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SERMON

DEL IV E R E D A T W A L T H A M,

On Sunday, Sept. i, 1853.

BY HASBEOUCK DAVIS,

MINISTER 0? THE INDEPENDENT OHURCMI AT WATEBTOWR

» -*feTnB present age is an epoch of liberation, — directly from all external ruling authority;
indirectly from the power of reason as instinct, and generally from reason |n any form* ~-
the age of absolute Indifference toward all truth." — Ficote.

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BOSTON:
BENJAMIN H. GREENE,
112, WASHIHQIOlf SIBBE'T..
1853.

1

%\t Sa&Urfap si Infihlitj:

SERMON

DELIVERED AT WALTHAM,

On Sunday, Sept. 4, 1853.

BY HASBROUCK DAVIS,

MINISTUB OP IIS INDEPENDENT CHITBOH AT WAIEBTOWN.

L

' The present age is an epoch of liberation, — directly from all external ruling authority;
Indirectly from the power of reason as instinct, and generally from reason in any form, —
the age of absolute indifference toward all truth." — Fichte.

BOSTON:
BENJAMIN H. GREENE,
112, Washington Steeet.
1853.

BOSTON :
printed by john -wxlson and son,
22, School Steeet.

THE

SUBTERFUGE OF INFIDELITY.

Romans xi. 20 : — " Because of unbelief they were broken off, and
THOU STANDEST BY FAITH."
It was a peculiar custom in the warfare of savages to dip
the barbs of arrows in venom. Thus their vindictive bar
barity not merely disabled the foe in a present contest, but
the slightest wound consigned him to a lingering but inevi
table death. The superior humanity of civilization has
forsaken all such modes of contest, and only among weak
and corrupt nations lingers a semblance of it, as the Mexi
cans are said to have used copper bullets which rankled
and poisoned wherever they lodged.
Theological disputes demand to be conducted on the
same humane and generous principles ; and it is a violation
of all justice and humanity, when odious and unpopular
terms are hurled as missiles instead of fair reasoning. It is
much easier to 'use such terms than it is to detect an error.
It is much easier to call men Infidels, and .denounce them
as such, than it is to show their mistake and the unchris-
tianness of their doctrine. Besides, the term has a very
poisonous efficacy. It frightens many from the combats
where such a weapon is used. Infidelity ! truly it is a bar-

barous word with which to smite a brother-man, having
a keen edge and a virulent venom ! How rife it has become
lately among us ! What numbers of persons, who have
been hitherto held to be among the good friends of Chris
tianity, are suddenly struck down with this shaft, and
found to be no Christians, — merely Infidels, — men un
worthy of any sympathy or fellowship; not to be tolerated in
churches ; and so scandalizing community by their senti
ments, that the very public halls are shut and locked upon
them. It is indeed a powerful word that can effect all this,
— carrying a dreadful meaning, a subtle and quick-working
poison. It is simply and solely because of your Infidelity that
you have come to this place to worship, unable to find
admission into church or public hall. It was because of
your Infidelity that it was for a long time doubtful whether
you could hold any meeting, even under the free heavens
of God. And yet God bears with you, though you do not
receive from men that toleration which would have been
proudly granted to Jews or Moslems or Hindoos. His
sun shines on you, his solid earth bears up your feet, and
his pulsing air receives your petitions. We are at no en
mity with God; for we also are his children and Christ's
friends, and, whatever we may be called of men, are no
Infidels in spirit.
I do not know that we can use our time this afternoon
any more profitably than in seeking to prove this by a defi
nition of terms, and an analysis of the true character of
Infidelity. Let us, then, proceed to inquire what is meant
by this designation, and what is the exact nature of the
stigma conveyed in it; and we may perhaps satisfy our
selves and others whether the term is justly used or not ;
who are the true Infidels, and what is the true Infidelity ;
who it is that should be broken off for unbelief, and who
it is that stands by faith.

There is a certain kind of " Infidelity " which a man
may be proud of, — when it is a relaxation of old creeds
for a more thorough and extensive search after truth.
This is not Infidelity ; it is the truest fidelity to nature
and to honest conviction, and is the first duty a man owes
to his conscience and his God. It is unjust to censure
such obedience to the light within ; and a species of cruelty
with which you are not unfamiliar, to level the poisoned
shafts of epithet, and stigmatize it as the enemy of society,
the church, and Christianity. Our honest wish is to pro
mote the cause of true religion. We are ready and de
sirous to be convinced of error, if we hold it. We cherish
no enmity to forms nor persons. It is no purpose of ours
to break down the faith of an individual, nor to assail and
weaken churches. Let them do their work: there is a field
for us also. Perhaps these views we cherish may here and
there touch and kindle u soul that has fallen away from
formal Christianity, and now slumbers in careless apathy.
A late number of the " New York Independent," with that
honesty and candor so rarely found in religious newspa
pers, but happily a characterizing feature of that bold and
noble-spirited journal, freely confesses the rapi'd increase of
skepticism, and as freely points to the true cause. These
are its manly, though sorrowful words : —
" We believe that a great change is preparing in religious opinion, of which
many of our best men know almost nothing. To those who are thrown into
the currents of life, it is evident that men's minds are in unusual working,
and that the very foundations of religious belief are rotten and shaking.
" What is told as Christian doctrine by the churches is not even considered
by them. And, furthermore, there is among them a general ill-concealed dis
trust of the clerical body as a class, and an utter disgust with the very aspect
of modern Christianity and of church worship. This skepticism is not flip
pant : little is said about it. It is not a peculiarity alone of the radicals and
fanatics : many of them are men of calm and even balance of mind, and
belong to no class of ultraists. It is not worldly and selfish. The doubters
lead in the bravest and most self-denying enterprises of the day. It is not an

unbelief to be laughed or hooted at, or hunted down. It is calm, abiding,
earnest, sorrowful.
" Not much is known of it above ; but it underlies now all the strongest
external movement.
" There are, however, glimpses of it. You see it in the daily diminishing
influence of the pulpit, and the increasing influence of the press ; in the lessen
ing number of strong and original minds who take hold of theology, and the
tone of the men who are leading American thought. It speaks in these strange
longings for new revelations, and in the occasional denunciations of the old.
" To us it seems strange that those Christian men should be boasting about
church- organizations and technical dogmas, or be troubled about consistency
with orthodox standards and catechisms, or anxious about the question of
pastors' salaries and what not, when the very ground and basis beneath our
Christian Church is trembling to its depths, — to be squabbling over uni
forms and rations when the very citadel is being sapped ! "
Here is the field we crave. Here are souls to whom our
faith shall be as a revelation of truth, as the bread of life.
The scribes, the established teachers of Christianity, will
not receive it : let them leave us alone to do our Master's
work, and we ask no more. We beg them, in the name of
a common humanity, to cease these appeals to the blindest
forms of popular prejudice; and we assure them that the
reckless use of these epithets may harm us for a time, but
the weapon will soon lose its edge, and the shaft its poison.
Just as the term Heretic, once a vile reproach, a' word that
made a man an outcast from humanity, kept his nearest
kindred from his deathbed, and forbade decent sepulture to
his body, is now an honorable title, so it will be with this
word Infidelity. As the term is now used, no man need
have the slightest reluctance to affix it to his name, and
wear it with satisfaction and pride.
Our subject naturally falls under two divisions : — I. The
Infidelity falsely so called. II. The real Infidelity.
I. To doubt the opinions of any man or body of men is
not Infidelity. It is not Infidelity to question the opinions
of the orthodox church on the plenary inspiration of the
Old Testament. A man of common intelligence and com-

mon moral sense, who has been brought up in the bosom
of orthodoxy and has been taught to look upon this book
as penned at the divine dictation, will, when he reads it
with wakeful attention, find many stumbling-blocks in his
way, and many things incompatible with the notions of
God received from the lips of Christ. What will he say
when he reads that " the Lord gave the children of Israel
favor in the sight of the Egyptians," as they were on the
eve of leaving Egypt, so that "they lent unto them jewels
of silver, and jewels of gold and raiment." " And," in the
emphatic words of the Holy Writ, " they spoiled the Egyp
tians " ? Or if he could explain away this, and read on,
what will he say when he finds in the book of Numbers
the history of the vengeance taken upon the Midianites at
God's direct command ; — how war was made on them, and
all the males were killed, and the women and their little
ones were taken captive, and their cattle and their flocks
and all their goods were spoiled, and their cities and their
goodly castles were all burned with fire ; — and then how
Moses considered the authors of this cruelty to have tres
passed against the Lord in leaving their work half done,
and commanded that all the male-children and married
women, who had been brought captive into the camp,
should be put to death in cold blood? There are other'
passages equally cruel. They would be well enough, if
left to justify themselves by the barbarity and darkness of
the age ; and after every allowance we should still find these
sacred books of the Jews the noblest relics of earliest
time. But when we are told that this history is the work
of God, then we say the character of God must have im
proved in the course of time, he must have become more
humane and enlightened and civilized ; for the good Father
of men never could have dictated such words as these.
An honest and intelligent man reads these accounts : he
says to himself, " Here is an error, an incompatibility, in

8

ascribing these books to the divine spirit ; " and straightway
the guardians of the Records cry out, " This is Infidelity."
Such Infidelity is a credit to a man's intellect and his
heart. In the New Testament there is nothing of this character ;
nothing offensive to the feelings; nothing perhaps that is
unworthy of the highest claims that can be made upon our
faith. But it is none the less a book, none the less a his
tory, none the less a production of the intellect, none the
less connected with the whole history of the times, and
requiring to be judged by intellectual study and criticism.
It is not Infidelity, then, when a man, in obedience to his
best judgment, arrives at the conclusion that these histories
are erroneous in many respects, and contain palpable mis
statement of fact. It would be Infidelity if he should re
fuse to inquire, and shut his eyes to the evidence leading
to this conclusion ; or worse still, if, once convinced, he
should conceal his opinions, and prove so faithless to the
truth as to deny before the world the result of his investi
gation. Only recall the past history of biblical criticism, of the
gradual relaxing of the elder and more stringent views, and
you will foresee its future progress. There are very few
people now, except theologians, who believe in the plenary
inspiration of the Old Testament. This devouring criti
cism, like the waves of the ocean, has already washed away
all such claims. And now it has begun at the New, as the
sea fritters away either end of an island, — begun at the
birth and at the death of Christ; and it is conceded by
most critics of judgment and liberality, that here, as the
driftwood gathers on a coral foundation, the fabulous and
mythical element has formed a soil of loose and uncertain
tenure. The gospel histories are mainly a series of legen
dary accretions on a substratum of truth, whose extent will
never be precisely ascertained. Indeed it is not of the

9

slightest importance whether it is ever ascertained or not :
it is of no consequence, so far as the moral characters of
men are concerned, to know any thing about the facts of
the life of Jesus. It makes no difference where he was
born, nor where he died, nor under what circumstances.
These are questions of merely curious interest. What is it
to you whether he fulfilled the prophecies of Jewish seers ;
whether angels announced his birth ; whether Simeon took
the child in his arms, and Anna gave thanks to the Lord ;
whether at twelve years old he surprised the Doctors, and
after his baptism had a personal interview with the Devil?
These are important questions to critics, and in some sense
interesting to all of us, but not so vital as to affect a man's
Christianity, or to make him an Infidel who questions them.
Let those study them who will, and those doubt them who
will, and those believe them who will. Not for that reason
can we concede men to be better Christians and more faith
ful believers. A sound faith attaches itself to something
very different, and of more intrinsic importance than such
frivolous points.
It is not Infidelity to doubt, whether because a man can
not understand or for whatever other reason, the intricate
scheme by which souls have been saved for the last thou
sand years, some of the meshes of whose sophistries still
enchain the most liberal of our sects. Whoever reads the
New Testament conceives of the simplest possible relation
between God and man, Child and Father, these are the
words. Ill prepared will such a man be to understand the
Augsburg Confession or the Genevan Catechism. He will
be surprised to hear that he needs to be saved, and perhaps
curious to know from whom he is to be rescued ; and if he
goes a little further than that, and is sceptical as to the de
sirableness of being rescued from God at all, who can blame
his untaught understanding, or think he merits the severe
censure of Infidelity ? Is it to disbelieve God to deny the
2

10

mediation of Christ, or that any such idea is to be found in
the teachings of Jesus, or can belong to essential Chris
tianity ? — to prefer the speculations of St. John to those
of St. Augustine, the simple doctrines of the Sermon on
the Mount to that web of metaphysics which begins with
Total Depravity and ends with the Atonement, or any frag
ment of it yet lingering in men's minds ? Am I no Chris
tian because I cannot understand the Trinity, nor the doc
trine of Justification by Faith, when I have read the words
of Christ through without finding an allusion to them?
Am I no Christian because I cannot see what effect the
blood of Christ is to have on my redemption, nor how I
can become- a better man, and more acceptable to God,
except by manful effort to do my duty ? Am I an Infidel
because I think the Father of men hears my prayer without
the aid of Christ, and would do so if Christ had never
come? O no! these are not the dangerous and unchristian
doctrines of the time. Doubt make's havoc here, and does
no harm. You cannot know from a man's life, from his
excess or lack of charity, and all the Christian graces,
whether he is a Calvinist or a Naturalist ; whether he dis
believes in the finding of the coin in the fish's mouth, or
is a firm advocate of Transubstantiation. You do not learn
a man's sentiments on all these petty questions till he has
told you : the Christianity of his action you can see at a
glance. Does it not strike you, then, as an absurd inconsis
tency with the precepts of Christ to shut out of the pale of
his religion men who bear the fruits of piety, but whose
sentiments are not quite orthodox ?
No ! The church has fallen into an error in singling out
this doubt for its judgment and condemnation. This Infi
delity does no harm to Christianity, destroys no souls.
There is another scepticism more subtle, more corrupting,
more permanent, more to be dreaded ; the scepticism which

11

lays hold of the life of great principles, of fundamental
truths ; that hidden, insinuating Infidelity which the more
tenaciously it holds the frivolous points of church etiquette,
so much the more boldly it questions and disobeys the
great commandments on which the church was founded.
II. It was this real Infidelity of which we were in the
second place to develop the character, and to direct the
attention of Christians to that point where real danger to
Christian institutions lies, ten thousand times more dan
gerous because so covert. The Infidelity of modern life
consists in its defection from the truth, and its utter want
of any great and humane principle to animate and direct
it. I call that man an Infidel, whatever he pretends to be
lieve or disbelieve, who lives " without God in the world ; "
who has no faith in his own spiritual nature, nor in the
omnipotence of right ; who has no perception of any inter
ests but material interests, and who gives to them his time
and energies, and all the influence God has given him over
his fellow-men, just as if there were no realities but houses
and lands and ships and factories ; whose life is marked by
no acts denoting an allegiance to a higher than earthly
authority; whose rules of morality are the codes of law,
and whose impulses of action are the opinions of those
around him. I call that man an Infidel who practically
denies that he has a soul or any immortal element, and all
the week through turns his back sheer on God and immor
tality, while he traffics and barters ; and whose religious
worship consists in feeble efforts, once a week, to appear
respectable, and do as others do. All Infidelity is not pro
fligate and audacious, and at open warfare with Christian
institutions; for it is possible for the accredited forms of
Christianity to have in their bosom a downright Atheism,
and the purest orthodoxy of creed is not inconsistent with
an utter denial of all that is dearest to true religion. Side

12

by side with the believer, on the same bench, listening to
the same preaching, eating of the same sacrament, sits the
Infidel of to-day. It is not by the outside and visible sem-^
blance, not by the avowal of scepticism, nor by the repeti
tion of " I believe, I believe," through five nor thirty-nine
articles of a creed, that you may know this dreaded class
so hostile to the interests of true religion. The church has
yet to learn the tokens of this disease it has set itself to
heal ; for its inward ravages are consistent with the most
decorous bearing, and the most careful observance of cus
tomary formalities.
The frivolous Atheism of our time builds the most
splendid temples in the name of God, and flaunts before
him in the most showy worship. It is possible to manifest,
even in worship, an actual and audacious contempt of the
divine presence; and can you conceive of a more reckless
Infidelity than that which carries exclusiveness into the
solemn proclamations of human need and Christian fellow
ship, gathering into cliques by themselves the more wealthy
and favored of a town or village, and of Sundays demand
ing of God that he should recognize the difference, as if
elegance and refinement and fashion were distinctions to
be carried into the kingdom of heaven ; — a religion which
builds churches where fashion holds its pews as private as
its boxes at the theatre, and where, alas! the parade of
worship is almost as empty and unreal as a play upon the
stage ; — a religion which is veneered upon life ; which ex
erts and does no.t care to exert any influence upon men's
actions, but floats upon the stream of worldfiness as gossa
mer, and careless as any ?
Where, in a great and corrupt city like New York, will
you look for the influences that go out to redeem and save
it? At either end of Broadway stand two stately struc
tures, built in the name of religion, and dedicated to her
service. Their graceful spires of white marble and red

13

sandstone pierce the skies, as if to call down the benison
of Heaven on the busy trade that goes on around them.
They are beautiful works of art: perhaps the continent
cannot boast of finer. You climb, till you are weary, up,
up, almost above the reach of the din and roar of carriages,
till the forms of men crawl like ants on the white pave
ment. The metropolis lies unrolled at your feet, and these
two representatives of religion seem to watch over its bust
ling life, to guard its virtue, and to point its hopes to
heaven. But the thought comes up, how all around you, to the
right and left, in wretched lanes, in miserable garrets, and
damp and pestilential cellars, are clustered, thick crowded
together, guilt and starvation, disease and misery, ignorance
that craves for light, spiritual darkness that craves for the
gospel, hunger that craves for bread ! Then what a con
trast, — the vast wealth expended on these piles of stone,
the untold wretchedness that is crowded at their feet! It
was not surely the living spirit of Christ that shut its ears
to the cry of human agony, and turned its back on the
appalling picture of human woe, that the great metropolis
might have churches worthy of its magnificence. The
Christianity of other days might build such temples ; and
at Strasburg and Ulm they rose in fair proportions out of
the free-will offerings of a people seeking to serve God as
they best knew how. Our modern imitations have no
other foundations than a selfish and worldly vanity. En
dowed with estates once of trifling value, now by the influx
of population converted into enormous wealth, when the
sad misery imported with that population claims as its
right the blessings such a fund could bring them, behold
in their stead these gorgeous works of art, which mock the
poor ; nay, which support their magnificence' by revenues
drawn from property consecrated to sin. If this is fidelity
to Christianity, then indeed I have not understood it rightly.

14

We should seek it rather among a poorer sect, in those
men who have felt their hearts wrung by the appeals of all
this wretchedness and crime; in those women who have
gone forth as the messengers of God, without capital and
without social position; who have won their way to the
very centre of that city's festering guilt ; built their schools
to save from vice; opened kindly homes to shelter those
who would flee the sin to which want condemns them.
God bless them for it ! They are indeed the children of
Christ. A thoroughly fashionable church is scarcely possible,
except under institutions as flexible as ours. A glance at
our ecclesiastical organizations shows us, that every form of
political sentiment and social feeling straightway generates
a church. It is said, that the two most liberal sects in this
state are composed, the one almost entirely of Whigs, the
other of Democrats. Side by side with the churches of
politics stand the churches of fashion, — churches that have
no root in any new spiritual experience, not even in any
new intellectual speculation ; but which have been planted
in the barren soil of pride and worldfiness, and bear such
fruit as might have been expected. They are found in per
fection in the outside life of all great cities. There is that
worst of Infidelities, which professes faith, and yet denies
God, not only in a life given to frivolity, but in the very
profession itself; whose worship is the gaudy homage of
self, a negation of the essential attributes of the divine na
ture, and a practical avowal of absolute Atheism.
There is an Infidelity of business, toward which the
church might profitably direct her attention and rebukes, —
an Infidelity which knows no God in the bank and on
'change, for earth has scarcely more godless places than
these are, — an Infidelity which holds its own in the very
bosom of Christianity, not merely tolerated, but wielding
an overwhelming influence, and dictating the policy which

15

governs religious organizations. Cold heartlessness, delibe
rate injustice, unscrupulous shrewdness, all that is most
faithless and most devilish in the nature of man, are trans
parent in his business transactions. I know how many
exceptions there are ; how many men of noble hearts, and
unbounded benevolence, and exalted piety, and unswerving
rectitude, have gone out of the counting-room, and graced
humanity by the beauty of their walk ; and, when a life like
that of Amos Lawrence, more fragrant and lovely than
cloister ever could produce, closes serenely, leaving a trailing
glory such as no other life in New England ever left, it
seems to show the soul greater than circumstances, and the
beauty of genuine piety everywhere the same. But the
exceptions will attest with us the truth of our rule. A Chi
naman might spend years of week-days in State-street,
without learning that the Americans believe in any God.
The anxious church, alas ! is blind to this Infidelity, and
does not seem to know how much she has to fear from it.
She does not know that its false judgments are creeping
into her system, and its inhumane and wicked sentiments
are spoken in the very pulpits built for the utterance of
God's word and the rebuking of Infidelity. It is under the
direction of this subtle adversary of Christianity that the
clergy suffer their attention to be divided, and their moral
force to be spent in the condemnation of a few harmless
individuals, who have suggested doubts on a few unimpor
tant facts in history; unaware that behind their backs stands
the real Infidelity of the age, urging them to this hostility
that its own course may be unnoticed and uncondemned.
What child does not know that it is the moneyed power
ofthe community which smothers the utterance of preachers
upon great social evils like that of slavery ? Why, the very
charities which went out from New York to the sufferers
by the pestilence at New Orleans were converted into
advertising media, and, as in the case of Lemon slaves pur-

16

chase, the names of firms contributing were published in
full, and made known to the whole South. Statistics show
that much of the demoralization of great cities is the result
of underpaid labor, driven to vice to gain its bread; and
the prosperous merchants, to whom these wretched beings
are morally slaves, sit uncondemned by the public con
science, to listen to whose rebukes the bell summons them
every Sunday.
Nay, this Infidelity of business is the corner-stone of
churches. They need its affluence ; and the coffers, whence
proceed those golden streams which nourish religious organ
izations, are unlocked by the two keys of silence on the
Atheism of life, and a diversion of attention to the wicked
ness of speculative doubt. It is high time to cease this
sham warfare ; and Christian preachers should forget their
differences, and combine against that worldfiness which has
not even interest enough in Christianity to ask, whether
the histories on which it rests are really true or not, —
which calls for the condemnation of heresy, because it
always unites itself with practical reform, and strives to
found a more earnest and useful form of Christianity.
There is another kind of Infidelity which ought to be
dealt gently with, and which implores from the church en
lightenment and instruction, — the Infidelity of superstition,
which distorts the character of God, and casts a dismal
shadow over man's relations to him. What is historical
scepticism compared with this profound fear of God, which
rests like an incubus on the human mind, and invests
its close with dreary horror? Surely the preachers would
serve the cause of humanity and religion better, if they
would do something to relieve this wretched condition,
instruct the darkened soul, and free it from its idolatry.
When we read the prayer of Christ, beginning with those
ever-blessed words, " Our Father who art in heaven," how
few can feel toward God this just and generous confidence !

17

how few are not yet far behind the perfect faith of him who
was indeed " the Son of God " ! « If a son," said Jesus,
" shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give
him a stone ? " words which exclude all fear and doubt of
that Providence which orders human destiny. But the
complexity of life proves too much for faith, and makes
men cowards before death, and that future which they be
lieve in and yet fear. The Infidelity of superstition denies
the naturalness of death, affirms its inconsistency with the
divine plan ; a disorder crept in to punish human sin, and
ever since holding over life its scourge and terror. Infi
delity teaches men, that death is a consignment of the
prey into the hands of vengeance, — a setting of the seal
on the eternal destiny of the soul. It strives to keep up a
constant, torturing anxiety and alarm in view of its certain
and speedy event. Perpetually we hear it calling upon
men to prepare for the last and awful hour, and telling
them what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the
living God, and be summoned before the bar, where the
account is to be rendered, and the judgment given.
Alas that men should live so blindly under the eye of
Nature, and understand so little her beautiful analogies!
She, gentle instructress, teaches us serenest faith and an
undoubting confidence, which sweetly sinks to slumber in
its Father's arms. Her voice soothes men's fears, telling
them in plainest utterances, that all life is as immortal as,
its source, constant in its growth, identical in its changes,
and sure in the final evolution of perfected goodness.
Why should fearful doubt stand in awe of death, which is
but the winter intervening between the epochs of the sap
ling's growth, while spring again takes up the interrupted
work to build forth on trunk and branch? No, Infidel!
Not that future only shall be acted in God's presence and
among celestial surroundings, but to-day also is divine, and
life lies always in the hands of God, and day by day the

18

judgment goes on, and death is not so much to be dreaded
as any failure in life's great responsibility. A true faith fas
tens on no visionary paradise, on no celestial city ; but bids
us simply be true to conscience, so far as our own power
reaches, and let God take care of all that lies beyond that
radius ; so that, if you must die to-morrow, that is not your
care, only that yon do not sin to-day; and, when the book
of life is closed, closed also is your labor, and in the traits
of character the history is written legibly and for ever. It is
the highest office of faith to put forth all of strength in the
charities of life, to act life's duties up to the very verge of
human power ; and then, whatever comes beyond its con
trol to blast its success, then and then only can it say with
Christ, " Thy will, not mine, be done."
Oh the omnipotence of God, and the strength of right,
and the moral certainty of its victory ! Here are points on
which our stigmatized Infidelity is more faithful than the
believer. What courage it has, and what hopeful faith,
while the church palters and hesitates on the verge of duty,
and, admitting the claims of abstract right, fears to obey,
as if it doubted the power of God to carry them through
and justify their obedience ; as some -newly-enlisted soldier
on the eve of Marengo, not yet schooled to trust in the ge
nius of Napoleon, assumes to question the work assigned
him, forgetting that his first duty is obedience, and that the
order of battle proceeds to its grand results under one com
bining oversight, in the settled assurance that each indivi
dual will obey orders and do his duty. Nothing can be
accomplished against the evils of the age by such distrustful
adherents of the truth, by the Infidels whose judgments
are affected by expediency, by interest and timidity ; who
wish to keep the peace with both sides, and so drink of the
cup, but sfily dilute the potency of truth, lest they seem
to the world intoxicated visionaries. Let the church look
to this Infidelity, which has no faith whatever in the success

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of principles, — no idea that, when the mind has grounded
a theory on the laws of God, it must come true, though
the whole universe combined to stamp it an impossibility.
The outcry against the madness of theorists and fanatics,
when fanaticism looks to nothing more ultra than the pos
sibility of universal peace and the emancipation of slaves,
is an exemplification how little men believe in God, and
how lightly they hold his promise, that the truth and right
shall prevail at last. Only be sure that a cause is just, and
it must succeed, though it has neither wealth nor numbers
on its side. Where the right is, God is ; and the presence
of God leaves no room for despair.
There is an Infidelity to Christianity which renders its
obedience to the letter, disregarding the spirit of its pre
cepts. It seems to me strange that men will not draw a
distinction between that kind of faith which merely reveres
a history of a man's life, and that which generates a living
and willing obedience to his commands. The first may
pass for what it is worth, but it is certainly good for nothing
without the last. The effort to magnify these trivial ques
tions into importance at the expense of the truth seems
hollow and wicked. Were Christ living now, doubtless he
would be the first to disclaim the miraculous honors, the
superhuman dignities and offices, brought him by the scribes
of Christianity ; and with what sorrow would he perceive
that Pharisaism has crept into the bosom of his own church,
to the exclusion of the children of the kingdom ! No doubt
the church would reject the claims of Christ, should he
come to us as to the Jews, and stigmatize him as an Infi
del. On its own definition of terms it would. An obedience
to the spirit of Christ's commands carries men out of the
pale of most church organizations ; for Christ waged war
against rituals and formalities, and the inertia of Phari
saism ; and the same to-day is the spirit of his doctrine,
leading men within their own souls to make all fair there

20

for the Bridegroom's coming, and let the outside show take
care of itself. So Christ was accused of irreverence toward
Moses, and disobedience to the commands of the great pro
phet, because he kept not the traditions, eat bread with
unwashed hands, and disregarded other customs highly im
portant in the religious estimation of those times. He was
an Infidel to Judaic Pharisaism, and would be so to that of
Christianity. Were his second coming now, it would not be
in the rolling of the heavens together, not in the earthquake
opening the graves of the dead, but in the still small voice,
saying, — " In vain do ye worship me, making the com
mandments of God of none effect by your tradition ; in vain
do ye narrate the wonders of my history, the stories of my
birth and Divinity, of my Sonship to God ; in vain do ye
observe Sunday, and sit at the communion-table, and make
long prayers; for the very publicans and sinners who have
kept the great law of love shall enter into the kingdom of
God before you. Ye fools and blind ! Which is greater;
Sunday and the church and the Bible, or the spirit which
sanctifies them all, and without which neither day nor place
nor book can be sacred? "
My friends, we may make our lives useful to the present,
and our labors apostolic. With all reverence and respect
for the past, we have a work of our own to do, and cannot
afford to believe that all inspiration is exhausted, and that
nothing is left but to study the records of others' labors
We shall show our discipleship best when we catch the
spirit of such men as Paul, and are bold and earnest and
true amid the dangers and the evils of the present time. It
is no fit employment for piety to garnish the sepulchres of
the righteous, and say, " If we had lived in those blessed
days, we would not have been partakers in the blood of the
prophets." There is a worthier duty awaits the church than
to vindicate the dignity of Jesus, and to block the wheels
of progress with the epithet of reckless Infidelity. The old

21

scenes are even now re-enacted before us, and every day
the thrilling denunciations of the igospels seem to gain new
force and point. Jesus lives for us also ; and his godlike
words, true of all men and all time, make our hearts burn
within us, as if written for the emergencies of our own
lives. Let us be up and doing ; for the fields are white with
the harvest, and the help of every hand is needed to save
our religion from the inroads of Infidelity.
" Traditions, forms, ana selfish aims,
Have dimmed the inner light:
Strong souls and willing hands we need
Our temple to repair,
Remove the gathering dust of years,
And show the model fair."
Yes, a religion becomes Infidel when it does nothing to
resist the great tide of evils which corrupt a nation's cha
racter, and must eventually undermine its greatness ; when
encroaching luxury receives no rebuke from its compliant
and orthodox shepherds, and simpler manners and more
genuine feeling are forsaken without a lament and without
a protest ; when the guardian and conservator of public mo
rality sneers at reform ; when the pulpit, which should have
the power to direct public sentiment, becomes itself its ex
ponent; when preachers allow their course to be dictated
by men of influence in their parishes, and are afraid to obey
their own better feelings and more liberal convictions, lest
they should offend the worldfiness in the pews. This is In
fidelity, — this is disrespect toward Jesus, — this is coward
ly fear to obey his commands ; for it is ten thousand times
better to doubt miracles and resurrection all together than
to sacrifice our fidelity to the law of Christian duty.
And now, friends, if these remarks are true, a great injus
tice has been done, and the actual hostility to Christianity
must not be sought in us, who deeply revere the name of

22

Jesus, and earnestly wish that we may be worthy to be
called his disciples. You have come to this unusual place
of meeting in no spirit of trifling or frivolity, nay, with no
wish to injure the religious organizations around you.
There are those in this village whose hearts are with our
movement, who love the Christianity we hold; and we
claim them for our own, and will worship with them, though
it be under no roof but God's heaven. Who will dare to
say that these doctrines are harmful ? or what man believes,
that, if the inhabitants of Waltham were built up after this
form of Christianity, they would be less pious, or less noble,
or less virtuous ? No, friends, our few words will do no
harm : perchance, by God's blessing, they may waken some
soul to a new perception of the height and breadth and
depth of this perennial religion, and the sublime duties to
which it summons its disciples. To your mind, and to my
mind, the living Christ of this age reveals a field of action,
and in our every-day life an opportunity to be faithful to
principle, and to contribute our mite toward making the
world wiser and better and happier. Apparently we must
wait a long time yet ere the great law of fraternal love
shall be fulfilled, and men shall treat each other as they
would themselves be treated. Monstrous violations of this
law appear in society, and blot the fair surface of an other
wise happy age. But it is within your power to carry this
rule out in your own action and in your private relations.
While, then, you are able always to obey conscience, and,
what is more, to do it in a Christian way, — while you are
able to treat men kindly, humanely, without regard to their
treatment of yourself, — while you possess that spirit which
forgives and forgets an injury, harboring no resentment,
but rendering good for evil, I will venture to say, that, what
ever your speculative opinions, no man will long style him
an Infidel who has so much of the spirit of his Master.
Then will the sects soon grow ashamed of their position,

23

and no longer willing to keep watch over the Bible, assail
ing the few heretics whose importance lies mainly in the
fact that they are so assailed ; then will they return to the
spirit of their Master, and be themselves the pioneers of
progress, not leave that work to be done by the outcast and
disowned disciples,- — then will they lose sight of opinions
in their zeal to forward the great work, and help on the
coming kingdom.
We look to you, friends, to achieve this result ; and, dis-.
regarding the trivial charges that are brought against your
theology, to live them down, manifesting your superior de
votion, winning the good-will of men, and shaming the
sects into friendship. We prophesy your success. The
favor of God is with you. " Not in vain
Your trust in human kind :
The good which bloodshed could not gain
Your peaceful zeal shall find.
The truths ye urge are borne abroad
By every wind and tide :
The voice of Nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.
The weapons whioh your hands have found
Are those whioh Heaven hath wrought, —
Light, Truth, and Love; your battle-ground
The free, broad field of thought.
Oh, may no selfish purpose break -
The beauty of your plan,
Nor lie from throne or altar shake
Your steadfast faith in man! "

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