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 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/relationofchristOOmoor 
 
5 
 
 THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 THE 
 
 ANNUAL ADDEESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 GENERAL UNION PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 
 
 flj- Since writing the preceding Address, (lie Secretary of 
 the Massachusetts Board of Education, and other leadmJ 
 kducat.oms.s, have directed my attention to the Com2l 
 School Speller of Mr Wu. B. Fo,vx E of Boston, and Xe 
 great pleasure in expressing my approbation of its plan and 
 execution It appears to be a very valuable work and ought 
 to be carefuHy examined before a preference is expressed for 
 any other Spelling Book. The BibU Reader and other 
 works by MrFowIeseem well calculated to effect the obS 
 proposed in then- publication, and I would respectfully request 
 mpartiali; UCa "°" '° eXami " e "' em °» «»«/2 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 
 
 1846. 
 
 

 TIIE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 THE 
 
 ANNUAL ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 GENERAL UNION PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 
 
 DICKINSON COLLEGE, 
 
 CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 July 8, 1846. 
 
 BY REV. T. V. MOORE, 
 
 OF GREENCASTLE, PA. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 
 
 1846. 
 
Dickinson College, July 9th, 1846. 
 Dear Sir : — I am instructed by the members of the General Union 
 Philosophical Society to present you their thanks for your admirable 
 address, and earnestly to solicit a copy for publication. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 W. H. ALLEN, 
 Rev. T. V. Moore. 
 
 Carlisle, July 9th, 1846. 
 
 Dear Sir: — In reply to your polite note of this afternoon, I would 
 
 say, that as my object in preparing the address referred to was to do 
 
 good, if it shall be deemed that this object will be further attained by its 
 
 publication, I am not willing that any hesitancy I might feel personally 
 
 to this step, should prevent me from complying with the request of the 
 
 Society. 
 
 I am very respectfully yours, &c, 
 
 T. V. MOORE. 
 Prof. W. H. Allen. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Gentlemen of the General Union Philosophical Society. The 
 man who desires to be extensively useful to his generation, must 
 understand its necessities. The history of the world is a series of 
 problems, having the dealings of God and the nature of man for 
 their factors : and to each generation is there committed for solution 
 its own particular problem in this sublime analysis. A portion of 
 this problem is assigned to every individual of that generation, and 
 though it be but the part of a single unit, yet that unit is essential 
 to the accuracy of the result. To each individual man, therefore, 
 however humble be the sphere he may occupy, the right discharge, 
 and therefore the right knowledge of the duties of that sphere, are 
 important, for this is his all, and is linked by unseen ties to facts 
 that are wrapped in all the awful significance of eternity. 
 
 To the generation that live and act in the age and land in the 
 midst of which our lot is cast, there has been entrusted one of the 
 mightiest problems ever committed to a people for solution. The 
 mode in which this problem is solved will determine, for the weal 
 or wo of millions, whether free institutions are possible in connec- 
 tion with great and rapid development and advancement of indi- 
 vidual and social character ; and if so, what are the conditions under 
 which this connection can most advantageously exist. In a short 
 time comparatively and many at least of you, gentlemen, will bear 
 a part in the settlement of these great interests. And whether your 
 part be one of prominence or of obscurity, you are in either case 
 bound to act it honestly and intelligently. True greatness and 
 honor consist not in the place which a man fills, but in the way in 
 which a man fills his place. The hissing reptile may crawl its 
 
slimy way to the eagle's nest, but it is a reptile still, while not the 
 humblest creature God has made, when in its place, 
 
 " But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims," 
 
 and is essential to the perfection and harmony of the whole. Hence, 
 whatever be your future lot in life, it is important to you, that you 
 enter it fully aware of its demands, and thoroughly prepared to meet 
 them, as far as you may possess the ability. 
 
 It is not the object of the present discourse, to present to you a 
 summary of the characteristic wants and defects of our age, the 
 supply of which will constitute in part your duty. That such 
 deficiencies do exist none but the ignorant or the designing will 
 deny ; and that the attempt should be made to remove them, none 
 but the weak or the wicked can doubt. 
 
 There is, however, one characteristic which is equally prominent 
 and perilous in our state of society, and to which the attention of 
 the educated youth of our land should be distinctly turned. It is a 
 growing disposition to separate as far as possible, Christianity from 
 our public and social life. Whether this is a defect or not, it can 
 scarcely be denied that it is a characteristic of our age. Religion 
 may be regarded as a very good thing perhaps in private, but 
 as often a very awkward thing in public life ; a very necessary 
 thing with which to die, but a very inconvenient thing often with 
 which to live. It is viewed as something whose domain, like 
 that of the travestied Socratic philosophy, lies in the clouds, and 
 can never be brought down to the level world of daily life. Like 
 some of the maxims and deductions of mathematical' science, its 
 theorems and lemmas are regarded as theoretically correct, but as 
 utterly incapable of being practically embodied in the earthly and 
 gross materials with which men must work in civil and political 
 life. It is deemed of so subtle, impalpable and sensitive a nature 
 as to shrink from all combination with elements so rude and bois- 
 terous, and as liable to exhale to heaven its pure and fragrant 
 essence in the attempt at such an amalgamation. Hence, whilst in 
 every other government in the world, there has been a most formal 
 
and explicit recognition of some form of religion, in the fundamental 
 laws of the state, and in most of their solemn public acts, and the 
 governing power held to be distinctly and officially bound to sub- 
 mit to the principles of that religion, and do nothing to their infrac- 
 tion ; and whilst in every other government of any importance that 
 has ever existed, there has been a formal provision for the religious 
 instruction of the people and an admission of their religious in- 
 structors to the most plenary civil rights ; in our own it would be 
 difficult to detect in our fundamental law, and many of our most 
 solemn national acts, the slightest recognition of the very being of 
 God, much less of Christianity. And not only is there no public 
 support of the ministers of religion (which of course we would most 
 earnestly deprecate), but in many portions of our land they are not 
 even permitted to entertain, or express an opinion on the great 
 topics of political action, except at the peril of provoking the petty 
 proscription of some political partisans, and a practical definition 
 of what they mean by freedom of speech and action. There is a 
 growing disposition on the part of infidelity and latitudinarianism 
 fo demand a suppression of the few traces of Christianity, that ap- 
 pear in our statute and common law ; and in too many cases a 
 growing disposition in our national and state legislation to yield to 
 these demands. The adduction of specific instances of proof to 
 these allegations might be invidious, and is perhaps unnecessary. 
 It is only necessary for any man to compare the spirit that ruled 
 the colonial legislation, especially that of the New England colonies, 
 and that which appeared in the acts and speeches of the early 
 federal congress, with the spirit that now reigns in our halls of 
 legislation, national and state, to see that a wonderful change has 
 been wrought in the relation of religion to the national mind. Acts 
 were then passed, declarations then made, and recommendations 
 given, which would be as impossible now as the establishment of 
 an inquisition, or the ordering of an anto-de-fL This fact we deem 
 unquestionable in our national history. To some this feature in 
 the flow of our national life, is a matter of congratulation. They 
 deem it simply a growing emancipation from the ghostly tram- 
 mels of the past, a more free and liberal spirit of national action, 
 
and a more expansive growth of genuine civilization. They believe 
 that the point of separation has at length been reached between 
 Christianity and national advancement, and that henceforth they 
 will each proceed on a hyperbolic curve of eternal departure, to the 
 great relief and advancement at least of all civil and political in- 
 terests. To others this change appears as an ominous retrogression, 
 and this defect as fatal, unless sufficiently supplied and compensated. 
 
 The question at issue here is a vital one, and one that reaches to 
 the very foundations of society, and hence must be fully and honestly 
 met. If Christianity be either hostile or indifferent to the advance- 
 ment of society, its present position in our country is proper, and 
 the sentiments of the former class of thinkers correct. But if, on the 
 other hand, it be either essential or favorable to any permanent or 
 legitimate social improvement, then its present position is improper, 
 and the fears of the latter class of thinkers well grounded. It is the 
 duty then of every man, and especially of every educated man, to 
 have his mind clearly and firmly decided on this question, before 
 entering upon public life. It is to aid you in this decision that I 
 have selected the theme of discussion thus suggested, rather than 
 any lighter literary topic, for your consideration on this occasion. 
 
 I lay aside the obvious advantage, which I would possess in an 
 a priori argument from the assumption of the divine origin of 
 Christianity, and the consequent necessity for its beneficial influence 
 on society ; because it might be alleged to be an unfair assumption 
 of ground, which if even not questionable has yet been questioned- 
 I propose then to take up the a posteriori argument, and carry the 
 appeal directly to the tribunal of history. 
 
 I ask your attention, therefore to the consideration of the relation 
 of Christianity to modern civilization. 
 
 In order that the terms of this proposition may be clearly fixed 
 in this discussion, I would remark that by Christianity, is not meant 
 every form of belief and practice that has been called by that name, 
 or every organization that has been denominated a Christian church. 
 To hold Christianity responsible for every caricature of its principles 
 and every counterfeit of its form, would be as palpably unjust, as 
 to hold learning to be chargeable with every nauseous exhibition 
 
of pedantry, and every villainous act of educated cunning; or 
 liberty to be accountable for every ebullition of savage ferocity and 
 lawless Jacobinism. By Christianity is meant the religion of the 
 Bible, embodied with more or less purity, in the forms of the Bible, 
 and continuing to exist in some organized form, from the date of 
 its establishment to the present time. By civilization is meant the 
 personal, social and civil advancement, of those things that pertain 
 to the well being of the individual, and the well being of the com- 
 munity. By modern civilization is meant that state of personal 
 domestic and civil life, which is now found in Europe and America. 
 That many agencies have been at work in producing this complex 
 result, is not to be questioned. From ancient Egypt, Phenicia, 
 Babylon, Greece, Rome, Arabia, Scythia and Scandinavia, came 
 forth the springs that have swelled and filled this wide and rolling 
 stream of life. But from the time that the fountain was unsealed 
 on Calvary, whose pure gushings are yet to cleanse the world, the 
 troubled stream of European civilization has had mingled with it» 
 the waters that issued from this hallowed source. Hence the ob- 
 ject of this discussion is simply to disentangle this one element of 
 the present form of civilization, and endeavor to estimate its inde- 
 pendent and insulated influence, in the accomplishment of this 
 manifold result. If it can be exhibited as one of the most im- 
 portant, if not the very prime element in this form of civilization, 
 the question of its proper relation to American society social and 
 civil, will be of comparatively easy solution. 
 
 It cannot surely be a matter of surprise to any intelligent mind, 
 that to a form of religious belief should be referred an influence in 
 producing a form of civilization. Every form of civilization that 
 has ever existed, whether Grecian, Indian, Chaldean or Egyptian, 
 has been greatly affected by the religion with which it has been 
 connected. Indeed in some cases where the form of society has 
 been theocratic, as in Egypt, and India, religion has been the sole 
 element employed in the production of the existing form of civiliza- 
 tion. But in all these cases, as soon as the conditions of society 
 change, the form of religion must be broken, for it is rather a mould 
 into which society is cast, than a plastic energy that gives it vitality 
 
10 
 
 and form. Hence as soon as any inherent principle of life was 
 infused into these societies, the inflexible mould of religion into 
 which they had been compressed, was shivered to atoms. In this 
 respect there is a most remarkable difference between Christianity 
 and every other form of religion that has ever exerted an influence 
 on civilization. It alone has proved its ability to co-exist with, and 
 influence every possible form of society, from the most barbarous 
 to the most refined. This peculiarity arises from the fact that it is 
 a plastic power of life, that infuses gradually and gently its own 
 vitality and form into whatever it touches, and not a dead, inflexi- 
 ble, outer form that must break in pieces with the growth and 
 development of the society on which it is imposed. This peculiarity 
 makes it eminently adapted to be an agent, in the production of 
 that gigantic growth of civilization, which we now find existing in 
 Europe and America. 
 
 These preliminary postulates being considered, I propose to dis- 
 cuss the proposition announced first, by taking up Roman civiliza- 
 tion, at the point where Christianity came in contact with it, exhibit- 
 ing those inherent defects in it that produced its destruction, and 
 showing the peculiar adaption of Christianity to supply these de- 
 fects; then by showing the actual influence of Christianity on the 
 successive forms of society that have issued in the form now ex- 
 isting; and finally, by deducing from this historical induction, its 
 present relation and future agency in the prevailing form of the 
 world's civilization. 
 
 When Christianity appeared in the world, the Roman empire had 
 reached the acme of its splendor and greatness. It had arisen from 
 the great sea, the fourth form in the prophet's visions, dark, mysteri- 
 ous, iron-teethed, terrible; stamping under foot the rights of the 
 weak and helpless; absorbing with insatiable greed and startling 
 rapidity, provinces, states and empires, until the bannered eagle 
 that bore those four potent initials, S. P. Q. R., saluted the sun as 
 he wheeled up over the flashing waters of the great Euphrates, and 
 only bade him a lingering farewell as he sunk behind the cold 
 and stormy cliffs of Albion. The world was prostrated at the feet 
 of this haughty and giant power, and no arm was deemed strong 
 
11 
 
 enough to grapple with its Titanic strength. Rome was thus 
 made the focus of the world, and all the riches, elegance, refinement 
 and splendor of the earth were poured into this august and mighty 
 metropolis. The period in question, was the culminating point of 
 Roman greatness and magnificence. The temple of Janus was 
 closed for the second time since its erection, and the brilliancy of 
 intellect, literature and art that marked this period, has made its 
 very name descriptive of the most polished era of subsequent na- 
 tions, and the Augustan age to stand, by universal consent, as the 
 magnificent type of all succeeding national splendor. But beneath 
 this glittering exterior, the inquiring eye can detect the elements 
 of disease and decay, that finally caused that colossal power to totter 
 and fall before the fierce storms of the northern forests, with a crash 
 that startled the world. 
 
 The first grand defect of Roman civilization at this time, was the 
 want of any strong and sincere faith in any principles of virtue and 
 religion. The ancient Roman was a man of faith, and a man of 
 virtue according to his faith, and hence a man of power. Believing 
 that an omniscient eye was upon him, an omnipotent arm around 
 him, and an impartial tribunal before him, he went right forward 
 in the pursuit of the right, like the iron man of the Faery Queen, 
 turning not aside at the call of the siren, or the menace of the fury, 
 but with a stern and unquailing determination following the right, 
 though he followed it to the shades of Orcus, and the tribunal of 
 Rhadamanthus. It was this sublime martyr faith in what he be- 
 lieved to be duty to the gods and duty to men, that made the ancient 
 Roman at once the model and the monarch of his race, and rendered 
 Roman arms and Roman policy invincible. The history of early 
 Rome, even through the fabulous narrations of Livy, is brilliant 
 with unquestionable proofs of this fact. 
 
 But when we come to examine the Augustan era, we find a 
 mournful change in the character of the people. As in Greece 
 religion had degenerated into a mere love for the fine arts, so in 
 Rome the only residuum left of' this ancient religion, was a species 
 of patriotism. All genuine faith in religion was extinct, so that the 
 eloquent and philosophic Cicero, in spite of his disquisitions in favor 
 
12 
 
 of the existence of the gods, and the immortality of the soul, more 
 than hints at his doubts of both, and openly expresses his wonder 
 *hat the augurs could look each other in the face without laughing. 
 The rhetorical treatise addressed to Herennius and ascribed to 
 Cicero, evinces incidentally and unconsciously a corruption of 
 society in every department of it, that is even more startling and 
 appalling, than the direct evidences of depravity set forth in the 
 caustic pages of Horace, Persius and Juvenal. Religion had de- 
 generated, according to the nature of the mind with which it dealt, 
 either into superstition or infidelity, and the sole renovators of 
 society, were to be found in the sty of Epicurus or the kennel of 
 Diogenes. There was no motive impelling the mass of society to 
 virtue drawn from this life, for its only reward was privation and 
 ridicule ; and none drawn from the life to come, for that was deemed 
 a fable. Hence passion and appetite in every form were let loose, 
 in all their hideous shapes of brutality and ferocity, without a check, 
 but that of bitter rivalry and hostile collision. The proofs of these 
 allegations present themselves in sickening and disgusting detail, in 
 almost every work remaining of that splendid but rotten age. Nor 
 was the tendency of this condition of society unseen by philosophic 
 observers. The pages of Livy, Sallnst, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch 
 and Tacitus evince a painful sense of the malady, without any know- 
 ledge of the remedy. That remedy must be a religion simple 
 enough to be grasped by the faith of the poor and ignorant ; lofty 
 enough to command the faith of the intellectual and learned ; sub- 
 lime enough in its teachings to breathe a new life into the dying 
 age ; pure enough in its requisitions to cleanse the lilthiness of this 
 huge Augean stable ; and strong enough in its hopes and influences 
 to exorcise the unclean spirits, whose name was Legion ; and such 
 a religion alone was found in Christianity. 
 
 Another serious and fatal defect in this civilization, was the social 
 position of woman, and the domestic relations of society. The 
 family is the fountain of civilization, and woman is the tutelary 
 spirit of the family. It is in the household that the purest and 
 holiest affections take their earliest rise, and around the household 
 that they will cling and twine with their longest and fondest attach- 
 
13 
 
 ment. It is in the sweet influences of family scenes, and family 
 affections, that those pure and vestal principles of noble acts, are 
 lit in the secret shrines of the human heart, that are the last to be 
 quenched in the career of vice, and that often, casting their high and 
 starry brightness on the troubled sea of ambition, debauchery and 
 despair, gently lure the wayward and weary voyager back to the 
 calm and peaceful track that leads to the happy isles of the blest. 
 " The child is the father of the man ;" and the mother is the mould- 
 ing architect that forms the child. Let the homestead be a place of 
 pure and holy breathings, embosomed in an atmosphere of virtue 
 and truth ; and the young heart will drink in their sunny influences 
 like the opening flower, and develop them in the rich foliage and 
 clustering fruit of purpling maturity and green old age. Hence a 
 nation's households embosom a nation's destiny. 
 
 When we look at Rome in the high and palmy days of her pros- 
 perity, we find that although her households were never to be com- 
 pared with a Christian home, or her wives and mothers with Chris- 
 tian matrons, yet she possessed many such wives as Lucretia, and 
 many such mothers as Cornelia. But at the period under discussion 
 corruption the most loathsome and festering had reached the house- 
 holds of Rome, and poisoned society at its very fountain. It is a 
 significant fact, that of all the touching and beautiful pictures given 
 us, in the undying literature of this period, there occur so few de- 
 lineations of the domestic affections; so few recognitions of any- 
 thing like a home; so few of those artless touches of deep and 
 thrilling emotion that cause the eye to glisten, and the heart to swell 
 over pages of a Burns, a Wilson, or an Irving. On the contrary, in 
 the pages of Juvenal and Horace, and especially of Tacitus, we 
 have some pictures of Roman homes, sketched in colors so ghastly 
 and horrible, that the pencil seems dipped in the lurid flames of the 
 pit. Licentiousness, jealousy, discord and hate; plots of husband 
 against wife, and wife against husband; mothers sacrificing their 
 own children, to their shameless and horrible lusts; divorces suc- 
 ceeding divorces with disgusting frequency ; and in default of these 
 the dagger or the poisoned bowl, made the ready pander to brutal 
 appetites; murder, perjury, suicide, robbery and incest; these are 
 
14 
 
 the elements composing these horrible pictures. In the later days of 
 the empire, marriage was deemed a degrading yoke, and children 
 a curse; the wife was a mere slave, and learning, and cultivation 
 of mind deemed only proper for the courtezan. Hence there was 
 needed, that effeminacy should not lead to utter extinction, some 
 agency that would purify the domestic relations ; cause husband 
 and wife, and parent and child, to regard each other with suitable 
 affection ; and lift the wife, the mother, the sister and the daughter 
 to their proper position, as the golden links that sweetly and softly 
 bind into one the jarring elements of society. Such an agency was 
 Christianity, the only religion on earth that raises woman to her 
 proper position, and thus creates a home. 
 
 Another serious defect was the gradual decrease of a hardy, 
 robust, industrious middle class in Roman society, having an interest 
 in maintaining her institutions in peace, and defending them in war. 
 The importance of such a class in every government, is too mani- 
 fest to require a moment's remark. No good government can exist 
 without it. It is true we do not find in any ancient government, a 
 body of men corresponding to the vast middle class of modern 
 society, the mighty tiers elat, who are now the real rulers of the 
 world. But in ancient Rome we find perhaps a nearer approach 
 to this class, than we do in any other community, except the He- 
 brew commonwealth under the judges and early kings. The hardy- 
 yeomanry of Latium, whose nerves and muscles were strung by 
 agricultural toil, manly exercise and virtuous habits, were thus fitted 
 to put on the massive armor of the legionary, and go forth to the con- 
 quest of the world. But when in the third and fourth century of the 
 Christian era, the fierce barbaric hordes came down like the vulture 
 on his prey, we look in vain for this class. They are extinct. The 
 rich fields that once stretched along the Alps and Apennines, are 
 deserted and barren, and the place that their hardy cultivators once 
 occupied in the armies filled by the rude Dacian, the fierce Hun, 
 and the barbaric Goth. Hence when these hired defenders chose 
 to grasp the rich prize they had hitherto protected, there was no 
 force adequate to resist them. What then produced this strange 
 and fatal destruction of so important a class of men, and thus the 
 
15 
 
 destruction of the empire? We find all the causes at work during 
 the Augustan age. 
 
 The first was the gratuitous distribution by the government to 
 the people first of grain, then of bread, and finally of every neces- 
 sary of life. These staples of subsistence were drawn from the rich 
 and conquered provinces of Egypt, Lybia and Sicily, which by 
 reason of their superior advantages of soil and climate, were able 
 to undersell the Italian agriculturists, and thus drive them from the 
 market. Discouraging native agriculture, and paying a premium 
 to idleness, by this gratuitous distribution, we find that at this very 
 period, Cicero testifies that not more than 2000 citizens, out of the 
 vast population of Rome, possessed the means of independent sub- 
 sistence. Hence the race of agriculturists gradually withdrew from 
 this unequal and bootless contest, and forsaking their fields, became 
 lost in the needy crowd of hungry retainers in tlie city. As the 
 barbarians began to make their pillaging incursions, the frontier 
 districts became insecure, and were therefore gradually abandoned. 
 But by the absurd municipal regulations of Rome, the amount of 
 tax levied on these provinces remained precisely what it was when 
 they were populous and flourishing. Hence as the population de- 
 creased, and the rewards of labor diminished, while the tax required 
 from each province remained the same, it soon required all the labor 
 of the husbandman to meet the enormous and increasing burden of 
 taxation that fell to his share. This insane policy tended to depop- 
 ulate entirely the agricultural districts, and destroy their hardy, 
 rural, industrial population on which the state had once so much 
 depended. 
 
 Another cause of the disappearance of this middle class of society, 
 was the enormous increase of the slave population. By reason of 
 the numerous captives taken in war, and the natural increase of the 
 slaves, they at last numbered from 50 to 60,000,000 of souls, and 
 single families in Rome possessed from 20 to 30,000. Labor thus 
 became cheap and degrading, and the laboring class of freemen 
 gradually disappeared. An enormous drain was made on the re- 
 sources of the republic, for the maintenance of the slave population, 
 and in consequence of their cruel treatment, a hardy and powerful 
 
16 
 
 race was created burdensome to the commonwealth, yet bitterly 
 hostile to its interests. The natural result of this process was seen 
 in the invasion of Rome by Alaric, when 40,000 slaves joined him 
 in a body, and became his most desperate and ferocious soldiers. 
 
 There was therefore needed an agency that would remove these 
 monstrous inequalities of society, and give to honest labor its proper 
 dignity, and that agency was found alone in the religion that de- 
 clared, " he that will not work shall not eat." 
 
 The last serious defect that we notice, is the want of any proper 
 feelings of common humanity. The very etymology of the word 
 humanity, suggests the social and political importance of the feel- 
 ings included in the term. A nation that lacks these feelings, not 
 only falls short of the proper standard of civilization, but ultimately 
 procures its own destruction by one of the inevitable laws of provi- 
 dence. It is true a Roman audience could rise up in admiration of 
 that noble expression of human brotherhood " homo sum, et nil 
 humani a me alienum puto" but it is also true, that this same 
 audience, perhaps, could the next hour raise a shout of equal ap- 
 plause over the shrieking victim, writhing in the jaws of wild 
 beasts, or the bleeding form of the dying gladiator. Tens of thou- 
 sands of wretched combatants were sometimes brought forward at 
 a single gladiatorial show, to glut that savage and cowardly thirst 
 for cruelty and blood, that only grew with its gratification. When 
 to this we add the brutal treatment received by the sickly infant ; 
 the decrepit parent; the hapless victim of disease and accident; 
 the wounded soldier; the captive foe and the miserable slave ; we 
 see a savage ferocity that provoked the vengeance of both God and 
 man, and that it might not work the utter ruin of the society that 
 harbored it, required for its cure a religion that delighted not in 
 blood ; whose spirit was love, and whose model him that cried, 
 " Father forgive them, they know not what they do." We see from 
 this rapid sketch of the defects of Roman civilization, there was 
 ample scope for the exertion of the peculiar influences of Christian- 
 ity; that the very causes that produced the downfall of this mighty 
 power, were directly antagonistic to the whole spirit and temper of 
 Christianity ; and that hence if it exerted any influence at all on 
 
17 
 
 society, that influence must be adverse to these causes of ruin, and 
 therefore conservative and salutary. But it was impossible for any- 
 thing short of a miracle to arrest the downfall of the existing form 
 of the Roman empire. It had passed from the budding vigor of its 
 wolf-nursed youth, through the crowned and imperial strength of 
 an iron maturity, to the driveling dotage of an effete and corrupt 
 old age. Christianity might retard its dissolution, but possessed no 
 Medean charm, or elixir of immortality to bring the vigor of youth 
 back to its tottering frame. The doom of destiny was upon it, and 
 it must go down to the grave. 
 
 Hence we are to look for the legitimate influences of Christianity, 
 not so much in the worn-out and rotten framework of Roman 
 power, as in the elements of society that necessarily remained to 
 form a new organization. We turn then to examine the extent to 
 which Christianity fulfilled the high mission to which it was called 
 as the regenerating agent of European society. We are aware that 
 there were other*influences at work, but we do not hazard too much 
 in saying, that whilst any of these influences might have been 
 spared, all combined would have been powerless without Chris- 
 tianity ; and therefore that it alone is the prime, indispensable and 
 essential element of European and American civilization. 
 
 European history may, for our present purpose, be divided into 
 five periods, sufficiently designated as, the Imperial, the Barbarian, 
 the Feudal, the Transition and the Reformed. Let us trace the re- 
 lation of Christianity to civilization during these successive periods. 
 
 During the first period its influence was limited because of its 
 repeated persecutions, and soon after these persecutions ceased by 
 the civil establishment of Christianity, the imperial form of society 
 was broken to pieces. But still its influences were gradually and 
 silently diffusing themselves through society, so that in the time of 
 Trajan we know from official documents that paganism had greatly 
 declined ; and in the latter part of the second century Tertullian 
 could exclaim, " We are but of yesterday, yet we have filled your 
 islands, towns and burgs ; the camp, the senate and the forum, and 
 every age, sex and rank are converts," and in A. D. 306 it was en- 
 throned on the seat of the Coesars under Constantine. The Christian 
 
IS 
 
 writers of this period, particularly Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertultian 
 and Lactantius, build their most triumphant arguments in its favor, 
 from the manifest influence it had in purifying society. 
 
 It appears, also, from the Theodosian code, that it exerted a very 
 decided influence in modifying Roman jurisprudence. It abolished 
 theatrical and gladiatorial representations ; improved the condition 
 of slaves and prisoners; limited the power of fathers over their 
 children; invested woman with new rights; and caused more 
 ample protection to be extended to widows and orphans. 
 
 From these and similar monuments remaining of this period, it is 
 manifest that the influence of Christianity was eminently salutary 
 and conservative, tending to enable Roman society, if not to recover 
 the strength of the living, at least to retain one of the privileges of 
 the dying, that of transmitting to successors some of its most valua- 
 ble possessions, and becoming thus the civil and political testator of 
 modern society. 
 
 When we approach the next period, the Barbarian era of 
 European society, we are met with a most wonderful and unex- 
 ampled phenomenon in history. From the close of the first until 
 the commencement of the fifth century, did those fierce and fiery 
 swarms, which had been roused from the dark forests of the 
 north by the spears of Germanicus and Caesar, continue in retali- 
 ation to assail their former invaders. From being despised and 
 conquered, they were first feared, then deprecated, then bribed, 
 until at last, tempted by the rich and sunny fields of Italy, and 
 emboldened by the cowering weakness of luxurious and enfeebled 
 Rome, they burst forth in a torrent of fire and steel, and swept from 
 the feeble hands of the degenerate Roman the trembling sceptre of 
 the western world. But when the lawless barbarian had broken 
 down the outer walls and battlements of Roman greatness and 
 might, he was suddenly confronted by another power before whose 
 awful glance and majestic mien even his ferocious heart quailed, 
 and to whose high and unearthly authority even his proud spirit 
 succumbed. That power was Christianity, although coming into 
 direct collision with that proud spirit of personal independence so 
 strong in the barbarian heart; and although putting many restraints 
 on his wild and lawless passions that must have been irksome, yet 
 
19 
 
 such was the secret might that was felt to reside in this embodied 
 form of a divine life, corrupted and enfeebled though it had already 
 become, that the stern and lion-hearted children of the forest meekly 
 and quietly bowed down at its feet. The influence of Christianity, 
 during this period, was of incalculable importance to the succeeding 
 history of civilization. It gave a common bond of sympathy and 
 union to tribes that hitherto had been hostile and immiscible, in- 
 capable of being fused into any national form. It taught the rude 
 barbarian the majesty of law, in what he deemed a most sacred 
 and unimpeachable repository. It secured in his mind the habit 
 of absolute submission to an authority higher than mere brute 
 strength, and taught him that first law of all civilization, obedience 
 to a moral power, by virtue of a moral force, and thus prepared his 
 wild and untamed nature for submission to other repositories of 
 power, and finally, by separating the temporal and spiritual powers, 
 it taught the great basis truth of liberty of conscience, that physical 
 power has no right to coerce the honest convictions of the soul. 
 It is not too much to say that, had it not been for the conservative 
 influence of the Christian church during this period, the downfall 
 of Roman civilization, like that of Egyptian, Assyrian and Grecian 
 glory, would now have been marked only by such mournful relics 
 of perished grandeur, as those that lie strewed over the lonely 
 solitudes of Memphis and Babylon, and the dead cities of the old 
 and buried world. 
 
 From this rude and chaotic condition of society, there emerged a 
 new form of social existence which, although imperfect and suscep- 
 tible of the grossest abuses of tyranny, was yet perhaps the only 
 possible form into which these heterogeneous materials could be 
 moulded. This form constitutes the Feudal era of European history, 
 and extends from the sixth to the tenth or twelfth century. 
 
 That the feudal system had great and grievous defects, furnishing 
 no defence to the serf against the capricious tyranny of the baron; 
 no fixed system of law and government ; no connecting bond of 
 society; no fusing principle of nationality, and that it engrafted 
 features on the common law which, in spite of the efforts of modern 
 jurists, still continue to deform it, cannot be denied. But it may 
 
20 
 
 "fairly be questioned, whether, bad as it confessedly was, it was not 
 the best possible system under the circumstances. Society was in 
 a state of chaotic confusion, and this system of nuclei of attraction 
 was perhaps the only possible agency that could bring these jarring 
 elements into a homogeneous whole. It, however, afforded scope 
 for the influence of Christianity. Then first were its teachings as to 
 the social position of woman properly established. Shut up in his 
 solitary castle, the baron was forced to depend on his wife and 
 children for sympathy and society during much of his time, and 
 thus their legitimate importance and influence became gradually 
 felt and recognized. Hence it is in the feudal era that we begin to 
 find the family and the home of modern society. The priest also 
 acted as a mediator between the haughty lordling on his castled 
 crag and the dependent serfs, whose huts were clustered around its 
 base j softening down the indomitable pride of the one, and refin- 
 ing the barbarian rudeness of the other. But during this long and 
 dark period of European history, the influence of Christianity must 
 have been secret if not limited, and only preparatory to those grand 
 events that were again to break up the forms of society, and pro- 
 duce new combinations. 
 
 These influences began to develop themselves in the fourth great 
 period of European history, constituting it the Transition era of its 
 society, and extending from the tenth or twelfth, to the sixteenth 
 century. The influence of Christianity is marked in its great transi- 
 tion movements. 
 
 The first of these was the Crusades. These mighty and ocean- 
 like movements broke up the vast and silent surface of frozen 
 Europe, precipitating its shivering and massive fragments on the 
 shores of the strange and storied east, but in its reflux tide bore 
 back a rich freight of blessings. It enlarged national conceptions 
 and strengthened national bonds. It checked the enormous tyranny 
 of the feudal system, breaking up the overgrown fiefs, and bringing 
 up from the serfs that mighty middle class soon to ascend the throne 
 of the world. It created free cities that served as nurseries for the 
 ideas of liberty, that were one day to bring forth fruit more terrible 
 to tyrants than the fabled teeth of Cadmus. It cherished into ex- 
 
21 
 
 istence a commercial spirit in southern Europe, that evoked with 
 its wand of magic power the opulence of Genoa, Florence, Pisa, 
 Venice, Portugal and Spain. Inasmuch as these advantages were 
 all procured by the crusades, we owe them incidentally at least 
 to that Christianity without which the crusades, or any such vast 
 earthquake movement of society, would have been utterly im- 
 possible. 
 
 The next was the institution of Chivalry. When the spirit of 
 romantic adventure aroused by the crusades, could find no more 
 scope in purging the holy soil of the sacrilegious paynim, it de- 
 manded some other field of exertion, either in the cause of virtue or 
 of vice. Fortunately for the world it assumed a form which although 
 stilted, pompous and extravagant, and worthily satirized in its ab- 
 surdities by the pens of a Cervantes and a Butler, yet conferred no 
 small blessing on society. It breathed sentiments of high honor and 
 delicate courtesy into men's hearts ; inspired a disgust and horror of 
 perfidy and falsehood ; cherished an uncompromising hostility to 
 injustice; elevated woman in society; made her oppression and 
 maltreatment to be regarded as brutality and cowardice; and intro- 
 duced refinement into the intercourse of peace, and humanity and 
 generosity into the contests of war. It is well known, however, 
 that chivalry was closely allied to Christianity, drawing its laws and 
 sanctions from the precepts of the Gospel, hallowing its knightly 
 investitures and tournaments with religious ceremonies, and thus 
 aiding to infuse the principles of Christianity into the heart of 
 society. 
 
 During this period Christianity was gradually infusing more 
 justice and humanity into the jurisprudence of Europe. During 
 the barbarian and feudal periods, law in civil courts was either a 
 chance-medley or a mockery, according to the caprice of its dis- 
 pensers. In ecclesiastical courts, however, a regular system of 
 judicial procedure under the name of the canon law, extracted 
 partly from the Roman law, and partly from the Gospel, was gradu- 
 ally introduced and extended to all who were called clerici. Hence 
 the phrase "benefit of clergy," now so unmeaning, was then fraught 
 with deep significance, for to be tried in a civil court was to be 
 
22 
 
 brutally oppressed, or subjected to a silly ordeal of fire, water or 
 sword, while to be tried in an ecclesiastical court was at least to be 
 tried by law, with the power of appeal to a higher tribunal. The 
 clergy constantly endeavored to have the legal forms of the canon 
 law, which embodied all that was good of the old civil law, intro- 
 duced into the feudal courts ; and it is to this infusion of the humane 
 spirit of the Gospel, and the excellent forms of the Roman law, 
 made by the efforts of the church, that we owe many of the most 
 valuable forms and principles of the common law. 
 
 Another important part performed by Christianity, during this 
 period, was its influence in the gradual extinction of slavery. 
 Whatever other agencies were at work to accomplish this result, 
 Christianity must be regarded as unquestionably the chief and most 
 efficient. The first voice against the system was raised in the 
 church, and the strongest motives impelling to its overthrow were 
 drawn from the free and equalizing spirit of the Bible. Most of 
 the charters of manumission granted prior to the time of Louis X.> 
 and Philip the Long, when slavery was formally abolished in 
 France, were given in express terms, pro amove dei, pvo remedio 
 ajiimse, and pvo mevcede animse. In some of the laws and charters 
 the reasoning is extended and based solely on the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity. However erroneous logically and theologically, some of 
 these reasonings may be, yet they furnish indisputable evidence of 
 the motives impelling those who acted on them, and show that it is 
 to Christianity we owe chiefly the removal of that system of servi- 
 tude so fatal to Roman society, and so deadening and benumbing to 
 the energies of those who, when freed from its influence, have be- 
 come one of the most important classes of the modern world. 
 
 It is also in part to Christianity that we owe the gradual destruc- 
 tion of the barbarous custom of private war. So fruitful of evil 
 was this custom that many efforts were made for its suppression. 
 But even the genius and power of Charlemagne were found inade- 
 quate to the task. The church labored first for its restraint within 
 prescribed limits by sacred truces, and finally for its entire destruc- 
 tion ; which was at length to the great benefit of society in a great 
 measure accomplished. 
 
23 
 
 The field of intellect and learning during this long period is sadly 
 devoid of interest. But whatever learning did exist was found in 
 the church. In the monasteries and holy places the relics of clas- 
 sic lore were kept safe from the sweeping ravages of barbarism 
 and ignorance, which, in less sacred depositories, were sacrificed 
 to a ferocious thirst for indiscriminate destruction. While kings, 
 nobles and warriors despised learning as effeminate and degrad- 
 ing, ecclesiastics were at least feebly endeavoring to preserve its 
 treasures from entire destruction. And the scholastic philosophy, 
 which was solely employed on the facts and doctrines of Christianity, 
 although containing much that was frivolous and ridiculous, was 
 yet the mother of the science of modern times. It gradually pro- 
 cured the creation of universities and colleges ; and thus began the 
 great work of training the universal mind, which has since issued 
 in the magnificent apparatus of modern education. In this work 
 Christianity wrought unaided. There is not a college or university 
 of any note in Europe, nor indeed to a great extent in America 
 that has not been founded directly by Christianity, founded as an 
 eleemosynary institution, and founded from religious motives. 
 
 Hence when the human mind was beginning to awake to a new 
 activity at the close of this Transition period, and was quickened by 
 the invention of printing, the change of national and social relation 
 produced by the use of gunpowder and cannon in warfare ; the 
 terrible irruption of the fierce and turbaned hordes of Tartary ; the 
 fall of Constantinople, and the consequent scattering of the treasures 
 of Grecian lore there collected; the discovery of a new continent 
 and a new passage to an old one ; and when as the result of this 
 universal resurrection of the intellect of Europe, learning began to 
 flourish, most of its protectors and patrons prized it mainly as a 
 handmaid to Christianity. It is only necessary to name a Roger 
 Bacon, a Dante, a Wickliffe, a Petrarch, a Ximenes, an Erasmus, 
 a Lnther, a Knox and an Usher: and the fact that with but one 
 or two exceptions, the names found brightest in the scroll of literary 
 glory at this period were ecclesiastics, to show the intimate relation 
 occupied by Christianity to the revival of letters. 
 
 When we approach the last great period of European history 
 
24 
 
 the Reformation era, we enter perhaps the most august apartment 
 in the great temple of history that has ever been unveiled to the 
 gaze of man. Darkness had indeed covered the earth, and a slumber 
 of centuries had enveloped the world — but, 
 
 " From out that midnight so dark and deep 
 A voice cried, Ho! awaken! 
 And the sleepers aroused themselves from sleep 
 And the thrones of the earth were shaken." 
 
 The trains that had been silently preparing in the deep and 
 slumbering night of the past, now flamed out in a conflagration that 
 proved a beacon-fire for the world. At this sacred flame have 
 science, art, literature, liberty, and civilization in all its forms, lit 
 their ten thousand torches, the light of which now blazes around us. 
 There are two general positions that embody the whole argument to 
 be drawn from this period of history, which we can only announce. 
 The first is, that the Reformation is the one great fact of modern civi- 
 lization, the fountain from which have flowed its richest results, and 
 the other is, that Christianity is the one great fact of the Reformation, 
 that which gave it most of its significance and power. The fetter- 
 ing despotism of ghostly authority was broken ; the barriers that had 
 restrained Christianity from coming in quickening contact with the 
 minds of men were swept away : and the unchained energies of the 
 human soul leaped forward like a torrent in the career of improve- 
 ment. Hence the latter part of the sixteenth and the seventeenth 
 centuries produced more men of Titanic stature in mind and soul, 
 than have ever appeared within the same period since the creation ; 
 and the colossal monuments of their labors that they have built up in 
 the world's history, remain to tell to other times that there were 
 giants in those days. The field that thus opens to us is magnificent, 
 but too wide to be entered upon fully at this stage of the discussion. 
 
 It is impossible to develop in detail the precise channels by which 
 Christianity is brought into influential contact with the world's 
 civilization. As well might we attempt to trace the separate paths 
 of the infinite rays of the sun, in their passage from the brightness 
 of their home in the skies, through the dark and dripping chambers 
 of the earth, and the mysterious channels of fibre, root and stem, to 
 
25 
 
 the greenness and bloom of spring, the richness and splendor of 
 summer, or the purple glory and beauty of autumn. The influence 
 of Christianity on society is not exerted through the cannon of the 
 warrior, and the dispatches of the statesman, but in the sweet 
 breathings of truth that come on the opening petals of the heart of 
 infancy, like spice-laden zephyrs from the land of the blest; in the 
 gentle words of love that fall in dewy freshness on the wondering 
 ear of childhood, from gray-haired sires and sweet-voiced matrons; 
 in the nameless tellings of high and holy things, wrapped in .the 
 deep, unutterable voices of the ancient eternities, that come to the 
 silent ear of youth, before the din and strife of the babbling world 
 have stunned these inner senses of the soul ; in the longing and 
 wistful thoughts of things of deep, abyssmal mystery that steal into 
 the soul in its lonely musings in the solitary chamber; in the deep 
 hush of the moaning forest ; in the awful silence of the hollow mid- 
 night ; in the seasons of gloomy doubt and frantic effort to scale 
 the prison wall of mystery and darkness that rises and closes in 
 encircling silence around us ; in times of heart-sickness and disap- 
 pointment, when reaching forth the hand of warm and confiding 
 trust, it grasps the cold and slippery skin of the adder; it is then 
 that Christianity, with its wonderful tellings of infinite things, comes 
 with apocalyptic splendor and power, and revealing itself to the 
 soul, creates those martyr spirits that stamp their lineaments on the 
 enduring rock. 
 
 But without attempting to dissect influences so subtle, yet so 
 powerful as these, we have facts sufficient for the argument. 
 
 What Christian state requires or even permits the mother to 
 cast her sickly and decrepit child into the cave of the Taygetus ; the 
 child to forsake the aged and helpless parent; the harmless slaves 
 to be murdered, that their dying groans may be a requiem to the 
 shade of the departed master; thousands of an unarmed, inoffensive 
 Helot race to be massacred in a single night to prevent their undue 
 increase ; thousands of men to be trained and fattened to butcher 
 each other in gladiatorial show, for the amusement of a brutal popu- 
 lace ; captives in war to be massacred in cold blood or enslaved, or 
 vices the most loathsome and horrible to be canonized and sanc- 
 tioned, not only by the laws of man, but by the very laws and 
 
26 
 
 examples of the gods themselves? Whence these amazing ad- 
 vances upon ancient civilization ? We answer from Christianity- 
 It is not because the whole world has advanced beyond the civiliza- 
 tion of antiquity, for we can still point to many a wide land on the 
 earth reeking with cruelty and crime. And where do we find the 
 highest and purest form of civilization ? Where do we find the 
 physical power and energy of the world, the nations who can spread 
 the broad eegis of their national protection over the humblest citizen 
 in the most distant and barbarous land, and shield him from harm 
 by the talisman of a name? Where' do we find the commerce, the 
 productive capital, the growing wealth, the improvements and dis- 
 coveries in machinery, in art and in agriculture ? Where do we 
 find the colleges, the universities and the common schools, and the 
 instruction of the minds of the masses? Where the profoundest 
 philosophy, the loftiest science, the finest literature, and the most 
 active intellect? Where are the hospitals, the asylums, the institu- 
 tions for the relief of the unfortunate and wretched ? Where are 
 the constitutional governments of the world, the governments where 
 life, property and reputation are most inviolate, where rights are 
 most clearly defined, and liberty most extensively enjoyed, and laws 
 most wisely enacted and righteously administered? Where are the 
 rights of the friendless poor, the widowed mother and the orphaned 
 child most sacredly regarded ? We answer only in Christian lands. 
 It is true there are many grievous defects in these countries, but we 
 defy the subtlest ingenuity to point out a single defect that Christi- 
 anity does not tend to remove, or a single excellence which it does 
 not tend to heighten. As far as Christianity has been wrought into 
 the texture of society, so far do we find civilization to be advanced, 
 and where we find that advance incomplete, it can be explained by 
 the imperfect adoption of Christianity. 
 
 Now why are not these things true of other lands? Why has 
 civilization been stationary or retrograde, wherever it has been dis- 
 connected with Christianity? The same blue sky hangs in its azure 
 beauty over the iEgean and the Adriatic that gilded the glory of 
 Augustus and the splendor of Pericles; the same hoary Lebanon 
 lifts its giant brow to heaven that shadowed the queenly Palmyra, 
 and the gorgeous Heliopolis; the same bright sun is mirrored forth 
 
21 
 
 from the flashing Euphrates, that crowned with its coronal of glory 
 the lofty turrets of Nineveh, and the glittering battlements of Baby- 
 lon ; the same old Nile pours its fertilizing tide, in grandeur and 
 mystery along, that carried the barges of Cleopatra and the galleys 
 of Sesostris ; but all that remains of the glory that once encircled 
 these storied spots are the crumbling arch, the broken columns, the 
 fissured wall, the mournful signature of time in the handwriting of 
 death. Why have Turkey, Persia, Syria, and the sunny climes of 
 the east, with the finest harbors, the richest soils, the balmiest 
 climates, and the most varied -products in the world, been left to 
 such wide-spread barrenness and desolation, while the cold and 
 misty islands of Britain, and the ice and granite-bound land of the 
 Pilgrims, have fostered and produced the greenest and palmiest 
 growth of civilization that has ever blessed the world ? The 
 answer must be, that the one possessed Christianity, while the 
 others did not; the one possessed a religion that promoted tempe- 
 rance, industry, honesty, justice and energy of character, while the 
 others possessed a religion that was either powerless to correct the 
 deadly evils of their social state, or if affecting it at all, making a 
 nation of sensualists, of tyrants and of slaves. 
 
 When therefore we look at the nature of Christianity ; that there 
 is not an element of social prosperity which it does not directly or 
 indirectly foster; that there is not a single bane of national or indi- 
 vidual weal, that it does not discourage; that it brings to the work 
 of fostering the one, and destroying the other, an influence mightier 
 than the shifting expedients of the mere politician, or the blustering 
 bravado of the mere warrior ; that it enforces its salutary com- 
 mands and restrictions with sanctions the most tremendous and 
 motives that loom up in their trenchant and terrible might from 
 the dark abysses of eternity ; that it possessed the very agencies 
 adapted to counteract the causes of the downfall of the Roman 
 empire ; that in point of fact these causes were so counteracted, that 
 its influence was eminently salutary and conservative during the 
 different periods of the history of modern civilization ; that like Ceres 
 the grass has grown greener under its footsteps, until now the nations 
 that enjoy its influence in anything like fullness, are like the land 
 of Goshen mantled with lieht, while others are shrouded in dark- 
 
2S 
 
 ness ; or, like Gideon's fleece, are visited with the dews of prosperity, 
 while others are cursed with aridity and death ; and when we look 
 in vain for any other cause to explain this marked distinction, we 
 are warranted to conclude that Christianity is the grand agent ap- 
 pointed by the Ruler of nations for the renovation of the world in 
 time as well as in eternity ; that it is the grand and prime element 
 of efficiency in modern civilization, and that the nation which pos- 
 sesses it in its purity has a talisman of safety more potent than the 
 Ancilian shield of Rome, or the Palladian image of Troy; a protec- 
 tion more impregnable than the wooden walls of Athens, or the 
 rocky barriers of Petra ; a defence more invincible than girdling 
 navies and bristling battalions; for it will have the wall of fire and 
 munition of rocks, the protecting shield of Almightiness, and the 
 defence of that red right arm that wields the thunder and upholds 
 the world. 
 
 If this course of reasoning be correct, how magnificent is the 
 prospect that opens to our country, if her sons shall be true at once 
 to God and their native land. Let this pure and powerful principle 
 of civilization be diffused through our vast and growing Republic, 
 and who shall cast the horoscope of its greatness? The living tide 
 of population shall swell and roll until it meets the waves of the 
 broad Pacific ; but instead of the clangor of war, and the gleaming 
 of arms, there shall rise to heaven but the busy hum of industry 
 and the waving richness of plenty; the broad Alleghanies shall 
 answer to the snowy Cordilleras in accents of peace and gladness: 
 while from the foam and thunder of Niagara to where the father 
 of waters rolls his mighty tide beneath a tropical sun, from every 
 templed hill and every teeming valley there shall rise the grateful 
 hymn of millions of free and faithful hearts, 
 
 God of stillness ! God of motion ! 
 Of the rainbow, and the ocean; 
 God of mountain, rock and river, 
 Blessed be thy name forever ! 
 
 Nor shall this be the only spectacle of grandeur and beauty to 
 stand as a monument of the social influence of Christianity. There 
 comes a time when the ancient fetters and manacles that so long 
 have bound scarred and hoary Europe, shall be before its awakened 
 
29 
 
 might like flax to the flame ; when the silent and petrified despot- 
 isms of Asia shall be shivered in pieces before the resistless growth 
 of the emancipating spirit of the gospel; and the dark jangles 
 and deserts of Africa shall rejoice and blossom with a richer and 
 brighter garniture of beauty than ever greeted her radiant skies; 
 when, instead of the dreary stillness and monotony of the vast and 
 slumbering east, there shall be the cheerful hum of commerce and 
 industry, the smiling fields and happy homes of honest labor, and 
 the freedom and security of just and powerful laws ; instead of the 
 tinkling camel's bell and the weary undulations of the tardy cara- 
 van, there shall be the rattling engine and the rushing boat; and 
 instead of the bristling pagoda, the towering minaret, or the gloomy 
 temple, there shall be the thronged houses of God, and the thronged 
 halls of science, the tall spire of the village church, and the beaten 
 play-ground of the village school-house. The turbaned Turk shall 
 awake from his sullen dream of sensuality and sloth, and tearing 
 from his banner the gleaming crescent, and sheathing the bloody 
 yataghan, shall bow meekly at the foot of the cross. The wild Cos- 
 sack and the shivering Siberian shall learn to serve a milder and 
 yet a mightier monarch than the haughty autocrat. The besotted 
 Hindoo and the fierce Malay shall dash to the earth the hideous 
 symbols of a degrading superstition, and rise to the dignity of a re- 
 newed humanity. The miserable Caffre and the reeking Hottentot 
 shall come forth from their squalid filth and wretchedness, and sit 
 down clothed and in their right mind at the feet of Jesus. The 
 wild Arab and the untamed Tartar, as they scour their illimitable 
 deserts, shall rein in their flying barbs, to catch the sounds of these 
 wondrous tidings. And the Christian sailor, as he floats over the 
 glassy seas, and beneath the burnished skies of another hemisphere, 
 shall see rising above the queenly palm and the spreading banian 
 the glittering spires of a pure faith, and hear borne on the spicy 
 gale that comes breathing its strange fragrance around his brow, 
 the sound of the church-going bell, and the rich melody of strains 
 that awake the memories of forgotten years, and bring back the 
 sweet scenes of homes that lie far away over the blue waves of the 
 ocean. The sword shall no more be stained with the blood of the 
 innocent and helpless; the green earth shall no longer be reddened 
 
30 
 
 with the carnage of the battle-field ; the wild whirlpool of anarchy 
 and revolution shall no more fling up to heaven its bloody and 
 hellish spray ; the groan of the oppressed and the moaning cry of 
 the helpless, shall be heard no more ; but the lofty dreamings of 
 Plato ; the exulting strains of Virgil; the weird numbers of the Sybil, 
 and higher and truer still the rapt visions of Isaiah, and the mystic 
 imagery of the lone exile of Patmos, and the longing, waiting, sor- 
 rowing hopes of a weary and groaning creation^ shall be fully em- 
 bodied in the calm, peaceful, hallowed and bloodless scenes of the 
 Sabbath of the world. 
 
 Gentlemen of the General Union Philosophical Society, I have 
 thus endeavored, at the risk of perhaps a slight departure from the 
 ordinary range of such addresses as the present, to set before you a 
 theme that I have attempted to show is of vital interest to the age 
 in which we live ; a theme the importance of which was felt in other 
 times more deeply than it is now ; and the felt importance of which 
 was the living principle of energy in a Cromwell, a Hampden, a 
 Milton, and some of the mightiest spirits that have ever been re- 
 vealed inhistory,and yet a theme in which our age has little practical 
 faith. But this phase of the human mind is rapidly changing. The 
 frigid and skeptical era of the latter part of the eighteenth and first 
 part of the nineteenth century is passing away, and in its stead is 
 coming an era of faith. The cold, sneering, Satanic school of litera- 
 ture, that held its sway twenty-five years ago, whose flippant philo- 
 sophy could admit nothing that it could not comprehend, and compre- 
 hend nothing deeper than itself, is giving place to a tone at least of 
 respectful inquiry, if not of earnest belief; to a deeper philosophy, 
 and a loftier literature. A Carlyle, a Macaulay, an Arnold and a 
 Guizot, and men who can see " God in history," are taking the place 
 of a Hume, a Gibbon, a Byron, a Voltaire and others, to whom re- 
 ligion was either a womanish weakness or an impious imposture. At 
 this moment there is scarcely a nation in Europe whose councils are 
 not more profoundly moved by religious questions than they ever 
 have been since the treaty of Westphalia. And this is but the first 
 note of preparation for still profounder movements. The same 
 prophetic chart that pictures forth in its bold and beautiful imagery, 
 the sabbatic scenes of the future triumphs of Christianity, also 
 
31 
 
 assures us that this triumph will be neither a silent nor perhaps 
 a bloodless one, and that the powers that have so long ruled the 
 ascendant, will not yield their iron grasp on humanity, without a 
 fierce and terrible struggle. Hence there comes also, a day that 
 has loomed in its dark and terrific grandeur to the eye of the pro- 
 phetic seer at every point of the past ; when the embattled hosts 
 of truth and falsehood shall be marshaled for a final and deadly 
 conflict ; when the fountains of the great deep of society shall be 
 broken up, and the rushing surge of this flood-tide of the world 
 shall sweep away the hoary and time-worn institutions of the past, 
 like foam on the cataract's plunge ; when there shall be "signs in 
 the sun, and the moon and the stars, on the earth, distress of nations 
 and perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts 
 failing them for fear and for looking after the things that are to come 
 upon the earth ;" and the billows of this mighty commotion shall 
 heave and dash against every fabric in which human hopes are 
 garnered. For these dread scenes are the elements of collision 
 silently and swiftly preparing. We may dream, and doubt, and 
 laugh and deride, but we stay not the footsteps of destiny. We 
 must act our part in these scenes, sowing the seed of dragon's teeth, 
 or reaping the fell harvest, whether we will or not : sharing in the 
 triumph as a crowned and laureled conqueror, or as a chained and 
 vanquished captive, bound ignobly at the wheels of the triumphal 
 car of victory. 
 
 A few short years of preparation, and those of you who are not 
 destined to sleep in an early grave, will go forth to do your task in 
 this mighty work. Hasten not unduly to rush forth into the strife, 
 for remember that he who would be eminently useful to his race, 
 must spend the early part of his career in toilsome obscurity. But 
 when you leave these hallowed scenes of seclusion and study for 
 the great world beyond you, go forth feeling that life is an earnest 
 thing, and that he must be earnest who would grapple with its 
 mysteries. Go forth, not to fritter away your energies in ignoble 
 indolence ; not to herd with that degraded and melancholy few 
 whose sole ambition seems to be, to make a nature, created a little 
 lower than the angel, become a little lower than the brute; not to 
 
sell yourselves as the drudges and bond-slaves of mammon, or to 
 be the obsequious tools of designing demagogues ; but to throw 
 yourselves in the gap that is yet to open ; to stand in the Thermo- 
 pylae of history that is coming; to do your part in the great work 
 of the world's civilization by seeking its Christianization. Shallow- 
 ness may call this cant, or flippancy superstition, infidelity may rail 
 at it as bigotry, and imbecility as chimera, but the voice of the 
 past and the voice of the future alike proclaim it the noblest cause 
 in which to live, and the noblest cause for which to die. Trials 
 you may meet, toils you may encounter, enemies you may arouse, 
 calumny you may provoke, tears you may shed, and disappoint- 
 ments you may feel ; but remember that 
 
 "The soul of man 
 Createth its own destiny of power; 
 And as the trial is intenser here, 
 His being hath a nobler strength in heaven. 
 What is its earthly victory ? Press on ! 
 For it hath tempted angels. Yet press on ! 
 And from the eyrie of your eagle-thought, 
 Ye shall look down on monarchs. press on ! 
 For the high ones and powerful shall come 
 To do you reverence; and the beautiful 
 Will know the purer language of your brow, 
 And read it like a talisman of love ! 
 Press on ! for it is godlike to unloose 
 The spirit and forget yourself in thought ; 
 Bending a pinion for the deeper sky, 
 And in the very fetters of your flesh 
 Mating with the pure essences of heaven ! 
 Press on ! ' for in the grave, there is no work 
 And no device.' Press on! while yet ye may !" — 
 
 And though your names may never gild the flaunting page of 
 history, or your record be engraved on the monumental marble to 
 mark the spot that shrines your dust, yet you shall have a more 
 enduring memorial in the glad hearts you have cherished, and the 
 sad hearts you have cheered, and more enduring still in that dread 
 and awful scroll whose words of flame have been written by the 
 finger of the Almighty ; whose seals shall be opened in the terrific 
 scenes of the judgment, and whose pages shall be unfolded in the 
 retributions of eternity. 
 
05-12-05 32180 MS 
 
LB2325 .L77 
 
 Obituary addresses delivered on the 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1 1012 00085 2162