "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you," was not a part of their teaching. Their ideas of right never took that form of expression. But this thought is con- nected with higher reflections than those which pertain simply to the precepts of morality. The ancients never went beyond these. The great realm of Divine truth lay hid. Jesus came to teach the world what was in that realm. He taught truths of which it had scarcely dreamed. Let us notice some of the distinctive features of His teaching. He taught the personality of God. The pagans thought of Him as a blind force or Supreme Power, or they represented Him under some abstract principle or object of creation. No where did the idea of Him as a personal being exist, except in Judaism, which was not adapted to become an universal religion. Arist was its first teacher to the race. He flooded it with light and brought it nearer the apprehension, by bringing into clearer view the Divine attributes and character. He taught the character of God perfectly. It now shone forth in all its glory. The doctrine that God is a Father, while more or less im- plied in the Old Testament writings, was never distinctly enunciated until He came. It was not even the dream of paganism. When he told His disciples to pray *'Our Father," He taught a great and blessed truth to all men, who should thenceforth be inspired and lifted up by the thought of a Father who watches over His children and numbers the very hairs of their heads. It brought a consolation which the mind had never conceived, and the heart never experienced. 154 ACTON LECTURES. The Fatherhood of God meant the brotherhood of man. This would have be^n a strange idea to the sages of antiquity, who had only contempt for the ignorant and lowly. It was so to the Greeks, who regarded all the rest of mankind as barbarians; and to the Romans, who recognized no tie but citizenship; and to the Jews, who held other men in detestation, and thought themselves alone worthy of Divine compassion. It was ignorance of this glorious doctrine that every- where debased woman, whose exaltation came only at the hands of Jesus. It was this, too, that_, through all the dark eras of the past, formed the excuse for slavery and made it so brutal. Before Christ the slave was held to be of less value than the land or cattle. Under His teachings the dignity of manhood was placed upon the slave, and the priceless value of his soul made known. God was the Father, Christ was the Master of slave and master, and they were brethren. This doctrine is unknown to-day wherever Christianity has not gone. It finds no recognition among individuals who reject the teachings of Christ. And the soul that does not experience the virtue of a living faith can never feel its power. The fire of universal philanthropy does not glow in it. That every man is a brother is a statement, not a burning reality. As in the days of Christ, the pharisee scorned the pubhcan and sinner, so now, men who have not been filled with the spirit of his teachings, know nothing of the precious sentiment of brotherhood. They live by self. Rank, creed, or relationship is the tie that binds, the motive that actuates them. Thus the wise ignore the ignorant, the high the lowly, the rich the poor, and men of one creed or party spurn those of another, or none. They know not the Father or they would know their brother. Once let this truth become an experience, and the soul feels no bounds to its benevolence and love. It cheers the weak, lifts up the fallen and brings in the outcast. Its voice is heard among the neglect^, and its prayer of love ascends from the home of the humble. Mountains and seas, disease and death stay it not. Wherever a soul is sick or in trouble and needs help, or naked and needs clothes, or hungry and wants bread, or is in darkness and cries for light, there is a brother, and it goes with heaHng in its wings. Under its heavenly ministrations, life flushes with vigor, joy chases away sorrow, hope stops the wail of despair, and light scatters the darkness. This is the key to the lives of John Howard and Florence Nightingale, and of thousands living and dead, who did and do count all things but loss for the excellency of this knowledge. It is a tie stronger than blood, dearer than relationship. Does not the cause of missions owe to it much of its strength ? The heathen is my brother; he is perishing for the water of life. Every impulse of my soul, and ACTON LECTURES. 155 conscience loudest of all, cries out, ''save thy brother!" And do you not see how it underlies all that is good in society and govern- ment? The more it is recognized and felt in the constitution and workings of a government the more successful and stable it is. And the more society enjoys its influence the greater is its harmony and progress. All civil and social history since the advent of Christianity proves the truth of these propositions. What is discord but the result of selfishness? a thing that can not co-exist with brotherly love. Its general expression is war, which will cease, as prophecy foretold, when all men shall obey the voice of the heavenly Teacher. The great evils of society that blight so many fair fields of promise, that destroy so much life and joy and character, are but the proof of "man's in- humanity to man." When the principles of the Gospel shall become imbedded in its laws and customs, and shall constitute the vital force of thought and sentiment back of these, the gracious fruits of brother- hood will be everywhere and always manifest. To this end the teach- ing of Jesus must begin with the individual life. Its progress is through the individual to society. The promise and potency of the greatest good lie here. To everyone there opens here the widest field of devel- opment. It is the ground of all true greatness. Upon it life and thought build their everlasting monuments. No matter what direction a man may give his life's energies, the master-purpose of that life be- comes, under its influence, the benefit of his fellow-men. He is the perfect man who realizes in his soul and shows in his life its signifi- cance and power. Would you, then, be a perfect man? Would you be thrilled with the grandeur of real greatness and fill the largest sphere of usefulness and honor? Go to him who taught us to say "Our Father;" learn that sublime truth; appropriate it by faith; let it become a part of your being; and, whatever your lot, doing the most for God and humanity, you will be great — great in manhood, great in good- ness, great in the kingdom of Heaven. The disclosure of God as a Father brought into brighter view His mercy, goodness and love. Under the law His justice and holiness had the greatest prominence. His mercy and love are oftentimes the theme of the prophets. But their depths are not sounded. The "light of the world" revealed their greatness and glory. " For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." The law meant the thunders of Sinai; grace and truth meant the benefits of Calvary; the cross is the highest revelation of God's character. It was reserved for the New Dispensation to unfold that "God is love." It was Jesus who taught that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him 156 ACTON LECTURES. should not perish but have eternal hfe." And when He laid down His life as its Savior it comprehended the depth of that love. Men could come to God with confidence after such an exhibition of mercy and grace. There is a beautiful story in ancient poetry of a great warrior, clad in fierce-looking armor, frightening his child, as he stretched out his arms to embrace it before going to the field of battle. The father unbound his glittering helmet, laid aside his armor and came to his child with outstretched arms and tender words of love. And the child shrank back no longer but ran to his arms, pillowed its head upon his bosom and received his parting embrace and kiss. So men are afraid of God in His majesty and terribleness. The thought of His omnipotence, His holiness and the awfulness of His justice causes them to shrink back from Him. But as that father laid aside his terrifying armor and came to his child in all the tenderness of parental affection, so God veils His majesty and awfulness, and reveals Himself to His children under the sweetest aspect of love. Jesus taught^ also, the nature and demerit of sin. The ancients had no conception of si7i. The idea that it was the transgression of the law of a holy, p^sonal Being, who condemned it in the heart, never developed itself in their minds. Says Geike: "There is no word in Greek for what we mean by it; the expression for it was synonymous with physical evil. Either there was no guilt or the deity was to blame, or the action was irresistible." And all the religious rites, prayers and festivals of priests and people were for the removal of physical, not moral, defilement. And they thought this removal was effected, though the consciousness of evil inclinations still remained. The Romans were as ignorant as the Greeks of the nature of sin. They confounded God and nature, and regarded man as the equal or superior of God. Seneca taught that the divine nature reached perfection only in man, whose virtues were the following of nature, and whose vices were only madness. Judaism went to the act rather than the thought of sin. If there was no outward act there was no sin, however wicked the thought or strong the volition. How different from this was the teaching of Jesus ! He lodged sin in the heart, and the commandment was violated even though no act was put forth. Whoever hated his brother was a mur- derer, and he that lusted had already committed adultery. In the light of such teaching how awful becomes the holiness of God, and how impotent seems any system of mere morality! Though some philosopher did lay down a list of moral precepts, as a rule of conduct, before Christ, to observe them amounted only to outward conformity. It was not sin to refuse to do so, and conscience did not condemn a violation of them. But Jesus taught it was sin, and under His teach- ACTON LECWRES. ing the conscience acts. The very secrets of the heart are laid open and judged. The sinner sees the infinite holiness of God and his own exceeding sinfulness, and the sight appals him; but he looks to Him who has thus taught him his condition, and beholds in Him, as Savior, that divine mercy and love which bids him rejoice in the forgiveness of sin. A traveler tells of a flaming globe of fire which he saw, "mag- nificent, indeed, but too terrible for the eye to rest upon, if its beams had been naked and exposed ; but it was suspended in a vase of crystal so transparent that while it softened the intensity of its rays it shrouded nothing of its beauty. On the contrary, what before would have been a mass of undistinguishable light, now emitted through the vase many beautiful and various colored rays which riveted the beholder with wonder and astonishment." Such is God manifested in Christ. Out of Christ he meets the affrighted sinner's eye as a "consuming fire." 2. We are to know Jesus as a Savior. Having taught the char- acter of sin, He became the propitiation therefor. Man was no longer to depend on the supposed magic of rites and ceremonies; to remove the defilement, which still remained to cloud his life and destroy his happiness. With a perfect knowledge of sin came also its perfect cure. And now the soul that sees its vileness, sees also the efficacy of the Cross. Looking into its depths, it is startled at the distance between it and purity and peace and God. It cries for succor and the arm of mercy lifts it into the pure atmosphere of redeeming love, when a song of deliverance bursts forth in praise of its Savior. Thus the Divme Teacher, in revealing the true condition of the heart, arouses and in- tensifies the consciousness of the want of Him as a Savior. To know Him as such, is the highest and most blessed knowledge the soul can have. By it the soul is brought into harmony with God ; in which relation the intellect has clearer apprehension, the conscience greater tenderness, the will holier inclinations. It raises the mind into a state of activity to which it could never otherwise attain — a state that means the freedom and perfect manifestation of all its powers. This does not exist when they are in bondage to sin. To enjoy the highest degree of happy activity, the mind must be free from the consciousness of sin. The will has here its highest freedom, and acts with the happiest results. The heart, made pure, becomes a well-spring of noble emotions, which issues in blessings to all around. Thus, the mind and heart, being blest, bless others, free and happy, their influence is to make others so. Life becomes a harmonious development. Thought, feefing and voli- tion become instruments of Divine grace to elevate society. Sanctified ability, Christly affection, and their blessed manifestations, will ever challenge the attention and move the hearts of men. The knowledge ACtON LfeCTURESi that thus saves and blesses is to be had only by experience. We know we are sinners by experience, answering to the disclosure of the Bible. It is the deep feeling of sin in the soul that speaks the need and urges to the answer of that need in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence the knowl- edge of Him as our Savior is the experience of His saving power. We may believe in His mission and ability to save, and yet know nothing of His salvation. Saving knowledge is the result of faith. Only when the soul, through faith, feels the regenerating and sanctifying presence of His Holy Spirit, does it know Him as one who ever lives and ever saves. Such an experience gives us a sweeter view of the love and goodness of God. It enables us to see the strength of the great truth of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. It gives us grander ideas of human life and destiny. We see our relations to God and mankind as we should see them, and we press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling. And as we go forward in the march for eternity, we herald the "good tidings of great joy" to the lost multi- tudes around us. Thus the mission of every redeemed man in this world of time is to save for eternity as many of his brothers as he can. One evening two soldiers were placed as sentries at the opposite ends of a sally-port, or long passage, leading from the rock of Gibraltar to to the Spanish territory. One of them was rejoicing in the love of God, while the other was in a state of deep anxiety, being under strong con- victions of sin, and earnestly seeking deliverance from the load of guilt that pressed upon his conscience. On the evening alluded to one of the officers, who had been out dining, was returning to the gar- rison at a late hour, and coming up to the converted sentry, he asked, as usual, for the watchword. The man, absorbed in meditation on the things of God, and filled with devout love and gratitude, on being suddenly aroused from his reverie, replied to the officer's challenge with the words: ''The precious blood of Christ." Soon recovering his self-possession, however, he gave the usual watchword. But his comrade, who was anxiously seeking the Lord, and who was stationed at the other end of the passage, heard the words, ''the precious blood of Christ," mysteriously borne upon the breeze at the solemn hour of midnight. They came home to his heart as a voice from heaven ; the load of guilt was removed, and the precious blood of Christ spoke peace to the soul of the sin-burdened soldier. So, my young friends, acquaint yourselves with Jesus, and, as you go through life, let your watchword be: "The precious blood of Christ." Whatever and wherever your lots may be, let it sound from your lips, let it speak through your lives, and the breeze of Divine mercy will bear it to sin- ACTON LECTURES. *59 troubled souls, you know not how many, that shall find joy and peace in deliverance from sin. 3. We are to know Christ as our Exemplar. He is the perfect pattern. The sages of antiquity, and the great leaders in the world's history pale into insignificance before Him. Their characters show flaws, His is spotless; theirs mislead. His is the sure mark for the attainment of perfection; theirs may be surpassed. His stands out in matchless splendor, unsurpassed and unsurpassable. And His life was but its expression. His teaching was everywhere confirmed and hallowed by His example. We can not separate the Teacher from the Exemplar. To aspire to be like Him is the sublimest aim of the soul ; to follow Him is to be a perfect man and a perfect Christian. See how many dwarfs in character, how many stumbling, halting, weak professors of religion there are, because they do not follow the Great Exemplar. How many know not the way of peace, because they look to some imperfect Christian instead of to Christ, who alone ought to be their example ? With your eyes and hearts fixed on Him, you can not fall. Following Him, the world will behold you and own His supremacy. There will be a Christliness in the word, and in the ac- tion, that will strike its way to the hearts of your associates, and cause them to long for your purity and happiness. A certain gentleman re- lates how he was brought to Christ. He boarded at the same house with a Christian, whose whole life was a heavenly benediction. The man said nothing to him on the subject of religion, but the silent preaching of his life was irresistible. "His presence," says the gen- tleman, " was a constant sermon to me, and made me feel uneasy and condemned. I saw he had a happiness which I did not have. And there was such a sweetness about his whole demeanor that I felt dissat- isfied with myself, and I could not rest until I became a Christian." Go ye and do likewise. Follow Christ and your lives will be full of fragrance ; a benediction to society ; a magnet of attraction ; a star of hope to many a poor wanderer. I have presented Jesus in the light of Teacher, Savior and Exem- plar, and have all along pre-supposed a belief in His divinity. Any view that depreciates this fails to meet the highest expectations of the soul. Its needs can not be satisfied by a man, however exalted in character. It is the divinity of our Lord that speaks in the authority of His teaching, that gives efficacy to His blood to save, and that ex- alts Him as Exemplar. We listen to a Divine Teacher, we rejoice in a Divine Savior, and we are guided by an Example which, though per- fect as human, was sinless through divinity. How grand the contempla- tion, how exalted the idea that raises itself to the height of this Divine i6o ACION LECtURES. Man, and how glorious the manhood that has its perfect development in the knowledge of Him ! In the humble, yet willing and happy subjection of ourselves to him, would we say, with the poet : "Strong Son of God, immortal Love, • Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, By faith, and faith alone embrace. Believing where we can not prove. "Thou seemest human and divine — The highest, holiest manhood Thou; Our wills are ours, we know not how — Our wills are ours to make them Thine." And this is life eternal. Natural immortality is not meant. The wicked have that as well as the righteous. The soul is naturally immor- tal, and will live on though forever dead. Eternal life is the soul's eternal happiness and right development. It is the life of God in the soul. The withdrawal of the Divine Spirit as the bond of union between God and the soul produces spiritual death. The soul no longer has fellow- ship with its Maker, and no longer reflects His holiness. Self becomes the ruling principle of life. As Dr. Pope expresses it: "The Hfe and activity of self, or selfishness in all its forms, is the death of the soul. Hence the process of recovery from that death is the return of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus when the I no longer lives." This is happiness and it is abiding. There is no happiness in sin. "There is no peace," saith my God, "to the wicked." When self is dead and God lives in the soul, the pleasures of the world seem the sheerest van- ity, and we turn from them to bathe in the pure rivers of pleasure that flow through the life of faith. The true happiness is that which springs from the sacrifice of self. Does not that of God, I ask, reverently, consist in the sacrifice of Himself? His life is a continual giving ofl", a constant self-impartation for the benefit of His creatures. It must be so with them. The selfish man can not be happy. When the soul can not feel the jar of self in its motions— when it loves to be the ser- vant of others — it is happy. Here is the secret of the vast amount of unrest among people. Self leada them to covet some other sphere of influence, and to neglect to act in the one in which Providence places them; or they care not so much for the weal of others or for the glory of God as they are anxious to secure recognition of their own import- ance. It is no wonder they do nothing for God and are miserable. There are some who, if they can't do what they imagine to be great things for Christ, won't do anything. Happy for them could they learn that the little things are great in the estimation of Him who pro- nounced a blessing on the giving "only a cup of cold water" in His I ACTON LECTURES. l6l name, tt has been well remarked: -'Notoriety is not essential to in- fluence, and in the sphere of the soul, as in the order of nature, fountains are not the less abundant because their streams are hidden in obscurity;'" "The noblest seifvice comes from nameless hands^ And the best servant does his work unseen." When the "life is hid with Christ in God'' all things are great; "1 have no more influence,-" said one, "than a farthing rushlight." "WqII^ that is a good deal," replied another; "a rushlight will set fire to a whole city; it will light a man's way in the dark. Go, let your farthing rushlight so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your heavenly Father." Noiselessly the sunbeams fall upon the earth. You hear nothing, you see no operation, yet the rose glows with beauty and the earth teems with its harvests. And as si- lently as those sunbeams fall are they absorbed by the plants and vege- tation, being necessary for the condensation of carbon. The accumu- lated masses are buried by the hand of nature in the bosom of the earth, only to be discovered and brought forth in after ages, and that sunlight again liberated to warm and cheer our homes, to traverse the continents and plow the seas, bearing everywhere blessing and comfort to men. So may the pure light of your influence fall upon those about you, and, though the world may not see it, yet minds and hearts will absorb that light, and characters will be formed, lives will be shaped by its unseen power, and in after years the fruit will appear to make glad the hearts of many. Thus living the greatest good will be achieved and the greatest happiness experienced. "Thrice blest, whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher love endure ; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs? " I said this eternal life meant also right development. This is im- possible where self is the ruling principle. The noble powers of the soul are blighted by the mildew of selfishness. They develop perfectly only in the atmosphere of Divine love. For there their progress is eternally toward the perfection of God. Sir Humphrey Davy, de- scribes an interesting sight he once saw above one of the crags of Ben Nevis. Two parent eagles were teaching their offsprings, two young birds, the maneuvers of flight. They began by rising from the top of a mountain in the eye of the sun. They at first made small circles, and the young birds imitated them. They paused on their wings till these had made their first flight, so as to make a gradually extend- 11 l62 ACTON LECTURES. ing spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, apparently flying better as they mounted. And they continued this sublime kind of exercise, always rising, till they became mere points in the air and the young ones were lost, and afterwards the parents, to his aching sight. Such, in some respects, is the rise of the soul in its eternal develop- ment. Looking to the Divine Christ, who calls it on and up, it rises on the wings of faith, continually enlarging the circle of its sweep, and chanting, as it mounts, its sublime song of holy aspiration and triumph. " Higher, higher, every thought More ir)to His presence brought. Every passion, every feeling More His hidden life revealing ; Loss of self from hour to hour, More of Christ's transfornning power ; Yearnings heavenward to aspire Unto Jesus higher, higher. Higher, higher, till at length. Going on from strength to strength, Passing up from grace to grace, I behold that longed for face, Which is ever o'er me leaning, With its deep and tender meaning, And doth into light retire But to lead me higher, higher." This — this is life eternal ; commenced on earth and consummated in eternity. Let me urge you to possess it. Come to Him who is the Life. Bring your thoughts, your affections, your characters; bring your selves, and what appertains thereto ; lay all at His feet, become heirs of His kingdom and glory, and the life eternal will be yours through the knowledge of God in Christ. Mythical Heroism, Past and Present. By Louis S. Cumrack, A. M. A myth is an idea or fancy presented in an historical form and though any picture at any time in this shape might be called a myth, yet by usage, the word is confined to those pictures made in the early periods of a people's existence for the purpose of presenting their religious belief and generally oldest traditions in an attractive form. The tendency to create myths in this way seems inherent in every peo- ple. The early history of every nation, however young the nation may be, is enveloped in a sort of mythological cloud, and abounds in legends and fabulous narrations, which present characters of ideal heroism upon whom hang all the greatness and sublimity which per- tained t6 the gods of Greek Mythology. A myth is not to be con- founded with an allegory, the one is the unconscious act of the popu- lar mind at an early stage of society, the other a conscious act of the individual mind at any stage of social progress. The parables of the New Testament are allegorical, so are ^^^sop's Fables; they are mis- taken for realities, they are known to have been invented for a special didactic purpose, and so received. The peculiarity of myths is that they are not only conceived in the narrative form, but they are generally taken for real narrations by the people to whom they belong, so long at least, as they do not pass a certain stage of intellectual culture. The general use of the word Mythology is understood to refer to the religious superstition which produced the so-called divinities of Olympus, but I prefer to give a wider meaning to the word, and em- brace all those false heroes of poetry and song, be they gods or be they men, be they Grecian or be they Roman myths, be they divini- ties of the world's first making or be they heroes of the worship of to-day. Mythology, as I define it, included not only those gods of whom the classical dictionary alone speaks but also those whose his- tory is as familiar to us as the news of yesterday. Ancient Mythology was that in which the elements of air, fire and water were originally 164 ACTON LECTURES. the objects of religious adoration, and the principal deities were per- sonifications of the powers of nature. The transition was easy from a personification of the elements to the notion of supernatural beings presiding over and governing the different objects of nature. The ancients whose imaginations were lively, peopled all nature with invisi- ble beings, and supposed that every object from the sun and sea to the smallest fountain and rivulet were under the care of some particular' divinity. These divinities of the golden age of innocence and simpli- city have been proven to be the images of creative fancy. The great and all powerful Jupiter the father and lord of heaven, the god of rain, thunder-storms and lightning, with all his epithets of Pluvius Fulgurator, Fulminator and Optimus Maximus, he who sat upon proud Olympus and held in his great right hand all the elements of celestial and physical nature, is gazed upon by the school boy of to-day as a gigantic myth, and the thunder of a summer shower reverberates only the deep intonations of that once powerful god of superstition. Hercules who strangled infants in his cradle, slew human lives, killed nine-headed hydras, performed twelve great labors for the sake of becoming immortal, lives only in the dream of idle fancy. To whose fabulous wanderings, when pursued by the vengeance . of Juno, be- comes the crescent sphere which lights the world at night; her wander- ings over the whole world, her plunge through the Ionian sea, her roaming though the plains of Illyria, her ascent of Mount Hoemus, her crossing of the Bosphorus, all represent the continual revolutions of the moon, and Argus iier sleepless watcher of a hundred eyes, be- comes the starry sky. Saturn, who devoured his own children, is the the same power we now call Time, which can truly be said to destroy whatsoever it has brought into existence. Phoebus with his golden chariot becomes the sun, and his drawings near the earth causing Ceras to burn up and cry for water, becomes the drought of a July summer. Proserpine carried away by Pluto becomes the seed corn carried into the earth until spring brings it to hfe again. All these gods and goddesses have passed away and we laugh at that idea of hero wor- ship which made gods of nothing and canonized a plant; From the golden age mythology takes on another form. All ages seem to be imbued with the one idea that there must be heroes to worship, and if heroes do not exist, then heroes must be manufactured, and our history is rich in stories of men and women who never lived, but who are worshiped and extolled more highly than ever were the Olympian Jove or the fleet winged Mercury. Each nation must have its own; the world had reached that point where in order to retain the individ- ual and peculiar traits of each people the legends and narration of ACTON LECTURES. folk lore must also be individual and peculiar. Some myths are not even recorded, and they live only in the grafidfather's tales of a win- ter's evening told to the gaping crowd about the radius of the fire-log's grateful heat. Let us consider a few of these fables of modern mythology where we find a rich field alike for the ambitious worshiper of imaginary heroes, or the delving student of iconoclasm. These myths.of modern times are not like those of old possessers and rulers, but are gods of greatness and renown, who serve as models for the ambition of the gifted boy, and upon the emulation of whose example hangs his future worth. Joan of Arc is an example of mythical greatness. When exposed . to the light of reason, she dwindles into a fanatical school girl, and loses all the shade of heroic grandeur which characterized her in the rose-colored romance of the century in which she lived. Joan of Arc might have been a great woman in her time, but not now; she might have felt that France was waiting in suffering and anxiety for her no- ble self-sacrifice of her womanly modesty, sex, and everything which goes to make up the adorable and respectable in women ; she may have felt that in doing all this she was handing l)er name down to posterity, but she was mistaken. The average lady of to-day knows nothing of, and cares less for, the maid of Orleans. She has ceased to be looked upon as a goddess, her signal glory has faded, and Joan of Arc lives only among the Jupiters and Junos of Greek mythology. Few medieval heroes are so well known as William Tell. His exploits have been celebrated by the great poets and musicians of mod- ern times. It is a beautiful story and reads well. The touchmg and implicit confidence of the boy as he stood with the apple upon his head, and knew that the unerring skill of his father would send the arrow through the core and not ruffle a single hair ; the fainting of the father, the disclosure of the arrow, the famous answer ^'to shoot the tyrant had I slain my son," all have that same ring of mythical fabulosity. Nevertheless, in spite of his vast reputation, no such person as William Tell ever existed. It is useless to bring his cross-bow, preserved in the arsenal at Zurich; it is useless to point to his tree and other relics as unimpeachable witnesses. The proofs are not more valid than the handkerchief of St. Veronica or the fragments of the true cross. Swiss history, for an interval of nearly two hundred years after the shooting of the apple is supposed to have taken place, mentions nei- ther a Tell, nor a William, nor the apple, nor the cruelty of Gessler. It may also be stated that the charters of Kussenach, when examined, show that no man by the name of Gessler ever ruled there. William Tell becomes to us another ^myth, disappearing from [the ranks of ACTON LECTURES. heroe^ who were, and merging into a hero of fancy and imagination. But what of us? Is this age so advanced in enlightenment that there is no mythology in it? Will -the ages to come be enabled to sort out at a glace the present age and say l^ehold the best, the purest, the most real? Far from it. Our mythology is equal, if not superior, to that which characterized the ages which 'we have just considered. Ours far excels the ancients in the matter of mythical frauds, but of a different stamp. Our myths are written up in the shape of incentives to ambi- tion, and heroes are manufactured of the commonest clay. "I'is said that a man's glory lives after him; that while he lives he is not appre- ciated ; only after he is gone does the world realize how sad and how drear}' it is without him. Then, as if to compensate for the neglect in life, his glory is put into poetry and song, and his goodness is carried so high and lauded so grandly that the mere man is lost sight of in the character so god-like. He ceases to become a man, but bounds at once into a fifth reader hero of the broadest stripe. Our nation's rec- ords are full of them: the press columns of to-day are teeming with them. Ours is the grandest hero-worshiping nation in the world. Ours is the age of sentimental worship ; ours is the age of emulative models ; ours is the age of excessive heroism. We go back in our his- tory as a nation, and we find a Jupiter standing on the threshold. Where is the patriotic American who does not point with pride to the heroic Washington, at once the patriot, the soldier, the statesman. He lived and was appreciated, and was recognized as the ruling mind of his age. His inability to prevaricate about a little matter of a chopped cherry tree has become a part of our mythology. Washington, I consider, may have been a great man a hundred years ago, but to-day he seems to the present age an imaginary character of greatness and renown, 'i'his is not a romantic age ; plain, truthful and non-poetical, is its motto. Stories of great men and great deeds, and those ideas which so gov- erned our ancestors, sound to us as visionary legends from the book of poetry. We are wiser than the preceding age. Advancement and civilization have carried us along until we are able at a glance to detect the true and the false, the mythical and the real. We regard such char- acters as Washington, not in the light of a century ago, therefore, but we see him as he would appear to-day, and find that he is a mythical stimulant to excite the ambition and urge it on to greater work. We regard him as such, because it is difficult to believe that what is so common now could be so great and god-like as he once appeared. We find George Washington now in the common citizen. We find Patrick Henry now behind the counters of our stores. We find that while John Adams shook the world and the universe trembled at his ACTON LECTURES. 167 voice, now he speaks and the earth revolves on its axis unconscious even ot his presence; then Thomas Jefferson sat. upon the throne of unap- proachable statesmanship, now he swarms our cities and builds our houses. They are dreamy myths of the past ; their grand thundering eloquence which so delighted and entranced our ancestors ; their beauti- ful and sublime sentiments are the commonplace ideas of to-day. Our mythology is not altogether political in its nature. We find that our religion, the pure, simple and unadorned religion of the church is not exempt from this hero worship. Not one church alone, but all churches find in their early history some one upon whom hangs that saintly and mythological mantle of heroism. Calvin was a hero; Alexander Campbell stood high in the ranks of extolled heroism, and John Wes- ley is canonized. John Wesley, the founder of the great church which attaine'd such magnitude of proportions, was a common man. He possessed all the traits which combine to make up an earthly despot- ism. We look upon him not as a man, not as one similar in all respects to us, but we look upon him as a something beyond a kind of a saint, a sort of theological myth. John Wesley lived in an age of ignorance and superstition; he lived at a time when he towered high above his fellow men as an oak tree towers above the weeds of the field. His greatness was recognized then because he stood almost alone; now he is numerous in the Simp- sons, th^ Bowmans, the Merrills and the Fosters of the present age. The Wesleys of to-day crowd our pulpits and ride our pulpits by the thousands. Then it required the united strength of Methodism years to increase the membership to a thousand ; now, in these days of Har- rison and such men, the membership rolls up in the hundreds in a sin- gle week. The ways are different ; the style has changed. Who before me has not read the life of William Carvosso, the greatest class leader of his age? Now he would be considered an old fogy of the worst type. This gulf between the then and now ; this difference between the mythical, great, poetical, sentimental and romantic, and the great of reality, sober-thinking, logical and non-poetical, is bridged by educa- tion and science. In those days of ignorance and superstition educa- tion was a prize and luxury indulged in only by the few, and he who possessed it was greater than to be a king. Now, so free and plentiful is it that to be without it is to be lower than the veriest slave. Then education was confined to a few scattering log houses, miles intervening between one and the other ; now the golden orb of day as he sinks be- hind the western slope mirrors himself in the golden domes of thou- sands of our many-windowed colleges, from which learning flows free ACTON LECTURES. to all. Then Watts was beginning to see the mysteries of a steam ket- tle; now, the same principles dormant in that tea kettle speeds along yonder railroad fleet as the wind, and drags behind it a population. Then Benjamin Franklin hung a key in a kite string, and the whole world marveled at the result; now he touches a knob and the same principles convey a message to the uttermost parts of the earth; he places his ear to a telephone and hears the whisper of his friend a hun- dred blocks away. Science and education have wrought a great change in the public mind and placed much higher the true standard of greatness and fame. Then a man of enlarged ideas and expanded reason was so far in advance of his age that he could sway the public mind and turn it whithersoever he would; now the public mind sways the man, and public opinion rules him. Washington and his compeers belonged to the former class. Their intellects were brighter; fheir- ideas more expanded. They were men of a higher stamp of civiliza tion, and the infant nation fell upon them as guiding ^stars. It was this that brought the fame of these men down to us with their names so effulgent and their character so similar to the mythical gods of other ages. But education has so learned the mass that Washington ceases to be looked upon as a god. The university student of history tears away at a swoop all the romance which surrounds him. You find George Washington's equal to-day in the commonest citizens; men who could have brought order out of chaos in far less time than he did it. Education finds Ben. Franklin in the plodding school boy, who solves such intricate problems and performs such scientific experi- ments as would cause the silk kite operator to stand aghast. Education finds Patrick Henry now in every man; times are not such now that when a man rises in a pubhc meeting and cries out, "Ceasar had his Brutus,"' that he is elevated high in the standard of eloquence and or- atory. Such proceedings belonged to an age of mythical and imagin- ary characters: such proceedings belonged to an ignorant and supersti- tious people. From such an age comes Washington, Jefferson, Calvin, VVesley and Carvosso. This age of reason and logic requires something more than this. We have too many of them to regard them otherwise than myths. While their faculty placed them on the topmost round of the ladder, when their scarcity gave them seats side by side with the gods; now their plentifulness places them side by side with the bricklayer and the mason; now their multiplicity crowd our streets and cry for room; now we see them as we saw the mythical gods of old and place them in the same category of frauds and myths. Our mythology has a cause; our hero worship has a foundation. Iconoclasts are not born but are made so by that same education i ACTON LECTURES, 1 69 which makes an ideal man of an unreal hero. I am an ic