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Library 1994.THE LAND WE LIVE IN:
A SERMON;
BY
HORACE EATON,
PASTOR OF THE SIXTH-STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW-YORK.
PREACHED THANKSGIVING DAY, NOV. 23, 1848.
ijg Request.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY LEAVITT, TROW & COMPANY,
191 BROADWAY.
1848.SERMON.
Deut. 8 : 6-10.
Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to
walk in his ways, and to fear him. For the Lord thy God bringeth thee
into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that
spring out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and
fig-trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil- olive and honey; a land wherein
thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in
it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig
brass. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord
thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
The manner in which God is regarded in the com-
mon events of life, is a close test of piety. It is very
possible to be conversant with the uniform action of
second causes, and yet lose all impression of the great
First Cause. The hidden sentiment seems to be, that
there is a vital energy in matter itself, that prompts and
directs its changes,—that Nature is a perpetual motion
that can go alone, while the Creator occupies a retreat
of leisure and dignity far above and beyond these vulgar
scenes.4
But a pious and truly enlightened mind sees nothing
in the laws or uniformity of the external world that can
satisfactorily account for the wise and benevolent chan-
ges that daily and yearly pass before him. To him the
laws of nature are but the uniform operation of divine
power. Nothing but the agency of a personal, wise,
and ever-present Creator, can answer the demands of
his reason, or the desires of his heart. Such were the
*
convictions of the ancient saints. Common instrumen-
tality did not obscure the divine agency. To them God
was present and active in every field of nature. God
clothed the grass, arrayed the lilies, fed the ravens,
gave goodly wings to the peacock, gave the horse
strength, and clothed his neck with thunder.
In the frigid language of human science, the rain-
bow is produced by the refraction of the rays of the sun
in passing through the drops of rain. But God says,
“ I set my bow in the cloud.” Human instruction
informs us that electricity, in passing from one cloud
to another, causes a partial vacuum, and consequent
vibrations in the air. These reach the tympanum
of the ear, and thus thunder is produced.. Not so the
pious David; he exclaims, “ Give unto the Lord the
glory due unto his name.” “ The voice of the Lord is
upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. God
thundereth marvelously with his voice.” Mere science
asserts that water evaporates, ascends into the atmos-
phere, collects and falls in rain upon the earth. But the
ancient seer declares that “ God covereth the heavens5
with clouds and watereth the hills from his chambers.
He sendeth the springs into the valleys that run among
the hills. Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou
greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full
of water. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundant-
ly ; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft
with showers, thou blessest the springing thereof.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and all thy
paths drop fatness.”
The mere naturalist can visit the Holy Land, ana-
lyze its minerals, write a history of its mountains and
streams, soil and productions, without one pious recog-
nition of divine agency. But the Hebrew Lawgiver
enjoined a remembrance of God in all the natural fea-
tures of the Land of Promise.
Now I need not tell you, my hearers, that the up-
lifted hand of the God of Israel delivered our ancestors
from oppression, conducted them through the perils of
the sea, and planted them in this good land; and it is
appropriate for us on this occasion, tofind considerations
of thanksgiving from the common mercies of this land of
our inheritance.
1. Consider the mineral treasures of our country.
There is a system of metaphysics so exquisite as to de-
preciate matter, just as though we could live upon air,
or stand like fairies upon any thing but solid ground.
But our habitation is matter, and the kindness that
Warms and clothes, and feeds our bodies, demands the
gratitude of our hearts.6
In view of the mineral wealth of the land of Is-
rael, Moses required obedience and thankfulness of the
chosen people. “Their stones were iron, and out of
their hills they should dig brass.” How indispensable
is iron to human enterprise and happiness! The uten-
sils of agriculture, the bolts and grates of our dwellings,
the instruments of every handicraft, the enginery that
works in all our factories, drives our steamboats and rail-
cars,—all the strong sinews that bind and move the
great interests of agriculture, manufactures, and com-
merce, are they not of iron ? Take away the facilities
of business, improvement and happiness that iron fur-
nishes, and should we not fall back into the barbarism
of the aborigines of this land ?
But what could we do with iron, without coal to
work it ? And for ten thousand uses of ornament and
convenience, what could we do without lead, and cop-
per, and tin ? How, too, could we dispense with salt,
and the various medicinal minerals ?
These hidden sources of. wealth are the foundation
of individual and national prosperity. It is not Eng-
land’s golden sceptre, or the jewels of her crown, but
the yearly production of thirty-three millions of tons of
coal, and the untold quantities of iron, that spts her as
mistress of the sea and ruler among the nations. Let
the mines of England fail, and what becomes of her
manufactories, her commerce, her power!
But how do the resources of this island of the sea
compare with the unknown wealth of our own conti-
nent ?7
At the rate of present consumption, the coal mines
of England will be spent in two hundred and fifty
years. But the deposits of the single State of Pennsyl-
vania seem absolutely exhaustless; while from the Al-
leghanies to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains,
there are intervening fields larger than the whole of
England, entirely underlaid with coal, in some places
one hundred feet thick.
In the most convenient proximity to this fuel, are
found mines of copper and lead, and mountains of iron.
Now consider that all these treasures of coal are of ve-
getable formation; that masses of vegetable matter
were produced in the early history of our world, brought
together, perhaps, by the waters of the flood from ante-
diluvian forests, then protected from the air while che-
mical agents were preparing the fuel that is now opened
in such fullness and abundance to us, for whom it has
been kept hid from the foundation of the world.
Surely it does not require great faith to see divine
wisdom and forecast at work in every step of the pro-
cess. In the remote periods of the past, God thought
of the myriads that were to swarm this land, and, like
a provident father, in the full treasure houses of the
earth, made ready for our happiness and elevation.
Through past ages God has wrought for us in the
coal and iron mines of our land. There we may read
sublime and ancient evidence that his “ mercy is from
everlasting.”
(: You will notice, the ^sacred [historian does not call8
for thankfulness to God that they should dig gold from
their hills, but brass and iron. In like manner, what
reason for gratitude, that this land was not cursed with
the gold and silver mines of the southern portion of this
continent. Compare the treasures, convenience, com-
fort and healthy thrift, that comes from the coal and iron
mines of this nation, to the poverty and national misery
that the Spaniards dug out of the mines of Mexico and
South America, and can we not bless God for a bet-
ter heritage? It has grown into a proverb, in South
America, that if a man own a copper mine, he will grow
rich ; if he own a silver mine, he will gain nothing ; but
if he own el gold mine, he will certainly be ruined.
2. Palestine was “ a land of hills and valleys; a
land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that
spring out of valleys and hills.” Israel rejoiced in this
feature of their land, when compared with Egypt, which
could boast of but one river, upon which they depended
for the enriching and irrigation of their fields ; and this
benefit was secured to their higher grounds only with
great toil. Hence how beautiful the contrast drawn by
Moses:—“The land, whither thou goest in to possess
it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out,
where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy
foot, as a garden of herbs. But the land, whither thou
goest to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, that
drinketh water of the rain of heaven—a land which the
Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy9
God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year
to the end of the year.1’
The hills and mountains were the life and glory of
Israel. They gave beauty to her scenery, health and
salubrity to her climate. The tops of Hermon and
Carmel and Gilead caught the vapor, and drank in the
watery treasures of the clouds, and thus fed those silver
streams that beautified and enriched the fertile hill-sides
and valleys, where smiled the abundance of the land
“flowing with milk and honey.” And the Hebrew
poets, as they sang of “ the glory of Lebanon and the ex-
cellency of Carmel,” express the common sentiment of
the human soul. We all love the mountains. Where
would be the song and enthusiasm of the Swiss, if the
land of the Alps should sink to the leaden plain of the
low countries of Holland ? Dig down the mountains
of Scotland, and she becomes desolate as the great
Sahara. It is the Highlands, the Grampian Hills, the
mountains of Scotland, that have inspired her poets and
protected her heroes and martyrs. And we, who re-
member the “ mountains afar,” where in infancy we
were cradled among the storms and crags of the Alpine
section of our own land, can but join in the universal
sentiment, Bless God for the mountains !
But there are more sober reasons for gratitude that
ours is a land of hills and valleys. From the mountains
our fivers have their sources. And if Israel could boast
over Egypt, as they looked down upon the lake of Gen-
nesaret, the Jordan and the smaller streams of Palestine,10
what expression can suitably set forth our gratitude, when
we overlook the great mountains and valleys of our own
land ? When we look off upon the vast ocean that
washes our eastern coast, or follow up the queen of
waters that pours its treasures by our own city, or listen
to the thundering cataract, or traverse that chain of in-
land seas that lie on our northern border, till we are lost
among the head-springs of those great rivers that drain
the western valley ; when we contemplate the number
of safe, commodious harbors that line our coasts, the
multitude, length and navigableness of the rivers, that,
like a net-work of waters, permeate and fertilize every
valley, and bear on their bosom to the sea all the trea-
sures of our deep interior; shall we not bless God that
he has, on a more magnificent and bolder scale than any
other country, made ours “ a land of brooks of water,
of fountains and depths that spring out of the valleys and
hills f”
3. It was another feature of the Holy Land, de-
manding the gratitude of the favored people, that it was
“a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees,
and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive and honey; a land
wherein” they were to “ eat bread without scarceness,”
nor were they to “ lack any thing in it.” With all the
prosperous nations of antiquity, agriculture was the most
sacred and honorable employment. In this their kings
and nobles were not ashamed to labor, for they all
“lived of the field.” This sentiment was especially true,
/11
of Palestine. The richness of the land, and the express
statutes of Jehovah, made the Israelites, from the high-
est to the lowest, tillers of the soil. There was great
variety of production in Palestine; but the chief staples
of consumption and commerce were wheat and barley.
We find them trading with Tyre in wheat and barley.
Solomon paid Hiram for the cedar and labor of work-
men in building the temple, twenty thousand measures
of wheat. Turn, now, from the agricultural interests of
a land, but little larger than one of our smaller states, to
the broad land of wealth unknown, which we inhabit.
Think of the extent of this land, of the variety of climate
and soil, and the consequent variety of production;—
think of the savannas of the South, covered with cane
and cotton :—the prairies of the West, where fields of
wheat, from two hundred to three, and even up to five
and eight hundred acres, wave to the breeze, like a
golden ocean. Between the northern and southern
border, and the two great oceans that wash the eastern
and western coasts of our land, there is variety of cli-
mate to meet every constitution, and variety of pro-
duction to meet the want of every taste. But it is
not in the variety that we excel, more than in the
abundance. t Think of the crowded nations of Europe
and Asia. How many are stricken with starvation!
And even in those countries where grain is produced in
large quantities, how do the triple exactions of the land-
lord, church and tax-gatherer, wrench all the finest of
the wheat from the hard-working classes, and leave
them nothing but the coarsest grains and vegetables.12
But in this land the ox is not muzzled “ that treadeth
out the corn.” The husbandman labors upon his own
soil, and lives upon the finest of the wheat and the fat-!
test of the stall. We may almost say, in the beautiful
language of Scripture, ours is “ a land of wheat, and
barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a
land of oil-olive and honey; aland wherein thou shalt
eat bread without scarceness;” where “ God has made
us to ride upon the high-places of the earth, that
we may eat of the increase of the field ; butter of
kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams
of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the kidneys
of the wheat.” How would the famishing population of
Europe rejoice to enter into our inheritance! What
embassies have already been sent to this Goshen, this
granary of the world, to buy corn. The value of ex-
ports of bread-stuffs for the last year to England and
Ireland, amounted to more than fifty-two millions of
dollars.
4. It is legitimate to our subject to consider the
mechanical agencies of our land. For what were all the
riches of the mine, if, like the Indian of a former age,
we roamed over these slumbering treasures without en-
terprise or skill, to make them available to human hap-
piness P And here let us not forget, that every good
and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of
Lights. “ Wisdom and might are his.” “ There is a
spirit in man, and the inspiration of God hath given
him understanding.”13
The useful arts Gpd claims as his especial gift to
man. Mechanical genius is not derived from books or
from human instruction. Some men are sent to be
benefactors of their race in this department, and by the
Great Father of spirits, their minds are endowed with
the inclination and the wisdom “ to find out knowledge
by witty inventions.” An inspired prophet has declared,
that even the less complicated art of agriculture, the
plough, the harrow, the means of sowing and threshing,
are from God. “ Doth the ploughman plough all day to
sow ? Doth he open and break the clods of the ground ?
When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not
cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast
in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley, and
the rye in their place ? For his God doth instruct him,
to discretion, and doth teach him.'1'’	“ This also cometh
from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in working.” The master-builder of the
tabernacle was endowed by God for his work. The
word of God declares, “ I have called Bezaleel the son
of Uri,! and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in
wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and
in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works,
to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cut-
ting of stones to set them, and in carving of timber, to
work in all manner of workmanship.” “The women,
also, were tvise-hearted to spin, and weave blue, and
purple, and fine linen.” Hiram, the chief architect of
Solomon’s temple, was “a cunning man, filled with wis-14
dom and understanding to work in iron, in brass, in
stone, and in timber; also to grave and find out every
device that should be put to him.”
God is the architect of the universe. Every princi-
ple and power in mechanics is his by the first invention,
and he makes it known to whom he will. How marked
his election, in setting the young enterprise of America
to teach the wise and prudent of the Old World new
lessons in navigation, manufactures, and the use of the
electric fluid!
Let us for a moment consider, how the mechanical
genius of our citizens bears upon our physical and moral
advancement.
1. It improves our physical condition, by increasing
our wealth. Wealth is a blessing, and “the Lord giveth
thee power to get wealth.” The mechanical arts render
available, and increase the value, of the raw material.
What makes the sheets and bars and various exquisite
and useful manufactures of iron, that fill your storehouses,
worth so much more in their present form than when
the ore slept in the mine ? What gives such value to
the thread and various fabrics of cotton over that material
as it grew on the southern plantation ? Why do you
sell those instruments of brass and steel for a thousand
times more than the material cost as it was dug from
the hill-side? An ounce of cotton made Into lace has
been sold for two hundred dollars, and steel made into
hair-springs, for watches, comes to be worth three hun-15
dred times its weight in standard gold. Now, why this
increase of value ? Who does not see that it arises from
the mechanical skill and labor expended upon it ? Manu-
factures enhance the value of every staple upon which
they work. Every cotton factory, every forge, wheat-
mill or handicraft, all are increasing the wealth of the
nation.
There is a section of the West, mentioned by Mr.
Lyell, seven hundred and twenty miles in length, and
one hundred and eighty miles in width—an area much
larger than that of England—intersected with navigable
rivers, covered, for the most part, with dense forests, en-
riched with a deep and fertile soil, and underlaid with a
thick and continuous strata of coal, frequently inter-
spersed with exhaustless mines of iron and lead. Now
let the great mechanical agencies of our time seize upon
these at present unproductive resources. Convert the
lumber into houses and steamboats; excavate those mines
of coal; let wheat-mills, forges, factories, every where
spring up, and what arithmetic can compute the advanced
value of the raw material ? In the same manner let the
transforming power of machinery pass upon the native
treasures of every other section of our land, and shall
we not outstrip the “ wealth of Ormus or of Ind ?”
Again; mechanical genius has relieved human sinews
of slavish toil, by subjecting unfeeling, inanimate agents
to do the same work. Follow up our streams, and
where they refuse to bear burdens, there they are com-
pelled to turn the wheel. ‘ Every little waterfall is en-16
listed in the service of man, and the winds obey his
pleasure. It was the glory of our mothers that they
“ sought wool and flaxthat their own foot turned the
wheel, and their own hands laid hold of the spindle and
distaff. But mechanical genius has put into the hands
of their daughters a wand, by which, in queenly authori-
ty, they can command the rivers to turn for them ten
thousand spindles, with an efficiency and skill unknown
to human fingers.
But steam is a still more efficient and obedient ser-
vant of man. It goes with him to carry his burden,
yea, it carries the man with his burden. It has been
found that one railroad engine with four tons of coal
per day, will do the work of three thousand horses in
carrying passengers! The work done by machinery
in England is supposed to be equal to that of between
three and four hundred millions of men (or half the
human race), by direct labor. How many thou-
sands sank under the toil that built the pyramids.
But steam would have done it all without crushing a
single man or animal. In passing over a railroad
recently opened, we were diverted to see the ap-
parent triumph of horses in the neighboring fields.
Well may man and beast keep a jubilee at this relief.
The whole creation, that has so long groaned and
travailed in pain, will rejoice together in the benevolent
agency of the mechanical arts. How much mercy in
a steam engine ! It is the substitute of the sinews of
men and beasts. It can work without rest, or weariness,17
or wages. Here is a slave without oppression ; the true
servant of the laboring classes,—obedient and strong to
row, to hammer, to pump, to press, to print.
But to relieve the body and abandon the mind to.
the stupidity of the brute, this were not half the mission
of the > mechanic arts. Their highest agency is to
promote the moral interests of man. If they give us
houses instead of wigwams, chronometers instead of
hour-glasses, elegance instead of rudeness, do they not
promote taste, refinement, punctuality, and cleanliness,
which according to Wesley is next to godliness ? If the
mechanic arts have given us railroads for the convey-
ance of our bodies, and railroads for the conveyance of
thought,—with steam and lightning for their agents,—
will not this facilitated intercourse diffuse knowledge,
equalize improvements, scatter prejudice, and promote
peace, amity and affection among those otherwise dis-
tant and hostile ? If the mechanic arts have given
music her instruments, and poetry, philosophy, and
history their pages, do they not connect with mind,
imagination, and the heart ? If every man must have
a Bible, the press must give it to him. If missionaries
must carry this word of God to every creature, the
magnetic needle must direct them across the trackless
waters, and, that wind and tide may not delay them,
steam must add its power. The agency of the me-
chanic arts is not merely with wood and iron. It
reaches to the highest interests of the soul. It gives
wealth to benevolence, leisure to mind, and wings to
2the gospel of salvation. There is thought, genius,
power, beneficence in this department of human actiou.
The man of inventive genius has his mission and
instrumentality as indispensable in the conversion of
the world, as the preacher of the gospel. The poet
may boast his power over the imagination, and the
orator his over the senate of the nation; but the
man who invents a steamboat can boast, that, in an
important sense, “the winds and the sea obey him.”
Godis in the mechanic arts. He is in every useful
device in the Patent Office,every wheel is “full of eyes,”
instinct, with his Spirit, concentric with his providence,
and destined to act a part in rolling on the triumphal
chariot of the Prince of Peace.
5. With the natural resources of this land, and the
means of improving them* we .have also received ;>the
Bible. The ark of the covenant was the strength
of. Israel’s prosperity. Before it Jordan divided, -the
walls of Jericho fell down, and the land was. cleared
for their possession. The Bible is the “ strength
of our inheritance.” The. Bible regulates our social
state. The law of Moses made provision for per-
manent and virtuous families. It gave to each a
portion of the good land which was first distributed
among the tribes. Then every individual Hebrew
received from sixteen to twenty-five acres as his portion.
Thus every tiller of the soil was the owner of the soil.
Under his own vine, and fig-tree he dwelt unmolested
by the dictation of lor/Is temporal or lords spiritual. No
moneyed speculator threw his claims over a large portion19
of the holy land, giving to a numerous tenantry “ only
leave to toil.” This was as foreign to Jewish law as to
wall in the air, or monopolize the sunshine of heaven.
In this there was true wisdom, for the family that dwell
upon their own paternal acres are stimulated with
motives of independence, self-respect, intelligence and
morality, which can never be felt by the serfs of the
did world. “ God hath set the solitary in families.”
And in this broad land of ours, it is not less his design
that every father should bequeath to his children all the
blessings of a freeholder. But here how should the
cheek of every American crimson with shame, that there
are among us three millions not only robbed of the soil,
but robbed of themselves, and every family tie violated !
Again: The Bible has given us a free government.
The Bible holds every man responsible to God for him-
self.’ He is not a mere appendage to a landlord or
priest. The Bible levels up, makes individuals, begets
cob tempt of human authority, When not endorsed by
divine command. Free men grow* up in Bible fami-
lies. ' Such were the families of our Puritan ancestors.
Such families are the basisf of our civil institutions.
They are the roots of the tree of liberty, struck deep
amidst the fastnesses of the word of God, and from
thence deriving their strength'and fatness.
Why did Israel differ from other nations in the pu-
rity of their families, and in the freedom of their civil
institutions ? They had the word of God. Why do
we differ in our domestic condition, from France, Italyj20
or Mexico ? Why is there a national conscience-^—a
foundation for law ? The Bible is in our families; God
is there; the cross is there; the Holy Spirit is there,
and there, with parents and children growing up under
such influences, are the hidings of that power which
gives permanency and freedom to this nation.
In conclusion : Our text was enforced upon ancient
Israel, by an incident which it may not be unprofitable
for us to notice.
The exigencies and deliverances of the sea and
the wilderness were past; the interest to realize the
long-expected inheritance was intense. How natu-
ral the request of Moses; “1 pray thee, let me go
over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that
goodly mountain, and Lebanon.” And when denied,
how sublime the submission, as the aged servant of
God takes his leave of the tribes he had so long con-
ducted, and makes his solitary way to the top of Nebo,
there to die alone. It was painful to relinquish the
long-cherished expectation of entering the promised land.
But mercy is mingled with the disappointment. From
the ascended eminence, he is permitted a miraculous
view of all that land of brass and iron, hills and valleys,
fountains and streams, wheat and barley. Before him
was the beautiful Jordan, and the clear, deep waters
of Galilee. In the distance, far across the plains of
Jericho and the flowery Sharon, was the great western
sea, while on the north were the wavings of the cedars21
of Lebanon. There was Machpelah, “which was be-
fore MamreBethel and Shur, and all the spots where
the patriarchs built their altars and pitched their tents.
But the view from Nebo was not confined to the
landscape of Palestine. Not only was the natural
eye of Moses assisted, but there was given him the
vision of prophecy to look down through the coming
reigns of David and Solomon ; to catch a view of
* the scenes of Tabor, Calvary, and Pentecost. This
vision, we doubt not, added new glory to the promised
land, and impressed deeper considerations for obedience
and gratitude. Who can doubt that Moses felt now,
more than ever, Israel’s responsibility, and God’s good-
ness ?
How vast and amazing the scene, if three hundred
years ago Bradford, or Winslow, or some other of the
leaders of our American Israel, could have stood upon
a solitary peak of the Rocky Mountains and beheld
from sea to sea, and from the gulf to the lakes! Could
he have looked down upon the great valley of our
American Jordan; could he have penetrated the fertility
of the soil, the treasures of coal and iron, the streams and
fountains of the vast undulating surface, sleeping in its
primitive silence and solitude; could he have looked
down with prophetic eye through succeeding ages, wit-
nessed the millions that would swarm along our valleys
and climb our hill-sides, seen cities and states, steam-
boats, rail-cars, and factories in all their speed;—above
all, could he have seen the political and moral achieve-22
merits, our elections, our legislatures,: our schools, the
churches, the works of the Spirit, revivals, Christian
enterprises,
“ Scenes surpassing fable and yet true
at such a view would not the heart of the old Puritan
have burst with exultation, as he left to the coming
generations of this land the solemn charge of the text,
“ Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the
Lord thy God, to walk in his ways and to fear him, For
the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land
of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring
out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley,
and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of
oil-olive, and honey; a land wherein thou r shalt eat
bread without scarceness; thou shalt not lack any thing
in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose
hills thou mayest dig brass. When thou hast eaten and
art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the
good land which he hath given thee.”
We remark from this subject—
I. Thoroughly to improve our advantages .de-
mands energy of character, .God said to Joshua, “You
shall divide the land I sware; unto your fathers; only be
thou strong and very courageous.” And it took forty years
to prepare the first generation to enter in and possess the
land. But what a field for worldly and Christian enter-
prise is opened to us! The advantages we have consi-
dered do not dispense with labor, but demand it. Labor23
is the price of every step of success. The mines do not
present their wealth all smelted and drawn into bars.
Iron and wood do not form a league of themselves to
build our houses and ships. The axe, the plough, or the
spade do not go without hands. Hard work is the only
condition of substantial good. There is hard work on
the farm, in the shop, the warehouse, in all the pro-
fessions. To subdue the lands, work up the raw
material, to push education, and make moral and in-
tellectual improvement keep pace with the march of
population, there must be great rigor of purpose and
toil, Something indefinitely removed from the ease and
softness of old and effeminate countries. God has
sprinkled the metals, which can do: nothing but adorn,
in thin and slender veins, but iron is thrown down in
mountain masses. Gold may well enough adorn a bride
on her wedding-day; but we must have something
stronger of which to make our chains, and railroads, and
engines. So we would by no means object to Italian
delicacy and perfumery in the drawing-room, but this
was hardly the material in the men and women that once
faced the rigors of our northern winter, and made the
forest, and the savage, and the wild beast to retire
before them. Conflict, difficulty, hard work, are indeed
stern teachers, but they are Heaven’s own ministry to
educate mind, to bring out purpose, endurance, per-
severance, practical wisdom, and force of will. Such
alone are fit for the hard-drawn enterprises of the age
and country in which we live. Mr. Lyell, the English24
traveller, before referred to, speaks of New England as
the spot where two millions of freemen are enjoying a
larger degree of intelligence, morality, and substantial
prosperity, than any equal number of people on the
globe. Individual industry is essential to the highest
respectability and happiness. The idler is not the
gentleman, no matter how princely his equipage or
luxuriant his board. When reduced to the last analysis,
he is a pauper. He consumes what he does not pro-
duce. He breaks the great law, “if a man will not
work, neither shall he eat.”
2. Stern adherence to Principle is another demand
of the times and country in which we live. The com-
mand to Joshua, on taking possession of the promised
land, was, “Turn not to the right hand or the left.
For so shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and thou
shalt have good success.” When the natural resources
of a country are developing, and enterprise is stimulated
to the highest pitch, if then conscience and the word of
God lose their anchorage, individual and national pros-
perity will be driven a-wreck. Many now.think the mora-
lity of the Bible too severe to be practical. So sharp are
competitions, that they conceive craft, cunning, shrewd
overreaching is necessary. But this in every instance
will prove like a man’s pilfering from his own pocket.
Gideon Lee, a merchant of this city, heard of a young
man who boasted of defrauding him. He simply
remarked that he was sorry for the individual’s sake,
for said he, “ with such principles, he will hardly fail to25
defraud himself and get into straits.” The prediction
proved true. In a few years the man from a handsome
property became penniless, dependent upon charity, and
applied to Mr. Lee among others for assistance. It is
not from natural causes, unavoidable calamities, that
you see so many wrecks of fortune floating down the
stream of infamy. Let the Bible preside in the chamber
of commerce; let God’s word be obeyed, his Sabbath
reverenced, his honor regarded, and the commercial
interests of this country will rise to a permanency and
glory that Tyre never saw. Right is always interest.
He employs the deepest shrewdness who obeys the
wisdom of God. God is every where abroad in the
commercial world. He, who from haste to be rich is
not innocent, he who violates conscience, righteous-
ness, and the word of God, encounters an opposition that
will ultimately overthrow him. “ Who hath contended
with the Almighty, and hath prospered?”
3. Large benevolence becomes the citizens of this
nation—“ To whom much is given, of them will much
be required.” These resources of wealth are not de-
posited here to make our merchants princes, to pamper
pride and extravagance, and bring on an effeminate and
dissolute age. Is there not a predestined correspond-
ence between the wealth of these ends of the earth and
the great moral enterprises that are now opening? Is
there not a supply here to meet the demand? Here, in
this sub-treasury of the world, is the wealth long funded
to meet the expenses of the war against sin and Satan.26
The cry of our own land for the means of self-preserva-
tion—the Macedonian cry of the agitated nations of
Europe for the freedom, knowledge and salvation of a
pure Christianity—the cry of six hundred millions of
heathen for the bread of life;—these are so many drafts
upon us, signed and sealed by the great Lord of the
treasury* Will it not, in the final reckoning, be a fear-
ful thing for that steward who shall be convicted of
keeping back his Lord’s money ?
Lastly. In view of our mercies, gratitude is a most
obvious duty. “ God hath not dealt so with any nation.”
On other occasions, we have not ceased to insist upon the
cross, that unspeakable gift, the crown and medium of all
good to sinners. But, to-day, we would have you see God
in the silent and less-observed ministers of his goodness—
“ in mountains and all hills, in fountains and all depths,
in fruitful trees and all cedars.” As you retire to your
homes “ to eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send por-
tions to them for whom nothing is prepared,” forget not
your common mercies. See, in the convenience of your
dwellings, in the mechanism that lights and warms them,
and divides to each of you a portion of the river of life
that is given to us—in your books and instruments of
music, in the fuel that cheers your hearth, in every plant
upon your table, preserved for you by the rains and sun-
shine of six thousand yearsin all these you will find
use for the language of David, “ How precious are thy
thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of27
them! If 1 should count them, they are more in num-
ber than the sand.”
Accustom yourselves, my brethren, to recognize the
hand of God in all the agencies of nature and art, where
he is ever working for the happiness and elevation of
man, facilitating travel, business and intelligence. Then
you will never be alone ; you will walk with God, and
his presence and society will give energy to your cha-
racter, decision to your principle, benevolence to your
life, and gratitude to your affections.