Address ... in behalf of the
American tract society
hy
S.H. Tyng

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;THE DAY
MISSIONS LIBRARY

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ADDRESS

KEV: STEPHEN H. TYNa, D. D.

BBCTOR OS" ST. QEOBOB'S CUURCH, 5- V.

AT A" Ptf^LIC MEETING-

HELD I IT TUB

„C-gUK£!H OEV THE PURITANS, NEW YORK,

IN BEHALF OF 1HI

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
(boston.)

BIAT 12,. I860.

ADDRESS

EEY. STEPHEN H. TYNG, D.D,
vv v
RECTOR or ST. oeorde's CHURCH, N.Y.
AT A PUBLIC MEETING

HELD IN 1III

CHURCH OF THE PURITANS, NEW YORK,
IN BEHALF OF THE
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
(boston.)
M1-A.Y 13, I860.

Yale Divinity Library
New Haven, Conn.

EEVISED BY THE AUTHOR.

Geo. C. Rakd & Avekt, Pkixtehs, 3 Cokiiul, Boston.

ADDEESS OF EEY. DE. TYNG.

Mr. Chairman and my Christian Friends : I view
this as one of the most interesting and important meetings
we not only ever had assembled, but perhaps ever shall
have assembled, in the city of New York. When I look
at the interests that are at stake, at the value of the cause
which is involved, at the remarkable providence which
has raised up in time of need an appropriate and efficient
instrumentality for the accomplishment of the work to be
achieved, and at the amazing providence which has
watched over it and prospered it with such a degree of
calm, tranquil, effective success, I confess that this occa
sion is one of exceeding personal congratulation. I
can not but congratulate the oldest Tract Society in the
United States, the parent Tract Society of this country,
the mother of us all, upon its meeting this morning with
all the circumstances of a divine benediction resting over
it, and of the communion and fellowship of Christian
reciprocation arising from it.
We meet here this morning under a banner twofold,
but never to be separated, — the banner of purity and
peacefulness. First pure, then peaceful ; first truth, then
peace; first a foundation that God hath laid inZion, then
evidence that God is building up peace on that founda
tion. The grand uniting principle upon which we are
brought here, cemented together, and made one, to-day,
is the union of absolute purity and peacefulness, and a
grateful enjoyment of things in prosecution. The old

4 ADDRESS.
and first-established Tract Society meets here before us,
not a forth-putting, agitating power, in the midst of a
peaceful community, but a dove from, the very ark of
safety, with an olive-leaf in her mouth, — a divine mes
senger, going to shed from its beautiful and illustrious
wings, over a disturbed surface, rays of heavenly light.
For a while, this lovely ark attached itself to a junior but
an outgoing craft, to be led across the ocean by other
pilots, and according to the direction of other charts ;
till, at last, the faithful watchman having slept beneath in
confidence too long, they found, alas! themselves dis
masted and disabled, and floating like a log upon the sea,
attached to a superior ship. Nothing then was to be
done but, at the risk of everything, in the perils of the
sea, to cast off; and start for themselves. Nothing was to
be done but, in trusting dependence upon that Pilot that
never forsakes the Christian, that rebuked the storm, and
that walked upon the sea in perfect peace when his disci
ples were filled with terror and dismay, — nothing was to
be done but, in trusting dependence upon him, to cast off
and start upon a voyage, — ah ! not a voyage of discovery,
but a voyage homeward bound. It was a voyage on a
raging billow, to be sure, but the beautiful shining shore
that lined the other side with its translucent, glittering
attractions, promised the ample reward of a home of
peacefulness, blessedness, prosperity, and protection.
If any one asks why we cast off, our answer is, that we
found ourselves going on a voyage we had never bar
gained for. We found that the voluntary coolies were to
be sold as involuntary slaves. We found that when we
came to the end, instead of receiving the recompense for
which we had been looking, and which we had a right to
anticipate, the recompense which we were actually to
receive was wrong and suffering under oppression, —
almost enforced servitude to a system against which our

MORAL CONFIDENCE. 6
consciences relucted, and from which the very purpose of
our better nature held back.
It has been asked why we are here. As well ask Joshua
and his men, in the valley of Gilgal, why they were there.
They were there because that was God's promised land
to them that did his work. We are here because this is
the Lord's appointed place of labor and toil to them that
faithfully obey his will. And we are here this morning
with a spirit that, I will venture to say, has characterized
no meeting in this city, this week. There is a feeling in
our midst that other assemblies have desired in vain to
find. There is a moral confidence existing among us
which I am persuaded other bodies would give very
much to have. We stand here together, brethren and
sisters, to say, " Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over
and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the
singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in the land." Now look upon this assembly. Do
you say, "• That which these feeble men build, a fox, if he
goeth upon it, will break down their stone wall ? " Then
I reply, "We will take the little foxes that spoil our
grapes." We have attained to a point in which no longer
do we stand and tremble in our shoes, lest mighty mis
chiefs of political chicanery shall come upon us, entirely
to overturn us. No longer do we stand at the by-ways
and cross-ways, — the bivia and the trivia, — of political
parties, and ask that one which happens to be up, — and
it is always Satan's party that is up, — what we may do
or say. We stand upon a ground that the living God
has o-iven us, — a ground which, while we stand upon it,
we challenge the living devil to take away from us.
We are here in the consciousness of right. We breathe
freely. And I am happy that we are in this house. It is
a house in which a faithful man often stands up to plead
in behalf of truth and freedom. Though my own judg-

6 ADDRESS.
ment does not go to the length to which his conscience
leads him to go, no man in this community commands
my heart's confidence more than he. There are voluntary
traitors to the truth, but my faith is strong that never will
he, while the world stands, prove a traitor to what he
knows or believes to be true. I say, then, I rejoice to
be in this house. Be it the " Church of the Puritans," I
know the stock that the Puritans were of. I am myself
of that stock. All that in me which relucts at wrong,
and contends against oppression, and says, "Give up
never ! " is simply blood that flowed out from a Puritan
father's heart, and milk that was sucked from the paps of
a Puritan mother. I am an Episcopalian because I am a
Puritan. There is a church that existed before Puritans
were known, and without which Puritans never would
have been. I can not forget that my ancestor, Francis
Higginson, when leaving the English Channel, in the
vessel that was to bring him to this country, looked over
the stern, and said, " Farewell, dear England ; farewell,
dear Chureh of England ; never, never, shall we forget
thee." Perhaps it is the regurgitation of honored blood
in remote generations that leads me to say of the Church
of England, " Dear Church, welcome to this heart and
soul." That Church, which is the mother of Puritans,
will be the mother of fidelity in Puritanism to the end of
time. I say, then, we are breathing freely. There is no neces
sity for us to browbeat truth by violence, or choke off
debate by adjournment. There is no necessity for us td
call in the Samsons of the law to put down the apostles
of the gospel. There is no necessity for us to hang up
curtains of false excuses before us because we are afraid
to confess the deeds we have done. What we do, we do
openly. [In stepping back on the platform, the speaker
trod upon a gentleman behind.] Excuse me, my friend,

OUR PLATFORM THE BIBLE. I
for treading upon your toes. Here, every man must take
care of his own toes. I may tread upon some others
before I close. If they are trodden upon, it is their own
look-out. Under such circumstances, I say again, we
breathe freely. We mean to breathe freely. If men say
of us, " They are a fanatical set," be it so. I am a fanatic,
— an exceeding fanatic, — when I think I am right and
everybody else is wrong. I do not say I think we are
right, — my friends, you will never get me into that, — I
know we are right. In this heart of hearts, I know that
this Society stands upon a right foundation, has adopted
a right principle, and is carrying out a right practice.
And I shall attempt to show, — for my friends put me at
the beginning that I might be as long-winded as I pleased,
— I shall attempt to show that we need no excuses and
extenuations from any other quarter whatever. When
we act, we act with deliberation, and then we are willing
to take the responsibility of what we do. We have no
fears, because we know we are right. We have no appre
hensions of a power behind us, because we are conscious
that the power on which we rely is appointed to be the
upholder of them that do well, and the avenger only of
evil-doers. There is a mutual confidence between us,
and we mean to sustain each other.
Does any one ask, then, what is our platform ? We
answer that it is the Bible, the Word of God; simply,
only, fully, entirely. What it teaches, we teach ; what it
teaches as imperative duties, we teach as imperative du
ties ; what it teaches as contingencies, we teach as con
tingencies. We teach every thing not only upon its right
foundation, but every thing in its right place. We accept
the Word of God as plenarily inspired. We do not feel
at liberty to mutilate it because it teaches truths that are
unpopular. We take no such ground as that .taken by a
gentleman that I read of the other day, who after suppli-

8 ADDRESS.
eating very earnestly for blessings, closed his prayer by
saying, " We do not mean to dictate, but simply to suggest
that an answer to these petitions would gratify this whole
community." We do mean to dictate ; we mean fear
lessly to proclaim the truth of God, to defend it, and in
the simplicity of it to stand or fall.
I hear it now said that the thing which separated us
from our friends was " a miserable abstraction." Well, a
wedge is a miserable abstraction, when it lies by the side
of a log. Take it up, and insert it, and strike it with a
beetle big enough, and you will make two abstractions.
I will agree that this whole subject is " a miserable
abstraction." It has abstracted many a babe from a fond
mother's bosom, many a child from a loving father's heart,
many a soul from the possibilities of Christian influence
and Christian character, and many a poor victim of suf
fering and wretchedness from justice, protection, and
defense. A miserable abstraction, indeed! But there
comes a time when miserable abstractions become pon
derous realities. There comes a time when principles no
longer remain abstractions, but become realities ponderous
with responsibility. If great Christian principles and duties
are miserable abstractions, then the whole gospel scheme,
and the whole prospect for humanity, are miserable ab
stractions. There are men that will tell me that the
blood of Jesus is a miserable abstraction ; there are men
that will tell me that my Saviour is a miserable abstrac
tion; there are men that will tell me that the infinite
Jehovah is a miserable abstraction ; there are men that
will tell me that the sinner's eternal doom is a miserable
abstraction. Be it so. Then these are miserable abstrac
tions which bind us together in the work which we have
undertaken, and which are dearer to us than the apple of
our eye.

FREEDOM OF THIS SOCIETY. 9
My friends, here is a Society that has an unrestricted
field. No fence surrounds its campaign. Like Palestine,
it has its landmarks, — integrity, righteousness, reverence,
God, and humanity, — but it is undivided by fences. Yes,
this American Tract Society has an unrestricted field.
It has an unrestricted field in revelation. It takes all
the blessed doctrines of Scripture, and is able to propagate
and proclaim them boldly and simply. It bows down to
no armed infidelity of man, in the Church or out of it.
It distinctly and thoroughly teaches the great evangelical
truths of the Bible, without asking one class or another
what it shall teach.
It has an unrestricted field in the duties which are
imposed by divine revelation. It tells what men must do
in every possible relation in life. Does it read, " Masters,
give unto your servants that which is just and equal ? "
Here, at last, is a Society that dares to print that text,
that feels at liberty to utter it, and that, liaving printed
or uttered it, does not blush, and say, "We mean no
offense when we speak of that subject, but it becomes
necessary, sometimes, to refer to it." We proclaim it,
and urge obedience to it. Does it say, " Let as many
servants as are under the yoke count their own masters
worthy of honor ? " Here is, at last, a Society that dares
to say it in the simplicity of truth. We can go to the
master and lay our right hand on his shoulder, and to the
servant and lay our left hand on his shoulder, and say,
" Ye are brethren : see that ye fall not out by the way.
Both of you have a Master in heaven. Ah ! make it sure
that there is a home in heaven for you both."
It has an unrestricted field in the sins and evils which
it rebukes. Here, at last, is a Society that is not shut up
to dancing and tobacco. Here is, at last, a Society whose
whole category of sins does not come within a dirty
man's mouth and a silly woman's skirts. It considers

10 ADDRESS.
other sins besides dancing and the use of tobacco. We
believe the oppression of human beings in bondage to be
a sin against God ; we believe the buying and selling
of man to be an enormity in the sight of that great
Being who made him in his own image, breathed into his
nostrils tho breath of life, filled him with his own spirit,
and said unto him, " My son, I remember thee still ; " and
at last we have a Society that feels that it has a right to
speak of it, and that does not ask any living man on earth
whether it may speak of it or not.
We have an unrestricted field in the persons to whom
we shall go. Ah ! wonderful is the passion for union in
our day. Where is there a Society that so represents
the Union as this? In what section of this country
is this Society unable to be an edifying preacher? We
know no North, no South, no East, no West. This
old American Tract Society is bounded by these two
oceans on two of its sides, and by the northern zone and
the tropics on the other two. We have not, at last, to go
down and ask of that imaginary line which so figures in
our papers as Mason and Dixon's, whether we shall pitch
a colporter across it naked, qr with his saddle-bags. We
send him South as he is. If their papers are filched and
burned, they will be like the ashes of Wickliffe, which
were carried by the rivers to the sea, and thus throughout
the globe. Many and many a man has served eternal
truth in this country, >t>y burying his own ashes at its
roots. We have an unrestricted field in occasions. Ah ! we
do not ask now for opportunities. There is no such
thing as fitting opportunities. " Behold, now is the ac
cepted time ; behold, now is the day of salvation." Our
report tells you that already two of our colporters are in
the slave States. But it does not tell you of the scores
of letters that come to us from them in application for

MUTILATIONS. J J
help, which we alone can give ; or of the support and
strength we have afforded to Christian households there,
by teaching which we alone have power to -impart to
them, — for there are Christian families there of the purest
Christian character, and of the highest Christian life. If
families there desire that which shall declare that purity
of character is God's fundamental law, and that the
chastity of the female slave is as dear in the sight of God
and in the light of heaven as that of her mistress, where
will they get them? To what depository shall they
apply for them in this city, besides ours ? Poor " Toby
and Sambo " has been given to the flames. " The Duties
of Masters to Servants," and similar tracts, have been
counted out for destruction. Beautiful is the notice in
our last Tract Journal on this subject.
"MEMOIR OF MARY LUND IE DUNCAN.
" We are happy to announce that we have received directly
from the mother of the lamented Mary, and the author of her
admirable memoir, an unmutilated and unabridged copy of that
work, for republication by this Society. It is accompanied, also,
by some manuscript additions which have never before appeared.
In her letter transmitting the voliime, Mrs. D. says : —
" ' It gratifies me much to have your Tract Society publish this
little memorial. I have been sharply rebuked for allowing another
society to abridge it ; but I have never regretted it, as that word
" abridge " was the cause of exciting the inquiry which led Boston
to do itself and the cause of justice and truth the credit it has
done ! ' "
The way that was abridged was like the Indian's way
of abridging a certain animal that was troublesome, — by
cutting off his tail just behind his ears. A peculiar
system of abridgment, indeed, is that which takes the
very life and element of power out of a story ! Abridg
ment very much like that was perpetrated, also, upon
some other publications. As in Richmond's African Ser-

12 ADDRESS.
vant, the following beautiful verse has not escaped such
abridgment : — " I was a helpless negro boy,
That wandered on the shore.
Thieves took me from nay parents' arms,
Who never saw me more."
Behold it abridged by four letters : —
" I was a helpless negro boy,
That wandered on the shore.
Men took me from my parents' arms,
Who never saw me more."
What ! are men and thieves synonymous in the vocabu
lary of that institution ? It would seem so.
" Men took me from my parents' arms,
Who never saw me more."
If the poetry had admitted it, and they had said,
" Devils took me from my parents' arms,"
it would have been far more appropriate. Now, I say
that, at last, here is a Society that has no necessity for
such abridgment.
We have an unrestricted field in the publication of
works suited to our purposes. There is no work which
the world needs that they dare not send forth without
the slightest alteration. We shall proclaim the Word of
God without mutilation or suppression.- And the Man
agement of this Society may stand up, at last, and say^
with fidelity, "Whom have we .defrauded ? Whom have
we robbed? From whose hands have we received a
bribe to blind our eyes withal ? "
We have an unrestricted field in the personal conr
sciousness of responsibility to God and man, in the
discharge of our duties. It was a heart-rending occasion
that first made this miserable abstraction a living reality,
when, in 1857, a company of fifteen of our united Society
made a unanimous report that though the Society had
nothing to do with the political questions connected with

A PAINFUL DIFFICULTY. 13
this abstraction, yet' the moral duties which grew out
of the question of slavery, as well as those moral evils
and vices which slavery was known to promote, un
doubtedly did fall within the province of the Society, and
could and ought to be discussed in its publications.
When this report was brought in by these fifteen gen
tlemen, who were appointed by the Management them
selves, it was adopted by a unanimous vote of the Society,
in full conclave. And then it was choked, and gagged,
and smothered, and stifled, and locked up, and forbidden
to speak, by the very men from whom their appointment
originated. What will gentlemen think of such responsi
bility as this ? When that contingency arose, there arose
a painful difficulty for some of us, who had made great
sacrifice of feeling, and conscience, and sense of duty;
because palsied be the tongue that refuses to speak, and
the hand that refuses to lift itself up, in behalf of the
oppressed. In this assumption of the right by our own
servants to overrule our authority and commands, we
become the oppressed. Now, if my maid-servant insists
upon assuming the place of the mistress, and locking up my
habitation from me, I claim that I have a right at least to
make " a miserable abstraction " of myself. You call it
an abstraction. It was an abstraction. It was a miserable
abstraction, beyond a doubt. But we were obliged to
make it. And if men ask us where we stand, we answer
that we stand on the ground on which we stood before,
of our responsibility to. men and our responsibility to
God. We do not meet our brethren and say, " You have
no right to ask this question ; your business is to choose
servants, and obey them, and be satisfied with them." I
confess that that is a modern idea of personal responsibility
on the part of what we call " help." Some of our ladies
would be very much dissatisfied with it. It is not our
idea of personal responsibility.

14 ADDRESS.
We haye an unrestricted field in the cordiality of our
supplications. There is not a living man for whom we
can not pray. My friends, it seems to me that if a man
should boggle in praying for a slave in this house, his
words would choke him. There is not an individual on
the face of the earth for whom we can not pray by name.
We can pray alike for master and slave, the oppressor
and the oppressed, the rich and the poor, the exalted and
the humble. Nor is there a human being speaking our
tongue who may not come to our depository, and receive,
so far as we have the means to furnish them, just the very
books he -wants, and just the very instruction suited to
his taste. Now, I call that American ; and I call the
Society of which that can be said, an American Society.
And as to whether it puts on the tail of its kite, Boston
or New York, I am indifferent. All that is necessary is
to have a tail that will keep the kite steady. The kite
is the thing that will go up, after all.
My friends, this Society has always stood upon this
bold, noble, fair ground ; and it never stood upon fairer
ground than now. Unrestricted in the doctrines it
teaches, in the duties it performs, in the sins it rebukes,
in the persons to whom it speaks, in its occasions, in the
responsibilities it confesses, and in the supplications it
makes, I ask, gentlemen, in what it is deficient. I appeal
to these venerable brethren around me, and to these
Christian sisters, — for we are a woman's rights society ;
we claim that our women shall have, a right to their
opinion and their judgment; and we mean to publish
tracts that will touch other duties besides abstinence from
dancing, — I appeal to these brethren and sisters, if the
ground we have taken is not a perfectly righteous, just,
evangelical ground. Does any man say to me, " Why do
you take that ground and join those people ? " As well
say to one of the men that stood on the margin of the

WELCOME TO NEW YORK. 15
Red Sea, on that memorable morning, " Why do you go
with these fanatics ? Why do you not hug the garlics of
Egypt ? Pharaoh is a good master. He never sells his
young people till they are grown. He feeds them well
and clothes them well. Why can you not abide and
stay ? " Abide and stay where I must sacrifice my con
science, my sense of duty, my conviction of responsibility
to political chicanery and expediency ? Why, I would
go down and eat the very gravel of the earth before I
would do it. Whether it is Puritan blood or not, I tell
you it is blood that runs from my very toe to the
crown of my head. I can not do it. I can want; lean
fight, if necessary ; I can stand up in defense of truth
till I grow infirm with age ; but it is not in me to do
that. I can not be responsible for talking a language not
one letter of whose alphabet I understand.
I say, then, that this Society is welcomed by us of the
churches of this city. With sincere delight we hail its
coming. We exult in its approach. It has anchored
itself just where it belongs, — in the Bible House. The
only tract Society in the Union that can make the Bible
a looking-glass, and behold with composure its face as it
is reflected from it, has anchored there. It says, " Here
will I dwell, and this shall be my heritage for ever ; for I
have a delight therein." There you will find it ; and you
may lave one hand in the cool water of the Bible, and
the other in the tepid stream of the Tract Society, flowing
out of it; as on the mountains of Virginia you may
thrust one hand into a cold spring, and the other into a
hot one, which flow in one channel, mingling as they flow,
till by and by they come to make those beautiful baths
where the sick may find their healing, and the decrepit
their restoration ; to which geneVations come, as if an
angel had been sent to trouble the pool, and from which
they go away whole, blessing God for having provided a

16 ADDRESS.
remedy for their ills. Does anybody ask, " Where is the
American Tract Society in New York?" We answer,
" In the Bible House." Where else should it be ? Do
you expect to find it in the theater ? , Do you expect to
find it near the offices of The Tribune and The Times,
where the very atmosphere is politics and contention?
You will not find it there. Go up where literature has
erected its beautiful palace in the Astor Library, in front ;
where faithful humanity has lifted up its edifice for science
and art, right opposite ; where, at the right, education has
adorned its beautiful temple of attraction for the young ;
where God has been pleased to set up his tower of defense
like the peaceful towers of Zion, — there, beautiful for
situation, is that building, the joy of the whole earth.
Walk round about it. There are no dark courts beneath
it. Count well its bulwarks. Mark its towers. Beautiful
the palace of the great King ! There, not on the side of
the North, but of the sunny South, in that peaceful nest
that seems to have been scooped out by the hand of
Providence for our particular occupation, you will find
this beauteous association in its very life, loveliness, and
glory. And when you shall go into the Bible House, and
ask, "Where is the American Tract Society?" our
brethren, — if they dare face the music, — must tell you,
" Why, just round the corner you will find it, at No. 13,
Bible House." This, then, is the direction.
Now, with this distinct platform, my friends, we go
forth. Our beginnings last year were very small. Won
derful has been their increase. Ah, yes, " its beginnings
may be small : its latter end will greatly increase ; " and
if ever so small, then I have to say, " Better a dinner of
herbs where love dwelleth, than a stalled ox and hatred
therewith ; better a little that a righteous man hath, than
great riches of many wicked."

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